WILDCAT ROUNDUP

Williston alums are always up to something interesting. Here, we check in with a few.—BY KATE LAWLESS

A WILD PAIR

Ashley Gearing ’09 and her fiddle-playing collaborator deal out the fun

Two Nashville musicians with talent in spades took their show on the road this season, hitting select venues in California and Massachusetts. The Wildcards, a duo of Ashley Gearing ’09 on vocals and guitar and Andrea Young on fiddle, play original songs that offer a “country-rock vibe, with some sweet ’90s pop moments,” Gearing says. The two met while touring worldwide with the band Farewell Angelina. They clicked right away, and fans started to notice that they were having their own separate party on stage.

“One day someone said, ‘We know who the wildcards are in the band,’ and it stuck,” Gearing says.

The two embrace their duality—and their singularity. While very different, they “can read each other’s minds in most situations,” she notes.

The musician’s life is not new to Gearing, who signed her first record deal with Disney at 12 and her second while a student at Williston. “I was in the middle of my freshman year when my record company told me I was going to need to be on a 60-station radio tour across the country and needed to be in Nashville part time as well,” she recalls.

While a more extensive tour is in the works, it will have to wait for life post-COVID. However, now that playing live is a part of her life for good, Gearing is pretty happy about it.

“Music has taken me to places I never thought I would be,” she says. “Ultimately, the first downbeat on the first song of the night is when I’m able to see the crowd having a blast and forgetting their troubles. That’s when I think to myself, ‘Is this really my life?’”

HAPPY BEN CARLSON DAY!

In San Francisco, July 22 honors Ben Carlson ’81. He explains why.

I moved to San Francisco after college, twirled around and threw my hat in the air. But the AIDS pandemic was steadily worsening. I set aside my career plans and worked for Mobilization Against AIDS, an organization that advocated for better public funding, policy, and awareness, and for the NAMES Project, which managed the AIDS Memorial Quilt, a tool for awareness, support, and healing. It was a time of intense activism. I’ve never felt a greater sense of mission. I met and worked with heroic people.

In 1995, a new “cocktail” of combination antiretroviral drugs turned AIDS from a terminal illness to a manageable chronic disease for people with access to the therapy, and the death rate started to drop. The following year I decided to leave HIV/AIDS work and get back to pursuing a design career. The late, big-hearted Jerry Windley, chief aide to San Francisco Supervisor Angela Alioto, organized a very touching thing for me. July 22, 2021, was the 25th anniversary of Ben Carlson Day in San Francisco!

THE SCENT OF ALEPPO

While supporting artisans, Kinda Hibrawi ’96 aims to preserve ancient Syrian craft

When Kinda Hibrawi ’96 catches the scent of laurel bay leaf soap, she’s transported to her hometown, Aleppo, Syria. “The fresh, clean scent reminds me of my grandmother,” she says. To support the continuation of that ancient soap-making tradition, Hibrawi co-founded Mint + Laurel, which imports artisan-crafted, vegan, organic soaps made with traditional Syrian ingredients and essential oils— Damask Jasmine and Rose, Kassab Bay Leaf, Aleppo Tulip, and Amber Musk with Oud. One bar takes a year to cure. The company also imports sumptuouslooking organic cotton textiles woven by hand by Abdullah Al Madani, the last weaver still working in Syria. A 10-minute documentary, “The Last Weaver of Hama,” tells his story; it’s posted at the Mint + Laurel website, mintandlaurel.com.

Founded in 2019 by Hibrawi and fellow Syrian American Rama Chakaki, Mint + Laurel works with artisans in countries in conflict, aiming to bring high-quality products to a U.S. market, while offering a steady source of income to the makers. The company recently earned a fellowship from Nest, a nonprofit supporting the responsible growth and creative engagement of artisans in support of greater gender equity and economic inclusion. The program will provide mentorship, educational webinars, and an extensive network in the retailindustry for Mint + Laurel.

No stranger to making a difference, Hibrawi, who is also a working artist and painter, co-founded and led educational and creative-therapy programs for displaced Syrian refugees on the Syrian-Turkish border. Between 2013 and 2015, the programs, under the Karam Foundation,served more than 4,000 Syrian refugee children and youth in workshops led by more than 130 international mentors. The United Nations named her a 2012 Global Thinker and Influencer. In 2014, she earned the Williston Northampton Medal, the school’s highest award for service to humanity.

While empowering artisans is an important part of her work, a second, broader mission, she says, is shifting how people think about areas undergoing political conflict. Instead of the “incomplete” picture we get of war-torn places from media, she hopes to show that there is a rich history of craftsmanship and culture in these areas that is worth preserving.