The Exeter Bulletin, summer 2023

Thank you.

You made the di erence.

Thanks to your support, students like Maxwell learn to unite goodness and knowledge and forge meaningful relationships that last a lifetime.

I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to attend the Academy … for the friends I’ve made here and the community I’ve found.

—Maxwell Li ’23

The Exeter Bulletin

Principal William K. Rawson ’71; P’08

Director of Communications

Robin Giampa

Editor Jennifer Wagner

Contributing Editor

Patrick Garrity

Class Notes Editor Cathy Webber

Sta Writer

Sarah Pruitt ’95

Production Coordinator

Ben Harriton

Designers

Rachel Dlugos

David Nelson

Jacqueline Trimmer

Photography Editor Christian Harrison

Communications

Advisory Committee

Daniel G. Brown ’82, Robert C. Burtman ’74, Dorinda Elliott ’76, Alison Freeland ’72, Keith Johnson ’52, Yvonne M. Lopez ’93

Trustees

President Morgan C.W. Sze ’83

Vice President

Deidre G. O’Byrne ’84

Una Jain Basak ’90, Bradford Briner ’95, Wole C. Coaxum ’88, Suzi Kwon Cohen ’88, Elizabeth A. “Betsy” Fleming ’86, Scott S.W. Hahn ’90, Ira D. Helfand, M.D. ’67, Paulina L. Jerez ’91, Giles “Gil” Kemp ’68, Eric A. Logan ’92, Cornelia

“Cia” Buckley Marakovits ’83, Samuel M. Maruca ’73, William K. Rawson ’71, Christine M. Robson Weaver ’99, Michael J. Schmidtberger ’78, Peter M. Scocimara ’82, Sanjay K. Shetty, M.D. ’92, Leroy Sims, M.D. ’97, Belinda A. Tate ’90, Kristyn A. (McLeod) Van Ostern ’96, Janney Wilson ’83

The Exeter Bulletin

(ISSN No. 0195-0207) is published four times each year: fall, winter, spring and summer, by Phillips Exeter Academy 20 Main Street, Exeter NH 03833-2460

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SUMMER

YOON

S. BYUN

“WHAT I’VE LEARNED FROM THIS SCHOOL IS THAT SOMETIMES IT'S EVEN BETTER TO LEAVE A CLASSROOM OR A SPACE WITH MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS. ”

IN THIS ISSUE

Features

26 Senior Class Highlights from Exeter’s 242nd Commencement celebration.

34 Striking a Chord

New music composition competition brings student work center stage. By

Debbie Kane

40 Mind Over Matter

Mental health advocate Raymond Braun ’08 and his inspiring journey to wellness.

By Andrew Faught

44 Forever Connected

The enduring bonds forged between teachers, coaches and classmates. By

Sarah Pruitt ’95

Departments

6 Around the Table: New trustees, retiring faculty tributes, Founders’ Day Award and more

19 Inside the Writing Life: Emily Barr ’76

22 Sports: Storey-Bensinger Fountain, Amelia Byerly ’24 and our spring champions

50 Connections: Greg Brown ’93, Erica Hogan ’18, Drew Magary ’94 and John Mittermeier ’04

62 Class Notes

118 Memorial Minute: Michael Francis Drummey ’79 (Hon.); P’84, P’86, P’87

120 Finis Origine Pendet: Finn Tronnes ’24

Spring rains greened the bridge pathway between New Hall and the Lamont Health and Wellness Center.

YOON S. BYUN

AROUND THE TABLE

What’s new and notable at the Academy

Letters to the Editor

As one of your very old alums, I was delighted with the feature article “For the Sustainable Future” in the spring Bulletin. I often read about grand plans for an uncertain future at city, state and federal levels, but what impressed me most about your article was its down-to-earth commitment. It also recognized that changes cannot always be done in a short time period but instead require a steady stream of ongoing, long-term improvements as well as feedback from the ones that fail. Your article doesn’t mention the latter, but, believe me, undesirable future uncertainties will play a part. The more you bundle those e orts with your classroom courses and education in sciences, history, mathematics and geography, the greater the impact on your stream of graduates and the people they in uence.

There are two things I missed in your article: How PEA e orts can tie in with sustainability plans for the town of Exeter, and a website address where alumni can tap into the living, breathing process!

Bob Oliver ’48; P’80

Just received the spring issue of the Bulletin. Truly beautiful. How great to read about Exeter’s sustainability e orts — and to see the generous allocation of space to Class News and Notes.

Ken Ford ’44

Patrick Garrity’s article in the spring Bulletin for the most part makes perfect sense, but I would be cautious about buying electric vehicles, which use three times as many chips as petrol-diesel vehicles and are considerably heavier. The replacement of batteries is very expensive, and the manufacture of the batteries creates much pollution. Moreover, the grid simply will not sustain the charging of the batteries. Why go over 100% to electricity when there is an abundance of oil?

Malcolm Hawkins P’09

Welcome New Trustees

FOUR ALUMNI JOINED THE RANKS OF EXETER’S LEADERSHIP ON JULY 1

Bradford “Brad” Briner ’95; P’25 Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and New York, New York

Mr. Briner entered Exeter as a prep from Dallas, Texas, and lived in Wentworth Hall. He participated in football, winter and spring track, and Student Council, and served as a dorm proctor and volunteer guide. He holds a B.A. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Morehead Scholar) and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Mr. Briner is a co-chief investment o cer of Willett Advisors L.L.C., which manages the philanthropic assets of Michael Bloomberg. He previously was a co-founder of Morgan Creek Capital Management and worked for the University of North Carolina’s endowment. Mr. Briner is an associate member of Exeter’s Investment Committee. Additionally, he serves on the board of directors for Boston Omaha Corporation and is a member of the Debt A ordability Advisory Committee for the State of North Carolina.

Leroy Sims ’97

San Mateo, California

Dr. Sims entered Exeter as an upper from the Providence St. Mel School in Chicago. He lived in Ewald South, was a dorm proctor and participated in the Afro-Latinx Exonian Society, student listeners, WPEA, basketball, and spring track and eld. He holds a B.S. and an M.Sc. in biological sciences from Stanford University and an M.D. from Stanford University School of Medicine. He is board-certi ed in emergency medicine and primary care sports medicine. He is senior vice president and head of medical operations for the National Basketball Association. In 2020, Dr. Sims was heavily involved in the creation and execution of the stringent COVID-19 medical protocols the NBA implemented in 2020 during the restart of its season at Walt Disney World Resort, also known as the NBA Bubble. Dr. Sims was a team physician for USA Basketball at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, team physician for the U.S. track and eld team at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, and medical director and team physician for the NBA’s Golden State Warriors. He has served on the board of trustees for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

Christine M. Robson Weaver ’99 San Jose, California

Ms. Robson Weaver entered Exeter as a prep in Bancroft Hall, where she helped get the rst Exeter students onto the internet and email. During her tenure, she was coxswain for the crew team, head photographer for PEAN, and was involved in the math, science and computer clubs. She also participated in the Japan Abroad Program and was a dorm proctor. Ms. Robson Weaver received degrees in mathematics, electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, while working at IBM Research on arti cial intelligence and related elds. In 2012, she joined Google Research to lead product management for machine learning. She is currently head of product for Google Search Quality. Ms. Robson Weaver has served as class secretary for 20 years and is a member of the Women’s Leadership Circle.

Belinda A. Tate ’90 Kalamazoo, Michigan

Ms. Tate lived in Merrill Hall and was president of the Afro-Exonian Society, a dorm proctor and founder of the Diversity Council. She also participated in Exeter’s Community Support Group, gospel choir and spring track. She earned a B.A. in art history from Yale University and an M.A. in liberal studies from Wake Forest University. Ms. Tate currently serves as the executive director of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, home to the Kirk Newman Art School and one of the leading museums in the Midwest. For more than 15 years, she was the director of Diggs Gallery at Winston-Salem State University, one of North Carolina’s largest exhibition spaces dedicated to the art of Africa and the African diaspora. Additionally, she was appointed an at-large commissioner of African American heritage for the state of North Carolina.

Ms. Tate is a member of the board of trustees of the American Federation of Arts and a former board member of the Reynolda House Museum of American Art in Winston-Salem and the Association of Art Museum Directors. E

A Mind-bending Quest

INSIDE PEA PUZZLE HUNT 2023

By Daisy Newbury ’23

the section’s Meta Puzzle. Then the answers to the Meta Puzzles are used to solve the nal, most di cult puzzle of the Hunt, the Meta Meta.

As Hunt co-director, I explain all of this to the assembled teams with the help of my co-director, Liam Brown ’23. Next, we go over the rules (please follow the E Book) and explain how to use our website to submit answers and request hints from Puzzle Hunt HQ. Finally, we introduce the plot of this year’s hunt by playing a video from our “favorite YouTuber” (Sav Bartkovich ’23), who is trapped inside a “magical TV.” It’s up to our teams to solve the puzzles within each channel and help him escape. There’s no time to waste!

As the teams rush to their assigned Academy Building classrooms, HQ members hurry to Room 103 to set up. I plug in my laptop and open our shared HQ drive folder. Other members of HQ quickly follow suit and soon we have three computers open to monitor our teams’ progress, answer submissions and hint requests.

By 8:30 p.m., HQ is spread thin. The other six members of HQ are giving hint requests in various classrooms, so I am monitoring answer submissions solo in HQ. For each submission, I call to inform the team whether the answer is correct. Con rming a correct answer often results in a delightfully deafening cheer from the team.

It’s 6:30 on a Friday night in May. Classes are nished for the week, the dining hall is open, and the night is young. I, however, am not at Elm. I’m guiding people through the Academy Building basement to Mayer Auditorium, where about 50 students and a few teachers are gathered in anticipation: PEA Puzzle Hunt 2023 is about to begin. For the rest of the weekend, the Academy Building will be ours.

PEA Puzzle Hunt is a student-run puzzle-solving competition founded in 2016 by Vinjai Vale ’18, Richard Chen ’17 and Matthew Hambacher ’17. Teams of three to 10 Academy students, alumni and faculty race to solve the puzzles before the weekend ends. The Hunt is divided into four or ve Meta sections, each containing roughly ve visual, word, or logic puzzles, or a combination, riddled with references from pop culture and Exonian culture. Within a Meta, puzzle answers are used to solve

When we close HQ at 9:55 p.m., student teams lamfam and The Riddlers, and alumni team NAT1, have each solved more than half of Meta 1, while team Sticker Herd (a combination of last year’s Sticker Factory and Nerd Herd) has started Meta 2. Their night may be over, but HQ always has puzzles to ne-tune. Back in my dorm, I spend the next two hours test-solving our remaining puzzles before calling it a night and heading to bed.

I wake up early on Saturday to unlock the Academy Building with Campus Safety at 8 a.m., but a few other members of HQ beat me to it. A couple of teams arrive minutes after we open, armed with breakfast bagels and new ideas. It might seem early for a weekend, but the Hunt scratches the creative problem-solving itch in every Exonian’s brain. Sure, nding a puzzle answer is fun, but the process of solving that puzzle is even more rewarding. At its core, the Hunt encourages us not only to think outside the box, but also to ask what would happen if we folded the box into an origami crane.

Ben Soriano ’25 and Erin Chen ’25 receive a hint from Sav Bartkovich ’23. Math Instructor Aaron Fenyes works at the table.

After setting up the HQ computers again, I dispatch myself to answer a hint request. I’m welcomed into the team’s classroom, stocked with Pringles and graph paper. While one member of the team has been deciphering Hitomezashi stitch patterns, the other two have been collaborating on one of the puzzles I wrote. I ask them to walk me through their progress, only to discover that they’re only a few steps from the answer! One of them asks me what the next step is. My clueless expression is clearly fake.

“What parts of the puzzle are unused?” I ask. They groan, but I can practically see the gears in their brains turning. Providing puzzle hints is one of my favorite parts of the Hunt. It’s actually very similar to leading a Harkness discussion; my job isn’t to answer their questions but to guide them to their own realizations, or what we in HQ like to call a-ha! moments. I wish the team luck before jogging back to HQ. Upon my arrival, I’m instantly dispatched to another hint request. Answering nonstop hint requests lls my day.

Can you solve a 2023 Hunt puzzle?

Hitomezashi Shu le, by Liam Brown ’23

From the top, starts on? One! (Answer, bottom of page)

I’m vibrating with excitement on my Sunday morning walk to HQ. I open HQ but can’t stay for long. Unfortunately, both Liam and I have a required appointment that lasts all day, so we won’t be there when the teams solve the Meta Meta. Before I leave, I distribute scripts to the HQ cast and set up the nal Meta Meta location. I check on the teams’ progress remotely throughout the day. By 3 p.m., Sticker Herd has started solving the Meta Meta, and NAT1 is almost done with Meta 5. I receive text updates from Cee McClave ’24, who is running HQ while Liam and I are gone. Finally, at 4:40 p.m., Cee texts me a nal update: “We have a winner!”

Sticker Herd is the rst team to complete the 2023 Hunt. Liam and I rush back to HQ.

Our teams are making great progress. After closing HQ at 11 p.m., two of our teams are almost done solving Meta 3, while teams lamfam and Sticker Herd are on Meta 4. It looks as if multiple teams might solve the Meta Meta! This year, the information needed to solve the Meta Meta is scattered across campus, in the form of characters played by some of our HQ members. Each character is an archetype from a TV genre and, if you ask the right questions, they’ll tell you everything you need to know to solve the Meta Meta.

The clock strikes 6 p.m. and the Hunt is o cially over. We invite all the teams to the HQ classroom for a slideshow of our silliest Judge Puzzle skits, our funniest answer submissions and, nally, we announce our 2023 Hunt winners. We laugh, we applaud and everyone in the room thanks Ms. Lembo profusely. (Seriously, this couldn’t happen without her.)

Soon students disperse to start their homework and alumni begin the trek home. Although the Hunt is over, HQ is already crafting the beginnings of next year’s Hunt.

(Note: This article is not a puzzle.) E

“Providing puzzle hints is one of my favorite parts of the Hunt. It’s actually very similar to leading a Harkness discussion; my job isn’t to answer their questions but to guide them to their own realizations, or what we in HQ like to call a-ha! moments.”

Team NAT1 members Emma Cohen ’19 and Maureena Murphy ’20

CAMPUS LIFE AT A GLANCE

HOLI: In April, students celebrated the ancient Hindu festival of colors that signals the arrival of spring.

ACTION DAY: The facilities team o ered a behind-the-scenes look at the campus’s central heating plant.

THROUGH THE DECADES: Movement in the spring dance concert was inspired by music from the ’60s to present day.

CLIMATE

GLOBAL INITIATIVES: After spring term ended, budding business students headed to Berlin for a three-week course in social entrepreneurship.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRISTIAN HARRISON AND WILLIAM VIETOR ‘25

Presidential Scholar

AARON JOY ’23 EARNS NATIONAL RECOGNITION

Aaron Joy ’23 was one of just 161 high school seniors from across the country to be named 2023 U.S. Presidential Scholars. Created in 1964, the program honors the nation’s top-performing students for their academic success, artistic excellence, technical expertise and commitment to service and leadership. Of the 3.7 million seniors expected to graduate this spring, more than 5,000 were considered for recognition this year.

