Issuu

A lumni Horae ST. PAUL’S SCHOOL | ISSUE III 21/22

DOGS HAVE TAUGHT DIPLOMAT RUFUS GIFFORD ’92 ABOUT LIVING LIFE WITH AN OPEN HEART.

Alumni Horae VOL. 101 | ISSUE III 21/22

RECTOR

Kathleen C. Giles EDITOR

Jana F. Brown DESIGNER

Cindy L. Foote EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS

Ian Aldrich Kristin Duisberg Kate Dunlop Ashley Festa Ben Flanders Debbie Kane Michael Matros Taylor Plimpton ’94

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 Incoming Members

Dana R. Goodyear ’94 Elise Loehnen Fissmer ’98 Malcolm Mackay ’59

22 16 8 16

Published by the Trustees of St. Paul’s School

150 YEARS OF CREW AT SPS

LEADING WITH HEART

IAN ALDRICH

TAYLOR PLIMPTON ’94

Part III: Rowing It Forward The present and future of SPS crew are built on the program’s connection to its deep roots.

Dogs are central to the lives of diplomat Rufus Gifford ’92 and his veterinarian husband. Their golden retrievers remind the married couple about living life with an open heart.

ON THE COVER FPO enviro logos here

U.S. Chief of Protocol Rufus Gifford ’92 with his dog, Argos. PHOTO: Courtesy Rufus Gifford

NEWS AND NOTES 2

FROM THE RECTOR

SPS TODAY

REVIEWS

FORMNOTES

PROFILE

COMMUNITY

28 10

Celebrating 50 years of coeducation at St. Paul’s with profiles of Betsy Kenny Lack ’79, Frances Reath Merrill ’96, and Meg MacRae ’88.

Honoring Alumni Association Award recipients Peter Wright ’60, Ted Landsmark ’64, and Judy Jordan ’79.

HER PURPOSE

SPOTLIGHT

UPDATE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS: ALUMNI@SPS.EDU

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FIRST Robotics offers hands-on learning, five questions with faculty member Jenny Li, meet Declan Casey ’22, Jacqueline Chen ’22, and Ke Nicole Du Hu ’22, Horae Scholasticae Cover Contest, winter athletics photo collage, alumnae return for “Her Purpose” event.

American Workman: The Life and Art of John Kane Maxwell King ’62 and Louise Lippincott

Serial entrepreneur Michael Sylvester ’59 has relied on persistence, patience, and perseverance in his success as an inventor. Murray Buttner ’85 has found his calling as a multitasking physician in rural Alaska. A Call to Climate Action: Event celebrating 50 years of coeducation inspires and informs on the topic of environmental stewardship. Virtual Fireside Chat: Ted Landsmark ’64 spoke with Michel Martin ’76 about the personal attack that changed his life.

IN MEMORIAM

FACETIME

Mariana Zobel de Ayala ’06 is stepping up to help lead her family’s business and make a difference in her home country of the Philippines.

Learning About Community Again and Anew

t has been a season of frosty mornings on the grounds, one of those New England springs that bursts forth in blooms of lilacs and black flies with the first string of warm May days. This spring — mask-optional for the first time in two years — is both a celebration and a reckoning. It is easy to celebrate a return to normalcy of sorts, a greater ease in planning and interaction after two years of distance and cancellation. It also is a reckoning of that experience — the weight of our distancing and ensuing isolation as we now attempt to reconnect in meaningful face-to-face and screen-free ways. It is clear those two years of the pandemic — years of anxiety, separation, and loss — have cost us a great deal. Setting aside for a moment, with the utmost dignity and respect, the incredible loss of life and the ongoing health and economic challenges many among us face, our society is not finding reconnection simple or easy. Pre-pandemic, we expected to spend time with each other, shared time commuting, on either side of classes or meetings; or the many hours spent together brainstorming, discussing, creating, critiquing — none of it anonymous, distant, or asynchronous. We took being in-person for granted, including the countless, unplanned interactions, large and small, that grease the rails of community and the many relationships required to live and work together. When we had to substitute, we necessarily became focused on screens and schedules. We have spent many long hours looking at ourselves on screen and listening to our own voices. The “I” has subsumed the “we.”

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

As our society emerges from this pandemic, we are learning about community again and anew. Community is not just about physically coming together, as we do in Chapel here on the grounds. It also is about the energy we create in real interactions — with nature, with people, with human experience. That energy is shaped by the ways we consider the needs of others when we speak; by the duty of care as we contemplate how our words and deeds affect others; by the mantra, “listen, learn, then respond.” As PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel argues in her 2020 book, Dare to Speak, these are the duties of living in community, the assumed agreements that form the basis of an ethical community in which we can trust each other. In many ways, this is what our School Prayer asks of us — “that in all the joys of life we may never forget to be kind,” and kindness should not be confused with niceness; that we “be unselfish in friendship,” and consider others and their intent; that we are “thoughtful of those less happy than ourselves,” and provide sympathy and empathy for our neighbor as we would for ourselves; and that we be “eager to bear the burdens of others,” which demands we learn about and understand those burdens so we may offer relief. Ultimately, our School Prayer establishes an important framework for the responsibility we have to each other in community — ethically and spiritually. It is elegantly phrased and easy to remember, focused outwardly from the first person “we” and “us” and “our,” not “I” and “me” and “mine.” Over these coming weeks, as we celebrate Graduation and Anniversary on the grounds, we will be celebrating “we” and “us.” I hope that, as we rejoin and rebuild our communities all around the world, we can share and lead with these values in mind, heart, and spirit. Warmly,

MICHAEL SEAMANS

FROM THE RECTOR

Students gather outside Chapel on April 26 as the annual MISH Holiday is announced.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

SPS TODAY

Hands-on Learning

FIRST Robotics provides SPS with a forward-focused engineering experience and a major dose of good old-fashioned teamwork. BEN FLANDERS AND KRISTIN DUISBERG

BEN FLANDERS

s Jack Bocresion ’24 and Edie Cahill ’23 look on, Zach Stellato ’22 deftly manipulates a handheld joystick, his eyes locked on the industrial-sized robot he’s maneuvering from the other side of a plexiglass barrier. Behind the trio, spread across four rows of gymnasium bleachers, a dozen students in long-sleeved St. Paul’s School T-shirts watch as the robot races forward on the tarmac and into an area marked off with electrical tape, then launches a blue foam ball toward a two-story hub of silver pipes that surround a stacked pair of plastic baskets. As the ball rattles home into the lower basket, the SPS students in the bleachers leap to their feet, their cheers joining those of students from other schools who roar with enthusiasm as their teams’ robots launch their own balls, zip back to their drivers to reload, and return to the hub to shoot again. Now in its 30th year, there’s a reason FIRST Robotics, an annual competition in which high school teams build robots following strict parameters and then compete for points in a complex game, bills itself as “the ultimate sport for the mind.” This year’s challenge — “Rapid React” — was aimed at creative and sustainable approaches to transportation. It was released in January to 8,000 teams worldwide.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

For SPS, Team 1512, what began with a flurry of activity in the Kwok Engineering Center culminated March 3-5 in the gymnasium of Salem High School, as they squared off against 38 other schools from across New Hampshire. In addition to scoring baskets, teams earned points at the end of each two-and-a-half-minute round if their robots could successfully “park” themselves by climbing a multi-level hangar. For the first 15 seconds of each contest, the robots were required to operate autonomously. During the threeday event, the 33 members of Team 1512 made multiple trips between Concord and Salem, juggling the competition, Winter Term finals, and the logistics of leaving the grounds for March Break. “With only five weeks from the challenge announcement to when we need to have a competition-ready robot for March, it’s been all hands on deck,” says Yerika Molina ’23, one of the team’s programmers. Unlike most schools, SPS offers FIRST Robotics as a class and as an afternoon club, meaning a significant number of students building, programming, and fine-tuning the robot are first-timers rather than multi-year participants who can bring their experience from previous competitions. “We’re a rookie team in the sense that many of us are new to the program,” says Stellato, one of only a few SPS FIRST Robotics veterans. “There’s lots of energy and excitement.” The class format encourages newcomers and gives students at all levels a chance to apply their classroom experience. Some students end up finding a passion for robotics, computer programming, or engineering that becomes their academic path. Will Renauld, FIRST Robotics teacher and mentor, is always amazed at the transformation team members go through from the start of the season to competing on the field. That phenomenon is most evident at the competition, where students take over the team operations. “We have a lot going on behind the scenes and some very talented programmers this year,” adds Teacher of Science Chris Odom, one of Team 1512’s coaches. “It’s been great for the program, and these students have helped us get farther than we could have imagined.” Renauld says the opportunity to compete in person this year, following two years of COVID-19 interruptions, was a victory. The inaugural FIRST Robotics competition took place in 1992. SPS launched its team, the Metal Vidsters, in 2005, under the guidance of Terry Wardrop ’73, faculty emeritus.

MICHAEL SEAMANS

Five Questions with Zhaohong “Jenny” Li Languages Department Head Zhaohong “Jenny” Li strives to be an excellent teacher, trusted adviser, and supportive coach. Li taught molecular biology at Tsinghua University in Beijing prior to moving to the U.S. in the 1990s. After receiving multiple degrees, Li briefly worked in high tech before discovering a passion for teaching Chinese. Before arriving at SPS six years ago, she started Chinese language programs at McDonogh School in Maryland and The Hockaday School in Texas. She holds the Fung Family Chair in Chinese. She spoke with Alumni Horae contributor Debbie Kane. What inspired you to become a teacher? In China, you decide what you want to study and that’s what you do for the rest of your career. Moving to America gave me an opportunity to pursue my American dream, which was being a high school teacher. My family was living in Dallas and, in the Chinese community there, we had a Sunday school for Chinese Americans. I was principal of one of the schools, teaching 500 students Chinese. The Hockaday School contacted us about helping them start a Chinese language program. I began as a part-time teacher and stayed there for seven years. This is your first experience living and teaching at an independent school, including being head of house in Ford for two years. What is that like? When I first became head of house, I thought my role was literally being a mom. If the girls in my house were hungry at 10 p.m., they could have any of the dumplings I kept in my refrigerator or I cooked them chicken and

ramen noodles. I quickly realized that wasn’t enough. I had to step into my students’ shoes to understand and support them, whether it was implementing the LinC curriculum or working through diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) issues. You applied to be an assistant coach for the girls JV lacrosse team this term. Why? Before I came to SPS, administrators told me I was a great Chinese teacher. But my dream is to be a great all-around teacher. To me, that means not only teaching, but advising and coaching. In China, you’re not exposed to sports as a student. I didn’t understand the culture of athletics. After I came to SPS, I was a timer for girls sports, but I wanted to do more. Now I’m getting the full teaching experience. Tell me about the Asian American Footsteps Conference to be held on campus next year. The AAFC is a student-driven conference that gives Asian prep school students space

to discuss their identity. Through my own DEIJ work, I learned to respect my Chinese culture and own my feelings around it. I saw that our Asian students struggle in this area, too. As an adviser to the Justice and Social Equality for Asians (JSEA) club, I attended past AAFC conferences and they’re very powerful. We applied to be a host school for AAFC in 2023. SPS students will decide the theme, design a logo and website, and coordinate the presentations. What excites you most about your job? As head of the Languages Department, I’m proud of my teachers. They’re extremely dedicated and serious about their jobs. Our goal is to help our students become proficient in the languages they study and continue their studies in college. No matter what track they’re on, our students are diving into programs that help them learn how to deal with our diverse, complex world. I support them from my heart — that’s not part of the job description. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

SPS TODAY

THE BEST COVERS OF HORAE SCHOLASTICAE

Service Plan

For Declan Casey ’22, March Break presents an opportunity to help those in need. IAN ALDRICH

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

MICHAEL SEAMANS

eclan Casey ’22 wasn’t blind to the fact that homelessness and food insecur ity were issues for his home state of New Hampshire. But it wasn’t until his second year at St. Paul’s School, when he did a spring break servicelearning project with Families in Transition (FIT), a Manchester-based nonprofit that provides hunger relief and emergency shelter, that he gained a clearer understanding of how tenuous life can be for many families. “I grew up in a family that did a lot of community service,” he says. “My mother and sister baked for a food pantry in Concord, we did a lot with our church, but I didn’t realize how big these problems are [until I volunteered at FIT].” For the past four years, SPS has collaborated with FIT to bring student volunteers to the organization’s headquarters. The experience runs the first week of March Break and puts students at the center of the nonprofit’s work, from organizing inventory and serving meals to sorting donations at the thrift shop and dressing up building spaces to make them feel more welcoming. At the end of the week, the group throws a party for the residents and staff. “You’re meeting these families,” Casey says, “and they know they’re being supported.” For SPS students, it’s a service opportunity with different dimensions. The session begins that first Sunday of break, reading stories and watching films that take on the issues in which they’re about to immerse themselves. There also are daily group discussions and journal sessions, while critical real-world scenarios break down such things as trying to buy a week’s worth of family groceries on a limited fixed budget. The end result, says Julie Lynch, FIT’s volunteer operations manager, is a service opportunity that gives students a deeper perspective on the toll those issues can take on day-to-day life. “Education and community partnerships are critical to the work Families in Transition does,” Lynch says. “Working with SPS students is a way for us to educate young people in our community and provide experiences that

help them to broaden their worldview.” Community service has long been an important ingredient in School culture. For the service-learning opportunities that comprise the first week of the March Break, SPS has offered a wide array of experiences, from building homes with Habitat for Humanity to working with disadvantaged youth. During the last half decade, St. Paul’s has placed a particular focus on using these service sessions to work with local groups and populations. That includes the FIT collaboration and another program in which students work with immigrants and refugees in the Concord and Manchester areas. “With [these local projects], the kids can see the impact they’re making,” says Laura Hrasky, a math teacher and service trip co-leader. “We are a New Hampshire school, we have a number of kids who come from New Hampshire — this is our community and it’s important that we try to make a difference.” Casey’s involvement in community service includes mentoring young Concord residents through the Friends Youth Mentoring Program and serving as secretary for the Missionary Society. He valued his experience with FIT so much that he signed on again. Recently, Casey met with a new crop of FIT volunteers to share his experiences. “Going on community service trips allows you to get the perspective of other people who may not have the same kind of opportunities we have,” he says, “and you can help people and maybe make their lives a little better.”

First published on June 1, 1860, Horae Scholasticae is the School’s oldest publication. Before the launch of Alumni Horae (1921) and The Pelican (1945), it served as the literary magazine, newspaper, and alumni news vehicle of St. Paul’s School. Horae Scholasticae eventually evolved into a medium for student artwork, photography, poetry, and prose, with student-generated images beginning to grace the covers in the 1960s. In March, SPS librarians Deanna Parsi and Karla Kittler initiated a “Horae Showdown,” asking the SPS community to vote for their favorite Horae Scholasticae cover from choices covering the 1960s through the 1990s. “I was putting aside preservation copies — one for each of the 150+ years — and found myself admiring many of the covers,” Parsi says. “I wanted to share them with the community.” Here are the best covers, by decade, as voted by the SPS community: Garry Trudeau ’66

David Santoro ’78

Walter Lee ’83

Soohyun Chang ’99

Presidential Scholars Program Semifinalists Among an elite group from around the nation, Jacqueline Chen ’22 and Ke Nicole Du Hu ’22 are recognized for their outstanding achievements. KATE DUNLOP

n April, two St. Paul’s School students were named semifinalists in the 2022 U.S. Presidential Scholars Program, a significant recognition on the way to achieving what has long been considered one of the nation’s highest honors for graduating high school seniors. Jacqueline Chen ’22 and Ke Nicole Du Hu ’22 are among an elite group of 620 semifinalists from around the nation recognized for their outstanding achievements in academics, the arts, leadership, school and community involvement, and career and technical fields. More than 5,000 candidates were initially selected for the invitation-only annual program. The Commission on Presidential Scholars will select up to 161 finalists and the U.S. Department of Education will announce the Scholars in mid-May. Earlier in the spring, Hu was awarded a national gold medal in the 2022 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in recognition of her originality, technical skill, and emergence of personal voice for her op-ed essay “Simone Biles Goes

for the Bronze.” The piece, an assignment in Rector Kathy Giles’s Creative Writing class, explores the challenges faced by athletes and the expectations the media and public place upon all performers. Hu won a 2021 national silver medal in the Scholastics Dramatic Script category for her play “The Old You.” With Graduation in sight, the Harvardbound Hu is grateful for all the support she has received during her four years at SPS. “The humanities program has enriched my life beyond measure and allowed me to explore myself and my surroundings through meaningful and unexpected lenses,” she says. “I am also very thankful to my parents; my family and my friends, who have never stopped inspiring me; and Mrs. Giles for all the fun during Creative Writing.”

Jacqueline Chen ’22 and Ke Nicole Du Hu ’22 are being recognized for their outstanding achievements in academics, the arts, leadership, school and community involvement, and career and technical fields.

Jacqueline Chen ’22

Chen, who also will be headed to Harvard this fall, chose to attend St. Paul’s School because of its Classical Honors Program; she is a four-time gold medalist on the National Latin Exam and has twice earned Highest Honors on the National Greek Exam. She also earned a gold medal for the National Roman Civilization Exam and, out of 1,400 entrants, was awarded the grand prize in the 2020 NaNoWriMo Young Writers’ Program

Ke Nicole Du Hu ’22

Flash Fiction Contest. A member of the debate team who loves to ask questions and dissect a subject, Chen found another home for her intellectual curiosity with the Philosophical Society. In addition to serving as head of that group and the Classics Society, she is editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Pelican, and has volunteered to teach Latin in a Concord middle school. She’s explored her artistic side — one of her paintings was featured in the Chapel program — and hopes to write novels someday. She discovered Nordic skiing and crew, two of her favorite activities, and as much as she’d like to continue exploring all the offerings at SPS, she knows she must embrace the future. “Four years is not a lot of time. It’s really hitting now … I blinked, and it’s almost time to graduate,” she says. “It’s been amazing. The beauty of being at a 100% residential school that encourages [you to] be part of a lot of activities is that you get to form close connections through them. I really love that about SPS. This place has allowed me to thrive.”

