UP FROM THE ASHES Wildfires are becoming more frequent and ferocious. Woolsey McKernon ’85 and his team have figured out an innovative way to combine forestry and tech to replant devastated forests.
AROUND THE QUAD
6 | SUPPORTING ALL STUDENTS Williston’s Center for Academic Success continues growing as it celebrates its fifth anniversary
8 | KING OF THE CAGE Five questions for Jason Tirrell ’90 on his role in the Athletic Center’s uniform and equipment hub
12 | PROUD OF THE GREEN AND GREEN See how Williston remains committed to making campus as energy efficient as possible Students emerge from one of the many shops on Easthampton’s Cottage Street, which has become a vibrant arts district. See more photos from this fall on page 14.
CONTENTS | VOLUME 109, NUMBER 2
40
University Settlement spends $52 million annually to assist 40,000 newcomers to New York. CFO Rabiya Akhtar ’99 helps decide how.
49
As CEO of Fiesta Tableware, Elizabeth (Wells) McIlvain ’73 stewards one of the most collected brands in the world.
32 | “IT’S ALL ABOUT TEAM”
44 | OLD STYLE MEETS NEW WORLD
Trying to produce “science that matters” keeps this biologist going as he criss-crosses the globe
A sense of service and a pocket Constitution—two things Navy pilot and White House military officer Tommy Reed ’10 carries with him from Williston
For Don Battimelli ’17, bringing his business acumen back to the family business is a combo as perfect as the Carmine’s Special
21 | WILDCAT ROUNDUP
34 | SOLVING THE PROBLEM AT HAND
PHOTOGRAPHS BY MELANIE ZACEK AND JAMI SAUNDERS
ALUMNI NEWS
20 | 5 QUESTIONS FOR TODD KATZNER ’87
Whether it’s creating a scholarship, baking a sweet goodie, or producing a new podcast, Williston alums are as busy as ever
26 | FROM THE ASHES Innovative financier Woolsey McKernon ’85 uses carbon credits to replant forests devastated by wildfires
The work of finding solutions for complicated social problems often starts with a question. Four Williston alumni are seeking answers, deeply informed by the values they developed at Williston.
49 | DISHING OUT DELIGHT
ALUMNI EVENTS
57 | REUNION 2023 Relive the magic that was Reunion 2023. Take a trip through 48 hours of fun and learn about our latest Alumni Awards and Athletic Hall of Fame honorees.
As CEO of Fiesta Tableware, Elizabeth (Wells) McIlvain ’73 is steering her family’s venerable company into the future
2 | HEAD’S LETTER
52 | IN THE DEEP END
3 | 5 THINGS
From Williston’s pool to the Olympics—the long and amazing career of Dale Neuburger ’67
71 | CLASS NOTES
IN EVERY ISSUE
94 | IN MEMORY
Head of School ROBERT W. HILL III P’15, ’19 Chief Advancement Officer ERIC YATES P’17, ’21
Head’s Letter
Director of Alumni Engagement STEVE HOYT ’95, P’25, ’25 Director of Communications ANN HALLOCK P’20, ’22
“The ability to find points of connection with others is an essential skill students will need as they enter college and the workforce, and one that I feel Williston has a particular knack for fostering.”
Design Director ARUNA GOLDSTEIN Assistant Director of Communications DENNIS CROMMETT Manager of Story and Content Development GEOFF SMITH ’07 Class Notes Editor AJA TALARICO
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
Nondiscrimination 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.
E
very fall, our Deans Office comes up with a guiding theme for the year ahead, an important idea that students explore in orientation, assemblies, dorm meetings, and advisories. This year’s theme of “connections” seems particularly fitting to me—essential even—for an era so marked by complex problems to solve and seemingly unbridgable differences of opinion on virtually any topic. The ability to find points of connection with others is an essential skill students will need as they enter college and the workforce, and one I feel Williston has always had a particular knack for fostering. Our strength stems from the meaningful relationships between faculty and students, which in turn support students’ own connections to ideas, insights, passions, and creativity. This issue of the alumni magazine features many stories of Wildcats connecting with people and organizations to improve the world around them. On page 26, for example, you can read about Woolsey McKernon ’85, whose company has come up with an innovative way to replant forests devastated by wildfires via a symbiotic linking of investors, major companies,
and landowners. You’ll learn about Tommy Reed ’10 (page 32), who carried his sense of teamwork (and his pocket Constitution) from Williston into his current role serving as a Navy pilot and member of the White House military office. And you can find out more on page 34 about the inspiring work of four alums—Ted Caine ’04, Nicole (Smith) Moore ’97, Rabiya Akhtar ’99, and Cameron Dogan ’14—who are part of organizations finding solutions to complex social issues, such as helping people with disabilities enter the workforce or developing educational and social service programs for new immigrants to the U.S. As someone lucky enough to talk to hundreds of alumni a year, I know these stories are at once remarkable and also typical of the things Williston graduates do. It makes me deeply proud of our alums and dedicated faculty—and also excited to see what this next generation of Wildcats will accomplish as they connect with others.
We’re beaming with Wildcat pride that the Williston Northampton Bulletin won the coveted Robert Sibley Magazine of the Year Award, beating out secondary and college alumni magazines around the world. Read more at www.case.org/awards.
2.
1.
STOLING CEREMONY Fourteen members of the class of 2023 participated in the school’s first official Stoling Ceremony last spring. Graduating students thanked their faculty mentors, who in return celebrated each student and gave out kente stoles to wear at Commencement.
3.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHATTMAN PHOTOGRAPHY AND DENNIS CROMMETT
ATHLETICS ON THE ’GRAM Stay up to date on the latest in Wildcat sports news and achievements by following the new Athletics Instagram (find it @willistonteams).
5 Things We’re Talking About! 4.
5. ACTIVE MINDS CLUB This year, students started a new Active Minds Club, dedicated to supporting student mental wellness. Their symbol is the green bandana, which you can see all over campus this fall.
DANCE BOMBA Williston celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month with a visit from the amazing dance and music group Bomba de Aqui (right) and a Community Dinner with classic dishes from across Latin America.
A FABULOUS FULBRIGHT! It’s not every day your English teacher wins a Fulbright, but Sarah Levine did just that! Read more on page 9.
WHERE’S WILLISTON? Everywhere! Follow us online for more ways to connect with your Wildcat pride.
WHERE THE WILDCATS ARE
Join Wildcats in Fort Meyers, Florida, for a Red Sox game this February or find an event near you. williston.com/alumni/events.
WATCH THE WILDCATS LIVE
Feeling nostalgic for your old team or curious to see how today’s Wildcats are performing? We livestream a majority of our varsity contests and many of our arts events, too! Head on over to williston. com/livestream to keep up with the latest.
BULLETIN ONLINE
Enjoying the magazine? Did you know you can also view it online? We revamped our alumni news section online to include all stories in the current Bulletin issue, plus past articles and editions. Check it out at williston.com/bulletin.
You can find grads in just about any career, just about anywhere in the world. Follow our Williston Northampton LinkedIn page, and see if one of our affinity groups is for you—Williston Northampton Alumni, Alumni of Color, and Women of Williston.
LINKEDIN.COM/SCHOOL/ WILLISTON-NORTHAMPTON-SCHOOL
FACEBOOK.COM/ WILLISTONALUMNI
INSTAGRAM @WILLISTONNS
FLICKR.COM/ WILLISTONNORTHAMPTON
YOUTUBE.COM/ @WILLISTONNORTHAMPTON
AROUND THE QUAD
PHOTOGRAPH BY LINDSAY TOPHAM
Actors Fatima Gonzalez Meza Fernandez ’27 and Ronan McGurn ’24 rehearse for this fall’s production of John Cariani’s LOVE/SICK. With some 50 students involved in creating and bringing the show to life, the two-night run “went exceptionally well,” Theater Director Jorge Rodriguez said. “Our audiences found the humor and pathos in this collection of darkly funny, bitterly romantic scenes.”
CAMPUS NEWS
Supporting All Students
This year, Williston’s Center for Academic Success turns 5! Here are some of the ways this innovative center is helping students thrive and reach their full academic potential.
F
ive years ago, Williston set out on an ambitious course to support students by launching the Center for Academic Success—or CAS. Housed in Clapp Library, the CAS has become one of the busiest spots on campus, offering a true constellation of resources for every kind of learner. Offerings range from structured programs—such as the Academic Strategies Tutorial and supported evening study hall—to the more informal dropin centers for math, science, and writing, located upstairs. “I love seeing the growth” says Laura Vachet, Williston’s Director of Academic Support. “The number of students coming in to get help has increased. Some do it for a little while; some take courses all the way through until they graduate. In general, it feels like students see us as a place to go for help, and that’s a huge accomplishment.” To give further insight on just what CAS does, we asked Vachet to share some of its core components.
THE CENTER FOR ACADEMIC SUCCESS
ACADEMIC STRATEGIES TUTORIAL
Located in the lower floor of Clapp Memorial Library, the CAS space is home to two classrooms and two private meeting spaces where students can get one-on-one tutoring. Three CAS teachers staff the center—Vachet, along with Learning Specialists Jessica Tabb Wood and Jayde DawsonGordon—and there are six other tutors available as needed in different subjects and specialties. “What I love most about the CAS space is that it’s completely open to every student in the school,” Vachet says. “We have middle schoolers getting help in the basics, all the way through postgraduate students who want to prep for college.”
The Academic Strategies Tutorial is a trimester-long class in executive functions that meets twice a week. Students gather in small groups with a CAS staffer to learn strategies to promote academic success by developing skills in note taking, reading comprehension, essay preparation, time management, and a host of other important learning topics. For Vachet, who is one of the course instructors, it can be incredibly rewarding. “I absolutely love when I get a handful of students who have low confidence in their skills,” she says, “but then they start to buy in and realize these simple tools can really help them. Hands down, the best part of my job.”
MATH, ENGLISH, AND SCIENCE CENTERS
Need a little help with a calculus problem or your English paper? Stop in to the library, where you’ll find dedicated rooms for math and science on the first floor and writing on the second floor. Staffed by teachers and student-tutors during the day and evening study halls, these rooms allow students to drop in and ask questions about challenging topics. Started in 2006, the writing center has been a go-to resource for legions of students, with more than 1,000 visits per year!
6 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
ACADEMIC ACCOMMODATIONS
For students with diagnostic reports or neuropsychological testing, Vachet reviews the documentation and drafts an accommodations plan in collaboration with each student’s family. The document is shared with teachers, and helps to provide appropriate educational accommodations, including extended time and separate space as needed for testing, and use of a computer for writing.
“The attention to individual needs allows students every opportunity to do their best and to achieve their best,” Vachet says. “That means we’re opening up greater opportunities for when they leave Williston—both where can they go and what they can do. Sometimes it’s just a matter of minimal support that can make a huge difference in a student’s confidence and success.” OPPORTUNITIES FOR MIDDLE SCHOOLERS
When CAS first opened, the focus was on the Upper School, but in recent years it has expanded to include support for seventh and eighth graders, too. Middle School students’ schedules now incorporate proctored study halls and the Academic Strategies courses, along with options for tutoring sessions and homework help—something that can be very helpful for students preparing for high school. “We knew they could use the help to develop academic skills,” Vachet says. “So we worked hard to make sure Middle Schoolers can opt to have that support built into their schedule. It’s great to see.” —By Geoff Smith ’07
around the quad
1.
Cool ON CAMPUS
2.
We polled admission interns about the latest in food, music, and more. Here are their picks.—DENNIS CROMMETT ■ Favorite Meal at a Downtown Restaurant
■ Essential Item in Your Dorm Room
Pulled Chicken Quesadilla from La
LED lights (5) “They add fun
Veracruzana (1) “There is the perfect
color and character to my room.” —Olivia ’25 Mini fridge “I always keep it stocked, and it’s nice to grab a water bottle or Gatorade from there when I need it.”—Ronan ’24
ratio of chicken to cheese, and the chicken seasoning tastes amazing.” —Alyssa ’25 Buffalo Wings from Antonio’s (2) “I didn’t know Antonio’s had wings for the longest time, but they are so good, and you can get them different levels of spicy.”—Elle ’24 Noodles from Kisara “The food is so
class. There have even been studies that students do better on tests when they are chewing gum.”—Lucy ’25 Water bottle (4) “…because hydrate or die-drate.”—Olivia ’25
“Dancing in the Moonlight” by
PHOTOGRAPH BY LINDSAY TOPHAM
King Harvest (3) “The background
music in it is great, and it has such good vibes as a song. I feel like it really embodies Williston in the fall.” —Maisie ’24
Noise-canceling headphones
“They’re always super helpful, whether you’re working out in the Cain Athletic Center or getting work done quietly in the library.” —Elle ’24 ■
(8) “…because of its specific, interesting style and cool drums.”—Jack ’25
Banana chocolate chip muffins (7)
“I’ve been listening to it and practicing it on guitar for Williston Open Mic Night.”—Ronan ’24
6.
Favorite Order in the Stu-Bop
“In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins
“Paper News” by Ritt Momney
5.
Must-Have for Your Backpack Gum (6) “It helps me focus during
■ Song You’re Listening to on Repeat
4.
■
Tofu Crunch Roll and Hibachi
good that it is worth the seven-minute walk from campus.”—Daliah ’24
3.
“They’re so good, especially if you ask for it grilled on the flattop. Especially during assessment week, it’s the perfect pick-me-up.”—Elle ’24 Chicken sandwich “Because it’s so crispy and tastes good!”—Dilan ’25
8.
7.
Five questions for Jason Tirrell ’90 on his role in the Athletic Center’s uniform and equipment hub —BY DENNIS CROMMETT
If you’ve been on a Williston team in the last 10 years, then you definitely know Jason Tirrell ’90 —or “J.T.” as he’s universally called. As the Athletic Equipment Manager, a.k.a. the Director of the Cage, since 2013, J.T. is a beloved fixture, orchestrating the flow of massive amounts of equipment and laundry (30+ loads per week), running scoreboards and other game-day logistics, and supervising student workers. We recently visited J.T. to get a few insights into his world of “Controlled Chaos”—as noted by the sign above his desk—where he thrives with a big personality and even bigger smile. 8 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
What’s your favorite part of the job? The kids. Absolutely. 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. What’s the most important tool for this job? My label maker. With over 60 athletic teams, you have to be organized. Everything’s got labels. Everything. Working with you in the Cage is a popular afternoon program option; how do you choose the right students for the job? You have to have a certain kind of personality to be down here. It’s a very social atmosphere in the afternoon. From 3:00 to when we close, there’s a constant crowd of kids. And just like a regular team, they have a banquet night at the end of the season. Kids do a lot of work—I mean, it takes a long time to fold 150 towels. To have kids do it while they’re talking to their friends is great. Plus, that way I don’t have to spend an hour and a half doing it!
Do you have any equipment or uniform horror stories? The blue bins down here are airtight when shut. One year, after a holiday hockey tournament, the team manager put the sweaty uniforms in the bins without washing them and sealed them up. When we got back from a week and a half off, I opened the bins, and the uniforms looked like they were tie-dyed because the sweat made the colors run! The smell was bad, but it was more shock of what they looked like. We had to buy a whole new set of uniforms on the spot, in the middle of the season. What’s something you do at Williston that people probably don’t know? Every year, after students leave for winter break, the Hills have a party for faculty kids— and I get to play Santa. It’s also the same Saturday as the Ray Brown basketball tournament here, so I’ll go dressed as Santa, and the teams will take pictures with me. But it’s super top secret, and incredibly fun.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DENNIS CROMMETT, PAULETTE GRISWOLD, AND RISLEY SPORTS
King of the Cage
Sports by the Numbers
2
Girls track and field athletes who became NEPSAC champions this past spring during the D-II championships, held at our own Galbraith Field. Catie Spence ’24 and Jurnee Jones ’23 took home gold in the 800-meter run and shot put, respectively.
11
Goals scored by the boys varsity lacrosse team in the championship game of the Colonial Tournament, won by the Wildcats, 11–9, over Pomfret School. This was the first time in five years that the Wildcats won the Colonial Tournament.
16–0
Record by the girls varsity water polo team this past spring on their way to a NEPSAC championship. The team scored 279 goals over the course of the season, while giving up fewer than four goals per game.
A LOVE OF LEARNING Williston English teacher Sarah Levine doesn’t just love teaching— she loves learning, too. Thanks to a Fulbright Award, this year she’ll be doing both: teaching her usual classes at Williston, while taking classes herself as part of the Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms Program. As the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program, the Fulbright Program helps connect teachers from across the United States with teachers from around the globe. “I just love learning,” Levine said of what brought her to apply. “It seemed like a great time to pursue a new opportunity and just to be re-inspired again as a teacher. I get inspiration from many places— from my students, from connections I make with other teachers, from developing and designing curriculum and new pedagogy, and just throwing myself into new experiences.” Levine’s program will see her take an online class, followed by an in-person conference in Washington, D.C., and then an exchange program next summer to a country outside the U.S. “It seems too good to be true,” Levine says of the program. “I can’t imagine a better experience or opportunity.” Levine noted that this opportunity will help her be a better teacher—and build a stronger classroom. “The teacher I aspire to be, and hope I’m becoming, is somebody who’s compassionate and empathetic—somebody who deeply wants to connect with their students and with others and see the world from their perspective.”
Find out more about fall sports results from this year at williston.com/athletics or by following @willistonteams on Instagram.
FALL 2023 BULLETIN 9
The class of 2023 is remarkable in so many ways, including its size. There were 145 graduates feted at Commencement 2023, one of the largest graduating classes ever at Williston Northampton.
10 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
The class of 2023 knows its way around athletic fields and competitions—51 graduates are now playing sports at the Division I, II, or III level in college.
43 members of the class of 2023 took a Williston Scholars course during their time here. A sampling of topics: Williston’s First Chinese Students; Preserving Languages and Cultures Through Oral History; Emotion Detection with AI; Growing Organs and Transplants; and original creative works of writing, music, dance, and theater.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MELANIE ZACEK
After graduation, the class of 2023 headed off to more than 80 four-year institutions— both in the United States and abroad. Skidmore and Northeastern were popular choices, with six Wildcats attending each institution.
Head of School Robert W. Hill III issued one call to action to the class in his Commencement address: “I’m going to offer you just my one solitary piece of advice as you await your diplomas. That one piece of advice is this: Think small. That’s right. Think small, not big.” Meaning, do the small things right, class of 2023, and watch the big things fall into place.
The class of 2023 experienced something in their final year that was foreign to them—a “normal” academic year. The class came in as freshman when the COVID-19 pandemic started, and even through May of their junior years, the class members were masked up and testing. “This is what made this year so special and such a success,” class speaker Luke Ballard ’23 said during Commencement.
1.1
MILLION Disposable plastic water bottles that have been saved from use thanks to our 29 water stations across campus. Installed nine years ago, these stations allow users to fill their own reusable bottles.
90%
54
Portion of the lightbulbs and fixtures that are now LED lights, increasing efficiency, brightness, and longevity.
Average cubic yards of cardboard, paper, and plastic recycled on campus each week. (To visualize that, a standard washing machine is about 1 cubic yard in size.)
ALWAYS PROUD OF THE GREEN AND GREEN
Williston is committed to making campus as energy efficient as possible. Here’s a roundup of some recent improvements.
Solar panels installed on campus, primarily on the Sabina Cain Family Athletic Center and Lossone Rink
150+
New energy-efficient windows that have been installed across campus over the last few years, including complete replacements in Memorial Hall, John Wright, and Scott Hall
50%
Decrease in heating costs, year over year, in Scott Hall, thanks to window replacements in the six science classrooms
1,044
61
55
Geothermal wells that have been installed on campus to help with heating and cooling needs
Temperature (in degrees Farenheit) of the new geothermal wells, which allow a steady baseline for heating and cooling
350
20+
Average depth, in feet, of the new geothermal wells
Wells dug for both John Hazen White and Emily McFadon Vincent houses
2
Electric vehicles that can simultaneously use the ChargePoint charging station in the Scott Hall parking lot
IN THEIR OWN WORDS At this fall’s Convocation ceremony, Student Council President Kevin Mwangi ’24 imparted words of wisdom on how to make the most out of the Williston experience—and why the school has a voice that is “joyous and passionate.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY CHATTMAN PHOTOGRAPHY
G
ood evening, Williston students, parents, faculty, staff. I’m honored to be standing up here right now, welcoming the faces of Williston back to our campus. My name is Kevin Mwangi, and for those of you to whom I have not yet had the chance to introduce myself, I’m a four-year KenyanAmerican boarder from Massachusetts, your senior class president, and, as most of you know by now, I’m also a part-time rapper. As we begin the new school year, I want to share with you all the biggest lessons I’ve learned during my time here at Williston, and offer some words of encouragement and reflection to help us make the most of the upcoming year. Before I start, I want to say thank you to the Physical Plant, Sage Dining, the Housekeeping teams, and all the staff who put in extra work behind the scenes to get today and every day running as smoothly as possible. You all are a really big help to this community, and we really appreciate you; none of this would be possible without you. To the class of 2024: It’s crazy that we’re here already—our last Convocation. For us, this year is going to be full of lasts, with this Convocation being the first last of our senior year. It’s
natural to be upset or sad, but I think once we realize something is limited, it really forces us to appreciate what we previously took for granted. It reminds us that knowing when something is coming to its end is a blessing that isn’t always available in life. And with that, you start to cherish the things you’ve done countless times before. The same breakfast omelet you ask Robin for every morning will start to taste a little more nutritious, and if you’re really into it... maybe you’ll even find yourself laughing at one of Mr. Doubleday’s jokes. Capture these moments, save them in a place where you won’t forget them: your mind, your phone, even a little box. As we go into a big year, remember: It’s the little things. And when the moment turns to a memory, appreciate the experience. So, seniors, this is the time for us to put our all into everything we do, because we don’t have another chance to do it. As we begin the year, I ask you to do one thing—show up. Practice the lip sync with your dorm, sign your team up for the 3 on 3 basketball tournament, be there at the field cheering on your classmates during their games. And it’s not just us seniors; no matter which grade you’re in, I encourage you to show up, embrace each moment and cherish it, because it doesn’t last forever.
I finally got my permit in June this year, and I would jump at any opportunity to drive that came up in my house. Luckily, nobody in my family enjoys driving, so I had a lot of opportunities to do so. I remember one day I was driving with my mom, and we were stopped at a red light waiting to turn. My mom asked me why I didn’t have my signal on, and I asked her: “Mom, if everyone in this lane can only do one thing, why do I need to indicate that I’m turning?” Amidst the lecture that followed, my mom said one thing that stood out to me: “It’s how you communicate with others on the road, Kevin. The car cannot speak, so while you are in here, your turn signals are your voice.” I’d never thought of it like that, but more importantly, I didn’t want to be wrong, so I turned on my turn signal, looked her in the eyes and said “Mom, it’s never that serious.” But as the summer continued, that sentence lingered in my mind. How could something have a voice without being able to speak? And if an inanimate thing like a car can have a voice, can a place have one too? I started listening more closely for voices I had previously closed my ears to. I listened at work, and the voice that I heard sounded something like: “Six Flags, the hour of closing has now arrived,
and we have to say goodnight.” But I also listened at school. And the voices I heard were our own. I heard Will Chalfant asking, “What song are you listening to?” And I heard Riley Van Son shouting, “Pack Lossone!” I heard Coach K’s weekly dress code announcements. But I also heard “Good morning, Linda!” I heard “Have a nice day, Ms. Sawyer!” or “Need any help with that, coach?” And of course, as we’ll all hear in a few minutes, I heard the famous alma mater. I realized that, just like the car, Williston does have a voice. And because of us, that voice sounds joyous and passionate. Now, it’s our job to keep it that way. And how can we do that? Let your own voices be heard. Present something at assembly, participate in Why Not Speak Day, even just hang around the Quad and meet new people. I know how intimidating it can be, but remember: Your voice will never stand alone here. And, as you’ll see in a few minutes when we sing the Alma Mater, we can really make something beautiful when we join our voices together. So, as we go into the year, I urge you to think about what voice you want this school to carry. Then, be that voice, because it starts with you. Hear Mwangi’s full speech at youtube.com/willistonnorthampton
FALL 2023 BULLETIN 13
SNAPSHOTS Last spring and this fall were filled with fun. Here are a few of our favorite moments on campus.