At Exeter, Joy founded the Exeter Investment Society, served as co-captain of the debate team and participated in the Washington Internship Program. He names History 430 with Instructor Bill Jordan as one of his favorite classes. “Examining the latter half of the 20th century,” Joy says, “helped frame my view of the American political and cultural dynamics that we have grown accustomed to in the present.”

The U.S. Presidential Scholars were each o ered the opportunity to name their most in uential teacher, who would be honored with a personal letter from the Secretary of Education. Joy recognized English Instructor Genny Moriarty. “Ms. Moriarty helped me discover and enhance my voice as a writer,” Joy says. “I’m so grateful to Ms. Moriarty for such a meaningful term in English and for helping to create a foundation in which I view risk taking and experimentation as an integral part of expressing myself. After class, she served as a constant resource, always willing to provide me with advice about English and anything else.”

At graduation in June, Joy received a Cox Medal for academic performance as well as the Faculty Prize for Academic Excellence, which recognizes the member of the senior class holding the rst rank. E

Teaching Excellence

WITH GRATITUDE, THE ACADEMY SAYS GOODBYE TO TWO INSTRUCTORS RETIRING WITH THE DISTINCTION OF EMERITI

Alison Hobbie

Harlan M. Ellis Distinguished Professor, Vira I. Heinz Professor and Instructor in Science

Hobbie, who earned her B.A. in both chemistry and women’s studies at Wellesley College and completed her M.S. in environmental science at the University of Virginia, joined the Exeter faculty in 2001. During her tenure, she contributed positively to all aspects of student life. She coached volleyball and crew, served as a dorm head in Langdell Hall, participated on the Curriculum Committee, the Agenda Committee, the Health and Wellness Council, and as chair in the Department of Science. She also served as adviser to the Class of 2015, the Women in Science and Engineering Club, the Chemistry Club, the Genetic Journal Club, the Science Olympiad Association and Exeter Investigation Society.

Hobbie has received numerous teaching awards, including the Brown Family Faculty Award; the Alfred H. Hayes, Class of 1925, and Jean M. Hayes Teaching Chair in Science; the Harlan M. Ellis Distinguished Professor; and the Vira I. Heinz Professorship. Hobbie was recognized by Stanford University for exceptional teaching, and in 2011, 2015 and 2021 she was named as “most in uential teacher” by former students attending MIT.

Science Instructor Sydnee Goddard shared her appreciation of Hobbie in the 2023 PEAN: “Self-e acing, positive, articulate, compassionate, gracious, giving, hard-working, organized, open-minded, bright and curious are some of the words that epitomize Mrs. Hobbie. These traits have made her an e ective Harkness instructor, community leader and lifelong learner. … She sees her life’s work as a ‘service’ to others.”

Honoring Hobbie during faculty meeting, Dean of Faculty Eimer Page said: “Alison, you have worked over the course of your career to inspire, encourage and guide the students in your care, and in so doing you have inspired, encouraged and guided those colleagues who were fortunate enough to work alongside you. We are deeply grateful for all that you have given to Exeter, and we are glad to have known you as our colleague and friend.”

Rob Morris

Instructor in Health and Human Development

Morris received a B.S. in health education from Spring eld College and joined the Academy’s young and growing Health Education Department in 1992, helping shape its development during his career. Having completed a postgraduate year at Tilton Academy, Morris was deeply invested in the concept of residential education, and it is no surprise that his in uence was felt beyond the classroom and across the athletic, residential, club and committee areas of the school. During his tenure he was honored with the Brown Award and a Radford Award.

Morris and his family rst lived in Webster Hall, where Morris served as the dorm head of Webster North. He later served as dorm head in Wentworth from 1999 to 2006 and as a dorm a liate in Moulton House from 2009 to 2023. He was a steady presence in the lives of the students, and their trust in him in the dormitory spaces extended to his work with colleagues developing the Academy Student Assistance Program.

During his nine-year tenure as athletic director, Morris worked tirelessly to help coaches develop through a combination of positive feedback and professional development. His commitment to teaching the game and to the development of each player was foundational to his approach as both the junior varsity and varsity head football coach. He was also a vital member of the principal’s sta , the Catholic Exonians, the Health and Wellness Council, the Orientation Program Committee and the Athletic Policy Committee, among other groups.

Morris’ leadership among his colleagues and advising relationships with students are testimonies to his emphasis on character education, developing strong and supportive teams, and doing the work that needs to be done without fanfare. One colleague shared: “Rob has been the moral compass of the department, extremely dependable and could be counted on to tell you how he truly feels. … Rob kept the students’ best interest in mind when designing courses and updating curriculum; he was and always will be care before content — Maslow before Bloom.” E

Heard in Assembly Hall

SOUND BITES FROM THIS SPRING’S SPEAKER SERIES

Compiled by Sarah Pruitt ’95

Timothy Gallagher ’98 Emergency medicine physician at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and former professional dancer

“Have con dence in your failures. Don’t forget that the path between your failure and where you may want to go is not always linear and not always obvious. I didn’t think being a dancer would make me a better doctor. So don’t forget to look for those things. Don’t forget to help each other when you all fail. Don’t forget to fail because it just makes you stronger.”

John Avlon Journalist, political commentator and author of

Lincoln and the Fight for Peace

“It’s [Abraham] Lincoln’s goodness that is the key to understanding his greatness. He reminds us — among other things — that kindness is consistent with e ective leadership. That’s a lesson I don’t think we can learn enough. He also reminds us that character is the indispensable quality in a president.”

Ben Wilson Environmental attorney and

Charlayne Hunter-Gault Civil rights activist, journalist and former foreign correspondent

“We may never have a perfect world. But in order to reach a society that each one of us can be proud of, we need to keep working at it. We need a coalition of the generations, so that my generation and your generation can embrace and teach younger generations the values — what I call the armor — that led to our victories over evil during the civil rights movement.”

David Miller Managing director of the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy and former mayor of Toronto

Howard

University School of Law professor

“Let us resolve that by 2050, we in fact have achieved a net positive impact on the environment. Let us commit to getting this work done with equity and justice in mind so that the bene ts of our work are equally shared, and the burdens are not disproportionately placed on the most vulnerable. The world is watching. …They are counting on you.”

“To get to zero by 2050, we have to invent some new things. But to halve emissions by 2030, it requires our collective voice to push our institutions to make change … . That’s something all of us can be a part of by using our voice. I think that’s why you should have faith, because you’re actually having faith in your own ability to in uence systems. I know you can — students from Exeter can do anything they put their minds to.”

Matt McGill ’92 Attorney

“In her rst eight arguments as a Supreme Court justice, [Ketanji Brown Jackson] spoke more than twice as much as any other justice. She spoke more than 11,000 words, compared to not quite 5,500 from Justice Sotomayor. Can you imagine her at a Harkness table?” E

A Lifetime of Service

EMERITUS SCIENCE

INSTRUCTOR RICH AARONIAN RECEIVES FOUNDERS’ DAY AWARD

By Sarah Pruitt ’95

In his 49-year career at Exeter, Richard S. Aaronian ’76, ’78, ’97 (Hon.); P’94, P’97 embodied the ideal of a boarding school educator, inspiring and nurturing generations of students in and out of the classroom. Aaronian taught in the Science Department and served as department chair, headed three dorms, led the Community Conduct Committee and other key groups, coached junior varsity boys hockey and helped coach junior varsity baseball. In May the Academy honored his exemplary service by presenting him with the 2023 Founders’ Day Award.

“Your boundless appetite for life and the natural world, your innate decency, and your devoted care for your students made you one of the school’s most beloved instructors, coaches and dorm parents,” Trustee and General Alumni Association President Betsy Fleming ’86 said while delivering the award citation.

“Family shaped my life,” Aaronian said as he accepted the award before a standing-room-only crowd of students, alumni, current and emeriti faculty and trustees in Assembly Hall. He spoke of his childhood in Somerville and Medford, Massachusetts, with his parents, both of whom emigrated from Armenia; three older sisters and a clan of relatives. The rst in his family to attend college, he discovered a passion for ornithology at the University of New Hampshire. Later, while pursuing his master’s at UNH, he saw an index card on the departmental o ce door advertising a job as a part-time science instructor at the Academy.

Soon after joining Exeter full time in 1971, Aaronian proposed adding courses in marine biology and ornithology to an expanding science curriculum. He taught both classes for decades, shepherding students to the New Hampshire seacoast to collect marine organisms and to Plum Island in Massachusetts to track migratory birds, among other destinations. Colleagues credit him with building the place-based eld trip program that is now integral to Exeter’s Science Department. Named

the Harlan Page Amen Professor of Science in 1999, Aaronian received major awards including the Rupert Radford Faculty Fellowship Award, the Brown Family Faculty Award and the George S. Heyer Jr. ’48 Teaching Award.

Aaronian spoke of working alongside his wife, Peg, as dorm parents in Amen Hall and Bancroft Hall at the outset of coeducation at Exeter. “It doesn’t surprise me that we have a special relationship with members of those early classes in the 1970s,” he said. “In fact, I’ve always felt that we grew up together.”

Aaronian’s dedication to students extended to the rink, where he became a xture as coach of the junior varsity boys hockey team for 26 years. He later helped coach junior varsity baseball for a decade. Over his long career, Aaronian built lasting connections with hundreds of Exonians, many of whom enjoyed his legendary bird walks and credit their love of birding to him. In honor of his retirement in 2020, the class of 1978 (one of three alumni classes to claim him as an honorary member) established the Richard S. Aaronian Summer Field Studies Internship Fund, which supports an internship each year for an Exeter student at the Shoals Marine Lab on Appledore Island in Maine.

In closing, Aaronian spoke collectively to students past and present as he recounted some of his fondest Exeter memories: “Listening to you at the table help a classmate understand a di cult concept in introductory biology. Watching your face when you understand that concept. … Having a student ask for a pair of binoculars for a graduation gift. Sharing your pride when you identify a bird on your own — maybe even from its song.” E

Conceived by Principal Stephen G. Kurtz and established by the Trustees in 1976, the Founders’ Day Award is given annually by the General Alumni Association in recognition of devoted service to the Academy.

Betsy Fleming ’86, Rich Aaronian ’76, ’78, ’97 (Hon.) and Bill Rawson ’71

CHRISTIAN HARRISON

Lost and Found

EXETER HISTORY FINDS NEW AUDIENCE IN HANDS OF LIBRARY PROCTORS

By Adam Loyd

If the warm voice rising above the low hum and occasional crackle of the old recording isn’t instantly recognizable, the words most certainly are. The familiar and timeless lines linger: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood/And sorry I could not travel both.”

For decades, historical photographs and audiotapes — like the one documenting poet Robert Frost’s reading of “The Road Not Taken” on a visit to campus some 67 years ago — have remained quietly preserved in the Class of 1945 Library’s Center for Archives and Special Collections. Now a group of enterprising students are making these treasures easily accessible to a wider audience and, along the way, connecting to Exeter’s past in a most modern way.

So far, the student library proctors have uploaded eight audio les to YouTube and have featured their ndings on posters displayed in a library exhibit called “Hidden Gems.” Much of the exhibit came from what Head of Archives and Special Collections Magee Lawhorn calls a “catchall collection” that she asked the students to sort and digitize. “They’re going through the boxes one by one and transferring cassettes or still images to digital,” she says.

As the student proctors sifted, certain pieces would catch an eye or an ear and be set aside for further exploration and potential inclusion in the exhibit. Among the standouts are scenes from E/A games of yore and the recordings from notable assembly speakers such as Frost and primatologist Jane Goodall.

Lawhorn delights in seeing the proctors connect with Exeter’s past. “What’s great about these images,” she says, “is that our students start to see [former] students just like them, in slightly older clothes, but doing the same things they all do. Moving in, getting mail, just doing mundane things. And that’s really what it is: It’s just humanizing people from the past.”

Brenda Romero-Torres ’24 had that feeling when she uncovered a 1944 recording of the Exeter Glee Club performing “Dickey Slip Blues.” “It was my favorite discovery and brought a smile to my face,” she says. “It’s a sentiment that resonates with Exeter students to this day, having those dickey slip blues.”

Lawhorn hopes to build the collection with new nds by proctors in the coming years. “We try to make all of our exhibits something where we can keep adding to as a way to refresh them,” she says. “The process of the discovery can be super positive. When the student came across Jane Goodall’s assembly and said: ‘Oh, my gosh. I never knew she came here.’ I said: ‘Hey, I didn’t know either. We’re both learning.’” E

Exeter vs. Andover football game, 1897

Abbot Hall “butt room,” 1952

New student phones in Soule Hall, 1996

Student getting ID photo taken, 1987

ACADEMY ARCHIVES

ALL )

Championing Belonging

By Stephanie Bramlett, director of equity and inclusion

In my five years at Exeter, I have seen a tremendous amount of change. We have introduced a number of exciting new courses that prompt students to think about identity and culture, we have launched robust student leadership training programs, and so much more. I’m so grateful for all of the students and teachers who championed belonging long before the O ce of Equity and Inclusion was created. Exeter isn’t the same school that it was ve years ago — we are better. And ve years from now, we will be even better still. As Principal Bill Rawson often says, “We don’t stay excellent by staying the same.” The through link is our mission: “To unite goodness and knowledge and inspire youth from every quarter to lead purposeful lives.”

In June 2020, Exeter announced an initiative to be an antiracist institution and shared a list of priorities. I am proud of the work that we have done to make progress toward each of these goals in the past three years. Here are a few examples of that progress:

• Next year, the Committee to Study Slavery and Its Legacy at Exeter will begin its work. In Phase I, the committee will research and write a report about the enslaved people who were connected to the Academy. The committee will also make recommendations for

ways to recognize these enslaved people. In Phase II, the committee will tell the story of early Black Exonians. What are the names of some of the earliest students, teachers and trustees? How should we recognize them? I am honored to co-lead this work with Magee Lawhorn, head of archives and special collections, and I am looking forward to working with the students, sta ulty (i.e. sta and faculty), alumni and local research partners who will contribute to this important project. If you have ideas for the committee, we would love to hear from you.

• In partnership with two deans of faculty and all academic department chairs, we have continued to work to increase the number of faculty of color. Our gains have been steady but modest in this area, and we continue to develop new ways to attract and support incredible teachers. It is important to note that some faculty of color have left Exeter with the skills and experiences to thrive at other schools. We are equally focused on the retention of teachers. We have established a number of a nity groups, cultural groups and interest groups. From a Lunar New Year Celebration to a half-marathon at Hampton Beach, faculty had a lot of fun over the past year making connections that were limited during the pandemic. Community is critical to the success of any residential school teacher, and we actively create opportunities for teachers to nd a sense of belonging in multiple places throughout the campus and surrounding area.