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

WINTER SPORTS

WINTER SPORTS SUMMARY BOYS Varsity Basketball Hockey Squash Alpine Nordic GIRLS Varsity Basketball Hockey Squash Alpine Nordic

WON LOST TIED 11 9 0 9 14 1 11 4 0 13 0 0 25 4 0 69 31 1

2 17 9 8 8 44

19 6 5 3 16 49

0 1 0 0 1 2

COED Varsity Wrestling 7 4 0 7 4 0 TOTAL Varsity 120 84 3 BOYS JV WON LOST TIED Basketball 14 7 0 Hockey 9 5 0 Squash 9 0 0 32 12 0 GIRLS JV Basketball 4 5 0 Hockey 9 1 0 Squash 6 2 0 19 8 0 TOTAL JV 51 20 0 GRAND TOTAL 171 104 3 8

PHOTOS: Michael Seamans

HER PURPOSE

On a Mission

Three alumnae continue the School’s yearlong celebration of coeducation with a conversation about what drives their passion to serve the greater good. KRISTIN DUISBERG

IN SERVICE OF OTHERS

Dana Remus ’93

Maggie Smith ’98

Rhiya Trivedi ’08

t all comes down to people. That was the unifying message of “Her Purpose: In Service of Others,” the third in a yearlong series of events being held by St. Paul’s School to mark 50 years of coeducation. While hardly a surprise coming out of a panel conversation organized around the theme of service, the ways in which people were central to the purpose of panelists Dana Remus ’93, Maggie Smith ’98, and Rhiya Trivedi ’08 made for a wide-ranging conversation and underscored the breadth of the women’s roles working for the public good. Remus, White House counsel for the Biden administration and former general counsel of the Obama Foundation and President and Mrs. Obama’s personal office, spoke about how she is inspired by and learns from the people around her. “That’s what I’ve found I’m most motivated by at every point in my career,” she said. “Try not to worry so much about titles and progression, but think about people, and surround yourself with people who inspire and motivate you.” A U.S. Army cyber-intelligence officer and an assistant professor at the Army Cyber Institute in West Point, New York, Smith described interacting with people as the most important part of public service, noting the many capacities in which she’s engaged with private citizens and other members of the military in her career. “The best way to meet people is to

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

Ellen Greer ’07, co-host

do things outside of your range of experience,” she suggested, noting that she’d spent much of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic administering nasal swab tests to children, notwithstanding her lack of medical training. For Trivedi, a civil rights attorney and activist, the role people play in her work was particularly immediate. “We represent individuals, not groups,” she explained, adding that the work of defending people at the margins — noncitizens facing deportation, activists, domestic violence survivors, and others — gives her the opportunity to understand what it means to be there for someone. “We almost never win our cases,” she said. “I just happen to love what I do.” From the Friedman Center and from as far away as China, 150 students, faculty, staff, alumni, and parents tuned in for the hourlong February panel, moderated by Rector Kathy Giles and Ellen Greer ’07, a member of the SPS Alumnae Board of Advisors formed to collaborate on the School’s coeducation programming. In her self-introduction, Greer reflected on the evolution of the School since her grandfather attended the then-all-boys institution and her father matriculated in the early years of coeducation. “Today,” she said, “we look around the room and see each other — women, men, nonbinary folks — as full human beings who are just doing our best with the incredible gifts we have been given.” A vocal advocate for the

LBGTQIA+ community, Greer described the manner in which the evening’s panelists had built upon those gifts to change the world by “eagerly bearing the burdens of others.” In addition to fielding questions regarding what drew them to public service, how they achieved work-life balance, and who or what served as their creative fuel, each panelist responded to a question specific to her work. Remus reflected on her approach to collaboration in the polarized world of politics by recounting her experience clerking for a judge whose views were diametrically opposed to her own. “I’ve always thought we learn the most by talking with people with whom we disagree,” she said. “Be patient, be openminded. It’s so hard in polarizing times, but hugely important.” In addressing how working in cyber-intelligence has shaped her understanding of the role technology plays in human interactions, Smith described what she does as a “constant intellectual puzzle.” Acknowledging the dangerous and harmful ways in which technology is often used, Smith turned the question around to underscore the value of personal connections. “Nothing is better or more productive than a face-to-face conversation with someone,” she said. “That’s something that’s been documented and studied.” Asked how her understanding of her clients’ experiences impacts her worldview, Trivedi spoke about a surprisingly technical aspect of her job. Reiterating that she rarely represents clients who stand a chance of winning their cases, she explained that her role is very often one of providing context; creating space for her clients to tell a judge, jury, the media, and others the fullest version of their story — even as the prosecution tries to keep that story from being told. “My clients blow right past questions of innocence and guilt and go straight to justice,” Trivedi said. “These people are resisting centuries-old forces, and being able to help them in even tiny, technical ways is a great privilege.” “Her Purpose: 50 Years of SPS Women in the World” will conclude with programming on Anniversary Weekend, June 10–12.

Meaningful Artifacts

With a fearless use of color, pattern, and texture, L.A.-based interior designer Frances Reath Merrill ’96 creates spaces that make complicated lives easier to live.

or the second year in a row, Frances Reath Merrill ’96 has landed on Architectural Digest’s list of the world’s top 100 interior designers and architects. Her work, as they describe it, strives for warmth, elegance, and personality, and is “characterized by an audacious yet controlled layering of pattern and color.” As it turns out, there is a long, colorful thread connecting the decor Merrill chose for her dorm rooms at St. Paul’s School, her studies in creative writing, and her position among the best in her industry. A voracious reader as a child growing up in Greenwich Village, Merrill loved immersing herself in different worlds and trying to determine what drives characters. That curiosity in exploring how things fit together helps her now when trying to figure out what will make her clients feel most at home. Entering the world of SPS, Merrill lived with peers whose rooms showed her just how varied a sense of home can be. And, in the School’s structured atmosphere, those rooms were the singluar space they could control and personalize — one’s choice of bedspread spoke volumes. “That’s something I carry with me, the sense of what a comfort a space that really feels like yours can be,” Merrill says. “It’s a place to retreat to, where you can refresh and recharge so you’re able to face what needs to be done in the world.” The importance of such a retreat has perhaps never been greater than during the pandemic, when many have inhabited their homes in deeper and different ways. Yes, people want more doors now, but what they really want, Merrill contends, is a haven that feels comforting. The studio she founded in 2009, Reath Design, specializes in creating those havens through visual storytelling that is a little quirky and highly personalized to a client’s functional and emotional needs. Inspiration can come from anywhere — travels, a father’s desk, the pattern of a vintage coat — and to find it, Merrill and her team ask a lot of questions. “I like getting to know our clients and learning how we can make their house something that tells the story of how they live in that particular space,” Merrill says. “It really comes down to figuring out what the story is and what is the right kind of world for this house and these people. If you have a strong narrative from the beginning, then when you’re trying to figure out if a tile or light fixture works in this world, it’s a lot easier.”

LAURE JOLIET

KATE DUNLOP

Ideally, Merrill’s clients plan to remain in their homes long term and already have meaningful artifacts that, in her hands, become art that is compatible — and comfortable — with life. “What makes a house beautiful is to have artifacts that mean something,” she says. “I love when people come with a lot of their own things because we aim to create something that doesn’t look like it was designed but could have come together in no other way. The best reaction is if someone walks into the house and tells our clients, ‘This looks exactly like you,’ as if we weren’t there at all.” spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

HER PURPOSE

Getting Social

Through her role as head of global brand strategy at Snapchat, Betsy Kenny Lack ’79 is able to fuel creativity and innovation. JANA F. BROWN

transition to working for a technology company felt like a natural one for Lack. Fittingly, she had first met Snap’s Spiegel when he agreed to participate in a New Establishment Summit series conversation with former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Six years into her tenure with Snapchat, Lack’s role as head of global brand strategy is clearly defined yet constantly expanding. Because of the creativity and innovation of founders Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, the company continues to evolve, a fact that holds great appeal for Lack. Though known for its fast-disappearing conversations and augmented reality Lenses, the platform also offers access to content on its Discover platform, where Snapchatters can access the latest news from NBC and The New York Times, among other vetted sources, to create a healthier news experience. Snapchat’s audience also can access a vast slate of original shows such as “Good Luck America,” which aims to deliver political news to its young audience and is hosted by former CNN political correspondent Peter Hamby. Notably, Snapchat does not have an open news feed, which helps to shield Snapchatters from those who try to transmit false information.

PHOTOS COURTESY BETSY KENNY LACK ’79

fter running into Snap Inc. co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel in 2015, Betsy Kenny Lack ’79 made the decision to leave her job at the signature publication of a 100-year-old company to lead a strategic team at a social media venture still in its infancy. “That was when he made a pitch for me to join Snapchat,” recalls Lack, who came aboard the then-five-yearold company — best known for its real-time messaging platform — in 2016. “It’s a bit of a joke between us that he wasn’t very specific about what I would do. Sometimes you need to take a leap of faith for what seems to be, at the time, a risk. I admired Evan and his vision — he had a very clear view about the values of the company. It was absolutely the best decision I’ve ever made.” In her previous eight years at Vanity Fair, Lack was charged with covering Silicon Valley and technology as thoroughly as the magazine covered Hollywood and the entertainment industry. That included running the “New Establishment List,” a power ranking of top tech companies and their leaders. The list led to expanded notice for entrepreneurs, from Microsoft’s Bill Gates to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who ended up on the cover of Vanity Fair in September 2015. With that experience to her credit, the

Middle two images: Betsy Kenny Lack demonstrates some of the features of the Snapchat app.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

NEW YORK WOMEN IN COMMUNICATIONS

Lack with Snap co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel.

In broadening Snap’s brand, Lack has been able to “We’re also different in that your Snapchat world is establish collaborations with artists such as Damien about your close friends,” Lack explains. “It’s not about Hirst, Christian Marclay, Jeff Koons, and Alex Israel strangers following you and knowing what you’re doing. to “create global Lenses and experiential activations” That ephemerality is where Snapchat is so appealing.” within Snapchat. Israel’s self-portrait imagery allows Outside of her work at Snap, Lack has prioritized users to experience his paintings philanthropy and volunteerism. She in augmented reality, for example. serves on the board of the Lincoln “Being able to work with Snapchat partnered with Hirst to Center Theater, the Snap Foundation, a company that is create a Lens that allowed users and the Walden Woods Project. She to put themselves into his spin art constantly growing and chang- also counsels families dealing with paintings or create their own. The addiction and helped establish a proing makes my original artist images are not only gram at her alma mater, Princeton, to job so interesting.” available in the app, but also have encourage women to consider careers found their way into prominent in computer science and engineering. museums, such as LACMA and Miami’s Bass Museum, Currently, Snapchat reaches 90% of 13- to 24-year-olds widening the company’s reach. in countries like the U.S., U.K., France, Australia, and the “In [2020], we were No. 1 on Fast Company’s list of the Netherlands and boasts 319 million daily active users, with World’s Most Innovative Companies,” Lack says. “Being growth expanding across the world. The vision is for the able to work with a company that is constantly growing average age of users to increase as those who have grown and changing makes my job so interesting. When you work up with Snapchat become adults. While the debate about in brand, you communicate who you are as a company. the curses and the blessings of social media will endure, That’s what I do.” Billed as the “fastest way to share a mo- Lack is proud of the decisions the executive team at Snap ment,” Snapchat has distinguished itself from other social continues to make when considering the negative impliplatforms in a few notable ways. It is the app of choice for cations social media can have on young people. people under the age of 21, and it allows users to live in “There is in the world right now a very healthy questhe moment in a way that mimics a real-time conversation. tioning of the impact of social media,” Lack says. “I feel Thoughts and images shared are fleeting — similar to live very lucky to work at Snap because we really do look at dialogue — as Snapchat aims to empower people to live the ramifications and consequences of what we do. It’s very in the moment without the pressure to be perfect, thus much a part of our day-to-day decision-making.” distinguishing it from the “internet-is-forever” standard. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

HER PURPOSE

A Life on the Road

For decades, Meg MacRae ’88 has found joy and camaraderie as a rock tour manager. JANA F. BROWN

COURTESY MEG MACRAE ’88

f the life of Meg MacRae ’88 had a soundtrack, the alcohol or anything, we were just having a good time.”) lead song might be “Seven Bridges Road,” a song Still, when MacRae’s parents found out about it, they shut covered by the Eagles in 1980. The tune expresses the the operation down. emotions of a singer on tour, traveling the open road. “Even when I was at St. Paul’s, I would have the shows In a career filled with travels by bus, train, and plane, when I was home on a break,” she says. “That’s kind of MacRae has spent the better part of the last three decades on how I got my start. I always loved music, and I probably the road with many notable performhad no idea that was taking me in the ers, the Eagles among them, traversing direction of a career.” “I sang and played the country and the world as a rock After graduating from SPS, sleigh bells on stage with Bon MacRae attended Sarah Lawrence tour manager. College, where she studied theater “The best thing is there’s never a Jovi on this cover song. That and psychology. An internship with dull moment,” MacRae says. “The was kind of fun, Relativity Records in Queens led to a worst part is you’re on the road all because the first time full-time offer as a publicist and also the time. You’re always in a hotel, a to weekends traveling with smaller venue, or a tour bus. I’m not playing I ever sang live bands to drive the van, sell T-shirts, the violin when I say this, but I’m 52. on stage was in front and help arrange food and travel. I don’t have kids. I’ve never been marof 20,000 people.” MacRae’s first job out of college was ried because I pretty much married with Relativity Records’ subsidiary the road.” Before embarking on a career that has included tours Earache Records, working in the familiar genre of punk with Neil Young and Bon Jovi, among others, MacRae rock and heavy metal and arranging everything from press grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina. As a teenager, interviews to hotel reservations. she invited punk rock bands to stage concerts in a small “One day somebody said, ‘You know, you can make outbuilding on a property her parents owned, collecting just as much money or more going on the road and being ticket fees so she could pay the bands. The clandestine a tour manager as you can sitting in this office,’” Macshows were all about the music. (“We weren’t having Rae recalls. Her first stint on the road was as a label representative. In the days before streaming music, that included taking the bands to local music stores to do record signings and to radio stations for interviews and other promotional duties. MacRae began building a network of radio station managers and record store owners that has served her well. She also built a reputation for her patience, intelligence, reliability, and overall good work in the business, which led to her first management gig on a European tour with the Brooklyn-based gothic metal band Type O Negative. She credits the band — her close friends to this day — with launching a career that has put her in the orbits of Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, Joe Walsh, and Phish. She is known on some tours as the “mom,” a caretaker label that is welcome to some artists who need extra attention. Often managing a budget in the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, MacRae arranges travel, catering, transportation, security, and everything in between in multiple cities on multiple dates.

On tour with Bon Jovi in Australia, MacRae and other female crew members formed a backup choir.

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COURTESY MEG MACRAE ’88

MacRae on stage with Adam D from Killswitch Engage at Ozzfest 2003.

“I make sure that the crew, the band, the trucks and the tour buses are where they’re supposed to be,” she says, noting that sometimes she serves as tour manager and others as production coordinator. “I check that the charter flights are on time, that the hotels are advanced properly, and that I am on top of the budget for all the moving parts on the tour.” Sleep can be hard to come by on tour, with MacRae sometimes stealing only four hours before waking up to do it all over again. She has seen the world in the process — the best and worst of it. She once dealt with a female fan who locked herself in the tour bus bathroom undetected until the charter had traveled too far for a simple return. She has witnessed the obsessive nature of fans on her tour with Phish. She’s been to Iceland with Neil Young (and always stopped what she was doing to go out to the soundboard and watch when he sang “Cortez”). MacRae once lost the lead singer of a band on a ferry in Estonia, forcing her to travel back and forth across a channel to retrieve him. On a 2013 holiday stop in Sydney, Australia, Jon Bon Jovi enlisted MacRae and some of the other women working

on the tour to form a female choir to sing backup on the John Lennon/Yoko Ono version of “Happy Xmas.” “I sang and played sleigh bells on stage with Bon Jovi on this cover song,” MacRae says. “That was kind of fun, because the first time I ever sang live on stage was in front of 20,000 people.” MacRae is currently at her home base in Nashville, where she has dabbled in the world of TV and music video production and recently returned to her own musical roots by releasing an original song, a Ganesha mantra, called “Om Gam Ganapataye Namaha.” The pivot to being in one place for a long stretch was forced by the arrival of COVID-19. For now, MacRae is enjoying the comforts of home, though she’s likely to end up back on the road when the right opportunity presents itself. “It’s like running away with the circus; you’re all in it together,” she says. “You’re in this little bubble that goes from city to city. Whatever happens, you do whatever it takes to make the show happen. I love being a part of something that’s bringing joy, celebration, and entertainment to people.”

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A C O M M E M O R AT I O N : 1 5 0 16

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MATT BAILEY

Y E A R S O F C R E W AT S P S spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

A COMMEMORATION: PART III

Crew coaches Michael Spencer and Deb Vo have teamed up to continue the tradition of excellence for girls crew. PHOTO: Courtesy Michael Spencer 18

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Rowing It Forward

The present and future of SPS crew is built on the program’s connection to its deep roots. IAN ALDRICH

shares that he discovered more of himself and his identity at SPS as he became entrenched with the boys team. “I quickly knew that it was something I wanted to excel at and continue not just through my time at St. Paul’s but onwards into life,” says Thayer, who captained the boys team as a Sixth Former and now rows at Brown University. “I would actually say that rowing under Coach [Colin] Campbell was one of the biggest influences in my St. Paul’s career. He guided me through any rough point I had, both on and off the water, and I doubt I’d be where I am now without that guidance.” Roselle and Thayer make important points. At a place where rowing is a part of the founding story and the work ethic it represents is embedded into the School’s ethos, crew is more than just a sport. “The strength of the program rests on the conviction that every student who chooses to row or cox has a role to play,” Campbell says. “By drawing students into the program and encouraging them to grow and develop as MICHAEL SEAMANS

n the fall of 2018, Faye Roselle ’22 arrived at St. Paul’s School armed with an already considerable volleyball résumé, but no spring sport on her radar. Her brother, David Roselle ’19, suggested that Faye try rowing, and introduced her to some of the School’s veteran crew athletes. “They convinced me I’d love it by the end of my first race,” says the Charlotte, North Carolina, native. Roselle didn’t have to wait that long. That March, during the team’s first practice on Turkey Pond, she was all in. There was the camaraderie the sport engendered, and she fell in love with the “seamless way” it welcomed new members into the family. There also was the unmatched sense of teamwork and the chance to test herself in a way she hadn’t before. “Crew taught me what I’m capable of in and out of the boat,” Roselle says. “I have never learned more about myself in a month than I did in that first month of crew.” Like Roselle, William Thayer ’21 arrived at SPS with only a vague notion of what rowing represented. He, too,

Faye Roselle ’22 (m.) discovered a love for crew at St. Paul’s School. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

FEATURE

| 150 YEARS OF CREW AT SPS

the School,” Spencer explains, “which is so rich and deep. And it reflects a lot of the core values we work to instill in the program today. When I talk to the kids, I don’t talk about goals. I don’t talk about winning New England’s or at Henley. I talk about our core values as a team and how, if they live those values, they will achieve success, no matter the wins or losses.” Spencer, a varsity heavyweight rower for The College of the Holy Cross who medaled at the Head of the Charles and the Collegiate New England Championships and earned recognition as the outstanding oarsman at Holy Cross, became head girls varsity coach in 2011. Since that time, he has worked with Deb Vo (and Kathryn Green before her) to lead SPS crews to four first varsity boat wins at the NEIRA Championship, and two team trophies, including a gold medal sweep of all three varsity boats at New Englands in 2017. Under his guidance, the first girls boat also finished as the second-fastest scholastic crew in the nation at the 2012 Youth Nationals; won the National Scholastic Rowing Association Regatta two years later; the Reading Town Regatta in England three times; and recorded strong finishes as the second-fastest crew at the Women’s Henley Regatta three times. SPS captured the Henley Peabody Cup in 2019, recording the second-fastest time in the event’s history. Spencer and his co-coach, Vo, a decorated college rower who helped lead Brown University to two NCAA titles before arriving at SPS in 2016, model the very teamwork they espouse by alternating head coaching duties every other year for the girls crews. “It gives them an example of what we are asking them to do, which is to put their ego aside and work together,” says Spencer, who began the practice 10 years ago. “That whole really is greater than the sum of the parts.”

athletes, we support a culture that encourages everyone and reinforces the concept that commitment and willingness to work toward goals are at the center of what we do.” It’s an approach built on tradition, and at SPS that tradition has produced considerable success. The tally includes 14 first boat New England Interscholastic Rowing Championships (NIERA) for the girls since 1975, and four in the last eight years alone. The boys have collected 17 NIERA titles since 1947. Both programs have sent athletes to junior national and national teams, and SPS rowing has produced 16 Olympic rowers. The Rev. Michael Spencer, who serves as the vice rector for faculty at SPS and has coached girls crew since 2007, agrees that success isn’t simply the product of talented athletes. The program’s newest rowers understand from the start the importance of the legacy with which they have been entrusted. “They see that tradition and they want to maintain it,” Spencer says. That tradition is more than just a collection of trophies. It’s a history that’s very much alive thanks to the continued connection many past rowers maintain with the School, its program, and its current crop of rowers. In late spring each year (though COVID has caused recent disruptions to the tradition), that story has come into full focus, with current and former athletes gathering for Anniversary Weekend to compete for their respective club crews for the coveted Lester C. Dole Cup. It’s an event rich with pageantry, including a tradition of athletes being transported to and from Turkey Pond via horse-drawn carriage, while singing the Shattuck and Halcyon songs. Prior to the pandemic, the tradition had deviated very little from some of the earliest Anniversary Weekends. “It’s a backdrop of history and the tradition of rowing at

1877

1857

First recorded race on Lower School Pond.