After a busy third trimester, students let loose and celebrated at Willy Gras, complete with canoe races, bouncy houses, lawn games, and cotton candy.
A perk to life at Williston is the array of food options in Easthampton. Grabbing a slice from Antonio’s is always a good call. The annual White Out football game returned this fall as the Wildcats opened the season by hosting Deerfield Academy on Sawyer Field. The stands were bursting with team spirit!
The class of 2024 put their engineering skills to the test with a boat race during orientation. Students had to build a floatable device using only cardboard and duct tape.
14 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
Mug Night, Spike Ball, outdoor movies—no wonder students love to hang out on the Residential Quad.
The annual tug of war contest at Willy Gras tests which grade has the most team spirit. This year’s bragging rights went to the class of 2023.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ERIN LONG, MELANIE ZACEK, PAULETTE GRISWOLD, AND LINDSAY TOPHAM
Ninth grade orientation is the first chance students have to meet their new classmates and build a sense of community through games and a ropes course.
Browse more images of campus life at flickr.com/willistonnorthampton FALL 2023 BULLETIN 15
CAMPAIGN UPDATES Williston has always been close to my heart, so as Board Chair and a proud member of the class of 1976, it has been a great pleasure to witness the success and momentum of the $70 million Williston Builds campaign. Now in its final year, the campaign has made possible countless improvements to our campus, programs, and community, with much more to come. Two types of funding—gifts to the Williston Northampton Fund and gifts to our endowment—are especially critical to achieving our ambitious goals at this closing stage of the campaign. Doing so simultaneously has been important for short- and long-term financial needs and to provide alumni, families, and friends with different opportunities to achieve their philanthropic goals. With more than 12 consecutive years of growth, the Williston Northampton Fund plays a critical role in supporting day-to-day operations and is the primary way most alums are supporting the campaign. The endowment, on the other hand, represents a promise for the future. It serves as a long-term investment in the institution, providing a stable financial foundation for generations to come—something you can read more about on the next few pages. By growing the annual fund and the endowment, we ensure that Williston remains a leader in education and a place where students continue to thrive in an environment that encourages intellectual curiosity, diversity, and inclusivity. The bottom line is: Contributions of every kind matter. As we approach the campaign finish line in June 2024, we are striving to go above and beyond our $70M goal. To those of you who’ve already gotten involved, I deeply thank you on behalf of the Board of Trustees and the whole Williston community. And if you haven’t, this is the perfect time to help us reach our goal and make a difference for this transformative school we all hold so dear. —John Hazen White Jr. ’76, Chair of the Board of Trustees
$49M 15.24% 286
Value of Williston’s endowment as of June 30, 2023
16 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
Endowment growth over last year
Number of endowed funds held by Williston
w i l l i s t o n b u i l d s t h e c a m pa i g n f o r o u r c o m m u n i t y
WILLISTON’S ENDOWMENT 3 KEY THINGS TO KNOW Why is the endowment so important?
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHATTTMAN PHOTOGRAPHY AND MELANIE ZACEK
Thanks to the support of many generous donors, the endowment helps the school fulfill its mission and achieve longterm financial sustainability. Think of it as the school’s savings account, which grows over time through careful investment and donations, and which also helps cover annual operating income costs that aren’t met by tuition alone. Increasing the size of the endowment allows the school to have the firmest possible financial foundation—and to achieve important strategic goals, such as offering generous financial aid, ensuring a talented and energized faculty, and planning for future initiatives.
What do different endowed funds support? Williston holds some 286 endowed funds established by alumni, families, and classes and earmarked for a range of priorities important to those donors and the school. Here are some recent examples of funds started or increased during the Williston Builds campaign. FINANCIAL AID Cathleen C. Robinson Endowed Scholarship Fund
INSTRUCTIONAL | 39% FINANCIAL AID | 37% UNRESTRICTED | 17% INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT | 5% OTHER—BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS; LIBRARY; PRIZES; AND ADMINISTRATIVE | 2%
What does the endowment help fund?
Williston’s endowment helps fund all areas of the school’s mission, as needed. In the last fiscal year, the largest disbursements from from endowed funds supported financial aid (37%) and teaching and instruction (39%), as well as other important needs of the school.
FACULTY SUPPORT The William B. Harmon ’57 Faculty Professional Development Fund ATHLETICS Kate Risley ’93 Fund for Girls Athletics ARTS John P. Spare ’60 Performance Fund ACADEMICS The Barth Family History and Global Studies Fund INCLUSION & BELONGING The Sherrie-Ann L. Gordon ’00 Equity Fund for Social and Diverse Experiences
FALL 2023 BULLETIN 17
A SENSE OF PURPOSE
On Sunday mornings, hours before other students were awake, Paul Wainwright ’68 was in Williston’s darkroom, printing the pictures he’d taken the week prior. The Willistonian’s submission deadline loomed each Sunday evening, and Wainwright wanted to share his best images. He’d pause for breakfast, then hurry back to the darkroom to finish just in time for Chapel. “I was one of the least athletic people in the school,” Wainwright recalls. “In order to fit in, I became the school photographer.” Before Wainright attended Williston, teachers would criticize him for being lazy or day-dreaming in class. The truth: He was dyslexic, although he wouldn’t make this connection until his 30s. Having the time, space, and encouragement at Williston to learn photography was transformative, as was realizing that he could achieve hard things—like committing to the grueling schedule of a young photographer on deadline. “Williston gave me the spark of inspiration and the energy to accomplish things that I didn’t know I had within my powers,” he said. He took this spark and ran with it, earning a bachelor’s degree in physics from Bucknell University, and a master’s and Ph.D. from Yale, before working for Bell Labs for 24 years. “Thus proving,” he laughs, “that I was not lazy. And Bell Labs paid me a lot of money to daydream.” When he retired from Bell Labs in 2001, Wainwright focused again on photography. His work has been featured in solo exhibitions and showcased in numerous galleries and museums. His photography book A Place for Faith documents the colonial meetinghouses of New England. “Photography has always been my expressive outlet,” he said. “Access to the darkroom all those years ago changed my life.” As his career evolved, Williston remained “an anchor point,” inspiring him to stay connected as a volunteer for the Class of 1968’s 50th and 55th Reunion efforts. “I was an only child, and I consider Williston to be my home, and my classmates to be my brothers,” he said. “Helping organize Reunions is like getting in touch with my brothers and saying, ‘Hey, come on back. I’d like to see you.’” This past June, Wainwright accepted the Daniel and Jane Carpenter Award on behalf of the Reunion Committee (see page 61). Along with offering his time, Wainwright has made Williston a philanthropic priority. He recently established the Paul F. ’68 and Philip B. ’23 Wainwright Financial Aid Fund for BIPOC Students. “I’ve realized that I was very privileged at Williston, and that some people in our society have not had the same opportunities,” he said. “A family’s financial abilities should not be a limiting factor.” He’s also a member of all three giving societies—1841 Society, Green & Blue Loyalty Society, and Elm Tree Society—donating to the school for the last 28 consecutive years, and he’s documented an estate gift. “When I turned 70, I started thinking about what I wanted to leave behind,” he said. “It’s natural, given my life-changing experience at Williston, that I would want to support the school financially. It’s a no-brainer. —By Megan Tady 18 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
“Photography has always been my expressive outlet,” says Wainwright. “Access to the darkroom all those years ago changed my life.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHATTTMAN JAMI SAUNDERS (LEFT) AND DENNIS CROMMETT (RIGHT)
Why Paul Wainwright ’68 gives back to the place that sparked his passion for photography
alumni news
ALUMNI NEWS
PHOTOGRAPH SUPPLIED BY TODD KATZNER
We recently caught up with conservation biologist Todd Katzner ’87 as he packed for a research trip to Kazakhstan, where he studies the ecology of eagles. In a globe-trotting career, Katzner has found himself surveying for songbirds in the Alaskan bush, snowshoeing across Wyoming on the track of a rare type of rabbit, or even checking in from Kazakhstan to Jane Lucia’s Williston Outdoor Ecology class. As a Supervisory Research Wildlife Biologist with the United States Geological Survey, Katzner does work that informs everything from renewable energy policy to the development of an avian flu vaccine for the California condor, a potential gamechanger for this severely endangered species. “My goal is to produce science that matters to people,” says Katzner. “Where there are problems, I work to find solutions. Science can point the way.” Turn the page to read more about his work.
Todd Katzner ’87, in Kazakhstan, holds a steppe eagle, a species that faces threats from habitat loss, illegal shooting, electrocution, and capture for market sale. After this picture was taken, the bird was outfitted with a tracking unit and released into the wild.
FALL 2023 BULLETIN 19
golden eagles is way smaller than for bald eagles. If you look at California condors, it’s even smaller. There are 500 of them. On a population level, every condor matters.
BY KEVIN MARKEY
You recently co-authored a paper on lead poisoning in raptor populations across the United States that created a huge stir, the rare scientific study that goes viral. Can you describe your team’s findings? The paper showed that about 50 percent of the eagles out there have evidence of chronic lead poisoning. They’re not getting exposed to lead once. They’re getting it again and again, and they’re getting it from spent lead ammunition. Animals shot with lead are going to be scavenged. Something, often an eagle, is going to eat the gut pile of a deer or the carcass of a woodchuck. We were able to take this understanding of lead poisoning and tie it to population-level effects. We showed that there are demographic consequences when so many of these birds are poisoned. For hunters who want to conserve wildlife, there is also a really easy solution: switch to non-lead ammunition There were something like 500 newspaper articles about us, it was remarkable—The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian. We even made the Daily Hampshire Gazette, and my father saved the article.
Your raptor research generates headlines, but you have other areas of interest. Just this morning I submitted a proposal for pygmy rabbit work. I’ve been studying them since graduate school. Pygmy rabbits are the smallest rabbit in North America and one of the smallest in the world. They occupy sagebrush habitats in the Great Basin, which is basically western Wyoming to eastern Oregon and south through Nevada and parts of Utah, and they eat a diet that is full of toxins. There are all these plant chemicals in sagebrush that are defenses against being eaten. It’s metabolically expensive to process those toxins, yet pygmy rabbits somehow do really well. They also manage to live in some of the coldest places in the lower 48. The other side of it is that we are destroying sagebrush habitat everywhere it occurs. Fires are doing that, cattle grazing is doing that, lots of human activities are doing it. The pygmy rabbit is a species that has been petitioned for listing on the Endangered Species List. Because the species is uncommon and declining, there is an interest to understand it and the habitat it occupies.
Your work with the Renewables– Wildlife Solutions Initiative of the U.S.G.S. also looks at the effects of human activity on wildlife populations. Logic tells us that renewable energy can benefit wildlife. Our intuition is that for 99 percent of species, more will die from climate change than from wind turbines or solar energy. But there are always going to be winners and losers. We happen to have really good tools to estimate how many birds or bats will die if we put up a wind or solar facility. The goal of the Renewables–Wildlife Solutions Initiative is to translate individual counts into an understanding of populationlevel effects. How many is too many? One of the highest-profile species that die in fairly large numbers at wind turbines are golden eagles. Golden eagle populations are stable right now, but if the number killed increases dramatically, then their populations will decline. Bald eagle populations, on the other hand, are in an almost exponential growth, and if bald eagles are killed, it is unlikely to cause the population to decline. When I was at Williston, you never saw a bald eagle. Now you can see them all the time along the Connecticut River. So the number of how many is too many for
A lot of the work we’ve done is based on understanding how birds move— Where do they fly? What altitude above the ground?—so that we can predict where they might be more likely to encounter a wind turbine. Then we can really narrow down the conflict zone. When we can identify risky areas, there are options. Hey, can this turbine be moved a little bit? Or is there something to do to encourage the birds to fly somewhere else?
During your ongoing eagle studies in Kazakhstan, you once discovered a new species of wasp. How did that come about? Some of my research at Naurzum National Nature Preserve was focused on diet and dietary overlap of different eagle species. Taking apart regurgitated eagle pellets, I sometimes found moth larvae. An eagle pellet is the stuff the bird can’t digest, so there is a ball of fur and bones that they cough up after eating. Everywhere in the world, if you have a fur coat, you have to protect it from moths. These moth larvae were eating the fur in eagle pellets. One day I was pulling apart pellets and found things that looked just like the larvae of a parasitic wasp that I studied as an undergraduate at Oberlin College. I collected these wasps, and it was determined to be a new species. My colleagues and I named it after the park where we found it, Copidosoma naurzumense. It’s a nice example of how things you do at one point in your life can end up influencing you in ways you don’t expect.
PHOTOGRAPH SUPPLIED BY TODD KATZNER
5 QUESTIONS FOR TODD KATZNER ’87
You’re involved with the development of novel systems for tracking migratory birds. How can satellite telemetry influence renewable energy policy?
alumni news
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DENNIS CROMMETT AND SUPPLIED BY LEE GREENER
FAILURE ISN’T A FAILURE “Today, while we are here celebrating this collective success very publicly, I want to take pause and be very deliberate in saying this: At some point in the future, you will fail. You might not know how to handle it. Maybe there will be big consequences. It might feel like your world is crumbling. And it will be OK. And just a word of advice—the sooner the better. The longer you wait, the harder it gets.” —S. A. Fogleman ’10 in her message to the graduating class of 2023 during Commencement. An orthopedic surgeon for the U.S. Navy, Fogleman challenged graduates to take risks—and accept that they might not work out.
A RECRUITING REUNION This summer, Las Vegas was overrun with Wildcats, when Lee (Dangleis) Greener ’06, Jeff Pilgrim ’81, Kate (Murphy) Kausch ’98, and Akintoye Moses ’00 all attended the Enrollment Management Association annual conference for their four respective schools. “The amazing thing about these types of conferences is to see how people’s experience at Williston has perpetuated the work they do,” Greener said of the meet-up. “They’re giving back to education and still in education—and it’s even cooler to me that we are all in enrollment.” There was also an extra layer of symmetry: Greener (Williston) and Kausch (Fessenden School) work to admit students, while Pilgrim (Bement School) and Moses (PREP 9) help place their students into the next level of preparatory schools. “It feels good to all be helping students have the great experiences we had,” says Greener.
FALL 2023
BULLETIN 21
alumni news
Reaching Back to Pay It Forward A Williston connection helps a new scholarship fund find a worthy recipient on campus—BY GEOFF SMITH ’07
W
hen Mike Doetsch ’82 was looking for the first athlete to honor with a scholarship from his newly formed West End Alumni Fund, he decided to look back home to Williston—and found the perfect recipient: football standout Jayden Clerveaux ’23. Founded by a group of Trinity College football alumni in September 2020, the West End Alumni Fund (WEAF) aims to give “hard-working high school student-athletes the opportunity to pursue their passion of collegiate sports.” Quite simply, the fund wants to help bridge the gap between a desire to go to college and the economic realities of attending. “Frankly, college is ridiculously expensive, so if we can help a little bit, that’s what we want to do,” says Doetsch, who works in Manhattan as a Senior Vice President for Cresa, an international commercial real estate firm. In addition to Doetsch, the WEAF also has another Williston connection in Max Chipouras ’15. Doetsch initially reached out to Tommy Beaton, Williston’s football coach, looking for a potential candidate. Beaton thought of Clerveaux immediately. In his PG year, Clerveaux rushed for 1,263 yards and 18 touchdowns as the Wildcats went 7-2. “He is a great player,” says Beaton. “But I also thought of his character—who he is as a person stands out big time. There was not a nicer kid on this campus.” Clerveaux, who now plays football at the College of the Holy Cross, was “stoked” to get the call that he had won the scholarship in the spring of 2023. “Knowing that I won it meant so much,” Clerveaux says. He’s excited to be able to carry on his dedication to football at Holy Cross. 22 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
MIKE DOETSCH ’82 “It’s the kids—you know the people there, and you know the standards that Williston has.”
TOMMY BEATON “[Clerveaux] is a great player, but I also thought of his character—who he is as a person stands out big time.”
JAYDEN CLERVEAUX ’23 “[Alumni] are people that can
help if you ever need anything. They’re always in your corner.”
Football talents alone, though, aren’t what set Clerveaux apart. It’s also why WEAF looked to Williston when searching for candidates—to find student-athletes who demonstrate promise on the field of play, in the classroom, and as leaders on campus. “Williston changed the direction of my life for sure,” Doetsch says. “I said, ‘We’re going to go back to the schools that we went to.’ It goes to the character. It’s the kids—you know the people there, and you know the standards that Williston has.” Coming into Williston, Clerveaux had heard about the strength of the alumni network. Seeing it in action was completely different. “[Alumni] are people that can always help if you ever need anything. They’re always in your corner,” Clerveaux says. That also extends to Beaton and his coaching staff. “Those coaches, I’ll be forever grateful for what they did for me not only as a football player, but as a person.” For a student-athlete who had some reservations about doing a postgraduate year, Clerveaux looks back with fondness on his time on campus. “The transition from a public school to a private school helped me a lot,” he says. “I’ll rave about it to the end of time. That year alone helped me become a better socializer and just better at everything. I’ll always stand by that.” The connection between Clerveaux and WEAF won’t end with the scholarship check. According to Doetsch, the WEAF wants to continue following Clerveaux’s journey and provide him with another network of support. This fall, though, they’re just excited to see their first recipient suit up in purple and white to represent Holy Cross—on and off the field.
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SWEET SUCCESS Forty years ago, Phyllis (Lockwood) Geiger ’65 opened the first Peterbrooke Chocolatier store in Jacksonville, Florida, naming it for her then-young children, Peter and Brooke (Behringer) Joyner ’95 (who now owns her own Peterbrooke franchise in Florida). Today, some 25 franchises dot the Sunshine State and beyond, specializing in both European-influenced classics such as truffles, hand-made caramels, and cherry cordials, as well as distinctly American chocolate-dipped treats: cookies, pretzels, and—perhaps most delectably—popcorn, the company’s top seller. To order, email Brooke at Brooke@Peterbrooke.com (or call 904-246-0277), and she will ship directly to you.
WilliStuff! A roundup of intriguing products made by Wildcat entrepreneurs and artists
OH, GOODIE! Founded by Katie (Coffey) Pasciucco ’04 and two other Massachusetts moms, Favorbar takes the art of the goody bag to a whole new level. The trio’s website offers themed swag collections for birthdays, bridal and baby showers, graduation parties, or any special occasion in need of a memorable favor. After meeting at their children’s preschool, the founders bonded over planning school events, wishing they could simplify party tasks. Favorbar was their festive solution. favorbar.com
3 GET A GRIP While trying to wrangle an active dog or carry a squirmy toddler, who hasn’t wished for another arm? Joe Wold ’06 has come up with perhaps the next best thing: the Life Handle, an over-the shoulder sling whose various grips, clasps, and other accessories anchor your dog leash, help you carry kids, and assist with lifting and transporting heavy items. The sling’s padded strap takes the load off, reducing muscle fatigue and strain. mylifehandle.com
STYLISH STATIONERY Bay Area interior designer Sarah (Dempsey) Tarantino ’94 launched her online stationery and gift store Ted&Kate in 2017 because “long days, short years create a lifetime of little memories, memories that should be embellished just as beautifully as your major life events.” Toward that goal, Tarantino—who also founded the custom wedding- and event-stationery business Woods & Company, in 2009—provides a variety of distinctively styled cards, mugs, candles, prints, seasonal decorations, and more. tedandkate.co
Do you know a Williston alum who is making interesting stuff? Let us know! Send suggestions to info@williston.com. FALL 2023
BULLETIN 23
alumni news
Creators’ Corner
Williston alums are showcasing their artistic talents in podcasts, on TV shows, and in video games. Here are a few to follow.
The power of video games comes through their stories, and the voice actors behind our favorite video game characters help bring everything to life. Leeanna Albanese ’16 is lending her voice to a much-loved series, as she joined the voice actors for Persona 5 Tactica, the latest chapter of the video game franchise. Albanese is voicing the character Erina, who is a newcomer herself to the video game franchise. Erina is the biggest voice-acting role Albanese has landed yet. The game is due out November 17, 2023, and is available on all major consoles and PC. Liz Culley ’03 has carved out a successful career in the digital content industry, and her latest venture is allowing her to tell her story, her way. “Cool Cool Cool,” a podcast Culley started in October 2022, is about
“a lot of interesting conversations, stories from the late 90s and early 00s, sh*t talk, gay stuff and things I’m into,” according to her Instagram post announcing the podcast’s start. Culley welcomes a variety of guests to her weekly program, typically about 50 minutes, to talk a little bit about everything. Check out her podcast on your favorite podcast app. Christian Hanley ’05 is no stranger to hosting a podcast, but now he’s getting personal with it. Hanley recently launched a new podcast series, “Good Guys Getting Better,” hosted by himself and featuring friends and colleagues, to talk about “fatherhood, relationships, and the endless pursuit of not being a d!&k,” according to his Substack. A full-time consultant and dad, Hanley’s new show will feature the news and politics from his old
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From left: Hear the voice of Leeanna Albanese ’16 on Persona 5 Tactica; check out podcasts from Liz Culley ’03 and Christian Hanley ’05; a food history show from producer Mickey Meyer ’03. Below: Sex advice from Yana Tallon-Hicks ’04.
show, “Keep It in Perspective,” but will also dive deeper into conversations around parenting, relationships, and the “things that really matter.” Find episodes wherever you get your podcasts. We all love to eat—but have you ever wondered about the history of your favorite dish? Mickey Meyer ’03 produced a television show that gets
right to the heart of that question. Messy History of American Foods, streaming on Prime Video, tells us the complicated backstories—from secret legacies to unsung heroes— of foods we eat every day. The sixepisode series, narrated by Conrad Haynes, covers cereal, hamburgers, soda, bread, chicken wings, and chocolate. Learn more at Prime Video. An acclaimed sex therapist, Yana Tallon-Hicks ’04 is writing down the answers to all the questions you’ve been to afraid to ask about your love life in her new book Hot and Unbothered. The book talks us through “how to think about, talk about, and have the sex you really want.” The book gets into all aspects of a healthy love life—with plenty of examples—and “the results make for a superb manual on having more fun in bed (or wherever),” according to a review from Publishers Weekly. Available through bookstores or online vendors.
SPORTS SHORTS
Six Wildcats making their mark in athletics—BY GEOFF SMITH ’07 1. MICHAEL DEREUS ’16
3. FILIP REBRACA ’18
Michael Dereus ’16 enjoyed a championship-caliber summer, as his Birmingham Stallions football team won the United States Football League championship. The Stallions defeated the New Jersey Generals 27-10.
The journey continues for Filip Rebraca ’18, who has signed a contract to play professional basketball for Borac Mozzart in his home country of Serbia. Borac Mozzart plays in the AdmiralBet ABA League. Rebraca enjoyed a successful collegiate career at North Dakota and Iowa, where he graduated with a Third Team All-Big Ten selection his senior season.
2. CHRIS POLIZZI ’01 Chris Polizzi ’01 secured himself a new job ahead of the 2023 college football season. Polizzi was named Defensive Coordinator and Safeties Coach at the University of Tulsa in May, after spending five seasons at Tennessee-Martin—including three as Defensive Coordinator.
4. GABBY THOMAS ’15 Gabby Thomas ’15 entered the track and field season with a bang this year, winning the 200-meter dash at the U.S. Championships in Oregon in
July. She set a personal best of 21.60 seconds, meaning she has the sixth and seventh fastest times recorded in the event— ever. Thomas’ success continued in August at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, where she earned a silver medal in the 200 and took home gold as part of the 4-by-100-meter mixed relay team.
5. TIM REGO ’19 Tim Rego ’19 still has time left in his collegiate hockey career at Cornell, but he got a taste of the next level over the summer at the New Jersey Devils development camp. At the July session, 33 prospects
took the ice to show off their skills for Devils leadership. Rego is playing his senior year at Cornell this winter.
