Issuu

Alumni Horae ST. PAUL’S SCHOOL | ISSUE I 21/22

HER PURPOSE

Tekla Butcher-Monson ’14 returns to Alaska to pursue her family legacy of mushing.

Alumni Horae VOL. 101 | ISSUE I 21/22

RECTOR

Kathleen C. Giles EDITOR

Jana F. Brown DESIGNER

Cindy L. Foote EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS

Ian Aldrich Zach Camenker Kate Dunlop Ashley Festa Ben Flanders Meg Heckman Karen Ingraham Hannah McBride Michael Matros

Alumni Association ADVISORY BOARD Chair

Brett A. Forrest ’91 Members

David B. Atkinson ’59 David M. Foxley ’02 Jonathan D. Jackson ’09 Diego H. Nuñez ’08

16 4

Published by the Trustees of St. Paul’s School

JANA F. BROWN

IAN ALDRICH

In becoming a musher in her home state of Alaska, Tekla Butcher-Monson ’14 is carrying on her family legacy with joy.

A decade after it was built, the School’s Lindsay Center for Mathematics and Science remains a marvel of innovation.

CHASING THE SUN

ON THE COVER FPO enviro logos here

FULFILLING ITS PROMISE

Tekla Butcher-Monson ’14 mushes an antique freight sled at sunset. PHOTO: Courtesy Tekla Butcher-Monson ’14

NEWS AND NOTES 2

FROM THE RECTOR

4 SPS TODAY

Opening Days, five questions with Kate Daniels, the future of WSPS, athletics brand identity, meet the Sixth Form officers.

REVIEWS

FACETIME

FORMNOTES

PROFILE

Matthew Barzun ’88 discusses his new book, The Power of Giving Away Power: How the Best Leaders Learn to Let Go.

With the release of their novel, Jenny Heath Judson ’94 and Danielle Faris Mahfood ’94 have realized a lifelong dream.

“SPS ethos” guides Charlie McKee ’83 in creating community for ice-dancing elite. PROFILE

Bucks County lures Riley Silbert ’12 back to the family biscotti business.

OBITUARY POLICY CHANGE

Celebrating 50 Years of Coeducation at St. Paul’s with profiles of Amelia Sanchez-Moran ’02, Dayo Olopade Lamolo ’03, and Amanda Schloss Decker ’07.

Mike Howard ’64 and a team of volunteers are restoring a Connecticut cemetery that commemorates Revolutionary War veterans and their neighbors.

HER PURPOSE

IN MEMORIAM

SPOTLIGHT

UPDATE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS

Do you receive email communications from SPS? If not, we may not have your current address on file. To update your email, please write to alumni@sps.edu. Thank you.

Effective with the publication of the Winter 2022 issue, St. Paul’s School will no longer be generating obituaries for alumni or reaching out to families to obtain them. Instead, we will be accepting obituaries written and submitted by family members of the deceased. Those tributes, which should not exceed 400 words in length, will be edited for style and will appear in the next possible issue of Alumni Horae. We will continue to list the names of all deceased alumni in the magazine. For families of the deceased, please submit obituaries to alumni@sps.edu.

Gratitude, Optimism, and Excitement

ere on the grounds, it has been a mild and warm autumn, and we enjoyed a tremendous Family Weekend, the halfway marker for Fall Term. Like everything else this term, Family Weekend was greeted by the community with great enthusiasm. Nearly 900 registered and vaccinated family participants joined us in Millville for two days of events. Because many international families could not travel, we hosted virtual “mini-classes” for parents on Thursday, before in-person programming on Friday and Saturday. With the pandemic, many families have hardly spent any time here, so it felt good to provide a range of activities, from a student-life expo to social gatherings by form and by house to a Chapel program for parents. On Friday night, our talented ballet, music, and theatre students took to the stage, and on Saturday, our student-athletes gave it their all, which included a couple of stirring wins over the Big Blue of Phillips Andover. You can visit sps.edu/familyweekend for more about the programming. We used to take such weekends for granted. We used to take so much for granted — easy travel, full grocery store shelves, good community health. From this place of extraordinary privilege and opportunity, gratitude — for hearing the referee’s whistle on a Wednesday afternoon, for enjoying a live performance, for sitting together around a table in class — is easy, every day. It is ever-present and omnipresent; or, at least, it can be and should be. While gratitude forms a great mindset, gratitude alone will not move us forward. Last year, the Board of Trustees worked to refresh our mission statement, re-articulating the core mission, “to educate students to build purposeful lives in service to the greater good.” When we use the verb “to educate,” we mean to bring forth what is best in ourselves and in each other. From that springboard, over the course of these fall months, we are engaging as a community in strategic planning to support the continued

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

evolution of St. Paul’s School in a world of rapid, constant change and to determine how we build upon the School’s strengths and reinforce its values. This year, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of coeducation under the banner, “Her Purpose: 50 Years of SPS Women in the World.” Our 3,000-plus alumnae are making extraordinary contributions in both their personal and professional lives, and I encourage you to read about some of those women at sps.edu/herpurpose. While you are there, I also encourage you to nominate SPS alumnae who are trailblazers, thrivers, and rising stars, those whose stories will inspire all of us to bring forth what is best in ourselves and in each other. This spring, we also will mark 150 years of rowing at St. Paul’s School, a powerful and proud tradition that began in 1871 with the first race between Halcyon and Shattuck. Since then, the tradition of crew at SPS has attracted thousands of alumni/ae to the pond, and we look forward to honoring that heritage during a special celebration on Anniversary Weekend. With so much happening and so much energy within our community, it is easy to be excited about the School and full of optimism for the future. It is acutely clear to those of us who teach and work with teenagers every day that these young people need us, the adults in their lives, to manifest these traits of optimism and excitement. The antidote to frustration, anxiety, and fear is gratitude, kindness, and empathy — qualities held dear in this community, virtues for which we pray in our School Prayer. It is a great time to remind ourselves of those exhortations — let us never forget to be kind; let us be unselfish in friendship and eager to bear the burdens of others — as we go about these pandemic days in what is an unusual, but typically beautiful, fall.

MICHAEL SEAMANS

FROM THE RECTOR

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

SPS TODAY

Students Arrive for 166th Academic Year Opening Days bring excitement for the year ahead. BEN FLANDERS

hen Margaret McCluer ’24 arrived on the grounds on Sept. 1 with her family, including older sister Lilly ’22, she made short work of unpacking so she could meet up with her friends. Her return to Millville, she said, is “one of the most exciting days of the year. I’m very excited to meet the new students and see my old friends.” McCluer is one of 535 students from 36 states and 13 countries welcomed by the School community for its 166th academic year. Sixth Formers arrived first, on Sunday, Aug. 29, for leadership training and a roller-skating trip to celebrate their reunion after a summer apart. On Aug. 31, the Sixth Form turned out in force to welcome 104 Third Formers, most of whom had never visited the grounds because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sixth Form officers were stationed at the Rectory for the matriculation book signing; the Chapel Council helped new students find their assigned Chapel seats; tour guides explored the grounds with families; and still others helped students move into the houses. “I missed this place over the summer, so it’s good to be back,” said Romeo Giudici ’22, after a morning of pointing families in the right direction. “It was pretty tough last year because of the pandemic and some students being virtual, but we’re pretty much back to normal again with all the students here.” For new students getting to know Millville,

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

the energy level was high. “It has been so awesome getting to meet all these new people,” Lily Fitzpatrick ’25 said, “and I’m excited about all my classes because I met a couple of teachers. They were all super cool, full of excitement, and ready to teach. It has been a great way to start my time at St. Paul’s.” Fourth and Fifth Formers, including McCluer, returned on Sept. 1 and quickly made themselves at home again, playing roller hockey in front of Sheldon and Spikeball on the quad and reconnecting in the Friedman Community Center. Convocation on Sept. 2 marked the first time in more than a year that the entire School community was able to come together in the Chapel. Rector Kathy Giles shared her enthusiasm, gratitude, and optimism for the year ahead with the assembled students and faculty, reminding them of the School’s mission to educate students to build purposeful lives in service to the greater good. “And so we begin a new year of wonderful work as a school focused on bringing forth what is best,” Giles said. “I hope you will spend some time thinking about what it requires to bring forth what is best in you, to bring forth what is best in others, and then to use your energies and imagination and self-discipline and talents to make it happen. The people who have sat in these seats before us, and who will sit in these seats after we are gone, expect nothing less.” PHOTOS: MICHAEL SEAMANS

SCAN HERE TO SEE A VIDEO FROM OPENING DAYS

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

SPS TODAY

MICHAEL SEAMANS

A New Look Athletics brand identity reflects the energy and spirit of our community.

s the 2021-22 academic year began, it did so with an exciting new look for the School’s athletic teams. After more than a year of collaborative, cross-departmental work, St. Paul’s School has developed a cohesive athletics brand identity that reflects the energy and spirit of its student-athletes, coaches, and the community that supports them. Associate Director of Athletics Chris Smith, who led the branding effort, says the goal was to “provide a coordinated visual identity and enable us to implement it in a manner that presents a consistent graphic depiction of our teams, our Big Red nickname, and our pelican mascot, while connecting athletics with the School’s overall visual identity. “With this new look,” Smith adds, “students, faculty, staff, SPS families, and alumni can show their spirit and their pride in St. Paul’s School continuing its tradition of athletic excellence.”

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

The visual brand uses the School’s official colors of red, black, white, and yellow, but expresses them in a custom font with a fresh new take on the pelican mascot. Central to the identity is the differentiation between the nickname and mascot, a structural decision that was reached after polling of students, captains, coaches, staff, faculty, and a cohort of alumni. Are the SPS teams the Pelicans or Big Red? The answer has varied over the years. Community feedback solidified around the moniker “Big Red” for the athletic teams, and the visual brand reflects that shift. The pelican mirrors that ideal in the new visual brand, drawn in vibrant School colors. It remains an important symbol of the athletic program, conveying, as Smith says, “the mission of the School and its athletes. It suggests aspiration, service, and sacrifice. It represents who we strive to be as people — thoughtful, unselfish, and compassionate — always striving forward and upward.”

Meet the Sixth Form Officers This year’s student government leaders focus on community engagement after a year like no other. KATE DUNLOP

DEREK THOMSON

rom greeting new students at the Rectory during Move-in Day to communicating with School leader ship to organizing events, the four elected Sixth Form Officers (SFOs) play a significant role in setting the tone for the year. Last year, with the student body split between in-person and distance learning, the SFOs centered their work on the theme of resilience. This year’s officers, who were Fourth Formers when the pandemic changed everything, have chosen to focus on engagement as they seek to reunite the School community. Eden Wright ’22 (president), Mikai Spencer ’22 (vice president), Caid Cox ’22 (secretary), and Chloe Abbruzzese ’22 (treasurer) have weekly meetings with Rector Kathy Giles and with each other, plus biweekly council meetings on Thursday mornings with the 18 house representatives and each form’s two representatives. In between, they’re constantly texting each other to keep on top of things. (L. to r.) Sixth Form officers Chloe Abbruzzese, Caid Cox, “I want everyone to feel like they have someone to go to, Mikai Spencer, and Eden Wright. to feel as though they are always supported,” Wright said during her campaign. “This is critical.” and being a fully vaccinated community. I want to reac Wright discovered a passion for student government quaint our community with the traditions and values that when she served as a Fifth Form representative a year ago. makes this a great place to live and grow.” She relishes the expanded leadership Like the other officers, Cox is lookher role as president affords, both ing forward to seeing SPS return to “I want everyone to in front of students and behind the something resembling normal. A feel like they have scenes with administrators as she hockey and baseball player from someone to go to, builds deeper relationships with both Livingston, Montana, who chose SPS groups. She’s counting on her comfor its rigorous academics, diverse to feel as though they are munication skills to help energize student body, and athletic opportualways supported.” the reunited student body, share their nities, Cox also is a member of the wishes, and make change when possible. Service Learning Team. He is grateful that his many activ A Brooklyn native, Spencer has been a volunteer in the ities — including off campus as a community volunteer Friends Youth Mentor Program since last year and has — are relatively unrestricted by COVID this year. been a leader in the School’s Living in Community (LinC) Abbruzzese, who came to SPS from Teaneck, New Jersey, curriculum, which provides programming to younger is involved in a wide variety of activities, including serving students on a variety of important topics. Spencer says he as a LinC leader, captain of the SPS Ballet Company, head of ran for office because he’s interested in facilitating a rela- Transitions, and volunteer in the Friends Youth Mentor Protionship between the student body and the administration gram. As a former house representative, Abbruzzese views that better matches the close bonds between students and the SFOs as the bridge between the student body and the faculty, and also in reaffirming the sense of community Rector, and wants to help create opportunities for the two after the disruptions caused by the pandemic. groups to communicate. She also is eager to help new stu “This is the year to be as together as possible,” Spencer dents, in particular, with their adjustment to life at SPS. says. “We have such a great opportunity being on campus “SPS,” she says, “is about everyone doing this together.”

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

Five Questions with Kate Daniels The Director of Academic Support discusses what the School offers its students. The person Director of Academic Support Kate Daniels most admires is the Dalai Lama, and she tries to emulates his calm presence, patience and compassion, and ability to see the good in everyone. This fall, her 14th at the School, Daniels was named the first holder of the Kiril Sokoloff ’65 Chair, established to support a faculty member who is an inspirational leader in the School community, demonstrating compassion, kindness, and engagement. She spoke with SPS Senior Writer/Editor Kate Dunlop. What does the Office of Academic Support offer to students? It’s a place for kids to come to feel that somebody understands the academic challenges they’re having — to help them know they’re not alone. A lot of kids struggle with time management and organization. The awesome thing about St. Paul’s is that [students] can do so many things, but then it’s a matter of when are they going to fit it all in? I encourage them to make lists and to focus on sleep, proper nutrition, and stress management. What is SPS doing to support students after a year of pandemic disruptions? We took a hard look at the supports we were going to need for students who had less than ideal academic and social/emotional experiences during the pandemic. It was an opportunity to look at supports not just for those students, but for all students. New this year, we have a study hall every block during the academic day, where kids can come to a nice, quiet place to work. Seven faculty help to oversee that. We also have subject-specific academic support during the day. And there’s a fabulous group of math and science peer tutors available. That all happens in the Lindsay Center during the day. At night, everything moves to Ohrstrom Library.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

How do you build trust with students? Students often say, ‘everyone else in my class writes poetry better,’ or ‘they’re better at German.’ I tell them nobody wins the comparison game and to put their best foot forward every time they attempt something. Best does not mean perfection, just your best effort on that particular day. There’s no such thing as perfection. I talk to kids about believing in themselves, that [the Office of] Admission didn’t make a mistake and they can do this work. Everybody has a period of feeling like an imposter; I help kids realize they belong, that we believe in them, and all they need to do is ask for help. What do you love about your work? I love working with teenagers — their enthusiasm and energy, their ability to wrestle with big questions, and their care and concern for others. They’re optimistic. I hope they take what they learn here and come up with innovative and exciting solutions to the world’s problems. I’ve never worked as hard in my life as in this job, but I’ve never been happier. Can you share a moment of compassion you’ve witnessed? When my mother died two years ago, my boys in Manville wrote a card with lovely messages. It was really sweet and special. The care and compassion the boys showed me at such a sad time in my life made me feel cared for and loved, and I will never forget it.

MICHAEL SEAMANS

SPS TODAY

The Future of Radio The School radio station, WSPS, reimagines its programming on a digital platform. JANA F. BROWN

MICHAEL SEAMANS

yan Murphy ’22 knows he’s an outlier when it comes to his interest in FM radio. The rise in streaming services that offer everything traditional radio has provided for decades — and more — has created a shift in the listening preferences of those under 35. “I love sports radio in particular, so I listen to FM radio,” Murphy says, “but I’m an anomaly.” The 18-year-old Murphy has been an aspiring broadcaster since he was nine years old, when he started recording playby-play of his younger brother’s mite hockey games for their grandfather, who was ill and unable to attend. Since his arrival at St. Paul’s as a Third Former, Murphy has immersed himself in all the opportunities afforded by the School radio station, WSPS-FM, and beyond, including doing play-byplay for the boys hockey team and broadcasting games for other SPS sports in the fall and spring seasons. In April, the School donated its broadcast license and the 90.5 FM call number to New Hampshire Public Radio Ryan Murphy ’22 has been an aspiring broadcaster since the (NHPR), signaling a shift in the way the station will func- age of nine. tion moving forward. SPS radio has been in operation since its broadcast license was granted by the FCC on Sept. 13, and features an editing function that makes it easy to trim 1974. Associate Director of Athletics Chris Smith, who conversations into a format accessible to listeners. has served as the faculty adviser to WSPS for the last eight “It’s a sign of the times,” Smith says. “We will still have years, has witnessed a decline in the number of students a station, but it will be an internet-based station. Kids can participating in traditional radio broadcast opportunities have talk shows and radio shows, but they will have a much during his tenure. wider reach.” When the pandemic hit in March With the revamped WSPS, stu“It’s about expanding 2020, there were already only a handdents will have the chance to learn from FM radio, ful of students involved in WSPS production skills that are marketable reflecting this modern age broadcasting. With students sent beyond SPS. Smith hopes to help home for six months, there was nohis charges establish weekly student of digital media, and body available to run the station on news, arts, and athletics shows to bringing it to St. Paul’s.” a consistent basis, which put WSPS “give parents another view into what in jeopardy of FCC noncompliance. their kids are up to on campus.” “There are FCC guidelines, including being able to relay Murphy is the student leader in setting up the WSPS emergency broadcast information,” Smith says. “Those reboot for the current academic year — and the future. The became too difficult for a shorthanded radio station to live School will maintain a license for its digital station, and up to. It was a great idea to find a way of doing good with there will be live shows in addition to podcasts, streaming [the license], and that’s when NHPR came in as the place athletic contests, and a website presence that will house to donate the equipment and the station number itself.” videos, vlogs, and other supplemental content — including Since taking over 90.5 FM, NHPR has been able to boost written pieces. its classical music signal in the Concord area. “It’s about expanding from FM radio, reflecting this While one door closes, the shift in focus to an inter- modern age of digital media, and bringing it to St. Paul’s,” net-based station opens up new prospects for SPS students. Murphy says. “By expanding a little more, [WSPS] becomes The School has a podcast machine that will allow hosts more of a constant presence in campus life, like it was when to seamlessly blend audio inputs from multiple sources, it first came into being as a campus radio station.” spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

MEMORIES

REMEMBERING 9/11: Mory Houghton ’70 Categorizes the Disaster This article first appeared in the Fall 2011 issue of the Alumni Horae. JANA F. BROWN

AP Photo/Richard Drew

In the summer of 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, Mory Houghton ’70 received a call from an old graduate school friend. The two men discovered a common opening on their calendars: September 11. “I was on a train out to New Canaan, Connecticut, to see him when someone said a plane had flown into the tower,” recalls Houghton, whose office with the Port Authority of New York was located on the 61st floor of the North Tower. “The only reason I’m not dead is because I wasn’t there that day. I think about that all the time.” Eighty-four of Houghton’s Port Authority colleagues perished on 9/11, including two who also worked on the 61st floor. Prior to September 11, Houghton had 10

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

served as the Port Authority’s senior strategic planner since 1997. In the aftermath of the disaster, he became the organization’s liaison with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A prior stint as deputy director of New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art ended up informing Houghton’s next assignment. Though his work at the Whitney had not been curatorial, Houghton had a reasonable knowledge of documentation and categorization. That background segued into a role overseeing the removal and preservation of some of the larger debris of the WTC site — steel and vehicles. “There was a great team who worked with me,” says Houghton. “We documented every single object we took out of the hangar with measurements and photos. We went back to

the original engineering drawings from the 1960s to try to identify exactly where the beams had been in the Trade Center.” Hangar 17, an 80,000-square-foot space at Kennedy Airport, and a vehicle “graveyard” at a second recovery site on Staten island became Houghton’s second homes until he left the Port Authority in 2007. There, he and others worked to make sense of thousands of tons of twisted steel and more than 1,400 vehicles, all in various states of devastation. The steel, says Houghton, “was deformed, ripped, or bent in ways that steel can’t bend. It is a reminder of the physical assault on the site.” Among the steel remnants was the 36-foot-tall, 60-ton final column that became a symbol of hope as the last vestige of the towers removed from Ground Zero.

One particularly striking vehicle, Houghton says, was an ambulance, recognizable only by the familiar shape of its exterior frame. An NYFD fire truck was demolished beyond recognition at one end and pristine at the other. “It’s the differentiation between the two that allows you to grasp the extent and randomization of the destruction,” says Houghton. “That was pretty emotional. Some of the fire trucks we have out there didn’t lose a single person in the company; some lost everyone.” Police cars and yellow taxi cabs became other iconic reminders of the sheer violence of the attacks. Out of roughly 1,400 wrecked vehicles — each covered with two inches of that gray dust cloud composed of the two 1,350-foot towers — 20 were salvaged to represent the entire fleet.

“Vehicles were a part of the building, an elemental part of the story, but nobody was trying to save them,” Houghton continues. “Nobody knows what a core column looks like, but everyone can identify a fire truck.” Among the more unusual objects categorized in Hangar 17 were two from a retail store that once occupied space in the mall at the concourse of the World Trade Center complex. Salvaged at Kennedy Airport were a life-size Bugs Bunny sculpture with one of its ears snapped off and a sign expressing Porky Pig’s signature line, “That’s all folks.” Houghton also describes at least two objects that will be part of the exhibit, along with many of the steel pieces and vehicles, at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

“They are eight feet in diameter and threeand-a-half-feet thick,” he says, describing what he refers to as composites. “They are three-and-a-half stories of Trade Center compressed. It’s just this mass that really describes how horrible the compression effect of the collapse was. You can recognize the different steel that separates the floors, and you can see paper that has been massed together and carbonized. The emotional power of these objects is really quite overwhelming. “I was around these things for the better part of four years, and you would have thought that being around for that length of time would have anesthetized me, but really they never were just objects; they were part of my home.”

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

HER PURPOSE

In the 50 years since St. Paul’s School began enrolling girls, more than 3,000 have graduated and gone on to leave their mark on the world, in ways both large and small. In recognition of this anniversary of coeducation, we honor the SPS girls and women of today — the trailblazers, thrivers, and rising stars whose personal and professional leadership and commitment to others contribute to a greater good. In the pages of this magazine and in forthcoming issues, we will spotlight some of those stories — the individual journeys of SPS girls and women of different ages, backgrounds, and interests. Each one seeks to define her sense of purpose in her own way and in the context of her own life. Each contributes to a greater good — within her family, a community, industry, or through other pathways. We celebrate each and every story, those that we can fit on the pages here and the many more that exist beyond this framework. To help us share the impact and inspiration of SPS women and girls this year, nominate yourself or someone in our SPS community for us to consider featuring.