1871

Rector Coit divided the School into two boat clubs; a Halcyon and Shattuck Race Day tradition begins. 20

1952

Talent between the two clubs is lopsided, with Halcyon winning every year, until Shattuck finally wins the annual race.

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1906

New boathouses built on Long Pond.

1903

Installation of first indoor rowing tank.

1960

Crew moved to Turkey Pond after Concord City Council prohibits boats on Long Pond due to pollution of City water supply.

1951

SPS sends first crews to Worcester Regatta and joins NEIRA.

Original boathouses dismantled, moved to Turkey Pond, and rebuilt without their second floors.

1954

SPS sends first crew to Henley Royal Regatta.

1972

Girls come on the scene with their own crew program.

1995

Boys Eight is first winner of Cincinnati National Regatta invitational.

Roselle and her teammates, getting that kind of facetime with an Olympian was a powerful reminder of the caliber of program that has entrusted them to carry it into the future. “The history means a lot to me because I’m honored that I will be a part of it,” Roselle says. “We have this rich legacy that has carried on for so many years, and I find it almost unfathomable that I am able to participate in it. I love walking through the boathouse and reading the names on the walls, just to remember for whom I should be grateful for making this experience as amazing as it is.” The timeline below represents a small sampling of the milestones in program history.

Girls first boat wins NEIRA. Second-fastest scholastic crew at Youth Nationals.

Girls win Peabody Cup at Henley and set course record for 1,500 meters.

Boys win Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup at Henley.

A thumbs up from SPS rower Kam Oseni ’21.

2012

1996

1980

KAREN BOBOTAS

It’s a mantra reminiscent of that of Spencer’s predecessors, longtime former SPS crew coaches Rich Davis and Chip Morgan, who alternated coaching the boys and girls crews beginning in the early 1990s. The storied past of rowing at St. Paul’s helps shape the present and future in other crucial ways. In recent years, the generous support of alumni has helped SPS maintain state-of-the-art training facilities. In 2006, alumni support enabled SPS to renovate its two boathouses. Thirteen years later, they did it again, when a team of donors underwrote the purchase of a new indoor rowing tank. Meanwhile, the continued support of Truman Bidwell ’52 provides a fund for the School to purchase a new boat every four years. “Those sorts of things are huge for us,” Spencer says. Alie Rusher ’14 can certainly attest to that. The daughter of two Olympic rowers — her father is Jack Rusher ’85 — Rusher saw firsthand the importance the sport played in her parents’ lives, including the lifelong friendships her dad forged with SPS teammates. But it wasn’t until she launched her own rowing career at the School that Rusher appreciated what the SPS crew program represented — and it paved the way for her to become the most recent of the School’s Olympic rowers. Last year, Rusher represented the United States in the delayed 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. “As a competitor in a sport that isn’t mainstream in the U.S., it’s unbelievably fun to have a program that treats rowing with such reverence,” Rusher says. “Sitting down in one of the wooden [Graham] King boats or wearing a Shattuck blazer at Anniversary makes you feel really connected to the many years of SPS rowers who came before you.” This past fall, Rusher returned to the SPS campus, where she met with the School’s current rowers and, over pizza, shared stories about her experiences with the sport. For

2004

Boys win Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup at Henley.

2017-19

Girls first boat three-peats at NEIRA.

2014

Girls win Scholastic National Championship .

2019

New rowing tanks dedicated in Athletic and Fitness Center.

2019

Girls win at Henley with second-fastest time ever recorded in youth women’s event.

2021

1938 Pocock shell loaned for Boys in the Boat movie production.

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Rufus Gifford ’92 (r.) with his husband, Stephen DeVincent, and one of their two beloved golden retrievers. PHOTO: Courtesy Rufus Gifford ’92

LEADING W 22

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ITH HEART TAYLOR PLIMPTON ’94

Dogs are central to the lives of diplomat Rufus Gifford ’92 and his veterinarian husband. Their golden retrievers remind the couple about love, trust, and living life with an open heart. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

FEATURE

| LEADING WITH HEART

ufus Gifford ’92 and Dr. Stephen DeVincent met in February of 2009 in Washington, D.C. Gifford had been working on the Obama campaign and was shifting over to become the finance director for the Democratic National Committee. DeVincent, a veterinarian, was in town on a fellowship with the State Department in the Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs, focusing on polar bear policy. As Gifford remembers, “From 2009 on, there was only one person I noticed.” The following year, they moved in together, and in January of 2012, they got their first dog — a golden retriever who would become the center of their lives. They named him after Odysseus’s dog, Argos — the first great dog of literature. In the epic tale, Odysseus has been gone from home some 20 years — has fought in Troy, been blown by Poseidon to the edge of the seas, resisted the call of the Sirens — and when he finally returns, no one even recognizes him but for his faithful dog. Ancient, flea-bitten, and neglected, Argos sees his old, never-forgotten friend and wags his tail.

lions, they’ve been shepherds and guides. They gave us something else in that ancient exchange, too, though — something more abstract, yet also more substantial. Love, yes; companionship, yes. But more than all that — or perhaps through all that — dogs opened us up, somehow, exposed something soft within us. DeVincent quotes Anatole France as saying, “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” And that’s it, I think: dogs gave us the gift of awakening. They expanded our lives, our sense of who we were, and who we could be. It was true 35,000 years ago and it is true today: dogs allow us to be our best selves. Quite simply, they make us more human. THE DIPLOMATIC DOG

“The relationship between Washington, D.C., and dogs is legendary,” says Gifford, who, like Odysseus, is no stranger to the world of politics. An integral part of the victorious Obama and Biden campaigns, and the former U.S. ambassador to Denmark, Gifford is now the chief of protocol for the United States, a role he describes as being the primary liaison between the Biden administration and THE GRAND BARGAIN foreign governments. Whenever the president or other Gifford mentions the origin of their dog’s name because senior White House officials travel overseas, the chief of he and DeVincent and Love, Dog’s founder, Mark Drucker, protocol travels with them, and is an active participant in and I are all talking about the history of canines and the president’s global engagement. humans, and Homer composed The When I ask Gifford about the role Odyssey 2,700 years ago. It’s amazing “In an age when trust is sort of of dogs in politics, he laughs and how, even then, all the qualities we at an all-time low — we don’t quotes Harry Truman: “If you want hold so dear in dogs today were ala friend in Washington, get a dog.” ready evident in that first noble dog: trust political leaders, But dogs in D.C. don’t just function as faithfulness, friendship, heart. Of we don’t trust business one’s only possible loyal companions course, the story of dogs and humans leaders, we don’t trust the — they also serve to make a president, began long before that, at least 35,000 for instance, more accessible. years ago, maybe more. media — dogs do trust. “Dogs humanize powerful people “All domesticated animals were They go into a situation in a way that nothing else can,” he domesticated for a reason,” DeVinwith a new person trusting explains. cent says, “dogs and horses especially. But Gifford is less skeptical There’s an exchange that they made that you are going to be nice about the political world — and the with us. And wolves were smart to them, that you’re going to, strangely integral role dogs play in enough to realize there was benefit you know, throw the it — than one might expect: “You there for them in this symbiotic relacould look at this cynically — like, tionship: that they would be provided ball for them. And there’s this is why politicians get dogs, for, get food and shelter, get to sleep something so beautifully because it humanizes them — but I on the bed. It was the grand bargain.” optimistic about that.” think it’s real, too. Hearing George What we humans were getting in W. Bush talk about Barney, his litreturn is less obvious. Even DeVincent tle terrier Toto kind of dog, there was this tremendous does not name it right away. Sure, originally, what those amount of love in his voice, which was very different from first tamed wolves were giving our ancestors as they sat the way he talked about other things.” around the campfire was, in part, simple — sensitive ears Chiming in, DeVincent mentions Richard Nixon’s to notice a predator’s approach in the night, or an enemy’s. famous speech about his dog, Checkers — and we all And over the ensuing millennia, canines have offered their talk for a moment about how Donald Trump was the services in myriad other ways, too. They’ve been guard first president in more than 100 years to not have a dog dogs and attack dogs, they’ve hunted rats and foxes and

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President Obama straightens Gifford’s bow tie at the Nordic State dinner held at the White House in May 2016, as DeVIncent looks on. PHOTO: Courtesy Rufus Gifford ’92

in the White House. Then Gifford goes on to describe one of his favorite moments of the early Biden administration: a press gathering in the Oval Office. “They try to orchestrate these perfect little photo ops — but you could hear Champ and Major, his two dogs, barking in the background — they were probably rolling around the beautiful South Lawn. And there was something so incredibly normal about that, so real. Somehow, the fact that Champ and Major were barking during this very official, serious Oval Office press moment, it felt so wonderfully disarming.” LEADING WITH YOUR HEART

There’s something wonderfully disarming about Gifford, too — as a human being, and also as a diplomat. When he enters a situation, or meets someone new, he puts his heart on the table, which is, as he points out, exactly what dogs do. “When a dog approaches you, they lead with their heart,” Gifford says. “Those are the dogs that I think we all fall in love with, the ones who go in very open-hearted. And in my work as a diplomat, I always try to come into any conversation and show everybody exactly who I am in a very honest and transparent way.” It’s ironic, perhaps, in a realm so often defined by deception and cunning, that Gifford’s method is simply to be himself — but it seems to work. It softens people, lets them know it’s okay for them, too, to open up. No longer is

it two politicians, with all their hidden motives, but just two human beings, being themselves. “In an increasingly virtual and disconnected world, to try to connect human to human in the same way that dogs and humans connect — it really does matter,” he says. There is, of course, great risk in going into any relationship with such openness. It requires a trust that’s hard to find these days in anyone — except, perhaps, once again, in dogs. “Dogs give you the benefit of the doubt,” Gifford continues. “So, in an age when trust is sort of at an alltime low — we don’t trust political leaders, we don’t trust business leaders, we don’t trust the media — dogs do trust. They go into a situation with a new person trusting that you are going to be nice to them, that you’re going to, you know, throw the ball for them. And there’s something so beautifully optimistic about that.” Gifford and DeVincent both recognize that not all dogs are like this — that just as with humans, dogs who have been abandoned or abused can lose this ability to trust. But Gifford believes that this open, loving nature is their true state, and that it is our own true nature, too. “In my life, in my work, I’m obsessed with this idea of human trust. We insist, because we’ve been burned over and over again, on viewing situations with a certain degree of skepticism. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could trust in the same way a non-wounded dog trusts? Somehow, we’ve got to

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Gifford prepares for a Zoom call with co-workers Argos and Svend. PHOTO: Stephen DeVincent

build that trust back. And if you think about a model for that — and this is connected to putting your heart on the table — it’s disarming folks just like dogs disarm you when they look at you and wag their tail.” HOME IS WHERE THE DOG IS

“As soon as we got Argos, I fell in love with him in a way that I didn’t know I could,” Gifford confesses. “He just has a kindness about him. The way he looks at you is second to none.” For years, Argos traveled the world with Gifford and DeVincent, a constant companion no matter where life took them — Massachusetts, D.C., Chicago, Provincetown. Denmark, where in 2015 DeVincent and Gifford were married. Ironically, Argos hated traveling — even with anti-anxiety medicine, he’d cry the whole time. But wherever Argos ended up, he loved it, and it quickly became their home. In Copenhagen, thanks to the hit reality TV series I Am the Ambassador, Argos became a celebrity, and people would stop his proud owners on the street to take selfies with him. After three and a half years in Denmark, they returned to America, where they soon added a new golden to their family. Where Argos was anxious, Svend was a “dog’s dog: very lively, very happy, very little anxiety.” At first, they 26

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weren’t sure he would be the right fit, considering how his energy changed the dynamic in the house — but he kept everyone, including visiting political dignitaries, on their toes. (Laughing, DeVincent describes how the British ambassador was visiting, and there was Svend, ever the comedian, showing off and tossing a stuffed animal up and down in his mouth and whipping it around, having the time of his life.) Most importantly, Svend keeps Argos, who turned 10 in November, young. When the coronavirus struck, it offered, along with the most impossible tragedies, the strangest of blessings, especially for a family so often on the go. Gifford, DeVincent, and their canine friends found themselves forced to stay in one place. They settled in Nantucket in a house overlooking the harbor. As Gifford made crucial Biden campaign Zoom calls, there behind him, sprawled out on the floor, were the dogs. The four would take long walks — six miles through marsh and little forests and fields and out to the beach — no one else around, the dogs sniffing for rabbits, Svend out in front chasing birds, Argos lagging a bit behind in his older, arthritic way, but still so happy and at peace. And if they were lucky enough to all have some free time, there’d be moments of quiet in the long afternoons, when nothing was happening and nothing needed to, when they could all relax back

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PAUL MORIGI / GETTY IMAGES

in bed and simply be together, the dogs feeling safe and years,” DeVincent notes. “So, every day beyond that with protected, everyone close, calm, at ease, in love. This sense Aubrey was a gift, every day I was grateful.” of having nowhere else you had to be, nowhere else you Yet the grief you feel when your dog passes on, that, too, wanted to be — this sense of home. is a gift. “I would always remind clients of mine who lost Now that life is opening up again, though, Gifford is their animal that the grief is real, every bit as real as losing family,” he says. “And the level of pain back on the road, and his new position that they feel reflects the depth of the traveling with the president overseas “When a dog approaches love — because if they didn’t have that means he’ll be gone perhaps even more you, they lead with their connection, that bond, then there than ever before. “By far the hardest heart. Those are the dogs wouldn’t be that sense of profound part about the move, and Stephen will loss. I try to remind them to accept laugh at me when I say this — is [he] that I think we all fall in love that as a tremendous gift, that they and the dogs are staying up here.” with, the ones who go in very feel such grief, because many people As in the past, they’ll all manage — open-hearted. And don’t experience it.” which for the most part means doing everything they can to spend every This is the risk and the reward of in my work as a diplomat, weekend together — at home, where having a dog. Something in you will I always try to come into any the dogs are. be awakened, opened — something conversation and soft and true. And, sure, you could say THE PRIVILEGE OF GRIEF show everybody exactly who I life would be easier if you kept your heart guarded, if you never dared to DeVincent’s first golden retriever, Aubrey, lived for almost 17 years. Soulful am in a very honest and trans- love, because then you’d never have parent way.” to feel the pain of loss. But as Gifford and empathic, he was a therapy dog, and DeVincent remind us, grief is a and DeVincent would take him to nursing homes and hospitals to share his calming nature privilege. It means you have truly loved, and truly lived. with others in need — though Aubrey often offered similar It means that, like a dog, you have been brave enough to solace to DeVincent, himself. “I went through some dark lead with your heart. days back then, and he’s the one that pulled me through. As DeVincent puts it: “Wouldn’t life be less full if you He sort of lived for me. And I lived for him.” hadn’t had that experience?” So often we talk about how we need our dogs, but too easily forgotten is how much they need us. And yet, strange- An expanded version of this article originally appeared ly, this is one of the greatest gifts dogs offer us. As Gifford on lovedog.com, where Taylor Plimpton ’94 is the human puts it, “They provide a routine and a consistency in your executive editor and also writes a monthly column about his life that can drive you toward a sense of purpose. And this dog, Brooklyn, entitled The Chronicles of Brooklyn: Lessons from a (Mostly) Good Dog. idea of being needed by them — I’m grateful for that.” DeVincent is grateful for it, too: “We have to make sure that they’re fed, they’re walked, that if we go away, someone takes care of them. They guide our lives, and I think there’s something extraordinary about that. We give that to our dogs very willingly.” It’s odd to think of it that way, that we so willingly sign up to have these four-legged creatures run our lives, but that’s what we do. (Laughing, Gifford mentions their Facebook and Instagram accounts, how every other picture is of Argos or Svend.) But, of course, the return on it is beyond compare. It is, perhaps, a forgotten part of the grand bargain; dogs give us the gift of letting us take care of them, of letting us love them, for what else is love but showing up? And having to show up for another creature besides yourself, it expands your life — something is bigger than you now, more important — it expands your heart. With a dog in your life, you have no choice but to be in love. Of course, really loving something, as we inevitably do with our dogs, makes us vulnerable to loss, to grief. And no dog lasts forever. “A golden’s average lifespan is 10 to 12 Gifford during his post as Ambassador to Denmark.

SPOTLIGHT

Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Service JANA F. BROWN

The Executive Committee established the Alumni Association Award in 1997 to recognize and honor those members of the association who have been a credit to the School and its teachings. The Alumni Association Award is the highest distinction that can be bestowed on an alumna or alumnus by the association. Its recipients are those living alumni/ae who, through outstanding service, have improved the quality of life in a community on a local, national, or global level. The recipients are selected by the Presidents Council, composed of the president and past presidents of the Alumni Association, as well as the executive director and past executive directors. The awards were presented to the three 2022 recipients in April.