6. DAVIS SMITH ’16 Davis Smith ’16 has chased his soccer dreams all the way to Germany. Smith, an Amherst, Massachusetts, native, signed in July with the German club Chemnitzer FC, which competes in the fourth tier of German football. Smith was playing for MLS Next Pro club Rochester (N.Y.) FC before making the move.
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CELEBRATING DON KNAUF Williston Academy alums from the 1960s and early 1970s—especially grapplers—will remember legendary wrestling coach, history teacher, and college counselor Don Knauf, who this year was inducted into the Florida chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. Knauf, now 88, arrived at Williston in the fall of 1962, and in his eight years at the school coached teams to six straight top-10 New England championship finishes. “Coach Knauf did a lot for me,” recalls Jim Cain ’68. “Convincing me to join the wrestling team was a major achievement for me. Helping to get me into Harvard was a miracle!” After Williston, Knauf went on to a long career in wrestling, founding the program at powerhouse Southern Connecticut State, among many other accomplishments. “I just fell in love with the sport, and what it was doing for me and the guys around me,” Knauf said at his induction. “Wrestling has been the core of my life and my being.” Find out more at nwhof.org.
UP FROM
PHOTOGRAPHS SUPPLIED BY MAST REFORESTATION
Innovative financier Woolsey McKernon ’85 uses carbon credits to replant forests devastated by wildfires —BY JONATHAN ADOLPH
THE ASHES
alumni news
ay you are the unfortunate owner of forested land that has just been incinerated by wildfire, an alltoo-common event in today’s climatecontorted world. Until recently, you had three options: 1. Do nothing and watch invasive brush take over, increasing the risk of another fire in the future; 2. Replant your land with timber, at considerable expense, and wait decades for a return on your investment; or 3. Sell the burned property and take roughly a 50 percent loss, if you can get it. Woolsey McKernon ’85 and his colleagues at Mast Reforestation want you to know you now have a fourth option: Let his Seattle-based startup restore your property back to a thriving native forest. Using their proprietary technologies and control of the supply chain, they’ll move quickly to assess and prepare your site, send in teams to replant the land with customgrown resilient native seedlings, and then closely monitor your new forest’s growth. The clincher: There’s no cost to you. You just have to agree to keep the land as a forest for at least the next 100 years. How can Mast Reforestation pull this off? That’s where McKernon comes in. A climate tech professional who specializes in steering investment dollars to environmental solutions, he has built a career finding creative ways to finance green innovations. Today,
as Chief Revenue Officer and Head of Capital Markets for Mast, he is tapping the power of the carbon credit market, the voluntary system whereby corporations purchase credits to help them achieve their carbon-neutrality goals and meet other regulatory standards. Mast’s corporate clients pay to secure the carbon locked up in your future trees; that money in turn funds Mast’s reforestation work and provides landowners like you with a tidy payoff, a return that Mast says will exceed your other options. It’s a win-win business model that is resonating with both landowners and the climate investment world. Since its founding in 2016 (originally as DroneSeed, an aerial tree-seeding company), Mast has raised $36 million through a Series A fundraising round, with a Series B in the works. Investors include firms such as Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six, Social Capital, DBL Partners, and Marc Benioff’s TIME Ventures. More recently, McKernon, who joined Mast in 2022, secured a first-of-its-kind, $15 million financing deal with Carbon Streaming Corp., a publicly listed Canadian company, to support reforestation. Clients that have purchased carbon credits include the e-commerce company Shopify, which bought $1 million worth in 2022. With the influx of venture capital, Mast acquired the venerable tree-seed supplier Silvaseed Company in 2021 and seedling grower Cal Forest Nurseries in 2022, making it now the largest seed bank in the western United States and a vertically integrated one-
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stop shop for landowners. Still early in its evolution, the company to date has replanted 5,000 acres, including the 300-acre Henry Creek forest in western Oregon in 2022 and Montana’s Sheep Creek Ranch (see companion article, page 31). But McKernon is optimistic that the company’s comprehensive approach—referred to as “reforestation-as-a-service”—is ready for broader application. “Can you make money reforesting post wildfire? Yes, you can,” he says. “It makes sense for the landowner. It makes sense for our venture investors. It makes sense for Wall Street investing in these projects. And, it’s a win for the rural communities we operate in,and, most importantly, the environment. So it’s the entire continuum. And, honestly, I absolutely love it.” Born in Connecticut, McKernon was a teenager when his family moved to Vermont, where his father served as Business Manager for the independent Mountain School, a handson, back-to-the-land academy in Vershire. Before transferring to Williston, McKernon attended the school for ninth grade, an experience that introduced him to the ecological thinking that would inform his professional career. But it was at Williston, he says, that he acquired the interpersonal skills that have proved crucial to his success as a manager and business leader. As a member of the hockey, soccer, ski, and lacrosse teams, he learned teamwork, he says, while living as a boarder taught him selfreliance. However, it was navigating the school’s diverse community and
Mast Reforestation’s Woolsey McKernon ’85. Inset: a company seedling Previous spread: Wildfire raging (left) and a nursery field of tree seedlings
socializing with all types of people, he says, that have proven most valuable. “How am I a successful sales leader? How have I been so successful at raising capital against innovative solutions to mitigate climate change?” he says. “Someone’s got an idea—I stack all the people and capital around it. Where did I get those skills? Dealing
alumni news
PHOTOGRAPH BY RACHEL DALE
“Can you make money reforesting post wildfire? Yes, you can. It makes sense for the landowner. It makes sense for our venture investors...and, it’s a win for the rural communities we operate in and, most importantly, the environment.”
with our little community in my little dormitory, way back when. Those are foundational skills, and I definitely thank the school for that.” After Williston, McKernon attended the University of Vermont, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in political science and minors in English and Spanish. In 2006, married and with
two young sons, he moved his family to Singapore, where he worked for investment firms and earned an MSc in environmental management from the National University of Singapore. His thesis focused on leveraging private capital to bring green innovation to the built environment, and for the next 15 years he did just that, creative-
ly financing sustainable innovation in the real estate and building industries. He was particularly successful in his use of a then-obscure financial instrument known as Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) loans, which provide property owners with low-cost financing for sustainability improvements. While at California-
based CleanFund, he brought new attention to the PACE option by securing a groundbreaking $500 million deal with Barry Sternlicht’s private equity firm Starwood Capital to green commercial properties. Today, as society and the business world consider what role carbon credits should play in countering climate change, FALL 2023
BULLETIN 29
McKernon hopes to repeat that earlier success at Mast. “I joined the business here to do the same thing,” he says. “Take an esoteric asset class and make it investment grade. That includes building the sales engine to ensure there’s a pipeline to consume the capital.” His efforts could not come at a more crucial time. Now living in Ashland, Oregon, with his wife and two teenage sons, McKernon knows firsthand the devastation of wildfires, and the heartbreak of rural communities struggling to recover in their aftermath. Experts may cite various factors contributing to our current wildfire epidemic—past forest-management practices, human encroachment on forest lands, and, of course, global warming—but the importance of reforestation is undisputed. Fires burn hotter than ever before, McKernon notes, incinerating all of the seed in the tree canopy and soil, contributing to a steady decline in the ability of forests to regenerate naturally. “Human intervention is required, and it’s required at a scale that’s unprecedented,” says McKernon, noting that in contrast to other industries that have benefitted from investment in innovation, the forestry industry remains woefully underresourced despite the increasing need. Boosted by climate investors, new technology, and the carbon market, McKernon hopes to lead a private-sector response to an ecological crisis that is demanding new approaches. “I need to raise and deploy billions of dollars into this business, and I need to do it yesterday,” he says. “Two nights ago, just south of me, there were 400 lightning strikes. Now there are close to 40 fires burning, just like that. The thing that compels us to act is the scale of forest fires, burning in essence the size of New Jersey in a year. We have to intervene in those landscapes, or forests will be gone and we’ll have a savannah across the western U.S.”
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Inside Silvaseed’s drying barn, where harvested pine cones and their seeds are stored before processing and planting.
PHOTOGRAPHS SUPPLIED BY MAST REFORESTATION
alumni news
Workers harvest native tree seedlings from the fields at Silvaseed nursery, in preparation for transplanting them in firedamaged forests.
RESTORING MONTANA’S SHEEP CREEK RANCH
Some 3,000 acres of Don Harland’s Sheep Creek Ranch are being replanted by Mast Reforestation
Sparked by a lightning strike just south of Cascade, Montana, on July 23, 2021, the Harris Mountain fire incinerated 32,000 acres of scenic wilderness and wildlife habitat, including 4,500 acres of the Harland family’s 5,200-acre Sheep Creek Ranch. Owner Don Harland wanted to replant the land for his grandchildren and for the animals that depended on it: elk, deer, bear, and bighorn sheep, among others. He turned for help to forester Zach Bashoor, who in turn enlisted Mast Reforestation. The project has become the state’s first private land reforestation, and a demonstration of Mast’s innovative business model: using carbon credits, and the latest forestry technology, to replant native woodlands at no cost to the Harlands. Funded by public grants as well as Mast’s carbon credit sales, some 3,000 acres will be replanted with more than a million of Mast’s own “FirePlug” seed-
the terms of Mast’s agreements, the land will remain a forest for the next 100 years. “Communities face huge barriers to reforesting,” the company notes. “Without our combination of services, reforestation and ongoing management wouldn’t have been feasible for Don and his family.”
lings. The company collects fire- and droughttolerant seeds, often from the area of a fire, then grows them in its tree nurseries, creating a vertical supply chain that avoids the seedling bottlenecks that have hampered other reforestation efforts. Unlike the dense monoculture forests planted for timber, Sheep Creek will be a mix of native lodgepole pine, ponderosa pine, and Douglas fir. “We are trying to create a diverse natural ecosystem with a variety of species,” explains Mast’s Woolsey McKernon ’85. “This is really all about creating a forest ecosystem that is going to be resilient and able to withstand the next fire that sweeps through.” Hand-planting the seedlings will take crews three years, after which the young trees’ growth will be monitored and managed as a way to ensure investors that they are indeed capturing carbon. Under
“IT’S ALL ABOUT TEAM” A sense of service and a pocket Constitution—two things Navy pilot and White House military officer Tommy Reed ’10 carries with him from Williston —BY DANIELLA VOLLINGER 32 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
PHOTOGRAPH BY SHAWN HUBBARD
I
n the top compartment of a nondescript backpack sits Tommy Reed’s pocket Constitution—a prized memento from a history class with former History and Global Studies teacher Peter Gunn. “I took that with me on every deployment, always in my flight bag,” recalls Reed, a U.S. Navy helicopter pilot who most recently served as Coordinator of Military Transportation for the White House. “Every time we recite our oath to the Constitution, I think about the fact that I got it in that class.” This past October, Reed wrapped up his service on the team that helps coordinate flights by Air Force One, the presidential jet, and Marine One, the helicopter often seen transporting the president from the White House lawn. The role capped a 10-year career in the Navy that had a profound impact on Reed’s life, and reinforced the values of service and teamwork that he says he developed at Williston. With his wife expecting their first child in February 2024, Reed is now looking ahead to his next chapter as a civilian—possibly working himself at an independent school—and looking back at his Navy accomplishments with a new perspective. Prior to his work for the executive branch, Reed was one of a small number of Navy pilots who fly the MH-53E, known as the Big Iron, the military’s largest and most powerful helicopter. With a load capacity of 32,000 pounds, the Big Iron specializes in heavy lift operations, hauling cargo and up to several dozen people. “I have a complex relationship with that aircraft,” says Reed, who spent countless hours operating what he describes as a muscle car version of a helicopter. “When I was in helicopter training during flight school, I thought the ’53’ was awesome. I loved the idea of flying with a big crew in that big, old, greasy helicopter.” The Navy uses the MH-53E, along with other assets, to find, detect, and eliminate sea mines. Built in the 1980s (and still using technology from that era), the MH-53E takes a massive amount of manpower to operate safely. Of the roughly 500 members of Reed’s squadron, fewer than 25 percent (the 30 pilots and some 60 crew members) actually fly in the aircraft. The remaining 75 percent work on the ground to ensure the helicopter is safe to operate. “It’s an absolute team effort,” notes Reed, “and that’s one of the biggest things I’m proud of: I was part of that team,
alumni news
and we went out there and operated safely. We did what we could with an old helicopter that was built before I was born.” The idea of serving a goal greater than oneself is deeply woven into Reed’s life history. It dates back to his four grandparents, all of whom are buried at Calverton National Cemetery, Long Island’s cemetery for military veterans and their families. Growing up Irish Catholic on Long Island, he frequently attended Sunday Mass, a tradition that continued at Williston, often alongside Athletic Director Mark Conroy and his family. “It started at Williston,” says Reed, explaining how his experience playing hockey for Coach Derek Cunha instilled values of service and teamwork that were foundational to his growth at the Naval Academy. An example: One week into the hockey season, as a repeat sophomore and the youngest player on a Williston hockey team led by postgraduates, Reed was not getting much playing time. Taking his mother’s advice, he approached Cunha to let him know that he understood his role on the team, and that he was dedicated to earning his spot. “I was this awkward teenage kid,” says Reed, recalling the conversation with Cunha. “I told him, ‘I’m going to try hard; I know I’m not playing, and I understand because I’m young that I have to earn it.’ And Coach was like, ‘Yep, there you go.’” Shortly after that conversation, Reed says, he had an experience that gave him his first sense of belonging to the Williston family. “We played a home game, and every time I got an opportunity, I shot the puck. I scored two goals that game. I remember the next day at school, teachers, students, and upperclassmen were all saying, ‘Way to go, Tommy!’ And instantly, I was like, ‘I love it here!’” As a member of the Head’s Visiting Council and a Williston Northampton Fund co-chair, Reed has returned to Williston and found some of his favorite things unchanged: So many of his favorite faculty members are still here, a testament to the strength of the Williston community. When Reed hangs up his flight bag and returns to civilian life next October, he’ll take with him his pocket Constitution and a sense of purpose and duty that Williston and the Navy have reinforced. “It’s all about the team, building you to be part of something bigger than yourself. Know your role, but also train someone else to take over your job and make it better than when you got there.” FALL 2023
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How can we support young people Because they often don’t have the opportunity to prove P.38 themselves, says Nicole (Smith) Moore ’97, whose organization Sponsors for Educational Opportunity is working to change that.
Why are talented kids from not finding success What resources would best help new
P.42
How can we help people with meaningful and
At Daivergent, a training platform and coaching service for the neurodiverse community, Cameron Dogan ’14 leverages both high technology and human interaction.
P.36
As Chief of Staff for the New York City nonprofit The Door, Ted Caine ’04 helps oversee a one-stop socialservice shop for teens and young adults.
with care they’ll actually use?
underrepresented backgrounds in the business world? immigrants to this
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAMI SAUNDERS
P.40
University Settlement spends $52 million annually to assist 40,000 newcomers to New York. CFAO Rabiya Akhtar ’99 helps decide how.
country?
autism build a independent life? The work of finding solutions for complicated social problems often starts with a question. The alums on the following pages are seeking answers, deeply informed by the values they developed at Williston. —BY JONATHAN ADOLPH
PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMI SAUNDERS
alumni news
36 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
Opening the Door for Youth in Need
The whole point is to remove barriers from treatment and services, so young people can embrace holistic care.
TED CAINE ’04 Work: Chief of Staff at The Door Home: Manhattan, N.Y. Williston memory: “My senior year, I got to be the lead in the musical Anything Goes. I was singing the song ‘It’s De-Lovely,’ and at the end, he walks up this flight of stairs and kisses Hope. And every time I stepped on a stair, the stair lit up. I just loved that.”
Looking back, Ted Caine ’04 says his senior year at Williston—when he starred in plays and dance programs, captained the track and cross-country teams, and sang with the Caterwaulers—was a favorite period in his life. But it wasn’t just for the experiences, memorable as they were. It was also because he was beginning to recognize his own potential. “The fact that I could be a part of these plays and dance festivals, but also be on a varsity sports team,” says Caine, who was a six-year day student from Northampton and now serves on the school’s Head’s Visiting Council. “That really helped me grow and realize what I could do.” Today, as Chief of Staff for The Door, a New York City nonprofit that provides a wide range of free educational, health, legal, and social services for teens and young adults aged 12 to 24, Caine is again demonstrating his versatility. The organization’s lead administrator, he works directly with the CEO, serves as liaison to the board of directors, and helps manage and motivate the staff of 300 at its locations in the Bronx and SoHo. “Chief of Staff is really hard to explain to people,” says Caine, who lives in Manhattan with his husband, Josh Korth. “Because you do some of everything.”
Adding to the challenge, The Door’s mission is similarly multifaceted. The organization provides practical resources—crisis assistance, academic support, college preparation services, career development, job training and placement—but also serves as a community center, with art spaces, sports and recreational activities, even meals. “It’s a one-stop shop for young people in need,” explains Caine, noting that the group’s funding comes from public grants, foundations, and private donations. “Maybe you are coming to see one of our 28 lawyers for immigration-related legal work. And once you’re here, you discover a welcoming environment that offers other free, crucial services in the same space—so you drop into the health center and see a doctor, and a dentist, and are able to pick up your prescriptions on site in our pharmacy. The whole point is to remove barriers from treatment and services, so that people can embrace holistic care. And a lot of people use it as a safe space where they can come just to hang out.” That feeling of community is a concept that Caine has worked to foster in his professional life ever since he experienced it himself at Williston. After earning a B.F.A. in drama from New York University’s Tisch School, he ran the New York-based Attic Theater Company for 10 years, teaching vinyasa and hot yoga classes on the side. The experience heading a nonprofit taught him a key community-building skill: how to appreciate people for what they do, especially when their com-
pensation is limited. “Appreciation is a currency,” he says. “All employers should strive to pay people what they deserve, but for nonprofits—when that’s constrained by lack of funding and support—recognition and appreciation are really important.” As it happened, it was the job of managing his own wedding in 2016 that would lead Caine to his current position. The officiant was his husband’s friend, Kelsey Louie, at the time CEO of the HIV/AIDS nonprofit GMHC. After watching Caine pull off his summer camp-themed celebration in the Catskills, Louie offered him a job as his executive assistant. (“Honestly,” says an admittedly biased Caine, “the wedding was awesome.”) Five years later, in 2021, after Caine had worked his way up to the position of Managing Director of Administration, Louie was hired to head The Door, and asked Caine to join him as his Chief of Staff. Caine made the move, a decision inspired in part by that consequential senior year. “The experience I had in school, and what I was given at Williston—to be able to create that kind of opportunity for young people—is what brought me to The Door the most.” Learn more about the work of The Door at door.org.
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Giving Talent a Shot at Success As Vice President and Head of the Career Program and Operations for the New York City-based nonprofit Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO), Nicole (Smith) Moore ’97 knows well the life-changing impact that her organization’s career-preparation programs and training can have on the lives of talented young people from underrepresented backgrounds. After all, she was one herself. Raised by a single mother in Lynn, Massachusetts, Moore attended middle school through a diversity program at the independent Shore Country Day School, in Beverly, and then applied to Williston after meeting Coach Ray Brown ’55 at one of her basketball games. Visiting the campus, she says,
NICOLE (SMITH) MOORE ’97 Work: VP and Head of Program and Operations for the career program at Sponsors for Educational Opportunity Home: Brooklyn, N.Y. Williston memory: “I took an African American studies class in which we learned Swahili and engaged with someone from the continent to understand our roots. At a predominantly white prep school that’s pretty progressive for 20-some odd years ago.”
“Williston felt like home almost immediately.” While she did witness instances when students of color were misunderstood or received differing treatment from white students, she says Williston “got it right much more often than they got it wrong.” And on a personal level, her success in this new environment taught her a lesson about talent and opportunity that would become a guiding theme in her own life, and her career. “I felt like I was able to collaborate with my classmates and compete with them on an equal playing field,” explains Moore, who now lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two daughters, and mother. “I could compete in class debates. I could compete on the basketball court. I could compete to outwork someone and do a better job on a test. And what it taught me is that, yes, this kind of education is exclusive and, yes, people who can afford it benefit from it. But being able to afford it does not mean that other people don’t deserve it, and aren’t equally as talented and able to achieve.” Inspired to broaden opportunity for others who were less fortunate, Moore came up with a long-term career strategy: At Emory University, she majored in sociology and Spanish, and planned to return to school to study family law. To pull it off, she first needed to improve her own financial
38 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
I try to help other young people see, ‘You can do this. It’s not necessarily going to be easy. But you belong, and you can do this.’
situation in the most efficient way possible. She heard of a program run by an organization called Sponsors for Educational Opportunity that helped Black, Latinx, Native American, and other talented but underrepresented college students find high-paying jobs on Wall Street. Though she knew nothing about finance, she applied, was accepted, and soon was interning at investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. That led to a job in equity capital markets at the downtown office of Merrill Lynch, where she found herself on the morning of September 11, 2001. She was at her desk when she heard and felt the first plane hit the World Trade Center across the street. Fleeing the scene in a cab with eight others, she arrived at her Manhattan apart-
ment and saw the first tower fall. “Experiencing something like that really puts everything into perspective,” she says. “It makes you think, what are the things that are really important to me? What’s the legacy I want to leave? You recognize that you get this one precious life. And what I chose to do is to find balance, which you cannot find on Wall Street.” She joined SEO in 2006, thinking it would be just for the summer, but “fell in love with it,” she says. “I took on any and every project I could get my hands on and became really excited about the type of change that SEO is making in the world.” Through the organization, she would later earn her M.B.A. at Columbia. Today at SEO, Moore runs the flagship career program, with a budget of $11 million and a staff of 40, which identifies talented graduates from under-represented backgrounds and prepares them for lucrative careers in finance, banking, real estate, and technology. (SEO also has programs that offer academic support to high school and college students.) Once accepted into the highly selective program, students receive up to two years’ training in both technical and soft skills, are coached in various career options, and are given access to the network of nearly 20,000 alumni that have gone through the program since its launch in 1980. Moore is careful to clarify that SEO is not an affirmative action program. “We focus on supporting students who need
an extra helping hand, not because they’re not achieving at the same level, but because they don’t have the same networks and access.” That core insight—that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not—has been borne out by SEO’s gratifying record of success, says Moore. SEO alumni regularly tell her how the program changed their lives. “They’re emotional,” she says. “‘If SEO hadn’t shown me the way, or given me this piece of advice, or helped me navigate the situation, I wouldn’t be where I am today.’” On a broader societal scale, she notes, SEO’s stories of success offer powerful inspiration to other talented young people who may never have considered high-powered careers. “That’s what I saw through my Williston experience,” says Moore, “And that’s what I try to help other young people see through my current work: ‘You can do this. It’s not going to be the same path. It’s not necessarily going to be easy. But you belong, and you can do this.’” And as a role model herself, she would know.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMI SAUNDERS
To learn more about the work of Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, go to seo-usa.org.
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alumni news
RABIYA AKHTAR ’99 Work: Chief Financial and Administrative Officer at University Settlement
Williston memory: “We joke about me playing thirds field hockey as a junior at Williston. You would think that as someone from Pakistan, I should have been at least somewhat good at it. I ended up doing dance as my alternative.”
40 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMI SAUNDERS
Home: Harlem, N.Y.