Visit sps.edu/herpurpose.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

HER PURPOSE: Empowering Narratives Through a variety of media, Dayo Olopade Lamolo ’03 helps to celebrate Africa’s storytellers. ASHLEY FESTA

s early as grade school, Dayo Olopade Lamolo ’03 Born in Chicago to Nigerian parents, Lamolo often recognized the discrepancies between what she found herself engrossed in stories at the library. She heard Westerners say about Africa and what she frequently traveled with her mother and father, who saw with her own eyes while visiting the continent with worked in global public health conducting transnational research with the University of Chicago. Even as young as her parents. 10 years old, she accompanied them “The prevailing global attitude to conferences in different countries, about Africa was negative — and not “The prevailing global including many in Africa. It was in what I’ve experienced,” Lamolo says. attitude about Africa these contexts that Lamolo recog“I felt it important to correct that nized the disparity between what she narrative with real human stories.” was negative — and saw to be true and the narrative she That’s something she has strived not what I’ve experienced. heard in America. for as a journalist with the New York I felt it important to Times, Reuters, the New Republic, Lamolo urges young people — all and other outlets — and especially as people, really — to travel as much as correct that narrative author of The Bright Continent possible and practice curiosity about with real human stories.” (2015), a nonfiction book about other people’s experiences. “Always African ingenuity. take the trip, that’s my motto,” she While conducting research for the book, Lamolo moved says. And, to those living on a limited budget, she ento Kenya for two years and visited many sub-Saharan Af- courages them to read as much as possible. rican countries, meeting people and reporting the stories “Reading is a kind of teleportation,” she says. “My whole they told. These aren’t tales about naïve positivity, Lamolo life, stories have taken me across the world and taught me emphasizes, but stories that show real innovation, the re- something about other cultures. Any chance to question sourcefulness of entrepreneurs despite “having one hand your own defaults is worth exploring.” tied behind their back,” which could mean anything from no electricity to inadequate educational infrastructure to an oppressive government. After her book’s publication, Lamolo transitioned away from being a storyteller herself and began steering her career toward empowering Africans to tell their own stories. That initiative has led her to social media and tech companies, working with Facebook, YouTube, Google, and — most recently — with Amazon Studios for Africa as the principal for content acquisition in the African market. “My skillset has evolved from being a producer of stories to thinking about how stories get to people,” says Lamolo, who earned a B.A. and an MBA from Yale and a J.D. from Yale Law School. “We have so many formats to share them, and I’m excited to empower video storytellers from the continent to share their stories, especially with people outside the region.”

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

HER PURPOSE: Born to be a Techie Amanda Schloss Decker ’07 finds fulfillment in both the management and technical sides of engineering. ASHLEY FESTA

SARAH JACOBS / BUSINESS INSIDER

manda Schloss Decker ’07 says it’s difficult to decide which she enjoys more in her professional life, coding or management. So, sometimes, she just does both. As the director of engineering at One Medical, a membership-based primary care practice, Decker co-manages four teams and nearly 30 people. When she encounters a problem, her expertise in backend coding spurs her to jump in and fix it herself. “It’s also easier to write code in your free time for fun rather than manage people in your free time for fun,” Decker says with a laugh. As a manager, she views her work as a way to help make people’s lives better, respecting employees’ strengths and matching them with projects through which they will excel. She has tried not to commit the errors she has seen some companies make, such as treating engineers like

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

interchangeable checker pieces. She’d rather emulate her former employer Venmo, which recognized that engineers are more like chess pieces, each with a specialty. Decker was with Venmo for four years, first as an engineer and then as a manager, while her husband, Matt, was in medical school at Columbia. The couple, who met when Decker was an undergraduate at Stanford, eventually headed back to the West Coast, the hub of the tech industry. Gus Ireland ’09 referred Decker to his employer, One Medical, and now she leads a team of engineers who maintain the standards for storing and processing clinical patient data, among other projects. As a student at St. Paul’s, her talent and interest in computer engineering exploded – she took every course the School offered on the subject and then forged her own way, mentored by recently retired faculty member Terry Wardrop ’73, through a self-driven computer game programming course. “Amanda was one of my top programming students,” Wardrop says. “She would extrapolate our basic assignments and add on features, and her projects were always impressively successful. She became a real role model for how to pursue solutions to simple and eventual societal problems.” Decker comes across her love of coding and computers honestly. “It’s my parents’ fault,” she jokes, “they’re both techies.” Her parents have helped provide other St. Paul’s students the opportunity to delve deeper into computer engineering. In 2010, Decker’s father and then president of the SPS Board of Trustees Douglas Schloss ’77, along with former president Jim Kinnear ’46, worked to expand what is now known as the Applied Science and Engineering Program (ASEP), through which students are engaged in a project-based STEM curriculum that prepares them for top science programs. After SPS and Stanford, Decker’s path has spanned the continent, and as a woman in a male-dominated field with a decade of experience, she encourages students, particularly the girls, to find mentors — and to persist, despite the challenges. “Don’t be intimidated,” she says. “Computer science is hard — but also fun.”

HER PURPOSE: Exercising Change Attorney Amelia Sanchez-Moran ’02 finds solutions through innovation. IAN ALDRICH

ewer businesses experienced more disruption during the COVID-19 lockdowns than those in the fitness industry. Across the country, gyms and studios had to weather temporary closures then come up with inventive ways to reopen. Amelia Sanchez-Moran ’02, an attorney who serves as the senior counsel to MINDBODY, a leading technology platform for the wellness industry, had a frontrow seat to much of it. “There were so many challenges and what we had to do was meet each of our clients where they were in this situation,” says Sanchez-Moran, whose company manages software solutions for some 10,000 different customers, from billing to marketing to visitor check-ins. “Some places just weren’t able to survive, but for those that were, they’ve begun to find success with a different kind of business model.” One of the biggest pivots was helping clients develop online fitness programs on the level of a Peloton via MINDBODY’s recently developed virtual wellness platform. The toolkit allowed gyms and studios to keep their doors open, even when they couldn’t actually have their doors open. Sanchez-Moran doesn’t see that business model going away. “The way we engage with wellness services has changed forever,” she says. As the San Francisco-based company worked with its clients, MINDBODY also had to navigate its own pandemic challenges. There were staff cutbacks and hybrid work situations to puzzle out. Sanchez-Moran, who handles issues related to the company’s 1,100-strong workforce — which stretches across the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and India — was instrumental in helping her employer weather those changes as well. “It was really tough,” says Sanchez-Moran, who lives in San Francisco with her husband, Nicholas Alexsovich, a commercial real estate attorney. “But, like the industry we work in, we’re building ourselves back.” Sanchez-Moran’s path to the area of law she practices today was not a straight line. She grew up outside Chicago, where her father worked as a lawyer and her mother as an architect. As she thought about her own future, Sanchez-Moran says she felt the pull of both law and art. She studied art history at Haverford College and — even as she made her way through law school at Boston College — thought she could focus her legal career on clients in the creative space.

“But it turns out there are only like 12 museum lawyers in the country,” she says with a laugh. “I also got out of law school in the wake of the financial crisis, so the job market was pretty challenging. I just came into employment law and it turns out I love it. I couldn’t have come up with a better career.” Sanchez-Moran, who previously worked for the Wikimedia Foundation, says it’s the rigor of the work that she finds fulfilling. “The nature of employment and labor laws in this country are based on Supreme Court precedents,” she says, “so this kind of law is intellectually challenging and engaging,” Her ability to meet the intellectual demands of her career, she says, were planted when she was a student at St. Paul’s. “It’s the place that made me feel confident about being a nerd and being academic,” Sanchez-Moran says. “I didn’t come from a town or even a culture that appreciated smart women. It wasn’t cool to be smart. At St. Paul’s, I was encouraged to nerd out on things. It was so different than anything I’d experienced before — and it made all the difference.”

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

Chasing the Sun In becoming a musher in her home state of Alaska, Tekla Butcher-Monson ’14 is carrying on her family legacy with joy. JANA F. BROWN

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

aylight is precious in Alaska during the winter months. In mid-January, the sun might finally glance over the horizon at 10 a.m., only to sink back down again and disappear six hours later. It is during these pastel-sky hours of limited daytime that Tekla Butcher-Monson ’14 is at her busiest. Stationed between November and March in her birthplace of the remote Eureka, Alaska (population <5, though Maddox Angerhofer ’18 was one of her neighbors in the winter of 2021), Tekla is up before the sun, watering her kennel of 35 sled-dogs-in-training alongside her friend and dog handler

Kiana Korta. After mixing a warm broth for the dogs that contains meat or kibble (water alone would freeze immediately at temperatures that typically hover in the negative teens), Tekla gets to work shoveling the solid waste of nearly three dozen canines. She consumes her own hearty breakfast, one high in saturated fat for preserving maximum body warmth, before she and Kiana get to work putting harnesses and booties on each member of the two 14-dog teams. Booties require gloveless fingers in the bitter cold, a daily process Tekla has perfected to about a minute and a half per dog. Then, it’s time to hook the pups up to the sled.

PHOTO: Tekla Butcher-Monson ‘14 mushes an antique freight sled at sunset on the Chena River, near her Fairbanks, Alaska, home.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

FEATURE

| CHASING THE SUN

“Once the sun is up, we get ready to go on a training a dog handler when she’s not in Vermont studying circus run,” says Tekla of the 40- to 50-mile daily excursions with acrobatics. the eager Alaskan Huskies. “My days are around maximiz- Tekla’s journey back to Alaska took her through Coning the use of daylight since the sun only skims around cord, where she entered St. Paul’s School as a Third Former the tree line for four to five hours. I am always chasing in the fall of 2010. The family moved briefly to Seattle while the sun. You are living out there with no running water, Susan was undergoing cancer treatment. Boarding school limited electricity, cutting your own firewood; you have to was not a common choice for many Alaskans, but family be able to maintain a homestead. Even people born and friends recommended St. Paul’s and, after a visit, it was the raised in Alaska will shy away from only school to which Tekla applied. this lifestyle.” At. SPS, she was heavily involved in “I can’t help myself. the theatre program, a passion she It’s a hard life, for sure, but it’s a I am obsessed with carried with her to Wesleyan Univerlife Tekla loves and one into which community . . . and sity, where she majored in drama and she was born as the daughter of two — inspired by the Chapel program at renowned dog mushers. Her father, St. Paul’s was my first SPS — minored in religion. David Monson, was victorious in the experience with “I can’t help myself. I am obsessed 1,000-mile Yukon Quest in 1988. Her an intentionally with community,” Tekla says, “and mother, Susan Butcher, remains the St. Paul’s was my first experience most celebrated Iditarod champion of tight-knit community. with an intentionally tight-knit all time, even 15 years after her August 2006 death. Before she was diagnosed with leukemia, community. I remember when I came back after my first Butcher was a four-time winner (1986-88, 1990) of the semester away a journal entry where I wrote about all 1,000-mile Iditarod sled dog race that takes mushers and these things I wanted to do, how many activities there their teams through the trail system that meanders from were in the world. Alaska is pretty remote. If you don’t Anchorage to Nome, Alaska. (The route winds through get out and live somewhere else, you don’t really know the race’s namesake town of Iditarod.) She is remembered what is out there.” in the state on the first Saturday of March each year with Two winters in New York followed graduation from Susan Butcher Day. David and Susan founded Trail Breaker Wesleyan, away from the dogs and the call of the bush life Kennel in 1976. The Fairbanks-based business, which in Alaska. There, Tekla focused on set and costume design offers tours in the off-season, is now the world’s premier after discovering that she enjoyed preparing the stage racing kennel. Tekla serves as general manager and lead more than performing on it. Her efforts were supported tour guide for Trail Breaker, where her sister, Chisana, is by the family of an SPS friend, Eleanor Reich ’14, whose

Tekla harnesses her Alaskan Huskies before a training run.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

Tekla heads out on a 40-mile training run with enthusiastic lead dogs Slim (white) and Jip (brown/tan).

parents offered space in their New York garage for Tekla to on to the handlebars as she raced around a frozen pond build sets. In the summers, she returned to Alaska to give on the family property. tours for the family kennel business, sharing stories of her “You can’t really teach mushing,” Tekla says. “You just mother with captivated visitors. Eventually, the alley view have to do it. By the time I was a little older, I graduated from her Manhattan apartment and the claustrophobia to a two-dog team then a four-dog team. By 10, I was of the NYC subway system led Tekla to make an inevi- running eight dogs — two by two by two by two — which table decision. is pretty powerful. If you lose your team, they will just “I loved New York City, but I finally understood what keep running.” my mom meant about hating living in the city,” she says At the age of 11, Tekla had her first long-distance of moving back to Alaska full-time in 2019. “I realized mushing experience. The family had recently returned what I was searching for was distance and space because to Alaska after Susan’s death. “We were grieving and a I had grown up in interior Alaska. lot of folks around the state were, Even though I loved what I was “My mom was about finding too,” Tekla recalls. “Mom had meant doing, the things I wanted to do in so much to Alaska, having won the what brings you joy Alaska seemed more pressing.” Iditarod four times. Her training and doing it. tactics focused on dog care and There is a certain pressure that the relationship between dogs and comes with carrying on a family For me, that is humans. It changed the way the legacy, but Tekla knows the only the mushing lifestyle.” Iditarod is run; it was monumental.” thing her mother would want for her would be to discover and pursue her At that time, in early 2007, passions. She is currently working on a biography that organizers set aside the No. 1 bib and asked if a member captures Susan Butcher’s own sense of adventure and the of Susan’s family would like to wear it for the ceremonial community she formed with her beloved Huskies. start, 11 miles through the streets of Anchorage. It was “The fact that my mom was training hundreds of dogs Tekla who donned the bib to honor her mother. In addition and creating a bond with each to choose the best 16 to to that memorial run in Anchorage, Tekla’s father, David, run in the Iditarod shows that she had a dedication and wanted to show his daughter more of the landscape that love of those animals,” Tekla explains. “The thesis of the had so captivated her mother. So, with each of them mushbiography is ‘do what you love, love what you do.’ This is ing an eight-dog team, 11-year-old Tekla and her father personified in the sled dogs. Their instinct is that they want followed for 700 miles alongside the Iditarod course, with to be running, and that brings them so much joy. My mom Tekla dressed in a red suit her mother had worn on the was about finding what brings you joy and doing it. For same route. The journey was not without its challenges. Tekla recalls that she often lagged behind her father by 20 me, that is the mushing lifestyle.” While Tekla has her sights set on qualifying for the 2024 minutes or more. At one point, she lost her team and — Iditarod, she is no novice when it comes to mushing. For miraculously — the lead dog responded to her desperate her fifth birthday, her parents gave her a small dogsled. She call and returned the dogs so she could continue on. For recalls hooking up the oldest, slowest dog in the kennel to nearly two weeks, David and Tekla stopped every 50 miles support hours of her standing on the runners and holding or so at checkpoints in small villages, where people knew

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

FEATURE

| CHASING THE SUN

Susan and were pleased to see her daughter embracing her heritage. “I could feel the energy my mom had felt as she headed out on all her victories and as I met people she had gotten to know,” Tekla says. “In the middle of nowhere, we were scattering her ashes. We stayed a night with great friends, who told stories about her and her lead dogs. Looking back, it was quite the coming-of-age moment.” On the first night of that 2007 Iditarod journey, temperatures pushing 50 below zero bit at Tekla and her father as they camped in darkness. Tekla huddled in a sleeping bag with her mother’s parka pulled up around her face. The propane had turned to gel and a shivering Tekla remembers feeling like a failure until she realized her father was suffering just as much from the frigid conditions. They made it through the night and to shelter at a small village the next day. In 2012, while Tekla was a student at St. Paul’s, she joined her father and Chisana, then 11, in once again mushing 700 miles along the Iditarod Trail to honor Susan’s legacy. Now, a decade later, Tekla is conditioning the dogs with an eye toward increasing their daily mileage in the winter. Last March, she competed in her first race, the 200-mile “Ididn’trod” Invitational, which begins and ends in Cantwell, Alaska. It took 30 hours to complete the circle, with snow so fierce that Tekla could not see the lead dogs 50 feet in front of her for the final 50 miles. She reports happily that she finished eighth. “I think the most important thing about her drive to become a competitive musher,” David Monson says, “is not that we did it before her, but because it is her desire that gives her so much joy and satisfaction — just like it did her mother and me.” In preparation for the 2024 Iditarod, Tekla is raising a team of Husky puppies to pull her sled as three-yearolds. With a team of veteran dogs, she plans to compete in the Copper Basin 300 in January 2022, the second of the three qualifiers she must complete ahead of the Iditarod. Instead of pressure, she feels joy — she has no expectation of winning the 1,000-mile race her mother once dominated, which is just fine with her. For the last year, Tekla has taken over the responsibility for training the dogs at Trail Breaker Kennel and running the tourism business that supports her mushing pursuits. She will become the full-time manager of the business when her father retires next year. Nothing makes her happier than living the bush existence into which she was born, despite its hardships.

TOP: Tekla as an infant with her mother, Susan Butcher. According to Susan, Tekla’s first words were “go, dogs, go.” MIDDLE: Tekla preps her dogs for a training run by putting booties on their paws. Tekla works on her creative projects at her homestead in Eureka, Alaska.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

“The sensation of working and living at 50 below For the biography, she has been archiving coverage of her curates a specific lifestyle,” Tekla says, “and that is what mother’s life as a musher and plans to begin conducting drew me back to Alaska and gave me the goal of running interviews with many who knew her. It strikes Tekla that in the Iditarod.” she is the same age her mother was when she began her mushing career. The wilderness life his daughter has “In the middle of nowhere, She sees Susan in the inherited parkas chosen, David Monson emphasizes, we were scattering her she wears as she prepares for her own is about self-confidence and self-reliashes. We stayed a night Iditarod run, in the handwriting that ance. “You have nothing out there but your desire and drive,” he says. “There with great friends, who told is strikingly similar to Susan’s, and in her own wide smile and blue eyes as are no people for hundreds of miles to stories about her and her she looks in the mirror. help you if the going gets tough. You lead dogs. Looking back, have to be confident in yourself to “What made my mom a good dog solve any problems you encounter.” musher was the care she put into her it was quite the dogs — she was the same as a parent,” In the cabin in Eureka, once the coming-of-age moment.” Tekla says. “Every day, we are opening daily chores are done, the dogs have up our kennel to visitors, people she been run and fed, and the puppies returned from their own 10-mile training run, Tekla set- inspired. It’s awesome to be able to be the embodiment of tles in to work on her mother’s biography and a memoir that legacy. If they see me mushing, they feel a reminiscence of growing up in a mushing family (she also posts on the of the inspiration they felt from her. I get a lot of pressure to Instagram handles trailbreakerkennel and dogmushers- be a racer and win the Iditarod, but my parents never pushed daughter). The memoir includes tips that range from how me to be a dog musher or to race. All they encouraged me to to sew your own harness to the rules of bush cribbage. do was what I love. I am doing that — and I am so happy.”

Tekla doing chores at Trail Breaker Kennel.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

MICHAEL SEAMANS

Fulfilling its Promise A decade after it was built, the School’s Lindsay Center for Mathematics and Science remains a marvel of innovation. IAN ALDRICH

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

| FULFILLING ITS PROMISE

KAREN BOBOTAS

FEATURE

The LIndsay Center is home to the only Science On a Sphere in Northern New England.

n the spring of 2012, prospective science teacher Julie Cepiel visited the campus of St. Paul’s School for the first time. Cepiel, the mother of two young children who’d spent the last decade teaching at a rural public high school about 60 miles north of New York City, had come to interview for an open position and was immediately struck by the buildings and resources the School made available to its faculty and students. “Every time we turned around, my husband and I kept saying, ‘Wow, look at this!’” Cepiel recalls. But it was upon entering the Lindsay Center for Mathematics and Science, the School’s (then) new 78,000-squarefoot building, replete with modern classrooms and labs, that Cepiel had to catch her breath. Opened just months earlier, the U-shaped structure represented a profound embrace by St. Paul’s of its STEM curriculum and the kind of integrated learning that had shaped the School’s approach to education since the early 1990s. On the ground

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

floor, she toured learning spaces for ecology, physiology, and robotics, then the top floors’ chemistry, physics, astronomy, and math classrooms, along with a suite of biology spaces that led into a greenhouse. There also were independent study spaces sprinkled throughout, as well as a solar observatory and, in the main entrance, a Foucault pendulum — a 70-pound oscillating ball, suspended from a 60-foot cable, that demonstrates Earth’s rotation. Cepiel says it was hard not to be blown away. “It was even nicer than the science building I had in college,” she recalls. “I was coming from a school where we had two labs in the whole building. I remember [guest] teaching an anatomy class [that day] and I went back into the lab and there was every possible model of humans that you could imagine. It was amazing.” It still is. Nearly 10 years since first walking into Lindsay, Cepiel, who now heads the SPS Science Department, still marvels at what the building offers. And she’s not strictly talking about the state-of-the art classrooms and equipment.

