The Williston Northampton School Bulletin, Fall 2019

Designing

History Creating exhibitions for some of our country’s most amazing artifacts is all in a day’s work for Clare Brown ’92*

COUCHIE’S PHOTO LEGACY P. 9

14 NEW ALUMNI AWARDS P. 52

PLUS: 20 OTHER ALUMNI WHO HAVE COOL JOBS P. 17

BEHIND THE SCENES OF ANTIQUES ROADSHOW P. 28

FALL 2019

AROUND THE QUAD

5 | CAMPUS NEWS Greg Tuleja’s latest poetry, new student life themes and courses, notable quotes, Couchie’s photography, and more

10 | FROM THE DESK OF EUGENIO GARCIA

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Voice actor and professional poker player Nika Futterman ’88 is all in

The collected curiosities of a beloved language teacher

16 | SCHOLARS AT WORK A trio of recent projects from the Williston Scholars program

CONTENTS | VOLUME 105, NUMBER 2

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The high-flying career of Alec Guay ’13

28 PHOTOGRAPHS BY ELAINE TORRES PHOTOGRAPHY AND TERRI GLANGER PHOTOGRAPHY

Behind the scenes of “Antiques Roadshow” with John Buxton ’63

ALUMNI NEWS

18 | WILDCAT ROUNDUP Singers, sluggers, Celtics, and more

20 | PASSIONATE PURSUITS Three alumni entrepreneurs who are seeking to make a difference

22 | SET THE STAGE TV set designer Nick Nocera ’07 gives the backdrop a backstory

24 | IN THEIR OWN WORDS At Convocation, Bryant McBride ’84 spoke of lessons learned

26 | STYLE GUIDES Fresh takes from Julia Chaplin ’87 and Cameron Williams ’09

28| ART SMARTS The fascinating career of art appraiser John Buxton ’63

32 | DESIGNING HISTORY Superhero of the Smithsonian, Clare Brown ’92 designs it all

34 | TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS Yemi Lawani ’96 is creating opportunities in Africa

36 | PARSING HISTORY

42 | SOARING INTO THE STRATOSPHERE

57 | WILLISTON CONNECTS

Alec Guay ’13 is working on glider planes that can soar to the very edge of our atmosphere

Find out more about our new alumni networking directory and in-person events

44 | A FAMILY LEGACY Athletics, achievement, and family connection: the Cain family story ALUMNI EVENTS

47 | REUNION RUNDOWN

Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier ’44 on Russian art and foreign relations

Photos, stories, and superlatives from the June 2019 Reunion

38 | AERIAL DISPLAY

52 | ALUMNI AWARDS

Artist and educator Nicki Miller ’03 follows her heart into the air

40 | DEAL HER IN Voice actor and poker maven Nika Futterman ’88 loves her anonymity

In which we recognize achievements—athletic and otherwise—by 14 alumni and teams

IN EVERY ISSUE

2 | HEAD’S LETTER 3 | IN BOX 12 | SNAPSHOTS 14 | THE WILLILIST 59 | CLASS NOTES 87 | IN MEMORY

Head of School ROBERT W. HILL III P’15, ’19 Chief Advancement Officer ERIC YATES P’17, ’21 Director of Alumni Engagement JILL STERN P’14, ’19 Director of Communications ANN HALLOCK P’20, ’22 Design Director ARUNA GOLDSTEIN Assistant Director of Communications DENNIS CROMMETT Communications Writer and Coordinator KATE LAWLESS Please send letters to the editor, class notes, obituaries, and changes of address to: The Williston Northampton School Advancement Office 19 Payson Avenue Easthampton, MA 01027 email: info@williston.com online: williston.com/alumni/ connect

Cover Photo SHAWN HUBBARD

Non-Discrimination Statement: Williston admits qualified students of any race, color, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, gender, religion, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, or mental or physical disability, and extends to them all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school.

The school does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, gender, religion, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, or mental or physical disability, or any other status protected by applicable law in the administration of its admissions, scholarships, and loans, and its educational, athletic, and other policies and programs.

Head’s Letter

O

ur girls cross-country team doesn’t sit still much. This fall, in fact, they’ve been so fleet of foot that they’ve gone undefeated (for only the third time in our history) and won the hotly contested Alan Shaler Invitational meet for the first time since 1997. So, the trustees and I were honored to have the team stop running for a few minutes, don hard hats, and pose with us for the official groundbreaking ceremony of our new girls’ dormitory in early October. Opening in the fall of 2020, the new dorm will be home to 40 students and four faculty families, and will complete phase two of our Residential Quad. Perhaps even more significantly, this will be the first building in Williston’s or Northampton School for Girls’ history to be named for an alumna—Emily McFadon Vincent, a 1949 graduate of Northampton School for Girls. Emily arrived at NSFG in 1948 from Tacoma, Washington, with an adventurous spirit and a passion for helping others that she has carried throughout her career and life. You’ll be hearing more about Emily, her husband, Bob, and the new Emily McFadon Vincent House in the coming year, but for now, I simply can’t imagine a more fitting person for whom to name our new residence for girls.

Earlier this fall, we had another exciting gathering on campus—a two-day meeting of Williston’s Head’s Visiting Council. Established in 2017, the council is comprised of 31 alumni who share their time, their counsel, and their professional expertise in ways that help further Williston Northampton’s mission and strategic objectives. Through discussions with the senior leadership team, the council weighs in on the challenges and opportunities facing the school, and helps us continue to provide an exceptional experience for our students. It’s a fantastic sounding board, and I’m so grateful for their input. Speaking of which, we’d like to hear your input. With the council’s help, we’ll be conducting an alumni survey later this winter. Stay tuned for a survey link in your email, and please let us know your thoughts.

FOLLOW ROBERT HILL ON TWITTER AT @HILL3WILLISTON

NEW TRUSTEES

JAIDIP CHANDA ’88 Jai is managing director and head of asset owner sales at State Street Corporation and is on the leadership board of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the board of directors for Inversant. Jai and his wife, Sara, live in Beverly, Mass., and have four children.

ELLEN ROSENBERG LIVINGSTON ’86 Ellen is President and CEO of wholesale supplier Johnstone Supply based in Waltham, Mass. Ellen and her husband, Richard, live in Weston, Mass., and are parents to Maxwell (Williston class of 2018) and Charlotte.

i n b ox

5 Things We’re Talking About!

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LOTS OF LIVE STREAMING Starting this year, Wildcat alumni and fans can tune in to more live-streamed games than ever, both outdoors at Galbraith, and indoors at the Sabina Cain Family Athletic Center. Visit williston.com/ live-streaming to catch all the action!

CONNECT WITH YOUR ’CATS Our new networking platform for alumni is now live! Sign up and connect with classmates, exchange career opportunities and advice, and more. Visit www.willistonconnects.com to get started!

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHATTMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM In October, Williston theater students took the Bard to 1970s Miami with a performance of this magical play, performed through an LGBTQ+ lens.

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95 YEARS OF NSFG We were thrilled to welcome back Northampton School for Girls alumnae in September for a two-day event that featured wine tastings, campus tours, speakers, and plenty of the classic NSFG dessert, Mississippi Mud! Get the recipe at williston.com/mississippi-mud

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AN UNCONVENTIONAL NEW BOOK The Boho Manifesto by Julia Chaplin ’87 offers a mix of fun visual guides and personal reflections on living the “post-conventional” life.

Read our profile of Chaplin on page 26.

FALL 2019

BULLETIN 3

SOCIAL STUDIES

We got a whole lot of likes (412, to be exact) for this vivid rainbow, which arched over the Quad after a rainy September afternoon.

Ava McElhone Yates ’17, second from left, studied immigration policy in El Paso this summer. This post was part of our #WildcatsAtWork series.

The youth climate strike brought Wildcats to the streets as students called representatives, held ministrikes, and painted the lion in an earth pattern.

FACEBOOK.COM/WILLISTONNORTHAMPTON FLICKR.COM/WILLISTONNORTHAMPTON

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Girls in 194 Main Street Dorm designated themselves the #wolfpack, after soccer phenom Abby Wambach’s book on female empowerment.

TWITTER.COM/WILLISTONNS

Theater Director Emily Ditkovski was tearfully grateful for the new banner—designed by Tony Spagnola ’72, left—on Scott Hall.

INSTAGRAM.COM/WILLISTONNS

YOUTUBE.COM/WILLISTONNORTHAMPTON

AROUND THE QUAD SATURDAY NIGHT LIGHTS!

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHATTMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

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School spirit ran high during this fall’s first home football game, which featured a night game versus Kent (a thrilling, last-second 35–29 win), sideline grilling, and a halftime mascot race, followed by a DJ and dancing in Reed Campus Center.

Go, Wildcats!

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ODE TO MR. T

FANTASTIC FACULTY

Whether you call him Mr. T, Coach T, or Mr. Tuleja, if you graduated in the last 35 years, you probably know Academic Dean Greg Tuleja.

Legendary for his teaching, flute playing, dry wit, and cross-country coaching (always in shorts, no matter how cold the weather), Tuleja is also an accomplished poet who has been published in Maryland Review, Lonely Planet Press, Thema, and The Society of Classical Poets. The poem below is one of five he had published in Sixfold this summer; read more at sixfold.org.

At the 179th Convocation this fall, we celebrated three amazing teachers: Eugenio Garcia (more on page 10) and Matt Sawyer were recognized for 25 years of teaching, coaching, and supporting students; Kyle Hanford ’97 received the Hagedorn Family Faculty Chair, which was established in 2006 by Robert Hagedorn ’76 and his wife, Meladi, parents of Gregory Hagedorn ’06.

The Woman in 302 This morning the woman in 302 rolled the piano toward the window again and this time out it went, from three stories up, a didactic gesture, she later explained, rather than an aggressive one although she did admit to being surprised and perhaps disappointed that no one was hurt.

She must have been more singularly determined this time, and able to command the resolve that is needed to do such a thing, but we always knew that she possessed enough leverage of spirit and control of her imagination to reach for grand, existential achievements, drawing on a cunning strength of personality, pushing through a tangle of ethical contradictions, and finally getting it to go, a great black blur against the yellow brick and indifferent silences of our building.

Afterwards we were told that she had no regrets for so dramatically annihilating convention in order to grasp a dream, and watching her, in this her finest triumph we all realized that we were in the presence of greatness, even the poor, shaken, anonymous pedestrians on Madison Avenue, who might eventually be persuaded, she had often said, to take more responsibility for where they walk.

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BULLETIN NETS GOLD AWARD

From the Department of Grinning from Ear to Ear: The Spring and Fall 2018 issues of the Bulletin took home Gold in the Council for Advancement (CASE) Circle of Excellence Awards.

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New Year, New Courses Students at Williston can choose from 145 different courses—and that number continues to grow as Williston’s faculty keep adding more new and relevant classes. Here are three of the latest offerings.

AP COMPUTER SCIENCE PRINCIPLES

This AP computer science course covers coding for mobile apps, but it also allows students to explore a host of deeper topics: big data, the internet, data security and encryption, and the societal impacts of computing innovations. “These are topics that are relevant to nearly every type of profession that our students may enter into,” says teacher and Director of Curriculum Kim Evelti.

BRINGING WORDS TO LIFE A Commencement speech inspires a year of student life programming

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

Combining creativity, spatial awareness, and mathematical precision, architecture goes beyond art, notes art teacher Wendy Staples, who developed this class. “Art and architecture are all around us, and it’s important for students to understand and appreciate them.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHATTMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

HUMANITIES FOR NINTH GRADERS

Ninth graders now start out with a trio of classes that give them a grounding in history, religion, and art. “Students are learning about the world around them—be it Buddhism, Islam, ethics, nuclear weapons, or conflict resolution—and in doing so, they’re learning how to think critically, ask good questions, empathize with others, and reflect on their own beliefs,” says History and Global Studies Department Chair Sarah Klumpp, who oversaw the creation of the courses.

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t Commencement last spring, Emmy–awardwinning actress Ann Dowd ’74 shared her “fundamental principles” for living a life with meaning, in a speech that managed to affectionately instruct as well as inspire (you can read it at Williston.com). The talk so impressed Director of Student Life Curriculum Kate Garrity that she has made it the organizing principle for this year’s student life programming, drawing on three of Dowd’s key themes—Be Present, Be Grateful, and Be Heard.

Over the course of the year— at class assemblies, advisory discussions, parent workshops, and other school gatherings—the school community will hear key-

note speakers and discuss issues focused around these topics. Typically, Garrity explains, the themes for each semester are developed by the Dean’s Office based on issues and trends that students may be confronting. But Dowd’s speech seemed to connect a number of pressing concerns and make them immediately relevant. “What Ann was saying could not have lined up better with things that we want our kids to hear,” Garrity says. That the themes were presented so memorably by such an engaging alum made the choice seem all the more appropriate.

Garrity explains how Dowd’s three themes connect to important messages about student life.

“We really want the kids to learn to be present—to stay in the moment, to not escape with cell

phones, or substances, or social media,” she says. “And by being present, hopefully they’ll learn to be grateful for the moments they have. And then, once they realize what they have and what’s going on in the moment, we want to hear their ideas about how to move forward and what they are passionate about.”

If all that seems too difficult, then students can find encouragement in the words of Dowd. “You know what you have in abundance? You have guts,” she told the assembled school community.

“That comes with youth, by the way. You have guts and you have a fierce, fierce spirit of ‘I can’ and ‘I will.’ Don’t you? You have that, don’t you, my loves? You know you can do it.”

—Jonathan Adolph FALL 2019 BULLETIN 7

Worth Repeating “I think right now he is with us, but he’s still shooting those hoops up in heaven.”

—Bonnie Craig on her father, George “Tiger” Craig ’33, who was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame during the 2019 Reunion

“I have always been afraid to come back to campus, because I always felt that my truest self I left somewhere here. But I’m back today, and I have claimed myself.

And I am so deeply grateful to you, and so honored to be here on this day with you.”

— Emmy award–winning actor Ann Dowd ’74, speaking at last spring’s Commencement ceremony

“Imagine each of us is a different musical instrument. Some of us are guitars, some are cellos, some keyboards, some woodwinds, and so on. I actually picture myself as a didgeridoo. We all sound different, bringing diverse experiences, perspectives, and personalities, but we each contribute a beautiful, valuable voice.

An orchestra composed only of vuvuzelas wouldn’t sound nearly as interesting.”