• The space housing the O ce of Multicultural A airs underwent a beautiful renovation last year, and that team continues to o er many opportunities for students to make cultural connections — both to their own cultures and to learn about others’ cultures. Student clubs, heritage month celebrations, student leadership development and discussions around the Harkness table provide welcoming spaces for all students to explore, learn and grow. From the Día de los Muertos celebration to a community iftar at Instructor in English Sahar Ullah’s house, Exonians can immerse themselves in the rich cultural diversity of our school.

The Core Values Project (CVP): Conversations about Anti-Oppression, Community Values, and Justice will be entering its third year as a curricular requirement and has

CHRISTIAN HARRISON

become crucial to how students, faculty and sta put our institutional values into practice. The CVP program was not originally included in the June 2020 letter, but has been instrumental to how Exeter tangibly demonstrates our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Anyone can submit a CVP idea, and students in all grades have the opportunity to be part of the discussion. This year, there were over 70 CVP groups and major themes included: athletes supporting equity and inclusion, wellness initiatives, cultural exploration, and courageous conversations across di erences. Next year, I look forward to providing more space within CVP for students to train curiosity, share perspectives and practice intellectual humility. I think we need more meaningful conversations across di erences in our world, and I am so grateful to be part of a community that values them.

This year I’ve also gotten the opportunity to connect with alumni and parents who have generously shared with me and each other their experiences at Exeter. Whether connecting with folks in the Identity+A nity Alumni Group meetings on Zoom this winter, sharing an update on DEI work with the Exeter Association of Greater New York at the annual luncheon, or traveling to Texas to meet with Exeter alumni this spring, I have thoroughly enjoyed every conversation and connection I have made. I am particularly excited about working with the team planning the campus’s 55th anniversary celebration for the Afro-Latinx Exonian Society, scheduled for October 28-29. The program will include a panel discussion, a mentoring event, a celebration dinner and a brunch with students. All alumni are invited to take part in the celebration.

Our commitment to belonging is palpable throughout the campus. From our classes and departments, to dorms and teams, and even the ways we communicate with each other — we are committed to cultivating an environment where everyone can thrive and where everyone feels that they belong. E

It Takes a Village

Residential life is critical to the Exeter experience — and that goes for our esteemed faculty as well as the students. With that in mind, the Academy is due to complete construction of a new 4-acre faculty neighborhood on High Street in Exeter by late fall. The 12-unit development includes four duplexes, two single-family homes, and the renovation of an existing circa 1810 building into two apartments. “These are all-electric homes,” says Campus Planner and Architect Heather Taylor. “They are a step in the right direction toward our zero carbon goals.”

The neighborhood will provide post-dorm homes for faculty members who have lived at least 10 years in a dorm apartment (a requirement for all faculty). “We’re excited about the cross-generational community of faculty families this neighborhood creates,” Dean of Faculty Eimer Page says. “There are families with young children all the way up to empty nesters.”

ON STEPHANIE BRAMLETT’S BOOKSHELF

Mónica Guzmán is scheduled to speak at assembly on September 25. Watch the livestream at www.exeter. edu/live.

EXETER DECONSTRUCTED

Gould House Gra ti

By Patrick Garrity

Some Exeter traditions are born by decree and are celebrated with pomp. Others come to be on a whim and are carried on with a Sharpie. In the cozy basement common room/ kitchen of Gould House, beside the toaster oven and the refrigerator, a quiet custom turned 25 years old this spring. Painted on a wall is a erce lion rampant, the cat now tattooed by the names of a quarter century of Exeter alumni. The lion was painted by Gould resident Thayer Vogt ’98 during his senior year. The names have been scrawled by every graduating resident since.

Gould House is home to 11 students spanning four grades, so each year, only a few seniors carry on the custom. This June, class of 2023 graduates Alia Bonanno, Kaitlin Clark and Alysha Lai added their names to the wall. In 1998, however, nine residents — Vogt, Troy Coady, Lucas Homicz, Jonathan Man, Marc McDonald, A.J. McGuire, Jared Moore, Brian Porter and Paul Reuland — were graduating from the Academy. Each wrote his name into history.

“I don’t think Thayer (or any of the Gould House residents) thought it would become an annual tradition,” Reuland told the Bulletin in an email. “I am not sure what motivated Thayer to paint the lion. It could have been that he wanted to literally leave his mark on Exeter and the Gould House, or he may have done it on a whim because he was tired of looking at a blank white wall when hanging out in the basement. Either way, I am glad to hear that the lion is still there and that it has become an annual tradition for the graduating class to sign their names.” E

What were your senior traditions? Write to us at bulletin@exeter.edu.

CHRISTIAN HARRISON

The Independent

A CONVERSATION WITH BROADCAST EXECUTIVE EMILY BARR ’76

By Danielle Cantor

When a local newspaper stops publishing, the community loses a vital resource that noti es, connects and impassions. Emily Barr ’76, one of broadcast media’s most accomplished female executives, is on a mission to ensure that never happens again in Maine, her newly adopted home state. “We need good investigative journalism to tell our most important stories to hold the powerful accountable, to stay informed,” Barr says.

Last summer, Barr teamed up with other veteran media industry leaders to establish the nonpro t Maine Journalism Foundation. Though Maine has a strong tradition of independent journalism, Barr is keenly aware of the closures and cutbacks that have befallen so many outlets elsewhere. The foundation is designed to function as a proactive force, raising funds and, in some cases, buying media properties outright to preserve their ability to serve their local communities.

Now retired after a 43-year broadcast career, Barr once ran seven TV stations in major markets across the country. Working to build trust among viewers in each region, she says, helped de ne her core beliefs about modern society’s need for an independent press.

We spoke with Barr in June, as she was deep in the work of raising money for the new nonpro t organization.

How did the Maine Journalism Foundation come to be?

I serve on the board of the Associated Press, and a fellow board member introduced me to a couple other people who shared concerns about the future of newspapers. We decided that now is the time to act. So, a small group of us — including Bill Nemitz, a former Portland Press Herald columnist who recently retired after a 45-year career in journalism, and Bill Burke, a longtime executive of Time Warner/ Turner Broadcasting System and founder of The Optimism Institute — formed the Maine Journalism Foundation. We wanted to generate awareness of

the need for strong local news. Our goal is to make sure that it continues and thrives.

What are some of the challenges surrounding newspapers right now?

The economics of news coverage has really been hurt in the last few decades. Covering the news has gotten expensive, and people don’t want to pay for it. Plus, across the country, rms on the private equity side have been purchasing local, regional and even some national newspapers. They buy the papers up, consolidate as much as possible, cut the sta by as much as they can, sell o the real estate and basically drain them of their essence. Many of us in the industry worry about what these companies might do to the future of newspapers.

The Maine Journalism Foundation is in the middle of its first major initiative: helping facilitate the purchase of the state’s largest network of independent news and media outlets, Masthead Maine (which publishes 30 daily and weekly newspapers across the state), by the National Trust for Local News, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving

community news throughout the country. What is the overall goal once this deal closes?

We are thrilled to have forged this collaboration with the National Trust for Local News and are delighted that these papers will be allowed to continue with their mission of informing, celebrating and serving the people of Maine. In terms of the business model, the details are still being worked out but the idea is to combine online and print advertising with philanthropy and ongoing community support. That has proven to be a pretty good model. We have to start

what’s going on today — nationally as well as locally, in many places. You can see that it’s all falling apart. We would love to, one day, help create a curriculum that could be used in both elementary and secondary schools in Maine.

Speaking of preparing students for the real world, how do you feel Exeter prepared you?

I went to Exeter at an interesting time. The school had only recently gone coed. So, the rst thing I had to learn was how to speak up and make myself known in what was often a room full of boys. That was actually a great lesson. It was hard when I was going through it — I remember feeling unsure of myself, but it helped me develop a fair amount of con dence. When I got into broadcast media after college, I wasn’t at all intimidated by the men I worked with because Exeter primed me for dealing with that.

Are you still in touch with any of your classmates?

thinking about these entities the way we think about things like hospitals: They can be for pro t or not, but they often have a philanthropic side to them that raises money to help support what it is they do.

Why have you taken up this particular mantle of advocacy?

I have enormous respect for journalism. I have worked in and around journalism and managed journalists for many, many years. I believe the core of our democracy thrives when it has strong local journalism paying attention. You’ve got to be a bit of a watchdog, a bit of a champion — those school board meetings, those water reclamation meetings become very important. And we don’t always realize how important it is until we don’t have it.

Does the foundation have plans for any initiatives outside the newsroom?

Our primary focus is local news, but we also believe there is a need for teaching civics in our schools, because nobody does anymore. Younger kids need to learn how our government works at the local level, state level and federal level. Then they should understand how to have a civil discussion and argument because all you have to do is look at

I lived in Amen Hall the two years I was there with this core group of 12 exceptional women, and we manage to get together almost every summer. We’ve missed a few because of COVID and schedules, but for about 12 years now, since the rst of us retired, we’ve organized reunions all over the country. We really think of ourselves, in some ways, as having raised each other during those teenage years. It was a di erent time. We were largely left to our own devices. You didn’t have cellphones, and your parents didn’t call you often. We leaned on each other, and we had a really tight bond as a result.

It was a di erent time, and yet today people seem somehow even more disconnected. How do you see local news as a potential remedy?

In the last 20 years or so, we’ve all gone to our separate corners, and we get the news that ts what we believe in. But then we can’t have a dialogue because my information is di erent from your information. We can’t nd a single thread that’s common. That’s dangerous. We have to shift the conversation to say: If you’re going to nd out what’s going on in your community, then you need to have a single source, or at least a common source, of information that is trusted. Trust is key. A local paper is doing the work every single day, regardless, so that at the end of it all, people say, “I read that newspaper, I go to that website because I trust what it is they’re telling me. I know they’re going to be there every single day. Right when I need them.” E

“I believe the core of our democracy thrives when it has strong local journalism paying attention.“

Alumni are encouraged to advise the Bulletin editor (bulletin@exeter.edu) of their own publications, recordings, films, etc., in any field, and those of their classmates, for inclusion in future Exonians in Review columns. Please send a review copy of your published work to the editor to be considered for an extended profile in future issues. Works can be sent to: Phillips Exeter Academy, The Exeter Bulletin, 20 Main Street, Exeter, NH 03833.

ALUMNI

1953—Luigi Einaudi Learning Diplomacy: An Oral History. (Xlibris, 2023)

1959 Don Burnes, with Kevin F. Adler. When We Walk By: Forgotten Humanity, Broken Systems, and the Role We Can Each Play in Ending Homelessness in America. (North Atlantic Books, 2023)

1962 George Berger Chasing Justice: A Legal Thriller. (Acorn Publishing, 2022)

1965 Ridge Kennedy The Rules: Money Management for the 21st Century. (Self-published, 2022)

1966 Tom Archer, editor. Obstetric Anesthesia: A Case-Based and Visual Approach. (Springer, 2020)

1970 Andrew Laszlo. Footnote to History: From Hungary to America, The Memoir of a Holocaust Survivor. (Outskirts Press, 2023)

1981 Claudia Putnam. “Firebirds” and “5 Earthquake,” poems. (Good River Review, Issue 5, spring 2023)

1983 Doug Mayer. The Race That Changed Running: The Inside Story of UTMB. (Helvetiq, 2023)

1984 Scott Schang, co-editor. Governing for Sustainability. (Environmental Law Institute, 2023)

1987 Katherine Dauge-Roth, co-editor. Stigma: Marking Skin in the Early Modern World. (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2023)

1989 Jason Fulman, with Persi Diaconis. The Mathematics of Shu ling Cards. (American Mathematical Society, 2023)

1991 Dorn Cox, with Courtney White. The Great Regeneration: Ecological Agriculture, Open-Source Technology, and a Radical Vision of Hope. (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2023)

1993 Aomawa Shields. Life on Other Planets: A Memoir of Finding My Place in the Universe. (Viking Books, 2023)

1994 Debby Herbenick. Yes, Your Kid: What Parents Need to Know About Today’s Teens and Sex. (BenBella Books, 2023)

1996 Eirene Donohue, writer. A Tourist’s Guide to Love, movie. (Netflix, 2023)

2007 Kelly Ho er. Undershore: Poems. (Lightscatter Press, 2023)

FACULTY

Matt W. Miller. “Plodding Through,” poem. (Rhino Poetry, 2023)

—“An Act of the Mind,” poem. (Five Points: A Journal of Literature & Art, 2023)

—“Graduated,” poem. (Narrative, 2023)

FIVE QUESTIONS WITH A STUDENT - ATHLETE

AMELIA BYERLY ’24

Learning to Lead

By Brian Muldoon

Amelia Byerly ’24 plays varsity volleyball, basketball and lacrosse for Exeter. She is also a tour guide on campus for the Admissions O ce, a dorm representative for Dunbar Hall, participates in ESSO basketball and is involved with Gal Pals, through which she meets regularly with local women with special needs. We caught up with her before she headed

on the oor because there are only ve of you out there at a time. You have to be super gritty, scrappy and physical. I started playing and learning lacrosse from a bunch of older girls that were such good role models that I fell in love with it from the start. I love to compete on the eld and am looking forward to playing in college.

What’s your pregame hype music?

My playlist rotates from season to season. Volleyball season is a lot of Rihanna, Nikki Minaj, Doja Cat because that feels like the vibe of the team. Basketball season is a lot of rap like Kodak Black and Drake. Lacrosse season is kind of a mix. Rap at the start of the season, especially when it is colder. Then you get to the point of the season where it is nice out, the sun is shining, and I’m listening to country music. I feel like the vibes on all three teams are di erent and the playlists kind of match that.

What is something you have learned from your teammates?

This winter I really learned how to be an upper-class leader on the team. Bridgette Martin ’23 de nitely taught me a lot about how to look out for and take care of the preps and lowers on our team, really being an ultimate teammate. Making sure that you are checking in on people, checking in on stu that doesn’t have to do with sports.

o to play lacrosse for Israel’s under-21 national team in the European Championships. She hopes to make the U20 roster next year and compete in the World Championships.

What are your favorite things about each of the sports you play?

My rst experience with volleyball was here at Exeter. It has a tradition of winning, so I like having that pressure of keeping the program to a high standard. It’s the ultimate team sport because you have to share the ball, you have to have good team chemistry and know where your teammates are going to be. I love that basketball is so intimate and competitive. You are so close with your competitors

What is your hidden talent?

I have my pilot’s license. My dad ies, his dad ew, my great-great-grandfather ew, so it has been in the family. I started taking lessons when I was 15, I rst ew solo when I turned 16, and got my pilot’s license on my 17th birthday last summer. Hopefully this summer I’ll get my multi-engine rating and my instrument ight rating to further my experience and be able to y di erent planes. Maybe I could y myself to school. I’d really like to y some of my friends to the Florida Keys someday.

What is your goal for next year?

I want to go 3-0 in all three Andover games. E

BRIAN MULDOON

Thirst Quencher

By Brian Muldoon

There is a new way for Exonians to fill their cup — the Storey-Bensinger Fountain, installed in May alongside Ralph J. Lovshin Track.