1951, Westinghouse Lab’s successor, the Payson Memorial Science Building, was erected, featuring modern labs and learning spaces that made it arguably the finest scientific center of any prep school in the country. Eight years later, the Math Department got a new home of its own when the Moore Mathematics Building was opened. The Lindsay Center’s own history, it could be said, went back to the early 1990s, when then-Rector David Hicks oversaw a complete review of the School’s curriculum. That work eventually led to a stronger integration between departments and, over the next decade, as the School’s expanding math and science offerings outgrew their respective aging homes, momentum built to construct a new hub that could bring together both disciplines under one roof. AMBITIOUS BEGINNINGS In late April 2012, just four months after students had start- On a sunny Saturday morning of Anniversary Weekend in ed taking classes in the new building, SPS officially marked early June 2010, construction of the Lindsay Center formally broke ground. the opening of the Lindsay Center. Biology teacher Theresa GerardoThe celebratory evening had begun in “The students can really Gettens, who joined the SPS faculty the facility, where attendees gathered take ownership of what in 1990 and worked on the early for a brief reception and remarks initiatives that eventually led to Lindthey’re learning. Because from then-Rector Mike Hirschfeld say’s construction, says the School ’85 as well as the heads of the Math we have the labs that we had to face the challenge of creating and Science Departments, which do, students have more a modern facility that could both at the time were led by Jane Brandt cater to the present and accommoand Jeff Crosby. The guests spoke time, more space, and more date the future. glowingly of the Science on a Sphere, flexibility in those spaces “There was so much to consider,” an interactive six-foot diameter globe to ask their own questions says Gerardo-Gettens, the School’s developed by the National Oceanic Farnsworth Chair of Science. “We about what they’re and Atmospheric Administration visited other schools just to see some with the ability to display countless studying and find their examples. It was like looking at houses. images of the Earth and the galaxy; own ways to investigate.” You see some things you like and it remains the only such feature in you see other things that you think, Northern New England. Another ‘we should probably do something favorite stop was the solar observatory, where a teacher and two astronomy students spoke of the benefits of student different.’ In the end, I think we created something with a access to a daytime telescope, including the ability to talk lot of flexibility that allows for different kinds of changes.” about the solar system in class and then walk upstairs to In the first five years alone, the School’s STEM coursework grew by 24 percent, from 49 classes to 61. A range visually track the dynamic nature of the sun. “For more than 150 years, SPS graduates have been of new courses were also offered, including Mathematical blessed with an extraordinary education that has enabled Problem Solving; Food, Environment, Society; Advanced them to make real contributions to the world’s betterment,” Studies in Chemistry; and Biochemistry of Metabolism Bob Lindsay ’73 told donors, faculty, and guests at the ded- and Sports Nutrition, among others. In the years since, ication dinner. “It is my hope that this facility will enable the updates have continued, including investments in 3D printers, a laser cutter, and a Computer Numerical Control students over the next 150 years to be as productive.” Lindsay’s point was an important one: The Center, while (CNC) lathe, among other resources for the engineering the start of something new, was also a continuation of the program. Gerardo-Gettens says that the School’s commitSchool’s long history as a leader in education in the fields ment to keeping Lindsay — which, in 2013, received LEED of math and science. What had begun in 1889 with the Gold certification for its “Leadership in Environmental construction of its very first science classrooms continued Energy and Design” — cutting edge for its students and in 1902 with its replacement, the Westinghouse Lab, a gift of faculty is both unprecedented and important. inventor and scientist George Westinghouse, Jr., whose son, “Just this summer, the School redid all the computer George Westinghouse III was a 1902 graduate. The building technology in [one of our biology labs],” Gerardo-Gettens featured generous-sized classroom spaces for physics and says. “We had originally said we would love to have chemistry as well as a power plant on the ground floor. In computer screens right above the lab bench so that, while “The students can really take ownership of what they’re learning,” she says. “Because we have the labs that we do, students have more time, more space, and more flexibility in those spaces to ask their own questions about what they’re studying and find their own ways to investigate. That leads to a better understanding of what they’re learning and more independence in that learning. The more they do that, the more normal it feels to them and the more likely it is they’ll start asking important questions before they enter the lab. It creates this great ability to talk, discuss, interact, and then do. It is one of the great advantages of the Lindsay Center.”

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

FEATURE

| FULFILLING ITS PROMISE

students are dissecting a specimen, they’d be able to look at a screen of their work as they’re doing a live dissection. They completely rewired the room and set us up with all this new technology.” When plans for the building were being forged, there also was significant energy behind creating collaborative spaces to foster organic conversations. The Lindsay Center was designed with an open-plan space for the second-floor offices for math and science faculty; a configuration intentionally envisioned to create opportunities for spontaneous interactions and interdisciplinary discussions. “There was a need to have greater communication between the disciplines,” Gerardo-Gettens recalls, “and so you physically put people together, and that’s what the Lindsay building does. It puts us in the same space, so I can share an office space with people who teach physics and chemistry and biology and math. Maybe you just overhear your colleague say something and it gives you a different perspective on something. It becomes very enriching.” APPLIED SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING PROGRAM

The opening of Lindsay was coupled with another important development at St. Paul’s. In 2010, just two years before the Center opened, Doug Schloss ’77, then head of the SPS Board of Trustees, and Jim Kinnear ’46, the body’s former chair, were working with engineering, robotics, and artificial intelligence teacher Terry Wardrop ’73 to bolster the School’s STEM programs through significant donations. Layered on top of Wardrop’s previous work to connect SPS students with summer research internships at MIT, the project led to the development of the School’s Applied Science and Engineering Program (ASEP), which places students at some of the leading higher education labs in the country. While the ASEP facilitates 12 externship slots a year, the program’s underlying philosophy of encouraging students to not only take a greater hand in their education but also apply what they’ve learned in the world around them is built into the DNA of the Lindsay Center’s classes and lab work. “We do this big cancer biology unit in the winter,” explains Sarah Boylan, the ASEP’s director and a teacher of molecular biology and honors chemistry. “Because of the facility we have, I can actually grow human cancer cells in my lab. And the students are able to design experiments and run tests to see what natural chemicals may actually kill cancer cells or stop them in their tracks.” Consider the recent work of Isabella Pargiolas ’21. In April, scientists from Exuma Biotech met with the Food and Drug Administration to present the newest data on a method that more quickly and easily delivers chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy to cancer patients. The presentation included months of lab test results produced by Pargiolas during her summer

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

externship through the ASEP and at the SPS molecular biology lab. This fall, another of Boylan’s ASEP students, Logan Gamlin ’22, is using the Lindsay Center’s Hawley Observatory to collect data on previously unidentified exoplanets. The information he gathers at St. Paul’s will be shared with the University of Maryland, where he did his summer externship — and, eventually, with NASA. “The resources we have really allow our kids to do true research,” Boylan adds. In the engineering lab, one of Will Renauld’s students is working on a large terrarium for the greenhouse, while another of his charges is collaborating on a wind tunnel with the Lindsay Center’s laboratory technician. It is in this environment of learning and discovery, says Tristan Brigham ’22, that students can’t help but feel inspired — no matter where their passions may lie. This past summer, Brigham completed an externship through the ASEP with the Secure Systems Laboratory at New York University, where he contributed to the development of a software that analyzes programs before allowing their execution in a computer’s operating environment. The goal is to improve the overall cybersecurity of computer systems. “Because there’s only one main corridor [in Lindsay],” says Brigham, whose passions for cybersecurity and artificial intelligence have deepened at the Lindsay Center, “you can see what they’re doing in all the other classes.” KWOK LAB INNOVATION

Renauld and his charges also mentor local middle school students for FIRST LEGO League competitions. The processes of learning, designing, and building for that endeavor take place in the Lindsay Center’s Kwok Lab. Making use of the same workspace, veteran teacher Chris Odom has created a curriculum that integrates coding and physical computing into the Physics First curriculum. “This means exposing introductory physics students in labs on the second floor of Lindsay to some of what we do in the Kwok Lab,” Odom explains. “This integration of coding and science is intentional. Many folks at SPS don’t really understand what we do in the lab, so this assimilation of computer science and physics is the first step to demystifying the umbrella terms ‘engineering, robotics, and computer science.’” Odom and Renauld are also collaborating with fine arts teacher Leigh Kaulbach ’08 to expand her printmaking curriculum, using the high-tech tools available in Kwok. Currently, Kaulbach’s students design and make their own rubber stamps for relief printing using traditional hand tools. Odom and Renauld are helping Kaulbach to broaden the scope of options so her students can use a Computer Aided Design (CAD) program to design or import their artwork and then export it to the laser cutter in Kwok. “The laser cutter then etches and cuts the students’ art into a blank rubber stamp,” Odom explains, “allowing

MICHAEL SEAMANS

Scott Reynolds talks with students in his Tropical Botany class.

them to make incredibly intricate designs not possible with hand tools.” For this year, Odom has developed three new classes, each of which features elements of outreach, collaboration, and innovation. In the Winter Term, he will be introducing his students to a Martian Rover simulator he built with a former student. “The simulator allows anyone from anywhere on the planet to drive and control our robots here in the Kwok Lab,” Odom adds. “This has the potential to open significant avenues for collaboration with peer institutions, and I look forward to seeing how our students incorporate this into a remote, long-distance Mars mission.” In the summer, the Kwok Lab is home to engineering students in the Advanced Studies Program. Among the projects that have made the most impact is the students’ work to modify ride-on electric cars for Go Baby Go, a program that provides children with disabilities a way to move independently. Renauld, who also teaches at ASP, has helped rising New Hampshire high school seniors donate nearly 60 cars to Go Baby Go in the last six years. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Within the next few years, Michaela Purvis ’20 may be well on her way to earning a Ph.D. in biology. The ASEP, says Purvis, who completed an externship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the summer before her Sixth Form year “was a game changer for me.” Purvis, who is now a sophomore at MIT, is a perfect example of all the Lindsay Center promised when it opened a decade ago. This past summer, she served as residential facilitator for a chemistry class in the Interphase EDGE

program at MIT. Run by the Office of Minority Education, the academic enrichment program facilitates the transition to college for incoming first-year students from underrepresented backgrounds. While she arrived at SPS with a strong desire to pursue biology at a rigorous level and pace, Purvis says she realized in her Fifth Form Molecular Biology class that “the labs we were performing and the scientific writing we workshopped was something I wanted more of. After working to find an externship and earning my place in the ASEP, a whole new pathway opened up for me, one that I wouldn’t have found if I didn’t take the first steps and forge the path myself. As my externship at Johns Hopkins drew to a close, I found that Lindsay really was a launching point and made me realize how much potential my field of interest has for research and discovery.” In her final two years at SPS, Purvis took every advanced biology offering available to her. She says she still reviews the notes she took in that Molecular Biology class at St. Paul’s for reference in her college genetics and biochemistry courses, and is able to demonstrate lab skills with confidence because of her diligent work at the Lindsay Center. Purvis has discovered more extensive labs with more elaborate equipment at MIT, but she remains grateful for the increased exposure to math and science she gained at SPS. “The beauty I see is there’s always potential for more and, as students grow and branch out into these STEM fields, Lindsay grows with them,” she says. “The potential for where Lindsay can go is endless, and I’m excited and looking with bright eyes at what that means for students who want to find and follow their passions in the future.”

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

ANDREW HYSLOP

REVIEWS

THE POWER OF GIVING AWAY POWER: HOW THE BEST LEADERS LEARN TO LET GO Matthew Barzun ’88 Optimism Press, 240 pages by Jana F. Brown As ambassador to the United Kingdom, Matthew Barzun ’88 began each morning at his London office by reading the words of one of his predecessors, John G. Winant of the St. Paul’s School Form of 1908. The words on his desk mirror the inscription on Winant’s tombstone, which, at the request of Barzun, were also printed in the program for the Baccalaureate service of the Form of 2017, for which Barzun was the invited speaker. “Doing the day’s work, day by day, doing a little, adding a little . . .” The full inscription amounts to a kind of diplomat’s credo. “[Winant] became a real mentor, and I read a lot about his life,” says Barzun, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. from 2013 to 2017. “He was shy and awkward — a contrast to the more famous person who came before him [Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.] — yet also incredibly effective at tending to relationships, and his words set the right pattern and tone for what I wanted to do there.”

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

It was not long before he returned to the United States that Barzun knew he wanted to write about an underappreciated style of leadership, one that emphasizes the strength of relationships over individuals and disperses power as a means of making organizations and individuals stronger. The result is The Power of Giving Away Power: How the Best Leaders Learn to Let Go. Published in June (with the help of literary agent Andrew Wylie ’65), the book explores the problem society has with power. “Most of us have gotten the memo that hoarding power and lording it over others is not good,” Barzun explains. “So we mistakenly assume that the only alternative is a kind of collective power-sharing, which rarely works. The flaw in the premise with both is the idea that power is a finite resource, like coal. What Winant and other leaders recognized is that power is not something you mine, it’s something you make in strong relationships with other people. I wanted to get these ideas out there.” While his publication is categorized as a “leadership” book, the word makes Barzun cringe a little, with its top-of-pyramid implications. The Power of Giving Away Power invokes the lessons of some of the great thinkers of the last century. The hero of the volume, Barzun says, is philosopher and organizational theory pioneer Mary Parker Follett. “She was an amazing woman, writing 100

years ago when America was coming out of a global pandemic,” Barzun says. “She saw social, economic, and racial division in her country and thought there was something each of us could do. It started with how we behave around a table with one another.” For those seated around that proverbial table, Follett warned of the false resolution of compromise. Instead, she thought meetings should strive toward co-creation. “[Follett] said compromise sounds better,” Barzun says. “But in a compromise, all you get is partial victory and partial acquiescence. The only reason to gather is co-creation, to make something together as a group. When you do that, this magic thing happens, and it requires each person to come to the table with three expectations: expect to be needed; expect to need others; and expect to be changed.” Other case studies in Barzun’s work include Dee Hock and the founding of Visa; Jimmy Wales and the formation of Wikipedia; and the beginnings of Alcoholics Anonymous through the shared vision of recovering drinker Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith. While The Power of Giving Away Power may be a natural fit for the corporate world, nonprofits, and political organizations, Barzun also sees it having wider applications, from academia to parenting. “When my daughter saw the subtitle for the first time, she shot me an ‘Oh, really?’ smile,” Barzun says. “Even in parenting, it’s hard to let go of thinking you have all the right answers.”

ON THE BOOKSHELF Picture Ecology: Art and Ecocriticism in Planetary Perspective Karl Kusserow ’81 Princeton University Art Museum, Coming 2021 Seeking a broad reexamination of visual culture through the lenses of ecocriticism, environmental justice, and animal studies, this compendium offers a diverse range of art-historical criticism formulated within an ecological context. Picture Ecology brings together scholars whose contributions extend chronologically and geographically from 11th-century Chinese painting to contemporary photography of California wildfires. Historic Houses of Queens Rob MacKay ’85 Arcadia Publishing, 2021 In his newest work, Rob MacKay ’85 looks at architecture, interior design, surrounding neighborhoods, real estate trends, peculiarities, and personalities in the historic houses of Queens, New York. All the while, MacKay, a former newspaper editor, considers that real humans lived in them. With 200 images and informative captions, this book explores several landmarked districts and more than 50 significant houses, with the oldest dating back to the mid-1660s. Their owners included America’s forefathers, religious dignitaries, industrialists, Wall Street tycoons, and prominent African American entertainers from the Jazz Age.

The Power of Golf: The Game’s Positive Impact on the Lives of the Disabled EQ Sylvester ’57, U.S. Adaptive Golf Alliance, Fig Factor Media, 2020 There are more than 60 million disabled in our country, including 13 million combat-wounded veterans, 1.3 million amputees, and 1,000 babies born every year with a missing limb; the game of golf offers an opportunity to them all. Para-golf provides an inclusive, life-changing experience of camaraderie and competition for people with disabilities of all kinds. In The Power of Golf, the authors, including U.S. Adaptive Golf Alliance Chairman and triple amputee EQ Sylvester ’57, have collected personal stories of adaptive golfers who have lost much, but joyfully found a sense of freedom and unexpected therapeutic and rehabilitative benefits from their inclusion in the game. Heights and Depths George Hobson ’57 Wipf and Stock, 2021 The poems of George Hobson ’57 make up the verbal equivalent of a synthetic cubist painting. Many facets of reality are on display as the poems move through depths and heights of human experience. The opening section presents a harsh evocation of the turbulence and violence in our world — with hints of hope. The second section exposes the poet’s struggles to find full self-acceptance as he discovers himself inside God’s love. Section three evokes the beauty of intensely observed aspects of the natural world, through which shines the mystery of physical reality. The fourth section moves into the realm of memory, while the final section fleshes out the hints of hope introduced in section one.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

FACETIME

Jenny Heath Judson ’94 (l.) with Danielle Faris Mahfood ’94, holding their co-authored novel.

Sticking With It With the release of their novel, Jenny Heath Judson ’94 and Danielle Faris Mahfood ’94 have realized a lifelong dream. October marked the publication of The Last Season, a work of historical fiction co-written by Jenny Heath Judson ’94 and Danielle Faris Mahfood ’94. The longtime friends began their collaboration in a science class at St. Paul’s School in the early 1990s, where they “wrote short excerpts from imaginary novels that featured themselves and their classmates as characters caught up in tales of romance and adventure.” Their own story is one of friendship and perseverance. After more than 10 years of working together on The Last Season, Jenny, a high school English teacher, and Danielle, who works in financial services, discussed the book’s publication with Alumni Horae Editor Jana Brown.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

Tell me about how you became friends at SPS? Danielle: We met early in our Fourth Form year and spent a lot of time together both at school and on school vacations. In Fifth Form, we both signed up for Human Anatomy and Physiology with Dr. G [Theresa Gerardo-Gettens]. I remember one day when Jenny was already finished with the lab, so she decided to write a story for me. That one page started it all. Jenny: For some reason, we both remember that well — it was a story that followed all the cheesy romance archetypes. It featured Danielle as a damsel in distress and somebody we all had a crush on, who rode across the beach on a stallion to save her. It was just a piece of paper, but that story made its way around. We were doing this pre-cell phone and social media, so only a handful of people saw it, which saved us some embarrassment; today, it might have gone viral.

Tell me about your mutual interest in historical fiction and romance novels. Jenny: In high school, romance novels were a way to escape and also a little forbidden. Some of it was the sexiness of a romance novel. The characters tend to have a happily-ever-after. When I’m looking for a pleasure read, even today, I look for something that will provide a positive boost.

“It has always been a funny thing to do but, even in the yearbook, I wrote to Danielle that I

Danielle: I’ve been a voracious reader my whole life. We always intended to write a beach read, something in the mass-market genre. But we also wanted it to be historical fiction because that transports you to a time period, which is what Jenny and I love.

would dedicate my

What was your process in working together? Jenny: Our process changed over time. Danielle always said, We collaborated on the storyline and ‘you should do that’ then divided and conquered on both and then at some point the writing and the research. Once we had written most of the story and it became ‘we are had the whole plot, we took different How did that idea of writing a longer going to do this.’” sections to edit and then would read story evolve from there? And, when our sections aloud. In doing so, we did you realize you were committed smoothed out the differences in our styles. The book would to writing a novel together? Danielle: After SPS, we stayed in touch and the stories never have gotten done if Danielle wasn’t a project manbecame a running joke. I would often have big birth- ager. She gave us a schedule and, in a way, I would say she day parties and Jenny started bringing me longer stories believed in the project in a more concrete way than I did. as presents. Danielle: We each have our strengths. Jenny has a beautiful Jenny: I’m an English teacher and have always dreamed ability to create the atmosphere of the scene. I was about of writing. This particular project was half dream, half driving the plot and dialogue forward. joke. It was a funny thing to do, but even in the yearbook, I wrote to Danielle that I would dedicate my first novel to Publishing a novel has been a longtime dream. How her. Danielle always said, ‘you should do that’ and then does it feel now that it is happening? at some point it became ‘we are going to do this.’ Years Danielle: I’m just thrilled. This has spanned at least a later, we went to the movies on a rainy day in New York decade. This project has given me an escape from my dayin 2009 to see The Young Victoria. As we came out of the to-day life and our friendship has gotten so much closer movie, Danielle looked at me and said, ‘We are writing having this shared experience. I’m not sure I could have done this with anybody else but Jenny. that book — now.’

first novel to her.

Danielle: We walked to Barnes & Noble near Lincoln Square to check out the historical fiction section and were surprised that there were not more books set in the Victorian era. We both liked the time period and some of the classic novels from around then — Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope. There was a lot of social movement going on at that time because of industrialization. The financial crisis of 2008 was fresh in our minds, and we were interested to find there was a financial crisis in the 1870s that closely mirrored what we had just experienced.

Jenny: This is what life is about — relationships. For us, it is really a story of friendship and a lesson about sticking to and chasing your dreams.

To learn more about Danielle, Jenny, and The Last Season, visit daniandjenny.com.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

FORMNOTES These formnotes reflect information received through Oct. 1, 2021. Please send news/photos of yourself or other alumni for these pages to: Formnotes Editor, Alumni Horae, St. Paul’s School, 325 Pleasant Street, Concord, N.H. 03301 or alumni@sps.edu. For reunion information, plesae visit sps.edu/anniversary.

1945

Tony O’Connor sdegpoc@att.net

Tony O’Connor received a call from Doug Coleman recently to the effect that he was in Portland, Maine, and, after checking around, found the possibilities of some kind of ’45 get-together not encouraging. He did see Cynthia Henriques and found her charming as usual. “Sue and I see her brother, Mike Murray ’46, and his wife, Judy, here in Essex, which continues to be awash with SPS connections. Rummaging around my old papers, I came across a book published by the late Col. John M. de S. Verdi ’44 about a year he spent in Korea flying jets for the Marine Corps. I imagine any ’45er alive today will remember John as both brilliant and not a simple person to describe. Anyone with an interest in reading this partial memoir should give me a call at 860-662-5024. Another product of my rummaging was an essay by Chuck Haines written for our 50th Anniversary but never made public, I guess because of its frankness. I think he knew it would not be blessed by quite a number of SPS stalwarts. My brotherin-law, the late Dick Hollyday, was probably Chuck’s closest friend and gave the eulogy at his funeral. It was a masterpiece.”

Harry Armistead ’58 donated a Rembrandt Peale portrait of his great-great-grandfather, Lt. Col. George Armistead, to the Smithsonian Institution.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

John Musto ’87 (r.) and Steve Gurney ’51 visited SPS this summer.

George de Man ’57 married Susan Cobleigh at home in Decatur, Georgia, on July 9.

1950

Peale Museum. My father, George Armistead (SPS 1918, though he finished schooling elsewhere), didn’t have much use for ancestor worship. He would say, ‘None of this puts any bread on the table.’ Nevertheless, I named our son George Armistead. The Form of 1918 also included ornithologist James Bond, the inspiration for 007’s name. Bond finished his schooling in England. He was our Philadelphia neighbor. Retired Pittsburgh Penguins vice president for publicity and amateur historian Tom McMillan is at work on the book Our Flag Was Still There: How the Armisteads Saved the Star-Spangled Banner. On a less exalted plane, the August issue of Birding has my interview with seven photographs. Fortunately, only four are of me — I have a close to phobic reaction to being photographed. In the interview, I list two SPS masters as mentors, Charles Buell and John McIlwaine. My best birding buddy, William C. Russell ’59, is listed among my friends. Will is founder and manager of WINGS Birding Tours (trips to over 100 countries). Still less exalted, but perhaps of interest, in September, I organized my 133rd bird census.”

Bill Faurot and his wife, Janet, moved to Sedona, Arizona, a few years ago and wonders if any formmates are nearby. “The altitude here is 4,500´ so we have mild winters and pleasant summers. Phoenix and Flagstaff are an hour away. We are surrounded by high red rock buttes. Garden pests are deer and javelina. Golf is the local sport, but neither of us plays.”

