Gilmour Magazine Fall 2011

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GOING GLOBAL CLAIRE KENNEY ‘06


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10 Our 10-Year Treasured Mission to Honduras Staff Editor Kathleen C. Kenny

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Associate Editor Kathleen McDermott Contributing Writers Nicolene Emerson Kathleen C. Kenny Kathleen McDermott Arlene Smith

Congratulations to the Class of 2011

30 The Academy Awards

Editorial Assistants Amy D. Boyle Katy Finucane ’06 Matt LaWell Arlene Smith Mary Kate Farrar Vega ’93 Holly Yotter Photography John Bashian ’78 Neal Busch Nicolene Emerson James C. Farrar ’59 Mark Most John Overman Kevin Reeves Design/Production Canale Studio, Inc.

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Printing Oliver Printing Director of Development James C. Farrar ’59

A Site Visit by Nature’s Stewards

Director of Annual Fund and Constituent Relations Mary Kate Farrar Vega ’93

36 Closing the Gender Debate

Sponsored by the Congregation of Holy Cross Notre Dame, Indiana


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Gilmour Magazine

CONTENTS Features

Alumni

Going Global . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Our 10-Year Mission to Honduras . . . . . . . 10 Kingsley Becomes Lower School’s Third Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

AlumNews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44 Lancer Spotlights . . .44, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56

Lancer Athletics Commencement Commencement Address Valedictorian . . . . . . . . . Salutatorian . . . . . . . . . . Matriculation List . . . . . .

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.15 .18 .20 .22

The Academy Awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Site Visit by Nature’s Stewards . . . . . . Creating DNA Fingerprints in Class . . . . Gilmour’s Chessman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Learning the Rapture of Music . . . . . . . Closing the Gender Debate . . . . . . . . . . History Hounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Margie Picciano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Teacher’s Take on Poetry . . . . . . . . . Everything is Illuminated . . . . . . . . . . . Taking the Full Measure of Ukraine . . . Adding Skype to Middle School Lexicon

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.30 .32 .34 .34 .35 .36 .38 .39 .40 .41 .42 .43

Athletic Director Tom Bryan Retires . . . . . .57 Gilmour Skater Is Aces on Ice . . . . . . . . . . .57 Gilmour All-American Swimmer . . . . . . . . .58 USA Hockey Camps Select 4 from GA . . . . .58 GA Cross-Country Invitational . . . . . . . . . . .59 The Places They Could Go . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

Campus Memorial Brother William Joseph Geenen, C.S.C. . . . .60 Bernadine P. Healy Loop, M.D. . . . . . . . . . .61 Gilmour Extends Sympathy to Families . . . .62

Dear Parents, We send this magazine to college-age graduates at their parents’ homes. Please forward this to keep your son or daughter informed about GA.


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could be the real global currency of our future. As boundaries give way to humanitarian service without borders and cultural and religious barriers abate, our resolve to export our resources and skills will help build the capacity of people around the world. Gilmour graduates serving around the globe learn to become astute at problem solving and are ingrained with the idea that a global perspective is imperative for the future. As U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says, “In this global economy, the line between domestic and international issues is increasingly blurred, with the world’s economies, societies, and people interconnected as never before.” Gilmour alumni serve in Guyana and Ghana, Costa Rica and Brazil, Kenya and India. They are Peace Corps volunteers, Fulbright Scholars and Rotary Scholars. Some serve through college programs. They are a life force in many developing countries and their courage, spirit and drive rival all comers. Whether countering disasters or diseases, poverty and malnutrition, conflicts and crises, they are steering a course off the charts. These graduates are citizens of the world destined to secure justice and humanize their world. Here are some of their stories. Megan Schmidt-Sane ’05 first visited India as a Gilmour high school student in 2002 and the poverty jarred her. “I knew I couldn’t live in a world where poverty existed and not do anything about it,” she says. The George Washington University graduate decided to pursue a career in international development “and be involved with change at the grassroots level. What happens in countries as far away as Yemen and Somalia has a direct impact on our domestic affairs,” says Schmidt-Sane who was a Rotary Scholar in India and a Fulbright Teaching Assistant in Vietnam. “If we focus on global outreach, if we focus on poverty alleviation, we not only will be helping others, but we will ensure the safety of our country and stem the tide of anti-American sentiments that has arisen in recent years.”