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Triple Threat

As a clinician, researcher, and teacher, Peter Wright ’60 has made an impact in more than 50 years as an infectious disease specialist.

n 1968, at the end of the first year of his residency in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, Dr. Peter Wright ’60 had an opportunity to spend what he thought would be two years at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). That turned into three (1968-71) at the Laboratory of Infectious Disease at NIH and launched Wright’s keen interest in the field to which he has since devoted more than 50 years. At the end of his fellowship in infectious disease, Wright took an opportunity to travel to Haiti to work in a rural hospital. He has returned dozens of times in the ensuing years and is currently engaged, at age 79, in developing a maternal-infant healthcare system for Haiti to help the country meet 2030 sustainable development goals established by the United Nations. Prior to returning to New Hampshire to join the Department of Pediatrics at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in 2008, Wright spent 35 years in Nashville, where in 1974 he established the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt. The program is regarded as one of the outstanding pediatric infectious disease programs in the country. It was during those years that Wright established himself as a “triple threat” — as a clinician seeing patients, as a researcher, and as a teacher. In the program’s infancy, Wright and one other colleague made up a clinical staff that eventually grew to 18 doctors. “I’m quite proud of that work,” says Wright, a 2022 recipient of the SPS Alumni Association Award. At Vanderbilt, Wright served as the director for the Center for International Health (1997-2005); Shedd Professor of Pediatric Infectious Disease (2004-08); professor of microbiology and immunology (1999-2008); and professor of pathology (1998-2008) at Vanderbilt School of Medicine. He also led the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Pediatrics Department until 2008. He is currently professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. Maintaining a clinical practice, Wright says, helped him evaluate firsthand infectious agents that were presenting in his pediatric patients. In the early 1980s, he and a colleague began seeing children who had unexplained recurrent fevers. After describing the disease, they were able to share samples from multiple patients, which eventually contributed to identifying genetic markers for what is now known as pediatric fever syndrome. Wright also has dedicated a significant part of his career researching vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). In the late 1980s, he spent a year at the WHO in Geneva, where he got a “40,000-foot view of how international health is structured,” including perspective on the polio vaccine. He served for a decade

as chairman of the Polio Research Committee, directing efforts at disease eradication. The decision of Wright and his wife, Penny, to leave Vanderbilt for New Hampshire involved a homecoming of sorts. He grew up in New York City before arriving at St. Paul’s as a Third Former in the fall of 1956, while his wife had roots in Vermont. Wright stayed in New Hampshire to pursue his A.B. in biology and biomedical science from Dartmouth before earning his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He describes his SPS years as formative. “I’ve always thought I learned how to study and think at St. Paul’s,” he says. Among his many career mentors was fellow SPS alumnus John Enders (Form of 1915), a Nobel Prize winner known as the father of modern vaccines. “He was toward the end of his career at that point,” Wright recalls. “Just seeing how he approached science and recognizing the contributions he’d made to polio and other viruses way back at the beginning was just remarkable.” In his multi-decade career, Wright’s work has earned him many significant honors, including the Children’s Prize in Global Health, the Distinguished Alumni Award from Geisel School of Medicine, and the Grant W. Liddle Award for Outstanding Contributions in Clinical Research at Vanderbilt. He now adds the SPS Alumni Association Award to his list of accolades. “I have had other honors,” he says, “but this one is quite special.” spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

SPOTLIGHT

Social Justice Hero ADAM GLANZMAN / NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY

Ted Landsmark ’64 has made a career of public service.

n 1976, Ted Landsmark ’64 was the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph that became transformative in his life. A New Yorker, Landsmark was a recent transplant to Boston, when he was assaulted outside Boston City Hall by an anti-busing protester wielding a flagpole bearing the American flag. Landsmark, then only 29 and fresh out of Yale Law School, was on his way to a meeting inside the building at the time of the attack. The photo by Stanley Forman was picked up by news outlets all over the country and became a symbol in the fight for civil rights. “One of the things I realized was that the photograph, and the opportunities I had to speak out on social justice as a result, created openings for me in Boston that I would not have had if I’d gone off to some other larger city,” says Landsmark, a 2022 recipient of the SPS Alumni Association Award. For Landsmark, who began his career as an associate at Hill & Barlow, that has meant gravitating toward work in public service and arts and culture and taking advantage of chances to travel and build new friendships. His first boss at Hill & Barlow was eventual Massachusetts Governor and U.S. presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, whose namesake Center for Urban and Regional Policy Landsmark now runs. In a career full of meaningful moments, Landsmark

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spent 17 years (1997-2014) as president/president emeritus of Boston Architectural College, where he helped secure accreditation for programs in interior design and landscape. Under his watch, the BAC also developed the first online architectural degree in the U.S. and nearly doubled its enrollment. With Landsmark’s vision, the school also helped to diversify the field by encouraging more women and people of color to enter design professions. He was elected president of the National Architectural Accrediting Board and the Association of the Collegiate School of Architects, and has served as board chair of the Institute of Contemporary Art and as a trustee of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the American Architectural Foundation. Prior to his tenure at BAC, Landsmark was graduate dean and special assistant to the president at Massachusetts College of Art and Design (1983-89). He also has served under three Boston mayors. In the early 1990s, Landsmark oversaw a program that reduced Boston’s murder rate by 80% over a two-year period. He was involved in the “Boston Miracle,” for which he worked with the city’s diverse community to “eliminate the racist elected Boston school committee and replace it with a committee that is now appointed by the mayor.” He also managed training programs in Charlestown and South Boston aimed at upgrading the job skills of undereducated residents, and was a member of the Mass Bay Transit Authority that proposed a program to offer free public transportation in underserved neighborhoods. In 2014, Landsmark was appointed by Mayor Marty Walsh to the five-member Boston Planning and Development Agency. He’s been called an unsung hero for social justice. “It’s hard for me to feel unsung,” Landsmark says, “because in my own fairly quiet way, whether it’s around education or employment, or opening up professions or working early on for the Equal Rights Amendment, I’ve gotten some recognition.” In his current role as distinguished professor and director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University, Landsmark teaches courses on public policy, researches voter wait times in several states, and is “still actively involved with the education of the next generation of public servants.” While the iconic 1976 photograph represented one of many transformative experiences for Landsmark, he says the post-graduate year he spent at St. Paul’s School in 1963-64 was “life-changing.” “The students had a sense of social purpose and a level of humility about who they were and who they would become,” he says. “It gave me a sense of what I could aspire to be.”

Social Entrepreneur

Judy Jordan ’79 centers her next act on empowering young women.

GREGORY GOODE PHOTOGRAPHY

n nearly 30 years of running her own winery, Judy Jordan ’79 admired the work ethic of the men and women who helped her cultivate the land and the community they built through supporting the wine industry. The impetus behind selling the successful J Vineyards and Winery in 2015 was a sense for Jordan that she was ready to begin what she calls her “second act.” So, with the help of her former “J” COO, she started a nonprofit program, Women Gaining an Edge (WG Edge), “in gratitude to our agricultural community with the sole purpose of empowering the next generation of young women.” To support the nonprofit, Jordan created a new wine brand, Geodesy, with 100% percent of profits supporting WG Edge. “The program provides aspiring participants with scholarships as well as connectivity to a network of women mentors,” explains Jordan, a 2022 recipient of the SPS Alumni Association Award. “The result is an intergenerational village of female leaders.” WG Edge, which launched in 2019, serves high school graduates, who enroll at Santa Rosa (California) Junior Jordan with some of the WG Edge participants. College with the goal of earning a degree in agricultural or natural resources. The cohort is linked to a village of strong female leaders from various fields who are comThough Judy’s family operated Jordan Winery, she mitted to “guide, inspire, and open doors for the younger branched off on her own in her late twenties to start J. generation.” Three years after its launch, WG Edge has Building a winery tested not only her business acumen, grown so much that Jordan is now partnering with a larger but also her management skills. In addition to finding joy organization that can amplify the in winemaking and in the customers number of young women supported. who fell in love with J’s offerings, The cohort is linked “As our region faced difficult Jordan came to cherish the company’s to a village of strong challenges — wildfires, COVID, and in-house junior mentorship program, drought — we witnessed incredible through which she first had a chance female leaders from resilience in our Edgers and unwaverto work with the children of agriculvarious fields who are ing dedication from the leaders in our tural workers. committed to “guide, village,” Jordan says. “They made the For most entrepreneurs, business purpose and impact of the program success is measured through financial inspire, and open even more powerful.” metrics. But for Jordan, ensuring the doors for the Jordan reflects on the idea of success of the next generation of agriyounger generation.” servant leadership that was instilled cultural leaders is the goal. By honin her during her years at St. Paul’s oring the legacy of the families who School. Though she knew little about the School when have served as the backbone of Sonoma County’s wine inshe applied as a teen from her home in Colorado, she dustry, she is giving back in a way that was ingrained in her found tremendous nurturing in the community and at St. Paul’s. made close friends for life. One of those friends was Sarah “I really did not like Chapel four times a week at 8 a.m.,” Bankson Newton ’79, who died suddenly in May 2021. Jordan admits. “But, in retrospect, I appreciate that we were Jordan credits Newton as the person who “inspired me reminded to begin our days in community with faithful and cheered me on as my team and I began this next act introspection and in service of others. Forty years later, of creating a local village of women and mentors.” She community and service are foundational tenets to WG Edge. now shares the Alumni Association honor in spirit with I like to think that a piece of our time in Chapel is being her friend. shared with each and every young woman in our program.” spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

REVIEWS

ON THE BOOKSHELF How to Bake a Universe Alec Carvlin ’11 Norton Young Readers, 2022 This whimsical and informed debut picture book takes a leaf from a cookbook to show readers how the universe came into being. Alec Carvlin ’11 breaks down the Big Bang into the steps of a recipe, from the formation of quarks and atoms (preheat your oven to Absolute Hot) to the compression of gases into stars and planets (just set your timer for 180 million years). Carvlin expertly balances mind-boggling facts with snappy storytelling, and Brian Biggs’s bold and contagiously cheerful illustrations bring the infinite down to the bitesized. How to Bake a Universe is an accessible and playful authority on the formation of the universe and a heartfelt commentary on how to live in it. The Blue Revolution Nicholas P. Sullivan ’68 Island Press, 2022 Overfishing has long been a worrisome problem with few answers. Many of the global fish stocks are at a dangerous tipping point, some spiraling toward extinction. But as older fishing fleets retire and new technologies develop, a better, more sustainable way to farm fish has emerged to profoundly shift the balance. Entrepreneurs applying newer, smarter technologies are modernizing fisheries in unprecedented ways. The Blue Revolution tells the story of the recent transformation of commercial fishing, an encouraging change from maximizing volume through unrestrained wild hunting to maximizing value through controlled harvesting and farming. Leading Sustainably Trista Bridges and Donald Eubank ’88 Routledge, 2020 Inspired by the launch of the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Leading Sustainability captures the ideas of more than 100 change-makers from

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around the world about how business is putting sustainability at the core of strategy to survive, thrive, and realign its interests with society’s. The book is a perfect guide for mid-level to senior managers seeking to understand this fast-changing business environment, how to factor sustainability into their decision-making, and why the SDGs changed everything. Serving Athena Julia L. Shear ’86 Cambridge University Press, 2021 In ancient Athens, the Panathenaia was the most important festival and was celebrated in honor of Athena from the middle of the sixth century BC until the end of the fourth century AD. This in-depth study examines how this all-Athenian celebration was an occasion for constructing identities and how it affected those identities. Julia Shear ’86 applies theories of identity formation developed in the social sciences to the ancient Greek material and brings together historical, epigraphical, and archaeological evidence to provide a better understanding both of this important occasion and of Athenian identities over the festival’s long history. A Beautiful Ending: The Apocalyptic Imagination and the Making of the Modern World John Jeffries Martin ’70 Yale University Press, 2022 In this revelatory immersion into the apocalyptic, messianic, and millenarian ideas and movements that created the modern world, the author performs a kind of empathic time travel, entering into the psyche, spirituality, and temporalities of a cast of historical actors in profound moments of discovery. He argues that religious faith — Christian, Jewish, and Muslim — did not oppose but rather fostered the making of a modern scientific spirit, buoyed along by a providential view of history and nature, and a deep conviction in the coming end of the world.

American Workman: The Life and Art of John Kane

Maxwell King ’62 and Louise Lippincott University of Pittsburgh Press, 200 pages

As he was completing a series of book appearances for his biography of Fred (Mr.) Rogers in 2020, Maxwell King ’62 turned his attention to a Scot who had emigrated to the U.S. in 1879 and began life in western Pennsylvania. Published in April, American Workman: The Life and Art of John Kane tells the story of a laborer in some of Pittsburgh’s most dangerous industrial settings, an alcoholic and brawler who nevertheless produced sensitive and beautifully intricate paintings of local lives and landscapes. King, who co-wrote the book with art curator Louise Lippincott, served as editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer before moving to Pittsburgh in 1999 as president of the Heinz Endowments. More recently, he served as president of the Pittsburgh Foundation. He spoke with Michael Matros. I didn’t know about John Kane until reading your book. What extraordinary landscapes this self-taught artist created. How did you first encounter him? The Heinz Endowments has a fine collection of local Pittsburgh artists in its offices. Occasionally we would employ a consulting curator or art dealer for advice on what we might look to buy. One local art dealer said to me, ‘I can’t believe you don’t have a Kane.’ I said, ‘A what?’ So he told me a little bit about John Kane’s life story, and I got interested.

After struggling most of his life in making a living and in his art, Kane’s persistence finally paid off during his later years, with acceptance of his painting and widespread renown. He never, ever gave up. He’d work a job for 10 or 12 hours a day and then spend hours drawing and painting. At the very end of his life, he achieved his goals in terms of both the making of art and the reputation that he built. In the book, you seem to avoid terms such as outsider or primitive artist, and folk artist appears only in a quote from someone else. I wonder how deliberate that was. It was very deliberate. I detest those labels. I think self-taught is okay. If I do a good enough job of telling the story, my readers could figure out how to characterize him if they want to. With Kane working as a steelworker and in other hazardous jobs, a fascinating part of your book explores the history of labor in Pittsburgh and the dangers involved for workers. I tried to learn as much as I could about both the history of steel and the railroads, but also the sociology at the time. The Pittsburgh Survey, a project to document the horrible living conditions of poor working people in the city, gave me a lot of material. You mention that the level of economic inequality of that time was matched again only recently in the U.S. I spent the five years before I wrote Kane running the Pittsburgh Foundation, where we remade the entire approach of the foundation to focus on vulnerable populations in Pittsburgh. I felt that’s the issue of our time, this awful inequality.

THE PITTSBURGH FOUNDATION

You never use the word ruffian, but you do write, “John Kane was always and foremost a tough guy.” So what would it have been like to have had a beer with him? He wouldn’t have stopped at one, and he would’ve been exciting, interesting, entertaining, and eventually a little frightening to hang out with. He was remarkably focused as a person on his work, not just his painting, but in all his jobs. But between that and his belligerent barroom brawling ways, and his lifelong struggle with drink, he would’ve been a tough guy.

Maxwell King ’62 is the former editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and president of the Heinz Endowments. He is the author of the poetry collection Crossing Laurel Run and the New York Times-bestselling biography The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers. He is the past president of The Pittsburgh Foundation. His American Workman co-author, Louise Lippincott, is a historian and former curator specializing in American and European art from the Enlightenment to the modern era. As curator of fine arts at Carnegie Museum of Art, she managed the largest John Kane collection in the United States. “Maxwell King and Louise Lippincott have achieved something quite remarkable with their insightful and balanced examination of a most extraordinary man, whose talent enabled him to elevate fleeting moments of ordinary life to works of art for the ages.” — Andrew E. Masich President and CEO Senator John Heinz History Center

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FORMNOTES These formnotes reflect information received through April 1, 2022. 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, NH 03301 or alumni@sps.edu. For reunion information, please visit sps.edu/anniversary.

1944

Link Wheeler (203) 246-7611

Warren Fisher moved to Lansdale, Pennsylvania, where his current activity is writing an illustrated history of Elizabeth I for his children and grandchildren. “Elizabeth was easily the most competent royal England ever had,” he says.

1950

Melissa Walters mwalters@sps.edu

Bill Farout writes: “I came to SPS as a Third Former from the Midwest. I repeated my freshman year of high school and went to summer school so I could graduate in 1950 and get into Yale. I did not know how to skate, play football, row, or study. The one sport we were all equal in was rowing. Since I had a year’s growth on my classmates and could keep rhythm, I rowed the first three years as second Shattuck. At that time, we did not realize that size does make a difference. As a Sixth Former, I made first boat. The night before graduation, I stepped on a board with a protruding nail that went through my foot. We treated the puncture with shaving lotion. I rowed well, but we lost by 2-3 lengths to a heavier Halcyon crew. I rowed for Yale the next year as a 150# and we won all three races. Yale canceled the 150# program, and I didn’t row again until I returned for my 50th SPS reunion, when our form challenged every form after ours. We won easily. Something I remember about rowing at SPS is that our coaches would never tell us what our times were. It is clear that it was an effort to keep the Shattuck/Halcyon system alive. Never mind that the SPS hockey team routinely beat the Harvard or Yale freshmen at Madison Square Garden.”

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Pieter Greeff ’54 shares a photo of one of his recent paintings.

A painting by Frederick Appell ’58.

1954

1958

Jay Cushman jcushman@gmail.com

Editor’s note: Soon after Alumni Horae received these notes from Form Director Ed Harding, we learned that he had died peacefully in his sleep. We thank him for his devoted service to St. Paul’s School and hold his family in our thoughts. Jim Darby writes with thoughts on this year’s milestones for rowing and women at SPS: “Since I had relatives who rowed, I could hardly wait to take it up as a sport when I got to SPS in 1950. I quickly realized I loved everything about the sport and happily rowed till I graduated, at which time I thought I’d never row again. I went out for lightweight rowing in college since I was a bit small for the heavies, and I discovered the same joy of moving swiftly through the water. But it was the other rowers that I especially enjoyed. They had the same nutty personalities of the guys I’d competed with back at SPS. Later in life, my dear wife signed me up for the Three Rivers Rowing Association in Pittsburgh and I again was paddling happily over the water as well as competing in the masters age group. I never dreamed I’d row again after college. Each year, Pittsburgh staged a huge regatta, The Head of the Ohio, and in 1996 I won a gold medal rowing in a Masters Mixed Crew of four women and four men. So, when you ask what rowing meant to me, I’d have to say that it meant practically everything.”

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

Allan Ayers writes: “I look up and thank the good Lord every day that he has given Joanne and me good health and a comfortable lifestyle. He has also guided us through Joanne’s back surgery and recovery last fall. I have been as active during the pandemic as I was before, including helping out fulfilling needs in both veteran and civilian programs and travel (a month in Northern Italy) when I was finally able to do that. The fun visitor walking tours I was doing in Chicago prior to the pandemic have been coming back slowly, mostly with younger people, so I’m only doing those occasionally. One of the most valuable things I did at SPS outside of the classroom involved the weekly trips to the Boys Club for MISH and developing my sense of giving to those in need. I have been applying lessons from that experience ever since.” Frederick Appell writes: “I’m living in San Miguel de Allende from October to May, currently with my daughter, the tennis player, who retired after 25 years. Paulies come and go and several live here. All are welcome. I’m about to undertake a low-cost limited equity demonstration building project for my church. If anyone has information, especially a copy of the legal documents, that would help. My hobby is painting, which some follow on Facebook. You can find me by typing in my full name. This summer, I’ll be back on Great Cranberry Island, off Acadia National Park in Maine, where I’ll overlap with Chaplin, Lukens and Nicholas, among those from other forms. My hips are done, I’ve lost weight, and I hope to get back to tennis as well as sailing, racing my boats, and rowing.”

Bill Eldridge ’59 aboard a hot air balloon in Dubai.

Frank Nelson ’59 (c.) with friends Vin Godleski (l.) and Ralph Jones. Ralph presented Frank with an SPS jersey to celebrate his St. Paul’s hockey days.

1959

the early summer of 2019 and moving into a new house in Rhode Island. Wonderful as the California years were, it is a joy to have them all close by and a heartwarming experience to have the chance to watch and participate in the early growth years of our granddaughters. I continue to slog away at my architectural work, happily but at an ever-slowing pace. Libraries have become my passion, and the two I am working on, one pro bono and the other a real, live building, will likely be my swan song projects. Recently, I was in a car accident in which I was hit in my 13-year-old Prius by a hulking SUV driven by a man who fell asleep and veered across a two-lane road and front-ended me at 30-40 MPH. I was unbelievably lucky to escape with minor cuts and bruises, a deep seat belt bruise, and a healthy whiplash, and I feel very fortunate and grateful to be sitting here writing this today. Just a reminder that we are not in as complete control as we may often think. I got the last laugh, however, when I picked up my new Prius.” David Atkinson writes: “My latest book, El Camino para Bolivia, is a journal of my 500-mile pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in 2014, in homage to

Sydney Waud swaud@compass.net

Bill Eldridge writes: “Since my wife died, I decided to do something only for myself, as time is shorter than we think. That something was a week in Dubai. I went over the desert in a hot air balloon, rode a camel, went scuba diving in the Arabian Sea, skied indoors at their huge mall, which had an elevation of about 500 feet, and attended Expo 2020, which had been postponed because of COVID. The Dubai architecture has some real innovative designs and construction was happening wherever you looked. I stayed at the St. Regis Hotel on Palm Island, UAE’s manufactured island in the shape of a palm, which became really apparent when viewed from the observation deck on the 52nd floor of The Palm, the name of the building within which my hotel resided on the first 16 floors.” Sam Callaway writes: “The pandemic took from us many of the travel and other plans we had for the last two years, but Jill and I are feeling overjoyed at our good fortune to have our daughter, her husband and granddaughters (ages 3 and 6) back east after eight years in California. They picked the perfect time to leave, arriving back here in

David Atkinson ’59 with his granddaughter, Charlotte Maria, who was born in December.

Martha Luz, the wife of David Atkinson ’59, performed the wedding ceremony of their son, Jonny, and his spouse, Matthew, on 2/22/22 at 2:22 p.m.

Bolivian friends and colleagues who adopted for their country in the mid-1990s a number of social, economic, environmental, and institutional reforms regarded around the world as models for developing countries. I had the privilege of serving during much of that period as representative of the Inter-American Development Bank, which supported those reforms. I think the roots of that pilgrimage lie as well back in Millville: Señor Angel Rubio, for my Spanish; Tennessee Boyd for getting me to go out for crew, which called for those beautiful walks out to Turkey Pond; John Eaton, for organizing that trip to Pamplona (located around mile 50 of the Camino) in July of 1959 to attend the running of the bulls and guiding me to a conversation with Hemingway; and Eliot Scull, who shared my love for long walks around Paris and the British Isles during the summer of that same year. Thank you, all.”