1952/70th

David Sinkler ddsinkler@comcast.net

1957/65th

Bill de Haven bill_dehaven316@hotmail.com

1958

Allan Ayers aayers3667@gmail.com Guy Rutherfurd rutherfurdguy@gmail.com

Harry Armistead offers this update: “I have donated to the Smithsonian Institution Rembrandt Peale’s portrait of my great-great-grandfather, Lt. Col. George Armistead (hereafter referred to as GA), and three related presidential commissions for him signed by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams. The portrait will be displayed in the Star-Spangled Banner Gallery. GA had the 32´ X 40´ flag made. It flew over Fort McHenry in Baltimore, which he commanded during a battle in the War of 1812, and he took possession of it afterward. His granddaughter gave the flag to the Smithsonian in the early 1900s; its restoration was financed by Ralph Lauren. There are two other Peale portraits of GA, one in the Baltimore Historical Society and the other in Baltimore’s

1959

Sydney Waud swaud@compass.com

Wilfred Files, Jr. died on July 27 in Homer, Alaska. His son, Kirby, said, “St. Paul’s was very special to him. In 2009, my family and I were delighted to attend my dad’s 60th SPS reunion.”

1960

Dimitri Sevastopoulo dsevastopoulo@gmail.com

In September, Cathy and I traveled to SaintTropez to visit a friend I met in college 60 years ago. We make an annual pilgrimage — though not last year — to the former fishing village, once home to Brigitte Bardot. From the

The late Wilfred Files, Jr. ’59 (r.) with his son, Kirby, and grandson, Alex.

Jim Hatch ’61 caught up with Hachi Nakamura ’61 and his wife for a weekend of Tanglewood concerts.

terrace of our hostess’s home, facing mainland France, we watched sailboat races and enjoyed rose-colored sunsets. Learning that our son, Marc, was arriving in Nice for his first vacation since entering the work force, we drove to Juan les Pins, where we spent three wonderful days together. We visited the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence and the Picasso Museum in Antibes. Rich Brewster has written a collection of nonfiction stories, Witchcraft Legacy: Stories from the Big Attic, which was published by Protean Press in September. The book begins when Rich and his older brother, Sam ’58, then children exploring the attic of their family home, find a steamer trunk filled with centuries of family books and papers, including an ancient tome once owned by William Stoughton, chief judge of the 1692 Salem witchcraft trials. In crabbed handwritten notes on the book’s flyleaf, Stoughton describes someone being mercilessly haunted, tortured by “evil spirits.” To Rich and Sam, these spirits seemed to cast a family curse from that old attic trunk into their very lives. Stoughton’s book passed from hand to hand over the generations as those who possessed it lived out the curse of the evil spirits. Witchcraft Legacy’s true stories tell about love and death

and life’s twists and turns over four centuries. There are failures and successes, tales of survival and conflict and love — and murders, including one driven by passion, another by greed, and a third by rage. Witchcraft Legacy is available at the Harvard Bookstore and online.

Bill Matthews ’61 teeing off in the annual August match in Kennebunkport: Matthews and Trent Blossom ’08 vs. John Cronin ’08 and Andrew Peabody ’08.

1961

Ed Tiffany edtiffany@gmail.com

Joan and I enjoyed a wonderful summer in Marion, Massachusetts, with our four grandchildren about most of the time. Our son, Thacher, his wife, Lily, and children, Theo and Ada, returned to Brooklyn in late August, a shorter stay than last year. We have swapped apartments in Boston with our daughter, Kathrene, her husband, Anderson Bell, and kids, Alden and Wyatt; we are still moving boxes, paintings, and chairs about. It gives them three floors; we lived in this smaller two-floor apartment 40 years ago. It is amazing how much you can accumulate when you have more space. We are still on the same street and share walking Alden and Wyatt to school, picking them up from ballet, soccer, and other stuff. We are in Boston most of the time until ski season working part time, biking about, playing tennis, and having fun. The 28 members of the form who joined our virtual 60th Anniversary gathering impressed me with how our values and value of friendships were formed while in Millville. Bobby Clark writes: “We have 11 grandchildren (6 boys, 5 girls); four went to SPS. Touch football is off and running for the 52nd year. Last year, we played with masks and no huddle. Carroll and I tandem ride about twice a week, 16 miles each ride. I rode my 31st PMC this year. That bests my 29 Boston Marathons (50 in total). I was told by a friend that Steve Connet spends time each year on Spanish Wells in the Bahamas for his turtle research work.”

Dimitri Sevastopoulo ’60 on his travels this fall.

1962/60th 1964

Tom Roberts tarbigred@yahoo.com

Rob Claflin robclaflin@comcast.net

Ted Morgan reports that after 46 years in the Lehigh Valley, where he taught political science at Lehigh, he and his wife, Mary Lou, have moved to Tamworth, New Hampshire. Their new address is 438 Great Hill Road, 03886. Jim Goodwin spent the summer in Virginia moving his mother from independent living to memory care. She was born three days after Congress voted down the League of Nations while women’s suffrage was out for ratification. How times have changed. “It was a sad time,” Jim says, “going through a century-plus of family things, but it had its moments. Owing to her dementia, I never knew where some delightful heirloom would turn up. Going through a box of under-the-sink stuff, I found a big Bible from 1754. Yikes! I’m now back at my place in Salem, Mass. Love to hear from y’all.” Ray Payson and wife, Marcia, were at a Bristol Land Conservation Trust event in Bristol, Rhode Island, in September. Ray is president of the BLCT and is also on the Bristol Conservation Commission. Bristol is a lovely

Chuck Coggeshall ’64 and his wife, Mina, gathered their three children with grandchildren for a great summer outing at Bald Head Island in Georgia. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

FORMNOTES

Dick Jaskiel ’67 working on his 1936 Ford Phaeton. The wrench in hand is somewhat symbolic, he says.

Russell Corey ’65 prepares for a perfect putt at the ninth green on the Millbrook course.

town with one of America’s great 4th of July parades. Thanks for all your hard work for your community, Ray. Rick Sperry is still teaching his online courses on World War II — Pacific, the War of 1812, and the Korean War. Take a look at history500.com/courses. He has had more than 400 students since beginning this effort several years ago. “I teach on Mondays only, though,” he says. “Gives me time to do other things, like playing the classical guitar. Daughter Isabel is at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.”

of the few masters with whom I felt a spontaneous kinship. I remember him explaining the meaning of Tillich’s conception of God as the ‘Ground of Being,’ a phrase that Mr. Aiken really liked and wanted us to understand. He had a kind, gentle, and uplifting presence, and I am grateful for having known him for that little while at SPS during my formative years.”

1965

Bob Hall ro.hall@northeastern.edu Eric Saunders esaunders@bernsteinshur.com

David Parshall reports that Missie and Russell Corey visited them in Millbrook, New York, on a lovely September weekend. “It was a great pleasure to see them. One thing we all remember about Russell is that he is, and always has been, a consummate sportsman. He continues to excel.”

1966

Hugh Clark hclark@ursinus.edu

I’m sharing recollections of the Rev. Richard “Dick” Aiken from several members of the form: “I thought a great deal of Dick Aiken,” says Andy Roberts. “He appeared to be a very dependable straight shooter.” Jeff Clark says, “I have only good memories of Mr. Aiken. Good guy in every way I was aware of him.” Jens Appel recalls, “He was a real quality man with a great attitude, and I am glad I knew him.” I, Jens, and Ged Sinkinson have all fondly recalled the famous nihil persperate homily delivered in Chapel, and Pete Meyer recalls his “Gospel according to Peanuts” sermons. Paul Perkins writes, “He was one 34

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

1967/55th

John Landes jlandes1948@yahoo.com

We closed our Sag Harbor family burger joint, Bay Burger, a few months before the pandemic, but the jazz Jam Session we ran there for almost 10 years (alas I am a producer, not a player) lives on, and morphed this summer into the Hamptons Jazz Fest (check it out). We produced more than 30 gigs this July, August, and September at mostly outdoor venues all over the East End, all free, with the likes of Ravi Coltrane, Randy Brecker, and Paquito D’Rivera. My Grateful Dead days are still intact, but I am learning to love jazz. We intend to grow the Hamptons Jazz Fest. Also, we are planning for our Jam Session to return Sunday nights to Christ Episcopal Church in Sag Harbor in November with topflight special guests, local food trucks, and BYOB. We are overjoyed to have just had our third grandchild, Ramona Landes Floyd. We have moved to a smaller house in Sag Harbor on 22 Denison Road. Please stop by if you are in the Hamptons. Peter Matthiessen Wheelwright will have a book published in 2022. “The Door-Man is a tale about the NYC water system, based on events that took place during the construction of one of its upstate reservoirs. Love in the ruins ... More of an epic tale than As It Is On Earth was ... and better, I think (notwithstanding my modest PEN/Hemingway nod for AIIOE).”

From Dick Jaskiel: “Sad news about Dev McLean — rest in peace. I’ve been working on my 1936 Ford Phaeton. A fellow expert member of my local Early Ford V8 Club served as a guide; I learned about the ‘flathead V8,’ which Ford introduced in 1932. While these cars are relatively simple and straightforward, it is surprising how many esoteric tips and tricks there are to repairing and maintaining these beautiful machines. While my car is ‘unrestored,’ it is in fine condition and now runs very well. I have some upcoming visits with fellow Paulies, both here in Oregon and hopefully in the Bay Area, while I visit my daughter. Be ready for future pictures of my granddaughter, Eleanor. She’s already a joy to behold (in my unbiased opinion, of course).”

1969

Eliot Larson ewlarson@comcast.net

Bill Reedy is recovering from a breakthrough case of COVID. “I attended a friend’s funeral almost a month ago and got a little loose with the masking and distancing. Four of the attendees, including myself, were diagnosed shortly thereafter. Still can’t taste or smell, but most of the other symptoms have receded. It wasn’t enjoyable, but thanks to having been vaccinated and receiving monoclonal antibody infusion treatment, I so far haven’t become one of the worst statistics. Get your shots. Wear a mask. Distance yourself. We’re not anywhere near done with this yet. Stay safe.” Bryona (B. Locke) Besse offers this update: “Last spring, I shared an open letter here revealing that I am a transgender woman. About 15 months ago, I began hormone replacement therapy, which has reshaped my body and made my emotions far more accessible — I cannot watch a romantic comedy without a box of Kleenex. In February, I had a blepharoplasty to feminize my eyes and brow. In June, I had facial feminization surgery, and in early September, I underwent a procedure to raise my upper lip to make it more prominent. After three more surgeries between now and late January, my transformation should be complete. It is fair to say I am feeling a bit under construction with all the surgeries. I am not changing into anything, though, merely becoming the woman I’ve always been. It has been a full-time endeavor for the last year. In addition to metabolic therapy and surgical intervention, I’ve spent the last year meeting twice weekly with an LCSW and a psycholo-

gist specializing in transgender issues. I have undergone hours of hair removal and have met twice weekly with a vocal coach to help feminize my voice. It will still take time to fully develop into the woman I want to be. There are so many things to unlearn from my socialization as a male, as well as nuances I need to instinctively adopt to be able to move in a world of women. Transition is not for the faint of heart, nor for those with limited resources and time. It is also hard on those to whom I am closest. My wife, Carol, has been the most affected. I look forward to unveiling the real me, the woman my formmates have never met. While I may not yet be her, I am far removed from the man I once was.”

1970

Mory Houghton ahoughton3@aol.com

To recognize his 70th birthday, Bill Craumer embarked on a nine-state Friendship Celebration Tour, which included visits to, and multiple sightings of, Messrs. Beavers, Houghton, Kenison, and Wagner, along with Lippincott (via Zoom) and David Baldwin ’71.

1972/50th

Charlie Bronson chasbronson@gmail.com

Thinking about The Rock, Clint Van Dusen writes: “On his first spring coaching varsity lacrosse, our best player was attackman Robin Beran. He went on to win honors at UNC 1973-76. Also on that team, Mike Sweeney, who played midfield.” Robin Beran shares: “I never feel as though I have anything exciting or enlightening to contribute, nor do I have any literary flair. However, while gassing up the Jeep this morning, I suddenly had a déjà vu moment about SPS. I took that as a sign. It was cold and rainy as

Formmates from 1970: Bill Craumer, Mory Houghton, and Charlie Wagner.

Eric Carlson ’72 and his wife, Peggy, on their cross-country trip.

diesel fumes sent me back to standing outside, waiting to board a bus to Logan to head home for the holiday break. Then the memory of Thanksgiving break my sophomore year, when three of us overslept and missed the airport buses, bolted into my brain. It is amazing how certain sensory input scenarios will instantly bring back specific memories. Another that happens to me more frequently is the steam in the shower at the club. At certain times the smell, heat, and ceramic tiles will replicate the steam that I remember in the Lower dormitory showers. Every spring there will be at least one time, when I’m in my rubber boots working in a half snow-covered yard, that memories of spring lacrosse practice with the Rock surface. Scooping up ground balls through snow, mud, and clumps of grass is something you never forget. Even if you probably want to. How a thing you hated at the time can be comforting years later is awesome.” Eric Carlson writes: “My wife, Peggy, and I decided to take a leisurely cross-country drive after we were fully vaccinated in March. It was a trip I’ve wanted to do for a long time. We left our home on Oak Island in North Carolina on March 24, covered 9,200 miles, many back roads, and 18 states before returning home on May 25. Our son and his wife live in San

Charles Bronson ’72 (Escape from Alcatraz) and daughter Olivia (Santa Cruz Tri) enjoying a San Francisco Bay swim.

Diego, our West Coast destination, where we spent two weeks. The trip was amazing; we visited many national parks as well as some great museums along the way. The trip was better than I expected; we saw great parts of this vast country, and talked with some good people along the way. It helped restore our faith in this country.” John Chapin shares this update: “Since my retirement from mortgage and construction lending at a bank in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I have been spending May through October at my summer home on the shore across from Bar Harbor. I have a constellation of friends here in Hancock that includes some from Durham, North Carolina, where I keep my winter home. My immediate neighbor in Hancock is former faculty member Denny Doucette, 85, who has been here since 1969. Many of you may remember his wife, Gretchen, who passed away five years ago from a massive stroke. I spend my days riding my bicycle, kayaking, and hiking on the many trails in Acadia National Park. In the winter, I look after my rental and commercial properties in North Carolina. I’d like to invite any of my classmates who are traveling in Maine to stop by and have a glass of wine with me in front of one of the finest oceanfront views in North America.” Dierk Groeneman writes: “I was looking far down the road ahead, filled with excitement about future prospects. And then came Charlie Bronson to remind me of where I’d come from. No, I won’t trouble you with the full history of how I got here, just the last few years. The lockdown started right when my wife and I returned to SF for what was to be a brief visit. Days turned into months, months turned into years of being stuck in an empty house. No doubt y’all have similar stories. As soon as we got our shots early this year, we returned to Colorado. But that was just to pull

Pres Stone ’72 met John Christensen ’72 at John’s Austin studio. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

FORMNOTES up stakes, leaving our two grown children behind. In SF permanently now, we look forward to pursuing our hobbies (stonework, pottery, gardening, cooking) after a complete renovation of the home. Still making noise on Twitter and Facebook, still riding my motorcycle, still obsessed with cars, coffee, and whiskey. Some things never change, I guess.” Bill Keegan moved to San Francisco in 1982. Search YouTube for “Joe Morgan Giants Homerun vs. Dodgers” for the video that records the moment he became a forever-rabid Giants fan. Dave Holt writes: “This summer was interrupted by six weeks of the symptoms of Lyme disease, which I had 16 years ago. This time I had the telltale bull’s-eye rash, making it easy to diagnose, and I got the antibiotics much faster. As they say about alien abductions, this was ‘missing time.’ I still have a few lingering symptoms, but I’m feeling much better, getting outdoors a lot, hanging with two grandkids. Climate change means this fall is even more lovely than usual in Nova Scotia. I’m also spending way too much time watching Norm Macdonald videos.”

1975

Dorien Nunez omniresearch@aol.com

I hosted another Form of 1975 ZoomUnion in September titled ‘That ’70s Show.’ We were joined live by Blaine Carter, Addie Burns Redd, Twig Mowatt, Jeff Cooley, Evan Plynton, and Peter Milnes. From other forms, Jim Tung ’77, Alexis Johnson ’76, Bruce Rueppel ’76, Caryn Cross Hawk ’76, and Alison Zetterquist ’76 also joined. Sending regrets were Randa Wilkinson, Carl Lovejoy, Chip Clothier, Elizabeth McGowan, Chris Pope, Mark Gordon, Dave Moffat and Alden Stevens ’73, form director, who liked our theme. Jose Huertas and Rick Gomes arrived (separately) about two hours late when the ’75 virtual bar was closed. Al Besse also sent regrets as he was closing on a new home in Atlanta but has agreed to do a future ZoomUnion showcasing Bill Abbé’s work. We celebrated the women of our era by looking at their athletics (field hockey, soccer, tennis) — great accomplishments and some undefeated teams. Twig shared the story of the Hat Squad — and pictures. Catching up with so many was a great way to close the week and for me, the first week in a month without hurricane issues. In June, I told my wife, Lyn, that we needed a hurricane escape 36

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

plan — the five we had last year were too many. She agreed, but instead of a rental, she decided we needed to buy a house. Closed in July on a house in Houston; while setting it up, figured we had to evacuate New Orleans, so we drove back there (about 350 miles) in 24 hours. We were safe and sound in Houston during NOLA chaos. Went back to NOLA and then worried about Hurricane Nicholas in Houston. Bottom line, we missed both of them, but had trees to cut down, refrigerators to clean out, no power in NOLA for nine days, etc. Feeling blessed we had the ability to get a house, and the luck to do it when we did.” Chris Pope writes: “My wife, Kristine, and I sold our home of almost 30 years in Concord and downsized to a place in Savannah Lakes Village in South Carolina, a small golf community on a huge lake. Kristine works in the local school district’s IT department, I am fully retired. Our son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter live in Florida; this is as close as we wanted to get. If you are type A and nervous about the thought of retiring and you typically get antsy the second week of vacation, then give me a call. I did a bunch of research and have lots of good advice before making the decision … and happy I did.” Rick Gomes is proud to announce the birth of his first grandchild, August Linden Gomes. The future Paulie came into this world on June 1 and had his first glimpse of the campus when the proud parents were in Concord for a wedding in September. No word on his reaction. Addie Burns Redd writes: “I have been enjoying retirement from a nursing career for two years. Currently running a food pantry at my church and working with the youth ministry. President of the Ingleside Civic League in Norfolk, Virginia. My daughter is in Virginia Beach and my son lives in New York City working in fashion design. I have three grandsons and two granddaughters ages 3-24. My husband, Merve, has a tile business, and we recently celebrated 23 years of marriage. Glad to be reconnecting to my SPS friends. It was good to catch up … sorry I missed the earlier part but great to hear what you have been up to.” Peter Milnes is up to four grandkids. “My daughter, her husband, and infant grandson are in Boca Raton. My oldest son is two miles down the road from us in Bedford, New Hampshire, and continues to work with me. My youngest son is almost 17 and attends Proctor Academy; he’s spending this semester in Segovia, Spain, and I am jealous. Takes me

Tony Bullock ’76 with his daughter, Alex, a sophomore at Skidmore.

back to 1973-74 when I did the SPS SYA in Barcelona — a truly formative experience.” From Jose Huertas: “I live in Mount Vernon, N.Y. I have two daughters and two grandsons, Julian, 7, and Luca, 9 months. I am retired, happy, and look forward to sharing my life with my extended SPS family and making more memories. Pax nobiscum.” Diana Olney is busy traveling and pursuing her passion of playing the great golf courses of the country (world?). Who else shares that passion?

1976

Tony Bullock tony.bullock@ogilvygr.com Alison Zetterquist zettera.az@gmail.com

Alison Zetterquist writes, “While I miss working with Spencer Fulweiler on all things Form of 1976, it’s been great connecting with Tony Bullock as co-form directors. Also, the Zooms have put me back in touch with many of you. In fact, Suzanne Kluss Crawford and I now have monthly calls. I can’t fathom how I let so many years go by without being in contact with her. Bruce Rueppel has joined Main Agent Severo Nieves as a form agent to help fundraise for The SPS Fund — thank you, Bruce. Who else wants to volunteer? This will be an especially important term, as we’ll start pulling together ideas and building excitement for our hallmark 50th anniversary form gift.” Suzanne Kluss Crawford shares, “I have really enjoyed all the opportunities to get together with Paulies that the buzz around the reunion afforded. Had a wonderful catch-up lunch with Mike Ives in New York; a lunch with Valerie Minton during her visit to D.C. while attending her son’s graduation; a D.C.-area mini reunion; wonderful chats with Josh Gould ’77; and a huge gift has been my now-monthly Zoom calls with Alison Zetterquist. I’m very happy

Form of 1977 friends Perot Bissel, Talie Ward Harris, and Chris Willis on the golf course in Northeast Harbor, Maine.

Nora Tracy Phillips ’78 (l.) asked Anne Bartol Butterfield ’78 for a walking tour of Prouts Neck, Anne’s summer home.

that the School has found a way to bring us all together in person with the upcoming cluster reunion. May the COVID gods be kind.” Charles Baldwin lives in Painted Post, New York, and reports that he was selected as Celebrity VIP photographer at the Clemens Center in Elmira. Charles has been working in photography, film, video production, and broadcasting for many years: “Two of my videos have received some acclaim — one is a classic rock video and the other is a short documentary titled ‘Rocketman,’ about a phone call at our house when I was five and John Glenn was in orbit in 1963. This video was produced for a NASA project a few years ago and won eighth place from among thousands of submissions. A third art video is to be projected onto a building in Meiji, Japan, in December. I am podcasting Saturday mornings; listeners are invited to share their stories (search for classical music shows on qskyradio.com).” Tony Bullock says: “I have been living in D.C. for 25 years, having moved here from Long Island in the mid-’90s to work for Sen. Pat Moynihan. My beautiful wife, Renee, passed away last year, which has, of course, been very hard for me and my family. Our kids are doing well. Monty is studying culinary arts at the CIA in Napa; Alexandra is a sophomore at Skidmore and loves it. After many years in elected office, and working for Moynihan and D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, I moved to the lobbying side of the political world. I am with Ogilvy Government Relations here in Washington. When not representing clients, I work to support existing and future Democratic members of the House and Senate. As a newly minted form director, I have enjoyed reconnecting with fellow ’76ers over the past year. If you are reading this and have not submitted a formnote in recent memory (or ever), I hope you will consider sending something in for Alumni Horae.”