— Senior Class President Nat Markey ’20 at Convocation

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“I tell people all the time that I have the best job on campus.

I get to dress like a gym teacher and hang out with awesome high school kids all day.”

—Williston Equipment Manager Jason Tirrell ’90, as quoted in The Willistonian story “The Controlled Chaos—and Huge Heart—of The Cage” by then-editor-in-chief Ellie Wolfe ’19.

Read it at Willistonian.org

“I think people need to understand that throwing plastic in the trash doesn’t mean it’s gone.”

—Edward Bergham ’22, whose script “Plastic Turkey” was filmed by the Williston Film Club with director Dan Phakos ’06 as part of the Grum Project

“I studied abroad at Oxford University and ate in the same dining hall where the Harry Potter movies were filmed!”

—New English teacher (and Pushcart Prize–nominated writer) Sarah Levine in her web biography

“If I had the choice, I would restart the whole thing. It has been an unbelievable experience here.”

—Timothy Rego ’19, one of 31 recruited college athletes for the 2018-19 school year, on his Williston career

“Maybe the character dies. Maybe she marries the dog. You have to try out both endings to find out which is the best.”

—Writers’ Workshop speaker and award-winning author Jim Shepard, when asked by a student for advice on what to do when you have two different ideas for ending a story

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHATTMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

e m a F f o Hall What kind of hat was favored by the 1893 football team’s manager? (A jaunty silk top hat.) What sports didn’t exist when Williston Academy was founded? (Several, including volleyball and ultimate.) Just ask Williston stalwart Bob Couch ’50, who, after graduating from Williston Academy, returned to campus as a teacher from 1957 to 1997. Generations of alumni remember Couch (who is known to most as Couchie) as a math and photography teacher and coach, but his longest–running Williston role is as varsity team photographer, a role he has performed for 60 years (with, he admits, a short gap after his retirement). The collection of Couchie’s photographs was originally housed in the Reed Campus Center (the former gym); upon construction of the new gym, the photos were moved, at the urging of a group of alumni.

It has long been a labor of love for Couchie. After he takes the photographs each season, Couchie sends the photos to the coaches, who provide the names of their players. The prints are dry-mounted on foam core, the mats are cut for each one, and the captions are attached to the mats. The final product is then inserted into the frames behind safety glass. The photos remain processed in black and white, despite the recent availability of archival color printing and Couch’s switch to digital photography in 2007—choices that he and the Athletic Department feel give the collection a cohesive, classy look.

Is your team photo on the wall of the Sabina Cain Family Athletic Center? You probably have Couchie to thank for it.

The six decades–long process hasn’t been without its hiccups, of course. If you find yourself strolling the hallways among these photos (a feature unique to Williston, Couchie will have you know), stop a moment at 1973 Boys Swimming and Diving to observe that there are not one, but two pictures of this team. Why not fix this 46-year-old error? Couchie understandably replies, “You move one, you have to move them all!” Stop at 1965 Skiing, and you’ll see the unfortunate fate of one Williston athlete: “This guy ran into a tree and broke both arms,” Couchie notes. “He had to have another kid help him with everything!”

The 1,857 team photos displayed in the Athletic Center represent a feat as worthy as any touchdown or game-winning slap shot­—the kind that might’ve been made by Bob Couch, his warm face grinning from the photo of the 1950 Boys Hockey Team, taking his place in the school’s long and storied history.

—Dennis Crommett

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 9

1. ANDEAN WALK A wool weaving of llamas from a Peruvian trip in 2014; Garcia’s certificate for completing the 55-mile Camino Inca through the Andes Mountains from Cusco to Machu Picchu; a photo of Garcia’s wife with a Peruvian woman and her llamas

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2. PENCIL JAR A ceramic pencil holder decorated with the typical colors of Granada reminds Garcia­—who studied Romance Philology at the University of Granada—of home. The flower is a from a pomegranate tree, an emblem of the city.

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FROM THE DESK OF EUGENIO GARCIA For 25 years, Eugenio Garcia, a native of Motril, Granada, Spain, has taught at Williston, sharing with students his love of the language and the cultures of Spanish-speaking regions

3. BEACH STONE During a trip in 2017, Garcia picked up this cherished round stone on the beach in Salobreña, three miles west of his hometown.

4. ID CHECK Garcia’s Spanish identification card reminds him of his heritage. He moved to the States in 1991 and began working at Williston in 1994.

5. DE COLORES Vibrant Mexican decorations from various celebrations brighten Garcia’s office.

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6. MEMENTO This postcard depicts Motril, on the Mediterranean Sea, with the snow-capped Sierra Nevada range in the background.

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Day of the Dead ornaments from Mexico honor the memories of one’s ancestors

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PHOTOGRAPH BY CHATTMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

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7. LA MANCHA MAN

8. THE WAY

An engraving of Cervantes’ protagonist Don Quixote looking quite mad among his books illustrates a scene in the first modern novel—a point of pride for many Spaniards.

In 2017, Garcia walked 115 miles from Ribadeo to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain, a pilgrimage known as the Camino de Santiago. His destination was the church where it is said

Saint James is buried. “It’s very spiritual,” Garcia said. “Everything is like in the clouds. You feel things that you normally don’t feel.” The scallop shell with a red cross (far right) is a symbol of the journey.

9. THE ALHAMBRA A palace rebuilt by Muslims in the 1200s and described by Moorish poets as a “pearl set in emeralds,” the Alhambra is special to Garcia, who spent time in its halls as a student in Granada.

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 11

SNAPSHOTS A look at some of the moments that defined life at Williston this spring and early fall

Residential Dinners are a tasty part of our student life program. Throughout the year, students and faculty put on their fancy duds for family-style dining and conversation in Birch Dining Commons.

After a day of bounce houses and tug-of-war, students hit the pond for the annual classversus-class canoe races. (The class of 2020 won!)

Students soaked in the waning days of summer at a cookout on the Quad, then headed to the Activity Fair to sign up for student-run clubs

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Long may we cherish Williston! May’s Commencement was rich with tradition, with roses for every student as they bid farewell to friends and faculty.

During Welcome Days, Anne-Valerie Clitus ’21 and other proctors greeted students and parents as they arrived on campus

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHATTMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

The spring musical Crazy for You featured songs by George and Ira Gershwin, including “I Got Rhythm,” “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” and “Nice Work if You Can Get It”

Welcome back! Sophomores, juniors, and seniors greeted ninth graders with an all-school cheer as the first-years returned from an overnight orientation trip.

Browse more images of campus life at flickr.com/willistonnorthampton

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 13

The WilliList A by-the-numbers look at recent school highlights —DENNIS CROMMETT

31 Number of alumni in the Head’s Visiting Council, a group of grads who share their time and expertise to advance Williston’s goals. The group met on campus this past September.

692’

Length of Brewster Avenue, a formerly public roadway that is now part of the Williston campus, thanks to a land trade with the City of Easthampton

SW6002

Sherman Williams color code for Essential Gray, the hue of the newly painted exterior of Scott Hall’s theater (formerly known as “the Green Monster”). The shade was chosen by designer Tony Spagnola ’72 as part of a larger project to beautify the buiding’s exterior.

02.19.20

The date of Founders Day, Williston’s fifth annual day of giving, coming up on February 19. Stay tuned for more info on how to join the fun, and help us ring the bell!

2:37 100

John Wright Dorm’s winning time for the tiebreaking relay race at Willympics, beating Mem West by three seconds. Four participants each used a broomstick to push a pumpkin around a cone, then back, changing between Minion and Grinch costumes each time.

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Number of young athletes who, along with 160 volunteers, community members, and other area sponsors, raised $31,300 to assist families battling pediatric cancer, at the Just TRYAN It triathalon on campus in September

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In his video, Jack and friends enjoy a delicious bubble tea in downtown Northampton

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National rank of senior Steven Wang ’20 in the prestigious Math Olympiad (out of 119,000 high school students who competed!)

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Years English teachers Sarah and Matt Sawyer have been married.

They were honored by students with a rousing round of applause at assembly on October 9.

Way to go, Sawyers!

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RECORD BREAKERS

Hits given up by pitcher Jerry Landman ’22 in a baseball game vs. Pomfret last spring

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Number of water polo All Americans in our school history after Dylan FulcherMelendy ’20 was named in June

187.6k

Views of the video “A Day in My Life as a High School Student”

by Jack Long ’20. In addition to taking viewers through his school day routine, the video showcases Jack’s work for the nonprofit Youzimu Subtitle Group, which aims to bring high quality video content to people in mainland China who have trouble accessing YouTube.

Years of service to the Williston community from Dan Curylo, supervisor of campus grounds, who has helped keep the campus beautiful since 1985. We’ll miss seeing him zip around campus in a Kubota after his October retirement.

10.84

Time in seconds of school record set

by Gabe Liu ’20 in the 100-meter dash last spring

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Number of girls who competed on the first girls ultimate team in our school’s history

13–0

Record of the girls cross-country team, who went undefeated this fall for the third time in school history (2008 and 1991) FALL 2019 BULLETIN 15

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Scholars at Work Last year, more than 40 students pursued their passions in the Williston Scholars independent study program. Here’s a glimpse at just a few of the amazing projects they undertook.

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1. DIRECT A PERFORMANCE Having acted in many plays at Williston, Maddy Elsea ’19 and Caleb Stern ’19 both chose to create full-scale productions for their Scholars projects. Caleb directed and acted in Sam Shepard’s True West; Elsea did the same with Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice.

Fellow Scholar Margaret Strange ’20 acted as the production stage manager on both performances.

2. LAUNCH A WEATHER BALLOON Trevor Corsello ’20 designed and launched a high-altitude balloon to collect weather data. Liftoff took place on Sawyer Field, then the balloon traveled 130 miles east and 95,000 feet high before finally landing in Buzzard’s Bay. “It was exciting to apply aspects of physics, chemistry, and calculus to a realworld project,” he says.

3. BUILD A BAROMETER Aidan McCreary ’19 combined his love of art and science by designing, welding, and installing a 974-centimeter (almost 32-foot!) water barometer in Scott Hall. “Aside from being cheaper than traditional mercury barometers,” Aidan says, “water barometers are more accurate and make a pretty awesome centerpiece for the building.”

PHOTOGRAPH BY EMMANUEL OYELEKE PHOTOGRAPHY

ALUMNI NEWS

After studying and working in the U.S. and England for more than a decade, entrepreneur and investor Yemi Lawani ’96 started launching businesses in Lagos, Nigeria, where he lives with his wife, Leilani, and their two kids. “I just found something was drawing me back to Africa,” he said. Read more about Lawani and his work on page 34.

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 17

WILDCAT ROUNDUP GOING FOR IT

These Williston graduates are putting their passions to work

THE ROYALS TREATMENT This summer, Jack Gethings ’15 became a Kansas City Royal. As Fairfield University’s Male Athlete of the Year, he was drafted after a summer swinging for the Newport Gulls. Now on the Burlington, N.C., farm team, he’s played a number of infield positions. “If you put up the stats and play well enough, people will notice you,” Gethings told the Burlington Times-News.

VOCAL VERVE This fall, singer/songwriter Victoria Zingarelli ’18 held a release party for her debut EP “In My Dreams.”

The Berklee School of Music sophomore, who performs as Victoria Aries, also sang at the school’s Perfect Pitch show.

CHEERING THE CELTS A software engineer by day, Tory Kolbjørnsen ’14 earned a spot as a dancer for the Boston Celtics. “I love the challenge and am so excited for what this year is going to bring!” she says.

Wildcats on the Prowl Two-Stick Unicorn For the UNH Wildcats, Tori Palumbo ’18 wears NCAA Division 1 uniforms for two very competitive sports that overlap by about a month: ice and field hockey. “In D1 she is truly a unicorn,” says Williston Director of Athletics Mark Conroy. Fun fact: Both Palumbo’s mom and dad played for UNH, too; her mother lettered in field hockey, and her father was on the tennis team.

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Mind the Gap Jack Stroman, son of Alexas Kelly ’92, was the first student to complete a gap year with the Patagonia Adventure Expeditions team based in glacial Chile and founded by Jonathan Leidich ’92 (see the Fall 2017 Bulletin). The gap-year program, led by both alumni, teaches climate science research and monitoring and has since taken on eight more students.

alumni news

EXQUISITE SOUNDS Concertmaster and violinist Erin Keefe ’98 may not like practicing the violin, but she’s one of the leading chamber musicians of her generation

One of just a few female concertmasters in the United States, Erin has performed around the world.

Hear her music at erinkeefeviolin.com.

Tennis Anyone?

At the National Clay Court Championships in Virginia Beach, Va., tennis player and writer Paul Fein ’62 reached the semifinals in the 75 singles division. “I’m still applying the expertise Williston tennis coaches Archibald Hepworth and Edward Lawton imparted decades ago,” notes Fein, author of Tennis Confidential.

“I hate practicing. I really hate it.” This is not what I was expecting to hear from Erin Keefe ’98, who laughs when she says it. As concertmaster for the venerable Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, the violinist leads upwards of 120 concerts a year, is a regular guest of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic, has won a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Pro Musicis International Award, and has played on, in her own estimation, “between 30 and 40” recordings. Has she always hated practicing? She has! Even during high school, although she has always loved playing with other people, which she did at Williston under Deb Sherr, who directed the music program during Keefe’s time there. Sherr was also her advisor and chamber music coach. “She’s amazing,” Keefe says simply.

Back then, while her classmates were talking about safety schools and reach schools, Keefe applied to three conservatories, including her “dream school,” the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She was thrilled to get in: “They have the lowest percentage rate of acceptance of any school in the country. It’s, like, 3 or 4 percent. And it’s free!” After Curtis, Keefe went on to Juilliard and was playing chamber music at Lincoln Center when she got hired away to Minnesota in 2011.

Was she young to get that job? She was, but this fact is not of special interest to her. And the Minnesota Orchestra is itself plenty old, having offered its inaugural performance on November 5, 1903 (for historical context, that’s just before the Wright brothers flew their first plane).

Keefe’s violin is pretty old itself: a Nicolo Gagliano from 1732 (the year Benjamin Franklin started writing Poor Richard’s Almanack). Keefe is also unusual for being a female concertmaster. There are one or two in the top 15 orchestras, says Keefe, but again, “it’s not really on my radar as an issue.” She is also, as she puts it, “married to the maestro”: Osmo Vänskä, who directs her orchestra. “This is not a normal situation! But he’s humble,” she says, explaining the easy way they work together. “He’s Finnish. He’s not one of those egomaniacs. At home we listen to jazz.”