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The Gilmour alum worked on an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign and coordinated a youth center in a slum for children at risk, offering swimming, hiking and English classes, and later she taught math and English. As a Fulbright Teaching Assistant, she taught English at the university level in a poor rural province designing her own classes, running an English club, tutoring students and volunteering in an orphanage. Schmidt-Sane’s experiences expanded her views and allowed her to look at issues from a global perspective. It permitted her to see the direct effects of U.S. foreign policy and gave her a greater appreciation for the United States. In Vietnam, where Facebook and BBC Online are blocked, she had to avoid saying anything political that could be construed as criticizing the government. “Coming home, I appreciated the First Amendment that much more,” she says. Revolutions in Arab countries last spring support that globalization is helping to spread democracy, she believes. “It has meant more freedom for women and girls, increased the availability of inexpensive prescription drugs and has allowed for “a freer flow of goods and ideas across international borders.” Still, Schmidt-Sane cautions about blindly supporting


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It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Robert F. Kennedy globalization without balancing it with the preservation of local culture and ideas. She now sees global outreach as a moral issue with wealthy countries helping poorer ones. “Maybe it’s my belief in justice, or perhaps a penchant for service that was instilled in me as a Gilmour student, but I truly believe we have a duty to help others and to alleviate suffering where suffering occurs,” Schmidt-Sane says. To this end, she plans to pursue a career in global health care, especially the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS and will pursue a Master of Public Health degree at Columbia University. For Laura Ondrake Krueger ’02 “Globalization simply means that we get to experience things from different cultures and put our own spin on them.” After graduating from Loyola University in Chicago, she spent a year teaching English at three high schools in Toyohashi, Japan, through the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Programme. Initially Krueger faced the challenge of “putting down my own barriers with people and getting them to put down barriers as well. We struggled to communicate in the beginning, but it was more rewarding when we did make connections.” Although the alum loves the Japanese culture and loved living there, she now realizes “the difficulties facing someone who is different.” Krueger not only learned about what it means to be a foreigner in a country, but she has a better perception of the strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese school system. “I think the Japanese people learned about

accepting someone who was sometimes a little louder than they were,” she quips. After Japan, Krueger earned a master’s degree in Japanese literature and language from The Ohio State University. She believes that “We really don’t understand other people unless we understand their culture,” and that her year in Japan taught her about herself and the difficulty of learning another language. “I’m less afraid to make mistakes and put myself out there now.” The challenges of serving abroad seem to bring out a “can do” attitude in the Gilmour graduates. “I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of many things in the Peace Corps,” notes Hannah LaBerteaux ’05. “The experience erased limits from my life in a very permanent way.” Working alone as a volunteer in a rural African village really appealed to LaBerteaux. After graduating from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in international health, LaBerteaux felt that the Peace Corps would really test her. After eight months in Benin, a security problem put her at risk. She was offered the choice of going home or transferring to another country, so she went to Senegal. LaBerteaux was a rural health volunteer in both countries. She had to learn a different local language and culture once she arrived in Senegal and her group was halfway through their training. Translating health care concepts forced her to find new ways to explain ideas. The local language often didn’t have words for most of the health terms.