Alexis Johnson shares that he and his wife, Amy, are blessed with the presence of their kids in Santa Fe: “Both Sam and Emily have moved back here. Those were not COVID-inspired moves, but they did inoculate further against some of the harder effects of time and distance during COVID days.” Lee Walker Hughes writes that she and husband Woody have happily retired from teaching and innkeeping. “We’re now free to enjoy ‘fun jobs’ — me in the local library and Woody at Sunday River,” she shares. “We were so fortunate to have our grandchildren (Mia, 12; Brody, 10) with us for more than a month this summer, where they could leave the city life to play in the mountains, swim in the ponds, and walk all around the village without adults. (That’s the most exciting thing for them!) Our son, Ken (Army Special Forces), has just returned from a deployment in Mozambique. I’ll never get used to him deploying but am terrifically proud of what he does and who he is. Will be able to breathe once he retires in three years. I speak with Susie Burchill weekly and have lots of fun with Daphne Firth since she comes often to their ski house in Bethel. Missed the Zooms and would love to join the next one.” Bruce Rueppel reports: “I have enjoyed the 3+ Zoom calls over the past 12 months that Alison Zetterquist has put together. It was great to reconnect with so many people and get updated. Some of you might have gotten an email from me this past summer as I helped Severo Nieves with fundraising. Jessica and I have been married for 38 years and reside in Granite Bay, California, in the foothills of the Sierras after living in San Francisco and the Bay Area for 30+ years. Fire and smoke have been a major part of our lives each summer/ fall over the past four years. Hopefully this improves, along with COVID. We look forward to seeing everyone in June at reunion.”

Jon Old ’78 (r.) enjoyed a day at the US Open with former SPS English teacher and tennis coach Richard Lederer.

1977/45th

Jim Tung jcptung@gmail.com

Talie Ward Harris writes that she had a “happy summer tuckering out our grandkids, Walter and Elaine Harris, while preparing Walt for future Chonny Mongie lead guitar role and Elaine for SPS Modern Novel class. Found a picture-perfect round of golf in Northeast Harbor with Perot Bissell and Chris Willis, and just missed Nick Newlin and his accordion. He’s hard at work preparing the band for our 45th reunion. We are all doing our best to avoid the golf carts at the front of the parade.” From William Paine: “Because it seemed to be the popular thing to do, I managed to come down with COVID in early 2021. Thankfully, my case was only mildly serious and I’m now recovered and fully vaccinated. I’ve resurrected a hobby I haven’t indulged in since SPS and college — being a broadcast DJ. Having been on the air with WSPS in its infancy, I went on to do the same with WRTC at Trinity College, but then pursued other interests. Thanks to the miracle of the internet, however, I’m once again on the air. The good folks at Undernet’s

July 4th gathering at the home of Electra McDowell Lang ’78. Counter-clockwise from right are Judd Nelson ’78, Electra, Lisa Hughes ’78, Will Kinnear ’77, Jordan Hawley ’78, and Els Collins ’78. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

FORMNOTES

Doug ’17, Greg, and Liz Robbins ’79 spent a week diving and lionfish hunting in Curacao in August.

Pat Dober ’80 and SPS roommate Steve Bain ’80 at 13,300´ in the Colorado Rockies.

Andy Schlosser ’79 is blessed to be happy and healthy at 60.

USA Radio seem to enjoy my eclectic musical tastes (mostly rock, with a generous dollop of blues, jazz, and adjacent musical genres) and have made me a regular on their DJ rotation. You can listen to me spin some tunes every Saturday, 1-6 p.m. Eastern, at radio.usa-undernet.com. Oh, and Vinny Peterson — your musical genre lessons definitely paid off.” Chris Willis had the pleasure of seeing a number of formmates this summer. “Carrie Margrave and Paul stopped by for a visit in early June before setting off on a U.S. road trip and move to Europe. Talie Ward Harris and Joel, Perot Bissell, and I had a fun round of golf in Northeast Harbor, Maine. Nick Newlin and Joanne joined a Music Night in Seal Harbor, Maine. As Perot can attest, Nick dazzled all present with his keyboard and accordion playing many Mongie classics. Cindy and I had a wonderful visit with Stanley Reeve and Abby in June. On Oct. 4, I joined Stanley in Pittsburgh to see the Rolling Stones.”

used to spend a lot of time riding his bicycle and enjoying walks. It’s my sincere hope that as most of us have turned 60 this year, or will shortly, we think back to 45 or so years ago with at least some fond memories and our incredible educational opportunities that helped make us the people we are today. It’s also my hope that over the next years, we can continue to connect, or reconnect, with our formmates, with whom we shared such an intense common experience, and try to put aside any negatives and real or perceived judgment, and just be with each other in the spirit of the moment and remembrance of our time together in our teenage years. I will do my best to facilitate that as I am able, even if I don’t have Sarah’s natural abilities to do so. Christoph Partsch writes: “As I am still working 24/6 in my law firm, the pandemic has meant an incredible increase in workload. At the same time, I have been restoring a house close to Florence. Due to COVID, the city of Florence was empty and of a sad beauty with most Italians having fled to weekend houses outside as in the times of Boccaccio. I have used some of the travel-free time to write a book on the colorful history of villas in Potsdam, which has met unexpected and amazing interest. Google my name with “villen” if you’re interested. Happy to translate it from German for publishing in the U.S. The last Paulie I met was Kedron Barrett, so happy to see visitors either in Berlin or Florence.” From Jeanette Richmond: “I cannot get my brain and heart around the loss of Sarah Bankson Newton. As for news, I had a nice trip attempting to hike in Switzerland, discovering exactly how out of shape I am despite some much-needed weight loss. After that, I had a quick visit with Lili Cassels-Brown in Vienna. Work from home is now work from home three days a week. My eldest child, Makale Camara ’17, took some time off from

college to try farming and has discovered, to their dismay, that it is brutally hard work and dismally underpaid. Studies at Dartmouth to resume with the winter term. Makale’s sister, Anna Camara ’23, is a Fifth Former. I am the shortest person in my family. Having never been the shortest person anywhere except on a prop jet when a semi-pro basketball team were the only other people on the flight, this is an adjustment. Starting to plot my return to northern New England.” Barbara Talcott shares: “Teaching and being a chaplain last year was 400% as difficult and about 15% as rewarding, but I’m still at it, and this year is significantly better. We missed all our Airbnb guests last year at our house in Cambridge; we usually have a new family every week, which is entertaining. It is also good for the soul to be reminded how many great strangers there are in the world (it’s totally worth the occasional impish four-year-old who forgets which space is for her family and which is for ours). Post-vaccination, guests started returning, and we’re looking forward to welcoming international families again soon. We have also started home-swapping and are now getting impatient to retire because cool opportunities keep popping up that we can’t take advantage

1979

Lili Cassels-Brown ecb@cassels-brown.at Andy Schlosser aeschlosser83@gmail.com

I send my best wishes from Marshfield, Massachusetts, to all members of the Form of ’79 and their families as I assume Sarah’s form director responsibilities in her honor, although the hole left by her loss can never be filled. Same with my best friend from SPS, George Schwab, whom I think of and smile every time I hear Lou Reed or early Talking Heads, remembering his unique wit and manner. I’ve been in regular contact with his widow, Monique, who lives in the Park Slope area of Brooklyn and regularly visits a bench dedicated to George and a beautiful young tree planted in his memory in Prospect Park, where George 38

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

Lili Cassels-Brown ’79 (c.) made it back to the U.S. after two years away and was able to connect with Jeanette Richmond ’79 and Anna Camara ’23.

of. Our kids love joining us for a few days in whatever unexpected place we end up. I think it is the roll-of-the-dice nature of both of these endeavors that is making our fun right now; there is so little we can predict or control in our world as it is that we might as well double down.”

1980

John Maeck mwfarmcsa@gmail.com

For those who missed it, the reunion Zoom call we had recently was fun. It was nice to have a virtual reunion, since we could not meet in person. Other formmates who did not take part are encouraged to join in next time. Pat Dober took a year off from work in 2020-21 and had a great time hiking, offroad biking, and traveling around Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, as well as a long stretch on Nantucket. “Looking now for the next challenge in my fields of affordable housing, real estate finance, and organizational leadership in the Boston area,” he writes. “Daughter Hannah, 27, teaches yoga and dance in Brooklyn. Kevin, 25, is a construction engineer based in Manhattan. Michael, 23, will graduate this semester from Tulane. My wife, Mary Ann Hill, is a communications consultant, mostly for the Common App.” Cameron Crowley, now in Atlanta, has started a digital-asset fund that invests in cryptocurrencies. If any formmates are ready to learn about Bitcoin, Ethereum, and more, and maybe take the plunge, I’m sure Cameron would be happy to chat about it. Michael Fell ChunHan is in Jacksonville, Oregon, where he gets all four seasons and has been developing his green thumb growing grapes, stone fruit, and vegetables, and he has even dabbled in hemp. It sounds like quite a diverse crop, and he says it “feels very sustaining.” When he talks to friends about mountain climbing above the “tree-line,” he has to explain the term, which refers to the altitude where the trees get very small then stop growing above a certain point. He seems bewildered that some have never heard of this. Peter Doucette is teaching math and coaching squash at the Westminster School in Simsbury, Conn. He also teaches yoga online and has been meditating. I hope in the future months we can have another wide-ranging bull session over Zoom, as we seem to have had some success with that format. There is something magical about interacting conversationally, in real-time. It beats

dubious Horae writeups from form directors, such as yours truly. So, until we meet again, virtually, I wish you all well.

1981

Carl Weatherley-White spsform81@gmail.com

I hope to continue the communication that Lixy Carey cultivated over the last few years. Several have called me with encouragement, which is appreciated. Our form is filled with many wonderful people and life stories. Here are just a few of our formmates with whom I have enjoyed speaking over the last few weeks, and I can’t wait to reconnect with as many as possible over the coming years. Hopefully everyone has seen the announcement that our reunion has been rescheduled for this coming spring, alongside the Forms of 1980 and 1982. It promises to be a lot of fun, and hopefully it will be well attended. Peter Adamson called to say he sold his house and was about to embark on a sailing adventure with his wife, starting in South Africa. Jamie Purviance has resettled in Newport, Rhode Island, from California, and is planning the next creative chapter of his life. Maria Agui Carter has several film projects in mind, and her work reflects a rich and inspiring life story. Alan Murchie is a wonderful musician who somehow is a professor of music and religious studies at Fairfield University as well as a rector at Trinity Episcopal Church in Trumbull, Connecticut Peter Paine remains sharp and witty; he has just embarked on a challenging global role at Bristol Meyers Squibb. Chase Robinson is director of the Sackler and Freer Galleries, which comprise the Smithsonian’s Asian art museums. I have also enjoyed catching up with Polly Wakeman, Adam Young, Sam Reid, and Biddle Duke.

1982/40th

Lou Adreani laadreani@comcast.net

I’m excited about our 40th reunion. A week ago, Janie and I drove to Concord to visit the School, just as the students were returning. For me, St. Paul’s is a real Utopia. I get a Zen feeling just walking the grounds, seeing the facilities, and reconnecting with alumni, students, and staff. I would also like to thank our entire form for giving me the opportunity, and honor, to serve as our form director for the past five years. I have had the opportunity to reconnect with almost 80 of 105 individuals in our form

via emails, texts, or phone calls. I could not be prouder to be a part of this School, and specifically our form. Thank you all so much. The form turned out in force with updates. Rebecca Johnson shares that after years of resisting the internet’s insistence on making content free, she has thrown in the towel and started an online literary journal with a fellow writer/bff. She says dorothyparkersashes.com is a place to find first-person essays by women on the stuff of life. “After 25+ years of writing for magazines, it’s fun to be editing again. Oldest son started college at Lafayette this year. Cherishing every waning second with my youngest son. Still in Brooklyn but spending lots of time at our Westchester, New York, house in South Salem, where I play on both the tennis and paddle team at our local club. Yes! Middle-aged ladies do play sports. Torn meniscus be damned. Perhaps most surprising, I have taken over the management of the family farm in Adrian, Texas. It’s not very big by Texas standards (1,600 acres). but watching the Ogallala aquifer disappear and trying to make the right choices between wheat, cotton, and milo and sustainability vs. profitability has been eye opening. Love hearing everybody’s stories.” Chris King has lived in NYC since 1986 and says, “My daughter, Willa ’18, is finishing her last year at Colgate, where she is studying environmental geography and spends her spare time as a firefighter/EMT. It seems like just yesterday I was at her SPS graduation, at which she was awarded the Gillespie Medal. Speaking of which, I was very sad to hear about Cliff ’s passing — Tony Pirri and I lived in Corner House our Fifth Form year — he was an amazing man, and I’m a better person for having known him. Semi-retired now so lots of golf in the summer and hockey in the winter.” Bill Bateson and Ewa are still dividing their time between NYC and Newcomb, N.Y. There are a lot of people moving at least part-time to the north country right now; he has recently helped to locate several remote wilderness home sites for off-grid living in the Adirondacks. He’s looking forward to seeing everyone at reunion. Bill Graham shares, “I thought we’d be empty nesters after dropping our youngest at Claremont McKenna College in August, but it turns out we’ve become ‘open nesters’ with the return of our middle son, who graduated from Duke and is looking to get into documentary filmmaking. I’m working for an spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

FORMNOTES energy efficiency company in Massachusetts 1-2 days a week and then virtually from home in Connecticut other days (to the huge relief of the dog, who became pathologically attached during COVID). Caroline is teaching yoga in studio and online, and she has become a keen golfer — she’s gotten better as I’ve gotten worse, which is pretty annoying.” Ben Scully is still developing sneakers in Busan and is coming up on three years in Korea. “Korea is a wonderful place to work and live; people, culture, climate, are all fantastic. I’ve become fascinated by the Korean War and Korean history overall. I still spend most weekends hiking and checking out temples. Hoping to catch up with Doug Lee before too many more moons pass by.” Louisa Benton suggests, “I think we should all take a field trip to visit Ben in Busan. Had an opportunity to email with him earlier this year for a work-related thing, and he sent me more amazing photos of the place. Still working and living in NYC with my partner of nine years, Mac Hanger. In March, we moved to a big old warehouse loft in North Chelsea. Quarantine made us realize we needed more space than the one bedroom. We also finally turned the corner on a big reno project at my farmhouse in the northern Catskills — loving the weekends now. Hoping also to get a few more sails in on Mac’s 24-foot kestrel, moored in Marion, Massachusetts. Huge thanks to Lou for keeping us all in touch.” Craig Hoagland has this update: “After 15 years in the Bay Area, Jessie and I raised our two boys in St. Louis, and I manage an investment firm here. The kids are now in Santa Barbara and Chicago, and we are looking toward a potential return to California, or at least establishing a winter office there. I ride my bike a lot and obsess about keeping up with the news flow. We live five minutes from Washington University and have enjoyed hosting friends when their kids come to take a look. We provide airport pick-up and lodging, so please let us know if you are in town! Two weeks ago, Jessie and I attended the 16th annual Kuhnfest, an annual reconvening of friends in honor of the late Jim Kuhn, at the home of Kia and Brad Copithorne in Asheville, N.C. Heidi, Jim’s widow, attended along with about a dozen friends of Jim’s from Stanford. And Stanford beat USC that weekend; always a pleasure.” Blair Kloman is still living in Vermont and working at Middlebury doing seemingly nonstop websites and digital communications, 40

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

though all that could change. “I am hoping to move to something less full time in the near future … love living in the mountains and yet having the Maine coast and New Hampshire lakes nearby. I’m lucky to stay in touch with lots of SPS pals. With two grown sons, we’ve got a fairly empty house, so let me know if you ever pass through Middlebury.” Greg Lee is looking forward to our 40th and says, “I haven’t been to campus since our son, Graham ’18, graduated. I come to Portsmouth at least quarterly, as our company is remodeling the former Seabrook greyhound racetrack into a more modern casino. Dana and I are part time on the East Coast and see lots of SPS friends. Visited Eric Schlager in Palm Beach, played golf with Clay Yonce in Boston, had dinner with Jamie Lister ’83 in the Hamptons. Still in Vegas, which now has the Raiders football team. Call me if you come out, as Vegas will be the best away game of the season. Jake Saunders, this will be way better than the hardware show that brought you to Vegas last time.” Lew Lukens is heading into his sixth year in London, having moved there as the senior career diplomat at the U.S. embassy. “Retired from the State Department, with 30 years under my belt, in early 2019, and switched over to the private sector,” he says. “I am senior partner for a small N.Y.-based strategic advisory firm, Signum Global Advisor. We help our clients — mostly hedge funds, asset managers, and sovereign wealth funds — anticipate and manage government policy changes. Interesting work, and it’s kept me in London, which we love. Won’t be here forever as two kids and two step-kids are in Boston, S.C., N.Y, and L.A., but for now it’s great.” Morgan Rodd has been in Brooklyn for 16 years, though he’s kept his San Francisco cell number as a reminder of his Bay Area days. “My son, David, just started college at the University of Pittsburgh, so things are awfully quiet around my house, especially since David’s a drummer,” he shares. “I’m CFO of a software company that has employees in every time zone in the U.S., so my sense of time is even hazier and more confused than it might be with just getting older. Feeling lucky that my family and I made it through the pandemic thus far without any health issues, though I definitely have put on more than a few pounds working so close to my kitchen all these months. I daresay my running days are mostly over except when trying to get to the

Doordash or Grubhub delivery person before my dogs lose their minds.” Douglas Lee has been in Hong Kong since 2015 and hasn’t travelled anywhere since November 2019. “Semi-retired, just helping my wife with her Korean food takeaway business,” he writes. “Still keep in touch from time to time with Clinton White and Hugh Millard in NYC, John Song in Philly, Jonathan Leone in Sausalito, Greg Lee in Vegas, and Ben Scully in Busan, South Korea. Last time I was in NYC was May 2018 and I caught up with Mariza Scotch and Diane Vivona at Mariza’s awesome Brooklyn brownstone. Son Shad, 27, lives in Seattle with his girlfriend while Hudson, 25, lives with his mom in NYC. I must be going through a mid-life crisis as I just joined a no-contact ice hockey league — a spur-of-the-moment decision. Hope I survive, as the last time I played ice hockey was 40 years ago. Wish Lou could be here to coach me. Stay safe, everyone.” Tom Brazelton loves living in Madison, Wisconsin, and is grateful to still be at the UW School of Medicine & Public Health as professor and vice chair for quality in the Dept. of Pediatrics, wearing a few hats at UW Health as pediatric/neonatal medical director for the Med Flight program, as physician informatics co-director of the burgeoning Digital Health Program, and still being active as a cardiac intensivist in the Pediatric ICU at the American Family Children’s Hospital. “My stepson, 21, just landed a full-time firefighter/EMT gig across the state so we’re sad he’ll be three hours away but happy that his career can begin to flourish. He’s been working his tail off as a paid volunteer at $5/hour for two busy fire/ EMS services on the east side of town and loves the fire side of it. I finally got my golf handicap into single digits; it sucks starting a new sport late in life, while Jenny (retired from AFCH x 3 years) and I are busy breaking in a third bloodhound — he’s already 75 pounds at 5 months — so we’ll soon have a total of 500 pounds of wrinkly, floppy-eared, shedding, slobbering, baying, goofy but loving critters running around the house. Finally, we still have our place in Barnstable, Massachusetts, so I get back there occasionally but haven’t caught up with any Paulies in decades. Hopefully I can make it to the 40th (if there’s a golf outing planned around it, count me in). All the best to you all, get vaccinated, and stay safe.” Chuck Doucette recently moved from the condo in Arlington where he and his wife lived

Iman Saleeby ’24, daughter of Kevin Saleeby ’89 and niece of Derek Saleeby ’83.

John Pleasants ’83 and his wife in Paris.

Tod Brainard ’83 at SPS Graduation (l. to r.) with Sammy ’15, Jake ’21, and Lydia ’16.

for 13 years to a single-family house in Watertown. “We are excited to have a second bathroom, a third bedroom, and a nice backyard,” he says. “I have two young boys; Lucas, 7, is in second grade and Adam, 6, is in first. I wish we had adopted them when I was much younger. Most of you with kids have them in college already. I am a principal software engineer for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, an educational software company (they used to publish books). This year I have been rowing a few nights per week at Community Rowing Inc. with Porter Gifford. I also recently did a sprint triathlon with my brother, Chris ’86. Finally, my dad, 85, recently moved from Concord, New Hampshire, to Hancock, Maine.” Jennifer White Callaghan is in D.C. and still swimming, running, golfing, cycling, and playing soccer. “One of us (Meg, 10) is doing all of those activities, she says. “Others (Richard and I) are doing three or four of those. Charlie Brown (the dog) is lazy and barely likes going for walks, unless there are deer and rabbits to chase. Richard has a new job as CFO for the NGO Invisible Children. I have spent the past few months helping Afghans with their visa applications and, more recently, with routes out. We still have a lot of families stuck there, in terrible situations. It has been amazing work, and I have a team of dedicated and passionate lawyers helping me. My role running the pro bono group for our U.S. offices has been even more terrifically challenging than expected.” From Trisha Patterson: “Thank you, Lou, for all your hard work and persistence. Not even a global pandemic slowed you down. Form director is a tough but fun volunteer job, and it gives you the amazing opportunity to reconnect with formmates, ideally making reunions just that much more fun. For our upcoming, I’m putting together a folder

where we can all drop photos. I’m very excited about this because, as I’ve been re-orging my basement (thank you, lockdown), I’ve come across SPS photos and mementos. Apparently, I keep everything! Why did I keep my Third Form schedule cards? I have no idea, but now it’s pretty funny. Will send soon. Please add stuff. On a personal note, I’m still in marketing, but now I’ve gotten into food insecurity and outreach, working with my local farmers market to promote awareness and creating partnerships with local businesses. I’ve been thankful for being able to use my work experience to shed light on an important issue for so many families in this area. Daughter Ellie is in fifth grade; my husband and I are still rowing. I’m still coaching and will be at Head of the Charles — shout-out to all Boston formmates.” Sally Rousse attended 1981’s virtual 40th SPS reunion in June via Zoom thanks to an invite, and it’s made her excited for 1982’s reunion this year: “I have had wonderful opportunities to see some SPS friends IRL: my Kittridge roomie, Cynthia Griffin Ferris, who hosted me and my son, Oliver, for several nights as he checked out colleges in the Boston area (Julie Bohlen Perry joined us one night); Maria Agui Carter ’81 gave us an in-depth look at Emerson, where she teaches film; and Noel Danforth ’81 shared her vibrant artwork. A September week in NYC promised visits with Brooklyn Paulies Emily Fisher, Nicole Gallagher, Alison Horne-Rona, Rebecca Johnson and Mariza Scotch, along with my newly graduated and transplanted daughter, Mona. I am teaching ballet five days/week and loving it. The arts equity work I’ve been doing over the pandemic has been impactful (check out Creating New Futures on FB and IG). And although I often feel lonely in my cute house in Minneapolis without offspring studying and working from home,

while I contemplate loss and liability, comfort and friendship, and wonder what direction to move next, my homeopath/therapist tells me I am right on track developmentally. How reassuring. May we all feel on track and moving forward, or at least moving.” Elisabeth Schmitz Lucas writes: “I am editorial director at independent publisher Grove Atlantic in NYC, where I’ve worked for 26 years. Daughter Hannah graduated from Bates and is interning on Capitol Hill for Maine Congressman Jared Golden. Son Miles is a freshman at George Washington Uni. I attended a summer pop-up SPS reunion on North Haven, Maine, at the lovely home of Priscilla and Bill Kennedy ’65 and traveled back down the East Coast, spending time with Alice Rodd Coogan, Serena Wilkie Gifford, and Louisa Benton. John Donnelly III is working for the growth equity firm M33 in Boston, focused on SaaS businesses. Son Jack is a senior at Michigan and plays baseball there; daughter Grace is a senior at Proctor and a hockey player. He and his wife spend a lot of time on the Vineyard. He still plays hockey with Ed Krayer ’85 on Thursday nights and calls fishing a passion.