This quality of Keefe’s—a kind of rational, unflappable, analytical way of moving through the world—is, she thinks, what makes her a good violin player. But it’s the emotion she doesn’t express in words that might make her a great one. “In high school I was more self-conscious. I felt like everyone was judging me—and they probably were. But even though I’m not a very outwardly emotional person, you have to be willing to show your emotions through music,” she says. And then she adds, as if this might not be clear from her dazzling success, “I can do that now.”

—Catherine Newman FALL 2019 BULLETIN 19

How to Succeed in Business —and Change the World

1

Meet three entrepreneurs who are making a “righteous” difference by doing what they love

BY KATE LAWLESS

This brown trout went back into the icy Deerfield River moments after this shot was snapped

FISHING ON THE FLY

As a student, professional fly fisherwoman Jennifer Tatelman ’07 was unaware of the rich network of rivers around her that she could have been angling. A native of Marblehead, Mass., she spent her youth on the ocean, fishing, sailing, and lobstering.

“It’s crazy to me,” she said, “to think that I didn’t fly fish during my boarding time at Williston.” Her company, FlyandFlow, which she founded in 2018, leads trips for women on the Deerfield River, which runs 20 miles north of campus.

“I pass the Williston exit all the time now on my way to the Deerfield and laugh that I had no idea at the time.”

FlyandFlow leads six trips per year to destinations in the States—western Massachusetts, Montana—and tropical locales such as Belize and the Bahamas.

Tatleman has traveled to New Zealand for elusive brown trout and to the marshes of Charleston, South Carolina, for tailing redfish. She also is the brand manager 20 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

for Postfly, which sells monthly subscriptions of fishing gear.

In February, she wrote an essay championing the rise of women anglers for On the Water. “Every time I stand on the bow with a fly rod in hand, I feel empowered,” she told The Bulletin. “Fly fishing is so much more than just landing fish. I wanted other women to experience this.”

An advocate for conservation, she practices catch-and-release fishing, which for her doesn’t in the least diminish the enjoyment of the sport. “It’s a great feeling to have the rod and line work together in harmony.”

Her father, Jack Tatelman ’73, taught her to fly fish. She and her dad have shared a number of adventures, from targeting brook trout in Labrador to tarpon stalking in Florida. She said she treasures these times, and the fact that she has someone to share stories with. “He’s the first person I call with whatever fishing tale, good or bad—but really there’s no such thing as a bad day on the water.”

Find Satomi Studio hooks, bowls, and jewelry at Thelo

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WOMAN ON A MISSION

Mikala Hammonds ’88 is a preacher’s kid from Lubbock, Texas. For the owner of tony home-design shop/spa Thelo, that’s perhaps an unexpected pedigree.

The store, situated on the main drag in Northampton, Mass., is quintessential college-town New England, all brick walls, tin ceilings, and hardwood shade trees. It feels a world away from the creosote flats of northwest Texas tablelands.

From her cozy, well-appointed store, she sells high-end home décor pieces that few other outlets carry, says Hammonds, whose background in graphic design helps her, she says, “take risks with spaces and product.”

Opening a brick-and-mortar retail establishment involved taking on financial risks. So Hammonds hedged, adding a wellness center in the chic, exposed-brick basement of the shop and giving the space a second income stream. Without a doubt, Hammonds’ parents’ zeal for missionary work is alive and well in her, she

3

‘LIVING PONO’ Can one man find the meaning of life in a nondairy fruit snack? Perhaps.

Post-college, Luke Untermann ’11 and three surfing buddies living in Oahu posed the question “Why not be the next Jamba Juice of banana ice cream?” They bought a $2,000 truck from Craigslist after perfecting recipes in parents’ kitchens, named the business Ban’an, and debuted their dairyfree frozen fruit bowls in 2014.

After the food truck gained traction,

acknowledges. Hammonds evangelizes about the health benefits of her infrared saunas. “There is nothing like it,” she says.

She preaches the gospel of gua sha facials and her European OligoScan for measuring mineral deficiencies and heavy metals in the body. Hammonds also offers styling and interior design services and health and nutrition coaching.

With each client, she examines career, spirituality, relationships, and physical activity to determine what needs attention, and where balance can be restored.

The focus on health contrasts a bit with her Williston days, when this “moody, closet writer, in full rebellion” was “never without a Marlboro cigarette.” However, she forged relationships then that remain vital to this day. Attending a recent Reunion provoked this epiphany: “It’s amazing how long it takes to realize what life is about, how profound connection is.”

the partners ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to open a brick-andmortar store, and now have four small outposts. They are thinking big when they contemplate future expansions.

“We definitely want to open a few more shops on Oahu in the next year or two, Maui in the next couple years, and possibly Australia and California one day.”

Behind their drive to succeed is a commitment to sustainability. They source nearly all their ingredients— from bananas and papayas to honey and chocolate—on the island, and give their food waste to a local pig farmer. For customers who bring their

own bowl, Ban’an donates a dollar to a nonprofit on the island. It offers fundraising parties for nonprofits, too, donating 15 percent of profits.

In Hawaiian, “pono” means righteousness. “Living pono is extremely important to our mission as a company,” says Untermann, who is married to professional surfer Carissa Moore.

“It’s what gives our business meaning and guides a lot of our business decisions. We are in the business of spreading good vibes. We just happen to sell banana ice cream.”

Setting THE STAGE

Art director and scenic designer Nick Nocera ’07 creates the backdrops for hit television shows

By Jonathan Adolph

Nick Nocera got his big break in show business in eighth grade, when he was not cast in the Williston winter play. The sports-averse day student from Northampton had been looking for an alternative to athletics. Acting, it turned out, was not his thing. But technical theater was, as he discovered when he took up art teacher Amy Putnam’s offer to help create the show’s sets. “I just really loved doing it,” recalls Nocera, now a scenic designer and art director based in New York City. “There was team building. I was learning tangible carpentry skills. I was learning to paint. I was learning the specific language of the theater—stagecraft—which I just found fascinating.”

In his work today—which has included developing the sets for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons, as well as for the Hulu series The Path and the forthcoming HBO miniseries I Know This Much Is True—Nocera works closely with teams of artists to conceive, design, and manage the process of bringing an imagined world to life. “When you talk about sets, you talk about stories,” he says. “You are telling a story about what the show is, in the scenery.” As an example, he cites The Daily Show, the satirical Comedy Central program whose set purposely evokes the serious look of a traditional news show. “The set is the straight man,” he

PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMI SAUNDERS PHOTOGRAPHY

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explains. “The jokes are juxtaposed against this very serious background and very professional setting. You need to approach scenery like that.

It needs to have a technical purpose, but it also needs to have a purpose that advances the narrative of what the show is.”

To better achieve that, Nocera develops a detailed backstory for any space he is trying to depict, even if that space is fictional. If he’s designing a room, he asks himself where it’s located, who built it and when, what construction techniques and materials they used. “If you ground this stuff in research and reality and history, it gives people triggers to cue them into feeling a certain way about it,” he says. And that psychological response is what helps the audience escape into the story.

Nocera, who earned his BFA in scenic design and theatre design/ technology at Purchase College’s Conservatory of Theatre Arts, still marvels at the power of theater when he’s on a soundstage, looking at the exposed back of the set with its scrap wood, wires, and rigging.

“Then you walk through a door, and it’s incredible,” he says. “You are transported into this place that you’ve built and created. And it feels so real and so wonderful.”

He is quick to give credit to the talented artists who build and decorate what he calls this “giant collaborative piece of artwork.”

Indeed, he says, that team dynamic is one of the reasons he loves what he does. “It goes back to the same thing I felt when I did technical theater at Williston. That’s where I found my friends. And that’s where I found people I could collaborate with. It was something special there, and I was so lucky that I got to experience and be a part of that.”

BEHIND THE SCENERY Nick Nocera explains the creation of an award-winning set As a side project to his television work, Nocera, in 2017, helped design the Gorillaz/Sonos Spirit House, a pop-up “immersive audio and visual experience” that won the bronze award for Best Overall Consumer Environment from Event Marketer magazine. The three-room set featured Sonos speakers and content based on the virtual band Gorillaz, a graphic collaboration of musician Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, to coincide with the release of the group’s album Humanz. Here, Nocera walks us through the rooms—and his creative process.

Every element of the space was used to convey a message, Nocera explains.

“We wanted people to walk into the first room and have the feeling that, yes, the characters that we know—the Gorillaz—live here and could be here. It’s sort of dingy, like a New York loft, but it’s like a penthouse, too, so we had doors to a personal elevator situated in there.”

“We got some old furniture and did a lot of painted scenic on the walls to make it look like it was really lived in and old and dusty,” he explains. Revealing props include empty pizza boxes, dirty dishes, and even old food inside the refrigerator.

The planning began with architectural illustrations.

The set’s second room tells another story, Nocera continues. “They walk into Room Two, and now they have a story about somebody’s home. We built all these bookshelves to be like a living room in a New York apartment. We rented a couch and coffee tables. We had magazines printed. You are hanging out with your friends. Then the lights go out, and we make it an experience. One of the walls turns into a giant projectionmapped video, and they get to experience the music video of a new song on the new Gorillaz album.”

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 23

IN THEIR OWN WORDS For Bryant McBride ’84, his hockey career began on the rinks of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and took him all the way to the offices of the National Hockey League, where as vice president of business development he would serve as the league’s highest-ranking black executive. In that role, he met and hired Willie O’Ree, the league’s first black player, as the NHL’s diversity ambassador, a story recounted in the 2019 documentary Willie, which McBride produced. But before he became a successful entrepreneur, investor, and film producer, Bryant was a young cadet at West Point, where—as he explained at Convocation—he would learn a valuable lesson in very challenging circumstances. Here is his inspiring speech.

After a year and a half at West Point, McBride transferred to Trinity College, where he led his hockey team to three Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships and was named Division III All American in 1988.

This open plaza, surrounded by tall buildings, is the hub of cadet life on the West Point campus.

24 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

tion comes a two-star general.

One of the first things you’re taught at West Point is to stand and salute a superior officer. But I just couldn’t lift myself off that curb to get up and salute my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s boss. I see his feet and he’s right there. He lifts me up with his arm, gets this close to my nose, and starts to yell, saying a bunch of really unflattering things about my mom and other things that I won’t repeat. I’m shocked. He asks my superior officer’s name.

I tell it to him, and he walks away in disgust.

At West Point, they challenge you constantly. They test you with difficult things to see how you’re going to react. Sometimes you can tell that’s what’s going on, other times you feel like they mean it. This felt like this guy really meant it. He walks away, and the orderly with my wheelchair comes back in four and a half minutes, on time but too late.

He puts me in the wheelchair and wheels me up to my fifth-floor room. I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, crying, literally and figuratively shattered. I look at my clock and it says 6:03 a.m., so I lift my leg up on the bed and pass out, feeling really sorry for myself.

A couple hours later, I wake up to the sound of activity in The Area below me.

It’s Alpha Company coming in from a 15-mile march, covered in mud, carrying rifles, big rucksacks, and all kinds of stuff.

They’re being drilled. They’re being yelled at.

You’ve got to do these 15 things. You’ve got to clean up, put your rifles away, unpack your gear, and make your beds. That last one was a big deal, because we’d only learned how to make military-style beds the day before I got hurt. It was all still new: the hospital corners,

Growing up in Canada (with an American mom), McBride was recruited to play hockey at West Point, but was counseled to first take a PG year. He did so at Williston.

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHATTMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

At his graduation, McBride received the Denman Award, given to the school’s top male athlete.

On July 24, 1984, during my plebe, or freshman, year at the United States Military Academy at West Point, I found myself on a gurney being wheeled into an ambulance, wondering what had just happened. It was 54 days after I had received my Williston diploma standing right here.

One of the things I vividly remember was the conversation the orderly had with my mom on the phone as I was lying there. He said, “Your son has hurt his knee playing soccer. He’s going to have surgery in the morning. He’s fine. And, most importantly, don’t come. There’s nothing you can do to help.” So from the heights of standing here at graduation to that, it was a pretty fast fall.

The good news is, the surgery went well.

I played three years of college hockey. I ran a bunch of marathons. It still feels great. What I didn’t realize at that moment, however, was that in the 48 hours after that surgery, I would learn things that would serve as my bedrock, the foundation that I would draw from every day throughout my career, and continue to draw from today.

After the surgery, I was told that I would be in the hospital for a day and a half before joining my classmates to recover. I was told to be ready to leave the hospital at 5 a.m. the next morning. I was in a cast from my hip down to my ankle, in the middle of a sweltering hot July. The next morning, an orderly picks me up, puts me in a Jeep, and drives me to a part of West Point called The Area. He drops me off, puts me on a curb, and says, “Wait right here. I’ll park and be back in five minutes with a wheelchair.” So I’m sitting there, and as he turns the corner, from the other direc-

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On a properly made military bed, the bedding is so tight a quarter will bounce when dropped onto it.

The mascot of French tire company Michelin is a bulbous figure, named Bibendum, who is made of stacked tires.

the bouncing quarters, and it was a real challenge. Then Bravo Company comes in, and they get the same orders. Then Charlie Company, and the same thing.

I’m in Delta Company, and now my window becomes a literal window of opportunity.

I experienced for the first time in my life what I’ll call a signal. It’s that recognition that you can do something that is mission critical and that will make things better.

What I realized at that moment—even though I’m in a cast, I’m dizzy, I’m fatigued, I haven’t eaten—is that I could make my 11 squad mates’ beds. I had no idea if it was significant. I had no idea if it mattered at all. But I figured I had about 35 minutes, so I quickly hobble over and make my bed. It takes about ten minutes. The next one goes a little faster. The big challenge is not sweating on the beds, because I’m soaking wet. So I improvise. I wrap myself in towels. I look like the Michelin Man. I hobble around, and I make all the beds.

My classmates come in, and it’s like Christmas. The beds are made. The directive was you have to be back down in 18 minutes—basically an impossible task. We get down there in 17 minutes. We’re standing at attention, but nobody else is there. Our superior officers aren’t there. They eventually look down and see that we’re there. They come out, look at us, and start firing questions. At West Point, you’re allowed to say just four things your entire freshman year: “Yes sir.” “No sir.” “Sir, I do not understand.” And “Sir, there is no excuse.” That’s it.