The idea for the hydration station was one Bob Storey ’54 and Peter Bensinger ’54 dreamed up while running laps around the track as students. The Knight House dormmates were members of the “Mint Julep” track and field team (so-called for a song they sang on bus trips to away meets) under head coach Ralph Lovshin. They share fond memories of their Exeter experience: fun at practices, grueling workouts, exciting races against Andover and — being thirsty! They always wished there had been a water fountain close by.

A high point of their track experience was when they were selected as members of Exeter’s mile relay team that competed against Andover before thousands of fans in the Boston Garden. Unfortunately, track team co-captain Storey injured his leg warming up for the hurdles event and was not able to run. Lead man Bensinger, however, out-raced Andover’s top sprinter to the first turn and gave Exeter a lead that it never relinquished, allowing anchorman Pierre de Vegh ’54 to dash to first place at the finish line.

The friends have stayed in close contact over the years and served together as Academy trustees. “Relationships you make at Exeter carry on for a lifetime,” Athletics and Physical Education Director Jason Baseden told the coaches, boys and girls track team members, and more than a dozen class of 1954 classmates and friends gathered for the fountain’s dedication. “Bob and Peter clearly have a special bond, and the root of their relationship still impacts students today.”

In its first months of operation, the hydration station is already getting a workout. “This has been a game changer not only for our student athletes, but for the greater Exeter community, visiting schools and families,” head track and field coach Hilary Hall says. “We all have memorable spots on campus where a physical action created an imprint. Filling up your water bottle at the hydration station on your way out for a competition surely will be a new spot for Exonians to build memories.”

Scoring Big!

Big Red caps an exciting season with four championships

Cycling

Exeter cycling claimed a three-peat of titles in the New England Road Cycling League by capturing the overall team title at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Leta Gri ith ’25 paved the way all season, picking up multiple first-place finishes and totaling a league-best 444 points on the season. William Lu ’24 finished in second place twice and added two other top-five finishes to end the season second in the league with 408 points.

Tennis

Kiran Raval ’24 took home the New England Prep School Invitational Tennis Championship. The top seed heading into the tournament, Raval earned a 6-2, 6-2 victory in the

championship match over his Andover rival. This marks the first time Big Red has taken home the individual title since Kenneth Tao ’15 in 2012.

Golf

Exeter girls golf claimed its first Pippy O’Connor Tournament title in program history, finishing three strokes ahead of second-place Taft. Morgan Smith ’23 was the individual champion with a score of 74, Angelina Gong ’25 rolled in with a 78 and Ananya Ray ’26 finished with an 81. All three earned All-NEPSAC honors for their performances.

Track and Field Boys track and field ran away with the New England Prep School Track

Association Division I Championship (Interschols) and outpointed the rest of the 12-team field by 29 points on a wet afternoon at Andover. This is the fourth title since 2013 for the boys program. Byron Grevious ’24 put an exclamation point on his upperyear campaign with two exceptional performances: At the New Balance Battle Road Twilight series he broke a 48-year-old New England record in the 5,000 meters (his time, 14:04.44, bested former Olympian Alberto Salazar, who ran a hand-timed 14:04 in 1975) and at Nike Outdoor Nationals he claimed the national title in the boys 5,000 meters. In June, he was named the New Hampshire Gatorade Player of the Year for outdoor track. Read more of Grevious’ story at www.exeter.edu.

BRIAN MULDOON

Athletics and Physical Education Director Jason Baseden and Peter Bensinger ’54; (Below) Lucy Meyer-Braun ’23

SPRING SPORTS

BOYS TENNIS

RECORD: 4-5

Head Coach: Ron Rodriguez

Captains: Clark Pearson ’23, Jayson Tung ’23

MVP: Clark Pearson ’23

BOYS VOLLEYBALL

SECOND PLACE IN NEW

ENGLAND

Record: 5-3

Head Coach: Bruce Shang

Assistant Coach: Suzan Rowe

Captains: Andrew Horrigan ’23, Rodrigo Spinola e Castro ’23

MVPs: Rodrigo Spinola e Castro ’23, Arhon Strauss ’23

SOFTBALL

RECORD: 7-7

Head Coach: Liz Hurley

Assistant Coach: Kate Pigsley

Captains: Haley Alden ’24, Caroline Ciaschini ’24, Kaitlin Clark ’23, Claire McConnell ’23

MVP: Haley Alden ’24

GIRLS TRACK & FIELD

SECOND PLACE IN NEW

ENGLAND

Head Coach: Hilary Hall

Assistant Coaches: Ron Edmiston, Mark Hiza, Steve Holmes, Brandon

Newbould, John Mosely, Makhtar

Sarr, Levi Stribling, Christina Zeigler

Captains: Kaylee Bennett ’23, Tristen Crotty ’23

MVP: Tenley Nelson ’24

BOYS TRACK & FIELD

NEW ENGLAND CHAMPIONS

Head Coach: Hilary Hall

Assistant Coaches: Ron Edmiston, Mark Hiza, Steve Holmes, Brandon

Newbould, John Mosely, Makhtar Sarr, Levi Stribling, Christina Zeigler

Captains: Oliver Brandes ’23, Owen Dudley ’23, Jackson Giampa ’23

MVPs Jaylen Bennett ’25, Byron Grevious ’24

GOLF

PIPPY O’CONNOR GIRLS

TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS

RECORD: 9-1

Head Coach: Bob Bailey

Assistant Coach: Gordon Coole

Captains: Jack Fallon ’23, Angelina Gong ’25

MVPs: Michael Nardone ’24, Morgan Smith ’23

GIRLS WATER POLO

RECORD: 4-7

Head Coach: Meg Blitzshaw

Assistant Coach: Steve Altieri

Captains: Claire Fu ’23, Jade Pierce ’23

MVP: Claire Fu ’23

BOYS CREW FOURTH IN NEW ENGLAND

FIRST BOAT: SEVENTH PLACE IN NEW ENGLAND

Head Coach: Albert Léger

Assistant Coaches: Tyler Caldwell, Steve Carr, Townley Chisholm, Captains: Weiyi Huang ’23, Jack Kugler ’23

MVP: Ryan Kim ’23

CYCLING NERCL CHAMPIONS

Head Coach: Don Mills

Assistant Coaches: Gwyn Coogan, Jeanette Lovett, Je Palleiko, Tim Whitmore

Captains: Max Chuang ’23, William Lu ’24, Ale Murat ’ 23

MVP: William Lu ’24

GIRLS LACROSSE RECORD: 13-2-1

Head Coach: Alexa Caldwell

Assistant Coaches: Christy Lincoln, Kristen Kjellman Marshall, Kerry McBrearty

Captains: Emilie Dubiel ’23, Nina Kellogg ’23, Sami Smith ’23, Eden Welch ’23

MVP: Eden Welch ’23

BASEBALL RECORD: 11-11

Head Coach: Tim Mitropoulos

Assistant Coaches: Dana Barbin, Panos Voulgaris

Captains: Andrew Houghton ’23, Gabe Marcoux ’23

MVP: Gabe Marcoux ’23

BOYS LACROSSE

RECORD: 14-4

Head Coach: Matt Callahan

Assistant Coach: Jim Breen, Bill Glennon, David Huoppi

Captain: Drew McClutchy ’23

MVPs: Ryan Nagle ’23, Aidan Olazabal ’24

GIRLS TENNIS

RECORD: 5-5

Head Coach: Nancy Bulkley

Captain: Elizabeth Lavin ’23

MVP: Cassia Lee ’25

GIRLS CREW FOURTH PLACE IN NEW ENGLAND FIRST BOAT: THIRD PLACE IN NEW ENGLAND

Head Coach: Sally Morris

Assistant Coaches: Becky Moore, Evan Saltman, Hadleigh Weber

Captains: Kate Nixon ’23, Izzie Riccardi ’23

MVP: Matilda Damon ’23

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN MULDOON

Senior Week!

STUDENTS ENJOY SOME TIME - HONORED TRADITIONS IN THE DAYS LEADING UP TO GRADUATION

Baccalaureate

Alumni Induction Ceremony

Time Capsules

BY CHRISTIAN HARRISON, JOANNE

Senior Night

Congratulations, Class of 2023!

Smiles abounded at graduation on June 4 as 297 seniors received their diplomas.

Spirits ran high despite an unseasonably chilly and wet June morning as Exeter came together on the Academy lawn to celebrate its 242nd Commencement.

Class of 2023 president Minseo Kim opened the ceremony by welcoming parents and expressing sincere gratitude to families and her classmates, as well as Exeter’s faculty and sta She went on to speak of the various challenges the class had weathered together, notably the COVID-19 pandemic and the period of remote instruction that for many began in the spring term of their prep years.

She admitted to consulting ChatGPT, asking the arti cial intelligence chatbot to give her “the most awe-inspiring motivational grad speech” for the occasion. “It started o by saying ‘Hello, comrades,’” she recounted, drawing a laugh from the crowd. “I didn’t read any further. But I did ponder over that word more — comrade. Something in there implies the connections that we have created between one another, and that we have overcome challenges together.”

Near the end of her remarks, Kim spoke of the memorable moments that she and her fellow seniors experienced over the past few weeks. “Everything feels like it went by so fast now that we’ve reached the end,” she said. “What I’ve learned from this school is that sometimes it’s even better to leave a classroom or a space with more questions than answers, and that there are many more things I’d like to learn and do.” — Sarah Pruitt ’95

Minseo Kim, president of the senior class

Purpose & Joy

C OMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

BY PRINCIPAL WILLIAM K. RAWSON ’71; P’08

Members of the class of 2023: I am pleased to deliver this farewell address.

Soon you will be graduates of Phillips Exeter Academy. With diplomas in hand, you will be fellow Exeter alumni. In that sense, we will be peers, members of the same extended Exeter community that spans generations.

I hope you will leave Exeter as I did many years ago — with a deep sense of gratitude for your time here, and a strong sense of belonging. Our mission as a school, as you know so well, is to unite goodness and knowledge and inspire youth from every quarter to lead purposeful lives. Your mission as students has been to learn and grow, make lifelong friends, pursue your passions and prepare yourselves to lead purposeful lives. You have done all that. You have been challenged during your time here, and you have succeeded. In all your endeavors — academic, artistic, athletic and more — you have worked hard, aspired to excellence and achieved excellence. Whether you have been here one year or four, or in between, you have grown in ways that you likely could not have imagined when you rst arrived.

I have said many times that Exeter has never stayed strong by staying the same. Even in the last four years, like you, our school has grown and changed in important ways. We have become stronger in how we celebrate the rich diversity of our school community, and how we strive to create a strong sense of belonging for all members of our community. You have played important roles, often leadership roles, in this critically important work, and I thank you.

When I think back on my days as a student, my strongest memories are not about individual or group accomplishments. Of course, I do remember a few triumphs pretty vividly, and I remember a few disappointments. Yet, the sense of what it meant to be part of this community, with its long history and high ideals, and the lifelong friendships that came along with it, are what have had the greatest meaning and most enduring impact for me over the years. And it was my experience that my teachers really cared about me, expected a lot of me, and were uncompromising in their expectations, that gave me self-con dence and propelled me forward. I hope the same has been true for all of you, is true for you today,

and will be what you hold most dear in the years ahead.

We must remember and recognize that your time here has not been easy. The pandemic posed signi cant challenges for our school and for all of you, from spring of prep year right through last year. But nothing can prepare a school for the tragic loss that we experienced as a community in January. You have faced adversity and loss with compassion, empathy and grace, determined to nd a way forward together. Always together as a community. Drawing strength from one another. Caring for each other.

Throughout your time here, but especially this year, I have admired how you have supported each other, cared for each other and shown up for one another. I have seen this every day, in every corner of the campus, and in every facet of Academy life, and I have found it inspiring. I think that is why I believe I will always remember the class of 2023 not only for your accomplishments, which are considerable and many, but more importantly, for your indomitable spirit, your resilience, for how you have celebrated each other, and for the joy that you have brought to our school and all that you have done here. Exeter is a collection of stories — stories which together comprise the rich history of our school. You now have your own stories — stories that are as much a part of the Academy’s history as the stories of any other class. It has been a great pleasure for me, for your teachers, and for all the adults on campus, to witness your stories unfolding, individually and as a class, and to observe rsthand your growth and your many contributions to the life and spirit of the school.

There is a country music song which some of you might know called “Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’.” The song is about not forgetting where you came from. Don’t forget your roots. Don’t forget those who brought you into this world and have supported you all along. I trace my roots to a small mill town in Rhode Island where hockey was king and going to college not expected. My father was one of the rare exceptions; his athletic skills, particularly in hockey, combined with good grades, earned him an opportunity to attend Brown University, 30 minutes from the small mill town of Harrisville, Rhode Island, where he grew up. Years later, when I was a student here, Phillips Exeter Academy might have seemed worlds apart from my relatives who still lived in Harrisville, but in my mind,

they stood for the same things: integrity, hard work and respect. My grandmother Eva Augusta Rawson, who went back to work in the mill when her husband died at a relatively young age, expected the same of me as my instructors did here. It was during my visits to Harrisville with my grandmother and my aunts and uncles, none of whom went to college, that my values were shaped. That is where I learned to respect the dignity of all work and the equal worth of every human life — values that were reinforced here at Exeter.

Phillips Exeter Academy is not above wherever you came from. Yet, an Exeter education is an extraordinary gift, and being here a great privilege. With that privilege comes great opportunity, and with opportunity comes responsibility. Our core value of non sibi expresses our belief that wisdom gained here should be used for the good of others as well as for oneself. We boldly proclaim, “Exeter seeks to graduate young people whose ambitions and actions are inspired by their interest in others and the world around them.” And we state further that “Exonians are motivated by this philosophy to face the challenges of their day.”

The challenges of your day — whether viewed locally, regionally or globally — are many and formidable, and you do not need me to list them for you. Imbued with knowledge and goodness, you are ready to take your place in the world and confront our greatest challenges head on. With the abilities you brought with you and the skills you have developed here, and with all that you have learned here, you are ready for your next steps.

Through Harkness, you have had the opportunity to learn with others whose experiences, backgrounds and perspectives di er from your own. You have grown in con dence as you have come to realize your capacity to learn and grow. And you have come to appreciate that

human connection is at the foundation of all that we do and all that we can hope to accomplish in this world. You take these Harkness skills and experiences with you as you go forward in life and are uniquely prepared to join and lead teams that will help develop solutions to our most intractable problems.

You have attended many assemblies in which Exeter alumni have shared their stories about how they have taken what they learned here and have gone on to improve lives and change the world in some meaningful way. It is your turn now. You now will become the change makers. You are ready to follow the examples of Exonians who have come before and write your own non sibi stories. You are ready, and you have what it takes. It will be exciting to see what paths you choose, and how you will lead your own purposeful lives.

I would like to close with a few more words about gratitude and belonging. First, I would like to express my own gratitude for your time here, for all that you have contributed to the life of our school, and for the combination of purpose and joy that you have brought to our school and all that you have done here. I will miss you. I will miss this class.