1983

Icy Frantz icy@icyfrantz.com

I always finds September a little bittersweet. On the one hand, I love the ease and pace of the warmer summer months, but the fall is full of hope, and starting fresh. I spent the first half of summer on the lacrosse circuit, shlepping our daughter back and forth to Maryland. The second half was kicking back at a beach with the family. Our house is now quiet, and once again I am adjusting to an empty nest. There is more time to write and play squash, but I miss our children madly. I ran for a local office two years ago, won, and will run again

FORMNOTES in November. I chair the board of our local teen center and sit on the executive board of a boarding school in Connecticut. Who knew that one of the silver linings of the global pandemic would be to gather, virtually? In the past year, our form has gathered on Zoom twice, and I hope we can all meet again this fall — stay tuned for an invitation. Big shout out to our form members in faraway places who stayed up late or woke early, to incredible hair growth, cute offspring, and our two presenters in the second meeting, Bobby Lapsley and Victoria Labalme. Victoria has a new book out, Risk Forward: Embrace the Unknown and Unlock Your Hidden Genius. In a year of great disconnection, it was especially nice to see so many familiar faces.” On May 11, Annie Duke presented “How to Decide: Strategies for Making Smarter Decisions” in a virtual event hosted by the SPS XIX Society; 15 women from our form tuned in. Annie is the best-selling author of Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts and How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices. Tod Brainard shares that his son, Jake ’21, graduated from SPS in May. “Good fun and end of an era (for now) of Brainards at SPS. ‘We have finished the course, we have kept the faith’ … a dollar to anyone who knows where that is inscribed on campus.” John Lovejoy reports: “My boy, James, and I live in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, just outside Paris. We traveled this summer to see friends and family in the U.S., then to Denmark to see godparents, and to the beautiful south of France. Avoided the fires and floods everywhere. Here we see Nicolas F. von der Schulenburg ’84 and Tsugu Tamenaga once or twice a year, and I saw Morris Barrett in

NYC. I practice medicine (pediatrics) at the American Hospital of Paris. Am finishing a novel — a literary thriller — so if anybody in our class is a hungry agent, send a note.” And from Chuck Jakosa: “After nearly three years in Dhaka running a U.S. AID access to justice project, I moved this summer to Kyiv to work on anti-corruption efforts for the State Department. Kyiv is great — my family and I have been going to the phenomenal ballet on a weekly basis and my Cyrillic-reading is improving — but I miss the rickshaws and easy tennis (or squash, pre-COVID) in Dhaka, but not the heat or mosquitoes. Over the 4th of July weekend, I took a brief sojourn from visiting my in-laws in Mexico City and went fly fishing in the Yucatan con mis compadres Andy Block y Steve Kahn. If you’re in Kyiv, let’s go get a bowl of borscht.” Life is good for John Pleasants: “Grateful for a summer with the family unit intact (thank you, gap years) but with two now at college, home’s a bit quieter with Josie (9th grade) missing her brothers. Summer fun recap: Good dose of East Coast, with a lucky window visit to Ireland and France for good measure. Note to self: hanging in Parisian cafés is tough to beat.” And last, but certainly not least, an update and invitation from Charlie McKee: Charlie and husband Joseph have de-camped from Toronto to settle on a Prince Edward County horse farm on the shores of Lake Ontario. Lots of wineries and cider presses in the neighborhood — and an open invitation to beloved classmates planning a trip to Ontario or Quebec. Charlie is staying busy growing his Swiss Freiberger horse breeding business with sister Nina McKee ’81, P’25, and with his partnering work for the Ice Academy of Montreal, which expects to send 12 figure skating couples from seven countries to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics for the ice dance competitions.

1984

(L. to r.) Hunter Purcell ’87, Blair Pillsbury ’88, and Matt Comyns ’88.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

Alexandra Strawbridge Maurer mainestraw@gmail.com

Blakey Vermeule is learning underwater conservation photography and shark conservation. Sarah Murphy is enjoying life in Monterey County and not missing New England winters. “Things are coming together for my new business, Mind Core. Mind Core teaches cognitive skills to help clients get the most out

of their education, working relationships, and life. It’s hugely gratifying, and I’m grateful to the many SPS alumni who have supported and encouraged me. I’m also so glad I reached out to my local Cal State University in Monterey, which has provided guidance and connections. Thank you, Institute for Innovation and Economic Development.”

1985

Ward Atterbury wardatterbury@gmail.com

Cal Bussey writes: “My wife, Nancy, and I were thrilled to be back on the SPS grounds again in May for Graduation. Our son, Malcolm ’21, graduated and our daughter, Georgia ’24, completed her Third Form year. Malcolm was the Gordon Medal recipient, which was presented by Matt Soule ’77 (the Soule-man), who happened to be my assistant hockey coach in the ’80s.”

1987/35th

LaMar Bunts lamar_bunts@post.harvard.edu

Kathryn Hill just started her 28th year of teaching math to boarding school kids. Her husband is head of the Williston Northampton School, so they live in the equivalent of the Rectory. “Ironically, I go to many more Williston alumni events than SPS alumni events,” she says. “Hoping to see everyone next June (assuming it’s not reunion weekend here as well, in which case, duty calls...). Jerome Goubeaux writes, “It’s been a while since I’ve updated my legion of SPS fans on my seemingly endless list of laudable accomplishments. As most of you already know, I’ve bestowed so many culturally and intellectually impressive contributions on humankind over the years, it would be unseemly and boastful to list them all; suffice to say, you’re all very welcome. I’m looking forward to rooming with LaMar Bunts at our impending 35th reunion and regaling my rapt Form of ’87 audience with a full accounting of my feats of chivalry and derring-do. Like all of you, I can’t wait!”

1992/30th

Trevor Patzer trevor@littlesistersfund.org

SKATING TOWARD BEIJING

“SPS ethos” guides Charlie McKee ’83 in creating community for ice-dancing elite.

COURTESY CHARLIE MCKEE ’83

MICHAEL MATROS

Charlie McKee ‘83 (far right) with (l. to r.) Scott Moir (head coach and managing director of the Ice Academy of Montreal, London Campus) and Ice Academy co-founders and head coaches Romain Haguenauer, Patrice Lauzon, and Marie-France Dubreuil.

Ranging in age from 16 to 32, they arrive at the school in Quebec from 11 countries. Together, on their skates, they represent almost one-third of the international icedancing elite. The Ice Academy of Montreal hosts “the world’s largest concentration of figure skaters training at one school,” says Charlie McKee ’83, who joined the Academy’s leadership three years ago. McKee’s other professional life includes importing, breeding, and raising horses and “working with a very, very large Dallas-based technology company.” He’s not much of a skater himself (McKee once fell through the ice on Turkey Pond and was saved by his SPS roommate, Jonathan Tracy ’83), but he says his

partnership in the Ice Academy is “the most inspirational activity” in which he is involved. Grand Prix events and world championships loom on the near horizon for the Academy’s students, but perhaps most daunting are the 2022 Winter Olympics, scheduled for February in Beijing. McKee’s Academy partner, Jamal Othman, a former Swiss national figure skating champion, explains that the ice-dancing couples will compete in six events in the Grand Prix series between October and December, as they accumulate points for international ranking and, thus, placement at the world championships next March in Montpellier, France. In the interim, of course, comes Beijing. Among the Academy’s headliners at the

Olympics are expected to be four-time world champion ice dancers Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron of France. That duo should be joined by a host of other Academy students, say McKee and Othman, who expect no fewer than nine of the school’s dance couples to represent their countries at the Olympics, and possibly as many as 12 — “more than 50% of the competition.” “They will be going into the Olympic rink in Beijing,” McKee says, “as they do when they go to the Grand Prix, or whatever else, and they compete vigorously against one another. But they’re also extremely supportive, and there’s a really great sense of camaraderie.” The community nature of the enterprise, McKee explains, is due in great part to the school’s 11 coaches, headed by legendary choreography teacher Romain Haguenauer, along with the two-time world silver medalist Canadian ice-dancing team of Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon. “It’s unique, I think, in any sport where you’d have fierce competitors,” McKee says, “who are actually training in the same center and competing against one another in the big competitions, but who also are friends.” The Academy’s ethos, McKee explains, “is the notion of holistic development of the individual, helping students, helping the skaters, helping the students wherever they are in their careers. “With what we’re doing in Montreal, my mind keeps coming back to what St. Paul’s is doing in Concord,” McKee adds. “Obviously, the scale and the nature of the mission are very different, but there are so many elements that we are trying to replicate in terms of what St. Paul’s has really demonstrated in the development of young adults. And it really does start with the mindset, the commitment, the ability to work collaboratively.” McKee has sent two children to St. Paul’s, Nina ’12 and Aidan ’14, the School’s “fifth generation of McKees.” “Whatever St. Paul’s has done for me,” he says, “it’s shaped the way I view the world, and view the work we’re doing in Montreal.” spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

FORMNOTES

Ed Peña ’98 and Sadie Peña ’00 recently reconnected with Ms. Sanchez while on vacation in New Hampshire.

Melody Lam ’03 married Jonathan Leong on July 31 at the New York City church where they met.

Emily Chang Brands ’96 received the Outstanding Leadership Award from the Sibley COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic.

1996

and sweet kids; Dave Mathews is pursuing an amazing new career; and Geoff Smith’s handsome son, Luke, is just as chatty as his dad.” Earlier this year, interior designer Frances Merrill of Reath Design was named to Architectural Digest’s “2021 AD100,” which recognizes the top talent in the industries of architecture and interior design. According to AI, Fran’s work is “characterized by audacious yet controlled layering of pattern and color. Rather than artificial bombast, she strives for warmth, elegance and personality.” In short, if you want Fran to add some audacious layering to your living room, get in line. Finally, an update from Ken Kim: “I’m working on novel robotic surgery simulation training methods so that we can train our future surgeons more like how athletes train for the NFL, MLB, etc., with swing mechanics and motion and quantitative metrics. I moved out of a rental and into an actual house in L.A. (it definitely ain’t cheap here compared to Alabama). Otherwise, I’m staying busy with twins and their school and with all the cancer patients who keep coming in, pandemic or not.”

1997/25th

Catherine Parkhurst Gardiner ’07 and husband Brian welcomed Jack Hollingsworth Gardiner on June 15.

Michael Wong ’08, Bea Callahan ’08, and Andrew Stevens ’08 met up for dinner in Boston.

Caitlin Riley criley2k@gmail.com

Lloyd Walmsley writes, “Earlier this year, I had three months off before switching jobs and got to go to Tanzania with my wife. Then I spent a month in Maine, where I saw a lot of Jamie Funk ’97 and his wife, Christina, as well as Lisa ’95 and Graham Day ’95. I caught Josiah Hornblower ’94 and his wife briefly, and I saw many other Paulies across generations. Driving home to Atlanta, I visited with Chris ’94 and Allyson Pachios ’95 at a stop on Martha’s Vineyard.” Fresh news from Jess Hayne: “Amanda Filoso and I had our yearly visit while she was close by visiting Stan’s family at the Jersey Shore. Always fun to see her.” Isaac Ro says, “I’ve been busy during the pandemic working at two biotech companies, the first of which was acquired in January, with the second going public in July. Fortunately, my wife, Megan, has done the real work raising our two girls, Sloane, 9, and Ashley, 20 months. A few of us Zoomed this spring in lieu of our 25th reunion. Adam Culbert is still the prince of Scituate, Massachusetts; Matthew Cohen and Caitlin Durham are raising two beautiful

Arthur Sheehan ’97 and his wife, Blair, welcomed their third son, Cutler Kinsale Sheehan, on May 4.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

Brad Aston bradfordaston@gmail.com

2002/20th

Virginia Russell virginia.w.russell@gmail.com

John Stowe has joined a group of former federal Health and Human Services officials to launch the Institute for Exceptional Care, a nonprofit that is “transforming healthcare for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.” Disability policy and fundraising contacts are welcome. John also sings professionally at St. Alban’s Parish and Washington National Cathedral in D.C. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife, Edith, and his sons, Arthur, 8, and Teddy, 3.

2003

Melody Lam melody.lam@gmail.com

Mark Lewis attended the wedding of Eric Keller and coordinated the donation of the wedding flowers to Havenwood, a retirement home in Concord. “They were very appreciative of the gesture,” he says. “As SPS alumni, we were inspired to give back to the community.

Friends gathered for dinner in NYC included Marcus Caraballo ’11, Kobby Adu-Diawuo ’13, Quinzel Perry ’12, Cleveland Stair ’11, Eric Wilson ’11, CC Obi-Gwacham ’11, and Tarik Smith ’12.

2007/15th

Peter Harrison peter.harrison.g@gmail.com

After a year away from NYC, I have returned and am teaching middle school English. Teaching — much like many of your jobs — has been a challenge during this pandemic, and yet, I’m grateful to be in-person this year. Bearing witness to daily teenage self-growth is also a gift, and I remind myself of that when hormones, teenage angst, and social drama all make up a hot mess of a perfect storm. Please let me know if you’re coming through the city — or if you’re already here.

2008

Dorothy MacAusland dmacausland@gmail.com

Justin Higgins created Politics + Media 101, a new project that utilizes social audio technology to connect audiences with prominent figures in government and political media. The program has hosted more than 100 live virtual events and published many of the recordings in podcast format. The goal is to heal the political information ecosystem by bringing together citizens from all ideological back-

Annie Yu ’07 married Eric Lee on Aug. 30 in New Jersey. (L. to r.) Briana Soto ’06, Kyaira Holmes ’07, Steph Quaye ’07, the bride and groom, Erica Deane ’07, and Doreen Lam ’06.

grounds to listen to experts and directly ask them questions. Recent guests include Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Senator Mark Warner, CBS News’ John Dickerson, CNN’s Clarissa Ward, the New York Times’s Nicholas Kristof, and the Washington Post’s George Will. You can find the show online at www.pm101.live.

2012/10th

Browning Platt platt.browning@gmail.com

2013

Beth Anne George elisabeth_george@brown.edu

Lia Keyser is in her second year of study at the University of Utah Medical School. She’s also working part-time as a ski patroller in the Wasatch Mountains and enjoys mountain running and biking in the area. Her next-door neighbor is Emma Marshall ’11, who is doing research in the Geography Department at the University of Utah in the area of glacier dynamics and the impact of climate change. Connor Crutchfield shares that, on the weekend of Sept. 17, 13 members from the Form of

Peter Gamber ’08 married Abigail Mitchell on Aug. 1 in Park City, Utah. Pictured (l. to r.) Mark Platzer ’09, Bronwen Callahan ’08, Mary Gamber ’07, the groom and bride, Jessica McKenzie ’07, Brooke Romansky ’08, Rob Deans ’08, and Ethan Davison ’07.

2013 gathered in Eastern Pennsylvania to celebrate with Joey Howard before his October wedding. “Friends flew in from both coasts for a weekend outdoors and created what was undoubtedly one of the larger meetings of our form’s members in recent memory. Per usual, memories from our SPS days were retold and new memories were forged in glorious fashion during nights around the fire. Jokes were told, many laughs were exchanged, and projections of the future were speculated upon as if no time had passed at all. It was an important reconnection for us at this point to reflect on all that has happened in our now separate lives, and we were incredibly fortunate to have so many formmates present. Hopefully there will be plenty more events to come, and best of luck to Joey on his biggest adventure yet.”

2017/5th

Doug Robbins dougrobbins011@gmail.com

At the wedding of Harriet Low ’09 and her husband, Wade: (l. to r.) Lianna Murphy ’09, the bride, Tommy Hopkins ’09, Joshua Lesser ’09, Critter Taylor ’09, Liza Rollins ’09, Kate Aviza ’09, Laura Ott ’09, and Lucy Wallace ’09. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

FORMNOTES

On Sept. 4, Jaclyn Johnston Carter ’13 married Matthew Carter in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, overlooking Mt. Monadnock.

Courtney Bogle ’08 married Reid Longley in Manchester, Vermont, on Sept. 11. They were honored to have their wedding ceremony officiated by former SPS Rector Michael Hirschfeld ’85.

Malcolm Bussey ’21 scores his first college touchdown for St. Francis Xavier University.

Members of the Form of 2013 gathered in Pennsylvania to celebrate with Joey Howard ’13 before his October wedding.

Evan Leonard ’11 married Caitlin Kelly on Sept. 4. Paulies in attendance were Joe Noreña ’11, Will Scopa ’11, Sam Schloss ’11, CC Obi-Gwacham ’11, and Josh Herrera ’12. 46

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

Owen Stadheim ’21 (r.) and Owen Sweet ’21 (l.) playing Spikeball on a river trip in Salmon River, Idaho.

A gathering of SPS alumni at Columbia University included (l. to r.) Kam Oseni ’21, Jessica Lee ’21, Marco Lorenzo-Giguere ’21, Annie Zhou ’21, Stephen Wang ’19, Moeka Xu ’19, Johnny Ettricks ’19, and Tsolaye Ogbemi ’19.

HOMEMADE COOKIES, TWICE BAKED Bucks County lures Riley Silbert ’12 back to the family biscotti business. MICHAEL MATROS When baby Riley’s first painful teeth started to appear, the answer was close at hand. Bucks County Biscotti, owned by Riley’s parents, Karen and Craig Silbert, provided as many teething biscuits as necessary. “The biscotti were twice-baked, nice and hard,” explains the now-adult Riley Silbert ’12. Born into a biscotti family and nurtured by the bakery, Silbert returned home to his parents about two years ago from New York City. In Manhattan, he’d joined his SPS friend, Mike Ippolito ’12, in starting Blockworks, a digital asset media company. While Blockworks thrived, Silbert sensed a different challenge back home. “I never at St. Paul’s, or even in college, thought I was going to come back and work in the bakery in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,” Silbert insists. “But I sort of began to look at the business from a totally different lens and thought, ‘Oh, this is actually something that has a lot of potential.’ So that was what really led me to come back home.” Bucks County Biscotti, now offering flavors ranging from classic anise almond to sea-salted chocolate toffee, began baking in 1992. For years, it was an entirely wholesale operation, selling to coffee shops and cafés. Then, just after Silbert’s return, COVID-19 closed Buck’s County customers’ doors. “About six weeks after I came home, that all fell off a cliff,” he says. “So, we had to re-strategize the business.” Silbert’s first initiative was to create an entirely new line for the Italian cookies. “We developed a website and started selling to retail folks with a DTC — direct-to-consumer — format. And we were able to throw the website up and work with our providers to get some redesigned packaging. We were able to start selling on the website within about a month.” With the new packaging came a stronger emphasis on environmental sustainability.

“Biscotti being a twice-baked Italian cookie, just in its nature, it’s a fragile cookie,” Silbert explains. “There was this sort of balancing act between providing really secure, safe transit for the product, but then also not having to load it with tons of plastics or anything that was going to be really harmful to the environment.” The first step, Silbert explains, was to use a 100% biodegradable packing peanut made from corn. When customers receive their packages, they can take the eco-friendly peanuts, dump them into their sink, and dissolve them under hot water. Some use the packing peanuts for composting instead. Silbert also made the decision “to not use any intense colored dyes on any of the packaging and to maintain its recyclable quality.” As Silbert takes on more of the responsibility for running the business, he credits his parents for initiating its environmental emphasis. In 1994, they installed a 36-array solar panel on the barn, which now powers the entire bakery. Three years later, they created a full geothermal system, which provides a stable temperature. “In the bakery, it’s crucial to maintain humidity levels and certain temperatures during the process,” he says, “so the geothermal has helped tremendously with that.” As his parents approach retirement, Silbert has assumed a more pivotal role as the three-person company heads into the busy holiday season. With his hands covered in the sticky biscotti dough, he’s considering the company’s future. “I’m developing a new product called ‘Crust Dust,’ which is the fine powder byproduct when the loaves are sliced into individual cookies. The idea is that, with a little butter and sugar added to a jar of Crust Dust, you can make unique and delicious pie crusts — like a graham cracker crust but with flavors like lemon poppy and coconut dark chocolate chip. It’s another push toward creating a zero-waste environment.”

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

PLANNED GIVING

It’s easy, it’s revocable, and it will benefit many. With a legacy gift to St. Paul’s School, you can give SPS to generations to come. Please consider naming the School a partial beneficiary of your retirement plan, donor advised fund, or life insurance policy.

To learn more, please contact: Diane Heitmiller, director of advancement, at 603-229-4875, dheitmiller@sps.edu. 48

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

IN MEMORIAM The section was updated September 29, 2021. Please note that deaths are reported as we receive notice of them. Therefore, alumni dates of death are not always reported chronologically.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Murray is survived by his children, Brooks Goodyear, Lawrence Murray, and Jenny Gormley and his granddaughter, Julie Gormley ’15. Mr. Murray was predeceased in 2005 by his son, Dean Murray.