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In Benin, LaBerteaux worked at a health center and organized a program to weigh babies and offer education sessions to help those with malnutrition recuperate. She also assisted with prenatal health and sex education projects. In Senegal, she helped build an incinerator and create a trash management program. She also organized a leadership camp for high school students where she taught creative writing and about sexual health and HIV/AIDS prevention. Working with school-aged children and teachers in both countries underscored how different their philosophy of education was in comparison to America. LaBerteaux explains, “Where we value innovation and questioning, West African schools focus on inflexible order and memorization. I never felt luckier to have the education I’ve had.” Reflecting on her Peace Corps years she says that it was a period of many contrasts. “The Peace Corps can be so hyperbolic,” she says. “I was the happiest and most fulfilled I had ever been, but also the saddest, the loneliest, the hungriest, the sickest, the dirtiest and the most frustrated.” LaBerteaux contends that humility and openness are essential for globalization and that people go into developing countries with the notion that they are transferring their skills and resources because the recipients are lacking. “In reality, any lasting change or development requires an exchange and flow of information,” she says. “There is so much to learn from the rest of the world, but only if we are willing to put our own views aside.” DeLana Turner ’06 just started her 27-month stint as a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa in July. She will teach English in primary and middle schools. The Miami University graduate says, “This is a wonderful opportunity for me to be exposed to a new culture, learn a new language and provide my assistance in any way possible,” adding, “South Africa has a huge economic disparity between wealth and poverty. I just try to keep an open mind and experience everything

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as it comes.” Learning a new language is one of her bigger challenges since South Africa has 11 official languages. Participating in a mission trip to Honduras her senior year at Gilmour inspired Turner to serve in the Peace Corps. “I feel so much joy,” she says, “helping other people around the world that are less fortunate.” Gilmour humanitarian service missions to Honduras and New Orleans spurred Brittany Corrigan ’07, a recent graduate of Centre College in Danville, Ky., to train to develop medical clinics in Africa and Central America. Corrigan, who majored in Spanish, spent January doing a medical internship working on a mission program in West Africa. She helped open medical clinics in Liberia, working with an emergency room doctor on ways to improve and run small and sustainable village clinics. Corrigan lived without electricity and running water and hiked into the jungle to villages to help vaccinate babies against polio, whooping cough, diphtheria and other diseases. She also shadowed a medical team during cataract removal surgeries, practiced doing stitches and helped deliver two babies by Caesarean section and remove an appendix. “Support for developing countries is important because victims of poverty do not have other options,” Corrigan says. “Programs such as food stamps, welfare and Medicaid do not exist. If you do not have money to support your family, your family goes hungry, or worse, becomes a victim of preventable diseases.” Accompanying Centre College professors and students on a trip to Nicaragua turned out to be more


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than just learning Spanish and culture for Corrigan, but about the impact of globalization. Corrigan talked with managers and workers in sweatshops and farmers displaced by the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The group also met with U.S. Embassy officials that implement CAFTA policies. Corrigan attends medical school at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine where she will train to work in impoverished areas possibly in the field of emergency medicine. “I can go back to developing countries,” she says, “and hopefully save the lives that are lost to easily treatable and preventable diseases.”

Julia Novak ’03 has come to understand that globalization can have positive and negative effects. “It can increase the economy and industry in an area, but this also can come at the price of cultural loss,” she says. “We need to tread carefully moving forward as our world becomes more globalized to preserve and respect the diversity of cultures, traditions and landscapes.” After earning a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from the University of San Diego, Novak worked with an environmental NGO (non-governmental organization) in 2009 studying climate change in the Western Ghats of India. She helped compile long-term data about how climate change affects forest ecosystems. She is studying for a doctorate in fisheries and wildlife at Michigan State University.