1960

Dimitri Sevastopoulo dsevastopoulo@gmail.com

Homer Boushey writes from San Francisco that he’s stayed on there with Ginny Thomison Boushey (Punahou ’61), whom he met at Stanford, now on their 58th year of marriage. Three children, five grandchildren, all in California (three can claim to be seventhgeneration San Franciscans). He says: “I retired in 2020 after 50+ years at UCSF, with singleyear interruptions for training/work in medicine in Boston, Oxford, and Paris, focusing always on diseases of the lungs and airways, especially on the causes and treatments of asthma, a disease that has increased alarmingly in prevalence over the past 70+ years. Studying ‘why’ led me to collaborate with local and international faculty experts in physiology, epidemiology, virology, and study of the relationships between the composition and function of the gut and lung microbiome and immune function. Hugely promising and hugely fun. I could not entirely give it up on retiring from UCSF and am now engaged with a brilliant fellow UCSF emeritus professor developing an utterly original approach to anti-viral therapies. One of the fun parts was its leading to reconnection with Peter Wright for his deep knowledge of virology. Also fun has been — and still is — life with Ginny and our family, museums, parks, ballet in SF, summers in Sonoma Valley, visits to our son and family at UC Irvine (great beaches). spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

COURTESY MICHAEL SYLVESTER ’59

“ALWAYS A TINKERER” Serial entrepreneur MICHAEL SYLVESTER ’59 has relied on persistence, patience, and perseverance in his success as an inventor.

hile anyone can observe problems in the world, and some may even imagine ways to fix them, Michael Sylvester ’59 has made creating those solutions his way of life. “I get intrigued with the path it leads you down, and I try all kinds of things to follow that path,” says Sylvester, who holds 10 patents and established six successful companies before his retirement two years ago at age 78. “It’s trial and error — and it’s fun.” One of his most successful inventions is the special silicone that holds cameras to the back of smartphones. Sylvester developed a way to cure the silicone with UV light, rather than with moisture, the most common — and much slower — catalyst. Through Sylvester’s method, by the time the phone reaches the packaging on the assembly line, it’s completely cured. Sylvester pitched his invention to Apple around the time the company developed the iPhone. It wasn’t easy getting an appointment with the engineers who work for the tech giant, but persistence — and Sylvester’s travel flexibility — paid off. “I was in Chicago when someone from Apple

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ASHLEY FESTA called and said, ‘You have an appointment at 4 p.m.’” says Sylvester, whose company, Novagard Solutions, now makes the silicone for many brands of smartphones. “So, I hustled to O’Hare [International Airport] to get on a flight to the meeting in California.” Sylvester has dozens of stories about his successful inventions, including his silicone grease, which is used on everything from bathroom sinks to airplane toilets. In frigid temperatures (think about the climate 35,000 feet in the sky), ordinary lubricants freeze. But not silicone grease, so the in-flight toilets still work even in that cold environment. (“It makes flying a lot better,” Sylvester jokes.) Another of his inventions, cross-country skis with a no-wax fish scale base, generated about $300 million in sales for Sylvester’s Trak Ski Company, which was the world’s largest cross-country ski business back in the 1970s. But because the skis were such high quality, Sylvester laments, he put himself out of business. No one needed to buy a second pair, and eventually the company went bankrupt. Other inventions have withstood the test

of time. After Trak closed, Sylvester started Novagard Solutions in 1977, led by his foam tape adhesive invention. Today, the thriving company manufactures advanced siliconebased sealants, adhesives, lubricants, and PVC foams, which have a wide range of uses for everything from electronics to automobiles to windows to pools and spas. Sylvester’s beaded silicone sealant makes up approximately 20% of Novagard’s $30 million annual revenue, making it hard to believe his first request for a patent was denied by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Convinced he had a brilliant idea, Sylvester traveled to Washington, D.C., and waited five hours to demonstrate the beneficial physical properties of beaded silicone, which was finally granted a patent by the USPTO sixth months later in 2008. Sylvester stresses that, to be successful as an inventor and entrepreneur, persistence, patience, and perseverance are essential. While he was “always a tinkerer” growing up, it was his stick-to-itiveness that helped him find success. “Never give up,” Sylvester advises. “Never, ever, ever give up.”

An SPS mini-reunion in Venice, Florida, included (l. to r.) Bob Stockman ’72, Lisa Stockman, Russ Ingersoll (former faculty), Pat Ingersoll, Art Sistare ’74, Marcia Matthews, and Bill Matthews ’61.

All made possible in part by habits of study and thought learned at SPS.” Christian Kurten writes: “I am active in a number of volunteer tasks, mostly related to boating. We have been able to avoid COVID-19 so far. The war in Ukraine is naturally of great concern to us. The distance from Helsinki to Kyiv is about the same as from Helsinki to the northernmost tip of Finland. We have an 800-mile border with Russia, by far the longest of any European Union member. Neither Finland nor Sweden are NATO members but are now busy reviewing the options. Getting another NATO member as a neighbour is about the last thing the Russians want, but it is anybody’s guess what they would actually do about it. Sanctions will be felt here, with 20% of exports having been to Russia (1% in the U.S.) but Finns support the sanctions almost 100%. We live in interesting times.”

15th grandchild in March, Josephine, to my son, Peirce, and his wife, Christina (no, Peirce does not have all 15). Also, my son, Major Jim Baehr ’01, married an extraordinary, beautiful, brilliant woman in New Orleans last fall.” Ray Payson is organizing a guided tree walk by nationally known arborist Matt “Twig” Largess (of Largess Forestry in Rhode Island) at the well-known Blithewold Mansion & Gardens in his hometown of Bristol. Blithewold.org is now a Level Two Arboretum and has numerous champion trees, including a 100+-year-old giant sequoia. Ray has been organizing tree walks over the last several years and has been responsible for the planting of many of the town’s street trees since 1995.

1966

Hugh Clark hclark@ursinus.edu

Ted Baehr writes: “Lots of news, producing a major yearly TV production, growing MOVIEGUIDE® to 43 million, my wife’s health crisis, but the most important is the birth of our

Denis Ransmeier writes: “I’m retired but any plans for retirement are out the window. It took a while, but about five years ago I figured out that my wife Ethel was developing Alzheimer’s, and my role as caregiver is now all-consuming. She can’t be left alone but thankfully, at her insistence years ago, we got a long-term care policy. So, beginning this past summer, I was able to bring in

Dave Evans ’63 (l.) visited David Gordon ’63 in Garrison, New York.

Jad Roberts ’64 with his first grandchild, Luca Roberts Aluise, whose mother is Jad’s daughter, Ellie ’08.

1964

Rick Sperry overcable@aol.com

H. Sellers McKee ‘64 celebrated his 75th birthday and Thanksgiving with his family, including son Erik McKee ’95.

a home health caregiver for about five hours a day, three days a week. I’ve been able to maintain my garden and orchard and I’m still the membership coordinator and a board member for the local chapter of Trout Unlimited. I’m not sure how much longer that will go on because, with COVID on the wane, in-person board and chapter evening meetings will resume and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to attend.” From Gordon Grand: “Jake, our youngest, his wife, Katie, and 3-year-old son, Owen, will move back to North Salem from Portland, Oregon, in June. He won two Emmys for his Nike ads and is now freelancing and writing a screenplay about the revolution in Anguilla in the ’70s. Cecily and I have been in Anguilla since December 14, but no SPS visitors this year. Been doing lots of scuba diving, hosting grandchildren, and we sailed from Nassau to Little Exuma in the Bahamas, where Cec grew up — first time back since 1985.” George Wheelwright shares: “After some 40 years of practicing real estate on the coast of Maine in Camden, I retired from Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty in November. With a focus on village and coastal properties within 30 miles north and south of Camden along the coast, my practice proved

David Bliss ’64 with his grandson, Liam Curtis.

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FORMNOTES

The 1966 crew competing at Henley.

Cousins Jeff Clark ’66 (l.) and Hugh Clark ’66 hiked the Wissahickon Trail outside Philadelphia in January.

remunerative, of course. But the most important payoff lies in the hundreds of meaningful relationships I’ve struck with buyers and sellers from all parts of the U.S. The memorable experiences and ongoing communications with these clients who’ve become friends continue to add sparkle and inspiration to my life. I haven’t completely disappeared from the real estate scene, as my license remains active well into 2023; for that special client or old friend, I’m easily called back into action. With her own 38 years of real estate experience, Jackie substitutes for me in the main, with recently married son Lewis living nearby and charting his own successful path after his six years of immersion in the Mid-Coast Maine real estate market. Daughter Christina, her husband, and two grandkids are just 20 minutes away. Not surprisingly, retirement per se proves to be a bumpy and somewhat uncomfortable process, as finding the “purpose and/or meaning of life” isn’t easily teased out of my interests in woodworking, golfing, learning to fingerpick James Taylor songs, or birding. If anyone has a book or resource to recommend to help point the way, be in touch. I hope you all are well as we cruise through/to our mid-70s. Most of us frittered away our moments at SPS, but now there’s a certain gratitude that comes from sensing the end game, and that makes me really appreciate the remaining minutes and relationship we enjoy now.” Andy Roberts and Jeff Clark got together to share these thoughts: “As we look back on the season of the 1966 Halcyon first crew, our main reaction is the improbability of our successes. This is for a number of reasons: St. Paul’s is only a small-to-moderate size school; we were the Halcyon first crew, not the SPS varsity; there were only two returning members from the 1965 Halcyon first boat; the ice

did not leave Turkey Pond until about late April; and our coach, Austin Higgins, could spend only half his time with us, since he had to work with both clubs. All these factors made it highly improbable that we would be fast enough to win the New England Interscholastics and later to reach the finals at the Henley Royal Regatta. In our journey to the finals, we defeated Washington-Lee High School, who had won the national schoolboy championship. We did have some strengths. Dick Dale was an exceptional coxswain, assistant coach, cheerleader, and sports psychologist. (Heaven knows, we needed all of the above!) Denis Ransmeier was a resolute captain. Sandy Dayton had become big that year, but the rest — twins George and Joe Wheelwright, Dan Drury, Skip Cook ’67 and the two of us — were just a collection of guys who rowed in the spring. Our string of victories ended in the finals at Henley. Emanuel School consistently had the fastest times in our competition and did so again that Saturday afternoon. Despite ending on a disappointing note, we both feel the crew was faster than any of us had imagined. It seemed to be an example of the whole being better than its component parts. At least for the two of us, this boat was the high point of our SPS experience.”

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George Wheelwright ’66 and Jackie.

John Ferguson writes: “Parkinson’s. I wouldn’t recommend it. There are new meds all the time but the one I need is still just over the horizon. I retired early in 2007, after teaching at Exeter High School for 30 years, had to give up editing the state poetry magazine and stopped my monthly poetry readings at the Water Street Bookstore in downtown Exeter. Mostly townies (like Dan Brown) with a smattering of my high school students. One night, my student, Tim, showed up in a rubber apron. He was on break from his dishwashing job down the street but had to read one of his own poems. Surprise of the year? I was feuding with a neighbor who later identified himself as Bill Warren, Matt’s son. It’s good the world reminds us of the past. Still living in Portsmouth with a son in the Navy and daughter teaching English near Harrisburg. (She asked us once why we never told her she’d enjoy teaching. Our answer? We tried, but you never listened.)”

1967/55th

John Landes jlandes1948@yahoo.com

Rick Wheeler writes: “The big news in our family is that our daughter Ginny is getting married in June to her longtime French partner, Francois Lavergne. They met at Oxford, where Ginny was getting her master’s in late antiquity Roman archeology and Francois was just completing his Ph.D. in advanced chemistry/physics. They are currently living in Bern, Switzerland, where Ginny is finishing her Ph.D. The wedding will be in Cognac. Our son, Nathaniel, who has been working as a program designer at Epic Systems in Madison, Wisconsin, is moving west and will shortly start at Google in Mountain View, California. I’m still active and having fun with several nonprofits, ranging from a school for the visually impaired in Philadelphia to

Lanny MacDougall ’67 aboard his 106-year-old traditional Dutch barge, Eendracht, in France.

a small but highly creative historical society in Maine (Ham Clark is the treasurer of the society). Mollie is working on a book on Cezanne landscapes. We are both trying to figure out how best to downsize.” From George Pillsbury: “I’m working with a friend to create a personal website — my career in philanthropy and voting rights, as inspired by my parents and New England and Minnesota ancestry of civic engagement. I hope to have it more or less ready by the reunion. Otherwise, a recent weekend of snowshoeing and skiing with Bruce McLane in Jackson, New Hampshire, reminding me of ski days at SPS.” From Lanny MacDougall: “In 2018, I purchased a 106-year-old traditional Dutch barge and have kept it parked in different ports in France since then. I work from there so we now call Eendracht our international office. I attach a few pictures for you to see because when I say barge in Pittsburgh, they think of coal barges. It is more like a very comfortable two-bedroom, two-bathroom floating, movable flat. She is 80 feet in length and fully loaded and weighs about 70-75 tons. On the canal locks, we have three inches to spare on each side, so it makes for exciting entrances. So far, each year I do a two-month sojourn on the French canals/ rivers in spring followed by two months in the fall. It is working out to be May and June and then September and October. Plus, now that we are moored in the heart of Paris, we have been going over there for the Christmas holidays with the family. This year we added a bit over three weeks onboard in December. We have found it to be slow living at its best.” Pierre Irving writes: “Here’s a pic of Kath and I in the Gulf Islands National Seashore with our truck camper, ‘Rosie,’ named in memory of John Steinbeck’s Rosinante in Travels with Charlie. The National Seashore is right across a bay from the Pensacola Naval Air Station, home of the Blue Angels, who practice every Wednesday. Unfortunately, we are not here on a Wednesday, but I have seen them come in from the Gulf and blast down Duval Street in Key West, which is your [John Landes’s] neck of the woods. We acquired Rosie last year and are on our second six-week spring exploration of the USA from our home in Newport. This time around we’re slowly making our way to Big Bend in Texas. It’s a fun way to experience our

Pierre Irving ’67 with wife Kathy on the Gulf Islands National Seashore with their truck camper, “Rosie.”

Eliot Larson ’69 (r.) and Dave LeBreton ’69 pausing on the Nordic Trail at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.

great country, and I’m assembling a detailed ranking of public showers, which I would be happy to share. I’ve been having a good time following old classmates I’ve stumbled upon on Facebook and Instagram.” Tom Beale shares: “I am approaching the end of my working career in quite a different situation from where I started half a century ago, when I spent six years at Harvard getting a Ph.D. in anthropology and Near Eastern archaeology (spending six seasons in the field in Baluchistan, Southern Iran). For most of the past 40 years, I’ve been in the investment world, starting a consulting business, working at an investment management firm here in Boston for a decade, working at the investment consulting firm Cambridge Associates for another decade (St. Paul’s was a client), and finally starting my current semi-retirement job in 2013, working here in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a small team to manage the personal wealth of Swiss billionaire Hansjöerg Wyss and his Wyss Foundation. Although I cannot disclose details of what we do, he and his foundation are easily Googled. Mr. Wyss is one of the world’s leading land conservationists and at the same time is trying to contribute to saving the planet from the ravages of climate change. He has saved more land in the American West from development than any other person on the planet over the past 30 years. In New York Times op-eds and other forums, he has pledged more than $1.5 billion to conserve more land around the world from development and reduce the impact of climate change. A significant portion of his wealth ultimately will go to this cause and to his other passion: promoting women’s health and economic opportunities. It has been a very satisfying and rewarding nine years growing the wealth

of an individual who can have such a global impact and whose goals align so well with my own interests. Along the way, there have been assorted side ventures that keep the job interesting. Last summer, he bid $600 million to save the Chicago Tribune (a similar move to Jeff Bezos’s purchase of the Washington Post), but the deal ultimately did not go through. Currently, as the UK papers have reported, he is part of consortium bidding to buy the Chelsea football (soccer) team from Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. His consortium is considered one of the top three serious bidders, but as of this writing, the outcome is still unknown.”

1969

Eliot Larson ewlarson@comcast.net

Paul Reingold is officially retired from the Law School at University of Michigan, which means he’s only working 40 hours a week on law stuff instead of 60. It’s been fun (sad emoji). He received the John W. Reed Michigan Lawyer Legacy Award this year for “turning students into great lawyers while demonstrating a commitment to teaching matched only by a passion for public interest law.”

1971

Dennis Dixon dennis.c.dixon@gmail.com

Dennis Dixon shares: “Hot off my fall 2021 road trip (10,304 miles in 37 days), wife Wendy and I headed north on Oct. 1 to “Mill Falls at the Lake” in Meredith, New Hampshire, for the 50th reunion for the Form of 1971, where we joined Dave Baldwin, Chris Blair, Horner Davis, Riker Davis, Chris Denison, Scott Fossel, Terry Gruber, Tony Hairston, Auty Hayne, John Howard, Bram Lewis, George Litterst, Kit Morgan, Scott spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

FORMNOTES

Members of the Form of 1971 gathered last fall for a reunion in Meredith, New Hampshire.

Jim Brooke ’73 skiing at Bousquet in the Berkshires, where he first learned to ski 60 years ago.

Nelson, Peter Oliver, Woody Pier, Jay Pike, Spence Rumsey, Peter Seymour, Trip Spencer, Byam Stevens, Fred Stillman, Gregg Stone, Bill Wood, Tiff Wood, and Wiley Wood (plus numerous spouses and significant others). Thursday’s activity was tennis, with a dinner together at a local watering hole. On Friday, there was a hike up Mt. Osceola. On Friday evening, the School was kind enough to bus us in for a moving Memorial Service in the Old Chapel for deceased members of the form, including, most recently, Leo Roemer and Howland Murphy. We were then trucked up to the Boathouse for drinks and dinner. On Saturday, there were many activities from which to choose. I went on the Lake Winnipesaukee boat trip with Capt. Terry Gruber. (“Of course I’ve driven one of these things before.”) The trip turned into a tour as we poked around every nook and cranny of the lake, eventually winding up at Tiff ’s sister’s house for a wonderful lunch. Hiking was offered in the afternoon; and non-lethal visits to the local hospital occurred both Saturday and Sunday (everyone was repaired and sent on their way). Saturday evening, we had a private function at the Chase House in

students in a national economics competition (held virtually) and the winners got an expense-paid trip to the New York Stock Exchange and a weekend in NYC. While I am still COVID conscious, I had breakfast/ brunch with Caryn Cross Hawk ’76 when she and husband Shawn were in New Orleans after their cruise. I am eager to greet many more of you when you visit New Orleans. Thanks to those who reached out during the recent tornadoes down here. Prep for our 50th begins now.

Meredith, with the highlight an entertaining revisit to our form’s past with a video created by Peter Oliver. We were joined online by members of our form (Ted Bohlen from Hawaii in his blazer, Hugh Schmidt from Wisconsin), as well as Rich Lederer, who is now in San Diego. Sunday morning, we all said goodbye and headed down the road, hoping to keep in better touch with each other in the coming years than we have in the past 50. Super thanks to Chris Denison (reunion committee chair), Tiff Wood (previous form director), and Fred Stillman (previous form agent).”

1973

This update from Jim Brooke: “Only a few months after we moved from Kyiv to Lenox, Massachusetts, Russia invaded Ukraine and besieged Kyiv. Since then, I have been doing a steady stream of press interviews, live lectures, and op eds. Ukraine’s determined resistance to Russia is not a surprise to me, but it should be inspirational to the rest of the world. Here are everyday people willing to risk their lives to defend freedoms the rest of us take for granted. That said, it is sad to read on Facebook of our expat friends leaving and of our Ukrainian friends surviving — camping out at unheated dachas or sleeping in underground subway stations. Putin’s war of choice is wreaking unimaginable damage on an otherwise normal European capital and country.”