So they start firing questions, and everything is confusion. “No ma’am.” “Yes ma’am.”

“Ma’am, I do not understand.” I’m just standing there. Finally they say to the cadet next to me, “Jefferson, you can be out of decorum for the next ten seconds. Tell us what happened.”

And he says, “Sir, McBride made the beds.”

And I see a big smile come across the face of my commanding officer.

Forty-eight hours later we find out that we’ve been named the Best New Squad in

what’s called Beast Barracks. I’m named Best New Cadet. We are the only squad out of 64 in that exercise to get down there in under 18 minutes. It’s the first time it has been done in 20 years. They bring us out, and they pin stuff on us. They asked me to come up to get my award, and I walk up, and it’s the same general—the same guy that yelled at me.

As he’s pinning this award on me, he leans in and he says something I’ll never forget. He says, “McBride, I bet you thought I was crazy, didn’t you?”

I said, “No, sir.”

(I did think he was crazy, and I thought he was really mean, too, but I couldn’t say that. I wasn’t allowed.)

So he says, “I am a little bit crazy, but” — and I’ll never forget the names he used— “so was Patton, so was Muhammad Ali, so was MLK, and so was Gandhi. I hear that you’ve discovered a little bit of your crazy, that ability to stretch, to extend yourself when you didn’t think you could. Good for you. Now go build teams and teach them how to do the same thing. That’s your job now.”

From knocking me down, he built me up, and his message has stayed with me: the importance of being a little bit crazy, of stretching yourself to extend yourself. The importance of doing that one thing that may seem insignificant at the time, but turns out to be important.

This year as you’re walking around this campus, playing games, acting, doing all kinds of other cool stuff, there’s going to be an inflection point, a moment that matters more than any other, that makes the difference.

Find your crazy. Help a person who you’re not sure needs it with some seemingly insignificant thing. It may be what makes a difference.

It may just turn out to be that compliment you give a new kid about his shoes.

I am incredibly blessed and lucky to be part of this community that is Williston. By doing this, you can raise this community to even greater heights. Every day here is an incredible gift. Enjoy.”

McBride went on to do just that. He was the first black class president in West Point’s history, as well as Trinity’s first black class president, led diversity initiatives as vice president for new business development in the National Hockey League, and has launched a number of sports and technology ventures as an entrepreneur and investor.

In a preceding Convocation speech, Williston Senior Class President Nat Markey ’20 recalled how an older student had complimented him on his sneakers, a small gesture that made Nat feel welcomed into the larger community.

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 25

THE BOHO MANIFESTO Boho-by-birth author Julia Chaplin ’87 offers a guide to post-conventional living —JONATHAN ADOLPH

“If you look at the spread of yoga, mindfulness, meditation, every mall has a yoga class now. Everyone’s wearing Lululemon and shopping at Whole Foods. These are very mainstream concepts.”

26 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

Julia Chaplin ’87 opens her new handbook The Boho Manifesto: An Insider’s Guide to Post-Conventional Living with some important context: “My parents were hippies.” Her father was a journalist and novelist, and the family lived all over the country, as well as in the Bahamas and Mexico, often “commune-style, in big run-down houses,” she writes. “My parents were experimenting with the new age philosophies of their time.”

They may not have been trying to raise a Bohemian, but it worked.

Chaplin, who herself became a journalist specializing in travel and fashion, was sent to Williston for the stability it could provide, and she reveled in her new environment. “What was great about Williston was that you could create your own identity,” she explains.

“You don’t have the baggage of your family there, you’re living in a dorm, you really are free.” Freedom, traveling the world, and questioning convention would continue to inspire Chaplin, who after attending Hampshire and Mills Colleges would work as a journalist (Condé Nast Traveler, ELLE, The New York Times) and author a series of coffee table books on what she termed “the gypset”—a portmanteau of gypsy jet-setters.

Her Boho Manifesto, published last June (Artisan Books), employs a magazine-like mix of charts, annotated portraits of stereotypical Bohemians, listy sidebars, and explanatory personal essays to offer Chaplin’s insider insights (leavened with gentle satire) into what she sees as an increasingly mainstream social trend—the boho-ification of contemporary culture. Who today doesn’t recognize such types as the Self-

help Socialite (“Carries jar of natural narcotic honey that her friend brought back from Nepal”), the Modern Shaman (“Hands out feathers as business cards”), or the Fermentation Goddess (“Brews her own PMS remedies”)?

Indeed, Chaplin, who lives with her daughter in Brooklyn, New York, sees elements of the Bohemian trend all around us. “Within the liberal mainstream, the Bohemian movement is a dominant subculture right now,” she says. “If you look at the spread of yoga, mindfulness, meditation, every mall has a yoga class now. Everyone’s wearing Lululemon and shopping at Whole Foods. These are very mainstream concepts.”

The Boho Manifesto purposefully echoes the structure and tone of Lisa Birnbach’s classic Official Preppy Handbook, and with good reason. Chaplin sees today’s post-conventional Bohemian culture as a reaction to the preppy culture of her teenage years, that world of pastels, conformity, and old money she celebrated as a student at Williston by hanging the iconic “Are You a Preppette?” poster on her dorm wall.

As alternative thinkers like her parents came of age, “there was a questioning of those values. And so did I. And slowly, generationally, it turns into something more Bohemian. Contemporary bohemianism is basically the maturation of what preppy was in the eighties.” Chaplin was initially concerned that her Bohemian friends might not appreciate her tongue-in-cheek tone, “but actually they really liked it,” she reports. On the book tour—which, understandably, stops only at islands and beaches— “it has been very well accepted in the Bohemian circles.”

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SECOND-HAND

Stylemaker

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANA LUI AND JONICA MOORE

For Cameron Williams ’09, encouraging reuse has been a springboard to creativity —KATE LAWLESS

F

ast fashion—aka cheap, trendy clothing, once beloved for quickly bringing runway looks to the masses—is becoming a problem.

Americans buy five times the amount of clothing they did in 1980, contributing to 70 pounds of cloth waste per household each year. Six percent of New York City’s garbage is textiles. Some retailers have started encouraging clothing recycling. However, many see reuse as a better solution.

Enter Cameron Williams ’09. During a three-year stint at the New York City Department of Sanitation’s Center for Materials Reuse, he created ReFashion Week—coinciding with Fashion Week in February—to inspire New Yorkers to hit thrift shops to create unique looks and help the city reach the goal of zero waste by 2030. The event, returning for a second year in 2020, included clothing swaps, a pop-up market, and a ReFashion show where stylists dressed models in second-hand garments and accessories. This August, he organized a thrift shop crawl for National Thrift Shop

Day. For Williams, the lure of reuse is strong. “It gives you an opportunity to have so much originality in your closet.”

Earlier this year, he left his job at the Center for Materials Reuse and started DUALITY NYC, a full-service creative consulting firm specializing in content creation, marketing, brand management, and event production.

Much of this work involves styling and photo shoot direction for clients that include his previous employer, Goodwill Industries, and Housing Works.

When dressing clients, he relies on unique items he finds in thrift shops.

Williams came to Williston Northampton a basketball star. “In a different school, I would have been pigeonholed [as an athlete],” he said.

“Williston was an open space. It allowed me to try new things—fashion, for example. And I fell in love with fashion.” By the time he left, he and a few friends had started their own clothing company, printing graphics on T-shirts made by artist classmates. He adds, “Williston was instrumental in making me who I am.”

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 27

In his 45-year career, renowned art dealer and “Antiques Roadshow” star John Buxton ’63 has appraised everything from the priceless to the peculiar

BY KEVIN MARKEY

28 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

PHOTOGRAPHS BY TERRI GLANGER PHOTOGRAPHY

In his Dallas gallery, Buxton holds a Yoruba Shango maternity figure from Nigeria, dating from the late 19th to early 20th century

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 29

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O

want to find out if it’s real.” If I think there’s a good story, I’ll go to my producer: “This person is the great-grandson of a guy who was a missionary in the Congo. He knows nothing about the mask. The thing is 19th-century, worth $40,000 to $60,000.”

The producer then asks if the guest would like to have the object appraised on camera. If they would, they go back to the green room until we’re ready to tape the segment. The first time you find out anything is when the camera starts rolling.

ver the course of 23 popular seasons, the PBS program “Antiques Roadshow” has thrilled fans with its whistle-stop quest to unearth the unlikely — and sometimes thrillingly valuable—treasures socked away in attics across the country. John Buxton ’63 has been there every step of the way. An internationally regarded dealer and appraiser of tribal art, including African, preColumbian, South Pacific, and Native American, Buxton runs Shango Gallery in Dallas, Texas, and is a past national director of the International Society of Appraisers. During a 45-year career, he has acquired and authenticated objects on behalf of institutional and private collectors around the world. His pieces appear in major museum collections. But to the general public, he will always be known as the avuncular expert behind some of the “Roadshow’s” most memorable moments. We caught up with Buxton between TV appearances.

Of all the pieces you’ve handled for the show or that have come through your gallery, do you have a favorite?

My favorite piece is not in the gallery. It’s in my bedroom. It’s a beaded Huichol cat, which is Mexican folk art. I look at it every day and it just brings a smile to my face. It’s 1940s or 1950s, not expensive. But it moves me. I have a gallery full of pieces that are worth thousands and thousands of dollars, but I like this $200 cat.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever been asked to appraise?

I was in Providence, Rhode Island, with “Roadshow” and a middle-aged couple walked up, kind of shy and bespectacled, and they put a hand-painted box on the table. I said, “I’m sorry, I’m a tribal art guy. I don’t do anything like that.” And the man looked at me and said, “Oh, you’ll do this.” There was a little door on the front, so I opened it, and the box started playing “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.” And inside was a shrunken head. It was the real deal. Jibaro from Ecuador. I thought it would make an amazing segment, so I pitched it to my producer. She said, “John, if we do ivory, we get angry calls. I don’t even want to think what would happen if I put a shrunken human head on TV.”

Yikes! Do you have any advance notice of what you might see?

No, the way it works is we get to a city and guests come in with their objects, and our triage experts sort them. They say, “OK, you go to pottery, you go to African art, you go to fine art.” A volunteer escorts them to the table, and then it becomes about the relationship between the guest and the appraiser. Say you bring me an African mask. I’m only going to ask questions. I’m not going to say a thing about your piece. They’ll tell me, “Well, this was in the attic. My great-grandfather was in the Congo. I 30 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

What advice do you give to collectors?

This Mexican folk art mask, circa 1950, is in the style of the Dance of the Moors and Christians

My colleagues may disagree with me, but I firmly believe that if you’re talking about a modest amount of money, who in the hell am I to say you shouldn’t like something? That’s not what art is all about. Art is an experience between an object and an individual. My attitude is—I say this on the “Roadshow” all the time—if a person really loves an object, like my Huichol cat, and they’re not spending much, then go for it. But if someone is overspending, that’s a different story. Collectors

“My colleagues may disagree with me, but I firmly believe that if you’re talking about a modest amount of money, who in the hell am I to say you shouldn’t like something? That’s not what art is about.

Art is an experience between an object and an individual.”

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involved at a high level have to become serious students or find somebody they can trust to be honest.

Is it hard to deliver bad news? A person comes in full of hope and sometimes you have to be a wet blanket.

On “Roadshow” we work really hard to explain to people why bad news is not as bad as they think.

They still have this meaningful object. Of course, there are varying degrees. The Houston Museum of Natural Science did a show called Lucy’s Legacy: the Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia and asked me to appraise everything in it. Lucy is the female skeleton that was excavated in Ethiopia in 1974. The fossil is 3.2 million years old. I used as my comp a Tyrannosaurus rex from the Dakotas that sold for $8 million and was installed in the Field Museum in Chicago for another $8 million. Based on that and other factors, I appraised Lucy at $50 million.

So I’m at the Houston opening and the collections manager says, “John, we need you to keep a low profile tonight. We’ve got a political situation.” I asked what she meant. She said, “Lucy is a matter of national pride in Ethiopia. They wanted a $500 million appraisal!”

Through your gallery’s internship program, you’re now the one making an impact.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY TERRI GLANGER PHOTOGRAPHY

Looking back on your Williston experience, was there anything that helped prepare you for the career you created?

I think a lot of people now don’t really understand what Williston was like back then. It was a lot more like a military academy. There were no girls. We had dances with Northampton, but they were few and far between. There were all sorts of restrictions. In the winter, for example, you had to wear a hat. You had to do this, you had to do that. It certainly provided a sense of discipline, and it gave me a great academic background. And the friends I made at Williston I’ve had all my life. When I think back, the teachers who had the greatest impact on me were the inspirational ones, the ones who had the capacity to get students excited about what they were doing. I think to be able to dig that out of students, to find out what really moves them — that’s really a big deal. And to do it even before they go to college? That’s pretty extraordinary.

A 1920s Zuni ceramic owl from the American Southwest. Above: Buxton holding an early 20th century Zulu neckrest from South Africa

We usually have two interns a semester, and we try to get them in front of the people who will help them later in their careers. I was extremely lucky when I started out in Dallas that there were people who mentored me. I think they looked at me and they said, “You know, this kid is well-meaning, he works hard, but he’s pathetic. We need to help him.” Had it not been for those people, I never would have gotten where I did. I tell our interns, “You have to be alert, you have to be ready for your aha moment.” Young people should try to experience as much as they possibly can, because even the most insignificant thing can end up having a major impact. There’s an art show over at the Dallas Museum, you go and you meet somebody who’s an expert in a discipline you know nothing about.

You start talking and all of a sudden you are excited. If you hadn’t gone, inspiration never would have struck. Minor things can have major impacts.

I think you have to be really engaged in your life and ready for the moment when it happens.

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C

hances are you’ve seen the work of Clare Brown ’92.

Every year more than 4 million people do. Chief of design for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, she oversees the look, feel, and flow of the landmark attraction’s public space—all 140,000 square feet of it.

From the iconic front steps, where families gather for group shots, to every exhibition, every object on display within—the actual flag that inspired the national anthem, a section of the Greensboro Woolworth’s lunch counter from a notable civil rights sit-in—if something is part of the visitor experience, Brown is responsible for its design.

Do you get excited every morning about going to work? This is the Smithsonian Institution!

It is exciting. I love going to the museum. I love working in the museum.