1942 — Frank Trowbridge “Toby” Murray July 23, 2021 1946 — Ronald Peck Boardman, Jr. July 9, 2021 1947 — Leonard Jacob, Jr. July 21, 2021 1948 — Albert G. “Albie” Stewart May 2, 2021 1950 — Isaac H. “Quartie” Clothier IV Aug. 16, 2021 1950 — Hooker Talcott, Jr. July 22, 2021 1951 — Randolph Harrison Aug. 27, 2021 1952 — Alexander “Sandy” Watts May 28, 2021 1952 — Frederick Chaplin “John” Witsell, Jr. July 15, 2021 1953 — Benjamin Smart Warren III July 16, 2021 1953 — John C. Weaver, Jr. June 10, 2021 1956 — Frederick Edward Guest II July 8, 2021 1957 — Norris Vaux Claytor Aug. 8, 2021 1957 — Gordon D. Seward May 5, 2021 1959 — Henry S. H. Davisson June 24, 2021 1967 — J. Devereux E. McClean Aug. 5, 2021 FORMER FACULTY Richard Lloyd Aiken July 26, 2021 Joseph B. Valente, Sr. Aug. 27, 2021 FORMER STAFF Robert Norris Corson June 23, 2021

1942 Frank Trowbridge “Toby” Murray a devoted family man and decorated World War II veteran, died peacefully on July 23, 2021, in Exeter, New Hampshire. He was 97 years old and is remembered by friends and family for his infectious personality and love of the outdoors. Mr. Murray was born in Albany, New York, on Jan. 24, 1924, to Mary T. and Lawrence N. Murray of the Form of 1917. After spending the early part of his childhood in Pittsburgh, Mr. Murray enrolled at St. Paul’s School as a Third Former in the fall of 1938. At SPS, he sang in the Choir, was a member of the Missionary Society, worked as a proctor, and competed in boxing, crew, football, and hockey. After high school, Mr. Murray enlisted in the U.S. Army, where he was a buck private assigned to field artillery as a jeep driver, radio operator, and forward observer. He earned Battle Stars at the Bulge, Alsace-Lorraine, and Aschaffenburg. After the German surrender, he was stationed in Switzerland, before completing college at Yale in 1948. Four years later, he earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. Mr. Murray’s business career began at Eaton Manufacturing in Cleveland. Eaton sent him to MIT Sloan (1958) and into management at plants in Battle Creek and Dearborn, Michigan, and Cleveland. After 20 years at Eaton, he joined Ostendorf Morris as a broker of industrial properties. In 1953, Mr. Murray married Suzanne McWilliams. Together, the couple raised four children. In retirement, they moved from Cleveland to Tucson, Arizona, and eventually to Exeter in 2012. Throughout his life, Mr. Murray enjoyed many outdoor pursuits, including fly-fishing, hunting, skiing, golf, tennis, squash, gardening, sailing, bicycling, and hiking.

1943 Charles Simonton McCain, Jr. a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, known for his humor, love, devotion, and support of family and friends, died on Jan. 29 , 2021, at his home in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he had lived since 1952. He was 97. Mr. McCain was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on Oct. 20, 1923, to C. S. and Frances W. McCain. As a young boy, he moved to New York City with his family. In the fall of 1939, Mr. McCain enrolled at St. Paul’s School, where he sang with the Choir, was a member of the Library Association, and competed with Delphian and Shattuck. He left SPS early to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1942, serving for more than two years during World War II. He was awarded his diploma decades later. Following his active duty, Mr. McCain enrolled at Yale, earning his B.A. in economics in 1947. He remained in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and was called back in January 1951 to serve in the Korean War, retiring honorably as a first lieutenant. He began his career in the oil and gas business working for Texaco, where he learned the business from the ground up. After his service in the Korean War, Mr. McCain worked for the H.L. Hunt family in the Placid Oil division, at which time he moved to Shreveport. He married his first wife, Cornelia Davis, in 1949. The couple had three children. After some years, he and two fellow employees left Placid Oil and formed Winwell Petroleum Co. Their many successes included aiding in the discovery of the Fairway Field in the 1960s,

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

IN MEMORIAM which is still producing today. In 1962, Mr. McCain formed McCain Oil Company, which he operated until his death. On Sept. 11, 1965, he married Billie Jean Roberts. The couple was happily married for 47 years and had one child, Carlee. The family enjoyed time together at their summer home, Breezy Point Cottage, on Lake Michigan. Mr. McCain was dedicated to the Shreveport community and was a faithful member of his church. He served on the boards of Goodwill Industries, including a term as president, as well as Demoiselle Club, Shreveport Cotillion Club, the Rescue Mission, the Symphony and Opera Boards, Boy Scouts, and R.F. Gates Evangelistic Assoc. He organized the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast, which became the Shreveport/Bossier Prayer Breakfast. He was a member of the Petroleum Club, the Shreveport Club, an original member of The Pierremont Oaks Tennis Club, and the Shreveport Country Club. He was an active member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church of Shreveport for 16 years and served on the vestry. In 1965, he became an active member of First Baptist Church of Shreveport, serving on multiple committees. He served on the First Baptist Church School Board for two terms, including one as president. He was a steadfast member of his beloved Men’s Prayer Breakfast, attending every week for many years. Mr. McCain was predeceased on July 28, 2013, by his wife, Billie Jean. He was also predeceased by his brother, William S. McCain ’37. He is survived by his four children, Charles S. McCain III, H. Davis McCain, Claudia V. McCain, and Carlee M. Burch; his granddaughter, Sara Elizabeth Burch; a step-granddaughter, Emily Jones; his sister, Grace Heidt; his sister-in-law, Bettye McConathy; and many nieces and nephews. During the last years of his life, Mr. McCain was faithfully and lovingly cared for by his daughter, Carlee, with whom he lived until his death.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

1947 Leonard Jacob, Jr. a geologist and U.S. Navy veteran, whose long career in mining took his family around the world, died on July 21, 2021, at his home in Kennebunk, Maine. He was 91. Dr. Jacob was born in Boston on March 20, 1930, to Leonard and Eleanora Winslow Jacob. He entered St. Paul’s School in the fall of 1943. He was a well-respected student and was elected president of the Sixth Form. He competed with Isthmian and Halcyon and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He went on to graduate from Williams College in 1951 with a degree in geology. There, Dr. Jacob was an excellent student, who played hockey, baseball, and squash and was elected president of his class. He continued his studies in geology at Columbia University, earning his Ph.D. in 1956. He then entered the U.S. Navy, completing officer training and attending the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, where he received a degree in advanced studies in meteorology. In 1955, he was promoted to lieutenant and assigned to Fleet Weather Control at Naval Station Sangley Point in the Philippines His threeyear stay there was the beginning of many decades of living abroad. Dr. Jacob brought his wife, Rita, whom he had wed in the fall of 1956. They were together for more than six decades, traveling the world and raising their five children born in three different countries. After his time in the Pacific, Dr. Jacob took a job at Alcoa, where he worked for 25 years, establishing himself as one of the company’s premier geologists and most respected managers. He was especially skilled with international work related to raw materials, and Alcoa sent him to Mexico, France, Suriname, and Guinea, where, in 1971, he led the startup and operation of a $400 million venture mining complex. After leaving Alcoa, he led the Societe Miniere et Industrielle du Kivu

mining complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was remote, but it became one of Dr. Jacob’s most beloved parts of the world. In 1981, while living in South America, the Jacobs purchased a house in Kennebunk Beach, Maine, which became the couple’s retirement home and the family’s cherished gathering place. In his free time, Dr. Jacob enjoyed playing tennis and squash, tending to his dahlias, saltwater fishing, and relaxing on the front porch of his house in Maine with his family and friends. Dr. Jacob was predeceased in 2020 by his wife of 64 years, Rita S. Jacob. He was also predeceased by his sister, Anita J. Hilton. Survivors include his daughter, Sara; his sons, Leonard III, William, Robert, and Peter; and seven grandchildren.

1948 John Palmer Bankson, Jr. an attorney, family man, and community volunteer, died in Gaithersburg, Maryland, on June 25, 2021, of Parkinson’s disease. Born in Cleveland on March 2, 1931, Mr. Bankson was the son of John Palmer Bankson and Marion Scovill Harris. The family, including his older sister, Sara, moved to Pittsburgh, where Mr. Bankson attended Shady Side Academy. He entered St. Paul’s School as a Third Former in the fall of 1944. At SPS, he was an acolyte and a house supervisor and served as editor of The Pelican. Mr. Bankson also sang with the Glee Club and was a member of the Scientific Association, the Missionary Society, and the Cadmean/ Concordian Literary Society. Although undergraduate life at Yale (1952) and Law School at Harvard (1955) further enriched the mind of an already clever and quick student, SPS remained the center of Mr. Bankson’s soul to the end.

Mr. Bankson joined the U.S. Army and was stationed in Washington, D.C., where he worked in counterintelligence. During that time, he married Martha Bush Bankson. The couple had two children, Sarah Danforth Bankson ’79 and John Palmer Bankson III ’81. Early in his career, he joined Miller & Schrader, a firm specializing in communications law, which became Miller, Schrader & Bankson. Through the years, he was a partner at Hamel & Park; Hamel; Park, McCabe & Saunders; and Hopkins & Sutter. He retired from Drinker, Biddle & Reath. Mr. Bankson served as president of the Federal Communications Bar Association. He enjoyed his work with radio broadcast clients and also found reward in working with new associates. He volunteered at the Washington National Cathedral as a member of Bishop John Walker’s Standing Committee and served on the vestry at Christ Church, Georgetown. In Montgomery County, Maryland, Mr. Bankson was elected to the Maryland Republican State Central Committee, serving as vice chair for four years. He wrote newsletters, testified in Annapolis, managed the party’s public relations, and participated in the many jobs of the GOP organization, including precinct and fundraising work. He later served on the Montgomery County Charter Review Committee. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Mr. Bankson volunteered at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, cooking and serving food. He later became a lay reader at St. Phillips Episcopal Mission in Aquasco, Maryland, helping a fledgling African American congregation grow stronger. He also volunteered for years to help maintain a section of the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania. He served St. Paul’s as a form agent and as a regional representative. In 1984, Mr. Bankson married Judith Frederick Ford and fully welcomed her children, Kathleen, Jim, and Kelly Ford, into his warm company. He was known for his wonderful

sense of humor and his love of family and the outdoors. He prided himself on being a good handyman. His log cabin in Virginia was the source of many fix-it projects, the best example of which was building a new dock for the pontoon boat with his son, John. Allegiance to the Washington Redskins, Baltimore Orioles, and Washington Nationals was steady, unless the Steelers or the Pirates were involved. He was a well-loved man, who enjoyed many close friendships. John Bankson was predeceased on May 2, 2021, by his beloved daughter, Sarah. He is survived by his wife, Judy; his son, John P. Bankson III ’81, and his wife, Mary Beth Ralston; his son-in-law, Jeff Newton; his stepchildren, Kathleen, Jim, and Kelly; five grandchildren; one great-grandson; and several nieces and nephews.

1950 Isaac H. “Quartie” Clothier IV an accomplished attorney and loving family man, died peacefully in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 16, 2021. He was 89. Born on July 14, 1932, Mr. Clothier was the son of Isaac H. Clothier III of the Form of 1922 and Emily Kaighn Clothier. His great-grandfather, Isaac Clothier, Sr., was co-founder of Strawbridge and Clothier, a department store in Philadelphia. After attending Chestnut Hill Academy, Mr. Clothier entered St. Paul’s School in September 1945. While at SPS, he served as vice president of the Student Council and participated in crew, football, and alpine skiing. Notably, Mr. Clothier was the first-ever recipient of the Rector’s Award. He went on to attend Princeton, earning his B.A. in Near Eastern studies in 1954.

In 1955, Mr. Clothier married Barbara Massey. Two years later, he earned his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and was admitted to the Bar. He began a successful career in estates and trusts at Dechert, where he eventually was named partner. Mr. Clothier remained there for 44 years, until his retirement in 2001. His devotion to St. Paul’s continued well beyond his years as a student. Mr. Clothier devoted time as a regional representative in the 1970s, served as form director in the 1990s, and was a form agent for his 60th Anniversary in 2010. He also was a proud SPS parent. A devoted volunteer for numerous organizations, Mr. Clothier served on the board of Strawbridge and Clothier for nearly 20 years, chairing their Audit and Compensation Committees. He also was a board member of the Bryn Mawr Hospital for 25 years and remained involved in community activities, including time on the board of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the Red Cross, the Melmark Home for Children with Disabilities, and Trevor’s Campaign, which serves the homeless population in Philadelphia. Mr. Clothier also chaired the board of the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, organized the Eagles Mere Athletic Association, serving as one of its first presidents, and was a longtime member of the Church of the Redeemer. His service to the Episcopal faith included 15 years of Sunday school teaching, 12 years as a member of the vestry, and three years as rector’s warden. He is survived by his beloved wife of 66 years, Barbara Massey Clothier; his son, Isaac “Chip” Clothier V ’75; his daughter, Rebecca Case; eight grandchildren; and one great-grandson. He was predeceased by his daughter, Melinda Biddle; his half-brother, Aiken Reichner ’47; and his brother, Kaighn Clothier.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

IN MEMORIAM

1950 Hooker Talcott, Jr. an investment manager, conservationist, and devoted family man, died on July 22, 2021, of complications from cancer. He was 89. His wife of 64 years, Jane McCurrach Talcott, was at his side and their three daughters were nearby. Mr. Talcott was born in New York City on July 20, 1932, to Hooker and Gertrude (Geer) Talcott. He spent part of his childhood in Washington, D.C., while his father served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He attended The Buckley School before arriving at St. Paul’s School in the fall of 1946. At SPS, he sang with the Glee Club and was a member of the Missionary Society. Mr. Talcott competed in baseball, football, and hockey. He graduated from Princeton University in 1954 with a degree in English after writing a thesis on author Willa Cather. During his senior year at Princeton, Mr. Talcott met Jane at a dance club near their families’ summer homes in New Jersey. She was a Smith College student, who also hailed from New York. They married in 1956, following his service in Europe. He studied business at New York University. Mr. and Mrs. Talcott moved their family to the Boston area in 1961, although he took frequent business trips back to New York, which helped him stay connected to friends and family there. He built a career in finance, working in New York for JP Morgan and then the Talcott National Corporation in New

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

York, Chicago, and Boston. His main area of expertise was high-yield investing — an opportunity he saw and seized while working as a senior vice president in the bond department at John Hancock. He went on to launch and lead the high-yield investment group at Eaton Vance. When he retired in 1997, one of the funds he managed ranked first in performance for every time period, an achievement he called “a royal flush.” Outside of work, Mr. Talcott earned a reputation as a sportsman, a conservationist, and a champion of women — inspired in part by his three sisters and, later, his daughters. He adored being outside, hunting, fishing, running his English Setters, playing tennis, and sailing. He also enjoyed playing squash at Boston’s Union Boat Club, of which he was president from 1968 to 1971. He also was an avid reader, particularly of histories, and a lover of the arts, music, literature, and travel. His job took him all over the world, but he also enjoyed family road trips, especially if they included stops at historical markers. Mr. Talcott devoted time and resources to preserving nature through work for Connecticut River Conservancy, The Trustees of Reservations, Center for Plant Conservation, and Mass Audubon. He also was a devoted volunteer at the Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. His family will remember his sense of justice, his love of people, and a profound faith that helped him see the best in any situation. He remained connected to the SPS community throughout his life, serving as form agent and joining the Hargate Society. Survivors include his wife, Jane McCurrach Talcott; his daughters, Julia M. Meigs, Barbara G. Talcott ’79, and Margaret M. Scharer, and their husbands, James Meigs, Douglas Borchard, and Scott Scharer ’80; eight grandchildren, including Samuel B. Talcott ’06 and Benjamin T. Borchard ’10; and two great-granddaughters.

1951 Augustus Ledyard “Led” Smith, Jr. a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, known for his quick wit and love of family, died on Oct. 18, 2020, after a brief illness at his home in Bolton, Massachusetts, surrounded by loving friends and family. He was 88. Mr. Smith was born on Sept. 27, 1932, to Augustus Ledyard Smith of the Form of 1921 and Nancy Falk Mayhew Smith. He grew up in Wisconsin, entering St. Paul’s School as a First Former in the fall of 1945. At SPS, he was a member of the Missionary Society and La Junta and played football for Delphian. He formed many lifelong friendships at the School. He attended Harvard, where he was a member of the Fly Club, but left to proudly serve America as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. He received his B.A. from Bentley School of Business in 1961. In 1955, Mr. Smith met and married his soulmate, Jacqueline Walker, and the couple raised their family in Bolton. He worked for 55 years for the Rex Lumber Company, holding many titles but serving primarily as chief operating officer. At Rex, Mr. Smith developed deep ties and friendships with the many families who worked beside him; he truly loved his job. A strong believer in giving back to his community, Mr. Smith served on numerous boards and held many positions in the Town of Bolton, including as town selectman. He was a founding member of the Bolton Lions Club and was passionate about sharing his time and knowledge.

Mr. Smith will be remembered as a man who never missed a chance to raise a glass in appreciation of others. He also will be remembered for his legendary love for his wife, who predeceased him on June 25, 2011; his fierce independence, quick wit, and sense of humor; his sharp intelligence, military-grade toughness; and his mission of caring for others. He was a man whose influence had a profound impact on the people fortunate enough to be in his circle. He is survived by his five children, Katharine Fairfield, Margaret Smith, A. Ledyard Smith III, Robert Smith, and Josette Rezac; his siblings, Sandra Smith Reed, Camilla Smith, and Charles C. Mayhew III; and seven grandchildren.

1952 Frederick Chaplin “John” Witsell, Jr. a beloved family man, loyal alumnus, and former trustee, died at his home in Hobe Sound, Florida, on July 15, 2021, following a long illness. He was 87. Born in Orange, New Jersey, on March 22, 1934, Mr. Witsell was the son of Frederick C. Witsell, Sr. and Elizabeth Moehring Witsell. He attended Collegiate School in New York City before entering St. Paul’s School as a Third Former in the fall of 1948. At SPS, he competed with Old Hundred and Shattuck and sang with the Glee Club. Mr. Witsell earned a B.A. in economics from the University of Virginia in 1956. While a senior there, he married Daphne Towne, with whom he shared 52 years of devoted marriage until her death in 2008. After college, Mr. Witsell enlisted in the U.S. Army and honorably served in the Nike missile project for two years. He retired as a first lieutenant.

Mr. Witsell’s professional career began with a subsidiary of Bristol Myers. He next joined JP Morgan as a trainee in 1959. His career there spanned more than three decades until his retirement as managing director in 1993, at which point he and Daphne built a house in Hobe Sound. From there, Mr. Witsell continued working, becoming a director and vice chairman of JP Morgan FSB in Palm Beach, Florida. He continued his work until the firm merged with Chase in 2000. Outside of work, Mr. Witsell devoted a significant amount of time to institutions that were near and dear to him. He was a trustee of St. Paul’s School from 1976 to 1980. He also served as president of the SPS Alumni Association, as a form director, and was at one time the grandparent chair of the Parents Committee. Additionally, he was involved as a trustee of the Village of Lattingtown (New York), trustee and treasurer of The Green Vale School, and was a governor and treasurer of Piping Rock Club. Mr. Witsell also was a longtime director of Penn Virginia Corporation and a director of Mercom Corporation. In Florida, Mr. Witsell served on the vestry and Outreach Committee of Christ Memorial Chapel in Jupiter Island, was a board member of Treasure Coast Hospice in Stuart, and was president and life board member of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Martin County in Hobe Sound. He also devoted time to the Florida Philharmonic. Mr. Witsell treasured his time with family and close friends. As a member of Piping Rock, Meadow Brook, Pine Valley, Bald Peak Colony, Ekwanok, Loblolly, Seminole, and The Everglades, he enjoyed the community and friendships he developed over the years and took great enthusiasm in playing golf and bridge. Mr. Witsell is survived by his daughter, Deborah; his son, Frederick “Rick” Witsell III ’74; and four grandchildren, including Haley Witsell ’03. In addition to his wife, he was predeceased by his sister, Elizabeth Witsell Eaton.

1953 Benjamin Smart Warren III a devoted family man, who lived life to the fullest, died on July 16 , 2021, surrounded by his family. A resident of Potomac, Maryland, he was 86 years old and is remembered for his love of baseball (especially the Chicago Cubs) and music. Mr. Warren was born on June 10, 1935. He arrived at St. Paul’s School as a Third Former in the fall of 1949, where he was a member of the Acolyte’s Guild, wrote for The Pelican, and played baseball, football, and hockey. As Mr. Warren would later recall, one of his fondest memories of SPS was “stickball games after dinner on Drury yard in the spring of 1952.” He enrolled at the University of Virginia, where he earned his LL.B. (1960) and his J.D. (1963). After service in the U.S. Marine Corps, Mr. Warren joined the law firm Pattishall McAuliffe in Chicago and Washington, D.C. He worked for the firm, where he eventually made partner, for more than 40 years. The focus of his work was domestic and international trademark law in addition to copyright and unfair competition law. In 1958, Mr. Warren married Margo Pirie and the couple raised daughters Mimi, Alison, and Leslie. Three separate battles with cancer made Mr. Warren value each day. Following his retirement, he and Margo traveled frequently, and Mr. Warren began playing the piano. He was also a longstanding member of St. Francis Episcopal Church. Mr. Warren knew what he valued most in life: “Hard work, honesty, a love of life, and the Lord,” he said. “[You] must meet my daughters to judge whether I succeeded.” He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Margo; their daughters; and three grandchildren.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

IN MEMORIAM

1953 Alexander “Sandy” Watts died on May 21, 2021, at the age of 86 from injuries sustained in a freak kitchen fire at his home. He was a resident of Bass Harbor, Maine, at the time of his death. Born on April 4, 1935, in New York City, Mr. Watts was the youngest of four sons of Bigelow and Helen Watts. He entered St. Paul’s School as a Second Former in the fall of 1948. He rowed with Shattuck and competed with Old Hundred. Mr. Watts matriculated at Harvard, where he earned his B.A. in 1957. Following his undergraduate studies, Mr. Watts served in the U.S. Marine Corps before moving to New York City with his wife, Eleanor. The couple eventually moved to Westport, Connecticut, where they raised their two children and cared for many dogs and cats. In 1965, he earned his MBA from New York University while launching his career with Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. After beginning as an actuary, Mr. Watts switched to the investment side and became a vice president in the company’s highly successful utility sector. He remained at Met Life for nearly four decades until his retirement in 1998. An avid traveler and lover of nature, Mr. Watts explored many of the national parks with his family, making his retirement to Acadia a fitting move. He enjoyed many outdoor activities, including kayaking, Nordic and alpine skiing, hiking, and tennis. While at St. Paul’s, Mr. Watts developed an interest in collecting coins and stamps. This hobby eventually blossomed into a passion that remained with him throughout his life. He had an extensive collection of U.S. coins, including Indian Head pennies and the latest quarters featuring the national parks. He focused on commemorative coins, including singles and plate blocks.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

Mr. Watts delighted in being a grandfather and enjoyed splitting his time between Redding, Connecticut, which afforded him the opportunity to be closer to his two granddaughters, and Bass Harbor, Maine, where he and Eleanor managed a summer rental business. He is survived by his wife, Eleanor; his daughter, Frances; his daughter-in-law, Rebecca; his granddaughters, Natalie and Emma; and his grandsons, Alex and Clayton. Mr. Watts was predeceased by his son, Alex, and his brothers, Bigelow Watts ’41, Robert Watts ’44, and William Watts ’48.