Welcoming New Immigrants
As a young girl growing up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Rabiya Akhtar ’99 wanted to be just like her businessman father, a Pakistan-born Chief Financial Officer. “You hear the story of little girls trying on their mom’s heels. For me, it was trying on my father’s shoes and carrying around his briefcase,” recalls Akhtar. “It was always my goal to follow in his footsteps.” And indeed she has. As Chief Financial and Adminstrative Officer of New York’s University Settlement, a nonprofit that since 1886 has offered social services and educational programs to the city’s new immigrants, Akhtar oversees the organization’s finance department, IT and business operations, and facilities, a role that keeps her busy “every single day, every minute of the day,” she says with a laugh. But it’s a position that has particular meaning to her, being an immigrant herself. Like her parents, who as young adults left Pakistan for London then settled in Riyadh, she left her home in Saudi Arabia after completing ninth grade at the city’s American International School. (Her sister Areeje (Akhtar) Oriol ’04 would
As an immigrant myself, I feel a lot of immigrants come to this country and are not familiar with the resources that are available to them.
later follow her to Williston.) “It was a huge change,” Akhtar recalls. “And now that I have an almost 14-year-old myself, I think back in wonder how my parents could have let me go.” The biggest shock was going from a bustling international city to a small New England town, she says, but she adjusted quickly and soon had found a lasting community of friends—and met her future husband. “I tell my kids all the time that the friends that I made at Williston and the connections with the teachers is, quite honestly, beyond anything in college or my work life,” she says. The opportunity to help other new immigrants was a key factor in her decision to join University Settlement
in 2021, after a 15-year career working in retail banking, in auditing, and as an accountant for a hedge fund. “Being an immigrant myself, I feel a lot of immigrants come to this country and are not familiar with the resources that are available to them,” she explains. “So just getting that message out and being able to provide that support is essential.” With a $52 million budget funded primarily by government grants, University Settlement today has 700 employees who annually serve some 40,000 New Yorkers, primarily Asian and Spanish-speaking residents, offering programs in early childhood education, mental health and wellness, benefits assistance, literacy, and other community services on the Lower East Side and in Brooklyn. One recent area of focus, Akhtar notes, has been offering assistance to the city’s influx of asylum seekers. At Williston, Akhtar had her first introduction to volunteer work, an experience that “played a huge part in me wanting to give back to the community,” she says. She witnessed examples of leadership that have continued to guide her, in particular her interests in building community and empowering others. “Being able to translate that into a career was just huge and so meaningful to me,” she notes. “To actually see the direct impact of the work that I was doing.”
But when her time at Williston was drawing to an end, Akhtar was more focused on a career in business. She had narrowed her college choices to Rutgers or Babson College when her counselor, Richard Hazelton, offered another suggestion. At the time, she and her Williston boyfriend Jason Magnus ’99 had broken up, and he was going to Columbia University. “Mr. Hazelton suggested that maybe I keep in mind being closer to New York in the event that Jason and I may want to get back together,” she recalls. “I decided to go to Manhattan College, and Jason and I are now married. I don’t know how he saw into the future, but he made it work for us.” Now with two daughters, ages 14 and 11, Akhtar has in turn become the parent her kids want to emulate. “My daughter wants to go to Williston,” she says. “If it were up to her, she’d probably be there. We said we would think about it for maybe junior and senior year. I’m not ready to let her go!” Learn more about the work of University Settlement at universitysettlement.org.
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BULLETIN 41
alumni news
CAMERON DOGAN ’14 Work: Director of Operations at Daivergent
Williston memory: “Our We the People team went to the JFK School of Government and ended up coming in second. Then we spent a weekend in Washington, D.C., at George Mason University. It was honestly one of the most fun experiences in my life.”
42 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMI SAUNDERS
Home: Brooklyn, N.Y.
Coaching Young People with Autism
There’s a saying in the autism community: If you meet one person on the spectrum, you’ve met one person on the spectrum. Neurodiverse people, in other words, have such widely varying abilities and needs that generalizations are meaningless. And that presents a business challenge for Cameron Dogan ’14, Director of Operations at the New York-based startup Daivergent, a for-profit training and growth platform for young people with autism. As he puts it: “How do we provide a very wide-scale service, while maintaining a personalized approach?” The answer for Daivergent has been a combination of high technology and human interaction. The platform’s video conferencing allows Daivergent’s coaches to work face-toface with clients on employment or life goals, with the weekly sessions paid for by government programs or through a monthly fee paid by the clients. The platform also provides proprietary online teaching tools and resources such as virtual clubs, where clients can share their interests in 3D printing, Legos, video gaming, and other topics. “We have people whose
A lot of parents in this space, their biggest fear is what’s going to happen to my kid when I’m gone? That’s a really scary thing.
goals are to get a job and jump-start their career,” explains Dogan, who was hired by company co-founders Byran Dai and Rahul Mahida in 2018 after earning his engineering degree at Clemson. “And we also have people for whom just talking with somebody once a week is growth. It’s really about recognizing that growth means something different for everybody, and then we try to meet them where they’re at.” The desire to find the right personal path happens to be a theme in Dogan’s own life. After a childhood in Rye, New York, he arrived at Williston for his sophomore year, the first in his family to attend an independent school, and was impressed by how “it was always OK to try different
things,” whether sports (he played soccer, hockey, and briefly lacrosse), or art, or theater. While at Clemson, he interned for several months at corporate consultant Ernst and Young, and was offered a job after graduation. But then through a friend he happened to meet Dai and Mahida, who in 2017 had just launched their startup (both had family members with autism). “I was given the chance to go to a very corporate job—which I probably would still be working at—but I took a little bit of risk and I turned that job down. Going to a boarding school like Williston gave me the confidence to say, ‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Let’s try this out.’ And the learning that I’ve gotten here has just been fantastic.” Today, Dogan oversees Daivergent’s day-to-day operations, helping to manage the company’s 20 full-time employees and 50 coaches and trainers. As the point person for feedback from clients and their families, he hears many inspiring stories of resilience, but also disheartening accounts of a social-support system that too often fails disabled young people. One issue of particular concern is what Daivergent calls the “services cliff.” When
young people with disabilities reach legal adulthood, they lose access to many government resources. “That’s why we focused on this transition age of 18 to 35,” notes Dogan. “To help people figure out what’s next after the services cliff.” It’s a vital question for both clients and their parents, he adds. “A lot of parents in this space, their biggest fear is what’s going to happen to my kid when I’m gone? That’s a really scary thing for them.” As a venture-backed business, Daivergent’s mission is to offer help, but also to make money. “We’re trying to be the intersection where social good meets business sense,” Dogan explains. The company now has hundreds of clients around the country, and projects to have thousands by the end of next year. For Dogan, joining the start-up has proven to be a risk worth taking. “I always like hearing when somebody does something for the first time, like getting a job or making a new meal,” he says. “But more interesting, to me, is when people say, ‘You know, he is just happier today.’ Or ‘She participates in conversations at dinner.’ That signals to me that our clients are gaining confidence and growing in those softer skills, which are harder to teach. Those are always really rewarding to hear about.” Learn more about the work of Daivergent at daivergent.com
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY DENNIS CROMMETT
OLD WORLD MEETS NEW GENERATION
For Don Battimelli ’17, bringing his business acumen back to the family business is a combo as perfect as the Carmine’s special—BY KEVIN MARKEY
ON ANY GIVEN DAY, SOME 600 CUSTOMERS PASS THROUGH THE DOORS OF BATTIMELLI’S A&S ITALIAN FINE FOODS, IN FAIRFIELD, CONNECTICUT. They come
For more than 40 years, Battimelli’s has prided itself on imported Italian specialties, first-namebasis customer service, and freshly made classics, like mozzarella, sausages, and manicotti
46 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
for house-made mozzarella and sausages, fresh pasta, master-butchered meats, hard-to-find imported specialty groceries, and a staggering array of sandwiches, soups, and lovingly prepared dishes like baked manicotti, stuffed hot peppers, and calamari salad. They come as well for the old-world service and the sense of community Battimelli’s has been serving up alongside its famous soppressata ever since it opened almost 40 years ago. “We know our customers by name,” says Don Battimelli ’17, who runs the family business alongside his father and A&S founder, Carmine, and brother Giovanni. “It’s actually one of the key points we make when we’re training a new employee—you’re not just waiting on this person. You are establishing a relationship; you are meeting their needs with
the attention and care of a friend.” Having grown up with the family business— Don remembers working 36 straight hours during Christmas catering rushes while home from Williston—Don and Giovanni are now driving the company’s expansion into packaged foods. Early next year, Battimelli’s will roll out a line of cured meats for national distribution from a custombuilt 10,000-square-foot facility in Milford, Connecticut. Incorporated as Salumificio G.B., the new business intends to launch with several types of traditional dried sausage, including a salami nostrano, a sweet soppresatta, and a hot soppresatta. It will also produce fresh linked sausage in the varieties currently made at the Fairfield retail location for wholesale under the Battimelli’s label. Additional products will follow, including a specialty prosciutto and a style of Italian salumi whose exact identity remains a closely guarded secret. “I’m not going to disclose too much at this time,” chuckles Don. “The products are about 12 months out. But I will share these little nuggets. The prosciutto uses a proprietary blend of herbs and spices for a unique flavor profile, and the other product has never before been produced domestically.” All of the meats are inspired by recipes and techniques Don’s grandfather brought with him from the family seat near Naples when he emigrated to New York in 1963. “My father learned from him,” Don says, “and my brother and I learned from my father. These products have literally been passed down for generations.” Opening a new chapter in the storied family busi-
alumni news
ness was not always part of Don’s plan. At Williston, where he was a standout lacrosse and hockey player, his career interests ran strongly toward accounting and finance. He fondly remembers completing a special project at Easthampton Savings Bank for a class taught by then-Williston CFO Chuck McCullagh. From Williston Don went on to study business at Fairfield University, landing an internship at Littlejohn & Co., the Greenwich-based private equity firm, during his sophomore year. By the time he was a senior, he was working 80 hours a week at the venture capital group Loeb.nyc. “I’ve always been pretty good at time management,” he says.
During one of his projects at Loeb, Don got to know Bryan Janeczko, the successful serial entrepreneur behind Nunbelievable, the socially conscious baked goods company, among other startups. It was Janeczko who drew him aside one day and said, “You know, you guys have a great family business that is really scalable.” As it turned out, Don’s brother Giovanni was thinking along the same lines. “Giovanni came to me and said, ‘Hey, what would you think about a salumi manufacturing business where we can produce the same great cured products that the family’s been making for generations?” At Salumificio G.B., Giovanni, with a background
in food science, handles product development and production, while Don oversees finance and business operations. They’ve hired away a chief marketing officer from a large Italian packaged-foods company and are in the process of building out the sales force. Three distributors are lined up and ready to carry the new products. Meanwhile, Battimelli’s A&S founding partner Carmine is always available for advice and guidance. “With all his experience, my father sometimes foresees things that my brother and I may not,” says Don. “We’re more likely to run headfirst through walls. The three of us complement each other really well.”
THREE BATTIMELLI CLASSICS
From hearty pasta e fagioli to a legendary burrata BLT, every item on the Battimelli’s menu attracts fierce loyalists. For those who can’t decide, Don recommends these three signature creations.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DENNIS CROMMETT
(See a video of Don making the Carmine’s Special at williston.com/bulletin.)
1
2
3
PROSCIUTTO BREAD
CARMINE’S SPECIAL
Made on site, the fan-favorite loaf is stuffed with prosciutto, salami, ham, and just the right amount of cheese. “Throw it in the oven for 20 minutes at 350°,” says Don. “It is insane. Definitely one of our biggest favorites.”
House-prepared fried chicken cutlet is topped with Parma prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, oven-roasted red peppers, and peppery arugula, dressed with Battimelli’s own balsamic vinaigrette, and served on fresh bread delivered daily from an old-school bakery in the Bronx. “It’s my dad’s namesake sandwich and definitely a staple here,” says Don.
CHEESE + PARSLEY SAUSAGE WHEEL Available in 24- and 36-ounce sizes, the house-made coil of fresh sausage is a proprietary mix of beef, pork, cheese, and seasonings. “It’s the essence of grilling with friends,” says Don. “As soon as you put it on the table, everyone’s jumping at it, eager to get a piece before it’s gone.”
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BULLETIN 47
TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT WILLISTON FOR YOUR FAMILY.
Williston is a true family school with generations of students wearing the green and blue. As an alum, you know how great Williston’s community and faculty are, but do you know about all the new programs and facilities at the school today? Come find out how we’ve changed—and which traditions still anchor us. TO SCHEDULE A VISIT, PLEASE EMAIL ADMISSION@WILLISTON.COM (AND LET US KNOW YOU’RE AN ALUM!)
PHOTOGRAPHS BY KELSEY BOSSELAIT, JOANNA CHATTMAN, KATHLEEN DOOHER, AND SUPPLIED BY FIEST TABLEWARE
Dishing Out Delight As CEO of Fiesta Tableware, Elizabeth (Wells) McIlvain ’73 is steering her family’s venerable company into the future—BY JONATHAN ADOLPH
CRAFTY HUMANS HAVE BEEN SHAPING CLAY INTO FUNCTIONAL CONTAINERS FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS, but it
took the insight of a West Virginia businessman named Joseph M. Wells, in the depths of the Depression, to realize that pottery could be a party. Traveling through California in the 1930s, Wells saw ceramic tableware glazed in bright colors, and upon returning to his family’s sprawling pottery plant on the banks of the Ohio river, he asked the company’s art director, Frederick Rhead, to create something similarly bold. “Make people happy when they are eating dinner,” he told him. The result, introduced in 1936, FALL 2023
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Read more about Liz McIlvain on page 60
was Fiesta, the art deco-inspired tableware that would eventually become the country’s most collected line of pottery, adored by generations. Elizabeth (Wells) McIlvain ’73 knows this history well, as one would expect from the current President and CEO of the Fiesta Tableware Company—and the granddaughter of Joseph Wells. She recounted the story at Reunion this past May, where she was honored with the school’s Williston Northampton Medal in recognition of her contributions leading her family’s 152-year-old enterprise. CEO since 2013, McIlvain previously held supervisory and executive positions, pausing her career to raise her three daughters, two of whom are now key members of the Fiesta marketing team. They represent the fifth generation of the Wells family to serve at the Newell, West Virginia, company.
As a ninth grader at Northampton School for Girls, however, Liz had no aspirations of being the first woman to lead one of the country’s largest pottery manufacturers. “Heavens, no!” says McIlvain, who last year was also inducted into the West Virginia University Business Hall of Fame. “Honestly, that was the furthest thing from my mind.” She had arrived in Northampton just as her school was merging with nearby Williston Academy, a transition she and her peers initially found unsettling but which ended up being “a very positive experience for me,” she says. “I loved Williston, and I loved the people I met.” McIlvain reveled in athletics, in particular playing girls soccer, an opportunity she did not have growing up in West Virginia. And she was inspired by her teachers, she says, “who were so devoted to their students, and to helping them find their way to maturity.” Indeed, after Williston, she earned a
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degree in elementary education herself, at West Virginia’s Bethany College. After graduating, however, teaching jobs were not easy to come by. At the time, her father, Joseph Wells, Jr., was running what was then known as the Homer Laughlin China Company. She asked him for a job, and he agreed to give her one, on the condition that she stay on to learn the business. “I took him up on it,” she says, “and I never regretted that decision.” She began in the plant, learning the manufacturing processes, seeing firsthand how the various pieces are produced using both time-honored artisanal techniques and state-of-the-art technology. In the process, she came to better understand the vital role the company plays in the economy of the region, a one-time vibrant hub of pottery manufacturing that had been hard hit by foreign imports after World War II. “I really fell in love with
Fiesta Tableware has been produced in 55 colors, with a new color released each year
my community and the people around it,” explains McIlvain, who lives with her husband, Jack, in East Liverpool, Ohio, just across the river from the Newell factory. “We’re the last major manufacturer of dinnerware in the United States now. There were so many major companies that were bought out. But my family was always community oriented and wanted to provide jobs and opportunities for the people who lived here.” That desire remains strong, even as the business pressures facing Fiesta have grown increasingly challenging. At its peak in 1948, Homer Laughlin had more than 3,000 workers; today, Fiesta Tableware employs 300. Indeed, the company’s new name is itself a reflection of how McIlvain and the company are adapting to the times: In 2020, the company sold the Homer Laughlin name and intellectual property rights to Steelite International, a British tableware manufacturer specializing in commercial china for hotels and restaurants. McIlvain’s company became Fiesta Tableware, with a focus on retail sales. It isn’t the first time the company has pivoted in response to economic forces. In 1973, Homer Laughlin decided to fold the Fiesta line and put its efforts exclusively into hotel and restaurant tableware. While that strategy
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOANNA CHATTMAN AND SUPPLIED BY FIEST TABLEWARE
alumni news
was successful, after a decade or so the company noticed that its discontinued pottery was attracting new attention. Drawn by nostalgia, perhaps, or the classic designs and colors, collectors were resurrecting the brand, one flea market and estate sale at a time. In 1985, the company brought Fiesta back, and with it came a new generation of fans with cupboards full of memories. “One thing we’ve learned,” says McIlvain. “if they’re a Fiesta user, they have a story about their memories of Fiesta. Their grandmother had a special green bowl that they always ate their cereal out of, or they had a yellow pitcher that they made lemonade in.
Everyone has a story.” McIlvain—born with clay slip in her veins, as she likes to say—remains optimistic about her company’s future, though she knows all too well the obstacles faced by manufacturers in the United States. Fiesta Tableware continues to engage its customers with limited runs of new pieces and a new color every year (55 shades and counting since 1936). Larger orders are starting to pick up again, and the company’s factory tent sale last June
was its best ever. But it’s been a difficult time, McIlvain notes, especially in the wake of the pandemic. “The world has changed so dramatically,” she says. “If you don’t evolve, you die. So we’re evolving, and we’re hopeful that we’ll be able ride the storm out.” In helping navigate that journey, McIlvain says she still draws on lessons absorbed at Williston, such as learning how to analyze people, and understand their needs. “I watched my teachers do that. Reflecting back, I understood that they were helping students work out their problems
individually. When you’re running a company, everybody has a different personality, and you have to learn how to get the most positive work out of people.” And for those in the Williston community with a fondness for Fiesta, McIlvain can’t help putting in a plug for the 2023 color of the year. Officially it was jade, she notes, but “it was very close to Williston Green.”
McIlvain’s grandfather came up with the idea for Fiesta Tableware during the Depression, asking his art director to “make people happy when they are eating dinner”
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IN THE DEEP END From Williston’s pool to the Olympics—the long and amazing career of Dale Neuburger ’67 PHOTOGRAPH BY JUSTIN CASTERLINE
—BY GEOFF SMITH ’07
Dale Neuburger ’67 has traveled the world thanks to his volunteer career with World Aquatics, but his journey to the top really got going in the Indiana University Natatorium, pictured at right, and through his role at the university,
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N Neuburger’s role at the Olympics has given him the opportunity to present awards to a litany of prestigious swimmers, including Michael Phelps, pictured here at the 2016 Olympic games in Brazil
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ext summer, when Dale Neuburger ’67 steps on the pool deck at the Summer Olympics in Paris, France, he will be laser-focused on making sure the events go perfectly. When you’re the Technical Director for the swimming events at an Olympiad, there’s no margin for error. But in the back of his mind, Neuburger will also be thinking of his mom, Iris. Because without her influence, Dale might not be standing on that pool deck in the first place. As a teenager growing up near Buffalo, New York, Neuburger was passionate about swimming, and as he approached high school, his mom encouraged him to pursue the sport fur-
ther at Williston Academy with thenlegendary swimming Coach Wilmot Babcock. “Williston was her idea,” Neuburger says. “I can remember the initial conversations about it and thinking, ‘What’s boarding school?’ But she really wanted me to have this great experience.” Neuburger loved being in Babcock’s program, and his contributions on campus ultimately earned him the 1967 Wilmot S. Babcock Award—one he still proudly displays in his home today. “Williston is a special place,” say Neuburger, who now lives in Indianapolis, Indiana. “None of what I’m doing today would have been possible without the great foundation, the great background, that I had under the leadership of Coach Babcock.” Neuburger’s path to being one of
PHOTOGRAPHS SUPPLIED BY DALE NEUBURGER
“One of the things I say now when talking about the Olympic Games to our officials is, ‘Without putting any unnecessary fear in your hearts, there’s a couple billion people who care about what happens.’”
alumni news
the key figures in swimming today— Treasurer of World Aquatics, the governing body for world swimming, water polo, and diving—has been long and winding. First hired to oversee school district pools in Syracuse, New York, Neuburger then became the Assistant Athletic Director at Indiana University, running the school’s natatorium (pool) and tennis and track facilities. In 1990, he was elected to the board of directors for USA Swimming, a position he held through 2018. Neuburger describes his career as “serendipitous.” When he started in Syracuse, Neuburger was given an opportunity that he admits he probably wasn’t ready for. Same when it came to serving on the board of USA Swimming. “I didn’t even really know what the board did,” Neuburger says. However, he clearly excelled at both. Neuburger was elected President of the group in 1998, serving for four years, then became the United States’ representative to World Aquatics in 2000. That election opened the globe to Neuburger, and he has served as the organization’s Vice President, its Treasurer, and the Chair for the Development Commission. This last role is focused on growing the sport globally, and takes him around the world to help establish youth swimming systems and to watch competitions where future Olympians may emerge. Amazingly, all of this is Neuburger’s volunteer job. Until recently, his 9-to5 gig was working for consulting firms that provided client services to North American cities and sports organizations. “Sales is not my strong suit,” Neuburger says, “but it’s easier when you know you have the opportunity to provide the best possible conditions for athletes to excel and for coaches to have some of the best moments of their careers.”
Which brings the story back to the Olympics. At his first, in 1976, he and his wife, Heidi, drove from Syracuse to Montreal, and stayed at a $3-a-night campground. By 2004, he was serving as Deputy Chef de Mission for the U.S. Olympic delegation in Athens, Greece, responsible for the 500-plusmember U.S. delegation and leading the athletes out during the opening ceremony. But it was when Neuburger first served as Technical Delegate for swimming in the 2008 Olympics that he had his most intense moment: Michael Phelps winning the 100-meter butterfly by .01 seconds. Neuburger was one of the people who had to explain to media, fans, and competitors why Phelps won, when it appeared as if his Serbian counterpart had touched the wall first. “One of the things I say now when talking about the Olympic Games to our officials is, ‘Without putting any unnecessary fear in your hearts, there’s a couple billion people who care about what happens in this environment,’” he says. “And then the enormity of what the responsibility really means hits them.” For all the Olympics fanfare—this coming summer Olympiad will be Neuburger’s fifth as Technical Director and twelfth overall—Neuburger hasn’t lost sight of his mission: to build up aquatic sports. In his role as Treasurer for World Aquatics, he has helped ensure the sport’s financial viability, with development funding rising from $250,000 a year in 2009 to $12 million in 2024. As he plans to retire in 2027, he is thinking about what he has left to accomplish. “It has been a good run,” he says, “but now it’s about leadership development and succession planning. I really get a lot of joy being at the junior championships where you are helping to motivate young leadership in our sport.
For me, that’s a real passion now, and I know the sport is in good hands.” So when you turn the TV on for the Paris Olympics next summer, keep an eye out for Neuburger in the corner of your screen. While his mom never
got to see Dale stand on an Olympic swim deck, her presence is with him still. “When I stand there at the Olympics, I always I think of her giving me this background,” he says. “This is the result today.”
A DIFFERENT KIND OF MEDAL Shortly after this article was written, Neuburger shared the news that he is being honored with the George M. Steinbrenner III Sport Leadership Award by the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Endowment, a nonprofit supporting organization for the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. The award, named after the late New York Yankees owner and former vice president of the Olympic Committee, is given annually to a member of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic family who has made outstanding contributions to sports through management, sport-organization endeavors, or the enhancement of competitive opportunities. Previous winners include: Pat Summitt, Martha and Bela Karolyi, the 1992 Men’s Olympic Basketball Team, and last year’s winner, Peter Westbrook. “I am honored beyond belief,” said Neuberger. “Totally unexpected.” Neuburger will be feted for the award on December 13 at the New York Athletic Club in New York City. Along with Neuburger, the USOPE will also honor Mary Lou Retton with the William E. Simon Award, and Bruce Baumgartner with the General Douglas MacArthur Award.
REUNION SAVE THE DATE!
JOIN YOUR CLASSMATES, FRIENDS, AND CURRENT AND FORMER FACULTY UNDER THE BIG TENT FOR A FUN AND UNFORGETTABLE WEEKEND! williston.com/REUNION
P H OTO G R A PH S BY C H AT TM A N PH OTO G R A P H Y A N D M AT TH E W C AVANAU GH
JUNE 7-9, 2024
PH OTO G R A PH BY C H AT T M AN P H OTOG R A PH Y
ALUMNI EVENTS
Reunion 2023 capped off a year of thrilling Wildcat events. More than 270 alums had a great time dancing, doing activities, reminiscing, raising a toast, and having fun in the photo booth area, as Gordon Cadwgan ’63 and his wife, Ruth, demonstrate. Flip through the following pages to see more highlights.