Novak’s outreach experience has changed her way of viewing problems and issues. “Experiencing something different, whether it is culture, religion or terrain opens up your eyes to the range of possibility on this earth, and makes you realize how little you actually know and how much you have to learn.” Serving abroad not only has given Novak a greater appreciation for services available in the U.S. – especially emergency services – but it also helped her realize the effect U.S. foreign policy has on other countries and their people. “We live in an integrated society,” Novak says. “No longer are countries’ decisions their own, impacting only their populace.” Claire Kenney ’06 has a similar take on the pros and cons of globalization. “On the one hand, it increases communication, trade and knowledge of other cultures,” she says, “but it can also help to destroy local cultures and languages and upset traditional social systems.” Kenney is a Peace Corps volunteer teaching science in the northern region of Ghana in West Africa. “Help has to be tempered by careful self-awareness, sustainability, accountability and responsibility,” Kenney says. “If you try to work toward the positives, knowing that there are many challenges, global action has benefits that are worth working for.” Countries are more interdependent with globalization, she says, which makes mutual understanding and respect essential. The alum received a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Johns Hopkins University. In Ghana, she may also teach introductory computer classes and introduce health education

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and awareness activities. Kenney believes that it is important for her to tell Ghanaians about America’s diversity and that the United States is a country of different races, religions and economic backgrounds. “One thing struck me right away – how much the election of a black man to the American presidency has meant to African countries and how much of a source of celebration it is for them,” Kenney says. The Peace Corps worker says Ghanaians are very curious about America and she now analyzes her own country more. Kenney reports that this adventure is “teaching me to be flexible and to minimize my expectations. It is broadening my sense of the richness of humanity.” She notes that she is trying “to be more open and to let go of my preconceptions and own goals and measures of success.” For Meredith Aggers O’Brien ’00, lessons learned about global outreach while a Peace Corps volunteer in Swaziland taught her “to find small meaning in everyday life” and fostered “the patience to pursue anything I’ve set my mind to doing.” At Denison University, O’Brien majored in political science and focused on history, disease and politics in developing countries. As a college student, she confronted her

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“privilege as a young white American student,” and after graduating in 2004, O’Brien served in a rural village teaching health and HIV education classes. “My hope was to give something substantial of myself to those who had less,” O’Brien says, “and to challenge myself to deepen my understanding of another culture, my culture in America and my own identity.” Rather than quit and return home when frustrated at the lack of progress in her host country, O’Brien was determined to “adjust my expectations by learning to see, and take pride in, the small victories of each day.” She came to understand that “although the objective of the Peace Corps’ presence in Swaziland was to ‘build a wall,’ her ‘assignment’ was to add just one brick.” The Gilmour alum admits that countering the country’s vast HIV epidemic, watching friends die, taking fearful villagers to be tested for HIV and observing the effects of the disease’s stigma made her work difficult. Still, O’Brien was committed to sparking dialogues among villagers about prevention methods and disease transmission. She also taught life skills workshops, worked with the men to plant and harvest crops and empowered women to generate income by raising chickens and selling their eggs. Leaving behind family, friends and her things to be a volunteer forced her “to come to terms with the real me in a way I never could have done in my own culture,” she says. Topping her Peace Corps experience was hard, but when she returned to the United States, she channeled this new-found selfknowledge and graduated from Duquesne University’s law school in 2010. A practicing attorney specializing in elder law, O’Brien now applies her skills working with diverse cultures as a volunteer and board member of the AIDS Task Force of Greater Cleveland. Another Peace Corps teacher, Sarah Helfrich Strong ’02, and her husband, Sean, are giving villagers in Panama a taste of what marriage American style is like. Both are volunteers in Panama. Strong says that gender roles are defined as follows – women do housework; men do labor. “Like many American couples, we share duties,” Strong says. The Panamanians see both of them do laundry and wash dishes. “At first they thought it was strange, but recently they’ve been saying what a good team we make.”