Second, regarding your own gratitude, in addition to being grateful to your families, teachers and all other adults who have supported you during your time here, I hope you also feel gratitude to prior generations of Exonians who have helped make Exeter what it is today, and who have thereby helped make your Exeter experiences possible. We should be grateful to those who came before and accept our place and responsibility as part of the history of this great school.

And lastly, with respect to belonging, please understand that your belonging at Exeter does not end today. You will always belong here. Your teachers, coaches and other mentors will continue to care for you and will look forward to your return visits. In the years ahead, it will be deeply meaningful to them to see the impact they have had on your lives, and through your lives, on the world. After all, this is how they have chosen to be change makers.

At the height of the pandemic, I told you, “Exeter lives within us and forms around us, no matter the distance between us.” Wherever your lives may take you, you will always be Exonians, and you will always belong to each other.

Class of 2023: I wish you success and ful llment in the years ahead. Please come back often to share your stories.

Congratulations!

“An Exeter education is an extraordinary gift, and being here a great privilege. With that privilege comes great opportunity, and with opportunity comes responsibility.”

Principal Bill Rawson ’71

Graduation Prizes

The Yale Cup, awarded each year by the Aurelian Honor Society of Yale University to that member of the senior class who best combines the highest standards of character and leadership with excellence in his studies and in athletics.

Nathan Robert Puchalski, Waxhaw, North Carolina

The Ruth and Paul Sadler ’23 Cup, awarded each year to that member of the senior class who best combines the highest standards of character and leadership with excellence in her studies and in athletics.

Eden Theresa Welch, Danvers, Massachusetts

The Perry Cup, established by the class of 1945 in honor of Dr. Lewis Perry, eighth principal of the Academy, and given annually to a senior who has shown outstanding qualities of leadership and school spirit.

Reginald Dewitt Harris, Brooklyn, New York

The Williams Cup, established in memory of George Lynde Richardson Jr. and given annually to a student who, having been in the Academy four years, has, by personal qualities, brought distinction to Phillips Exeter.

Yasmin Siqueira Salerno, Natick, Massachusetts

The Eskie Clark Award, given annually to that scholarship student in the graduating class who, through hard work and perseverance, has excelled in both athletics and scholarship in a manner exempli ed by Eskie Clark of the class of 1919.

Brandon Thomas Wong, Port Coquitlam, British Columbia

The Thomas H. Cornell Award, based on a vote by the senior class and awarded annually to that member of the graduating class who best exempli es the Exeter spirit.

Nicholas James Rose, Exeter, New Hampshire

The Multicultural Leadership Prize, awarded annually to the member or members of the graduating class who most signi cantly contributed to educating the community about, and fostering greater understanding around, topics of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, ability, religion, spirituality or other aspects of identity.

Ramón Kodi Suzuki López, Alhambra, California

The Cox Medals, given by Oscar S. Cox, in memory of his father, Jacob Cox, are awarded each year to the ve members of the graduating class who, having been two or more years in the Academy, have attained the highest scholastic rank. In alphabetical order, this year’s medalists are:

Aaron R. Joy, Dover, New Hampshire

Cédric Emanuel Moecklin, Hampton, New Hampshire

Hannah Caroline Rubin, New Castle, New Hampshire

Aubrey S. Zhang, Maple Ridge, British Columbia

Chloe Zhu, San Jose, California

The Faculty Prize for Academic Excellence, given to that member of the graduating class who, having been two or more years in the Academy, is recognized on the basis of scholarship as holding the rst rank.

Aaron R. Joy, Dover, New Hampshire

Eden Welch

Reginald Harris

Yasmin Salerno

Striking a Chord

INAUGURAL MUSIC COMPOSITION COMPETITION BRINGS STUDENT WORK CENTER STAGE

By Debbie Kane

The last rays of twilight ltered through the windows of the ForrestalBowld Music Center as Polly Vaillant ’23 stepped to the microphone, guitar in hand, and told a brief story about developing the ballad “A Ten and Two Pennies.” It’s based on an interaction she had while working in a local co ee shop as well as a re ection on being a senior and preparing herself for new adventures. The audience of students, parents, faculty and others listened appreciatively as she sang her thoughtful, hopeful and funny song.

Vaillant is one of nine students whose songs were presented or performed in May during the “concert of nalists,” the culminating event in the Pittman Family Student Composition Competition — a new initiative focused on original works written by Exonians.

Vaillant’s witty take on her present and future struck a chord with the competition judges. She won the songwriting category and the overall competition. Albert Lu ’26 and Vi Matheos ’24 received honorable mentions: Lu for “A Turbulent Festival,” a notated score; and Matheos for “Or Not To,” a vibrant electronic and vocal composition. Vaillant’s prize was an online course at Berklee College of Music. Lu and Matheos received credit toward private lessons with an Academy music teacher of their choice.

Competition organizer Eric Schultz, Exeter’s director of electronic and emerging music, and the evening’s host, is quick to point out that all of the students “won”

Polly Vaillant ’23

Vaillant wrote her award-winning song last fall, as part of her senior project, an album entitled Songs in the Key of E(xeter). A conversation with a classmate in her English class captured how she was feeling. “I asked how he was and he said: ‘I’m not here. My mind is on an airplane,’ and I so felt that,” she says. “It perfectly captured the ambivalence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the apprehension of graduating and a lot of stu coming together.” She wrote the song and submitted it to the composition competition.

This isn’t Vaillant’s rst musical honor: last winter she was a nalist in the voice/singer/songwriter category at National YoungArts Week, a program of the National Foundation for the Advancement of Artists.

Trained in classical voice performance and a voice student of Music Department Chair Kristofer Johnson’s, Vaillant is inspired by singer-songwriters like Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Gregory Alan Isakov. She will continue her vocal performance studies at Vanderbilt University this fall.

“The competition redefines musical opportunities at Exeter, welcoming students who create music.”

MEET STUDENT COMPOSER

by participating. He is thrilled that 20 students entered 25 pieces of music, numbers far exceeding his expectations.

“Composing is a messy process,” Schultz says. “You don’t know how it’s going to sound until it comes to life.” But, he jokes, Exeter students always appreciate a deadline. “Now there are 25 new pieces of music in the world that weren’t there before, which is beautiful,” he adds.

More important, the competition rede nes musical opportunities at Exeter, welcoming students who create music but may not participate in traditional voice and instrument classes, lessons and group performance activities within the Department of Music. “This competition brings student composition into the mainstream of the Music Department,” says Kristofer Johnson, Michael V. Forrestal ’45 Chair for Music, “and places it on stage, where student work will increasingly be centered. It enables them to take risks.”

Exeter’s rich musical tradition is rooted in classical voice and performance. “Appropriate, when one considers that Mozart was walking the earth when the Academy was founded,” Schultz says. There are numerous opportunities for students to make music, including orchestras, jazz bands, a cappella groups and choirs, as well as rock and multi-media performance clubs. One-quarter of the student body engaged in at least one musical ensemble this academic year. Musical alumni include a PulitzerPrize winning composer, Tony- and Grammy-Award-winning singer-songwriters, and top-40 musicians. Johnson notes that many students feel that they’ve found a creative home in the Department of Music.

Albert Lu ’26

Lu’s intense classical composition, “A Turbulent Festival,” is a three-part musical response to the pandemic. Incorporating elements of Gamelan, an indigenous rhythm music from Indonesia that intrigues Lu, the piece was performed onstage during the competition by an ensemble of Exeter musicians.

Lu has played cello and classical piano since he was 4 and started composing music in middle school, using an electronic MIDI keyboard. “I started small, with basic piano pieces,” he says. Writing notated music for multiple instruments was challenging. “When I’m writing for one instrument, I don’t have to consider its interaction with other instruments because I know how it’ll sound,” he says. “But two instruments have di erent timbres and, when they interact with each other, the sounds may collide. I really have to write it all at once and not write for each instrument.”

The competition was Lu’s rst experience working with musicians who were playing his compositions. “Albert’s piece is amazing and very di cult to perform,” Schultz says. “You can use software to notate scores and it will play back the music for you, which makes it easy for a composer to write because the software can play anything. But a young composer has to learn how to take their musical ideas and fashion them in a way that humans can play.” Lu isn’t deterred. He’s looking forward to next year’s competition.

MARY SCHWALM

MEET STUDENT COMPOSER Vi Matheos ’24

Matheos’ hyperpop-inspired “Or Not To” was a kinetic blast on stage; Schultz played the electronic composition on a laptop while Matheos sang vocals. The composition incorporates a two-note melody inspired by phrasing found in Johann Sebastian Bach’s music. Matheos says, “I was wondering what it would sound like to write the opposite vibe to Bach, something hyperpop, based on a simple, condensed phrase.”

Matheos, who also entered an untitled composition in the songwriting category, enjoys the creative process and has composed and recorded music since middle school. Trained in classical piano and violin, and a keyboardist for the Exeter student band Dorku$ Buxter, Matheos has a diverse performance repertoire that includes jazz, pop, rock and hyperpop.

“I write the type of music I listen to, depending on what I like at the time,” says Matheos, who has been experimenting recently with sound design and production. “You have to be aware of the harmonies going into the song and you control it. … And you have to be aware of the melody so you can create them with the singer and be aware of the complexities of the song. It’s a full immersive experience.”

Matheos, who dreams of becoming a touring musician, is grateful for the opportunities the Music Department o ers, saying, “It feels like the department is doing what they can to improve our journeys as musicians.”

Now the department is intentionally broadening its musical o erings to welcome even more students.

Schultz, a composer and musician whose work includes acoustic and electronic music, joined the faculty in 2020. A year later, Music Instructor Marcus Rabb joined the faculty as director of bands and jazz, expanding the department’s jazz and contemporary music options. Rabb will take on the role of chair of the Department of Music in the fall. “We’ve seen a huge increase in student interest and performance level of groups like the Exeter Association of Rock and others,” Johnson says. The Pittman Family Student Composition Competition is yet another opportunity to showcase student talent. “There are so many students creating or making music here,” Johnson says, “but they’re writing music on the fringes. They don’t have a platform to grow in the same ways as our Music Department students.”

The composition competition is one of Schultz’s rst e orts to showcase di erent musical styles, including electronic music. Coming to Exeter after directing a community college music program in California, he was struck by the talent he found in his students. “They are writing about things in a way that goes well beyond the years they’ve been

“Learning music by making it yourself is a different way to become a musician. It requires vulnerability, a tall order ... for adolescents.”

MARY SCHWALM

alive,” he says. “That’s certainly true of the pieces submitted for the composition competition.”

For the competition, students could submit works in any of three categories: electronic music, notated music (notes on a score) and songwriting. “We were looking for any kind of student musical expression that is original,” Schultz says, “inviting songwriters and others who make more popular styles of music that are technology driven.”

Three musicians and composers, colleagues of Schultz’s from California, served as judges. They provided detailed feedback on each composition and were surprised by the quality of the student submissions. “They could not stop texting me during the judging process,” he says. “They asked: ‘Who are these kids? Where did you nd them?’ Because every piece is amazing. It was a real challenge for the judges to gure out what to do with so much talent. It’s a good problem to have.”

Schultz hopes that the competition inspires more students to pursue composition. “Learning music by making it yourself is a di erent way to become a musician,” he says. It also requires vulnerability, a tall order for any aspiring performer but even more so for adolescents. “If you go out and sing the song you wrote that re ects what you feel, any judgment of that song is a judgment of you,” Schultz says. “To have received that commitment during this competition from 20 young artists is a big win.” One that he hopes to see repeated often. E

A Gift of Music

The Pittman Family Student Composition Fund was established in 2021 by Joan and Fred Pittman ’51 to inspire student composers and music creators at Exeter. A talented student who was valedictorian of his high school class in rural Cleveland, Mississippi, Fred secured nancial support to attend a postgraduate year at Exeter. It was a year that changed his life, according to his son, Tim Pittman ’82, and inspired future support of the Academy.

After receiving his undergraduate degree at Yale, a medical degree from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham, England, Fred pursued a career as an academic physician, holding teaching positions at Tulane University and later at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston and its VA hospital.

Fred enjoyed singing, a talent he furthered as a member of the Yale Glee Club as well as the Whi enpoofs, the university’s a cappella group. He and his wife, Joan, also performed with the Yale Alumni Chorus. In his later years, Fred was an enthusiastic supporter of Charleston Stage and appeared in such productions as My Fair Lady and Of Mice and Men.

In the spirit of non sibi, Fred and Joan endowed a scholarship fund for students from South Carolina and Mississippi to attend Exeter. When approached to create the Pittman Family Student Composition Fund, Fred, recipient of the Founders’ Day Award in 2003, and his family readily agreed. “Dad was less interested in capital projects and more interested in supporting students directly,” Tim says of Fred, who died in 2021.

The Pittman family’s gift aids e orts by the Department of Music to encourage student creative expression across all musical styles and media, including the Pittman Family Student Composition Competition. “I think dad would’ve appreciated the students’ enthusiasm to compete and challenge themselves (in the composition competition),” Tim adds. “He would have some measure of satisfaction and joy that this happened.”

Music Instructor Eric Schultz says: “The beauty of this gift is that this competition isn’t a one-o . Students who didn’t enter this year or weren’t named nalists have something to think about for next year. In essence, with this gift, the department is saying, ‘We support you creating your music, and with this infrastructure that wasn’t here before. So take those lyrics and nish that song.’”

Fred Pittman ’51

MIND OVER MATTER

MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCATE RAYMOND BRAUN’S INSPIRING JOURNEY TO WELLNESS

By Andrew Faught

The thoughts were intrusive and often disturbing. They focused on contamination, sickness and freakish accidents. Then came COVID-19, followed by six-month stay-at-home orders in some states. For Raymond Braun ’08, who has spent his life coping with obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, the pandemic represented “all of my nightmares coming true.”

“Things that I had previously been doing that I was told were irrational, such as sanitizing groceries, thinking about air ow in rooms and wearing a mask had been normalized,” Braun says. “My world had been turned upside down. During the rst week of quarantine, people lightheartedly texted me and said: ‘You’ve been preparing your whole life for this moment. You’re more ready for this than anyone.’”

For years, Braun did his best to hide his OCD behind a smile, humor and an unremitting perfectionist streak, a “classic misdirect,” Braun says. But the strong veneer he projected had already begun to fracture in the months leading up to the pandemic when Braun’s best friend and primary support system, Maya Amoils, was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. The two met the rst day of freshman year at Stanford University and quickly became “platonic soul mates.”

“People called us Will and Grace, or Oprah and Gayle,” he says. Braun and Amoils studied abroad together, started their careers at Google together, moved to London and eventually settled in Los Angeles together. Braun was Amoils’ rst call when her doctor scheduled an emergency biopsy. He was with her when she got the diagnosis.

After years of grappling with a particularly insidious

Raymond Braun ’08

variant of OCD that made Braun terri ed something catastrophic could happen to the people he loved most at any moment, Amoils’ diagnosis was a horror come to life. And the subsequent months he spent accompanying her to chemo visits and overnight hospital stays only heightened his fears and compulsions around mortality. “I spiraled and went into a really dark place,” he says.