During those years, Dr. Carper became a professor of English at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, where he remained for many years, teaching courses in poetry and creative writing. He and Janet established their home in Cornish and became heavily involved in the local community. Known for writing sonnets, Dr. Carper published three volumes of poetry: Fiddle Lane (1991), From Nature (1995), and Distant Blue (2003), the latter earning him the prestigious Richard Wilbur Award. In addition to his poetry and teaching, Dr. Carper was passionate about singing and was a member of New York’s Canby Singers and the Cornish Trio. His involvement in the Cornish community extended beyond the arts as he served as a selectman and as secretary of the board of trustees for Bonney Memorial Library. In addition to his wife, Janet, Dr. Carper is survived by his brothers, Nicholas W. Carper ’57 and Timothy S. Carper ’61; and several nieces and nephews.

1954 Thomas Robson Carper a celebrated poet and public servant, died on June 9, 2021, at the age of 84. Originally from Morristown, New Jersey, he was a resident of Cornish, Maine, at the time of his death. Born on Nov. 3, 1936, Dr. Carper was the son of Wood Bowyer Carper, Jr. and Eleanor Robson Carper. He entered St. Paul’s School as a Third Former in the fall of 1950. At the School, he sang with the Choir and Glee Club and was involved in theatre. He was a wrestler and rowed with Halcyon. Dr. Carper earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1958, an M.A. from New York University in 1967, and a Ph.D. from Boston University in 1973. While working as a foreign language recordings editor at Holt, Rineheart and Winston in New York City, Dr. Carper met the former Janet Holmes, who was an editor of French and German textbooks. The couple was married for 56 years and eventually left New York City for Maine, following a brief period during which Dr. Carper edited books for Oxford Press.

1954 Duncan Whiteside a leading disability rights advocate, died of natural causes on June 10, 2021, at his home in New York City, after a long battle with Parkinson’s. Mr. Whiteside’s great-grandfather, George Cheyne Shattuck, Jr., founded St. Paul’s School. Born in Boston on Nov. 30, 1935, Mr. Whiteside was the son of Frederick S. Whiteside of the Form of 1918 and Caroline Freeman Lawrence. He arrived at St. Paul’s School as a Second Former in the fall of 1949. At SPS, he sang with the Choir and the Glee Club, wrote for Horae Scholasticae, and was a member of the Missionary Society, the Cadmean/Concordian Literary Society, and the Scientific Association. He competed with Old Hundred in cross country, football, and hockey.

He studied Russian in the U.S. Army and, in 1959, was one of 75 Americans chosen by President Eisenhower to represent the country at the American National Exhibition in Moscow. Mr. Whiteside graduated from Harvard in 1961 and received an MBA from New York University in 1971. He then joined Chase Manhattan Bank as an international lending officer based in Frankfurt. He left Chase in the 1970s and spent the rest of his career in the nonprofit sector at Mobilization for Youth, the Council on Adoptable Children, and as the Director of One to One. He served on many nonprofit boards and chaired the Port Washington Community Chest and the International Association for Religious Freedom. He also chaired the Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock’s Veatch Program, a national philanthropic giving program. Mr. Whiteside served as vice chair of the Governor’s Planning Council for Developmental Disabilities for many years and as board chair of the Epilepsy Foundation of New York City. In 1983, Mr. Whiteside co-founded the Maidstone Foundation, which helped people with rare or multiple disabilities get the services they needed. Later, Mr. Whiteside used his Russian language skills at Maidstone to provide direct services to Russian immigrants with disabled family members. Mr. Whiteside married Elena Scott in 1960, Sandra Gates in 1976, and Mariette Bates in 2011. He enthusiastically embraced the times in which he lived, and his interests were so broad and his intellect so lively that it is hard to capture his life in a few words; Mr. Whiteside was in the Army with Elvis Presley, at the Chicago Democratic Convention in 1968, published work in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, and is included in the National Historic Recognition Project, which notes the most effective social change agents in the field of developmental disabilities. He loved sailing, traveling the world, nature, his pets, and being a father. He will be remembered for his kindness, curiosity, sense of humor, love of adventure, and his commitment to social justice. He leaves his wife, Mariette Bates; his children, Nicholas Whiteside, Michael Whiteside, and Sylvia Whiteside Morgan; four grandchildren; his brother, Haven Whiteside; and his sister, Henrietta Tranum. He was predeceased by his sister, Laura Butts.

1956 Frederick Edward Guest II a loving father and husband, who threw himself into pursuits that helped revitalize his community, died on July 8, 2021, in New York City with his wife of 33 years, Carole, by his side. He was 83 and is remembered as a gentle and generous man. Mr. Guest was born in New York on Feb. 13, 1938, to Winston F. C. Guest of the Form of 1923 and Helena W. McCann. Family accomplishments coursed through several generations of his family. His father, who founded Guest Airlines Mexico, was an international polo player and a friend of Ernest Hemingway. His mother was a granddaughter of department store founder F. W. Woolworth. Mr. Guest’s paternal grandfather, Frederick E. Guest, was a member of Parliament and first cousin of Winston Churchill. His grandmother, Amy Guest, was a daughter of Henry Phipps (Form of 1902), the philanthropist and partner of industrialist Andrew Carnegie. Mrs. Guest also was a prominent women’s suffragist and aviation enthusiast. After Charles Lindbergh made the first solo flight across the Atlantic, Mrs. Guest wanted to be the first woman to make headlines for the same. When her family objected, she offered the opportunity to Amelia Earhart, underwriting her successful transatlantic flight. Mr. Guest arrived at St. Paul’s School as a Third Former in the fall of 1952. During his time at the School, he skied, played tennis, and was involved in theatre. He earned a degree in economics in 1960 from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. His business career was long and varied. For the first three years after college, Mr. Guest served as the director of research at Troster Singer & Company. Over the next decade, he worked in finance at Smith Barney, New York State Urban Development Corp., and Lehman Brothers. From 1974 to 1982, Mr. Guest was chairman of Bessemer Securities Corporation. During this time, he served as vice chairman of subsidiaries within the company as well as chairman of Phipps Land Company.

Mr. Guest was proud of his work restoring the historic Vinoy Hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida, which, for a time, was the official home of the Women’s Tennis Association. He also was instrumental in revitalizing the city as president of Vinoy Development Corporation from 1984 to 1996. In 1997, Mr. Guest founded Guest Capital LLC, a private investment fund. For more than 30 years, he was a trustee of Phipps Houses, New York City’s oldest and largest nonprofit developer of affordable housing. As a young polo player, Mr. Guest had a three-goal handicap. Later in life, he was a member of the Meadow Club in Southampton, New York, where he won the club tennis tournament seven times. In 1963, Mr. Guest married Stephanie Wagner, and together the couple raised four children. In 1988, he married Carole Baldoff Kerr. Over the next three decades, the two were inseparable and their loving marriage was an inspiration to those who knew them. In addition to his adoring wife, Carole, Mr. Guest is survived by his children, Stephanie W. Guest, Victoria W. Guest, Vanessa W. Hope, Frederick E. Guest III, and Andrew C. Guest; four grandchildren; and his siblings, Winston, Cornelia, and Alexander Guest.

1957 Norris Vaux Claytor a devoted family man and enthusiastic conservationist, died on Aug. 8, 2021, at his home in Radnor, Pennsylvania. Mr. Claytor was known for his strong wit, love of nature, and finding great joy in mentoring others. He was 81. Mr. Claytor was born in Philadelphia on Sept. 12, 1939, the second of Mary and Richard Claytor’s three children. His notable ancestors included Jared Ingersoll, Jr., his great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and a signer of the U.S. Constitution. A great-great-grandfather, Richard Vaux, was the mayor of Philadelphia in 1856 and later a U.S. Representative. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

IN MEMORIAM Mr. Claytor arrived at St. Paul’s School as a Third Former in the fall of 1953. His great-grandfather, Stephen Ingersoll (Form of 1870), grandfather, Edward Ingersoll (Form of 1902), and uncle, Warren Ingersoll (Form of 1927) preceded him in Concord. At SPS, he was a member of the Yearbook Committee and the Missionary Society, and he competed in lacrosse, football, and boxing. Mr. Claytor completed a degree in psychology at Ursinus College in 1964. As an undergraduate, he became a member of the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry (founded 1774), a Pennsylvania National Guard unit that has served in every war since the American Revolution. In 1959, he was elected to the active roll and, in 1965, was promoted to first sergeant, becoming one of the youngest to attain that leadership position. After serving as executive director for Philadelphia Conservationists and Natural Lands Trust in the 1970s, Mr. Claytor moved into healthcare administration. He held several high-level positions, including executive director of strategic planning for the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he helped expand patient access and modernize the facility. Mr. Claytor and his first wife, Lynda Leonard, had three sons and a daughter. Following a divorce, he met Virginia Robertson in 1990. They married in 2005. Mr. Claytor’s lifelong passion for animals began when he was growing up on a farm in Spring House, Pennsylvania, where he had a pet screech owl and the family cared for nine dogs. Later in life, he was known to travel in the company of a variety of dogs, whom he always considered his capable “business associates.” Mr. Claytor resided on his own hobby farm, which he affectionately called Roconante. The place became a touchpoint for many in his life. His love for stewarding the land extended far beyond his own property. Mr. Claytor was a member and officer on multiple boards, including the Philadelphia Zoo, The Nature Conservancy, Schuylkill River Greenway Association, and Upper Merion Park and Historic Foundation. In Upper Merion, he oversaw the networking of private landowners and local government to establish a 105-acre nature preserve, now the McKaig Nature Education Center.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

Mr. Claytor maintained a spirit for life that was no doubt inspired by his mother, whose love of flying propelled her to become a pilot. Mr. Claytor loved to travel, often bringing his children with him for adventures in skydiving, camping, fly-fishing, sailing, and motorcycling. He is survived by his wife, Virginia; his children, Thomas, Brannon, Cassandra Carroll, and Warren; eight grandchildren; and his sister, Mary Ingersoll Smith. He was predeceased in 1960 by his brother, Thomas Claytor ’55.

Mr. Seward is survived by his wife, Isobel; his son Andrew; his daughter-in-law, JoJo; three grandchildren; his brother, James Seward ’67; two sisters; and several nieces and nephews.

1957 Gordon D. Seward a devoted family man, died unexpectedly in his sleep on May 5, 2021, just shy of his 82nd birthday. He was a resident of Charlotte, North Carolina, at the time of his death. Born on May 16, 1939, Mr. Seward was the son of George and Carroll Seward. He grew up in White Plains and Scarsdale, New York, and entered St. Paul’s School as a Third Former in September of 1953. He competed in cross country for Old Hundred, rowed with Halcyon, and was a member of the Library Association. Known among his peers as a loyal friend, Mr. Seward remained close with numerous SPS classmates, including his lifelong friend John Mulford, who predeceased him. After graduating from St. Paul’s, Mr. Seward enrolled at the University of Virginia. He earned his B.A. in 1961 and went to work for Buckeye Partners (formerly Buckeye Pipeline). Eventually, he joined IBM, where he had a long and successful career in a variety of marketing positions, including as a director of marketing in charge of memory storage for large corporations. Mr. Seward remained with IBM until his retirement in 2000. In 1969, Mr. Seward married Isobel Evans, with whom he shared more than 50 years of happy marriage. Together, they made their home in Westchester County, New York, first in Katonah and then in Pound Ridge. They raised a son and became devoted grandparents, eventually retiring to North Carolina. Mr. Seward also was a devoted volunteer for charitable organizations in his local community. For a number of years, he participated in food drives for seniors through the Episcopal Church and was also involved with the Second Harvest Community Food Bank.

1962 Nathaniel Cameron “Nat” Bradley a kind and giving man, who devoted his career to nursing, died peacefully at home on Feb. 17, 2021, following a period of declining health. He was 76. Mr. Bradley was born in Boston on April 5, 1944, to Cameron Bradley and Anne Louise Schieffelin “Co” Bradley. He grew up on Wolfpen Farm in Southborough, Massachusetts, with his three sisters. Prior to enrolling at St. Paul’s School as a Third Former in the fall of 1958, Mr. Bradley attended Fay School in Southborough. At SPS, he played hockey and soccer and ran track for Isthmian. He was a supervisor and a member of the Acolyte’s Guild. He was awarded the Thompson Memorial Trophy in 1961. Mr. Bradley graduated summa cum laude from Babson College in 1975. He went on to earn his RN at Massachusetts General Hospital. He joined the U.S. Army and was sent to Vietnam to care for wounded soldiers, children, and anyone else who needed his loving care. In his long career, he served as the night supervisor at Metropolitan State Hospital for Children in Waltham, Massachusetts, for many years, before moving to Gouldsboro, Maine, where he worked at Winter Harbor Marina until his retirement.

He was known as a loving, giving human being who volunteered his many gifts to organizations in the Ellsworth/Gouldsboro area. Mr. Bradley made many dear friends through his involvement with AA. He was loved by those who had the pleasure of knowing him. He is survived by his wife, Jane Segal Bradley; three sisters; and several nieces, nephews, and cousins, who loved him dearly.

1981 Andrew Reed Sutherland

1976 David Cadwallader Cates, Jr. a concert harpsichordist and early music historian, devoted father, and gourmet cook, who entertained loved ones with feasts, died on November 30, 2020, in Oakland, Calif. He was 62 years old. Mr. Cates was born on August 29, 1958, to Eleanor and David Cates. He grew up in New York City, attending The Buckley School before enrolling at St. Paul’s School in the fall of 1971. Mr. Cates competed with Delphian and Halcyon. Upon graduation, Mr. Cates enrolled at University of Chicago, where he earned a B.A. in 1981. He pursued a career in finance, first with Towers Perrin and then with Kaiser Permanente. He retired from finance in 2001 to devote himself to the study and performance of early Baroque keyboard music, especially that written for the harpsichord, his favored instrument. In addition to playing concerts throughout the U.S., Mr. Cates recorded and released harpsichord music by J. S. Bach and Johann Froberger. Mr. Cates also was a wonderful chef, who mastered the arts of Thai, French, and Chinese cooking. He charmed his many dinner guests with an innovative style and ornate presentation. Mr. Cates was predeceased by his father, David. He is survived by his mother, Eleanor; his daughters, Melanie and Sophie; his partner, Deanne, and her daughters, Ava and Hannah; and his siblings, Gwendolyn, Eli, Marjorie, and Lilian.

a gifted teacher, adventurer, and devoted family man, died from a head injury on May 10, 2021, at the age of 57. At the time of his death, he was a resident of Chevy Chase, Maryland. Born in Amman, Jordan, on Sept. 25, 1963, Mr. Sutherland was the son of Peter and Carol Sutherland. He spent most of his early years in the Middle East as a member of a career diplomatic family. He entered St. Paul’s School in the fall of 1977. While at SPS, Mr. Sutherland found a lifelong mentor in lacrosse coach Cliff Gillespie. He also played football and was a member of the Missionary Society and the Cum Laude Society. An excellent student, Mr. Sutherland was awarded a Morehead Scholarship from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He graduated in 1986 with a B.A. in zoology. A natural leader, Mr. Sutherland was presented with the Ernest L. Mackie Award during his junior year at UNC for “outstanding character, scholarship, and leadership.” He also was a member of the Chi Psi and the Order of the Old Well, which recognized students

who contributed in exemplary ways to UNC. Following his graduation, Mr. Sutherland took full advantage of the Morehead Scholarship’s travel opportunities around the world. While on a visit in Taiwan, Mr. Sutherland was invited to teach English. It was there that he met the love of his life, YuHua Kuo. The couple married and established the Blue World English Language School in the city of Kaohsiung, where Mr. Sutherland served as director. In 2002, they returned to the United States after the birth of their daughters, Natalia Yu-Hsin (“jade heart”) and Maria-Petra AnLing (“tranquil spirit”). Back in the U.S., Mr. Sutherland taught grade school in the Chevy Chase, Maryland, area for many years and received his master’s in education at Johns Hopkins University in 2008. He wrote a children’s book, Lei Long, which he was in the process of editing while working on a second one. A lover of nature and culture, Mr. Sutherland and his family traveled the world. He enjoyed exploring nature, relishing the solitude that camping and hiking offered. Always an adventurer, Mr. Sutherland never lost his spirit for travel or his zest for life. His memory will be cherished by his family and friends. He is survived by his wife, YuHua; his daughters, Natalia and Maria; his mother, Carol; his siblings, Anora McGaha, Paul Sutherland, and Susan Sutherland, and their spouses; numerous aunts and uncles; and his nephew, Jason Hsu. He was predeceased by his father, Peter A. Sutherland.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

SPOTLIGHT

Building Community Mike Howard ’64 and a team of volunteers are restoring a Connecticut cemetery that commemorates Revolutionary War veterans and neighbors. JANA F. BROWN

small cemetery, nestled within the coastal town of Fairfield, Connecticut, is the final resting place of the most indi vidual Revolutionary War veterans in the country. The 1,000-headstone burial ground on Bronson Road in Fairfield’s Greenfield Hill section sits just down the road from its namesake Congregational Church. Since 2016, the cemetery has been the beneficiary of a steady restoration effort. Mike Howard ’64 joined the cause in 2017, a year after his friend and fellow parishioner Jeff Taylor decided to honor those buried in Greenfield Hill. The more than 100 soldiers of the Revolutionary War are laid to rest alongside veterans of the French and Indian War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War, along with other notable Fairfield residents. The graveyard also commemorates children who died in infancy and entire families buried side-by-side,

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

with many descendants now members of the church. The oldest dated stone reads 1737. For the last four years, Howard has teamed with Taylor and a dozen or so other volunteers (including Mike Moore ’67) at the cemetery on Wednesday and Friday mornings. Weather permitting, the group — self-identified as the “Grinning Gravers” — works for a few hours, beginning just after sunrise. The labor is arduous, yet satisfying, ranging from matching up disparate pieces of soft stone that have been separated by weather and years to standing the epoxy-repaired markers upright in a straight line. Taylor received special training from an expert in Massachusetts to learn how to reunite the detached sections of slate and limestone, before receiving approval from the town to proceed.

“Some of them are extremely heavy, weighing hundreds of pounds and, even with three or four of us, we can’t lift them,” Howard explains. “We are dependent on a one- to two-ton capacity aluminum tripod for lifting them into place and centering them.” Strings laid out on the ground map out the location of each monument. A group from the Daughters of the American Revolution has used solvent, brushes, and “a fair bit of patience,” according to Howard, to return many of them to their original glory. Visitors to the burial ground will notice a section of restored white monoliths as a visual sign of the care that has been taken to preserve them. “The headstones really need to be cleaned,” Howard says. “These people and their stories come to life when you can actually read what is inscribed.” Howard served one tour of duty in Vietnam for the U.S. Army, having graduated from Officer Candidate School, Airborne, and Ranger Schools at Ft. Benning, Georgia, before spending his career in financial services in New York, Washington, Chicago, and San Francisco. He retired eight years ago. While not a student of the Revolutionary War before he got involved in the Greenfield Hill project, Howard has become fascinated by those whose names are carved into the markers his hands are touching. That includes a memorial to Abraham Baldwin, minister, politician, first president of the University of Georgia, and a signer of the U.S. Constitution, who died in 1807. “This has prompted me to take much more of an interest in who is buried in the cemetery,” Howard says. “It all started with Jeff ’s interest in Abraham Baldwin, but it includes all of the many patriots and important members of the Greenfield Hill [neighborhood].” In addition to building community on Wednesdays and Fridays, the cemetery restoration project also has garnered wider support from the Town of Fairfield, which has donated cement, gravel, and loam to the effort. Town employees charged with mowing the grass at Greenfield Hill take care to leave space for Howard and others to rebury the headstones into the earth, sometimes propped up by cement and mortar to counteract years of deterioration. The target date for completion of the graveyard restoration is 2025, when Greenfield Hill Congregational

ABOVE: The Grinning Gravers logo; Mike Howard ’64 at work in the cemetery; and BELOW: Some of the stones that commemorate those buried at Greenfield Hill.

Church will celebrate its 300th anniversary. By that time, the hope is that the volunteers who are writing biographies of the Revolutionary War veterans interred in the cemetery will have completed their research and created an interactive app that will allow visitors to learn about the dead on their smartphones. “We hope people standing in front of the headstones will be able to pull up all of the history that has been gleaned,” Howard explains. “The fact that there are at least 100 Revolutionary War dead buried in the cemetery forces us to think about their lives, what they stood for, how they died, what regiment they served in, and ultimately how they felt about the cause they ended up giving their lives for. Trying to keep that memory and the artifacts of their lives is not lost on us.”

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Members of the Alumni Association Executive Committee work with form directors and other volunteer leaders on a variety of initiatives designed to keep alumni connected to one another and the School. They welcome your ideas for strengthening the Alumni Association and look forward to hearing from you.

WILL DUNN III ’02 williamdunn3@gmail.com

CARYN CROSS HAWK ’76 P’09

President

crosshawk@aol.com

SHAUN REIN ’96

RAYMOND JOSEPH, JR. ’90

shaunrein@hotmail.com

rjoseph_99@yahoo.com

Executive Vice President

AMACHIE ACKAH ’90

ELIOT LARSON ’69 *

amachie@hotmail.com

ewlarson@comcast.net

The SPS Fund Chair

CAROLINE LA VOIE ’88 P’20,’21

BEN LOEHNEN ’96 * bloehnen@gmail.com

carolinelavoie@me.com Vice President GRAHAM BROWNE ’04

DORIEN NUNEZ ’75 *

grahambrowne@gmail.com

omniresearch@aol.com

ALISON CODY ’88 P’20,’22,’25

PAGE SARGISSON ’93 pagesargisson@gmail.com

alisoncody@mac.com

BETH ANNE GEORGE ’13 *

YASMIN VERA ’09

elisabeth_george@brown.edu

yasminvera@gmail.com

* Form Director

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue I 21/22

When I enter a classroom with my students, or sit in the dining hall with my advisees, or run onto an athletic field with my team, they believe in that moment there is no place else I’d rather be — and they’re absolutely right.

Fondly known by students and faculty alike as “Dr. G,” Theresa Gerardo-Gettens P’07,’11 has served the SPS community for more than three decades as a gifted science instructor, dedicated athletic coach, and beloved house parent. When you support The SPS Fund, you empower faculty members like Dr. G to practice their craft at the highest level as they prepare students for lives of meaning, connection, and extraordinary impact.

The SPS Fund

Your gift today will support the resources our teachers need to fully engage every student and make the most of their SPS experience.

sps.edu/support-faculty

Alumni Horae

St. Paul’s School 325 Pleasant Street Concord, N.H. 03301-2591 Address Service Requested

Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Concord, NH Permit No. 495