What really excites me is thinking about what can we continue to do better. Our biggest audience is our school groups, all those kids who visit on a middle school trip to Washington, D.C. The museum is just one stop for them, but I want them to hold onto the experience as something wonderful. I want them to want to come back with their own kids one day.

How do you make those lasting impressions?

We think really hard about how our public space works for visitors. I’ve referred to myself as an experience designer. We focus on visitors as opposed to just saying, “We want to make this exhibition, so we’re going to stick these artifacts out there and hope people get it.” Any educator

Designing History How do you display the Batmobile? Or the Declaration of Independence? Just ask Clare Brown ’92, chief of design for the National Museum of American History.

By Kevin Markey

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will know you can’t force somebody to learn something. You have to encourage them. So if there’s something we want people to be interested in, we need tell the story in a way that hooks them. One of the things we think a lot about is making sure visitors can find themselves in American history. Are we providing them with connection points?

What are some of the exhibitions you’ve designed?

In 2009 I was asked to design an entirely new gallery devoted to the presentation of documents in American history. The first exhibit that I did for it was the Declaration of Independence.

So that’s pretty spectacular. And the next one was the Emancipation Proclamation. I’ve been very lucky. I designed the first inaugural ball gown exhibition and the food exhibition that includes Julia Child’s kitchen. I think encounters with real objects from history is what makes the Smithsonian so mythical. In the food exhibit, we have the first margarita machine! We currently have on loan the 1989 Michael Keaton Batmobile from Warner Brothers. We have Lynda Carter’s original Wonder Woman costume. Every day there’s something spectacular.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SHAWN HUBBARD

How long does it take to put together a new display?

Exhibits are usually in planning for a minimum of two years. Many of our exhibitions are considered permanent, meaning they’re on view for 20 years or more, which is very different from other museums that do a lot of temporary shows. For our permanent exhibitions, some projects have been in the works for upwards of 10 years. So we have a baseline of stability, which I think is valuable, but at the same time we’re always looking for new ideas and ways to keep things up to date and relevant and exciting.

Are there any upcoming exhibitions you’re particularly excited about?

Next year is the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, a woman’s right to vote. We are doing an exhibition called “Girlhood: It’s Complicated,” which explores women’s history in America through the lens of girlhood—who gets a girlhood, how have the identities and roles of women been shaped through their experiences as girls, how have girls changed our country?

We look at labor, health, gender identity, education, fashion, news, and politics.

How did you get into your field?

I’ve always loved painting and drawing and making things. When I went to Williston, I took quite a few art classes.

Marcia Reed was the really wonderful art teacher back then, and she encouraged me to work in the theater program, helping to paint sets and work on design.

I really loved that, and when I went to college I built on what I did at Williston.

I was a stage tech, I was a lighting tech.

My degree was in anthropology, but I worked in the theater the whole time.

And then I did the same thing in graduate school. I went to George Washington for museum studies. It ended up that my background in theater translated really well to exhibition design. GW is really good at providing a professional basis; it requires internships. I actually interned at the Smithsonian at American History, so I’ve been intermittently at the museum for a very long time!

Any favorite moments through the years?

I was there when Michelle Obama donated her first inaugural gown. She was so humble. She was with her mom, and when we put her gown into the exhibition case, she leaned over and whispered to her mom, you could read her lips, she said, “Oh, my gosh. It’s right there. It’s in the Smithsonian!”

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 33

Taking Care of

Business

34 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

alumni news

PHOTOGRAPH BY EMMANUEL OYELEKE

I

t has been 23 years since he lived on the Wil- job as a radio frequency engineer in Washington, D.C., liston campus, but Yemi Lawani can still viv- where he worked for five years before earning his M.B.A. idly recall his roommate, Nader Barhoum from Stanford University in 2007. Lawani said he knew ’97, running into the common room to let he “wanted to do something different, to be involved in Lawani know Yemi’s girlfriend, Leilani, was the decision-making side of business.”

It would be another few years before that dream —of calling. Lawani, who spent his PG year—1995 to 1996—living in Memorial Hall, would race both returning to Nigeria and working entirely with African-based companies—would be fulfilled, but his back up to the pay phone on his floor.

“I had a picture of her in our room,” he laughed. ship always seemed to be on course; he spent some time as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, working first “Nader knew her; I was always talking to her.”

Though Lawani loved being at Williston, his con- in New York and then Los Angeles, and then moved to nections to both Leilani —she was then a student at the London to work at Helios Investment Partners, a private University of Maryland—and to his home country of equity firm focused on Africa-based businesses.

“After a couple years, I just found something was Nigeria, remained strong. In fact, in many ways, they’ve charted the course of his life, both professionally and drawing me back to do things in Africa,” Lawani said, noting that the economy across the continent had started personally.

Nearly five years ago, Lawani co-founded Neon to pick up then, and he enjoyed partnering with AfricaVentures, a Lagos, Nigeria-based investment and ven- based companies and seeing them thrive. He left Helios, started Neon Ventures, and ture-building firm aimed at has been there ever since. partnering with businesses For Africa-based His professional accomin and around the technology sector and working to scale plishments have taken him entrepreneur Yemi their growth across Africa. across the world, but Lawani Lawani ’96, a desire to Successful projects include a still thinks fondly of his time solve problems inspires Wi-Fi company distributing at Williston, the excitement him to start new internet service across Nigeof being a new kid in a new companies country, in a new school, on ria; a health insurance and the precipice of a new life. tele-medicine platform; and “It was amazing,” Lawani a business matching venue by matthew liebowitz said. “The resources, the faowners with event organizers across the continent. cilities, always learning from He has also founded a number of businesses from people; it opened your eyes to see there were a ton of scratch. Take Motocheck, a nationwide network of au- possibilities. I didn’t fathom a high school with all that. tomotive engineers and inspection centers that helps car It was incredible.”

And while the technology from those Mem pay phone owners find trusted service providers. Originally formed to help Uber West Africa drivers inspect and report their calls two decades ago has certainly changed, Lawani’s vehicles’ certification reports, Motocheck has expanded devotion to the caller remained steadfast. He and Leilani got married in 2005 and have two kids. They even atto form an academy to properly train car mechanics.

“If you live in Nigeria, you realize the quality of vehicle tended Lawani’s Williston roommate, Nader Barhoum’s, services is really poor,” Lawani explained. His goal, and wedding about five years ago, in Jordan. a cornerstone to his business approach, is on display And some more proof that wherever you go in the here; there’s a need for change, and Lawani wants to act. world, Williston is there: Last year, Lawani and his wife “We identify a real problem and try to solve it,” he said. were at a friend’s house in Nigeria; the man’s daughter That same entrepreneurial spirit has been a part of was deciding which U.S. boarding school to attend, and Lawani’s life since his Williston days, as well as the Williston was in the running (and she ultimately chose string of academic and professional milestones he hit to go there). following his stint here. In 2000, Lawani earned his “They were thinking it through,” Lawani said, “and undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from I told them, ‘It’s an amazing school, I loved my time Virginia Tech; that training ground propelled him to a there.’”

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“It was a shock to find out that women really did not have the same amount of independence or sense of self that they did in my circles of Europe. They sort of let custom or tradition dictate their rather secondary role in society.�

Parsing History Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier ’44 casts a critical eye on Russian art and foreign relations BY KATE LAWLESS

PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMI SAUNDERS PHOTOGRAPHY

IN 1941, WHEN 15-YEAR-OLD ELIZABETH KRIDL AND HER FAMILY ARRIVED IN THE UNITED STATES from war-ravaged Poland,

she was given a full scholarship to the Northampton School for Girls. “We came here penniless.” she said. Dislocated from the life of comfort and high social standing her family had left behind—and with “almost nonexistent” English—she nevertheless buckled down to her studies and became a very successful student, eventually earning Phi Beta Kappa honors.

She recalls French lessons with Ms. Bement, American history with Ms. Bornholdt, and Bible class with Ms. Whitaker—“not because I was interested,” she said. “I am agnostic at best. I always had a very negative attitude toward the church and religion even as a young person.”

The variety of courses at NSFG served her well. After graduation, she earned degrees in history and Russian policy from Smith College, Yale University, and Columbia University. She then forged a career first as a researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations, where she met her late husband, Robert Valkenier, and then from 1981, teaching at Columbia, where she lectures to this day, at age 93. She’s written a number of books on Russian history and art and has created groundbreaking scholarship for which she earned a Festschrift—a book honoring a respected scholar—in 2014.

Valkenier’s path began in Wilno, Poland. The city of Wilno, now called Vilnius and the capital of Lithuania, was captured by the Red Army in September of 1939 after the Nazis invaded Poland. The Kridl family remained there until February 1941, when the situation became too fraught. Though Valkenier’s father was stuck in Belgium teaching, her mother made the decision to shuttle her children to Wilno’s rail station and board a train to Moscow, embarking on an eight-day journey across the Trans-Siberian Railway, to Vladivostok in eastern Russia on the Sea of Japan. Over the next six months, they tried to find passage to the U.S., living in several cities in Japan before heading to Shanghai, China, and finally to the Philippines, where they sailed to Tacoma, Washington. They arrived by train in Northampton in time for Halloween, Valkenier

remembers, just weeks before Japan’s surprise December 7 attack on Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. officially into World War II. As a young woman in Northampton, Valkenier noticed many differences between her previous life in a cosmopolitan Europe and her new home in a small New England college town. Smith College had created a position for her father, teaching Russian. While she was grateful for the welcome her family received (“The reception was really most generous,” she said), adjusting was not without its challenges.

“I remember being quite unhappy because I left friends and the very secure social and economic position for a very, well, a pinched one is the word that occurs to me. I remember we had to count every penny.”

She lived in the top floor—three rooms and a kitchen—of a house that still stands, on Belmont Avenue, quite a change from the large apartment with three servants they had in Poland. “And I remember being mortified that we didn’t have a dining room,” she said. “We had to eat in the kitchen. I never invited anybody because I was ashamed that we didn’t have a separate dining room.”

Struck by the conformity of American life during and after the war years, Valkenier also observed how women’s place in culture was different here. She remembers Northampton School girls being allowed to wear makeup only after a certain hour on the weekend.

“But one day at the end of the week, the girls would start forming a line in front of the bathroom to put on lipstick at the appointed hour, which struck me as idiotic.”

In Northampton, everybody also went to church on Sunday. The Kridls did not. At first, the social life was, she said, “not exactly exciting, intellectually exciting.” She remem-

bers going to dinner at the house of a professor who taught English.

“And afterwards we played Scrabble.

I mean, that was unheard of in the European intellectual milieu!” she said, laughing. “But anyway, they were good-hearted, and maybe our English wasn’t that up to snuff to conduct much of a conversation!”

After NSFG, she attended Smith College, studying history. “It was a shock to find out that women really did not have the same amount of independence or sense of self that they did in my circles of Europe.

They sort of let custom or tradition dictate their rather secondary role in society,” she said. “Most of the girls I knew in college later, after my education at the Northampton School, well, their ambition was to get married.” Not so Elizabeth, who had seen many of her parents’ female friends in Europe working as artists and intellectuals, and intended to contribute to society in the same way. She forged on with her studies, and continued to be surprised when she encountered assumptions about what women could do. While working on her history PhD at Columbia (she also has a master’s degree in Russian history from Yale University) in the early 1970s, for example, she encountered subtle sexism that, ironically, led her to a new area of study. She was taking a class in Russian medieval history when her professor assigned her research topics on art and architecture. “It all started because of certain bias among males that women are the people to report on art,” she said.

Despite this, Valkenier became interested in a group of Russian painters who, in the 1860s, left the Russian Art Academy. They were called the Peredvizhniki—the Wanderers or Itinerants in English. They shifted their focus from painting the lives and landscapes of aristocracy FALL 2019 BULLETIN 37

alumni news

in the stiff, European style to depicting with a looser brush ordinary Russians working the land, and the beauty of the country’s natural features.

While Soviet historians held these painters up as examples of patriotic Russians, loyal to the party cause, Valkenier’s research challenged that take.

“I was suspicious of the Soviet interpretation of their role, which was that they were ideologically—only ideologically—motivated, and that they were nationalists,” Valkenier said.

When she dug deeper, poring over primary sources at Columbia’s first-rate art library and the New York Public Library’s Slavic Collection, she found that the artists were professionally motivated. They wanted to break out of the controlling atmosphere of the European-centric academy and build careers at a time when the private system of patronage was underdeveloped.

Because the artists came from more modest backgrounds, they could relate to their subjects—Russian peasants— on a personal level. She wrote her dissertation on this subject, and later published Russian Realist Art: The State and Society: The Peredvizhniki and Their Tradition. The work was a pioneering piece of scholarship and led to five other books on Russian art and policy.

This tension between east and west is a common thread in Valkenier’s work and life. “The main divide between Poland and Russia, which—I feel it in my bones, in my own blood—is that that Poland was Catholic, always very pro-Western, whereas Russia was Orthodox.”

“Russia was really isolated from the west,” she continued, “until Peter the Great, the beginning of the 18th century. So they have a long tradition— religious, cultural, ethnic—of being different.” It was Czar Peter who, after visiting European cities, returned to 38 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

Russia and required men to shave their beards and give up traditional robes, to become more like their European counterparts. When noblemen balked, Peter imposed a beard tax as a compromise.

“Russians had an uneasy relationship with the west given the forced westernization. It was a violent process because Peter never did anything for them mildly,” Valkenier said. “Whereas with the Poles, it was natural, the church connection dating back to when they were baptized Catholic” in the year 966. Polish students would go to Italian universities from the time of the Renaissance, she added. The upper classes knew Latin, which was the lingua franca in those days, like English is now.

Drawn to the differences between these two worldviews at a time when the Cold War was waging, Valkenier picked apart government propaganda, uncovering biases and moving toward articulating the truth in a field called historiography, the study of historical writing.

Summing up her views as an educator, Valkenier said her aim was always to remove bias from her own thinking, and to be realistic about what motivates nations.

“The Cold War spirit was really very noticeable here and people really did skew the research to reinforce various Cold War attitudes about Russia, which I never subscribed to, even though, you know, being born in Poland, I should have been anti-Soviet Union, which is the usual Polish attitude,” she said.

“Any big country has imperialistic tendencies no matter what,” she continued, “and Poland at one point was a big empire and oppressed other people. I, always, in my work, tried to be as impartial as possible. I suppose that comes from being born in one country and educated in another.”