1975 Formmates from 1971 (front, l. to r.) Bill Wood, Gregg Stone, (back. l. to r.), Wiley Wood, John Howard, and Bram Lewis hiked Mt Osceola in New Hampshire.

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Alden Stevens ahs@optonline.net

1976

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

Charles Baldwin writes: “I have finished my website, luxoreum.com, Latin for ‘the science of light.’ I began streaming video in 1995, so it’s been a long time coming. There are lots of interesting things on the site, so I hope you will check it out. For example, I can program a playlist of videos and basically create an online movie theater. I have also been podcasting classical music and trivia infor-

Dorien Nunez omniresearch@aol.com

I am busy with philanthropy, giving away online remote telescope access to Title 1 schools (Walter Hawley would be proud). Go to www.slooh.org for more info. I am also mentoring high school and middle school

L. to r.: Shawn Hawk, Caryn Cross Hawk ’76, and Lyn and Dorien Nunez ’75 met for Sunday brunch after the Hawks’ cruise ship docked in New Orleans, where Lyn and Dorien live.

mation gleaned from around the internet on QSKYradio.com. The program airs on Saturday mornings, 7-10 a.m. EST. As for SPS contacts, I had a fun talk recently with Gregg Townsend ’75 and I sent a Facebook request to John Tweedy ’78. It’s great keeping in touch.”

1977/45th

Jim Tung jcptung@gmail.com

Chris Aranosian writes: “After a 40-year career, mostly in the IT field, I retired in October 2021. Wife Liz and I got rid of much of our stuff, stored some things, and flew with still too many suitcases to sunny Mexico, where we have begun a new life. Our intention is to be slowly nomadic and try living in different places over time, until we settle on a new ‘home’ base. Over the last several months, we have spent varying lengths of time in PV, Guadalajara, Ajijic and Manzanillo, and we are heading back to Vallarta in April to stay until at least October. Beyond that, we hope to eventually try living in Europe and Southeast Asia. We currently spend our days doing things we enjoy and celebrating my new lowstress existence. Meanwhile, our son Beau now lives in Chicago and is working on an MFA in animation at DePaul. I send my best to everyone in the Form of ’77.”

1978

Nora Tracy Phillips noratphi@aol.com Jon Sweet jsweet1000@gmail.com

John Tweedy reports that he has edited a new documentary film about the African American experience in his hometown of Boulder, Colorado, called This Is [Not] Who We Are. The film won the People’s Choice Award at its

Jon Sweet ’78 (l.), Chris Chaffin ’90 (r.), and incoming Third Former Hutson Chaffin ’26 in Telluride, Colorado.

(L. to r.) Editor John Tweedy ’78 with co-directors Katrina Miller and Beret Strong (John’s wife), celebrating their film, This Is [Not] Who We Are.

Darrick Harris ’79 (l.) and David Myers ’78 met randomly in March at Arizona State University, where they were both visiting with family.

Colorado premiere and is now on the regional film festival circuit.

sition for angel investment opportunities. I’m also working on an open-source project just so I don’t forget how to code. My family (wife Paula and sons Arthur and Lucas) survived the pandemic mostly intact and we are looking forward to getting out again. Strangely, Paula and I were in New Zealand doing some Great Walks and visiting family just before the pandemic hit and later wondered why we didn’t just stay.” Albert Pleus checks in from Hawaii: “There are worse places to ride out the pandemic than Honolulu. Pam and I are blessed that our children have been here for most of it, including Christmas. Alexandra (29), who studied astrophysics at Princeton is teaching at Iolani School. Mitchell (25), who writes music and studied EE at Stanford is working in music-tech. And Allston (21) is studying tropical agriculture at UH (although his degree might be in gaming). A few years ago, I joined the board of the Variety School of Hawaii for learning-challenged children. Very few things are as rewarding. Just beginning to realize that time, so am trying to spend it wisely. We would be delighted to entertain any classmates who wander out here.”

1979

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

Anne Waskiewicz Benning reports: “In late February, I went to Madison, Wisconsin, to live through the last gasps of the Dane County mask mandate and visit my daughter, Claire, who is in grad school there. Besides hiking through the snowy woods and trekking across the frozen lake with Claire, I managed to catch up with Amy Matthews Feins over dinner in beautiful downtown Delafield, where she is finishing up at Nashotah House Theological Seminary. I’ve missed the last few reunions, so it had been far too long.”

1980

John Maeck mwfarmcsa@gmail.com

Richard Wesley shares: “Two years ago, I retired from Tableau after 15 years and am now spending my time studying the energy tran-

(L. to r.) Jon Sweet ’78, Penelope Place Gleason ’76, and Arthur “Quarry” Bingham ’78 reunited in Telluride, Colorado.

Albert Pleus ’80 shares a photograph of his family from Christmas.

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FORMNOTES

1981

Carl Weatherley-White spsform81@gmail.com

On a Saturday morning in March, Chase Robinson and Bishop Toby Howarth led our form in a fascinating discussion about Islam and its historical and contemporary relationship with the West. Both Chase and Toby have made the study and teaching of Islam core to their lives, having each earned a Ph.D. in Islamic studies, and they offer a very different approach to this vital topic. Chase is a scholar with extensive knowledge of Islamic history and culture, and he managed to tie the myriad strands of Islam together to shed light on current themes and challenges. Toby has a deeply religious perspective, and his stories about interacting with Muslim communities in working-class England provided a window into his practical and thoughtful approach to bridging cultural divides. Natalie Wolcott Williams aptly brought the discussion to an optimistic conclusion, with observations about a recent trip to Ethiopia, where Muslims and Christians have created a vibrant culture that blends the two traditions. Huge thanks to Chase and Toby for their generous time, as well as to those who participated: Natalie, George Soule, Ned Doubleday, Phil Azar, Lixy Paradis Carey, Sam Reid, Bill Duryea, Biddle Duke, Michael DeVegvar, Polly Boswell Wakeman, Brooke Southhall, Frank Wozencraft, Jim Lowe, Julie Mott, Andrew Emery, Hadi Taheri, Ian McIlvaine, and John Duer. We plan to have more webinars with members of our form in the future. Please look out for announcements.

1982/40th

Lou Adreani laadreani@comcast.net

Jane Petzold Enterline updates: “Walt and I are splitting our time between Boulder and Winter Park, as we scrape and build a home in Boulder. Well into empty nesting, we sold our family home and bought the house next door, which (to put it mildly) was overdue for a replacement. We’re having fun designing a carriage house out back with a woodworking studio for Walt. And then we will tackle the main house. Our daughter, Cora, is graduating from NYU this year, and our son, Will, has one more year at DU. I am still tutoring math (online these days) and looking forward to reconnecting in person with, 42

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Trisha Patterson ’82 with goddaughter Lucy Caffrey ’20 and her dog, Archie (named affectionately after Board President Archie Cox ’58).

Trisha Patterson ’82 (l.) and Susan Emery ’83 enjoying a pandemic coffee meet-up.

well, everyone. And I am hoping to make it to our reunion in June.” This from Doug Clark: “I continue to split my time between Toronto in the summer and Naples, Florida, in the winter. Married almost 30 years. My daughter is a lawyer in Chicago and my son is a junior in college. I’m looking forward to life getting back to normal, including attending our 40th reunion.” Jennifer White Callaghan shares: “We are still in Washington, D.C., enjoying the emergence from COVID rules. Meg is in fifth grade, so we are contemplating middle schools. I’m still managing the pro bono group for the U.S. offices of Allen & Overy, a dream job despite the 24/7 work on Afghanistan (it has been a privilege to work with our Afghan clients and the people across all walks of life who have been involved in this work). Richard is now CFO of Invisible Children and enjoys that role. I still swim, though entirely in pools these days; I miss the ocean. We continue to cook and bake and walk our wonderfully mellow dog, Charlie Brown, and have finally started to think about travel, going to plays and concerts (Tedeschi Trucks last month, in fact), and restaurants, movies, museums again. If you’re in D.C., please stop by. We are always ready for a BBQ, rain or shine.” Sally Rousse wrote from Miami, where she was visiting Nia Chiodo ’81. Clo Dickey Giffen shares: “Cheers from Anchorage, Alaska. We are celebrating spring and the return of daylight. With deep late-season snow and new powder everreplenishing, the skiing and winter biking are prime. This season will be our eighth and last of cheering on high school baseball. Yup, Bruce and I will be empty nesters next fall. Our older son, Luke, is studying civil engineering at Colorado School of Mines, and Sean will start as a baseball student-athlete

at Cornell College in eastern Iowa next year. Fully retired, we have dreams to fulfill, so let’s dream on.” From Blair Kloman: “So fun seeing what everyone’s up to. I recently escaped the less-than-palatable Vermont January and moved to Lisbon, Portugal, for a month. I’m still working remotely on a bunch of websites, so I figured I’d find some sunshine and adventure to go with it. Lisbon’s an incredible city, and I highly recommend it.” Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers writes: “I’m still living in the Syracuse area and on the path of music and writing. In the last couple of years, as performing opportunities have been limited, I’ve leaned more toward teaching (primarily courses on creative writing and songwriting at Syracuse University, and my own guitar and songwriting workshops), in addition to my ongoing work for Acoustic Guitar magazine. I just released a single called ‘Hippie Hair (for the First Time),’ and sharp-eyed classmates may notice a brief appearance of the Rhythm Method in the video, thanks to a clip from The Pelican saved in a scrapbook. Props to Tina Pickering for noticing. Find the song at https://smarturl.it/hippiehair if you’re curious.”

Andy Block ’83 (r.) and Charles Jakosa ’83 on a recent visit.

Louisa Benton shares this news: “I’m in Palm Beach, where I am on work assignment for two months. Nice to be in the warm weather, but I had a scare three weeks ago when I was riding my bicycle here, got rear-ended by a car, and rushed to emergency. I fractured the C1 vertebra at the very top of the spine, no neurological involvement. I just have to wear a hard collar for three months while the fracture heals. I’m moving and walking and working. Feeling very lucky and grateful. Sure is a wakeup call that every second is precious.” Réné Pallace shares: “It’s simply wonderful that you continue to gather us here. I enjoy everyone’s news, but dear Louisa — hope you heal quick. In these strange times, our family is blessed to thrive. We have three daughters, two married. Martha and Sawyer are in Denver and expecting our first grandchild this summer, and Charlotte and Max are in Austin. Sybil is in New York. Our home base has been Baltimore City, so we are sadly on the front lines of much tension, hate, and violence. We persist and hope for better times. I have a very rewarding practice as a grief coach and Dan is busy in commercial real estate.” From Anne Dickinson Barber: “We sent our youngest two off to college this year and I proudly watched my daughter turn from a rural New Hampshire girl to a fearless New Yorker. She is at Adelphi and her twin is at UNH. Our oldest is launched. She lives in D.C. and is the education coordinator for a residential facility. My husband and I fantasize about the A-Liner we are going to buy when we no longer have to pay tuitions. We celebrated our 23rd anniversary in October. I’m still a small-town lawyer, and I love it. I think it is the only way I could survive practicing law. Sadly, COVID was good for my business and my husband’s as well; but that was also good as we are both self-employed and it took a long time for COVID aid to come to small businesses. I write fiction with my writing group and sing with my family. We have a mutt puppy who is adamant that she is the center of the universe. And sugaring weather is just around the corner.” Julie Perry writes: “Still teaching fourth grade, enjoying the snow on cross country and backcountry skis, and looking forward to biking season again when roads thaw.” Ben Scully writes from South Korea: “Still living in Busan. I just realized that my updated

Heidi Kuhn, widow of Jim Kuhn ’82, with their son, Fritz, and daughter, Vienna.

number of quarantine days in total since COVID began is now 94 days. Sigh. Busan is great, the Miami Beach of Korea. Life here continues to be full of new surprises. I have the pleasure of working with a great guy from the troubled southwest corner of Korea called JeolloNam Do. Shotgun (his chosen English name from a bruising internship on a pig farm in Iowa) previously introduced me to his hometown specialty of fermented (rotten) skate, which my French colleague very aptly named ‘toilet fish.’ We recently ‘tackled’ baby live octopus, which is basically MMA meets sashimi. I don’t recommend it either. Still waiting for Doug Lee to swing by from Hongkers to really test my Korean skills.” Rufus Clark adds this note: “All is well and we feel very fortunate to have our son, Brett, and daughter, Charlotte, in the Boston area so that we can see them on a regular basis.” Heidi Kuhn, widow of formmate Jim Kuhn, sends this family update: “After considering a move to Rancho Santa Fe (San Diego), Texas, or North Carolina, I visited dear friends in spring ’20 who’d just bought at Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert, California. Spur of the moment, I decided to move and am thoroughly enjoying the full social calendar at Bighorn, friendly, happy people, 3x/week golf lessons, and a healthy, warm lifestyle. When a couple of planned overseas trips were canceled, I spent July and August in NorCA with my mom, who unfortunately lost her husband in March to congestive heart failure. Fritz is 21 (looks exactly like Jim) and doing great in his junior year as a math major and economics minor at NYU. He’s close to campus, exploring art in his free time, and loving his runs/bike rides. Tons of

Front row (l. to r.): Kathy Carnighan Kuhn, Beth Strong Lyman, Jill Forney, Sarah Hinman Whittle, Pam Lloyd Gleeson, Tracy Brown Barsotti; second row (l. to r.): Nina Rowe Ward, Abby Caldwell Walsh, and Cee Cee Gammon Belford at a mini-reunion of the Form of 1986 in Healdsburg, California.

Fritz’s friends from around the world (from two years at school in China) have been able to visit him. Vienna’s job in business development at Amgen was remote from the start of (Sept. 2020), so in 2021 she spent a month in Florida with friends all working from home, three weeks in Colorado skiing, time in D.C., and did other work-from-home trips with friends. In June, Vienna (23) moved to NYC and is making new friends, running in the park, and exploring NYC nightlife. She and Fritz hang out frequently. We are so grateful to be healthy and be able to spend time with friends and family.” Chuck Doucette shares: “I’m still married to my lovely wife, Ellen. We moved to Watertown, Massachusetts in the fall. We are raising two young boys. The oldest just turned eight and the youngest is about to turn seven. My proudest accomplishment of the last ~20 years is that I got to row in my third Head of the Charles Regatta. This year, it was with Porter Gifford stroking.” Forbes Black writes: “Still living the good life in Santa Clarita, biking to work, and marveling that my son is in high school and my daughter is about to graduate from UC Santa Cruz. I’ve been dating a lovely young lady (four months younger than I am) who was coxswain on Brad Copithorne’s freshman boat at Stanford. She was friends with Jim Kuhn as well.” This from Edward Marchese: “As for updates, I’m working in the wine world these days as a writer and part-time consultant. I have several articles online about wine and its peripherals, on the Grape Collective website. Just finished a short beginner’s guide to wine, selling on Amazon as an eBook, spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

FORMNOTES

John Meeks ’91 (r.) got in some good runs for his 49th birthday with SPS friends (l. to r.) Chris Heinz ’91, Sasha Heinz ’97, Howard Walsh ’92, and Steve Hermsdorf ’91 in Montana.

Over MLK weekend, Caitlin Riley ’96 (r.) and Katie Volkmar ’96 reunited to drink in some California sun on the Big Sur coastline.

LaMar Bunts ’87 on a recent trip to Kenya.

which was No. 1 for a time in its subcategory slot — What You Wanted to Know About Wine (But Were Afraid to Ask). It’s short, fun, and explains the basics in a way that’s easy to understand. I keep in touch with Kate Deane, Marnix Koumans, Rhonda Roberts-Brennan, and Cam Sanders ’83 thanks to texting. I keep up with other Paulies through FB posts, like Forbes Black; and was happy to see Dr. Marshall join the group. Looking forward to seeing the changes to SPS at the reunion, and to catching up with other classmates.” Manley Williams writes: “My eldest daughter, Olivia Ireland, is doing City Year in Washington, D.C., (City Year was started by Mia Khazei’s older brother, Alan Khazei ’79). It’s grueling but she loves it enough that she extended her service to a second year.”

mainly in the U.S. for work. Still loving the social media world and running my agency, Socialtyze. I also launched a new music and wellness platform.”

home, I’m living in a construction zone in Brooklyn with my husband, David, as we fill our empty nest with the distraction of major renovations. Crazy dusty, but deeply satisfying. I was so happy to see Eliot Hoyt last June and Helen Fairman in August — and I’m looking forward to seeing more of you at our upcoming gathering this June.”

Alexandra Strawbridge Maurer mainestraw@gmail.com

Our classmates connect in all sorts of ways. Jane Kalinski and I met up at Bucknell while visiting my freshman and Jane’s senior. So good to see each other in central Pennsylvania and have their kids connect. We can’t believe our children are now older than the age we were when we first met.

1986

Helen Fairman hfairman@comcast.net Harold Bost hbost2@me.com

John Bohan shares this update: “After 28 years in Los Angeles, I moved to Hawaii with my wife, Linda. Kids are up and gone to college and grad school. I will be spending about six months here and six months traveling,

Liz Bigham Hotson updates: “My favorite project at work as CMO of Burford Capital addresses the gender and diversity gap in commercial litigation and arbitration. Called The Equity Project, we passed the $100 million milestone in matters funded in February 2022 — a proud moment, and I’m excited to keep developing this initiative. At

Formmates from 1989 at Tom Noe’s Pixie Island house in September. (L. to r.): Jessica Rogers Mellon, Kevin Saleeby, Matt Mallgrave, Tom Noe, Gretchen Kelly Giumarro, and Dennis Lynch.

Don Pillsbury ’87, Alberta Neilson ’87, and Alexandra Bailliere ’88 connected over dinner in San Francisco in February.

1983

1984

Icy Frantz icy@icyfrantz.com

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1991

Jose Leos joseleos@gmail.com

John Meeks writes: “All is good in NorCal for our family. Trying to get John Junior ’22 across the finish line. Had some good runs for my 49th birthday with SPS Allstars Chris and Sasha Heinz ’97, Howard Walsh ’92 and Steve Hermsdorf in Montana.”

2002/20th

Virginia Russell virginia.w.russell@gmail.com

Diana Wade wishes everyone a great Anniversary Weekend, even though she can’t celebrate with you. She will be in Italy preparing for her Ph.D. dissertation defense in international trade law and emerging technologies at Università Bocconi.

Brian Berlandi ’89 (l.) ran into Matt Mallgrave ’89 at a Trinity-Pawling vs. Kent School hockey game in February.

COURTESY MURRAY BUTTNER ’85

THE GOOD DOCTOR Murray Buttner ’85 has found his calling as a multitasking physician in rural Alaska.

n October 2019, Dr. William “Murray” Buttner ’85 was standing outside the air port near his home in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, preparing to send his daughter off for the weekend. It was then that he saw an incoming aircraft miss its landing, careen off the runway, and skid toward the water. Within minutes, Buttner was inside the downed plane, where he tended to the only critically injured passenger on board, a man who’d been hit by the propeller after it crashed into the cabin. Just weeks before, Buttner had traveled to Wisconsin to complete the Comprehensive Advanced Life Support (CALS) class, a series of trainings that guide physicians and first responders in critical lifesaving care in the most remote environments. As the chaos of the scene unfolded around him, Buttner was able to focus strictly on his patient, a young father who ultimately died from his injuries. Amid the heartbreak, however, the experience proved validating for Buttner. “I was able to put to use what I’d learned,” he says. The event highlighted the many different roles a family doctor such as Buttner has to play in a place like Dutch Harbor, a rural community located 800 miles from Anchorage along the Aleutian Chain.