Braun’s lowest moment came, he says, at the start of 2021, when he spilled a pot of boiling water onto his right leg. He refused to seek medical treatment for the resulting burn because he didn’t want to leave quarantine. He was using the boiled water to sterilize his pillowcase. His toothbrush. Blueberries. The battle against COVID was an hourslong process every day.

Braun is not alone. About 2.5 million people, or 1.2 % of American adults, have OCD in any given year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Symptoms occur on a spectrum, from inconvenient to debilitating. When Braun didn’t leave his West Hollywood apartment for six months (despite the lifting of social distance guidelines), family and friends persuaded him to join an OCD recovery program. Amoils led the charge.

“I felt a lot of shame that my best friend, who was quite literally ghting for her life, was spending time strategizing my OCD care,” he says. Amoils was a passionate advocate for mental health, leading mental health partnerships at YouTube and working throughout the pandemic to help those in crisis.

Braun’s OCD recovery program began with cognitive behavioral therapy and the development of an “exposure therapy pyramid,” or a list of fears and intrusive thoughts, stacked in a pyramid according to “subjective units of distress.” Behaviors and fears with the highest “SUD” position help dictate a treatment course of action. “My therapist and I came up with the idea of doing a triathlon,” Braun says, “because on my pyramid it encapsulated a lot: large groups of people, sweat and grime, riding on roads, or swimming in bodies of water that don’t have chlorine.”

Amoils also committed to doing a triathlon. The quest became a shared goal and guiding light for their respective healing journeys.

For Braun, therapy included working with a personal trainer, an endurance coach, a physical therapist and a primary care physician to ensure that he was approaching training in noncompulsive ways. His daily regimen consisted of two workouts, for one to three hours at a time, and weekend runs and bike rides that could stretch to six

hours. “I wanted to honor the health and vitality of my body,” he says, “and celebrate what it’s capable of versus xating on everything that could go wrong.”

Initially, this treatment course was tough for Braun to fathom. Growing up in Holland, Ohio, he says, “I was an awkward, gangly kid, and I got cut from every team that I joined.” He preferred intellectual discourse and the performing arts to athletic glory, adding: “Whenever I did anything sporty, I’d get bullied for my mannerisms. Sports never felt like a safe and welcoming space for me.”

In the end, athletics would be his deliverance.

“I discovered that I liked the physical activity and movement,” he says. “It calmed down my mind. It was a way of building con dence, getting out of the house, and having something to look forward to and take pride in.”

After six months of therapy and training, Braun was ready to compete in the Santa Barbara Triathlon sprint, an event suited to rst-timers. He completed the course — a 500-meter swim, a six-mile bike ride and a two-mile run — in an exhausting 47 minutes. “I was in bed the rest of the day thinking, ‘How can I do three times this distance?’ The idea of doing an Olympic distance didn’t feel possible.”

Braun soon discovered that endurance events draw numerous people recovering from mental or physical health challenges. Many are driven to conquer self-limiting perceptions of their abilities. He found solidarity and new training partners in the ranks. It was this community that rallied around him when, in November 2021, Amoils began end-of-life, palliative care. She passed away on January 18, 2022. During the last conversation Braun had with Amoils, she expressed worry about how he would cope with the grief of his loss. He promised to do an Ironman “for both of us.”

Training and competing in triathlons morphed from being the North Star of Braun’s OCD treatment to his primary tool for coping with grief. “I felt her with me during those long training sessions,” he says.

In November 2022, less than a year after his last conversation with Amoils, Braun competed in the pinnacle of the sport of triathlon, an Ironman in Arizona. Ironman races cover withering distances: a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run. Braun nished in 16 hours, 32 minutes, just eight minutes before the cuto . Amoils’ photo was tucked into his triathlon kit.

All of this led to the World Triathlon Challenge.

“I discovered that I liked the physical activity and movement. It calmed down my mind. It was a way of building confidence, getting out of the house.”

Braun had heard about the World Marathon Challenge, in which runners complete seven marathons on seven continents in seven days. But no one had ever completed seven triathlons on seven continents in seven days. Braun wanted to be the rst. He contacted the race organizer and local triathlon governing bodies to organize a certied world record attempt. “Being an Exonian, I’m a little bit of an overachiever,” he says.

His goal was twofold: to honor Amoils and to destigmatize conversations about mental health. “Three years ago, I had never run more than three miles,” Braun says. “I loved the idea of doing something so seemingly impossible and being able to say it was all made possible by therapy. This was more of a mental than physical challenge.”

After starting in Antarctica, Braun made stops in Cape Town, South Africa; Perth, Australia; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Madrid; and Miami. He slept only two to three hours between races, fueled by adrenaline, energy bars and airport fast food.

The intercontinental event wasn’t lacking for drama. In Antarctica, a blizzard and a minus-20-degree wind chill prevented Braun from swimming; instead, he substituted cross-country skiing. Forgetting to don a helmet, he fell in the rst two minutes and smacked his head on the ice. Battling a throbbing headache, he also battled intrusive thoughts reminiscent of an earlier time. Braun recalls, “I’m thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, do I have a concussion? What if I’m bleeding? I’m not going to be able to do this.’” He persevered and biked across the barren ice sheet, averaging 6 mph across the treacherous conditions.

On February 7, 2023, Braun became the rst person to complete the World Triathlon Challenge. The feat is, in an important way, a rebuttal to years of struggle with OCD. It’s also a platform for positive change.

To date, Braun has completed more than 16 triathlons. In each endeavor, he draws strength and purpose in service to others. He utilized the publicity from his world record achievement and subsequent endurance races, for example, to raise funds and awareness for mental health causes. Modeled after his own seven-day adventure, he collaborated with the nonpro t Project Healthy Minds to create the “777 pledge,” which asks people to take seven actions to improve their mental and physical health and have seven conversations with people over seven days to support and hold them accountable.

Of course, OCD is a formidable foe. Braun remembers what was: “If I thought about something that I was happy about or looking forward to, my mind would subconsciously make a list of the 100 ways that it could

be sabotaged or hurt someone. I would xate on those. I could never just be present in a moment and truly experience happiness or joy.”

His sister, Hillary Braun ’05, who played varsity eld hockey, ice hockey and lacrosse at Exeter and is now a transplant surgeon resident at the University of California at San Francisco, applauds how far he has come. “I think about what he overcame in just a year or two, it’s incredible.”

When classmate and friend Emily Katz ’08 rst heard about Braun’s plans to compete in triathlons, she had a visceral reaction. “Full-body chills,” she says. “If anyone can pull o an ambitious goal in this life, it’s Raymond. Anything he puts his mind and heart to, it turns to gold.”

Braun says he will always be in recovery and is aware the intrusive thoughts could resurface anytime, but he’s con dent that he has developed the tools and the skills to keep them at bay. Rather than bow to compulsive behavior, Braun is focusing his energy on helping others through their own mental health journeys. It’s a mindset taught by his parents, both of whom work for nonpro t organizations. His father helps to make senior housing more accessible while his mother works for a group that teaches nancial literacy to help reduce the debt burden of student loans.

Shaping Braun just as signi cantly were his days at the Academy and Exeter’s non sibi ethos, which he calls “foundational” to his life. At Exeter, Braun was president of both the Exeter Student Service Organization and Best Buddies, a nonpro t organization that creates social and community opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities. His OCD wasn’t formally diagnosed until his mid-20s, but through therapy — and with the support of friends and teachers — he says, he came out as gay his senior year at Exeter. Only then was he nally able to dispel years of internalized shame about his sexuality.

Today Braun works as a TV correspondent and runs RWB Media, a GLAAD Award-winning creative services and consulting agency he formed after a decade working at Google, ViacomCBS and producing doumentaries. The rm works with various corporations, nonpro ts and advocacy groups to develop multimedia content that embodies Braun’s mission of “storytelling for social impact.” He graduated from Stanford with a B.A. in science, technology and society and an M.A. in media studies.

In his work and in his personal life, Braun is embracing vulnerability. He’s even describing his journey with a verbal twist. “I’ve learned the best way for me to combat all of this shame and internalized fear is to name it, address it and put a spotlight on it,” he says. “As I say, sunlight is the best disinfectant.” E

Raymond Braun ’08 ran, swam, skied and biked to complete seven triathlons in seven days on seven continents.

DANNY MOULTON

CHRIS JOUBERT

JAMES KIM

Forever Connected

THE BONDS BETWEEN TEACHERS, COACHES & CLASSMATES SPAN THE DECADES

By Sarah Pruitt ’95

Strike up a conversation with Exeter alumni about their time at the Academy, and they’ll most likely tell you about at least one person who made their experience truly meaningful. It could be the teacher who sparked their lifelong passion for ornithology, Arabic or economics, or the adviser who helped them get their grades back on track. Maybe it was a roommate, dorm proctor or classmate with whom they bonded over late-night pizzas and study sessions. Or the coach who saw their potential and drew out their best performances on the eld, court, river or rink.

Exeter is a place where lifelong relationships are forged and nurtured; where teachers become mentors, colleagues and friends; where alumni from di erent generations nd common ground; and where the formative experiences of four years — or even a single year — can be recalled as easily as if they happened yesterday.

This summer, we celebrate the enduring power and positive impact of these connections made at Exeter and sustained through geographical separation, busy lives and careers and the passage of time.

Did you form a lasting connection with someone through Exeter? Tell us about it! Share your story at bulletin@exeter.edu.

SARAH ODELL ’06 AND BECKY MOORE, INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH AND CREW COACH

Sarah Odell ’06 first met Becky Moore ’77 (Hon.); P’03, P’05, P’08 when Sarah joined the junior varsity crew team her lower year. As Odell embarked on her own teaching career, Moore became a valued mentor, o ering advice and support for her work in the classroom. Now the director of the Center for Gender and Ethical Leadership in Society at The Hewitt School in New York City, Odell counts Moore as a trusted colleague and an inspiration for her research in gender studies and educational leadership.

ODELL: Initially, I was intimidated by [coach Moore]. It was clear she was incredibly smart, loved teaching and loved getting up early to speak through her bullhorn on the river. As I got to know her better, I realized we were similar in a lot of ways. We’re both direct, we both love the life of the mind, and we see teaching as an intellectual pursuit. I came to the Exeter Humanities Institute when I started teaching in 2013, and she was one of my instructors. I used to call her when I was teaching English, and she always had a deeply thought-out answer that showed her abiding passion for what she does as a teacher.

When I did my doctorate in educational leadership at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I spoke to Becky constantly about what I was reading and thinking about. I study the K-12 leadership pipeline and how gender impacts individuals as they navigate it. I think of how many other women like her may be out there who weren’t given an opportunity to steward our schools and our profession. She sustains my research by keeping me going — just as she did once upon a time as a crew coach.

MOORE: Sarah invited me to work with the English Department at Miss Porter’s School when she was teaching there. It was the sort of invitation that Sarah is so good at — getting people to come together and talk about education, gender and leadership. I visited Sarah’s classes and gave her some observations about the ways I saw her and the students using discussion. She often cites that class visit as a pivotal part of her growth as a teacher and an observer of teachers.

Sarah has been a cheerleader of my career, suggesting me for leadership positions and, in turn, I have recommended her for jobs, workshops and general connections. To mark the 50th year of coeducation at Exeter in 2020-21, we teamed up with Alex Myers ’96 to create a collection of readings and speakers. I remember enjoying planning meetings — in the pit of the pandemic — with Sarah thinking of scholars and readings from her capacious graduate work. To have a former student work to keep up the connection and invite conversation and collaboration has helped switch our initial power imbalance of student and teacher to mentee and mentor, and later to colleague and colleague.

(From top) Becky Moore ’77 (Hon.) and Sarah Odell ’06 in 2023; rowers on the Squamscott River in 2004

JAMES JOHNSON - PIETT ’97 AND SUNIL NARAYAN ’97

When James Johnson-Piett ’97 was looking to expand his team at Urbane, the economic development consultancy he founded in 2008, he called on his longtime friend Sunil Narayan ’97, whom he met when both were preps living on the fourth floor of Cilley Hall. Drawing on decades of shared history and mutual trust, Johnson-Piett and Narayan, now Urbane’s national strategy lead, have joined forces to channel the spirit of non sibi into the company’s work fostering business and community development in historically disinvested communities.

JOHNSON-PIETT: Sunil dressed kind of like me — think Fresh Prince 1993 — so it was a natural connection point around hip-hop/urban fashion that was an initial bond [at Exeter]. Every so often, kids would order pizza or a chicken nger sub from Romeo’s after check-in to share. It was always awkward to pretend I didn’t want any or I wasn’t a starving 15-year-old at 10 p.m. I think Sunil picked up on it and just started covering me, no questions asked. A dollar investment forged a brotherhood over a slice.

After college, I had many career and entrepreneurial twists and turns. I was a one-man show at Urbane for a little while, but eventually work started owing and I needed help. Sunil had an interesting mix of skills between corporate HR, teaching high schoolers, and leveraging his math major [to do quantitative analysis]. Most importantly, I knew him, and I trusted him. He’ll always push to make sure strategy is sound and that we’re not getting ahead of our skis, so to speak.

NARAYAN: I felt adrift the rst few months at Exeter — a bizarro world of L.L. Bean and J.Crew and New England-isms that was completely foreign to the child of immigrant South

Indians from small-town West Virginia. Maybe James sensed how lost and alone I was, or admired my Adidas track suit game, but suddenly he was my friend, and by proxy, his circle of friends and then the entire Afro-Latino Exonian Society. A simple act of kindness from a 13-year-old kid from North Philly changed the trajectory of my life. We roomed together during the Washington Intern Program as seniors and again as summer interns during college. We zipped around on Chinatown buses to hang out and James even humored my transition to a pierced, platinum blond D.C. raver and N.Y.C. party boy.

When he reached out to explain his vision [for Urbane] and inquire if I had an interest in linking up, it was a no-brainer. Balancing a longstanding friendship with the fact that he’s my boss can be a delicate dance at times, but it has been a net positive. We remind each other to eat when we’re cranky, get geeked out with Harkness-y style conversations around community wealth building, and indulge each other’s esoteric tangents. Not many people get the chance to work with someone they’ve known and grown with since they were 13.

(From top) Sunil Narayan ’97 and James Johnson-Piett ’97; Narayan and Johnson-Piett; Johnson-Piett and Narayan with Urbane colleagues

CAITLIN

CORNER -

DOLLOFF ’03 AND CHRIS MATLACK, INSTRUCTOR IN SCIENCE

After taking accelerated biology with Chris Matlack her prep year, Caitlin Corner-Dollo ’03 was so impressed with his humor and hands-on teaching style that she asked him to be her adviser. Matlack’s support buoyed her through Exeter and beyond, while his ability to engage and inspire in the classroom helped launch her on a career path in ecology and environmental change management. During her senior year at Cornell, she won a Merrill Presidential Scholarship that allowed her to invite her most influential high school teacher to campus for the ceremony. Corner-Dollo immediately thought of Matlack. Today, she is senior policy adviser for climate and agriculture in USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security.