Aerial Display Poetic storyteller, aerial theater artist, and educator Nicki Miller ’03 talks about the inspiration behind her work

BY BRITTANY COLLINS ’14

T

he shipwreck scene in Shakespeare’s Pericles was in full swing. Actors and actresses pulled on ropes and large fabric sails, when— snap! —the troupe was suddenly suspended high above the audience, contorting and gesturing, acting in mid-air. Nicki Miller ’03 stood in the audience, rapt beneath the London sky. Studying abroad as a junior at Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, she knew she’d found something special: aerial arts. And she wanted to know more.

Miller threw herself into learning the art form—in which athlete-artists perform acrobatics while suspended from ropes, trapezes, fabric, and other apparatuses. She trained in New York, relating the dance experience that she honed at Williston to her new pursuits, and soon ascended to the status of performer, choreographer, and educator.

Now the co-founding artistic director of Only Child Aerial Theatre and an adjunct professor at Pace University, Miller continues to study and share her craft both regionally and internationally. From Toronto to Sweden, Miller has worked with internationally known circus directors and is flying high (pun intended) in her field, while utilizing her platform to empower young aerial artists to create with authenticity and intention. We spoke with Miller about her artistic accomplishments since leaving Williston, the motivation behind her work, and the ways in which the “risk and vulnerability” inherent in that Pericles scene continue to compel her today.

How did you first get involved in aerial arts?

I thought that you had to start as a toddler in the places known for turning out acrobats and circus artists to be able to do it. But I was so inspired that I joined a gym in London.

In my senior year, I double-enrolled in movement classes.

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When I moved to New York, the first show I did was a tiny, avant-garde physical theater show. The assistant director had seen that same production of Pericles in London, and they told me about someone who taught aerial in New York. I was like…I guess I have to do it! I was 23 when I started.

Did your time at Williston influence your professional path?

Linda Seligman was the head of the dance department at that time and shaped who I have become. She brought in other dance instructors every season—we had flamenco, we had popping and locking class. She made an effort to expose us to noncommercial and nontraditional work. Her influence has very much informed the work that I’m drawn to.

During my senior year, I decided to choreograph something and had no idea how to do it. I had a group of six friends who were willing to stick out the process, and Linda was really supportive. The piece combined the modern dance styles that we learned from Linda with some tap dancing, and flamenco influences.

Looking back, that choreography was my first attempt at interdisciplinary poetic storytelling, the kind of work that I continue to cultivate now. Because of the trusting, supportive community in the dance department, I got to try.

What four adjectives describe the qualities of your work?

Poetic. Physical. Multilayered. Interdisciplinary.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMI SAUNDERS PHOTOGRAPHY

How would you describe your artistic ethos?

Find out more about Nicki Miller’s work at nickimiller.com

To have the privilege to be creative also bears with it an awareness of how that can be leveraged to do something meaningful. Contemporary circus is an expensive art form, and therefore a lot of wealthy, dominantly white cultures support and create it. It can have a homogenous vibe, aesthetically and narratively. The economics of participation can be exclusionary, and that limits a diversity of voices represented in the work.

This is something that I hope to help shift in my career.

On some deep level, I believe that getting in touch with one’s intuition and heart, and being able to align with things in the world that feel true to that, can be one of the most valuable and challenging calls that one can pursue. I try to make work that very much comes from that place.

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D

H L EA

N I ER

Voiceover actress Nika Futterman ’88 waves off fame while seeking a seat at the poker table

BY KATE LAWLESS

You may not have heard of Nika Futterman—this despite the fact that she has 254 acting credits, most of them voice characters, going back to 1991 and is a singer and a professional poker player (more on that later). Not being famous is OK with Futterman. Unlike many of her peers in Hollywood, she always wanted to be anonymous. Voice acting gives her something that on-camera parts don’t. “I can be crazy and wacky and weird and do a version of acting, but nobody will know who I am,” she said.

Her intonation and pitch change radically while she explained, “If you can do different voices, you can be anything. You can be a guy and a

girl, an old lady, a young lady, or you know, whatever you can imagine. A monster!”

Voice actors are not limited by what they look like, how old they are, or what they’re wearing, she added. “You don’t have to be cool.”

All these job conditions fit Futterman’s personality perfectly. “Plus,” she said, “I get to hide out behind a microphone.”

Looking back at her time in the Williston theater, she was the same way. “I would literally think, ‘After the show’s over, I’m going to walk out the back of the stage. I don’t want to go out in front. I’ll be too embarrassed, I’ll be too shy.’ But when I was up on stage, I was like, ‘Bring it,

40 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

baby! Watch me!’”

She came to Williston because of the theater program. “EB. Mr. Baker—oh, I loved him so much. He was such an inspiration.” She described how she admired Ellis Baker’s seriousness about creating theater that was as professional as possible. “The facilities were so wonderful. I just wanted to do plays.”

Futterman grew up the daughter of a music producer in New York City. Famous people orbited around the family. “From an early age I thought, wow, that doesn’t look fun.” Even now, she said, “I kind of feel bad for my friends who are well known, and you know, walk on the street and can’t actually just be. And for me, nobody has any idea who I am.”

Finding a character’s voice is a challenge Futterman truly enjoys, and it comes somewhat naturally to her. From the time she was young,

she imitated others. “I listened to how people sounded, and it was always fascinating to me,” she said.

“I hear things. I hear rhythm. I hear timbre. I hear pitch. When I meet people, I’m listening to how they sound, how quickly they speak, how low or high their voice is. That’s something that’s always been just really interesting to me.”

Futterman was in her early 20s when she moved to Los Angeles looking for acting work. She began scoring television roles on shows such as “Chicago Hope,” “Murphy Brown,” “The Wayans Bros.,” and “Diagnosis Murder.” But right alongside these jobs were parts on animated series, like “The Woody Woodpecker Show,” “Maya & Miguel,” and “Hey Arnold!” She also began to mine a vein of video-game parts, speaking lines in blockbuster titles such as “World of Warcraft,” “X-Men Legends,” and “Grand

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ELAINE TORRES

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Theft Auto.” She’s played Gridface Princess in “Adventure Time,” Gamorah in “Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.,” and Catwoman on “Batman: The Brave and the Bold.” She’s voiced parts on “American Dad” and “Rugrats.” Basically, if you’ve watched TV or used an Xbox in the last 20 years, odds are, you’ve heard Futterman’s voice.

And if your kids watch “The Loud House” on Nickelodeon, you’ve probably heard the pipes of Futterman as Luna Loud, a 15-year-old bisexual punk rocker. Most of the adoration Futterman gets on her Twitter feed is from fans of Luna.

“The Loud House” premiered in 2016 and is about to start producing its fifth season—longevity that’s rare in animated series. It’s rated second only to “SpongeBob SquarePants” among the two- to 11-year-old demographic and received two GLAAD Media Award nominations for its

depiction of LGBT characters. A Netflix movie based on the show is slated to debut in 2021.

Another current project is voicing Cuckoo-Loca, Minnie Mouse’s doeeyed pet bird in Disney’s “Minnie’s Bow-Toons.” When she first read for the part, she veered toward the unexpected and imbued the character with a Joe Pesci-esque sassy voice.

The show’s executives loved it, even though they went back and forth a bit on whether Cuckoo-Loca should be a “mob chick,” as Futterman describes her, or a sweet, innocent bird. In the end, show runners decided the edgy voice was the way to go.

Speaking of unexpected, Futterman has a second career: professional poker player. For the past 10 years, she’s made the circuit, entering tournaments in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. This July, she came in third in Larry Flynt’s Grand Slam of Poker,

“I would literally think, ‘After the show’s over, I’m going to walk out the back of the stage.

I don’t want to go out in front. I’ll be too embarrassed, I’ll be too shy.’ But when I was up on stage, I was like, ‘Bring it, baby! Watch me!’”

raking in almost $12,000 at the $175 No Limit Hold’em table. Her lifetime earnings top $300,000.

Futterman said she often encourages women to enter the field of competitive poker. Women make up about 3% of professional players, but have certain advantages over their male counterparts. “It’s a really interesting thing to be a woman up at the poker table,” she said. “Men don’t like to play with women. Actu-

ally, I don’t like to play with women because you can’t figure out if they’re good, if they’re bad, if they know what they’re doing, if they’re actually really good, but they’re super sneaky. It’s typically very hard to read women. But men, I find easier to read.”

As with voice acting, Futterman has dedicated time and energy to honing her craft. “I spent the last 10 years just trying to get really good.

And I think like anything you do in life, whatever your job is, you could get really good, but you have to be willing to invest incredible amounts of time.” While lately she’s been reassessing and pulling back on how much she plays poker, she was actually walking to a tournament while being interviewed for this story. “Oh, I got to the point where I was playing about 80 hours a week, which is a lot of poker. I love it. I’m obsessed with it.”

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SOARING INTO the Stratosphere Since middle school, Alec Guay ’13 has been fascinated with aviation.

Now his career takes him to Patagonia to work on the Airbus Perlan II, a manned pressurized glider that flies at the very edge of the atmosphere.

BY MATTHEW LIEBOWITZ

42 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

ALEC GUAY’S CAREER IS SOARING. Specif-

ically, it’s reaching an altitude of 90,000 feet, bordering the vacuum of outer space, on a manned aircraft without an engine. Guay, a 2013 Williston graduate, is part of a team that is making aviation history. His recent trajectory can make you feel woefully pedestrian, stuck down here on terra firma.

This month, a sailplane called the Airbus Perlan II will take off from El Calafate, a city in Patagonia, Argentina. Its goal is sustained flight over 90,000 feet. That’s three times the altitude a commercial aircraft flies. Though Guay, 24, won’t be in the cockpit of the engineless aircraft, his contribution to the record-breaking project is a composite payload rack in the science bay aft of the two pilots, which will store and sample atmospheric data in small satellites called CubeSats, and will have wide-ranging impacts on a cross-section of scientific fields.

While a junior at Western New England University, Guay, who graduated in 2017 with a degree in mechanical engineering, got an internship with the Perlan Project. The project’s aim, he explained—not just to break the altitude record of 76,124 feet it set in 2018, but to perform atmospheric sampling in the stratosphere, a place where we once thought very little weather occurred—excited Guay.

“It’s an experimental plane,” Guay said of the pressurized glider, whose wingspan reaches 84 feet yet whose weight is only 1,700 pounds, roughly the weight of a VW Bus. The combination of size and weight are crucial factors in its ability to soar so high.

“Nothing has ever been built like it before.”

The Perlan II, Guay explained, can reach such stratospheric heights due to a fascinating combination of topography, geography, wind speed, and a host of other factors.

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF ALEC GUAY

“A sharp eye will find me running alongside the Perlan’s wing on the runway during takeoff.”

In fact, the project, of which To reach 90,000 feet, he’s been a part since 2016, the glider will take adawoke a love of his that first vantage of a phenomenon sprang up while in middle known as stratospheric school at Williston, when he mountain waves. These would sit in the backseat while rare air currents exist only with increasing wind as altitude rises, making the his dad, Mark, piloted glider planes around his southern Andes a perfect spot. When they combine hometown of Westfield, Mass.

“I was hooked,” Guay said. “I thought [gliding] with the polar vortex, the cyclone of air that swirls around the poles at high altitude, the mountain was the coolest thing.” A passing airplane forced our waves can provide the Perlan II Glider with enough conversation to take a short pause, and he laughed. natural force to reach over 90,000 feet, higher than “I still think it’s the coolest thing.”

But the demands of high school at Williston, he a SR-71 Blackbird, the current record holder for said, meant that his passion for the planes took a sustained flight at altitude.

Guay’s contribution to the aircraft will have last- backseat until college. When he heard about Perlan ing ramifications. “I modified and fabricated much in 2016, Guay took his lifelong love for flying, added of the Perlan’s science bay where we do atmospheric a dose of the Spanish lessons he learned while a sampling and tests at altitude,” he explained. “These student in Nat Simpson’s classes, and went full speed are primarily focused on radiation due to the lack of ahead.

The Perlan project, explained Guay, was lookOzone protection at altitude and also Ozone sampling.” Because the glider has no engine and there- ing for a graduate student for meteorology work. fore emits no pollution, the Perlan II can take clean Though he was only a junior, he was sure he could air samples at specific points at altitude, unlike other succeed. The Spanish he learned with Simpson, and the confidence instilled in him during his six years at research platforms.

“This is research that no other plane can perform Williston, proved crucial to helping him during the because they pollute,” he said. Guay also worked with months he’s spent at Perlan’s Argentina base. the glider upgrades over the years. These include heavy modification of the pilots’ rebreather systems, which are traditionally found in SCUBA diving, mining, The Perlan II has a wingspan of 84 feet and and firefighting. The Perlan’s oxygen weighs 1,700 pounds, yet it can soar to nearly system recycles oxygen and filters out 90,000 feet. “Nothing has ever been built like it carbon dioxide so the glider can carry before,” said Guay. fewer oxygen bottles as well as keep the cabin pressurized at a much more comfortable level for the pilots, getting rid of costly pressurized space suits and timely maintenance between flights.

Guay isn’t flying the plane, but “a sharp eye can find me running alongside of the Perlan’s wing on the runway during takeoff in my fashionable safety vest.”

He’s quick to point out that, despite the record-breaking spectacle of the project, what also drew him to it is Perlan’s mission of inspiring the next generation of pilots and engineers, “to help ignite a passion in STEM fields for students.”

alumni news

“I just contacted the group and was persistent, and by the beginning of summer had the internship,” he said. He credits Simpson’s classes at Williston with making him stand out “more than just another basic engineering candidate.”

(Since graduating, Guay has run into Simpson twice, at Costco and Tandem; both times he said he’s thanked Simpson for the invaluable influence.)

Along with the determination and resolve he learned at Williston, Guay noted that the small class sizes, tight community, and teachers who were willing to go out of their way to help gave him the ability to simply talk to and engage people who are successful in their industry. Once he had his foot in the door, he said, the sky was the limit. And that confidence has already paid off; in April, Guay started a job in Boston as an application engineer with Airbus APWorks, a company that specializes in metallic 3D printing for the aerospace industry.

“I’m good at approaching people and having a conversation, but after all of the classes and work, the most important part is showing up ready to learn,” he said. “Williston gives you a good environment to pursue your passions beyond its great athletics and academics, and push yourself outside of your comfort zone. I am thankful for that.”