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48 HOURS OF FUN!
50TH REUNION DINNER The class of 1973 showed up in great
FRIDAY DANCE PARTY SCHMOOZEFEST With dinners
numbers, starting their weekend of celebration with a special sit-down dinner inside the Birch Dining Commons.
wrapped up, the Reed Campus Center transformed into a dance floor as the Time Stretchers, featuring alum Barry Searle ’73, sang the night away.
ATHLETIC AND ALUMNI AWARDS Seven alums, one coach,
and one team were inducted in our 10th annual Athletics Hall of Fame Awards (read more about these amazing honorees on pages 60–65).
LUNCH UNDER THE TENT Great food and conversation were plentiful at the Saturday lunch under the big tent. Wildcats refueled before heading out for more exciting night activities.
RING THE ANGELUS The history of Williston Northampton is the
COCKTAILS AND DINNER As the sun began to set on Saturday, the
history of two schools, and visitors gathered in front of the Angelus with members from the Northampton School for Girls to reminisce.
lights were turned on under the big tent for a wonderful seated dinner followed by a night of moving and grooving on the dance floor.
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alumni events
PH OTO G R A PH S BY C H ATT M A N PH OTO G R A P H Y, D E N N I S C R O M M E TT, AND DAV E S ONDRI NI
CLASS OF ’68 DINNER On Thursday night, the class of 1968 gath-
ered on the lawn at the Head of School’s house for a special class dinner to celebrate their 55th Reunion.
ELM TREE LUNCH A luncheon on Friday afternoon honored alumni who have provided for Williston in their estate plans, along with members of the 1841 Society and 50th and beyond classes.
SIP AND PAINT A highlight event on Saturday afternoon, the Sip and
CLOSEST TO THE PIN Golfers and nongolfers alike gathered near
Paint event brought all Reunion classes together to enjoy a relaxing moment with a paintbrush and wine glass.
the Victory Bell to try and land their shots closest to the “pin” on the other side of the pond. This year’s winner? Laura Aptowitz ’13.
PORTRAITS AT THE PHOTO BOOTH Can you say you went to
CLASS PHOTOS In between bites of dinner, classes officially com-
Reunion if you didn’t get your picture taken!? The photo booth was once again a huge hit, as alumni huddled up for candid photos.
memorated their reunion years by posing for class pictures in a variety of places on campus—including in front of the Phillips Stevens Chapel. FALL 2023 BULLETIN 59
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REUNION AWARDS
Highlighting Reunion last June was the conferral of alumni and distinguished service awards. In a morning presentation in the Dodge Room, Williston recognized five inspiring individuals and one committee who in their work, in their lives, and in their commitment to the school exemplify the virtues of purpose, passion, and integrity. We gathered again in the afternoon for a special Athletic Hall of Fame ceremony, during which we inducted a legendary coach, seven exceptional athletes, and the standout boys soccer team of 1967. For complete remarks from the events, please visit williston.com/alumni.
1 1. WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON MEDAL: ELIZABETH (WELLS) MCILVAIN ’73
McIlvain is a member of the fourth generation of the Wells family to own and operate the Homer Laughlin China Company, now known as the Fiesta Tableware Company and operating out of Newell, West Virginia. A four-year student here, McIlvain joined the Northampton School for Girls in 1969. After graduating from Bethany College in West Virginia, McIlvain joined the family company. She held various supervisory roles in the plant, culminating as Superintendent of the hotel division, before taking a break from her professional life to raise three daughters, two of whom now work for the company. In 1998, McIlvain became the first female member of the company’s board of directors. She officially rejoined the company in 2007 as a Vice President and became its first woman President and CEO in 2012. Under Liz’s leadership, The Fiesta 60 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
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Tableware Company has flourished, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the company and 85th anniversary of the Fiesta brand in 2021. 2. DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD: CHUCK MCCULLAGH P’10, ’13
Chuck McCullagh became the Chief Financial Officer for the Williston Northampton School in 1999 and retired in 2023. During that time, he positively impacted every facet of the school’s community. While at Williston, he managed all aspects of the Business Office and its staff, as well as Physical Plant operations, the Technology Department, Campus Safety, human resources programs, and auxiliary programs that included dining services, the Children’s Center, the Campus Store, and Summer Programs. He also coordinated the school’s first comprehensive master plan, oversaw a significant number of construction projects and property purchases, and served as Assistant Treasurer
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to the Williston Northampton School Board of Trustees and as the staff liaison to the board’s Facilities, Finance, Investment, and Audit committees. McCullagh also dedicated his time to the Easthampton community, including with the Easthampton Public Library. He and his wife, Martha—a long-time math teacher and cross-country coach at Williston—are devoted parents of two alumni, Sarah ’10 and Laura ’13.
years later, they continued setting attendance and giving records, and successfully launched an initiative to create the Class of 1968 Endowed Fund for Financial Aid. The fund has, so far, raised over $750,000 from a combination of cash gifts, pledges, and documented bequest intentions, and began providing aid to a student this academic year. 4. ALUMNI TRAILBLAZER AWARD: KIMBERLY (LINDSEY) GORDON ’03
3. DANIEL AND JANE CARPENTER
PH OTO G R A PH S BY C H AT TM A N PH OTO G R A PH Y
AWARD: CLASS OF 1968 REUNION COMMITTEE
The class of 1968 Reunion Committee is a collection of dedicated alumni and friends that stay connected by continually supporting the school with their time, energy, and financial commitment. The committee includes Ted Babcock, Jim Cain, Marc Griggs, Kent Haberle, Chip Keeney, Don Klock, and Paul Wainwright. Five years ago, this record-breaking class of 1968 set a new high-water mark for 50th Reunion attendance, 50th Reunion gift participation, and 50th Reunion gift dollars. Five
A children’s book author and publishing entrepreneur, Gordon is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of 5dMedia, a multimedia publishing company that is committed to promoting literacy in marginalized communities through innovative and cutting-edge content. A three-year boarder at Williston, this Franklin, Massachusetts, native channeled her considerable energy into athletics—but Gordon’s passion for writing was first cultivated in Williston’s Writers’ Workshop program. She obtained her expertise in integrated media through her subsequent studies at Simmons College and Columbia
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University. After working in the education and publishing sectors, Gordon established 5dMedia, and has helped publish numerous books and workbooks featuring diverse characters, contributed to various streaming TV shows, and spearheaded several multimedia initiatives and campaigns. Gordon’s contributions to prestigious organizations such as The College Board, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the New York City Public School System, among others, align with her mission to make education more reliable and accessible. She has earned several awards for her work, including the Scholastic Gold Key Award, the Maya Angelou Award, and the Charles Whitten Award. 5. FOUNDERS AWARD: MICHAEL HIRSCH ’73
An Elm Tree member since 2016 and an emeritus member of the Head’s Visiting Council, Hirsch has 62 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
attended every class Reunion since 1993 and has donated to the school for 25 consecutive years. A four-year boarding student, Hirsch participated in theater while at Williston, but found his calling in the stars afterward. Hirsch received a degree in chemistry from Columbia University and briefly attended graduate school, then embarked on a 45-year career in aerospace engineering. He held various engineering and management roles on communications satellites, weather reporting systems, and scientific observation missions. He took a particular interest in science instruments, specifically space telescopes, working on several of NASA’s great observatories, including the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The capstone of his career was his involvement with the James Webb Space Telescope, where he served as Risk Manager and Manager of Mission Excellence. Since
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his retirement in 2013, Hirsch has continued to consult for aerospace companies, and volunteers with a variety of organizations.
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they were so impressed with him as a teammate and competitor. To this day, ringing the Chuck Vernon Victory Bell on game days remains one of our school’s most cherished traditions.
PH OTO G R A PH S BY C H AT TM A N PH OTO G R A PH Y
6. ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME: CHUCK VERNON ’62
7. ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME:
Vernon excelled at football, hockey, and lacrosse during his years at Williston. In football, Vernon was a standout earning All-New England honors as a senior playing for Hall of Fame coach Rick Francis. During the winter season, he headed to the frozen pond to play hockey for another legendary Williston coach, Dan Carpenter. He captained the team as a senior, scoring 21 goals in his final year. At the end of his senior year, he and classmate David “Whitey” Felsen ’62, another Hall of Fame member, shared the Denman Award given to the top male athlete in the school. In a remarkable tribute to a young Chuck Vernon, the family of a classmate gave to the school a victory bell named his honor because
CHRISTOPHER JOHN MILLER ’93
Miller was one of the truly outstanding athletes of his generation at Williston. In no season was this more apparent than in the fall on Sawyer Field, where Miller was a dynamic triple-threat football player, impacting all three phases of the game. As a sophomore and junior, Miller averaged roughly 200 all-purpose yards per game as a runner, receiver, and kick returner, and then upped his production to 250 all-purpose yards per game as a senior—the most by any Williston player at that time. In his three years on the gridiron, Miller was named the offensive MVP each season. When not in pads, Miller didn’t shy away from competition, also ros-
tering on the baseball and basketball teams—and captaining the Williston baseball team as a junior and senior. Miller also excelled in the classroom. He earned the student-athlete award as an upperclassman, after finishing the term with a 4.0 GPA. 8. ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME:
4×400 relay team. His record in the 3,000 still stands today. He won D-II New England championships in the 1,500 and 3,000 his senior year—the first Williston male athlete to do so— and was co-captain and MVP of the team that year as well. Gass capped off his career by winning the Denman Award.
JAMIE GASS ’87
A varsity athlete in cross-country and track during his sophomore, junior, and senior years, Gass dominated the competition. As a harrier, he won everything as a junior—the Shaler Invitational, all dual meets and invitationals, and a Division II New England championship. As a senior, he was named captain and team MVP, and finished second both at New Englands and at the Shaler Invitational, before going on to win a New England Junior Olympics medal. On the track, Gass didn’t slow down. When he graduated, he held the school’s track records in the 800, the 1,500, the 3,000, and the
9. ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME: SHAWN (BENOLIEL) LAWRENCE ’78
There’s setting the tone, then there’s setting the bar—and Shawn (Benoliel) Lawrence helped set the bar for what lacrosse excellence looks like at Williston. The leading scorer of the team from 1976 to 1978, Lawrence held the school record in career goals for 14 years after her graduation. Lawrence scored 50 goals in 1977— out of the team’s 99—to set another school record at that time. In her senior spring, Lawrence was named the team’s MVP. She wasn’t just a lacrosse FALL 2023 BULLETIN 63
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player, though: Lawrence also swam for Williston and excelled there, as well. She set the school record in the 100-yard backstroke as a senior and was on the medley relay team that finished second at New Englands. During the fall of her senior year, Lawrence was co-captain of the field hockey team. Later on in her life, in a twist of fate that only the sports gods could come up with, Lawrence was on hand when her Williston scoring mark was broken in 1992—officiating the contest.
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sophomore, junior, and senior. As a junior, he earned all-league honors, helping lead the Wildcats to a 6–2 campaign. As a senior, he was elected a captain and led the team to a huge win over rival Suffield. During the winter season, he played for Coach Francis again, this time as a forward on the basketball team. In the spring season, Arp played lacrosse for Kevin O’Connor, captaining the squad as a senior and earning all-league honors in the process.
basketball squad as a senior. During the spring season, he played baseball for legendary coach Dan Carpenter, captaining the team as a senior and earning co-MVP honors. While he was willing to try any sport, there was no question that his passion was on the soccer pitch. Playing for Hall of Fame coach Ray Brown, he was an exceptional goalkeeper who helped lead the Wildcats to some outstanding seasons. As a senior, he was named co-MVP while also being named a first team All-New England goalkeeper.
11. ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME: 10. ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME:
KEITH W. BROWN ’78
12. ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME:
LOU ARP ’73
While attending Williston for four years, Brown earned a remarkable 12 varsity letters in four different sports—soccer, wrestling, basketball and baseball. As an example of his athleticism, during the winter season, he made the very rare transition from the wrestling mat to the basketball court, eventually captaining the
1967 BOYS SOCCER
Lou Arp arrived from Illinois and immediately showed that he was a man of many talents, receiving varsity letters in three sports and captaining two of his teams during his Williston tenure. In the fall, Arp was a standout two-way player for Coach Rick Francis in football, earning varsity letters as a
64 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
In the annals of Williston Northampton School soccer history, few teams stand out quite like the 1967 boys varsity soccer squad. Led by the legendary, Hall of Fame coach Ray Brown, the Williston boys in the fall of ’67 put together a campaign for the ages, going 11–1 on the year to finish
second in Western New England. The team’s 11 wins were also, according to a Willistonian article, more than any other Williston soccer team in 43 years prior. With 24 players seeing time that year, Williston relied on its senior class to post such an impressive mark. According to Brown’s own files, Chip Keeney ’68 and Ron Padmore ’68 led the offense, with Keeney scoring 15 goals and dishing out six assists while Padmore registered eight goals and seven assists. Larry Anderson ’68 led the defense as goalie. The team took on everyone that season, including a 2–0 win over Union College. The lone loss of the year was a 2–1 nailbiter against Suffield. The team: Larry Anderson ’68, Lee Burgess ’68, Ken Bryant ’68, Jim Clarke ’68, Jim Davenport ’68, Ruxton T. Dellecese Sr. ’68, Hardy De Zord0* ’68, Beau Evans ’68, Jon Faiella ’68, Bill Fifield* ’68, Tom Gilbert ’68, Carey M. Hall ’69, Keith Handyside ’69, Chip Keeney ’68,
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P H OTO G R A P H S BY C H AT TM A N PH OTO G R A P H Y A N D E R I N DAV E Y
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Bruce Marshall ’68, Doug McClellan ’68, Duncan McMartin* ’69, Ted Motyl ’68, Ted Nellen ’68, Tom Oborne ’69, Ron Padmore* ’68, Greg Stasz* ’68, Carlos Urrutia ’68, Tom Wallace ’68, Lutz Wegner ’68, Hook Wheeler ’68, Head Coach Ray Brown ’55, Assistant Coach Seward Highley ’51. (*deceased) 13. ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME: SPENSER ALLAWAY ’08
Hailing from Nova Scotia, Canada, Allaway arrived in Easthampton as a standout soccer player with high expectations. Playing for coach Jeff Pilgrim ’81, she enjoyed an exceptional career. From a personal standpoint, her accomplishments are truly noteworthy. Consider this list: A three-year letter-winner, two-time team MVP, two-time All-League selection, AllState selection, Massachusetts Player of the Year, and, to top it all off, she was named only the second girls All-Amer-
ican in school history. Her impact on the success of the program was also noteworthy, as she led the 2006 team to the NEPSAC championship. While Allaway may have arrived at Williston as an outstanding soccer player, she left it as a multisport athlete and captain. With so many opportunities available to her, she expanded her horizons by picking up both squash and track as other sports to compete in. Not surprisingly, she proved to be a quick study in both sports, captaining the squash team as a senior and earning All-New England honors in track in the 1,500. [Allaway joined our celebration via a recorded video.] 14. ATHLETIC HALL OF FAME: WILLIAM J. LOSSONE (1967)
An exalted member of the Williston Academy community, Bill Lossone wasn’t just another face in the crowd at Williston—he helped define the young men who graduated from the
school. Lossone, for whom the hockey rink is named, spent over four decades imparting his wisdom to young men across campus. He arrived at Williston Academy in 1923, where he eventually led the school’s hockey program and Latin department. As a coach, Lossone’s hockey teams went 63–68 in his career. He started as an assistant to Williston Academy legend Archibald Galbraith, eventually serving as the head coach through the 1951 season. Following his stint as head coach, he continued to coach in the program serving as both an assistant and lowerlevel coach until the late 1960s. The school further honored Lossone in the 1968-69 academic year, after his death in 1967, when Master’s Rink was renamed William J. Lossone Rink.
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SEE PAST INDUCTEES AT
williston.com/halloffame FALL 2023 BULLETIN 65
B
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(All photos are from left) A. Gabby Jones ’18, Fiona Bundy ’18, Madison Fulcher-Melendy ’18, Abbie Foster ’16, Mika Sovjani ’18, Gabbie Foderaro ’16; B. Jim Clarke ’68 and Ted Nellen ’68; C. (Front) Jennifer Lightsey ’88, Liz (McLeod) Bienfang ’88, Bill Wheeler ’88, Catherine (Curran) McDonough ’88, Jai Chanda ’88, Nicole Clausing ’88. (Back) Peter Hayden ’88, Janet Winkelman ’88, Kristi Prigmore ’88, Jen (Gaitenby) Vachon ’88, Erica (Levine) Faulkner ’88, Marsi Foster ’88, Harry Goetzmann ’88,
66 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
PH OTO G R A PH S BY C H AT TM A N PH OTO G R A PH Y
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REUNION
D E
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See more photos from Reunion at flickr.com/willistonnorthampton
Tina (Crowther) Purdy ’88, Jon Lappin ’88; D. Jamie Cavallaro, Joe Cavallaro ’03, Cashmere Sky Lion ’03, Eric Schneider ’03, Kat Lowlor; E. Jonathan McGowan ’03, Nick Cookson ’03, Jenny Bolte ’03, Warren Barnett ’03, Jay Chandler ’03, Sean Saval ’03; F. Marielle McHale ’18, Jordan Strum ’18, Shana Hecht ’18, Addison Walker ’18, Kevin O’Sullivan ’18; G. Myra Palmero ’03, James McNally.
FALL 2023 BULLETIN 67
REUNION
MELISSA’S TIPS FOR FINANCIAL PLANNING
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FINANCIAL PLANNING IS FOR EVERYBODY. Creating an estate plan will help you reach long-term goals, no matter your income level and even if you’re far from retirement. “When people think about estate planning and planned giving, they think it’s only for the super wealthy,” Duffy said. “It’s something everyone can benefit from.”
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SMALL GIFTS GO A LONG WAY. Whether large or small—every contribution matters. “Gifting does not need to be huge amounts of money,” Duffy said. “Any organization, including Williston, would welcome the opportunity to be in someone’s estate plan, even if it’s for a thousand dollars.”
Helping people enjoy their lives is what drives the work of Melissa (Anderson) Duffy ’91
As a Financial Advisor, Managing Director, and one of two Founders for White Pine Wealth Management based in Falmouth, Maine, Melissa Duffy ’91, P’24 doesn’t punch out at the end of the day. Clients rely on her to help them plan for the future—a task she doesn’t take lightly. “It’s a career you do around the clock,” she said. With 30 years of experience, Duffy joined White Pine, a financial partner of Hightower, in 2015, and the team of 10 manages just shy of $1 billion. Both Forbes and Barron’s included her among its top wealth advisors by state in 2023. “It’s rewarding to see people enjoying their lives with their families, not because of the assets they have, but because they’ve taken control with our help,” she said. This enjoyment often includes giving back to the world. Duffy collaborates with her clients and their estate attorneys to craft gift and estate plans, which sometimes means earmarking funds for charitable organizations they care about, including schools like Williston. “If you are lucky enough to have accumulated wealth, giving money to charity in your estate plan reduces how much your estate will owe in taxes,” she said. Prior to White Pine, Duffy co-founded Duffy Anderson Investment Management, LLC, a $300 million asset management firm, in 2008. Duffy, proud parent of Teagan ’24, returned to Williston during Reunion last June to deliver a talk to the Elm Tree Society about the importance of planned giving and estate planning. Here are five takeaways. 68 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
3
IT’S NOT TOO LATE—OR TOO EARLY. Duffy urges Wildcats to be proactive by creating a will or estate plan sooner rather than later. “Either you’re going to make a plan, or the IRS is going to make your plan for you,” she said. “I think people would rather choose the charitable organizations they give to, rather than the government deciding for them. The cost involved to get your estate plan in order with an estate attorney is very small compared to what the lack of planning will cost you.”
4
PAPER TRAILS ARE ESSENTIAL. Ensure your family knows where to find the documents related to your estate plan. “If something happens, can your attorney and financial advisor be easily contacted?” Duffy said. “Because we’re in a digital era now, this also includes being transparent about where you keep your passwords for online accounts.”
5
CANDIDNESS IS KEY. “Talking about finances can be tough to do with your children, but being transparent is important,” she said. “You can even have your attorney or accountant in the room so you can share the plan and everyone can be on the same page.”
PH OTO G R A PH BY PAU LE TT E G R I SWOL D
THE POWER OF PLANNING
WHERE THE WILDCATS WERE
The Williston community enjoyed a busy year of events. At festivities from coast to coast, Wildcats and NSFG alums from all across the country gathered for art show openings, sporting events, dinner parties, and more. MARCH 2023—BOSTON NETWORKING EVENT
APRIL 2023—WASHINGTON, D.C., RECEPTION
We are very excited to be, once again, hosting professional networking events. Our Boston event in March was a success, drawing in alumni to learn from mentors and make valuable connections across a variety of professional fields.
In April we hosted an evening of cocktails and conversations with Williston Northampton School alumni, parents, and friends.
A
B
(All photos are from L) A: Andrea Zawacki, Molly Zawacki ’17, Chris Zawacki ’87; B: Kelly (Williamson) Polanco ’90 and Sean Andersen ’93
C: Aidan McCreary ’19, Sabrina Shao ’19, Mike DePaolo ’96, Brittany Glenn ’07
C
A
B
C
D
(All photos are from left) A: Olivia Foster ’14, Cameron Hill ’15, Ava McElhone Yates ’17, Karl Pederson, Maisy Glick ’15; B: Ted Glick ’10, Kevin Yochim ’10; C: Roscoe Eade ’21, Brandon Barrett ’21; D: Jeff DeCaro ’73 and John Tyree ’73
APRIL 2023—LOS ANGELES BRUNCH Alumni gathered for a special brunch with parents, and friends and caught up on the latest school news, reconnected with fellow classmates, and made new connections.
A E
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C
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(All photos are from left) A: Bryce Bettwy and S.A. Fogleman ’10; B: Tim Canon ’00 and son, Teddy; C: Tony Alvarez ’11 and Lissette Rodriguez; D: Serra Aladag ’00, Anna Stramese ’58, Alan Case ’59, Marilyn Case; E: Cliff Selbert ’71, Michael Hirsch ’73, Chic Eglee ’70, Mike Nozik ’72; F: Cate Wright ’04, Adam Shepard ’04, CeAnna Ellner ’04
alumni events
MAY 2023—BERMUDA RECEPTION
JUNE 2023—NYC YOUNG ALUMNI RECEPTION
The Alumni Office was thrilled to return to Bermuda this past year to celebrate decades of relationships with alumni, friends, and family during an evening of cocktails and conversations with retired Assistant Head of School Ann Pickrell.
Alumni from the classes of 2008–2022 came together for a special evening of appreciation as a way for the school to say thank you for their support of the Williston Northampton Fund this past academic year. A
A B
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(All photos are from left) A: Kevin Dill P’16, Migdalia Gonzalez ’85, Gordon Henry ’66, Ann Pickrell, Sideya Dill ’16, Shirlene Dill P’16, Peter Carpenter ’72, Andrea Mowbray P’23, Lisa Rawlins-Wade ’84, Antoine Fox P’26, Renee Fox P’26, Gretchen Tucker ’07, Mathieu Laroche; B: Peter Carpenter ’72, Gretchen Tucker ’07, Mathieu Laroche; C: Kevin Dill P’16, Shirlene Dill P’16, Sideya Dill ’16; D: Kimberly (Harris) Todd ’91, Ann Pickrell
(All photos are from left) A: Front: Jade Chan ’20, Jamie O’Malley ’20, Esther Kim ’14. Back: Simon Wool ’12, Ellen (Rosenberg) Livingston ’86, P’18, Malia Munley, Vikram Dalmiya ’18, Mika Sovjani ’18, Robby Hill ’19, Madison Fulcher-Melendy ’18, Sebastian Rivera ’13, Abbie Foster ’16, Shana Hecht ’18, Jay Tyler, Brandon Diaz ’12, Andrew Wilson; B: Esther Kim ’14, Sebastian Rivera ’13, Simon Wool ’12, Brandon Diaz ’12 C: Jade Chan ’20, Jamie O’Malley ’20, Robby Hill ’19, Malia Munley
TO LEARN ABOUT ALL UPCOMING ALUMNI EVENTS, VISIT:
WILLISTON.COM/ALUMNI/EVENTS 70 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
CLASS NOTES
From prom date to life partner! Congratulations to Sally Smith ’84 and Daniel Nicoli ’83, who tied the knot this year—some 40 years after attending prom together.
class notes
If you do not see your class year listed, then your class does not have an assigned class rep or any notes this issue. To send your news, please contact Steve Hoyt ’95 in the alumni office at shoyt@williston.com or 413529-3101. We look forward to hearing from you!