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Strong teaches English to K-6 students, adults and others who finished sixth grade and are returning to school for a high school degree. She also conducts seminars for those required to teach English, but who have not learned it themselves. Her biggest project, though, is a women’s artisan group that she created that makes necklaces. Few women in Panama contribute to the family income, Strong explains. The women have earned $250. The artist keeps 75 percent and the balance goes to purchasing materials. Every week Strong transfers responsibility to members of the group so they will be self-sustaining after she leaves Panama. Strong is teaching the artists how to register for craft fairs, weigh travel costs against prospective earnings and keep an inventory and sales records. As a student at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Strong studied in Ecuador and Peru so she was no stranger to traveling abroad. Living in a community is something different. “I spent my first year in Panama building relationships and proving myself,” Strong says. “I was ready and anxious to work, but I had to earn the support of the community first.” She also understands now that while Americans are able to plan for the future, not all people have the resources to do that. “How can I teach about saving money for emergencies,” she asks, “when the community members barely have enough money to feed their family that

day?” She believes that when others have a positive experience with Americans it improves the image of the United States. “Intercultural exchanges create more active American citizens with an enhanced awareness of the role of the U.S. worldwide,” Strong says. “It also benefits those living in the host country through the exchange of knowledge and ideas.” One host country already profiting from a Gilmour graduate’s expertise is Brazil. If it has a smoother go with its upcoming World Cup in 2014 and Olympic Games in 2016, Brazil will owe some thanks in part to Allison Maranuk ’04. The alum is a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant at the Federal University in Minas Gerais, Brazil. She is helping Brazil improve its English teaching capacity by instructing English teachers at public schools and students at her university. “I have been taking elements of the Gilmour curriculum and integrating them into a required course at one of Brazil’s best universities,” Maranuk says. One lesson really hit home when she taught about the realities of being public school teachers in the United States, the challenges they face and teachers’ unions. At the conclusion of the class, several Brazilian teachers told Maranuk they thought they were the only ones having a hard time. “English public school teachers in Brazil are looked down upon by most of society,” the alum says. Maranuk has observed that “Brazil is an extremely unequal society.” She asked a professor there if Brazil had homeless shelters or a foster care system. “I would not know because it has never been my reality,” the professor responded. Maranuk also has observed that the United States is more conducive to entrepreneurship compared to other countries, and that the spirit of volunteerism is lacking in Brazil despite a “promising” economy. Maranuk summed up her optimism for globalization. “Hopefully, it will help create a world where we can work together and share what we have with the rest of the world,” she says.

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OUR 10-YEAR TREASURED MISSION TO HONDURAS

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t was a small cadre of Gilmour volunteers who headed to Honduras in spring 2001 – Spanish instructor Tiho Teisl, social studies instructor Matt Lindley, two parents and three students. The trip started out as a way to immerse Spanish students in language and culture and to assist the people living in Honduras. “After going there we said this is way more than just a language and culture trip,” says Teisl, coordinator of Gilmour’s Honduras mission. “It is more what Gilmour Academy is all about.” The Holy Cross tradition of giving to others through the humanitarian mission becomes more firmly entrenched each year. Teisl, now the dean of student life and discipline, has traveled to Honduras 16 times. He oversees the mission trips to Honduras and the Gilmour volunteers who work at Nuevo Paraiso, a community development project that provides food, clothing, shelter and education to families in Honduras. He coordinates the trip, working out the logistics and serving as liaison with the program coordinator in Honduras, Mae Cruz Vanenzuela. His job expanded in 2005, when alumni

began making their own summer trip to Honduras. They have gone every year since then with the exception of 2009 when there was a period of national political unrest in Honduras. In the last decade, more than 500 volunteers from Gilmour have paid their own travel, room and board to help the people of Honduras. Today the mission trip costs about $1,500 per person. Over the years, the Gilmour group has taken everything from cast iron frying pans and medical supplies to circular saws and shoes – they have even sent a generator, thanks to funding from a Gilmour family and others. Upon boarding the plane, each volunteer takes one suitcase with personal belongings and another with donated items from the Gilmour Community. “It would be hard to put a cash value on these donations,” Teisl says. “The Hondurans either are unable to get the things we take down there or the items are too expensive.” As the students deplane and drive through the country’s capital, Tegucigalpa, they begin to see the hardscrabble life of its citizens. Shacks built into the mountainside line both sides of the road. “When they leave the capital, they see the level of poverty,” Teisl says, adding that there is no electricity or running water, just huts built into the side of hills. Claire Wagner ’11 told The Lance “The first things we saw when we turned onto a dirt road were the houses made of metal scrap pieces.” According to the World Bank, Honduras is the third poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 60 percent living below the poverty level.