To follow Guay and the Perlan team’s progress, check out perlanproject.org

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 43

A FAMILY LEGACY In the 1960s, Sabina Cain enrolled her sons Dan ’64 and Jim ’68 at Williston Academy.

What followed was an incredible story of athletics, achievement, and family connection that continues today.

BY JONATHAN ADOLPH

J

ames Cain ’68 grew up less than five miles from the Williston campus, but until his brother Daniel enrolled at the school as a post-graduate in 1963, he says, “I don’t remember that I even knew Williston existed.” As a boy, he had other things on his mind. His father, William, a local plumber, had died suddenly when Jim was 9, leaving his homemaker mother, Sabina, then 45, with four children to raise.

His older brother, William, and sister, Constance, got jobs in town, and, with highly efficient management of limited resources and a position at the Department of Motor Vehicles, “somehow mom was able to stitch everything together,” Jim recalled recently, sitting in a conference room of the newly refurbished Sabina Cain Family Athletic Center. The facility— updated with new flooring, seating, display cases, and banners—was renamed and dedicated this past June to honor Sabina Cain in recognition of her family’s generous support for the school.

A plaque inside the athletic center notes that the standards and values Sabina Cain lived by “encouraged her children to develop their own character and values. These included a strong family bond and an appreciation for community and personal relationships.” Indeed, the success story of Jim Cain and his brother Dan, who died in March 2017 at age 72, demonstrates the power of edu-

44 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

cational values to transform a family.

A high school All-American running back at Holyoke High, Dan was encouraged by his coaches to take a post-graduate year and then pursue college. Accepted at Williston, he led the Wildcats to an undefeated season (he and his team are enshrined in the Athletic Hall of Fame), but also began to excel in the classroom. “He really became engaged academically and motivated to be a good student,” Jim recalls. “He worked hard and in a very short period of time—one year—he had strong enough grades to get into Brown.” Dan later also earned his MBA at Columbia University.

Her son’s transformation did not go unnoticed by Sabina, the daughter of Polish immigrants.

“My mother realized that this was an opportunity that she should try and grab for me,” says Jim. “So she twisted [Headmaster] Phil Steven’s arm, and somehow convinced him to take me in. And I don’t think any of us, either Dan or I, paid a nickel.”

Jim, an accomplished wrestler at Williston who also played football and lacrosse, recalls how his mother loved sports and seeing her sons play.

“She attended all our games,” he says. Wrestling—and the recommendation of his coach and college counselor Don Knauf—would eventually lead Jim to Harvard College, but not before he received some stern counsel from his older brother.

“I was struggling academically,” Jim recalls. “I was lazy and not engaged as a student. Dan really became my father in a lot of ways, more than just an older brother. At Christmas of my senior year, he read me the riot act and then all of a sudden my grades picked up.”

Dan’s paternal guidance would continue after college, as the two brothers pursued careers in finance, eventually forming Cain Brothers, an investment banking firm specializing in health care, in 1982. Both also began a decades-long relationship of support for Williston. Dan and Jim both served for many years as Williston trustees. Jim also volunteered with the Alumni Council, for the Williston Northampton Fund, and as a member of reunion gift committees. As a trustee, he served as treasurer and chair of the Finance Committee, and was a member of the Strategic Planning Committee.

For his volunteer work, he received the Margaret French Eastman award in 2004 and, in 2018, was recognized with the school’s Distinguished Service Award. This past spring, the Cain family presented Williston with one of the largest gifts in its history, which will fund the continued expansion of the Residential Quad, among other top priorities.

As the brothers were building their business, the next generation of Cains was arriving at Williston— Daniel Decelles ’89 and Aimee

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PHOTOGRAPH BY CHATTMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

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1. Dan and Jim Cain in the Cain Brothers 2003 Annual Report.

2. A 1964 Holyoke Transcript-Telegram article about Dan Cain’s football prowess at Brown. 3. The Cain family at Jim’s 1968 graduation, with Jim, far left, and Dan, far right. 4. Dan Cain on the gridiron while a student at Brown. 5. Jim Cain being awarded the Williston Academy wrestling trophy from Coach Don Knauf. 6. Beloved family matriarch, Sabina Cain.

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 45

“Sabina Cain encouraged her children to develop their own character and values. These included a strong family bond and appreciation of community.”

alumni news

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7. Cain family members gathered in front of the Sabina Cain Family Athletic Center, which was dedicated in June 2019 in honor of the family’s legacy of commitment to the school. 8.

Jim Cain ’68 and Head of School Robert W. Hill III unveil the plaque honoring Sabina Cain and five Cain family alumni. 9. In 2013, Dan was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame as part of his 1963 football team. Dan and Jim have both received the school’s Distinguished Service Award (Jim in 2018; Dan in 1989).

46 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

(Decelles) Frosk ’92 (Constance’s children) and Jennifer Cain Cross ’89 (William’s daughter)—drawn in large part by the example of their uncles. “I actually really enjoyed public school,” Jen Cross recalls. “But after my freshman year, something just clicked, and I wanted to follow that path as well.” Her sense of family connection to the school was reinforced when longtime faculty like Rick Francis and Al Shaler would mention her uncles. “How often,” she notes, “are you able to go to the same school as your uncles?”

Dan Decelles, who so idolized his uncles as a boy that he too became an investment banker specializing in health care (and a trustee of the school), had heard his uncles’ stories of Williston, and wanted that experience as well. “I would have wanted to do whatever they did,” he says.

“If they were plumbers, I would’ve wanted to be a plumber.” As for his grandmother, who died in 2006 at age 91, he recalls a very strong, very smart woman who in today’s world would herself have been an accomplished professional.

Her name on the athletic center is a fitting tribute to a school that so influenced the trajectory of her family, beginning with her son Daniel. “It really changed his life,” Dan recalls, “and because of that, it changed all of our lives.”

REUNION

ALUMNI EVENTS

PH OTO G R A PH BY C H AT T M AN P H OTOG R A PH Y

Last June, more than 450 alumni and guests from across the country and around the globe came to Easthampton to reconnect under the big white tent.

Turn the page to see photos and stories about all the fun on campus, and at other events around the country.

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 47

JUNE REUNION! What happens when alumni from across the years get together for one nonstopfun June weekend? Too many hugs and smiles to count. Read on to relive the good times if you were here—and if you missed it, get inspired to come to Reunion 2020!

From left: Andrea Carlson ’89, Lisa Baker ’89, Sarah Williams Carlan ’92, Carrie Baker ’92, faculty member Greg Tuleja, and Koyalee Chanda ’92

Williston Academy Class of ’69 enjoys a laugh. From left: Dana Miquelle, Peter Clark, Jim Fisher, Clark Taylor, Andy Gerald, and Dan Becker

From left: Kent Haberle ’68, Michael Wills ’72, and Carl Alford ’74

48 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

Annie Rhodes Streiff ’84 and Terry Martin ’85

For those who celebrated their 50th, the time together was sweet. The WA planning committee (opposite page, bottom right) put on a great dinner Friday night, and everyone was in favor of the beautiful spring weather.

P H OTOGRAP H S BY C H AT T MAN P H OTOGRAP H Y

Half Centuries

REUNION

Ned Lynch ’65 and Jack Heflin ’64 Activities Galore

You might call it galavanting. Alumni toasted at the Abandoned Building Brewery, practiced warrior pose and downward dog in yoga, painted while they sipped, cut a rug, and had a laugh or two or three. There was plenty to do and plenty of friendly faces to do it all with at Reunion this June.

Luckily, next June, we’ll do it all over again!

Ali Varga ’09, Esther Ayuk ’09, and Susana Alvarez ’09

Faculty joined alumni at Abandoned Building Brewery for Friday night festivities.

From left: Yoshi Funatani ’99, Michael Pantry ’99, and Christa Talbot Syfu ’98

The class of ’69 planning committee, from left: Bill Morrison, Jim Fisher, Ed Mair, David Reichenbacher, Steve Trudel, and Jim Moffett

REUNION

PHOTO BOOTH The best and brightest, they say, come to Williston Northampton. Of course, we agree! But this page highlights the biggest, the most, the furthest, the first. It’s the Bulletin Superlatives! Look out, Log!

Most Champagne-Glass Clinks

It was a beautiful gathering of alumnae that commenced with a champagne toast around the Angelus Bell on the new Residential Quad.

The members of the Northampton School for Girls class of 1969 then schmoozed it up with the rest of the gang. Pictured are, from left, Mimi Johnson Hall, Gail Hamblet, Ava Fisher Maxwell, Betsy Odgers, Kitty Blair Fischer, Mimi Smith Berry, and Janet Miller Lawson.

Most Like Their Past Selves

Most Legacies

Three alumnae from the class of 1994 brought two current Wildcats! Bottom, from left: Crystal Stinson, Jeanette Cruz, LaShandra Smith-Rayfield. Behind them, are, from left, Crystal’s daughters, Safiya Yaseen and Diana Yaseen ’23; Jeanette’s daughter Jasmine Simmons ’24; and LaShandra’s children Aja Rayfield and twins Ezekiel Rayfield and Ayanna Rayfield. LaShandra’s son Malik Rayfield was not able to attend.

50 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

PH OTO G R A PH S BY C H ATT M AN P H OTO G R A PH Y

These members of the class of 2009 replicate a photo of themselves from The Log, which, by the way, had the lengthy title We’ll Never Stop [WNS, get it?] Dreaming, Believing, Living, Learning. Give it up for, from left, Liv Moses Clough, Ali Varga, and Emma Sakson!

Jeanette Cruz ’94

Tory Kolbjørnsen ’14 First to Register

In a nail-biter, Tory Kolbjørnsen ’14 signed up to attend Reunion on January 15, 2019, at 9:25 a.m., beating out Andy Gerald ’69 by 25 minutes.

Read more about Tory on page 18.

’79 Steve Sinkwich

Traveled the Farthest

’79 Whitney Foard Small and Jason Song ’99

Whitney Foard Small ’79 and Jason Song ’99 get credit for the most frequent flyer miles scored on this trip. Whitney covered 8,537 miles from Bangkok, Thailand. Jason traveled 7,275 from Shanghai, China.

Traveled the Least

Spencer May ’09

This page is all about extremes. Jeanette Cruz ’94 and Steve Sinkwich ’79 live in Easthampton, extremely close to their alma mater.

Lucky.

Most Idyllic Departure

This is pretty subjective, but Spencer May ’09 arrived from Jamaica and Paul Doty ’64 flew in from Hawaii. Boy, were their arms tired.

Paul “Duck” Doty ’64

Most Members of a Class

That would be 2014 with 37 classmates on campus for their five-year reunion.

May they continue the tradition for decades to come!

A few members of the class of 2014; for the official class photo, see page 85

REUNION AWARDS Williston alumni continue to make their mark on the school community—and on the greater world beyond. Alumni Award winners were recognized for their work as volunteers, change makers, activists, and steadfast supporters of Williston and its ideals. Athletes, for sustained effort, exemplary performance, and sheer Wildcat pride, were inducted into the Hall of Fame.

ALUMNI AWARDS 1. DANIEL AND JANE CARPENTER AWARD: CLAIRE KELLEY HARDON ’79

2. FOUNDERS AWARD: WILLIAM MORRISON ’69

On the occasion of his class’s 50th reunion, Williston Board of Trustees

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Mission Hospital Foundation. His three sons also attended Williston: the late Bill Jr. ’89, Gregory ’99, and Chris ’01. His daughter, Kelley, graduated from the Stoneleigh Burnham School in ’94. Morrison lives in Asheville, N.C., with his wife, Sherri.

3. WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON MEDAL: DYAN DENAPOLI ’79 1

member Bill Morrison received the Founders Award, given to alumni for their outstanding loyalty, devotion, and service to the Williston Northampton School. Morrison is founder and president of Affinity Advisors, LLC, a financial services advisory firm focused on the credit card industry. Until his recent retirement, he served at MBNA Corporation (now Bank of America Card Services) as vice chairman and

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group executive, a member of the Executive Management Committee, and a board member of MBNA’s international subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, and Canada. He has degrees from Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business, where he also served as a trustee, and from the University of Virginia’s Stonier School of Banking. He currently serves as vice chairman and treasurer of the

Penguin expert and advocate Dyan deNapoli was awarded this year’s Williston Northampton Medal, presented to alumni who have made significant achievements and contributions to their profession and/or community, shown a commitment to professional growth, or been recognized for leadership in their field.

DeNapoli, the award-winning author of The Great Penguin Rescue, which chronicles her experiences co-managing the rehabilitation of 20,000 oiled penguins, works to raise awareness and funding to pro-

PH OTO G R A PH S BY C H AT TM A N PH OTO G R A P H Y

Claire Kelley Hardon was recognized with the Daniel and Jane Carpenter Award, given to an alumna or alumnus who through “effort and energy,” as well as financial contribution, has had a substantial impact on the school. A member of the Williston Board of Trustees since 2015, Hardon currently serves on the Facilities Committee and the Advancement and External Relations Committee. Having enjoyed careers in advertising and real estate sales, she describes herself now as a professional volunteer. A main recipient of her energy and attention is the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), where she serves on the Foundation Board and Women’s Committee, and volunteers in the surgery waiting room. Her fundraising focus at CHOP is to support research and communityimpact programs that benefit underserved communities. A 1983 graduate of Denison University, she enjoys golf, tennis, and spending time with her husband, Clay ’78, and their three grown children.

REUNION

175th Anniversary, the Alumni Trailblazer Award is presented to alumni under the age of 40 who have demonstrated significant professional achievement, contributions to their profession and/or community, and continued promise of success in the future. This year’s recipient, Corie Fogg, serves as the director of curriculum and professional development at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, and is a member of the Head’s Visiting Council at Williston.

In 2018, she coauthored, with New York Times best-selling author Rachel

Simmons, Enough As She Is: The Educator’s Guide. Fogg has been a faculty member, teaching grades 8 through 12, at both public and private schools in Massachusetts and California.

From 2012 to 2015, she served as academic dean and site director for the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth summer program.

She also served as upper-level question writer for the SSAT, and has presented at a range of regional and national conferences on education.

Fogg holds a B.A. and M.Ed. from Boston College.

ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME 4

tect these endangered birds. She is a frequent guest on radio, television, and podcasts in the U.S. and abroad, and has given four TEDx talks, one of which was featured on the main TED website. A lecturer for Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic, she recently returned from her fourth voyage to Antarctica.

4. DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD: FRED ALLARDYCE ’59

The Distinguished Service Award is the preeminent service award bestowed by the school, given to those who have shown an exceptional measure of devotion to the Williston Northampton School. This year’s recipient, Fred Allardyce, has served on the Williston Board of Trustees since 2004, and was president of the board from 2008 to 2012. He is currently the board’s secretary, and has served as treasurer twice. Today, he serves on the Executive, Governance, and Finance Committees. Allardyce is chairman and chief executive offi-

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cer of Cairn Diagnostics, a development-stage medical diagnostic company, and previously served at American Standard in various positions including senior vice president, chief financial officer, and controller. He is past board chair of Phelps Memorial Hospital and of Westerly Hospital, and has served as chairman of Financial Executives International, a 15,000-member organization of financial leaders. He has a B.A. in economics from Yale University and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he was the recipient of the Institute of Professional Accountants Fellowship. Allardyce and his wife, Roberta, have two children, Kristin and Craig, and five grandchildren, Graham Allardyce ’19, Taylor Noel Livingston ’20, Elizabeth Allardyce ’22, Kathryn Livingston ’22, and Chase Livingston.

5. ALUMNI TRAILBLAZER AWARD: CORIE FOGG ’99

Created in 2015 for the school’s

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1. BRYANT MCBRIDE ’84

A postgraduate from Sault Ste. Marie in Ontario, Canada, Bryant McBride was an All-WNEPSSA soccer midfielder, a hockey MVP (helping his team to the New England tournament), and a standout sprinter, sharing the 1984 Denman Award with fellow inductee William Okun. After Williston, he played soccer and hockey at West Point, then transferred to Trinity College, where he was a member of three championship hockey teams and was named All NESCAC as a senior. He has continued to make his mark in the sports world. As vice president of business development for the National Hockey League

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from 1991 to 2000, he created the NHL/USA Hockey Diversity Task Force (now Hockey Is for Everyone) and in 2019 produced Willie, an award-winning documentary about Willie O’Ree, the first black NHL player, whom McBride had hired as a NHL ambassador in 1994. He has run 26 marathons, including Boston and New York, and now lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, with his wife, Tina, and their three children.

Read more on page 24.

2. DAVID RAYMOND ’59

Dave Raymond was recruited by swim coach Wilmot Babcock, but he was also a gifted baseball and soccer player. He was a two-sport captain FALL 2019 BULLETIN 53

alumni events

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Back row, from left: Jeff Pilgrim ’81, Brittany Weiss ’07, Ellie Molyneux ’04, Devon Collins ’04, Katie Coffey Pasciucco ’04, Neile Golding ’04, Kelly Coffey ’07, Vanessa Pogue ’05, Sam Teece ’07, Lee Dangleis Greener ’06. Front row, from left: Rachael Kozera ’04, Katherine Zimicki ’04 and a three-year starter in all three sports, a rare accomplishment in his era. After graduation, Raymond continued his athletic career at Trinity College, culminating in his receiving the coveted Blanket Award for earning nine letters in three sports and the George Sheldon McCook trophy, given to the college’s best male athlete. He later earned the Alumni Medal for Excellence for his commitment to the college. The founder of a company representing New England electronics and plastics manufacturers, he has been active in the Boy Scouts and his church, and served on the Board of Trustees for Williston for five years. He and his wife, Barbara, live in Vermont.

3. 2003 VARSITY GIRLS SOCCER TEAM

Led by head coach Jeff Pilgrim ’81 and assistant Katelyn McCabe, the 2003 NEPSAC-champion Williston girls soccer team won or tied 17 of their 19 contests (nine of them shut-outs) while playing one of the most challenging schedules in

New England. Led on the field by captains Katie Coffey Pasciucco, Rachael Kozera, and Danielle Wieneke McCarty, the senior-laden team defeated Andover, Deerfield, and Kent, as well as college JV teams from Springfield and Williams.

As top seed in the NEPSAC Class B tournament, the girls defeated Worcester Academy 1–0 and ISL power Thayer Academy 4–2 to advance to the championship against Tabor Academy, where Coffey’s 16th goal of the season earned them the 1–0 victory. Senior goalie Devon Collins set school records for career shutouts, saves, and goals-against average. Senior Ellie Molyneux was All Western New England, while Wieneke and Amanda Chuda Kenyon both earned All Western New England and All State honors.

Wieneke also set the school record for career assists. Coffey capped her remarkable career by becoming the school’s first All American for girls soccer and earning Massachusetts Player of the Year honors, setting school records for goals in a season and in a career.

54 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

4. 1964 VARSITY BOYS LACROSSE TEAM

The undefeated 1964 boys lacrosse team, led by Coach Frank “Dorse” Dorsey, finished 12–0, tallying big wins over Taft, Loomis, St. Mark’s, Choate, Mt. Hermon, and a season-capping victory over thenpowerhouse Kingswood. The team was led by 12 returning lettermen, including Tuck Cantrell and Hall of Famer Stephen Durant, both All New England selections in 1963.

Among the new faces were Carter Hunt on defense and Carl Stevens, Ed Green, Cliff Sterrett, and Bob Foster at midfield. Offensively, the team was led by co-captain Hall of Famers Paul Doty and Durant. Doty led a potent attack, finishing with 28 goals and 44 points to earn an All New England selection, and Durant became the top midfield scorer in all of prep New England. The team outscored opponents 90–31 on the season, an average of 9–2, and won the Masters League championship.

5. LISA LAKE ’84

Lisa Lake—Laker, as she was known—was captain of her soccer, basketball, and softball teams, earning MVP honors in all three sports as a senior, and two as a junior. Recipient of the Alumnae Bowl, given to the school’s top senior female

athlete, Lake played soccer and softball at Trinity College, winning the 1987 ECAC Division III softball championship. She still holds the NCAA Division III record for doubles per game. Taking up rugby in 1998, she earned a spot on the USA national team and competed for the World Cup in Barcelona, Spain. A northeast select all-star team member for seven years, she won a national championship with the New York Rugby Club in 2006 and helped launch a youth rugby program in the Bronx with her wife, Annie Collier. Lake and her family live in New York.

6. PAUL STOCKWELL ’79

In his three-year soccer career, Paul Stockwell captained his team as a senior, earned both WNEPSSA Select Team and All New England honors each year, and helped lead his teams to two Stewart Cup championships. As a junior, Stockwell was named the fourth All American in school history. He finished with 21 goals and 21 assists, one of the top assist marks in Williston soccer history. As a lacrosse player, he captained his team as a senior, winning team MVP. He set a school record his junior year with 26 assists. He attended the University of South Carolina to play soccer, but his

Edmund Green ’67, Roy Henwood ’65, “Pup” Gould ’66, Carter Hunt ’64, Bill Northway ’64, Paul Doty ’64, Jon Nelson ’64, Chris Zook ’65, Coach Frank Dorsey, Zack Gould ’64, and Cliff Sterrett ’66

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9. GEORGE “TIGER” CRAIG ’33

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career was cut short by an injury. He lives in eastern Massachusetts with his wife, JoAnn, and their family.

7. COACH ARCHIBALD “HEPPIE” HEPWORTH

Archibald “Heppie” Hepworth coached and taught at Williston from 1926 until his retirement in 1973—a 47-year run. The longtime head coach of both tennis and basketball, he most cherished coaching the novice football group called the Canaries. Each fall, he molded his boys into a team that both loved the sport and won most of their games (his 1941 team, on which his son David played, was undefeated). In addition to coaching, Hepworth taught history—primarily U.S.,

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European, and ancient— and occasionally Latin and German, and served as the dean of students. For Hepworth, there was no “life after Williston”: Living just a few blocks from the school, he and his beloved bulldog, Spence, attended most school events until his death in 1989, at age 86.

8. WILLIAM OKUN ’84

Arriving at Williston as a sophomore, Bill Okun played football, hockey, and baseball, captaining all three teams as a senior. As a running back and linebacker his senior year, he topped the statistical charts in nearly every category, leading the team to a 7–1 record.

He was team MVP and received

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the Boyden Award, given to the top prep football scholar-athlete in western Massachusetts. On the ice, his line averaged three goals a game. As a senior, Okun and fellow inductee Bryant McBride shared the Denman Award, given to the top male athlete in the school. At Amherst College, Okun was a fouryear starter on both the football and hockey teams, receiving the college’s scholar-athlete award as a freshman and captaining both teams as a senior. He earned an MBA at Duke University and lives in New York with his wife, Andrea.

In his two years at Williston Academy, Tiger Craig was an accomplished three-sport athlete in football, basketball, and baseball. What made him legendary, however, were his exploits on the basketball court in the decades that followed.

Craig played in 54 alumni basketball games, through the age of 77.

Known for his two-handed set shot, he would frequently put on shooting exhibitions during the halftimes of Williston games. He was the only person to play a competitive basketball game in all three of Williston’s gyms—the original at Easthampton High School, the “old gym” in what is now the Reed Campus Center, and the current Sabina Cain Family Athletic Center. A participant in the Senior Olympics at Springfield College, he ran the 100-, 200-, and 400-meter events and competed in the long jump, winning four gold medals at age 84. He died in 2012, at age 99.

READ MORE ABOUT THESE AND PAST INDUCTEES AT

williston.com

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 55

ALUMNI SUMMER EVENTS From the baseball diamond to Jacob’s Pillow, alumni gathered in colorful and culturally significant places YARD GOATS IN HARTFORD, CT

Jane Keeney ’70 and Normand Keeney

Matt Shields ’21, Aubrey Shields, Chris Shields ’94, and Liam Shields ’20

From left: Ned Ferguson ’78, Will Hazen, and Bob Hazen ’81

WILDCAT WEEKEND LUNCHEON

Mark your calendars for these great alumni events!

Ray Ahearn ’67, Pam Andros ’67, Carl Andros, and Kerry Dumbaugh

JACOB’S PILLOW IN BECKET, MA

Wildcat Weekend Luncheon at the Seahorse Restaurant in Groton, CT. Front from left: Steve Heider ’58, Mary Ellen Van Rees, Marilyn Case, Mary Knight, Ruth Kelleher, Phil Fisher ’59, Don Barnard ’58, Arvela Heider. Back from left: Jeanne Bryant, Arch Bryant ’68, Sydney Williams ’59, John Harper ’59, John Curtiss ’59, Al Case ’59, Bill Harmon ’57, Pat Harmon, Doug Van Rees ’59, Peter Hewes ’58, Dick White ’59, Susan Fisher, Coach Bob Couch ’50

SAVE THE DATE

From left: Kate Medow ’02, Tiffany Madru ’02, and James Egelhofer ’00

Joe Ziskin P’07, Linda SaulSena P’07, Mark Sena ’72, and Paula Ziskin P’07

Rita Cuker GP’19 (center) with daughter Sheryl Appleyard and grandson Carter Appleyard

DECEMBER 2019

APRIL 2020

• Western MA Holiday Celebration

• Washington, D.C., Alumni Reception

• Boston Holiday Celebration

• Bermuda Alumni Reception

• New York Holiday Celebration JANUARY 2020 • Los Angeles Alumni Reception MARCH 2020

MAY 2020 • Philadelphia Alumni Reception JUNE 2020 • June 5–7: Reunion 2020

• Miami Alumni Reception • West Palm Beach Alumni Reception

For dates, more information, and to register, please visit williston.com/alumni/ events. And make sure to check back often for updates and to see who’s coming!

WillistonConnects Looking for an internship, first job, next job, career advice, or industry contacts? Williston Northampton alumni can be your best connections.

NETWORKING EVENTS Launched last spring in Boston, Williston Northampton School professional networking events bring together alumni at all levels of experience, in all kinds of careers.

Network with peers in your field, explore new options, and learn from experts.

Check WillistonConnects for events near you to strengthen your Wildcat network.

P H OTO G R AP H S BY A DA M G LA N ZM A N

WillistonConnects is our new, powerful networking directory connecting alumni in meaningful ways. You can log in at www.willistonconnects.com; your profile has already been set up by the alumni office.

Answer a few short questions, enhance your profile with your LinkedIn information or resume, and make updates to your contact information. Raise your hand to be a resource to other alumni, and connect immediately with people whose interests match yours. Send emails, schedule meetings or video chats, and join affinity groups. You’ll still have access to directory features to help you find classmates or alumni who live in a particular city or state.

ALUMNI PROFESSIONAL

SHARE YOUR CAREER NEWS

#WildcatsAtWork profiles new and established alumni professionals in internships and jobs across the globe. Find us Wednesdays on Williston Northampton Alumni LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Have a great internship, recent career recognition, or just an awesome job? Email Maddy Scott ’16 in the alumni office at mscott@williston.com.

FALL 2019 BULLETIN 57

alumni events

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ALL IN THE FAMILY For these members of the class of 2019, Williston is a family tradition.

1. Ari Koumentakos ’19; his mother, Melanie Belanger Koumentakos ’89; his sister, Genevieve Koumentakos ’16; 2. Walter Kissane ’19; his mother, Holly McBurnie Kissane ’87; 3. DJ Poulin ’19 (center); his sister, Mairead Poulin ’13; his mother, Tracy Stewart Poulin ’87; 4. Tyler Thomas ’19; his father, 58 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL

Todd Thomas ’86; 5. Graham Allardyce ’19 (fourth from right). From left: his cousin, Noel Livingston ’20; his grandmother, Bobbie Allardyce GP ’19, ’20, ’22; his father, Craig Allardyce P’19, ’22; his sister, Elizabeth Allardyce ’22; his cousin, Chase Livingston; his mother, Becky Allardyce P’19, ’22; his grandfather, Fred Allardyce ’59, GP ’19, ’20, ’22; his cousin, Kat Livingston ’22.

PH OTOG R A PH S BY C H ATTM A N P H OTO G R AP H Y

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Parents: If this issue is addressed to a son or daughter who no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please notify the Alumni Office of the correct new mailing address by

19 Payson Avenue, Easthampton, ma 01027 williston.com

contacting us at alumni@williston.com

Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID The Williston Northampton School

or (800) 469-4559. Thank you.

Change Service Requested

YOU SPOKE UP. WE LISTENED.

REUNION HAS RETURNED TO JUNE! Join classmates, friends, and faculty under the big tent on June 5–7, 2020, for a memorable weekend! wiliston.com/reunion