CORNER-DOLLOFF: During prep bio, we had to set up an experiment with a partner, and while our proposal required complex supplies and monitoring, [Mr. Matlack] didn’t hesitate to make sure we had everything we needed. It’s so vivid in my mind — the memory of feeling for the rst time at Exeter that I had a teacher completely in my corner, wanting me to succeed and encouraging me to explore and follow my own areas of interest.

Like everyone at Exeter, I held myself to super-high standards. He helped me remember to nd balance and focus on my own path toward what I wanted to achieve. I was thankful, but not surprised, when he supported my decision to defer college a year and engage in experiential learning in New Zealand and work as a naturalist aboard a tall ship in Seattle. He truly believed I had it in me to accomplish my goals and reach beyond them, and that con dence helped me in proposing an independent major at Cornell. Chris remains an important mentor, and I feel I owe much of my success and interest in biology and natural resources to him.

MATLACK: Caitlin was a very good student who prepared extremely thorough answers to every question I asked, whether it was on the homework or an assessment. She had no middle ground: If her name was going on the paper, her best work was as well. After her lower year, she joined my advisee group, which at the time was made up of all boys. It quickly grew to a mixed group, and Caitlin was an integral member for the remainder of her time at Exeter.

During the event at Cornell, Caitlin was able to tour me through her favorite areas, including the school’s ornithology labs at Sapsucker Woods. This was the only time I attended an event for a former student like this at a college, and I was very honored that she selected me. Caitlin always contacts me when she visits campus and periodically sends long emails about her current work. I’ve enjoyed following her varied international career and always look forward to hearing from her.

(From left) Caitlin Corner-Dollo ’03 and Instructor in Science Chris Matlack at Cornell University in 2007; Matlack in his classroom; Corner-Dollo

GORDON SMITH ’74 AND PAUL OUTLAW ’74

As teenagers, Gordon Smith ’74 and Paul Outlaw ’74 bonded while listening to records by “prog rock” bands and hanging out in the basement of their dorm, Webster North. These late-night conversations set the foundation for more than 50 years of friendship, strengthened by a mutual passion for music and a shared experience of embracing their LGBTQ+ identity post-Exeter.

SMITH: Anyone who’s lived long enough knows how important it is to have great friends who “knew you then.” Paul and I started hanging out in the Webster North butt room, and our little group grew to include some girls from one of the new girls dorms. We eventually started dating those girls. I knew from experience that it would be impossible to be gay at Exeter, so I suppressed it and tried being “normal,” not knowing that Paul was doing the same.

In 1978, I moved to the New York City area. I had just come out as gay, and when I told [another friend from Exeter] this, he said that Paul was gay and living in N.Y.C. I happily reconnected with Paul, and he introduced me to my rst gay bar in Manhattan, the Ninth Circle. I attribute my love of Stevie Wonder and Prince to Paul. We have so many interests in common: Aside from his acting, he wrote and recorded some very original songs with electronic instrumentation, my own specialty. Paul and I attended each other’s weddings to our long-term partners and have continued to play an important role in each

other’s lives. He’s probably the most relentlessly positive person I’ve ever known, [and] he always manages to pull me out of myself with his incredible enthusiasm and creative drive.

OUTLAW: I remember Gordon from my prep year as a shy, quiet person who was academically and artistically gifted. I may have found out that year that he and I shared an appreciation (putting it mildly) for the music of the Supremes and Elton John — code for queerness that neither of us consciously understood at the time. Before I left Harvard in the summer of 1976 to transfer to N.Y.U., I remember a long-haired, bespectacled Gordon Smith visiting me and disco dancing to Donna Summer with my friends at dorm parties.

Living in New York City in the early 1980s, I became an uno cial groupie of Gordon’s two bands, and Gordon came to see me perform in downtown theater productions. During a decade living in Berlin, my performing arts practice expanded to include music, as a frontman and lyricist in various bands and a singer-songwriter of my own material. I can’t help but think that I was in uenced in some way by Gordon’s commitment to his music and our shared love of the electronic music of the ’70s and ’80s. Gordon’s serenity and undiminished youthfulness have been an inspiration to me throughout our friendship.

(From left) Paul Outlaw ’74 and Gordon Smith ’74 in 1974; Outlaw and Smith in New York City in 2023

MIKE MCCARTHY ’95 AND ROB MORRIS, INSTRUCTOR IN HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND FOOTBALL COACH

When Mike McCarthy ’95 and Rob Morris showed up for preseason football in August 1992, they were both new to Exeter. Over many hours spent together on the field and in Webster North over the next three years, they developed a connection that would endure past McCarthy’s graduation, evolving from a relationship between a coach and an athlete to that of close friends. McCarthy returns to campus regularly to visit Morris and his family and says he thinks of Morris as a second father.

MCCARTHY: Coach’s whole idea was: When you see somebody on the paths walking between dorms, you always say hello, you always nod, you always smile, you say good morning. He was all about being respectful to everybody, even the people you didn’t know. His point was: Don’t just be a typical jock. Be way more than that.

He and I love the same music. He’s a diehard Jimmy Bu ett and Bruce Springsteen fan, and those are two of my favorites. We would sit in the dorm and he would play records and we would just talk about life. Exeter was a wonderful experience for me in general, but he certainly enhanced it, that’s for sure.

Rob and his wife, Cindy, have been super close to me from the minute I got to know them, from me babysitting their kids when they would go to Jimmy Bu ett concerts to Rob coming up to Vermont and watching me play polo or come to football matches when he could. I’ve visited him and the family at least two or three times a year, and last year he came down and visited me for ve or six days in South Carolina, which was great.

MORRIS: When I met Mike, I was a 25-year-old, rst-year, part-time health teacher and football coach. At the conclusion of preseason, when the football players moved into their permanent dorms, Mike moved into Webster North, where I had recently moved with my wife, Cindy. In addition to coaching Mike over the next

three years, he was also my advisee. I became dorm head in my second year, and Mike served as one of my proctors during his senior year. We navigated together the usual ups and downs of boarding school life. Many days felt like a TV sitcom, with most episodes entitled: “What have you gotten yourself into this time, Mike?”

We kept in touch during Mike’s college years, and we talked often about our respective football seasons. One of my greatest memories as head football coach at Exeter is having Mike return each preseason as a volunteer coach on my sta We’ve leaned on each other more than a few times over the years when facing life challenges, and he’s one of my closest friends. Thirty years later, he still has the same qualities he had when he was a new lower: outgoing, friendly and an intense competitor on the eld, as well as a strong work ethic, curiosity, kindness and a great sense of humor. E

(From top) Rob Morris; Mike McCarthy ’95 in 1993; Morris and McCarthy at Clemson Unversity in 2022

CONNECTIONS

News and notes from the alumni community

Punctuating the Journey

By Greg Brown ’93; P’20, P’23

Gradus ad Parnassum. Steps to Parnassus. Pray that the road is long. I think about musical punctuation constantly while composing. Is this moment a comma? a question mark? an ellipsis …? — We humans enjoy grammar, especially when it clari es our thoughts and progress. It took our early ancestors a surprisingly long time to gure out the importance of creating space between words and indicating the end of one thought and thebeginningofthenext. Without those demarcations we are forced to pull the letters and ideas apart from one another like meat from a chicken wing.

I studied geology brie y in college. A concept from invertebrate paleontology stuck with me: punctuated equilibrium. It’s a way of trying to make sense of the long thread of evolution by thinking about biological communities living in relative stasis for long periods of time with moments of change and mutation punctuating the journey.

Gradus ad intellegentiam. Steps to understanding. Pray that the road is long, and full of knowledge.

June 6, 1993: cold and cloudy with threats of rain. Our graduation ceremony is pushed into Love Gymnasium. We are disappointed, but not terribly. I was simply happy to be done. Finished. Give me that fancy piece of paper, Exeter, please and thank you.

May 5, 2001: I am sitting in Princeton Chapel next to a close friend and colleague. We are waiting to receive our Master of Music diplomas and laugh when we realize that we haven’t really ‘mastered’ anything at all. Had we become pro cient? Somewhat! But no Masters by any stretch of the imagination. We’re still guring it out, day by day, phrase by phrase. We weren’t at the end of the story. And we are perhaps not even at the end of the sentence.

June 7, 2020: warm sun. We are on the patio in our backyard, relatives safely distant either on lawn chairs at the edge of the yard or entirely remote via video conference. We make our own music and give our own commencement speeches. My older child seems bemused by the fuss we are making over his ceremony.

June 4, 2023: another rainy and windy day, but this time outdoors. Another graduation, another step, this time my younger child’s. We easily ignore the rain and other distractions as we cheer him up the stairway to receive his handshake and fancy piece of paper.

Gradus ad Ithacam. Steps to Ithaka. Pray that the road is long, and full of adventure. Co-parenting two teenagers through the pandemic was nothing if not adventure. In fall of 2019 we helped our prep and senior move into their dorms, leaving the house quite empty. Six months later we had both children back with us, along with an added bonus child in the form of our older child’s friend from Manhattan, who stayed with us for much of that spring. It was a terrifying time. We had our cozy little enclave against the storm with ve simultaneous Zoom calls running much of the time, spidering ourselves virtually into the world. I’m not sure if they understood how comforting it was to have them close as the pandemic’s unpredictable storm clouds blew around us.

…pray that the road is long and punctuated with the sunrises of countless summer mornings ahead — mornings full of joy and new harbors to alight in. E

Bennett Brown ’23 and Greg Brown ’93

CATCHING UP WITH A YOUNG ALUM

ERICA HOGAN ’18

Social Diplomacy

By Jennifer Wagner

Taking a gap year after graduating from Exeter wasn’t part of Erica Hogan’s original life plan. But she is so thankful she did. “The rst month of my gap year I was really stressed because it was the rst point in my life where I had this broad, expansive choice,” Hogan ’18 recalls, now ve years later. “Having that time really forced me to be super intentional about what I wanted

behind the political movement for a federated union of African states, modeled after the United States. She wanted to understand why, in the eyes of political leaders at the time, federation was necessary to ensure both societal prosperity and individual well-being.

This summer, Hogan heads to Washington, D.C., as a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow in the Africa Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a nonpartisan international a airs think tank. We caught up with her following her visit to the Academy for her class’s fth-year reunion and two weeks before her college graduation to hear more about what her future holds.

What will you be researching during your fellowship year?

It’s really important to me that I do research that’s mission focused, or research that matters beyond just the people who read research. That’s one reason why I’m really excited to be at Carnegie and at a place where research happens that’s explicitly meant to drive tangible change. The Africa Program is very much driven toward trying to reshape the U.S.-Africa relationship into one that’s much more of a partnership. That’s something that I want to get behind.

What did you take from Exeter that helped prepare you for this work?

to be doing, what it would do for me, and how I would grow through it. It made me a much better student in college.”

Ultimately, Hogan chose to travel to Zambia, where she volunteered as a teaching assistant in a fth-grade classroom in the morning and worked with adult learners in the afternoon. She often crossed the border into Zimbabwe and noticed how di erently the two countries had fared since independence. She credits that formative experience with her deep intellectual interest in Africa and the coursework she pursued at the University of Chicago. Hogan’s senior thesis investigated the relationship between social organization and human well-being; speci cally, the philosophy

The history sequence did a really good job of helping me understand how social phenomena don’t happen in one clear narrative or one clear setting, which is super important to what I do now. And my friends in college are always like, “You’re so meta, so re ective.” I think that’s entirely from the English curriculum, and I’m really glad. That kind of skill is one that doesn’t necessarily come easily, but is really essential to living life intentionally.

What are your plans after the fellowship?

I want to do a Ph.D., but I’d love to take some time o before that. I feel like if you’re in the business of trying to understand people, the best way to do that is to talk to people. So that is my biggest goal after the fellowship. E

DREW MAGARY ’94

Media Disruptor

By Danielle Cantor

You could rightly categorize Drew Magary ’94’s writing career as extremely successful. The acclaimed author, columnist and co-founder of Defector, a media startup, writes columns beloved by sports fans across the country, including his “Why Your Team Sucks” NFL preview and weekly “Funbag” Q&A. His writing is irreverent yet relatable, 100 percent authentic and unapologetic.

But behind the highlights of Magary’s résumé is a compelling story of innovation, against long odds, in today’s digital media landscape. It began at the Academy in 1993. “When I was a student at Exeter, I became a smart person,” Magary says, self-e acingly. “I wouldn’t be a smart person without Exeter. It’s also where I discovered that I wanted to become a writer.”

In fact, Magary’s rst column, Couch’s Corner, appeared in The Exonian. Emulating the sardonic style of his favorite sportswriters and comedians, he wrote caustic takedowns of campus life that once earned reproach from Kendra Stearns O’Donnell, the principal at the time, during a morning assembly.

In class with English Instructor Harvard Knowles, Magary found his career inspiration. The “standout moment” happened while reading Joseph Heller’s satirical Catch-22. “I thought, ‘Hey, wait, I’m laughing.’ Thanks to Knowles’ class, I learned assigned reading could be fun,” Magary says. “Then I thought, OK, well, there’s something I’d like to do.”

Of course, the path to becoming a successful writer is not so simple — or linear. After graduating from Colby College in 1998 with a degree in journalism, Magary moved to New York City and began a career in copywriting. In 2006, he tried his hand at blogging, and two years later joined the sports website Deadspin as a columnist. Magary’s piercing commentary on sports, culture and politics helped the site establish a ercely loyal following.

In the ensuing years, in addition to his Deadspin columns, Magary published a satirical sports handbook, three novels and a memoir, all highly praised. Then in 2018, his life changed radically in an instant when he had a massive brain hemorrhage. He was

in a medically induced coma for two weeks, followed by a lengthy recovery, an experience he later chronicled in his 2021 memoir, The Night the Lights Went Out.

Magary returned to writing, but in mid-2019 he faced a setback of a di erent kind. Deadspin’s new parent company began making serious changes, ring the acting editor-in-chief and prompting a high-pro le showdown with the editorial sta . Within days they all resigned.

What now? They knew they wanted to write as they had for so long at Deadspin, for a media outlet that prioritized editorial integrity over advertising dollars. The group came to the conclusion that the only way to do it was on their own. They resolved to try something revolutionary: form a worker cooperative, owned completely by the sta , and test what was then a largely unproven paid-subscription model. In July 2020, the team o cially announced the new company, Defector Media. Within 24 hours, its eponymous website had 10,000 paid subscribers.

The response shocked the media world, including Magary. The gamble had paid o . With a lean sta , Defector is pro table. The site generated about $3.8 million in revenue in its second year — a remarkable 95 % from its roughly 38,000 subscriptions. “I came from a background, that background being ‘America,’” Magary jokes, “where I thought an employee-owned company wouldn’t work because no one could make a decision. But we run the company together, e ciently and equally.”