IAN ALDRICH “I knew some of the people on the plane,” says Buttner, who began working in Alaska in 1997 and is co-medical director of Dutch Harbor’s Iliuliuk Family and Health Services clinic. “We don’t have the number of emergencies that a big city does, but we do have emergencies — ATV accidents, snow machine accidents, moose stompings. It’s not like a bigger city hospital where you’ll see someone after they’ve been seen by an emergency crew. You’re often the first person — or the only person — [to direct care].” Within days after the plane crash, Buttner began collaborating with different state medical organizations to bring the CALS training to Alaska. The following May, dozens of healthcare providers from 15 rural locations across the state came to Anchorage and completed the course. More trainings are on the docket, including plans to bring them directly to small communities like Buttner’s own. For that work and for his many years as a doctor in Alaska, Buttner was named a 2021 Community Star by the National Organization of State offices of Rural Health. The award goes to one healthcare provider in each state. “It was really nice to get because I truly

love being a rural family doctor,” says the 55year-old. That fact that this Easton, Connecticut, native is doing it so far from home is a surprise — and it’s not. Buttner, who did his undergraduate work at Yale and earned his medical degree from Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, found his calling while working as a young doctor at New York City’s St. Vincent’s hospital during the height of the AIDS epidemic. “It was patient-oriented work, like a family practice,” he says. “I felt like I was making a difference.” And he didn’t want to give it up. Over the next several years, Buttner worked in several other locations — New Mexico, India, back in Connecticut — before finding a permanent home in his wife’s native Alaska. He hasn’t spent a second regretting the move. For Buttner, the work, the life, and the people he’s met are everything he wanted from his medical career. “I’m making an impact,” says Buttner, the father of two teenagers. “You feel very alive out here. We’re out in the middle of nowhere and every week I look around and just think, ‘I can’t believe I get to live and work out here.’ It’s incredible.” spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

FORMNOTES

Kathryn Duryea Wyndowe ’00 and her husband, Matt, welcomed a son, Charles James Wyndowe, in September.

Los Angeles Paulies Caitlin Durham ’96, Fran Merrill ’96, Morgan Stewart ’95, Matt Cohen ’96, and Ken Kim ’96 gathered at Fran’s home in early March to welcome old friend Amanda Schreyer ’96 to town.

2005

Lindsay Kryzak sancti.pauli@gmail.com

Kim Lofgren married Kurt DeVylder on September 11, 2021. It was an especially joyous celebration after two postponements due to the pandemic. Paulies in attendance included Kim’s sister and matron of honor Inger Karlsson ’00, Stefan Karlsson ’98, and Lindsay Deane-Mayer ’04. The wedding took place on Cape Cod, where Kim’s parents reside. Kim and Kurt have settled down in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, where Kim works as a pediatric nurse practitioner and Kurt has a general law practice. They also run (and live on) DeVylder Farm, an apple orchard and farm stand, which is open to the public in the fall.

2006

Jenna Lloyd-Randolfi jlloydrandolfi@gmail.com

Elizabeth Mitchell ’06, married Tejas Sathian during a two-day celebration in September outside Park City, Utah.

2009

Will Ferraro writes: “On October 23, 2021, I married Grace Tiedemann at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. My sister, Ellie Ferraro ’19, was a bridesmaid. Grace and I met as classmates at Harvard Law School and now live in Washington. If you are in the area, let me know.” Joshua Lesser shares: “I was selected as one of 2.5% of Texas attorneys under 40 years old as a Thompson Reuters 2022 Rising Star.” Steph Wagner and Leticia Dwomor, former Kitt III roommates, have been enjoying each other’s company since they are both doing their medical residencies in Providence, Rhode Island. “This year,” Steph writes, “we even got to work with each other in several operating and labor rooms, with Leticia as the OB-GYN and Steph as the pediatrician. There’s nobody we would rather see across the room in the middle of the night at an emergency delivery. And though we were both working over the holidays, we even got to share Christmas dinner together, as pictured. Leticia will be finishing up training this spring and staying in Providence. Steph has a few more years to go in becoming a pediatrician/child psychiatrist, but is particularly glad to have such good friends around since she and her husband Jacob welcomed their child, Nelson, in February 2022. Let us know if you pass through Rhode Island.”

2011 Steph Wagner ’09 (l.) and Leticia Dwomor ’09 worked together over the holidays, and were able to enjoy Christmas dinner together. 46

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

Liza Rollins lizarollins91@gmail.com

Paul Plaisir paul.plaisir@culver.org

Alec Carvlin writes: “My debut picture book was released on March 1, 2022, by Norton Young Readers with a starred review on Booklist. It’s called How to Bake a Universe, and I will be reading it, for free, at more than 70 public libraries across New England during

the spring and summer. Information on the dates for these readings can be found on the book’s website at howtobakeauniverse.com.”

2015

Annie Gray Burge anniegrayburge@gmail.com

Kerry Swartz writes that she and her boyfriend are moving to Cleveland, where she will begin medical school at Case Western Reserve University.

2018

Haley Fuller hefuller@me.com

William Yuen Yee writes: “I was recently selected as the 2022 Michel David-Weill Scholarship Laureate — the first-ever candidate selected from Columbia University. The scholarship is awarded each year to one American student in the U.S. and fully covers the cost of tuition and living expenses during a two-year program at Sciences Po in Paris. I will be pursuing a master in international governance and diplomacy, and I plan to further study international trade and the USEU-China triangular relationship. I also was awarded the U.S. State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship to study Bahama Indonesian this summer in Malang, Indonesia.”

2019

Angus Gruner angusgruner@gmail.com

Steven Wang, a junior at Columbia University, was selected as a 2022 Goldwater Scholar. This is one of the most prestigious awards for undergraduate researchers in the natural sciences, engineering, or mathematics. Steven writes: “I want to offer to help guide any future SPS students/alumni who are interested in applying for this award. The process is quite tricky, and I think my experience could really help future candidates.”

Valerie Ho ’04 and husband Erick Hsu welcomed their first baby, Joshua Hsu.

Kim Lofgren ’05 married Kurt DeVylder on September 11, 2021.

Minda Stockdale ’06 married James Boland on September 18, 2021, in Peoa, Utah.

Eli Mitchell ’06 married Tejas Sathian in September. Pictured (l. to r.) are Eleanor Foote Harte ’06, Alyssa Kopp ’06, Eli, and Bret Lineberry ’06

At the wedding of Will Ferraro ’09 and Grace Tiedemann are (l. to r.) Ellie Ferraro ’19, the groom and bride, and Will’s brother, Peter Ferraro.

Mannat Saini ’09 will be starting her final leg of medical training with a fellowship in gastroenterology in Phoenix — and driving across the country from New York with her new pup, Mimi.

Web Thompson ’16 and Trisha Patterson ’82 at a regatta in Philadelphia.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

COMMUNITY

Her Purpose: Environmental Stewardship

A Call to Climate Action

Event celebrating 50 years of coeducation inspires and informs on the topic of environmental stewardship.

Diana Propper de Callejon ’80

Abigail Dillen ’90

n April 19, three alumnae were joined by Rector Kathy Giles and Katie Allen ’23, co-head of the student Eco-Action club, for the fourth installment in the School’s yearlong conversation about the paths taken by women graduates of SPS, “Her Purpose: Environmental Leadership.” The virtual discussion, featuring Grace Bulltail ’00, Diana Propper de Callejon ’80, and Abigail Dillen ’90, showcased the many forms that particular sense of purpose can take. Bulltail is an assistant professor teaching environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Propper de Callejon is a managing director for a holding company focused on impact investing, and Dillen is the president of the nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice. The event was one of the cornerstones of the School’s observation of Earth Week. Giles started off the conversation by outlining the extent to which today’s St. Paul’s School teachers and students are engaged with the issues of climate action and sustainability, pointing to the Albert P. Neilson ’48 Chair in Environmental Stewardship and Education held by Nick Babladelis and his work with the Farm Team, Eco-Action, and more. “This is a conversation we weren’t having when I was at SPS,” said Dillen. Bulltail noted that it took work to

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

Grace Bulltail ’00

find things that spoke to her experiences and concerns as an indigenous woman and that she hadn’t always had the language to know what those things were. Propper de Callejon shared that she was inspired to be a pioneer in her field — that of moving capital to solve environmental and social problems on the world stage. In a conversation that could have been long on doom and despair, the panelists provided notes of hope. Bulltail pointed to the effectiveness of grassroots efforts in tackling environment-adjacent issues, particularly for underrepresented communities. Propper de Callejon saw optimism in the fact that there are young people — like Allen — ready to take up the mantle of environmental activism. Dillen noted that businesses are moving away from prioritizing shareholders and toward emphasizing social issues and consumer preferences. “People want to know where their products come from, what’s in the food they eat,” Dillen said. “That’s different from when I was at school.” The School’s culminating celebration of coeducation — an in-person panel of female SPS teachers, former teachers, and administrators — will take place on June 11, during Anniversary Weekend.

Virtual Fireside Chat

“You Have to Be Ready”

Ted Landsmark ’64 spoke with Michel Martin ’76 about the personal attack that changed his life.

One of this year’s Alumni Association Award recipients n March 31, Michel Martin ’76, the Emmy-winning weekend host of NPR’s “All Things Considered” (see p. 30), Landsmark says he credits in part the SPS class and a former SPS trustee, engaged professor and room discussions about ethics and the meaning of shared responsibility and a shared sense of civil rights activist Ted Landsmark ’64 community with his ability to recogin a virtual fireside chat about his “it wasn’t until after nize the moment as something larger life experiences. that I realized, than himself. In the decades that have The wide-ranging conversation, followed the assault, he has been able hosted by the Alumni Association standing there, use the experience — and the publicity BIPOC council, touched on the circovered with blood from that came with the publication of the cumstances that brought Landsmark to New Hampshire from Harlem a broken nose, that I’d nearly photo, taken by Stanley Forman — to advance important conversations during the brief era in which the been killed.” about race and civil rights. School enrolled post-graduate stu“That’s a large part of what I try to teach at this moment,” dents; Landsmark’s experience with busing and racial integration in both New York and Boston; and the Pulitzer- said Landsmark, the director of the Kitty and Michael winning photo for which he is perhaps best known, in which Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northhe is depicted, bloodied, as an anti-integration protester eastern University. “We are all, at some point or another, in a larger historical, ethical, and family context. We need prepares to attack him with an American flag. “Because it happened so quickly,” Landsmark said of the to be ethical about who we are and what we do in those 1976 incident, “it wasn’t until after that I realized, standing moments, and my sense was you never know when you’re there, covered with blood from a broken nose, that I’d going to be called upon to have to say the right thing. When that moment comes, you have to be ready.” nearly been killed.”

Ted Landsmark ’64

Michel Martin ’76

Visit www.sps.edu/alumnievents for a list of future alumni events, and to register. Follow us on social media for information on SPS gatherings

StPaulsSchoolNH

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

PLANNED GIVING

Where the magic happens. Legacy gifts change lives and transform institutions. Legacy gifts impact the student experience for generations. Legacy gifts allow you to share your values with the world. Legacy gifts protect the best of the past and nurture hope for the future. Simply put, legacy gifts make magic happen. Donors can use charitable remainder trusts, charitable gift annuities, life estates, qualified charitable distributions, life insurance, and more to strengthen SPS both now and in the future. Please consider allowing us to help you develop a planned giving strategy that meets your philanthropic goals, minimizes your tax obligations, and protects your heirs.

To learn more, please contact: Phillip Blackman, director of planned giving, at 603-229-4781, pblackman@sps.edu. 50

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

IN MEMORIAM The section was updated April 7, 2022. Please note that deaths are reported as we receive notice of them. Therefore, alumni dates of death are not always reported chronologically. 1934 — Francis Huger McAdoo, Jr. Jan. 26, 2022 1940 — Thomas W. Streeter April 5, 2022 1944 — Charles Partridge “Charlie” Boswell II Feb. 26, 2022 1945 — John Singer Lancaster Jan. 14, 2022 1948 — Edward Cole “Ted” Coolidge April 5, 2022 1948 — Lawrence M. Noble, Jr. Feb. 21, 2022 1949 — W. Bliss Carnochan Jan. 24, 2022 1949 — Thomas E. Inslee Jan. 15, 2022 1949 — James Bailey Laughlin Jan. 25, 2022 1950 — Peter Mansfield Phillips Jan. 27, 2022 1953 — Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr. March 8, 2022 1953 — John Oscar Bagot Sewall Feb. 21, 2022 1954 — Edward Parish Harding April 4, 2022 1954 — John Galt Zimmerman, Jr. March 16, 2022 1957 — J. Anthony Mountain Feb. 23, 2022 1959 — Loring Catlin Feb. 19, 2022 1959 — David B. Vietor Feb. 8, 2022 1960 — Trustee Matthew Andrews “Andy” Baxter Feb. 21, 2022 1963 — James Sherman “Jim” Harvey Nov. 23, 2021 1969 — David Kemp Coombs Feb. 5, 2022 1977 — Elizabeth “Beth” Frank Jan. 21, 2022 FORMER FACULTY Maurice R. “Bud” Blake Feb. 9, 2022 FORMER STAFF Acel L. Quimby, Jr. Feb. 13, 2022

1934 Francis Huger McAdoo, Jr. a charming man with natural empathy, died on Jan. 26, 2022, in Bennington, Vermont. He was a month shy of his 106th birthday and was the oldest living alumnus of St. Paul’s School. He died peacefully in his bed with his youngest son, Preston, holding his hand and his lovely Dr. Hearst wielding the stethoscope. Mr. McAdoo was born in New York on Feb. 25, 1916, to Francis and Ethel McCormack McAdoo. He was the grandson of William G. McAdoo, the secretary of the treasury under President Woodrow Wilson. His step-grandfather, Captain Isaac Emerson, invented Bromo Seltzer and founded the Emerson Drug Company in Baltimore, Maryland. After graduating from St. Paul’s School and Princeton University, Mr. McAdoo married the love of his life, Cynthia Stowe Heffron, in 1939. He was 23 and she was 18. In 1940, he left Columbia Business School to enlist in the U.S. Navy. After some training in Chicago and Newport, he became the skipper of a PT boat in New Guinea and eventually the commander of a PT squadron of 11 boats with the mission of breaking up the Japanese supply lines. OBITUARY POLICY UPDATE Alumni Horae is honored to provide space to remember and celebrate alumni after their deaths, and the tradition of printing obituaries remains unchanged. The process by which we do so has been updated to better utilize the obituaries written by families of the alumni — to include the words of those who knew them best. As such, Alumni Horae will accept all obituaries written and submitted by family members. We also will continue to list the names of deceased alumni in the magazine when we learn of their passing. And, we will reach out to those families who have not submitted obituaries to see if they would like to submit written tributes. All pieces will be edited for length and style and adapted to include any relevant SPS-related background. The final pieces will appear in the next possible issue of Alumni Horae. Families of deceased alumni can submit obituaries or tributes of no more than 400 words in length to alumni@sps.edu. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

IN MEMORIAM He served with distinction and returned home in 1945 as a Lt. Commander, decorated with a Silver Star. During those years, his sons William G. McAdoo and John H. McAdoo ’63 were born. A third son, Preston F. McAdoo ’67, was born in 1949. Upon his return, Mr. McAdoo went to work for the Emerson Drug Company, sweeping floors, loading trucks, and quickly working his way up to become president of the company in 1954. Meanwhile, he and Cynthia bought a 120acre farm in a beautiful little river valley north of Baltimore, where they built a house, a barn, and many fences; they proceeded to raise sheep on a relatively large scale. The farm was a success, but sales of Bromo Seltzer dwindled as the U.S. Food & Drug Administration demanded, one by one, the removal of its best ingredients. On top of this, Mr. McAdoo had to fend off a hostile takeover bid by persuading his stockholders not to sell to the new company despite an attractive stock price. He later successfully merged his company with Warner-Lambert in Morris Plains, New Jersey. In 1962, he went to work for Warner-Lambert, becoming a vice president and special assistant to the president, Alfred Driscoll, a former governor of New Jersey. Upon their arrival in New Jersey, the McAdoos bought 60 acres of a wooded hillside overlooking the town of Oldwick. They built a house and started culling and planting trees. Well into his nineties, Mr. McAdoo could be spotted in the woods with his tractor and his chainsaw, tending to his saplings, with his socks pulled up over his pants to fend off the ticks. He was an avid skier who improved his technique the older he became. He also was an excellent sailor and could navigate in the fogs and tides of Maine with pinpoint precision. In 2015, Francis and Cynthia, accompanied by their devoted nurse, Galina Berdnikova, moved to North Bennington, Vermont, so their son, Preston, could keep an eye on them. Mr. McAdoo had a certain charm and natural empathy that drew people to him, and he had a large circle of people he considered family. He remained devoted to his wife to the very end. After her death in 2015, Mr. McAdoo ate his meals surrounded by photos of her and spoke of missing her every day. Shortly before he passed, he asked his nurse, “Who is this woman standing here in sparkly white clothes?” Galina didn’t see anyone there. Mr. McAdoo is survived by his three sons; six grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

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1944 Charles Partridge “Charlie” Boswell II a warm-hearted former college administrator, hockey coach, and ski racing official, died in Sunapee, New Hampshire, on Feb. 26, 2022. He was 96. Mr. Boswell was born in Rochester, New York, on Nov. 8, 1925, to Alda Will and William Oliver Boswell of the Form of 1892. He arrived at St. Paul’s School as a First Former in the fall of 1938 and embraced his six years at the School, during which time he served as a Chapel warden and supervisor, sang in the Choir, and was a member of the Missionary Society and the Rifle Club. He played football and hockey for Isthmian. He graduated early in 1944 in order to enroll in the V-12 Navy College Training Program, enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps and serving in World War II. Mr. Boswell was designated an expert marksman, thanks to his SPS Rifle Club training. He was stationed on the island of Peleliu in the South Pacific, to which he returned 50 years later to attend a commemorative gathering of American and Japanese survivors. At the conclusion of the war, Mr. Boswell traveled Europe extensively, before following generations of the Boswell family to Hobart College in Geneva, New York. After graduating in 1950 with a B.A. in economics, he worked for General Motors in Rochester. In 1955, he returned to Hobart and embarked on a 40-year career at the college, serving in several administrative positions, including admissions, financial aid, and registrar. Mr. Boswell founded the hockey program at Hobart and coached the team for a decade. He also served as faculty advisor for his Sigma Phi fraternity for more than 40 years. He retired in 1985. In 1962, he married Martha Woodbury Park in the Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul at St. Paul’s School. Profoundly influenced by the values instilled in him at SPS, Mr. Boswell lived a life of service to the educational institutions he loved. Always eager to raise funds for his beloved schools, he served as class agent for many years for both St. Paul’s and Hobart. He led annual funds, athletic associations, and was a member of the Hargate Society at SPS.

When not working on behalf of education, his playful spirit guided the rest of Mr. Boswell’s time. An avid athlete, he competed in various sports throughout his life, from playing tennis and squash to participating in countless golf tournaments and masters ski races, including the National Alpine Skiing Championships. He served as a race official at alpine skiing events, among them the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. In their retirement, Charlie and Martha divided their time between Francestown, New Hampshire, and Rockport, Massachusetts. A great lover of the outdoors, he supported many wilderness nonprofits over his lifetime. The beautiful grounds of SPS sparked in him a love of the New Hampshire landscape in particular, which, in his later years, he sought to help preserve as a trustee of the Nature Conservancy’s New Hampshire chapter. Kind, comedic, and magnanimous to a fault, Mr. Boswell had a friendly smile and a joie de vivre that will be missed by all who knew him. He is survived by his wife of 59 years, Martha; his two children, Polly Boswell Wakeman ’81 and Charles Partridge Boswell III ’82; and nine grandchildren. Other SPS relations include his brother, William O. Boswell II ’40, and his uncle, Charles O. Boswell of the Form of 1889.