1945 NSFG Lilian (Cramer) Randall shared: “The contents of the Williston Northampton School Bulletin received yesterday are most impressive. Seeing that the Class Notes began with responses from members of the class of ’51, it makes me wonder if I’m the last living member of NSFG ’45. I graduated at age 14, entered Mount Holyoke College after a gap year, went on to get a doctorate in fine arts at Harvard in 1955. My career combined marital and mothering responsibilities (three children) with research, publishing, lecturing, university teaching, and museum curatorship of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. I retired in 1996, was widowed the next year, moved from Baltimore to the Boston area, continued lecturing and publishing, and moved to Loomis Village, South Hadley, Massachusetts, in December 2016.”
1949
75TH REUNION IN 2024
1951 WA Tex Heavens rallies his classmates in saying: “Calling all Williston Academy 1951 classmates! Save the date for an online Zoom gathering on Wednesday, January 10, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., ET. If technology is not your thing, we encourage you to have a spouse, friend, or caregiver join you. We’d like to make this Zoom call our
biggest one yet! Please contact me if you’re interested in attending, or if you have questions, at bard.heavens@gmail.com or 310-880-5662.”
1952 WA Peter Johnson responds to the call for class notes from Henry Zachs by sharing: “Henry, my friend, I did my duty! Now, I notice that the Williston magazine calls attention to alumni who have accomplished things that the school takes pride in. My recently published book on U.S. policy toward the Caribbean Basin may be such a product (Amazon Kindle 526 pages, Creating New Policy in the Caribbean Basin). Intended to offer some ideas for today’s policymakers based on what worked in the 1980s and 1990s.”
New book authored by Peter Johnson ’52 entitled Creating New Policy in the Caribbean Basin
1953 WA The alumni office was thrilled to connect with Steve Bullock during the Elm Tree Luncheon this past June. See photo above.
1954
70TH REUNION IN 2024
1959 WA
65TH REUNION IN 2024 Please note: Some of these updates did
74 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
Steve Bullock ’53 poses alongside Director of Alumni Engagement Steve Hoyt ’95 while showing off some weathered Williston Academy swag. not make it into the Spring 2023 Bulletin, hence the timeline. Chip Palmer shares: “Still loving the law. I find it is not work at all, rather a challenge and fulfilling time! I just celebrated my 56th wedding anniversary. Me and Laurel share good times together.” Alan Case shares a note from several months back: “This Christmas week has seen the ‘Storm of the Century’ affecting much of the U.S. In stark contrast is the current temperature of (plus) 74 degrees here in Oceanside, California, which is our home. Our thoughts are with all of you who are struggling with weather-related issues.” Ned Clayton writes: “What a year it has been. We continue to explore the inland Pacific Northwest, and hopefully in 2023 we will go north to Canada and east to Montana. The country, with its mountains and lakes, is just plain beautiful, and we enjoy the exploring. We will also enjoy our white Christmas with snow continuing on the ground for 30 days so far. We just passed year three in Rockwood Retirement Community. We have met new friends, and even have a weekly gathering of neighbors for cocktails and socializing—plus a lot of storytelling. Our Community Activity Director also mixes things
Syd Williams ’59 to do both in the community and in the local area. Stephie is involved with her art, a poetry group, a writing group, and had two exhibits of her work on the community art walk. She maintains the family garden. She has also joined a ‘drumming’ group for exercise. I am involved with golf, cornhole competitions, and walking exercise programs. Recently, my back doctor suggested walking two to three miles in the pool to reduce stress on the back, which has some compression after losing two inches of height. Ah, the comforts of aging. Our family is well. Dawn and Neil travel constantly to foreign places with friends to hike and bicycle. Locally, Neil bikes 30-50 miles several days a week. Dawn competes on several tennis teams and is still involved with local charities. Doctor Emily is completing her third year of her residency in St. Louis and has applied for fellowships. She enjoys St. Louis, Missouri, home to her birth, and spends time outdoors like her parents. Army Ranger Capt. Peter has applied to law schools and expects acceptances shortly. He expects to continue in the Army after law school. Connie and Jason will start building a new house in Vacaville, California, in January. They just completed a monthlong trip to Argentina, Chile, and Antarctica. They also are outdoor people with travels throughout the Southwest. Willis will graduate next year from UC Santa Cruz, and Nel is completing her junior year at Colorado State University. We hope you
class notes
Bill Haynor ’59 poses with his family at the Grand Tetons
have some good news in your life, and we send you a big bear hug. Ned and Stephie Clayton, 2317 E. Cedarwood Court, Spokane, WA 99223, 203-561-8298.” John Curtiss simply says, “High Tide.” Andrew Solomon caught up with Bill Haynor over the phone, and reports back: “Bill remembered me on the diving board. He told me of taking his son to see 16 colleges, including BU, BC, and Harvard. Walking the Freedom Trail, going to Concord/Lexington. He also mentioned a daughter attending, for the third time, the Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, where they have two Saturn Rockets to explore and view. He has left La Jolla, California, where he and his wife walked the beach, as he has given up open-water swimming. He has moved to Rancho Santa Fe, California, and is a bit concerned with the approaching storm Hilary. I gave him hurricane advice. He has businesses—Select Quote and Senior Care—and is looking forward to retiring next year. He shares my problem of getting rid of things both in storage facilities and throughout their house in preparation of downsizing. Another son has been attending Canoe Camp. He and his family went together to the Grand Tetons. He has made recent visits to Toronto. His email is bhaynor@gmail.com.” Tom Korson updates his classmates by sharing: “I play chess twice a week at the local coffee shop and I enjoy
it. Never played chess at Williston because I was always studying. It’s great that my 41-year-old son, Andrew, and his family are only six miles away, especially since he is my one and only. I have not come down with COVID, though my family has, and I thought that at 80 I would be the most vulnerable one. I love my house and neighborhood and have resisted going into a senior retirement place, even though friends who live in a couple of those think I should. My older granddaughter, Anika Mary Korson (13), will be graduating from her elementary school of many years at the end of this academic year. This will be an important time in her life. Last summer, the five of us, as usual, spent some important time at our summer home in Chocorua, New Hampshire. My son and daughterin-law, Emily, gave Anika her middle name to honor my late wife, Mary Mullarkey (1943-2021), whom, of course, I miss every day. I continue with my political satire, apocryphalpress.com. Anyone who reads it knows that I am the solitary reporter and that I am a Democrat. So, no surprise that I am involved in our April 4 municipal election, in which there are 17 candidates. We have never had a woman mayor and I am supporting my friend, Debbie Ortega, who knows more about Denver government than any candidate. My constant companion is Marlow, my cat. I chose the name from Joseph Conrad’s novella, Heart of Darkness (1899), a dark, anti-colonialist, semi-autobiographical novella.”
Andrew Solomon ’59 shares a photo of his family working on a project in their storage closet
Geoff Purdy gave a quick rundown on his classmates, sharing that Garrett Mullins ’58 lives in California and was in the insurance business but is now driving about in an RV. He keeps in regular touch with Pete Piazza. Geoff’s wheelchair is doing well and he has another on order, but COVID has kept it from delivery. He has never had COVID. His best phone number is 203-770-6361. He said if possible, he would try to make Reunion. Andrew Solomon shares: “When I was walking through the common room of our condo, a resident, Judy Sacaris, noticed the Williston sweatshirt I was wearing and asked me about it, and when I told her it was the prep school I attended, she replied that her father had attended as class of 1922, Leslie Augustine Outterson. That was 100 years ago, 81 years after it incorporated as the Seminary. Amazing six degrees of separation! My son, Rex Solomon ’84, returned to campus to attend the funeral of Dick Gregory. The service in the chapel was full, as was the reception that followed in the Dodge Room in what was, when we were there, called the Gym. Many of the Caterwaulers were there and performed some songs. Rex’s classmates
were most in number. As school was closed, the number of faculty attending were few but included Bob Couch ’50 and Rick Teller ’70, who retired during COVID. Many will remember that during Parents Weekend and Commencement, Mr. Gregory conveniently had his right arm in a sling and, accordingly, was unable to shake hands! My whole immediate family was together to celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary. It was so nice having time to share so much. We shared a family project of erecting in our storage closet industrial metal shelving to give us much more area to put things. Such a luxury, and to see our boys working so diligently and smartly to get it done was such a treat.” Roy Weiner shares: “Like many of my classmates, I have ‘traded’ Delta and American frequent flyer activities for Zoom! Like many of you, I have seen the deficiencies and miss the contact with kids and grandkids. Hopefully, we will outlive this enforced isolation—but Zoom fluency will remain and enrich us as we resume ‘normalcy.’ We are doing well. I have ‘discovered’ READING FOR PLEASURE—historical novels. I read a novel within two weeks. I have a Kindle, so I can enlarge the font to accommodate my (re)tired eyes! Marjorie is well. The kids visit, and we will go to NYC in March for my granddaughter’s bat mitzvah. All as well as can be expected here.” Of his recent 82nd birthday, Syd Williams writes, “In another stroke of fortune, I met Caroline 61 years ago; we fell in love and were married on April 11, 1964. And the two of us were blessed with three children who, in turn, produced 10 grandchildren—if that’s not luck, I don’t know what is.” FALL 2023 BULLETIN 75
Class of 1963 VIP Gordon Cadwgan representing his class at Reunion
Henry Mitchell ’65 on a fishing trip
1965 WA Jeff Bastable reported that he had a terrific month of August on Chappaquiddick Island with his family, and that all is well. He and wife, Susan, celebrated their 51st wedding anniversary on August 26! Jeff continued for the 11th year with his volunteer work with the Honor Flight Syracuse society, serving on the board and directing philanthropy. Their mission is to plan and transport vets to Washington, D.C., at no cost to them, in honor of their service.
1962 WA Chuck Vernon was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame during the ceremony at Reunion this past June (read more on page 63).
1963 We welcomed back Gordon Cadwgan and his wife to celebrate his 60th Reunion. He had a great time!
1964
60TH REUNION IN 2024
Charlie Hayes writes: “I have regrettably reached the age where I have to set a good example. Respectability has thus removed much of the fun in life, resulting in nothing to report.” Bill Hough reports that his “nomad lust” is just starting to calm down, for now at least. In the last two and a half years, Bill and his wife, Elisa, have gone from living in Medellin, Colombia, for two years to Santa Clara, California, to Miami, Florida, to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and are now visiting his brother, David Hough ’63, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Every step of the way has been a lot of fun. Bill and Elisa will then visit Berkeley, California, where their son, William, will be getting a fireman pin, and then they are off
76 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
From left: Sally (Myser) Wadhams ’71, Nancy (Lockwood) Whitcomb ’71, and Karen Hansen ’71
to Chile to explore the south of the country. Bill suggests that if travel defines youth, he’s 22 years old! Bill continues to hone his photography skills. Recently, he put together an e-book, 27 Unique Art Abstracts, A New Vision for your Office, Home or Gallery, based on a series of his favorite abstract photographs. Overall reaction has been pleasantly positive. Also, its success has pushed Bill to begin upgrading his website, bonitaPhotos.com, which, for all Bill’s travel, was starting to get stale. It is now a work in progress. Lastly, Bill reports that he has become “hooked” by the ChatGPT bug and is fascinated, and uses it almost every day. In fact, he used ChatGPT to help plan his trip to Chile and put together his e-book, actually more of a guide, for his business, Mastering the Art of Distribution: Essential Tips and Techniques for Running a Successful Business. He distributed it to medical device distributors on LinkedIn. Bill signs off with: “Eventually, I would like to write an Isabel Allende-type book, but as all of us well know, time is fleeting faster every day!” Harvey Kaltsas shares: ‘This week I’m relaxing with Kathleen in Rethymno, Crete, and next week we’ll be snorkeling off Matala on the southern coast. There’s an underwater temple there in about six to 12
feet of water. Apparently, the Mediterranean has risen six feet in the past 2,500 years thanks to a natural cycle of global warming—long before petroleum became the current bête noire. We return to Sarasota in September, and then I’ll be back looking for that elusive shipwreck. So far this year we found the locations of 232 pieces of iron with our magnetometer. Diving revealed that over 100 were pieces of modern steel cable and one microwave oven. However, in August, we found one big pile of bars encrusted in coral and/or limestone that are either iron or silver. We did not have a crowbar or three-pound hammer with us during that dive to break them free and ascertain which, but next dive we will. I doubt they are silver, since this wreck carried mostly gold coins, but we shall see. We also found a seven-foot-long iron object with the magnetometer which is either a cannon or shaft of a main anchor. We pinpointed its location with our hand-held metal detectors, but it was buried too deep to uncover by hand fanning and shoveling. We got down through six inches of sand, a foot or so of clay, and six inches of shell before we ran out of arm length. The detectors were screaming deep in the hole. Next time out we’ll be armed with shovels, although who knows what the bottom will look like since Hurricane Idalia passed
PH OTO G R A PH S BY DAVE S O ND R I N I A N D DE N N I S CR O M M E T T
Bill Borkon ’68 (top right) and Albert Ackerman ’68 (bottom right) on the swim team together prior to their days at Williston.
From left: Margaret (Campbell) Lacoste ’71 and Karen Hansen ’71 in New Hampshire
right over the shipwreck area with 20-foot seas. Could have shifted the bottom cover around a bunch. Our last stop in Greece will be Santorini, one of the most romantic places in the world, where I’m sure to fall even more deeply in love with Kath than I am now—if that is even possible. Anyways, I miss you guys a bunch, especially when I am having fun.” Teak Kelley continues to reach out to The Guys of ’65 for interesting news from his classmates, and encourages all who enjoy the news from the Bulletin to contact him with news of their own. Teak notes that it was a wet summer at his golf course in New Hampshire, but that’s why they make golf umbrellas. This coming October, Ned Lynch is meeting Kevin Hoben in Rome for a two-week cruise, Dalmatian Coastwise, on the Celebrity Beyond. Then they leave and he stays on another two weeks, repositioning across the Atlantic back to Florida. Henry Mitchell had another productive summer, from a fishing perspective, on Cape Cod. He notes that big stripers are still around, but have to be released if over 31 inches [how big is this one, Hank?]. More fishing is in store for Henry when he returns “home” to Alaska.
The class of ’68 having fun at Reunion, and horsing around at left!
Mike Smernoff writes, “Time to retire because I solved the Wordle puzzle on the first word today. Even a blind squirrel can find an acorn.” His classmates know he succeeded because, as they say, “Mike was always brilliant!” D.A. Stevens wants his classmates to know that he is still alive, happily married, and enjoying retirement from his busy law firm in California. He is also enjoying a newly installed hot tub!
1966 WA Bill Anthony writes: “If you’re a Facebooker, please link up and ‘follow’ me this summer: I’ll be posting stuff a couple times weekly starting in June—not enough to drive you crazy. But it’ll help get the word out in Farnsy’s second season, which so far looks pretty promising. The Damariscotta Regional Chamber of Commerce interviewed me and the show was posted at the end of May. I had a reading May 18 in the Jefferson, Maine, Library and another a reading up in Bar Harbor at the end of June. Cheers!”
1967 WA The 1967 boys soccer team was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame
during the ceremony at Reunion this past June (read more on page 64).
1968 WA The following members of the class of 1968 came back to campus to celebrate their 55th reunion (see class photo with some attendees, above): Larry Anderson, Steve Arnold, Ken Bryant, Jim Cain, James Clarke, Russell Creighton, James Davenport, Ruxton Dellecese, Peter Downs, David Duquenne, Emil George, Marc Griggs, Kent Haberle, Rich Halpern, John Kawie, Chip Keeney, Don Klock, David McGrath, Chris McWilliams, Milton Moore, Ted Motyl, Bob Mullaly, Ted Nellen, Dave Urquhart, Paul Wainwright, Tom Wallace. Bill Borkon shares a photograph of his swim team at age 11 prior to attending Williston. During this time, he met Albert Ackermann and the two became friends. Bill claims that Albert is the reason he attended Williston. Both graduated together in 1968. After Albert passed away on June 25, 2023, William reached out to the school to share this photo. Ted Babcock, Don Klock, Jim Cain, Marc Griggs, Kent Haberle, Chip Keeney, and Paul Wainwright, members of the 1968 Reunion Com-
mittee, received the Daniel and Jane Carpenter Award at Reunion this past June (read more on page 61).
1969
55TH REUNION IN 2024
1971 NSFG Karen Hansen shares that she visited Margaret (Campbell) Lacoste in New Hampshire, and Nancy (Lockwood) Whitcomb and Sally (Myser) Wadhams in Vermont this past summer.
1972 Nils Berg writes: “Best wishes to the Class of 1972 from Riyadh! I’m happy and grateful to have experienced your contribution to my development!” Keith Cernak is a retired epidemiologist from the World Health Organization. He spent the last 35 years involved with projects addressing the medically and educationally underserved around the world. He now lives half time in Palo Alto, California, and the other half in the San Juan Islands near British Columbia, where he spends time with his grandchildren. Fred DeBruyn writes: “It was good to see Michael Wills at Reunion 2023. FALL 2023 BULLETIN 77
Gil and Trili (Goodrich) Timm ’72 celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary; Trili (Goodrich) Timm ’72 celebrating her birthday in Maine
From left: Robert Ruben ’71 and Adelaide (Murphy) Tyrol ’72 in Iceland Keith Cernak ’72 poses with his grandson, Sammy Michael Wills ’72 volunteering for a nonprofit that gives books to children
Things are going well for us overall, although we have lost two dogs since January. Not doing much for the rest of the year, but planning on some travel in the next couple of years and enjoying retirement. See you next June!” Richard Eyre writes: “After 22 years in Charlotte, Vermont, I am moving to Stowe, Vermont, and Vero Beach, Florida, living in Sea Oaks Beach & Tennis Community—tired of the long Vermont winters. Hoping to catch up with Rob Galbraith, who lives part time in Melbourne, Florida, and do some surf casting.” Allan Goldsher writes: “It was great fun seeing many of you at our 50th. Retirement is good and I’ve been at it for eight years now. My wife and I see our daughter, son, and grandkids in Boston regularly. We spend time at our Grantham, New Hampshire, getaway home most every week and I serve as the president of our condo association. I’m an avid gardener and
routinely cycle, kayak, paddleboard, and sail. During the winter I’m a ski instructor at Mount Sunapee and work in an adaptive ski program. Despite a recent medical hiccup that I’m recovering from, things are good.” Frank Gotwals writes: “I decided to ‘retire’ from lobstering last fall. Playing lots of music. Classical duo with bass clarinet, acoustic trio doing many originals, and three pop/rock/ blues groups. Best to the class of ’72.” Larry Hendy writes: “I’m long since retired from high-tech and sharing time in two places; well, actually four if you count our daughter in Boston and son and his family in London. Memories and lessons from Carp, Couch, and Francis permeated my personal and professional lifetime decisions. Williston did right by me, but I didn’t know or appreciate it at the time.”
78 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
Gil Timm writes: “In addition to our anniversary party (note the great now-and-then photo), Trili (Goodrich) Timm and I did some traveling this summer. We went down to Maryland, and we just returned from celebrating Trili’s birthday in Boothbay, Maine. Here’s a pic of the birthday girl with one of the trolls at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.” Adelaide (Murphy) Tyrol met up with Robert Ruben ’71 in the West Fjords of Iceland. Addie also attended Trili and Gil Timm’s 50th wedding anniversary party in New Hampshire. She loved seeing them, and also caught up with Steve August. (Addie was Trili’s maid of honor and Peter Carpenter was Gil’s best man.) Bill “Arli” Wagner writes: “I continue to enjoy retirement with my kids and granddaughter. I only attended Williston for one year, in 1972. However, I was extremely influenced by
Three generations of Williston alums. From left: Kenneth Barratt ’47, Curtis Barratt ’73, and Daniel Barratt ’06
Dick Gregory and Rick Francis, who just passed. The years are catching up with us, but we’re still a bunch of kids in older bodies!” Michael Wills writes: “This past Reunion I had the pleasure of performing with Barry Searle ’73’s band Time Stretchers, who entertained at the Stu-Bop. Barry invited Charlie Moore ’73 and me to sit in with the band on several songs. We had a blast! I spent a couple of days at the end of July with Rob Galbraith and Katherine in Westfield, New York. Time was short, so we weren’t able to do any sailing, but we will next time. Now that the summer is over, I am knee deep in back-to-school events all over St. Lawrence County. The nonprofit group that I volunteer for gives new reading books to students. When the shipment came in, several pallets of books had to be sorted and boxed. It’s definitely more fun to hand out books to kids!”
PH OTO G R A PH S BY PAU LE T TE G R I SWO LD A N D CH ATT M AN PH OTOGRAP H Y
Members of the class of ’83 “decorated” a 50th Reunion sign at Reunion (all in good fun!). From left: Paul Blumberh ’73, Jack Tatelman ’73, Jeff DeCaro ’73, Vinny LoBello ’73 stand in disapproval.
Frank Gotwals ’72 with his acoustic trio
From left: Michael Wills ’72, Charlie Moore ’73, and Barry Searle ’73 play for the Time Stretchers band, who provided entertainment at Reunion this past June
From left: Penny (Dods) Molyneux ’73, Sarah (Boardman) Dermody ’74, Eve Kummel ’73, Betty (Chase) Hyde ’73, Barry Searle ’73
The class of 73 on the Birch Dining Commons steps and having fun at right
1973 The following members of the class of 1973 came back to campus to celebrate their 50th Reunion (see class photo and other Reunion shots above): Stewart Adams, Cindy Archer, Lou Arp, Curt Barratt, Bruce Berman, Paul Bibeau, Paul Blumberh, Andy Brackbill, Carlos Castello, Jeff DeCaro, Alicia (Divoll) Socker, Carl Ehrlich, Judy (Collen) Fisher, Nancy Ford-Wallace, Savage Frieze, Dave Griswold, Michael Hirsch, Betty (Chase) Hyde, Debbie (Carpenter) Jerome, Jan Kaplowitz, Nancy Kingsberg, Eve Kummel, Rick LeBeau, Bruce Lisle, Vinny LoBello, Ann (Futter) Lomeli, Doug Lovell, Kristina
Madsen, Liz (Wells) McIlvain, Charlie Moore, Chris Olson, Faith Perkins, Ginger Phakos, Missy (Schy) Retsky, Barry Searle, Linda (Shlosser) Wood, Henry Simkin, John Sise, Brad Smith, Todd Stall, Jack Tatelman, Roger Trimbey, Rob Tullis, John Tyree, Larry Whalen, Ken Womack, Andrew Wooden, Abby Zanger, Patti Zilewicz. Lou Arp was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame during the ceremony at Reunion this past June (read more on page 64). Curtis Barratt shares a photo of himself, his father, Kenneth Barratt ’47, and his son, Daniel Barratt ’06, who passed away.