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Fr. John Blazek, C.S.C.

Over the years, the Gilmour volunteers have constructed houses, a corral for animals, a reception and storage area in a medical clinic, and built a security wall around a kinder (elementary) school. They have painted houses, added rooms to houses, planted trees and gardens, built a park and installed water lines to improve water pressure in houses. Honduran construction workers are hired to work with the volunteers to make sure structures are being built correctly. Gilmour students Abby Clark ’11 and Andrea Massaad ’11 designed murals with scenes from storybooks for the kinder school last spring. “Our work is primarily for the children’s village,” Teisl says. Currently 125 children live in Nuevo Paraiso. In 1966 Sister Maria Rosa Leggol from the Latin American Province of the School Order of the Sisters of St. Francis established Sociedad Amigos De Los Ninos, which oversees Nuevo Paraiso. She hopes to see 200 children living there. The nun has rescued more than 35,000 Honduran children from the streets and jails and provided shelter for them. Last March, the Gilmour volunteers poured the foundation and built columns to support the walls for a new home for 14 children following a $25,000 donation from a Gilmour family. Dubbed “Hogar Gilmour” (Gilmour Home), alumni painted the facility on their trip in July. “We go there to help build things that will be helpful for the children,” Teisl says. Although the physical work is hard and students swelter in the midday heat, it is the time they spend interacting with the children that draws them to Honduras. It is not unusual in the evening when they play in the children’s village to see Gilmour students carrying small children on their shoulders and tossing and spinning them. “These kids yearn for love,” Teisl says. “When our students hold them, walk with them and try to communicate that is the important part.” On each trip, Teisl says something different catches his eye. What impresses him, he notes, is the

advancement of the Honduran children and that things are getting better for them in terms of clothing, food and education. Some of the children, now adults, have made real inroads. One just earned a degree in mechanical engineering and is managing a brick factory there. Another is a civil engineer. One is completing medical school. “It is gratifying to see those we first met as young children become successful productive members of Honduran society,” he says. From Teisl’s perspective, the Gilmour students who have made the mission trips are more aware not only of what goes on in that part of the world but in other areas and they have a greater desire to help those in need. “Our mission to open their eyes and become more courageous in the choices they make in caring for others is at work here.”

Señor Teisl


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fter a comprehensive nationwide process, Gilmour Academy has selected Diane Kingsley as the new director of the Lower School. She succeeds Monica Veto, who retired at the end of June. The veteran educator brings to Gilmour more than 32 years of experience as a teacher and administrator in both Catholic and independent schools. Most recently, she was head of the lower school at Allendale Columbia School in Rochester, N.Y. Kingsley earned a Bachelor of Science in music education and a Master of Science in education, both from Nazareth College in Rochester. She received her certificate of advanced studies in administration from the College of Rockport: State University of New York and holds permanent certifications in music education, elementary education and education administration.