1944 John Singer Lancaster of Barnard Vermont, died on Jan. 14, 2022, at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire. He was 94. Born in Quebec City, Canada, in 1927 to Herbert D. (Form of 1921) and Elizabeth S. Lancaster, Mr. Lancaster held Canadian and American citizenship. As a child, he lived in Quebec City and Montreal. In 1936, he returned with his father to Rye, New York, and continued his early education at Rye Country Day School. He entered St. Paul’s School as a Second Former in the fall of 1940. Mr. Lancaster was originally affiliated with the Form of 1945, but graduated a year early. At SPS, he sang with the Choir, wrote for Horae Scholasticae, competed with Old Hundred, and was a member of the Rifle Club and the Boxing Club. Following his first year at Yale (1944-45), Mr. Lancaster enlisted in the U.S. Army. After completing basic training

in early 1946, he served with the occupation troops stationed in Germany, working as a truck and ambulance driver, a mechanic, and an electrical maintenance technician. Before leaving Germany, Mr. Lancaster earned the rank of Staff Sergeant. He was honorably discharged in the summer of 1947. He returned to Yale in the fall of 1948, and graduated with a B.A. in English and history with the Class of 1951. In the spring of 1952, Mr. Lancaster married Virginia Manny. The couple first met on Elm Street in Woodstock, Vermont. The first year of their marriage was spent on the Craven Farm on Lakota Road in Barnard, Vermont, raising cows, pigs, and chickens. In 1953, the Lancasters purchased an old farmhouse in Barnard and, in March of 1954, the first of their four children was born. Between 1944 and 1954, Mr. Lancaster worked as a colonel’s aide and driver, a ranch hand on the King Farm in Texas, a maintenance and electrical worker and truck driver for Stimets Electrical Services, a staff editor at the Valley News, and as a carpenter’s helper, farmer, logger, and caretaker. After he married Virginia, Mr. Lancaster had two stints as a truck driver, including one in 1956 with L & H Trucking, operating a 10-wheel Ford tandem. Wanting to spend more time with his growing family, Mr. Lancaster settled down with Virginia and their two sons. He spent a short time working as a printer at Lizzlyn Press and as a carpenter’s helper with Frizzell Contracting. On his own, he installed Hi-Fi equipment for area residents. In the early 1960s, after their daughter and youngest son were born, Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster opened a small children’s clothing store, Lancaster & Sons, in Woodstock. It was sold to the owners of the Woodstock Inn in 1966 and became part of the Inn’s complex. Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster then turned their attention to home-schooling their two youngest children. This led to the establishment of the Turkey Hollow School, an alternative school located at their home on Lime Pond Road. Mr. Lancaster served as the business administrator and as a part-time teacher. He engaged the students in outdoor activities, including caring for horses, sugaring, and nature exploration in the woods. Over the years John’s equipment sheds grew as he worked to keep fields mowed and roads open. Pickup trucks, rotary mowers, a tractor with a bucket, a used bulldozer, lawn tractors, half a dozen chain saws, and weed whackers helped him maintain the family homestead. He was always out mowing lawns and meadows, moving hay, and cutting and splitting wood. He was also involved in his community by serving on the Barnard Planning Commission and as town moderator. He also served as a lister in Barnard for more than 15 years. Mr. Lancaster was predeceased in 2007 by his youngest son, John H. Lancaster, and in 2020 by his wife, Virginia. He is survived by his two sons, Richard and Justin Lancaster; his daughter, Gina Lancaster; eight grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and his sister, Jane Lancaster. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue III 21/22

IN MEMORIAM

1949 W. Bliss Carnochan the Richard W. Lyman Professor Emeritus of the Humanities at Stanford University, died of congestive heart failure at his home in Portola Valley, California, on Jan. 24, 2022. He was 91. Mr. Carnochan was born on Dec. 20, 1930, the son of Gouverneur M. and Sibyll B. Carnochan. He grew up in Manhattan, where he attended The Buckley School, before entering St. Paul’s School as a Second Former in the fall of 1944. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Missionary Society, served on the Student Council, was a supervisor, wrote for The Pelican, and competed in football, baseball, and hockey. He lived for the summers, which he spent at his grandparents’ farm in Bernardsville, New Jersey. There, he loved to roam the property, climb its many trees, help bring in the hay, and read books. He went on to Harvard. There he earned his A.B. (1953), M.A. (1957), and Ph.D. (1960). After completing his undergraduate degree, he “passed an idle year” at New College, Oxford, where he continued rowing. In 1960, Mr. Carnochan joined the faculty at Stanford as an assistant professor. As an academic, he focused his teaching and writing on the literature of the British 18th century, with the work of Jonathan Swift at its center. He preferred the seminar format and the give-and-take of a lively discussion. He also served as chairman of the English Department, dean of Graduate Studies, and vice-provost of the university. He considered 1986 to 1991 as the most rewarding years of his academic career, when he served as the second director of The Stanford Humanities Center, having helped to conceive the idea of the Center. Mr. Carnochan’s publications included some 20 books, among them Lemuel Gulliver’s Mirror for Man, Confinement and Flight, Gibbon’s Solitude, and The Battleground of the Curriculum; dozens of articles and monographs; and scores of reviews. After his retirement, he turned to address contemporary issues. The Death Penalty and Prison Reform was the product of several visits to the Louisiana State Prison at Angola and a years-long correspondence with the editor of The Angolite, the inmate publication. His

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books about African explorers were written after visits to Tanzania looking for elusive traces of his uncle, who had studied zoology at Harvard and collected snakes for the Washington Zoo. A trustee of Mills College and the Berkeley Art Museum, Mr. Carnochan chaired the board of the Athenian School in Danville. He also served on the Overseers Committee to Visit Harvard College. After retirement, he wrote a modest but engaging memoir, Momentary Bliss. In Confessions of a Dodger Fan, he described the mixed blessings of being passionate about baseball. With his own Scottish origins keenly in mind, he also wrote Scotland the Brave, about the country’s national identity and some of its manifestations in America. His always-lively and intimate sense of our national past helped to create the core of who Mr. Carnochan was as a scholar, writer, husband, father, friend, and man of broad interests. Those interests included expertly collecting memorable American folk art, riding horses, and playing tennis with Stanford colleagues. As a fan, he attended the French, British, and U.S. Open tournaments. As a transplant to California, he remained a Dodgers fan and also became a fan of the San Jose Sharks and Golden State Warriors. He was a big fan of the music of Bob Marley. For about 20 years from the early 80s on, the Carnochans spent their summers on Martha’s Vineyard, where they built a house, made friends, and enjoyed their children and grandchildren on the Vineyard’s beautiful South Beach. Essential to his character and personality was Mr. Carnochan’s sense that moving to California proved to be a “liberation” of sorts. Never one to trade on lineage, his view of his distinguished ancestry was one of slight bemusement. Gouverneur Morris was a family name preserved through the generations — but one which he also bestowed on his last and beloved Labrador, who answered happily to “Morris” and lounged at his feet as he wrote in his study. Mr. Carnochan’s friends remember many things; his generosity, wit, erudition, wide-ranging conversation, and humility, as well as his deep, rich, contagious laughter. His children remember that he was present: every graduation, athletic event, birthday party, grandparents day, or theater performance: He Showed Up. Bliss Carnochan is survived by his wife of 42 years, Brigitte; his four children from his first marriage to Nancy Carter Edebo; Lisa Carnochan, Sarah Carnochan, Gouverneur Morris Peter Carnochan, and Sibyll Carnochan Catalan, and their families; a stepdaughter, Erika Jurney; seven grandchildren; and three step-grandchildren.

1950 Peter Mansfield Phillips

1959 Loring Catlin

a family man and active community participant, died at home on Jan. 27, 2022, after a brief illness. Mr. Phillips was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on July 1, 1932, the son of Victor and Mary Phillips. He enrolled at St. Paul’s School as a Second Former in the fall of 1945. At SPS, he played football, soccer, hockey, and tennis for Isthmian and competed with Halcyon. Mr. Phillips sang with the Choir and Glee Club and was a member of La Junta, the Rifle Club, the Golf Club, and the Missionary Society. He continued his family’s tradition of attending Harvard University as a member of the eighth generation to do so, and graduated in 1954. While at Harvard, he completed his ROTC Navy training and went on to serve in the Mediterranean for two years on the U.S.S. Smalley. His career began at the Hanna Mining Co., where he worked for 20 years. In 1973, Mr. Phillips and his family moved to Tiburon, California, where he served as vice president of Marcona Corp. Mining Co. After 30 years in the mining industry, he transitioned his work to focus on the healthcare industry. In 2004, he and his wife, Coulie, retired to Palm Desert, California, where he continued to work in the healthcare space. Mr. Phillips had many passions, including sailing, railroads, all things military, and history. Above all else, he loved his family. He took great pleasure in watching his grandchildren grow up and having his daughters close by. He was very active in his community and will be greatly missed for the impact he made on countless lives. Mr. Phillips is survived by his wife of 67 years, Maryann “Coulie” Coulson Phillips; his daughters, Deborah Phillips and Pamela Henderson; and granddaughters, Alexandra and Meghan Henderson.

died on Feb. 19, 2022, surrounded by his family, after living with Parkinson’s in his last years. Mr. Catlin was born on Oct. 21, 1941, in New York City, the son of Daniel and Doris Havemeyer Catlin. He enrolled at St. Paul’s School as a Third Former in the fall of 1955, where he rowed in the first boat with Shattuck, played football and hockey, served as a Chapel warden, and was a member of the Library Association, Le Cercle Français, and the Missionary Society. He graduated cum laude. He studied at Harvard, graduating with his A.B. in 1962. In June of that same year, Mr. Catlin married Susan “Susie” Johnson. They enjoyed nearly 60 years of marriage until his death. Mr. and Mrs. Catlin raised their three children in Greenwich, Connecticut. Mr. Catlin earned his MBA from Harvard in 1965 and had a 50-year career as an investment advisor in New York City and Vero Beach, Florida, where he and Susie moved in 1992. Throughout his life, Mr. Catlin dedicated many volunteer hours to the boards of the Hospital for Special Surgery, the China Medical Board, and Indian River Memorial Hospital. In 1979, Loring and Susie bought a summer home in Dublin, New Hampshire, where the Catlin family had deep roots. That home was a creative endeavor for the couple and continues to be a source of great joy for the family. Mr. Catlin is survived by his wife, Susie, who devoted herself to his care; his three children, Loring, Jr., Elizabeth ’85, and Alexander, along with their spouses; seven grandchildren, including Eloise Catlin ’19; and his four siblings and their families.

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IN MEMORIAM

1964 Eugene Hildreth “Gene” Bayard

1969 David Kemp Coombs

of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, died on Oct. 30, 2021. He was 75. Mr. Bayard was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, on June 19, 1946, to A.I. du Pont Bayard (Form of 1936) and Jane Brady Hildreth Bayard. He attended Tower Hill School, before enrolling at St. Paul’s School as a Third Former in the fall of 1960. At SPS, he competed with Isthmian in soccer and basketball and rowed with Halcyon. He also served as an inspector and was a member of the Palamedian Society, Rifle Club, and Yearbook Committee. He earned his B.A. in 1969 from Princeton University, and his J.D. from the University of Virginia in 1974. At Princeton, he was a member of the 21 Club, the nonpolitical social organization Right Wing Club, and the Ivy Club. Mr. Bayard practiced law in Georgetown, Delaware, for 47 years. During his professional life, he served on the boards of a number of Delaware nonprofit and for-profit corporations. Immediately prior to his death, these included Delaware State Fair; Delaware Wild Lands, Inc.; Chesapeake Utilities; Harrington Raceway & Casino (chair); O.A. Newton; and J.G. Townsend, Jr. & Co. He was a member of the Bayou Club, Kings Creek Country Club, Wilmington Country Club, and Wilmington Club. Mr. Bayard is survived by his wife, Diane; two daughters, Molly Bayard Brittingham and Avery Bayard; three brothers, Richard H. Bayard ’67, John F. Bayard, and William B. Bayard; his sister, Jane B. Curley; their families; and by the family of his deceased brother, A.I. du Pont Bayard, Jr. Other SPS relations include his grandfather, Thomas F. Bayard (Form of 1885), great-uncles Philip Bayard (Form of 1891) and Philip du Pont (Form of 1897), and uncles Thomas F. Bayard (Form of 1931) and James A. Bayard (Form of 1936).

a teacher, businessman, and outdoorsman, died peacefully in his sleep on Feb. 5, 2022. He lived a wonderfully varied life. Mr. Coombs was born on July 23, 1951, the son of The Very Reverend Richard and Barbara Coombs. His early years were spent living at the deanery at St. John’s Cathedral in Spokane, Washington, where his father was dean. He relished learning to climb the rocks across the street and reading great adventure stories. Mr. Coombs entered St. Paul’s School as a Second Former in the fall of 1964. He excelled in cross country and was a member of the Outdoor Club. In his Sixth Form year, as St. Paul’s was considering coeducation, he was one of several students who participated in a six-week exchange with Concord Academy in Massachusetts, where he made friendships he maintained throughout his life. Mr. Coombs received a B.A. from Harvard, where he studied anthropology. He then earned an MBA from Boston University and a master’s in English from Washington State University. From those early years climbing the rocks on the Cathedral close, Mr. Coombs developed a lifelong love of climbing that took him around the world. He was a member of the 1983 American alpine team that made the historic first ascent of the East Face of Mt. Everest through Tibet, and his years of experience contributed significantly to the team’s success. Mr. Coombs also reached the summits of Cho Oyu in the Himalayas, Denali, “The Big Stones” in Yosemite, Mt. Fairweather, Mera Peak and the Khumbu, Kilimanjaro, and many other peaks throughout the Swiss Alps. Mr. Coombs loved teaching, whether it was junior high English at St. George’s in Spokane, high school English at Potlach (Idaho) High School, introducing young people to mountaineering, or guiding people in business. His extensive business career centered on improving product design and efficiency. He worked for Boston Whaler and Safeway before starting his own company, Coombs Manufacturing.

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Upon moving to Boulder, Mr. Coombs spent several years as a consultant, assisting such companies as John Deere and Toyota and large hospital entities to implement new efficient systems in product design, manufacturing, and management. As a lifelong member of the Baha’i faith, family, friends, community, and traditions were most important to Mr. Coombs. He proudly owned the family recipe for plum pudding that had previously only been passed down to Coombs women, was quick to make a birthday cake, and enjoyed preparing dinners for family and friends. Mr. Coombs was predeceased by his parents and his sister, Margaret Coombs Farris. He is survived by his children, Sarah Elizabeth Jewett Coombs and David Frederick Jewett Coombs; his sister, Catherine Coombs Moye ’76; his brother, Peter Richard Coombs; and numerous nieces and nephews.

1977 Elizabeth “Beth” Frank who was an English teacher in China, a federal attorney, and a regional director for Special Olympics before she found herself called to the Episcopal priesthood in her fifties, died suddenly on Jan. 21, 2022. She was 62 and a resident of Uniontown, Ohio.

Born on July 29, 1959, she was the daughter of Paul A. and Elizabeth B. Frank. She enrolled at St. Paul’s School as a Fourth Former in the fall of 1974, where she played field hockey, soccer, and basketball, wrote for The Pelican, and was a member of the John Winant Society. Rev. Frank earned a history degree from Princeton in 1981 and worked in China for four years as a teacher and business consultant. She graduated from Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 1988 and, after a stint at the U.S. Justice Department, enforced fair housing standards for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 2005, she joined the Special Olympics of Fairfax, Virginia, as a regional director. Those chapters of her life represented an unusual path to the priesthood, but Frank told Alumni Horae in 2016 that it worked well for her. She also credited the friends she made at St. Paul’s for playing a pivotal role in helping her find her calling. In 2008, a group of women from the Form of 1977 gathered in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to celebrate their 50th birthdays. On a Sunday morning, Frank offered to lead an informal service in the living room. At the time, she still wasn’t sure the priesthood was the right choice, but her path became clear as she prayed with her formmates. Beginning in 2013, when she completed her M.Div. at Bexley Hall Seminary, Rev. Frank served as a professional interim Episcopal minister. In addition to parish ministries, Rev. Frank was involved in global mission. She served as vice-chair of the Standing Commission on World Mission of the national church and was active in the Diocese of Ohio companion relationship with Belize. She also served as a trustee of the Diocese of Ohio. Rev. Frank is survived by her father, Paul A. Frank, Jr.; an uncle, John V. Frank; her brother, Paul A. Frank III, sister-in-law, Lucinda, and their children, Gwen and Paul IV; and her uncle, Edmund Frank, his wife, Jo Su, and their daughter, Valerie; and her beloved dog, Leo.

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FACETIME

Next Generation Leader Mariana Zobel de Ayala ’06 is stepping up to help lead her family’s business and make a difference in the Philippines. In the Filipino business world, the Ayala Corporation needs no introduction. Founded as a distillery in 1834, the family-owned conglomerate is now the largest corporation in the country, with business interests in retail, real estate, banking, telecommunications, healthcare, renewable energy, and more. Mariana Zobel de Ayala ’06, whose father served as CEO of Ayala Corp. for many years, has long had a front-row seat to the conglomerate’s growth and diversification. Now, as VP and deputy head of marketing at Bank of the Philippine Islands, she is one of several eighth-generation family members who’ve been carefully prepped to help steer the corporation deep into the 21st century. “There was pretty deliberate exposure,” she told Bloomberg News last year. “The generation above us, gen seven, really looked to try and understand through this exposure ... where our personal interests and strengths aligned with what the business needed.” Alumni Horae contributing writer Ian Aldrich caught up with Zobel de Ayala to talk about the importance St. Paul’s School made in her life, how she has navigated her career, and what it means to help carry the mantle for such an esteemed family business.

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How did your time at St. Paul’s School impact your career and leadership roles? SPS was where I tested myself as a leader — as a prefect, on the MISH council, as a student admissions officer, as captain of the squash team. It was a safe space where I could experiment with managing teams and fellow students. That experience gave me the confidence to continue testing and growing my leadership skills. You’re a member of the eighth generation of your family to helm the business. What does that mean to you? It’s definitely a privilege, and one I don’t take lightly. I feel lucky to have had the example of many generations of visionary and hardworking family members, as well as the professionals and executives who have led the business forward. Perhaps an equal pressure to that of the weight of my family’s history is the talent and experience of the professionals and executives I have the opportunity to learn from and work with.

MCKINSEY & COMPANY

As a woman, what kind of challenges have you faced in the business world? I’m lucky in that the Philippines has a history of many strong, influential, and respected women in both the public and private sectors, as well as in both large and small communities. That being said, I believe there is work to be done in continuing to even the playing field for men and women. What’s at stake for getting that right? The issue of equality is one of national importance. It is about building an empowered and productive workforce, to be able to maximize on the promise of the country as a whole. In 2013, after a two-year stint with JP Morgan in New York, you returned home to work for the Ayala Corporation. Why was that important to you? I felt the opportunity to contribute to the development of the Philippines and learn from the breadth of opportunity across Ayala was a unique combination. Had I stayed in

financial services, it would have been more focused, but I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn about the intricacies of other industries, such as real estate, energy, telecommunications, and healthcare, and the impact and potential these industries have on the development of my home country. Where do you see your career heading over the next decade or so? I am really enjoying working for [Ayala’s] BPI Consumer Bank, where I get to wake up every day thinking about how to support the Filipino consumer in reaching his or her goals and aspirations, and how to excite them along the way. It is especially fun to sit in the crossroads of a business that is transitioning quickly into the digital world, and among a consumer base that is particularly open to that. I hope to continue adding value — and raising the standards — of the Filipino consumer across real estate, banking, and telecommunications.

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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

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120 CREW MEMBERS. 40 BOATS. 6 RACES.

Community The SPS Fund The power of The SPS Fund comes from the collective generosity of you and hundreds of others like you. Added together, your gifts provide flexible dollars to fund every facet of school life. The SPS Fund is the bridge between the true cost of a St. Paul’s School education and what is funded by tuition and endowment dollars. Because of you, we can continue to provide an exceptional and transformative SPS experience for every student, every year.

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