Pam Belsky writes: “Sorry I missed Reunion. I did a recent trip to Connecticut to visit family. I recently built a house in Idaho. I am doing quite well working part time as a special needs teacher and enjoying my three small dogs.” Dave Griswold shares: “Great to see so many at Reunion. I am up in Maine for an annual visit in Rockport. Been a brutal summer at home, triple digits since May. It’s so nice to be in cooler weather again. I played golf with Rig Trimbey last week, and am going to spend the day with Brad Smith and his wife, Christine, in
Bath and headed to Atlantic Canada in September—no hurry to get back to the heat. Hope everyone is well. —Grizzy” Michael Hirsch was awarded the Founders Award at Reunion this past June (read more on page 62). Eve Kummel shares: “I recently went to the Jackson Browne concert at Tanglewood with Betty (Chase) Hyde and Sarah (Boardman) Dermody ’74. We met up with Barry Searle and Penny (Dods) Molyneux. Great time had by all. Since Reunion, I’ve been to one of Barry Searle’s local gigs FALL 2022 BULLETIN 79
in Huntington. Hopefully, next year, his band will play in my hometown in the Berkshires. Betty and I are going on a Caribbean cruise in November.” Doug Lovell shares: “The members of the class of 1973 were treated as if they were ROYALTY!!! My heartfelt thanks to the Reunion Committee and the Williston staff—they simply couldn’t do enough for us.” Liz (Wells) McIlvain was awarded the Williston Northampton Medal at Reunion this past June (read more on page 60). Dan Moulton writes: “I was sorry to miss Reunion in June, but it sounds like you had a blast. I have about 100 head of cattle in north Texas, and June is hay season. Would have much rather been with you guys in Easthampton.” Barry Searle writes: “Our Time Stretchers group had a blast playing the Friday night of our Reunion. To a person, they all commented on what a great crowd it was, and how nice it was to be ’back in the saddle’ again after all the COVID constraints. One happy sidelight to it was that we have added ‘My Old School’ to our repertoire! Love that song! A personal highlight for me was getting to share the stage with GOOD old buddies Charlie Moore and Michael Wills ’72. Still rockin’, as we all can attest! We’ve been in regular contact ever since, along with our music-
loving mate Paul Blumberh. Have also enjoyed a couple recent music meetups with Eve Kummel. Beyond that, overall, I think the 50th was the best ever. Enjoyed the entire weekend—the programs and catching up with old friends and new friends too. Looking forward to the next time!” Anne (Insley) Steuart and husband Chris recently decided to move back to Maryland after living in Stuart, Florida, for the past 10 years. Anne writes that “as much as we’ve enjoyed living in southern Florida, we simply weren’t seeing enough of our children and grandchildren—who are growing like weeds—and all of whom live in Maryland. We’ve bought a waterfront property just outside of the historic town of St. Michael’s, on what’s known in Maryland parlance as the Eastern Shore, and will move there early in 2024. We’re looking forward to many years of enjoyment at our new digs, although the winter chill will definitely take some getting used to.” Jack “Kip” Tatelman writes: “Well, another Willy Reunion has made it into the record books, and what a great time it was. Kudos to all those who were part of the committee. You all worked especially hard to make our 50th truly memorable. As I reflect back over the many years that have passed, I can’t help but think of those who are no longer among us and the mark they left on our lives. Their spirit still lives among all the
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Charles LeMaitre ’76
school memories I conjured up that weekend. I would be amiss not to give a shout out to Mike Hirsch, Liz (Wells) McIlvain, and Lou Arp for the awards you each received. Your accomplishments make our class proud. As did raising over $73K as a group. Lastly, the merry pranksters. Yes, 50 years and “We’re Still Here.” What a long, strange trip it continues to be. Oh, and lest we forget… to the class of ’83 who disrespected our sign: We know who you are and have five years to plan an appropriate response.” Linda (Shlosser) Wood writes: “‘Simply the Best’ class of 1973, you rock! The Reunion was inspiring to make every minute, every day, and every year count. We all just seemed to be in sync after 50 years of living different lives, in different places. It was amazing how much we all have in common. Let’s make it a plan to meet in 2024 and help Penny ’74 and her class party in style. A special thank you to Barry Searle and his band; they were the icing on our reunion cake and amen to our reunion committee, who were so dedicated. I live in Prescott, Arizona, in the winter; still working as a Sotheby’s Real Estate Advisor in New London, New Hampshire, in the summer; please reach out if you are in either area; would love to see you. Love to all, stay healthy, stay alive, see you soon!”
Lisa Heffelfinger ’76 with Grant LeMaitre in Los Angeles
Andrew Wooden writes: “I was glad I made the trip from Los Angeles for the 50th class of ’73 Reunion. Rekindling old friendships and having conversations that we didn’t know how to in 1973 was rewarding and fulfilling.” Andrew has completed over 40 years in independent schools as an English teacher, senior administrator, and Head of School. With his wife Molly’s retirement from a career in admissions and philanthropy in schools and colleges, they have moved from Los Angeles to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where there is a guest room for classmates. Andrew continues to consult and coach for school heads and boards of trustees. He is also leading executive searches for schools and nonprofits. Andrew sits on a variety of nonprofit boards.
1974
50TH REUNION IN 2024 Conrad Johnson founded AWI (A Wild Idea) Wines in Mendoza, Argentina, and distributes his products through his boutique winery in Houston (awiwines.com). He’s looking forward to returning to campus for his 50th Reunion (June 7–9, 2024!). This past May, Conrad sent the Williston Alumni Office two bottles of wine (a malbec and mitad, a co-fermentation of chardonnay and viognier) and a wine apron, and has graciously offered to host a Williston wine event in the near future.
PH OTO G R A PH S BY DAVE S O ND R I N I A N D CH ATT M A N PH OTOGRAP H Y
Conrad Johnson ’74 and dog, Gaucho
Ellie Ballard, Director of Annual Giving at the Williston Northampton School, poses with several bottles of AWI wines created by Conrad Johnson ’74
Suzanne Cote-Croce ’82, John Anz, ’82, and Brenna Anz at a Fourth of July James Taylor concert.
See list of class of ’78 Reunion attendees below
From left: Virginia Weeks ’82 and Suzanne Cote-Croce ’82
See list of class of ’83 Reunion attendees below
1976 Lisa Heffelfinger recently met up with Grant Lemaitre, the son of the late Charles LeMaitre, who passed away in 2011.
1978 The following members of the class of 1978 came back to campus to celebrate their 45th Reunion (see class photo with some attendees, above, at right): Shane Anderson, Keith Brown, Tracy Carman, John Intorcio, Doug Irvine, Shawn (Benoliel) Lawrence, Rogelio Ramos, Jennifer (McLeod) Sleeper, Abby Waters.
Members of the class of 1983
Keith Brown and Shawn (Benoliel) Lawrence were inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame during the ceremony at Reunion this past June (read more on pages 63 and 64).
1979
45TH REUNION IN 2024
1982 Suzanne Cote-Croce writes: “After having our preplanned lawn picnic at Tanglewood, rerouted to the car due to torrential rains, we decided it was the much more civilized way to go; thanks to the incredible talents of the one and only Brenna Anz! The rain stopped at the perfect time, and John Anz, Brenna, and I headed to our seats in the shed to experience and take in all that the one and only
James Taylor and his All-Star Band can provide! A perfect night was wrapped up with a spectacular fireworks presentation! It was so good to be together with great company, fabulous food and drink, lovely car tunes (care of Ashtonwood), infectious laughter, great conversation, and JAMES TAYLOR! Already planning next year!” Suzanne also shares: “Met up with Ginny Weeks at the Red Lion Inn after a great R&R weekend of hikes, yoga, meditation, and archery at Kripalu Yoga Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. We had such a great time visiting Boston, reconnecting with each other and ourselves in a gorgeous setting! It was great!”
1983 The following members of the class of 1983 came back to campus to celebrate their 40th Reunion (see class photo with some attendees, above, at right): Hank Baer, Mark Berman, Megan Blaney, John Booth, Joe Boynton, Mary Ellen Bull, Jodi Burgess, Dominique Cook, Victoria (Falconer) Crane, Mary Ann Fedor, Janet (Mamulski) Glosick, Dan Horrigan, Susan (Midgley) Komosa, Chris Lussier, Jody Mattison, David Monroe, Daniel Nicoli, Douglas Raucher, Jodi (Eisenberg) Rubenstein, Jeannette (Fung) Shadrick, Stephen Sullivan, Joe Tarantino, Wendy (Libby) Thompson, Dennis Welsh, Tracy Winkelman, Michael Woods, Katie Yates.
FALL 2023 BULLETIN 81
Captain Tory with her co-first mates. From left: Mark Berman ’83, Tory (Falconer) Crane ’83, and Hank Baer ’83. From left: Mark Berman ’83 and Hank Baer ’83 representing Williston on the green
Mark Berman recently gathered with classmates Tory (Falconer) Crane and Hank Baer for a miniWilliston reunion in southern Connecticut.
1984
40TH REUNION IN 2024
Daniel Nicoli ’83 and Sally Smith ’84 on their wedding day— 40 years after attending Williston prom together
Liz Corsini writes: “Mother of four children—three living in NYC and one still at home! I have worked in the human services field for over 35 years. Most recently serving as the COO for a Bergen County nonprofit organization working with communities living at or below the poverty line. After 20 years with this organization, I left in July 2023 to launch a consulting firm dedicated to promoting equity and justice in the workplace. I live in New Jersey with my husband and see many of my WILLY besties—Jodes, Heather, and Birdie! Thank you, Cathy, for keeping us all connected!”
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Tim Farnham writes: “We have lived in Amherst, Massachusetts, for the past 14 years. I work at Mount Holyoke College (where my dad taught), teaching in the environmental studies department. My wife, Ellen, also works at Mount Holyoke, where she is the Curator of Education at the art museum. We have two kids, Anabelle Farnham ’18 and Julia Farnham ’20. They both graduated from Williston, and it was fun to return to the school as a parent for all the sporting events, theater productions, and musical performances. I’m really looking forward to the 40th (!!) Reunion next year. Hope to see everyone there!” Todd Pilgrim’s son, Jack, moved to NYC recently in hopes of utilizing his RISD degree in industrial design to its fullest. Fingers are crossed. Kile has moved to York Beach, Maine, with his girlfriend and is still working as a software engineer for General Dynamics. My folks both recently turned 85 and are in great health. I just golf…every day. Going to see Harv over Labor Day weekend for some fishing and making bad choices.” David “DQ” Quinn shares: “2023 has been a big year for the Quinn/ Carrizosa family. We have fun and informally use the combined name, Quinnizosa. My oldest son, Aidan, now 31, got married on January 1, 2023. He and his wife, Daniele, live in Odessa, Florida. My other two sons, Max (29, turns 30 in December) and Austin (27), live together in Denver, Colorado. Max has been working as a counselor with at-risk
teens, and Austin is a software developer for a warranty company in Denver. My daughter, Helen, just moved to Brookline, Massachusetts, with two of her close friends. Helen (22) is researching careers and looks to go into the beauty industry this fall. My wife, Ana, has two kids: Gigi (22), who just graduated from Syracuse with a bachelor’s in biotechnology, is working as an analyst for a West Coast firm and hopes to be working there full time this winter. Ana’s son, Matt (16), is going into his junior year at Nobles and is doing very well there—and yes, just started driving. Ana was just promoted and earned an endowed chair as the Albert H. Coons Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. That all sounds fancy, doesn’t it? Well, I am at Accenture, out of their Boston office, working in their Cloud First technology practice and also specializing in ServiceNow, an enterprise engagement and workflow platform. Sounds like a lot, but it’s another way of saying helping clients with their digital transformation to the cloud. When work gets me down, I simply think of how lucky I am to be part of a great family and with people who are all pursuing their passion in life. I am also lucky enough to work with other Williston alumni at Accenture, albeit not from our class, but the connection to Williston transcends the years well. I hope the rest of the class of 1984 are doing well. We live in Newton, just outside of Boston—don’t hesitate to text/email, etc., and say ‘Hi.’”
PH OTO G R A PH S BY DAVE S O ND R I N I A N D CH ATT M A N PH OTOGRAP H Y
Sharing a dinner together! From left: Mark Berman ’83, Hank Baer ’83, friend Jodi, and Tory (Falconer) Crane ’83.
From left: Rex Solomon ’84, Robert Squire ’84, David Lucier ’84, Craig Ferri ’84, Barrack Evans ’84, and Bryant McBride ’84
Members of the class of 1988 goofing around in the photo booth
See list of class of ’88 Reunion attendees below
Sally Smith writes: “It almost feels See list of class of ’83 unreal,Reunion but this news is TRUE! attendees belowI married Daniel Nicoli, class of ’83, over 40 years after we went to his prom together. We celebrated our marriage at our cottage on Lake Winnipesaukee and live full-time in Charleston, South Carolina. We had a blast at Daniel’s 40th WNS Reunion and can’t wait to see everyone in June for ours!” Tamsin Smith writes: “My day job these days is a mix of serving as Curator in Residence at Arion Press in San Francisco and heading up brand strategy for SUGi, an organization that builds ultra biodiverse pocket forests around the world. I continue to show my paintings around the Bay Area and have exhibitions up currently in San Francisco and Occidental. The most-new news is that I’ve been writing songs with my partner, who’s a longtime recording artist. Our first album, Two-sided Fortune, is streaming on all the various platforms. For lyrics and to download, check out wundercat.us. Kids are
great. Scully is teaching English at Berkeley High School and Tabitha (Williston class of 2022) is loving Northeastern. My niece, Audrey, will enter Williston Middle School this fall. Go Wildcats!” Andy Snyder shares: “Hello Willys! I’m about to start my 26th year of teaching intermediate elementary school, mostly at Essex Elementary in Connecticut. My family and I enjoyed our annual summer trip to the Adirondacks and a special 25th anniversary cruise (for two) of the Rhine River from Amsterdam to Basel, Switzerland. Happy 40th, class of ’84.” Rex Solomon writes, “The class of 1984 showed up in force for Mr. Gregory’s memorial service and Caterwaulers reunion in the Dodge Room, followed by the traditional lunch at Nini’s. After celebrating the life of Mr. Gregory and our 39th Reunion, we will reconvene in less than a year to see everyone else at the 40th!”
1987 Jamie Gass was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame during the ceremony at Reunion this past June (read more on page 63).
From left: Chris Davis ’91 and Pat Mulligan ’91
1988
1991
The following members of the class of 1988 came back to campus to celebrate their 35th Reunion (see class photo with some attendees, above): Liz (McLeod) Bienfang, Jai Chanda, Nicole Clausing, Keira Durrett, Erica (Levine) Faulkner, Marsi Foster, Harry Goetzmann, Amy (Helliwell) Hampson, Peter Hayden, Jon Lappin, Jennifer Lightsey, Cathy (Curran) McDonough, Kristi Prigmore, Tina (Crowther) Purdy, Miriam (Neugeboren) Turner, Jen (Gaitenby) Vachon, William Wheeler, Janet Winkelman.
Chris Davis writes: “Recently, I was driving through Reno with my son and very spontaneously caught up with Pat Mulligan, who lives there. He was a good friend. I hadn’t seen him in about 32 years!”
1989
35TH REUNION IN 2024
1992 R. Amy Stewart shares: “I have joined a new media company called College Football Dawgs. I am the deputy editor. I will also be reporting on Iowa, Rutgers, UMass, and HBCU teams. I want to thank Harris Thompson and Lisa Snook for inspiring me to be a lifelong writer. I have lost track with some friends since changing my name. Please reach out to me on Twitter @VioletSwerve.” FALL 2023 BULLETIN 83
Spencer and Chase, children of Sarah (Levine) Meyer ’00, pose with their Williston Northampton T-shirts
1993 The following members of the class of 1993 came back to campus to celebrate their 30th Reunion (see class photo, above): Hilary Clausing, Sarah Griggs, Dan Hayden, Chris Miller. Chris Miller was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame during the ceremony at Reunion this past June (read more on page 63).
1994
30TH REUNION IN 2024
1997 Alexis (Greer) Heidenberg shares: “My husband, Mike, and I moved to Albany, New York, in July 2022. We love it here so far. There’s plenty to do, without the fast pace and hor-
See list of class of ’93 Reunion attendees below
rible traffic we were used to in the NYC suburbs (where we both grew up!). The New York Capital Region is turning out to be much more our speed. Who knew?! I got to speak with Heidi Kim recently, who was in California for a business trip—only a three-hour time difference, for once! It is always wonderful to hear her voice. She seems to be very busy with work, but is doing well.” Liz Zieminski writes: “Gathered together briefly with Sheree Shu ’98 and Maura (Corbeil) Beaudreault last fall in Palm Springs for our own R&R mini-Willy reunion. And thinking ahead, wondering if any Willy alumni from ’96–’99 who participated in the 1996 Williston Theater production of Sweeney Todd see that it’s on Broadway and are thinking the same thing as me? Possible Willy reunion NYC outing to “attend the tale”? Hope everyone is well!
1998 The following members of the class of 1998 came back to campus to celebrate their 25th Reunion (see class photo with some attendees above, at right): Michael Bello, Aaron Bissell, David Carpenter, Shaun Chapman, Eden (Playe) Dragicevich, Nate Ferraro, Michael George, Niels Gjertson, Katherine (Murphy) Kausch, Sasha Kopf, Ceara Mahoney, Alison (Branch) Meade,
84 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
Christa Talbot Syfu ’98, with her husband, Andrew, and son Anderson
Caitlin Mitchell, Sarah (Kinner) Stephenson, Christa Talbot Syfu, Nathan Thaler, Amy Weber, Sarah (Meade) Wood.
1999
25TH REUNION IN 2024
2000 Sarah (Levine) Meyer shares a photo of her kids wearing Williston gear at left!
2001 Paul McNeil shares: “Living across the street from Galbraith Field in Easthampton for almost 10 years now, in the old Rene LaPlante ’04 and Steve LaPlante ’00 residence, with my unfailingly patient partner, Alysa Austin, and our two monsters (Henry is 6 and Robin is 2). I continue to work in the public health field, with a focus on youth substance use prevention while managing a CDC grant in the Pioneer Valley. FINALLY finished my master’s in public health at UMass a few years back (only took me seven years!) and can confirm that UMass-Amherst is IN FACT the greatest university on the planet. I get to see Meg Sullivan running the show at Joe’s Cafe a bunch, but would love to see her more. Turns out running the best restaurant that has ever served food—ever—keeps her pretty busy. I sometimes see Jesse Morgan’s
art on display in the area and it’s always unbelievably stunning. Just finished my eighth summer performing improv comedy at the Majestic Theater in West Springfield. I’ll be back next summer, for sure. Come catch a fully improvised musical on the first Saturday of each month at the Happier Valley Comedy theatre in Hadley. Not a fan of musicals? Neither was I, but I am a huge fan of this show. We’re called The Understudies, and I’m by far the least talented reason you should try to catch one. I pop in and out of storytelling at the NEPR Valley Voices story slams, regularly featuring WNS English teacher and Chief Technology Officer Andrew Shelffo. He’s a phenomenal storyteller. I regularly try to catch a coffee with old pals Corie Fogg ’99 and Sarah Sawyer in town and can’t stop attending marquee WNS boys soccer and basketball games. My kids LOVE cheering on Willy with me, thankfully. Feel free to join in the next alumni game. I’m talking to you, John Rozak!!”
PH OTO G R A PH S BY DAVE S O ND R I N I A N D CH ATT M A N PH OTOGRAP H Y
After hearing of the passing of Barbara (Curtis) Baker ’61 (right), Liz Zieminski ’97 (left) sent in this lovely shot of her, Ellis ’57 (center), and Barbara from a recent visit.
class notes
Rawr! See list of class of ’98 Reunion attendees below.
See list of class of ’03 Reunion attendees below
2003
Sean Saval and Jason Chandler recreated their photo from five years ago. Happily, many more ’03 alums joined them this year!
The following members of the class of 2003 came back to campus to celebrate their 20th Reunion (see class photo with some attendees, above): Alli Arbib, Sam Astor, Kata (Franczyk) Baker, Ezra Barnehama, Warren Barnett, Jenny Bolte, Joe Capaldi, Joe Cavallaro, Jason
Chandler, Greg Colello, Nick Cookson, Colin D’Amour, Sally Ekus, Yanick Evora, Alex Feinstein, Olivia Frost, Kimberly (Lindsey) Gordon, Lela Griffin, Liv Anna Homstead, Jonathan McGowan, Cashmere Sky Lion, Mickey Meyer, Julia (Condon) Miller, Maria Myra Palmero, Sean Saval, Eric Schneider, Abby Slotnick, Liz (Kulik) Watson. FALL 2023 BULLETIN 85
Margaret (Conant) Nicholas ’07 posing with husband Bob
Members of the class of 2003 hanging out before their class picture Crosby and Oscar, children of Joe Cavallaro ’03, pose to show off their Williston pride
Joe Cavallaro attended his 20th Reunion this past June, bringing his whole family to campus for the weekend. He made sure to send us some adorable photos of his children in their Williston swag. He shares, “My oldest, Crosby, is obsessed with his oversize tee and wears it at least once a week!” Kimberly (Lindsey) Gordon was awarded the Alumni Trailblazer Award at Reunion this past June (read more on page 61).
2004
20TH REUNION IN 2024 Class of ’05 alum Nick Cunningham’s bundle of joy, baby Joshua
Areeje (Akhtar) Oriol shares: “Excited to share I have joined OF-
86 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
2005 Pioneers Run Crew, a running club that promotes diversity and inclusivity in the running scene in Boston, which was started in 2017 by Sidney Baptista, was recently featured on NBC10 Boston by news anchor Glenn Jones ’95! Nick Cunningham and his wife, Flo, welcomed baby, Joshua Thomas Cunningham, this past fall.
2007 Margaret (Conant) Nicholas was married to her husband, Bob, this past spring in Santa Barbara, California, and she’s now back to living and
working in northern Virginia. Kate O’Brien had her second child on February 24, named Jack Elliot Taterka. Sam Teece writes: “I was in Lake Tahoe for a spring ski day and was sharing a table with a group of strangers. One of the strangers turned out to be Adam Curtis ’12!”
2008 The following members of the class of 2008 came back to campus to celebrate their 15th Reunion (see class photo with some attendees on opposite page): Jake Capistran, Ali Castillo Rosenblatt, Stefanie Davis, Rosanny Gonzalez, Brendan McCartney, John O’Connor, Tyler Payne. Spenser Allaway was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame during the
PH OTO G R A PH S BY DAVE S O ND R I N I
FICIAL as Director of Growth! Continuing to build the team of extraordinary, high-caliber agents, creating a bench that is unprecedented in today’s brokerage landscape.”
See list of ’08 Reunion attendees below From left: Adam Curtis ’12 and Sam Teece ’07 randomly ran into each other on the slopes at Lake Tahoe
ceremony at Reunion this past June (read more on page 65).
2009
15TH REUNION IN 2024
2010 Katie (Dupuis) Bias welcomed her second baby, Tyler, on May 16 with her husband, Anthony Bias. Kevin Kelly and his wife, Vicky, welcomed their daughter, Hayes Kelly, to the world in December. “Our happy little girl has been a great blessing!” writes Kevin. Ben Kravitz and Jamie Thomson recently reconnected at fellow Williston classmate Jack Spagnola’s wedding in Ithaca, New York. Ben and Jamie talked about life after Williston, reminisced over the good ol’ days, and shared stories with Jack’s dad, Tony Spagnola ’72, who recently attended his 50th Williston Reunion! Nadine Muñiz writes: “I got married to my husband, George T. Boston Jr.! Ashley (Carrasquillo) Harris ’09, my maid of honor; Kristyna (Bronner) Frantz, my bridesmaid; and Christina Djossa all flew out to Curaçao to attend my wedding.” Garrett Lessard was recently married to his wife, Caitlin. Garrett’s
brother, John Lessard ’08, was present, along with Brendan Woods ’11. Reece Liang recently moved to Boston’s South End and is still working remotely at JLL in the valuation advisory business. He regularly attends Barry’s Bootcamp fitness classes with Jacob Roscoe and, more recently, Chris Zombik; and is thrilled to be joined in Boston by Kristina Conroy and Ben Cowan! He would be happy to host anyone who is in town. Erica (DiMaria) Pollard shares: “This past May, I finished the dental hygiene program at STCC, where I excelled as a student and as a class leader. I was the Vice President and was in charge of fundraising along with community service involvement. I graduated in the top five of my class and received the Dental Hygiene Leadership award. I started working in June at EMA Dental, at both their East Longmeadow and Northampton offices, and have grown so much as a dental hygienist since being there. I have found my passion, and truly love helping people improve their oral health!” Chris Zombik finished the manuscript of his first novel in February and is now in the editing phase. In April, he joined Vocal Revolution, a competitive Boston-area men’s barbershop chorus. In terms of work, he
Nadine Muñiz ’10 tied the knot and was joined by several Williston alums
Class of 2010 alum Kevin Kelly’s daughter Hayes
From left: Jamie Thomson ’10 and Ben Kravitz ’10 Erica (DiMaria) Pollard ’10
Katie (Dupuis) Bias ’10 shares the newest addition to her family, baby Tyler
From left: Hunter Snyder ’12, Adrian Mendoza ’12, Stacy Adams, Connor Adams ’12, Hunter Adams ’17, Kevin Conroy ’12, Alex Nunnelly ’12, Monique Conroy, Mark Conroy
Susan (Whitman) Bell ’11 and husband, Conor Bell
is currently co-authoring the memoir of a Chinese business associate about life in China over the past 50 years. Chris also works part time as an Education Consultant, serving the Chinese and Chinese-emigrant markets. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, where he enjoys gardening, hiking, and playing Dungeons & Dragons.
happy to have this awesome memory and so many Williston friends at our celebration!”