Is Defector’s model the way of the future for serious journalists? “I think that good writing and reporting are really welcome to people,” he says. “Because — once again, I learned this at Exeter — really important subjects can also be thoroughly engrossing and entertaining.” E

JOHN MITTERMEIER ’04

Searching for Lost Birds

By Juliet Eastland ’86

As a prep at Exeter, John Mittermeier ’04 had what he calls a “foundational” experience. Biking around campus at dusk, he spotted “something interesting” in a reed bed at Powder House Pond. He pedaled to the bookstore, ri ed through a bird guide, and realized he had seen a juvenile purple gallinule — a small, long-legged marsh forager, only the fth or sixth ever recorded in New Hampshire. “It generated a lot of excitement in the local birding community,” he says. “It stayed for several days. A lot of people came to see it. It was a great experience for me, having made that discovery.”

In fact, Mittermeier’s penchant for discovery had started long before. His father and stepmother are conservation biologists. By the time he landed

at Exeter, he had lived in at least 10 places, including New York, Michigan, Virginia and Madagascar, where at age 11, he lived with his biologist mother in a small town, seven hours from the nearest telephone. For a year, his mother studied chameleons while he soaked up the ora and fauna of the island’s southwestern “spiny desert,” an arid region bristling with hairy cactus-like plants and tentacular succulents. “It was a really interesting experience,” Mittermeier says. “It was also challenging, kind of isolating, but it really turned my attention toward natural history even more.”

En route back to the United States, he and his mother joined a safari in East Africa. Mittermeier, who had obtained a bird checklist, tried to stump their guide. “I have a distinct memory of a shadow going over the road,” he says, adding: “I asked him what the shadow was and, without missing a beat, he says, ‘bateleur eagle.’ I remember thinking: ‘What is this magic? What is this Jedi power this guy has?’ I wanted to know how it was possible to have that kind of knowledge about things.”

This sense of wonder propelled Mittermeier through work in the Solomon Islands, Indonesia, Suriname and Samoa, and he ultimately earned a master’s degree in systematics, ecology and evolution at Louisiana State University and a Ph.D. in biodiversity research at the University of Oxford in England. In 2015, Forbes recognized him as one of its “30 Under 30” in science. He has spotted over 5,700 bird species, around half the world’s total.

Now, as director of the search for lost birds at the American Bird Conservancy, Mittermeier spearheads a global initiative to develop conservation projects for some of ornithology’s “greatest mysteries”: birds around the world that have not been seen in 10 years or more. “These are birds we hope are not extinct yet,” he says. “Or they’re birds that’ve been overlooked, that nobody’s managed to nd. We want to put a spotlight on those species and nd them.”

JOHN MITTERMEIER

Like a detective, he digs through “missing birds” cold-case archives, wondering: Can I apply some new methods? Talk to some di erent people? Can we solve this?

Discovering and documenting a lost bird is not simply an end in itself. It’s the beginning of a larger evaluation of the bird’s history, the health of the ecosystem and the needs of all its residents, avian and human. “You try to learn any sort of information you can glean about [the bird’s] natural history, behavior, habitat requirements, population size and potential threats,” the biggest of which is habitat destruction, Mittermeier says. “Then you can start building some conservation recommendations.”

These could involve forestalling further habitat degradation by designating a protected area; exploring alternative income sources for local people (e.g., “sustainable and equitable ecotourism initiatives around certain species”); or developing markets for sustainable livelihood options (e.g., shade-grown co ee).

“The question isn’t, ‘What should we do as outsiders?’” Mittermeier says, but “‘What are the problems you all have, and what can we do to help you achieve what you need in a way that protects the species as well?’”

“A lot of times, when you’re doing these types of projects, you end up interacting with people who still live very close to the land,” he adds. “They’re part of cultures who’ve lived in these areas for millennia, often subsistence farmers or shermen or hunters, so they know the land extremely well, and have incredible respect and interest in species in this land. I’ve come out learning so much from the people I interact with.”

In 2022, a thrilling lead emerged: the possible sighting of the black-naped pheasant-pigeon, last documented in 1896, on remote Fergusson Island in Papua New Guinea. Mittermeier gathered his team, packed his gear and decamped on a 30-day pursuit. They spent weeks interviewing residents with no luck. “Morale was getting really low,” Mittermeier says.

Finally, in an isolated community called Headof-the-River in the local language, they located

someone who had seen the bird. “We went with him to this incredibly remote area with landscapes like origami, folded mountains and river valleys, and he showed us the place,” Mittermeier says. “We set up camera traps. We were collecting them on literally our last day in the forest, and … nothing on one camera. Nothing on the next. Or the next.” On the last video recording, there it was: a chicken-like black bird with orange wings and beady red eyes, the rst black-naped pheasant-pigeon documented in 126 years.

“It felt like nding a unicorn, a mythical animal,” he says.

Alas, not every journey ends with a bird in hand. “The pheasant-pigeon is a story of rediscovery and of local knowledge we could tap into,” he says. “But in some cases, it’s a story of habitat change and loss.” After a fruitless search for the Samoan moorhen in 2005, Mittermeier acknowledges that the bird is probably extinct. Ten years later, he searched unsuccessfully for its Solomon Islands cousin, the Makira moorhen, last documented in 1929. He planned to resume the search in June. “We did a lot of awareness-raising” on the rst trip, he says. This time he expected to ask, “‘Have you seen anything in the intervening years?... Is it still there? If not, what happened to it?’”

Coincidentally, moorhens are related to gallinules, Mittermeier’s Exeter nd. Will he also (re) discover the Makira moorhen and close the circle? Stay tuned. E

“It felt like finding a unicorn, a mythical animal.”

A black-naped pheasant-pigeon photographed by a camera trap along the Kwama River, Fergusson Island, Papua New Guinea, in September 2022

DOKA NASON / AMERICAN BIRD CONSERVANCY

Memorial Minute

Michael Francis Drummey ’79 (Hon.); P’84, P’86, P’87

Woodbridge Odlin Professor of English and Instructor in English, Emeritus ( 1937 - 2020 )

Michael Francis Drummey was born on June 21, 1937, in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and was brought up in North Andover. He attended the Brooks School, where his skills on the basketball court and baseball eld earned him recognition as the school’s Athlete of the ’50s. He went on to serve in the Army before attending Harvard University, class of 1962, earning a B.A. in English. At Harvard, too, Michael was

the Agenda Committee and the Appointments and Leaves Committee; worked in the Admissions and Financial Aid o ces; and was a member of the Discipline Committee and Committee on Faculty A airs. He led students on the Stratford Program (fall 1996) and School Year Abroad France (1979-80). He received a Brown Family Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1995 and was appointed Woodbridge Odlin Professor of English in 1998.

A ercely competitive athlete even in adulthood, Michael coached Academy sports for 32 years. His assignments included junior varsity football, junior varsity baseball, girls junior varsity hockey and club tennis. Michael, fellow coach Dick Brown says, “made games fun and practices entertaining. On a rainy day with soggy elds, when other coaches would call o practice, we would have sliding practice. We would get muddy and soaked, loving every minute. Mike made life fun.”

a force on the baseball eld, winning the Charles H. Blair Bat, annually awarded to the leading hitter in the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League. His love of literature led him to the Middlebury Bread Loaf School of English, where he earned his M.A. in English.

Michael began his teaching career at Holderness School. There, among longtime friends, he and his wife, Adrienne, were married in 1982. Combined, they had ve children: Michael was father to Kelly and Katie ’87; Adrienne, mother to Julie ’84, David ’86 and Nadine. Michael was appointed as instructor in English in 1969 and taught until his retirement in 2001 — though he continued to teach part time until 2006. He was dorm head of Soule Hall, a dorm parent in Webster North and a resident of Gould House. He served on

By contrast, Mr. Drummey is remembered by former students as a “very tough” English teacher, but also as a “di erence maker.” One former pupil says, “I still keep a letter he wrote me in 1971, admonishing me for my conduct but encouraging me with what he saw as ‘potential’ for the person he thought I could become.” Another recalls: “I will always feel grateful for the kindness Mr. Drummey showed me during my fall from grace at Exeter in January of 1971. The night after the principal removed me as president of the school newspaper and the dean told me that I might be thrown out of the school for insubordination ‘and not a single faculty member will vote to keep you in,’ Mr. Drummey let me know that he cared about me.”

The following tribute is the sort that warms every teacher’s heart: “[Mr. Drummey] always encouraged this struggling student by saying that I would make a great teacher. I have been teaching for 16 years now and think of those

GABRIEL AMADEUS COONEY

words every day.” In sum, an alumna says: “He was a tough but fair instructor who expected nothing less than one’s nest e ort. And that’s what students delivered for him.”

Mike (as many of us knew him) is missed by his former colleagues in the English Department, who remember him as gru , witty, curmudgeonly, hilarious. [Chair of the Department of English, Emeritus] Doug Rogers, a close friend for over 40 years, shared these thoughts on one of their shared pastimes: “Michael loved golf, loved getting out on a summer’s afternoon with friends, loved walking the course, loved the endish diculty of striking that little white ball. Out on the course, we turned back time, discovered again the days of our youth. Though grown men in our 30s, 40s, 60s or 70s, we felt the joy we had known in high school or college sports.”

Former colleague Becky Moore recalls, “He always wanted us to remember to hold students to high standards — a notorious ‘hard grader’ voice; however, I remember Michael most for the day he made perhaps one of the only comments I heard him make in faculty meeting. He spoke up to support keeping a student on the academic borderline. With unusual directness Michael said: ‘He may go home and get shot. Let’s remember what some people actually need from this place.’”

English Instructor Alex Myers writes: “I was lucky enough to have Mr. Drummey for two terms in my upper year. I also enjoyed him as my hockey coach. I think I shared one of the most peculiar intimacies with him: We had hockey practice out on the river one day and he and I skated o at the end of the practice. It was a gorgeous, freezing day. We hit a bend in the river and the ice was black, almost invisible. He stopped me and reached out with his stick to tap the ice. Just a little tap and water spurted up. We shu ed away and skated back the way we had come; we were almost back at the wide spot where the teams were practicing when we saw [English Instructor] Mr. Valhouli setting out for some skating of his own. Mr. Drummey told him to watch it, that the ice was awfully thin on the bends. Then we sat on the bank and untied our skates. Mr. Valhouli fell through the ice and drowned that afternoon. The next morning, having not yet heard the news, I went to Mr. Drummey’s classroom for English. He told me what had happened and then he gave

me a hard stare and asked me, ‘Why wasn’t it us?’ I didn’t have an answer then, and I still don’t have one now.”

Michael Drummey set out on his own nal journey on April 12, 2020, after a well-fought battle with Parkinson’s disease. He died at his home in Exeter with his devoted wife and best friend, Adrienne, by his side. Survivors include his four sisters — Patricia Skeirik, Geraldine Belanger, Janet Cahill and Sally Bryan — his children, stepchildren and grandchildren.

Images and memories remain. “When he retired,” former colleague Mercy Carbonell writes, “I was assigned his basement classroom. He wrote me a handwritten note to say he was leaving everything there. There was a tall wall of bookshelves with all of the ‘department’ books on them — dusty, hardbound collections of Faulkner, Shakespeare, encyclopedias, Norton anthologies, Oxford English dictionaries — all eventually lost in the ood of 2006. In the windowsills were cardboard boxes of les, papers, recommendation letters, other writings and musings (often done on typewriter or in his scrawl). I found small newspaper cutouts, cartoons from The New Yorker, lines of poetry, lovely de nitions of the art of a semicolon. His wit and sensitivity, his vulnerability and his patience — his joy, too: all in these curious pieces he left behind.”

Rogers adds, “Colleague, partner, friend, and most of all, teacher: Michael loved the beauty of a well-turned phrase, loved to teach Catch-22 and All the King’s Men. Loved poetry, loved committing lines to memory, loved Shakespeare. And, more than anything else, loved teaching kids, opening doors, never knowing what might lie on the other side but happy to engage in the discovery.”

Appreciation is the quality one former colleague returned to, noting, “Michael’s appreciation for precision, for the small things, for meaning: A poem tacked on an old cork board; a yellowing newspaper clipping taped nearby; the way a baseball arcs through the April rain.” E

The Memorial Minute excerpted here was written by Todd Hearon (Bennett Fellowship Coordinator and Instructor in English) with gratitude to Doug Rogers for his good counsel and contributions, and to Michael’s former students and colleagues for the use of their words. The full remarks were presented at faculty meeting on November 14, 2022, and are available at exeter.edu/memorialminute.

Michael Drummey ’79 (Hon.); P’84, P’86, P’87, instructor in English, emeritus

ACADEMY ARCHIVES

Moved Out But Not Moved On

By Finn Tronnes ’24

ACROSS

1. Oldest/best dorm on campus

6. Christ Stopped at ___ (Carlo Levi book)

11. “Huh?”

14. How often an irresponsible Exonian skips class

15. Watergate president

16 Exeter’s rock ’n’ roll club, for short

17. Requested to withdraw, per se

19.Texter’s “Hold that thought”

20. What you might say to a friend on the path

21. Like the Academy lawn

23. Women have been welcomed to Exeter for over ve

26. Warts and such

27. What you’ll need if you sneak out every night

28. Wander in the library

29. Out to lunch

30. Unit or sect su x

31. Color TV pioneer

34. I Am ___, onetime spino of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”

35. Main Street Hall’s rival

36. Thick carpet

37. Split ___: New Zealand band

38. To no ___ (without e ect)

39. TV actor Jason

40. Nonresident doctor

42. What a member of the Exeteras does

43. Pub mug

45. John and Elizabeth, with “s”

46. Garden like the one atop the Lamont Gallery

47. Way overcharge

48. Letter used in Old English and Icelandic

49. PV= nRT

54. Ryssdal of NPR’s Marketplace

55. 1972 missile pact

56. Unclear reply to “Is Principal’s Day this week?”

57. Tiny taste

58. Phoebe Bridgers song

59. Couple’s answer to “Who’s there?”

DOWN

1. What The Exonian sells to local businesses

2. Sweetie, in slang

3. Trash collector

4. Hard to break?

5. Entered digitally

6. Env. contents besides letters

7. Anti-apartheid activist Steve

8. Commercial lead-in to Clean

9. What may lie ahead

10. Like a painful toenail

11. Large dorm with a whale mascot

12. Like winters in Exeter

13. “We have the meats” fast-food chain

18. Afro-Latinx Exonian Society, for short

22. “How cute!” exclamations

23. Studios in Goel

24. Online nance company

25. Global _________ refers

to the idea of identity transcending geography and borders

26. Where you might get a snack after stopping at P.O.

28. An Exonian’s is huuuuge

30. The Gavit Cup, Negley, e.g.

32. Lloyd of women’s soccer fame

33. Describes Exonians opening college decisions

35. 14-Across synonym

36. Is friendly to

38. Not completely safe

39. Paper-folding club at Exeter

41. Classic Jaguar model

42. Goon

43. Walks to class through snow, for instance

44. Vietnamese dress

45. Disease that Lamont Hall was originally designated to treat

47. Post-WWII commerce agreement

50. “Evil Woman” band

51. Fleur-de-___

52. Aladdin’s monkey

53. Director Anderson

Finn Tronnes ’24 is the cruciverbalist behind this year’s crossword puzzles in The Exonian He is a rising fouryear senior in Abbot Hall from Kansas City, Missouri. Outside of making and solving puzzles he enjoys art and cycling. Visit

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