2012 Connor Adams was married this past summer with a whole group of Wildcats in attendance!
2011 Susan (Whitman) Bell was married to her husband, Conor Bell, on June 3 in Napa, California. She writes, “The day was such a whirlwind—I can’t believe we managed to get this shot! So 88 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
Jill Dahrooge shares an adorable photo of her dog, Chili, showcasing a classy Williston-branded leash.
Zoe Lai ’13 on her wedding day with husband, Jason Lee
2013 The following members of the class of 2013 came back to campus to celebrate their 10th Reunion (see class photo, at right, opposite page): Laura Aptowitz, Alizah Barker, Mika Chmielewski, Pierre Deliso, Felicia Dixon, Omashola Ekperigin, Miranda Gohh, Natalie Hippolyte, Abby Jackson, Kat Kaisla, Nick Kioussis, Denison Marsland-Rello, Kelly O’Donnell, Janelle Parker, Sebastian Rivera, Alex Starzyk, John Woodside, Chris Zawacki.
contest, bringing home the $130 pot! Dylan Arthurs is engaged and plans to be married to his fianceé, Lindsey, this fall! Zoe Lai was married to her husband, Jason Lee, on March 12, 2023. Devon (Greenwood) Larson and her husband, Travis, welcomed a baby boy, Anders Greenwood Larson, into the world.
2014
10TH REUNION IN 2024 During Reunion this past June, Laura Aptowitz won the Closest to the Pin
Erik Ostberg was recently featured
PH OTO G R A PH S BY DAVE S O ND R I N I A N D CH ATT M A N PH OTOGRAP H Y
From left: Brett Fellows ’12, Rachel Fechser ’12, Tori Gates ’10, Conor Bell, Susan (Whitman) Bell ’11, Emilia Caligiuri ’11, Didi Whitman Griffin ’13, Sonia Whitman ’21, Sumner Kissane ’21
class notes
Laura Aptowitz ’13 revels in her victory at Closest to the Pin during Reunion See list of 2013 Reunion attendees, opposite page
in news from the Official Minor League Baseball Website: “MONTGOMERY, Ala.—The Mississippi Braves (51-64) were one out away from claiming their second victory of the series, but Erik Ostberg would fire a grand slam to right-center field and lift the Biscuits (62-55) to a 9-8 victory on Thursday night at Riverwalk Stadium.”
2015 Brandon Borges has joined the staff at Williston this fall as the Athletics Intern. This past July, Gabby Thomas won the women’s 200 meters final during the U.S. track and field championships in Eugene, Oregon.
Gia Parker was married to partner Kennedy Ottenbreit this past July in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Members of the Williston Community were in attendance at the ceremony, and Gia started her wedding day off by running an early 5K alongside her brother, Caleb Parker ’15. The two of them ended up winning the race!
Gabby Thomas ’15 celebrating her recent victory
Members from the classes of 1998 and 2013 hang out on the Reed patio during Reunion
From left: Matt Sawyer, Will Hanford, Mark Conroy, Sarah Sawyer, Will Sawyer ’22, Monique Conroy, Anna Sawyer ’24, Taylor Hanford, Gia Parker ’14, Kennedy Ottenbreit, Caleb Parker ’15, Lindsay Hanford, Kyle Hanford ’97, Erin Davey.
See list of ’18 Reunion attendees below
2016 The following members of the class of 2016 came back to campus to celebrate their missed fifth Reunion due to COVID (see class photo with some attendees above, at left): Hannah Fitzgerald, Gabbie Foderaro, Abbie Foster, Megan Szawlowski, Jess Wendelken, Julia Wise, Caroline Wysocki. Alyssa Stevens shares that her art was displayed in Seoul during Korea Blockchain Week on September 7. She writes: “Extremely grateful for the opportunity to have my artwork exhibited internationally!”
Tara Sullivan ’16 running in a marathon
Tara Sullivan shares, “I completed a PGY1 at the Malcom Randall VA in Florida, and now am completing a PGY2 in oncology at OU Health. During the last year of residency, I also competed in one marathon, four half marathons, two Ironman 70.3s, three 10Ks, and one 5K.
90 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
2017 The following members of the class of 2017 came back to campus to celebrate Reunion with the class of 2018: Arvin Fieldman, Ian Ostberg.
2018 The following members of the class of 2018 came back to campus to celebrate their fifth reunion (see class photo, above): Fiona Bundy, Sophia Carellas, A’Shaela Chaires, Vikram Dalmiya, Tim Fay, Sofia Flores, Madison Fulcher-Melendy, Shana Hecht, Gabby Jones, Max Livingston, Marielle McHale, Kevin O’Sullivan, Jack Phelan, Natalie Romain, Sophia Schaefer, Ellie Scott, Bryan Soder, Mika Sovjani, Jordan Strum, Addison Walker. Caroline Channell has joined the faculty at Williston this fall as a History and Global Studies Intern. Lizzie Cuevas recently secured two first-place titles at the Manhattan Dance Championships with almost perfect marks.
2019
5TH REUNION IN 2024 At Merrimack College L.E.A.D. Awards, it was announced that Nick Barber is this year’s Merrimack Medal recipient. The Merrimack Medal is awarded to the senior who exemplifies outstanding character and achievement of service to their classmates and the Merrimack Col-
Lizzie Cuevas ’18 and her dance partner at the Manhattan Dance Championships
PH OTO G R A PH S BY DAVE S O ND R I N I A N D CH ATT M A N PH OTOGRAP H Y
Members of the class of 2018 reuniting under the tent
Julia Krupp gave birth to a baby boy on June 15 named Paxton James Krupp.
Gates MacPherson ’19 shows off her recent novel “Their First Winter”
Anna Moran ’20, recipient of the Fenwick Scholar Award
From left: Zach Walker ’22, Luke Ballard ’23, and Tucker Motyka ’22 taking a photo break while they worked at Reunion this year
lege community. This is considered the most prestigious nonacademic award at Merrimack.
perspective to the awkwardness and uncertainty of growing up.” Find a copy on Lulu.com.
this gap because it has let me watch all the different chapters of Susan Sam’s life. Susan Sam, Didi, and I all went to the same boarding school, Williston, in Western Massachusetts. I was 4 when Susan Sam went to Williston. Every weekend I would beg my parents to take our old white Escalade to go visit her. Sometimes, I was even so persuasive that my parents let me skip Wednesday of school, because this was when she had cross-country meets and tennis matches. You would think from my excitement that we were going to Disney every week. Seeing my oldest sister brought me the same excitement any other 4-year-old would have felt when finding out they’re going to Disney. Going to Williston was completely my decision, which was fueled by wanting to follow in my sisters’ footsteps” (see pictures of Sonia and the bride on page 88).
Catherine King was recognized by Lasell University and by her peers for outstanding collaboration in the Spring 2023 semester in her fashion event production course. She was selected as the best person to work with in this course. Recipients of the Collaboration Recognition Award are selected by their peers for exemplifying superior skills in collaboration by sharing ideas and useful information, communicating in a professional manner, and cooperating in a way to ensure success. She also recently announced that she’s been chosen by Lasell to be the 2023 student Commencement speaker. Gates MacPherson wrote her first novel for her senior thesis project at Endicott College. She writes: “The novel started out in a class that I took the Fall of my junior year, but I enjoyed working on the project so much, I transitioned it to be my senior thesis! It’s titled Their First Winter, and it’s a coming-of-age, young adult, fictional romance. The story centers around the ‘firsts’ teenagers experience as they’re entering adolescence and offers a relatable
2020 Maddy Cardaci was named a team captain for the upcoming season for the Boston University women’s hockey team. Anna Moran was selected by the College of the Holy Cross as the Fenwick Scholar for 2023–2024. The Fenwick Scholar Award is the highest academic award that the college bestows. The Fenwick Scholar designs, with one or more advisors, a program of independent research or a project that will complete his or her undergraduate education in the most challenging, creative, and meaningful way.
2021 Sonia Whitman shares a moving excerpt from the speech she delivered at her sister Susan (Whitman) Bell ’11’s recent wedding: “As I mentioned before, I am Susan Sam’s youngest sister. When I say youngest, I don’t just mean she is a couple years older than me; Susan Sam and I have an 11year age gap. Yes, I am 19, and Susan Sam is 30. I have always appreciated
for. The event took place on May 21 at the Warrior Ice Arena in Boston.
Anita Hua recently attended the Columbia China Prospects Conference Start-Up Competition and received first prize for a startup she co-founded—an AI-oriented travel agency that hopes to personalize travel plans on an individual basis. Young alums including Julia Borden, Tucker Motyka, Zach Walker, and Luke Ballard ’23 offered an incredible amount of help during Reunion this past June. We could not have done it without them and we thank them for everything they did!
2022 This past May, Gavin Havens raised money for cancer research with the A Shot For Life organization (ASFL) and was selected as a part of the ASFL Family program, which brings with it the opportunity to participate in the A Shot For Life Classic—an all-star hockey event that the best players in or from Massachusetts are chosen
Gavin Havens ’22
FALL 2023 BULLETIN 91
This summer, many alumni were sad to learn of the deaths of former longtime faculty members Rick Francis and Dick Gregory. With 92 years of teaching and coaching between them, they profoundly influenced legions of students—and were role models for many young teachers, too. We asked Director of Athletics Mark Conroy and former faculty member Greg Tulejato share their reflections on these two epic figures.
I HAD THE GOOD FORTUNE OF MEETING RICK FRANCIS WHEN I WAS A YOUNG ATHLETIC DIRECTOR AND COACH AT A JUNIOR BOARDING SCHOOL IN CONNECTICUT IN THE LATE 80S. Rick
and I served together on an athletic planning committee for a New England teachers conference, and his warmth, personality, and generosity of spirit made an immediate impact on me. I learned early on that, in the NEPSAC athletic 92 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
director world, Rick Francis commanded tremendous respect from his peers as someone who was not only a sage voice of experience but a mentor to so many because he modeled integrity and collegiality. I also learned that Rick and I had a great deal in common as former college athletes who shared a great love for athletics in general and coaching football in particular! As a football coach, Rick was never one to rest on his laurels and was always looking for innovative ways to get an edge over his competition. In my experience, he was one of the few prep head coaches who actively looked for prospective players—reaching out to me and other junior coaches on a regular basis to inquire about possible candidates for Williston. Not surprisingly, a number of my boys went on to play for Coach Francis. This gave me another window into Rick as a coach and mentor. To a person, my former players had tremendous experiences playing for him. His teams were always exceptionally well coached. At the root of his success was his ability to connect with the boys who played for him
on a personal level. He used this platform to impact the lives of his players long after they had the great privilege of playing for him. As we all know well, athletics are a very visible part of boarding school life. More often than not, our impressions of peer schools are formed through the athletic lens as we host and visit peer schools literally hundreds of times in any given school year. For me, Williston always stood out as a school that not only had competitive, wellcoached teams, but also seemed to have a warm and welcoming, authentic school community. Lessons around sportsmanship were at the core of Coach Francis’ leadership as both a coach and athletic director. Stepping into Rick Francis’ sizeable shoes in 2000 was a tremendous privilege and a responsibility. From everything that I have learned about Rick’s predecessor Dale Lash (Williston’s Athletic Director from 1942 to 1967), I am certain that Rick inherited the same sense of responsibility when he became Athletic Director in 1967. Competing with great sportsmanship and representing Williston with class had been a priority of Coach Lash’s tenure. I feel strongly that the legacy of Williston athletics, as it is for the Williston community, is that sports are used not only as a powerful platform to teach life skills but also as a reflection of what Williston values as a school community. There is no question in my mind that Rick Francis not only embodied all that is good in athletics, but also built on this legacy during his long, distinguished tenure. —Mark Conroy
PH OTO G R A PH S BY C H AT TM A N PH OTO G R A P H Y A N D M AT TH E W C AVANAU GH
Remembering Two Williston Legends
class notes
I MET DICK IN THE SUMMER OF 1983, WHEN I FIRST VISITED WILLISTON TO INTERVIEW FOR A PART-TIME MUSIC TEACHING POSITION. In
contrast to the then Head of School, who greeted me in shorts and bare feet, Dick gave me a campus tour in 85-degree heat, dressed in sharply pleated trousers, shined loafers, jacket, and tie (he would have called it a “necktie”). Dick was gracious and engaging, and took a great interest in me, as he would continue to do for decades after. Karin O’Neil and Bob St. George decided to take a chance on a completely green young musician, fresh out of grad school, and I was hired. Later that week, I received from Dick a five-page handwritten letter of congratulations, in his beautiful penmanship and impeccable prose. The letter was an introduction to the musical life of the school, intelligent, funny, and encouraging, character-
istics that would become reliable features of our long friendship. I was nervous about my new job, but after reading that letter (three times), I knew that there was at least one person at Williston who would be in my corner, a seasoned, well-regarded veteran, eager to help me get started. I was yet to learn of Dick Gregory’s brilliant talents as a musician. Dick’s extraordinary ability as a composer, arranger, and performer (piano, violin, viola, and yes, tuba) was an absolute revelation to me when I arrived. One of Haydn’s string quartets had been appropriated by the school as the Williston hymn, and at some point during my first few years, Dick and I were asked to put together a student group to perform the piece. We did not happen to have two violins, a viola, or a cello, so we were faced with the task of rewriting the quartet for the forces that we did have—flutes, clarinet, and French horn, as I remember. My plan was
to work from the score and transcribe Haydn’s string parts, making the necessary adjustments for keys and ranges. Dick’s strategy was more direct. As I watched him, in some amazement, he simply sat down at his desk, took out some blank sheet music, and started writing out the score, using only his memory. In about half an hour, all four parts of the 32-measure piece were written out, transposed for our wind quartet. By the way, he did this, not with a pencil, but with a black nonerasable marker. I would discover the next day at rehearsal that in the several pages of four-part writing, there were no errors. Dick would be surprised that I still remember that incident 40 years later. That musical feat, and so many others like it, although spectacular to me, was for him routine. Dick was an unfailing advocate,
advisor, and friend. I sometimes wondered how he could do such a good job propping up a brand-new teacher, while he was also teaching art history and English, and running three choral groups, including the already legendary Caterwaulers, and the newer but also impressive Widdigers. He was also designing costumes for theater productions (he was very skilled in drawing and adept behind a sewing machine). Dick was also busy directing school plays, writing original plays, and serving as the Ford Hall dorm head. Through our years together at the school, first when I was part of the music program and later when I was not, Dick was a constant source of knowledge and inspiration to me. For some years after his retirement, Dick used to meet his fellow retirees Bob Couch ’50, Ray Brown, and Al Shaler for weekly Friday morning coffee in the Stu-Bop. Somehow, I got a standing invitation to join them, which I often did, when Heads of School Brian Wright or Bob Hill no doubt expected me to be hard at work in my office in the Schoolhouse. But seeing Dick again was worth the trip across campus. He was, in the most authentic sense, a scholar and a true gentleman, and I feel grateful to have known him and worked so closely with him for so many years. Dick helped me to unravel the mysteries to be found in that wonderful and bewildering species known as “the teenager,” and I know that many hundreds of former students and singers who once populated these paths and these buildings will remember Dick as I do, with great affection, admiration, and respect.—Greg Tuleja
Read more about Rick Francis and Dick Gregory at williston.com/bulletin
FALL 2023 BULLETIN 93
class notes
IN MEMORY
1952
This listing contains the names of alumni whose deaths were reported to the school between March 23, 2023, and September 15, 2023, although their passing may have occurred outside those dates.
Lawrence “Larry” Ball of Grand Junction, Colorodo, died on August 10, 2023. He is survived by his daughter, Stacey; his sons, Daniel and Logan. A third son, Ryan ’87, predeceased him. He is also survived by six grandchildren and three greatgrandchildren.
1944 Ann (Doble) Abbey of Hingham, Massachusetts, died April 24, 2022. She is survived by her daughters, Karen, Meredith, Susan, and Diane; seven grandchildren; and nine greatgrandchildren.
Frederick S. Eaton of Ludlow, Massachusetts, died July 13, 2022. He is survived by his partner, Sandra; five daughters; five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
Jordan R. Dann of Danbury, Connecticut, died July 10, 2022. He is survived by his sons, Curtis and Jeoffrey; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Eldred H. Schrager of North Fort Meyers, Florida, died on July 23, 2018. He is survived by his children, Eldred, Joel, Wayne, and Robin; eight grandchildren; and five greatgrandchildren.
1946
1954
Edward P. Call of Seattle, Washington, died February 1, 2023.
Jun (Uramatsu) Smith of Concord, Massachusetts, died August 23, 2023. She is survived by her sons, Jeffrey and Timothy; her sisters, Kiyoko and Kei; and three grandchildren.
1947 William F. Krusell of Scituate, Massachusetts, died April 12, 2023. He is survived by his companion, Debra; and his sons, Eric and Peter. A daughter, Nancy, predeceased him. He is also survived by his brother, John; seven grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.
1951 Clare (Doverspike) Conover of Essex, Connecticut, died August 16, 2023. She is survived by her brothers, Scott and Charles.
Roderick “Stu” Thomson Jr. of Sarasota, Florida, died July 13, 2023.
1955 David J. Moriarty of Holyoke, Massachusetts, died March 29, 2023. He is survived by his son, Peter; his sisters, Eleanor and Marian; and two grandchildren.
1957 Torrey A. Welch of Lincoln, California, died August 12, 2023.
94 WILLISTON NORTHAMPTON SCHOOL
1958
1962
Howard “Marshall” Benjamin of Carmel Valley, California, died February 20, 2023. He is survived by his wife, Judy; his son, Erik; and his sister, Susan.
Richard P. Shepardson of Clearwater, Florida, died May 2, 2023.
Susan (Gibson) Schiller of Salem, Ohio, died June 9, 2023. She is survived by her brother, William; and her sister, Jane ’64. Her son, David, predeceased her.
Lee (Mudge) Quinn of Chicopee, Massachusetts, died June 26, 2022. She is survived by her sister, Ellen.
Richard H. Wendin of Detroit, Michigan, died Aug. 13, 2023. He is survived by his brother, Sigurd.
Philip Bergson Jr. of East Orleans, Massachusetts, died May 9, 2023. He is survived by his wife, Catherine; his step-daughter, Cheryl; his brother, Peter; his sister, Patricia; and two step-grandchildren.
1961
1965
1966
Barbara (Curtis) Baker of South Yarmouth, Massachusetts, died June 12, 2023. She is survived by her husband, Ellis ’51; her daughters, Lisa ’89 and Carrie ’92; her brothers, Richard and Jeffrey; and nine grandchildren.
David Stevens, Jr. of Bocabec, New Brunswick and Easthampton, Massachusetts, died April 28, 2023. He is survived by his brother, Daniel; and his step-brother, Thomas.
Robert A. Clapp of Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania, died May 8, 2023. He is survived by his wife, Rosemarie; his sons, Robert, David, and David; and his daughter, Amy. A fourth son, Michael, predeceased him. He is also survived by 11 grandchildren.
Albert J. Ackermann of Newport, Kentucky, died June 25, 2023. He is survived by his children, AJ, Grant, and Elizabeth; his sisters, Bev and Janet; and two grandchildren.
Edith (Bliss) Hills of Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, died April 23, 2023. She is survived by her daughters, Courtney, Chapin, and Amanda; her son, Albert; her brother, Charles; and 12 grandchildren. Richard C. Sheldon of Salisbury, North Carolina, died March 18, 2023. He is survived by his daughters, Wendy and Heather; his sons, Paul and Brian; his brother, Edgar; and six grandchildren.
1968
1969 Matthew E. Peck of West Springfield, Massachusetts, died April 22, 2023. He is survived by his partner, Carolyn; his son, Christopher; his daughter, Rosemary ’04; his step-son, Garrett; his brothers, Robert, John, and Richard; his sisters, Deborah and Mary; and one grandchild.
class notes
Brenda Hubbard Plut of Ontario, Canada, died July 10, 2023. She is survived by her husband, Joseph; her son, Gordon; her step-sons, Matthew and Stephen; her brother, David; and her sister, Ruth.
1971 Mark W. Sullivan of Rochester Hills, Michigan, died March 14, 2023. He is survived by his sisters, Anne and Margaret.
1973 Robert S. Little of Winchester, Massachusetts and Laconia, New Hampshire, died on June 2, 2023. He is survived by his wife, Mary Beth; his daughter, Kate; his son, Matthew; his sister, Jo; his brother, Geoff; and one grandchild.
1975 Carol A. Steinheimer of Charlotte, North Carolina, died April 24, 2023. She is survived by her partner, Greg; her sister, Jane; and her brother, Richard.
PENCIL US IN! 2024 EVENTS • February 15: Founders Day • February 17: Welcome Back Wildcats—On-Campus Reception and Theater Student Performance of Something Rotten! • February 25: Red Sox Training Game and Picnic, Fort Myers, Florida • February 29: West Palm Beach Reception, Florida • March 27: NYC Professional Networking
1994
• April: Washington, D.C., Reception
Jamie R. Hadzima of Stavanger, Norway, died July 18, 2019. He is survived by his parents, George and Berit; and his brothers, Tony and Stephen.
• May 5: Los Angeles Brunch • June 7-9: Reunion 2024
For the latest updates, visit the alumni events web page: williston.com/alumni/events
FALL 2023 BULLETIN 95
Build a stronger community together. Throughout its history, Williston has been propelled forward by its people. The same is true when we ask you to support the Williston Northampton Fund—we cannot do it without you! Your gift, multiplied with gifts from more than 2,400 alumni, parents, and friends, makes a Williston Northampton education possible.
THANK YOU! Make your gift today at WILLISTON.COM/GIVENOW or by Venmo @WillistonNorthamptonSchool
Who’s in this issue?
Your classmates are up to cool things! Find out more by flipping to the pages below.
Rabiya Akhtar ’99 See page 40
Leeanna Albanese ’16 See page 24
Don Battimelli ’17 See page 44
Ted Caine ’04 See page 36
Liz Culley ’03 See page 24
Mike Doetsch ’82 See page 22
Cameron Dogan ’14 See page 42
Melissa (Anderson) Duffy ’91 See page 68
S. A. Fogleman ’10 See page 21
Christian Hanley ’05 See page 24
Todd Katzner ’87 See page 19
Elizabeth (Wells) McIlvain ’73 See page 49
Woolsey McKernon ’85 See page 26
Mickey Meyer ’03 See page 24
Nicole (Smith) Moore ’97 See page 38
Dale Neuburger ’67 See page 52
Tommy Reed ’10 See page 32
Yana Tallon-Hicks ’04 See page 24
Jason Tirrell ’90 See page 8
Paul Wainwright ’68 See page 18
TOGETHER WE CAN BUILD WILLISTON’S FUTURE After a decade of momentum, Williston Northampton is launching a bold $70 million campaign. Focused on our community and grounded in our values, Williston Builds doubles down in support of our remarkable people. Join us.
To learn more, visit williston.com/campaign