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“In Diane Kingsley, we have found a talented director who understands and is willing to embrace our mission,” says Gilmour Headmaster Brother Robert Lavelle, C.S.C. “She is committed to a coeducational environment and will collaboratively engage colleagues and parents in providing an outstanding educational experience in our Holy Cross tradition.” According to Brian Horgan, Upper School director and a member of the search committee, Gilmour reviewed more than 130 applications for the Lower School directorship. “I am honored to be joining a professional core of educators who are totally focused on children and on using the best, research-based curriculum to give children the finest possible education,” Kingsley says. Horgan notes that “I am honored to be joining the committee was “very impressed with a professional core of Diane’s credentials educators who are totally as both teacher and administrator. She has focused on children and on been deeply involved using the best, researchin the development of a research-based based curriculum to give curriculum for her children the finest possible schools and has worked with highly respected education.” reading programs Diane Kingsley including the HighScope Educational Foundation and Project Zero from Harvard University.” Horgan adds that the Lower School’s excellent programs will benefit from her expertise in raising levels of student achievement. As an administrator, Kingsley was chosen to participate in five NYSAIS (New York State Association of Independent Schools) accreditation teams. Most recently she was on the accreditation team for a school seeking dual accreditation in AMS (American Montessori


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Society) and NYSAIS. “Diane is very well qualified to help lead our Montessori experience and to support the students, faculty and parents as they prepare for the transition from Montessori into the program offered in Grades 1 through 6,” Brother Robert says. Gilmour has undertaken a multi-year process of developing new initiatives for the Lower School curriculum. Students are now involved in curriculum initiatives that include learning from a global perspective and a school-wide entrepreneurship program. The school also has implemented multiple initiatives for integrating technology with the curriculum at all grade levels. The new Lower School director commented that she “looks forward to the opportunity of engaging our teachers and parents in active and collaborative communication to create the best possible educational experience for our children.” “Gilmour saw in Diane someone who would build on the momentum taking place in our school, and work with our teachers and parents to continue to move our programs forward,” Brother Robert says. Kingsley officially joined the Gilmour Academy administration on July 1. She and her husband, Joseph, relocated to the area over the summer.

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Commencement

2011

Gilmour Academy Commencement Gilmour Academy Celebrates Its 62nd Commencement Exercise

Gilmour Academy, as accredited by the North Central Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges and Independent School Association of the Central States, chartered by the Ohio Department of Education, is vested by the state of Ohio with authority to confer diplomas in recognition of those having satisfied the requirements of a collegepreparatory curriculum. Gilmour Academy’s graduating Class of 2011 is the 62nd graduating class of the Academy. 14


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Commencement Speaker t o

MarcStefanski ’72

G i l m o u r

Class of

A c a d e m y ’ s

2011

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n 1987, Marc A. Stefanski was elected chairman and chief executive officer of Third Federal Savings and Loan, succeeding his father, Ben, who, along with Marc’s mother, Gerome, founded the company in 1938. Since that time, Stefanski has grown the company from $1.8 billion in assets to nearly $11 billion in assets with 23 branches in Northeast Ohio, eight offices in Central and Southern Ohio and 17 branches throughout the state of Florida. Stefanski has kept the operating costs of Third Federal low, operating with about one-third of the personnel usually associated with a financial institution of its size. However, continued technological advances in the industry have not come at the cost of personal service. Third Federal prides itself on its customer service, to the point that all phone calls are answered by real people. Stefanski took the company public through a minority public offering completed in April 2007 and established the $55 million Third Federal Foundation, which has already donated more than $5 million to communities the company serves. Stefanski graduated from Gilmour Academy in 1972, earned a Bachelor of Arts from Heidelberg College in 1976 and an MBA from Baldwin-Wallace College in 1980.

Marc Stefanski ’72

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Commencement

Excerpts from the

Commencement Address to Gilmour Academy’s Class of

2011

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oing back to when I was a Gilmour student in the 70s, the Dow Jones industrial averagee was at a thousand, a new house was $277,000, average annual income was $11,000, gas pricees were 55 cents a gallon and jeans cost twelve bu ucks. “The Godfather” was the popular moviie at the time. Eminem, Gwyneth Paltrow, Drew Bledsoe, Shaquille O’Neal and Brad Paisley were born the year I graduated from Gilmour, 1972. For the very first time, Dartmouth allowed women to join their graduating class and women were alloweed to run in the Boston Marathon. Recently, I weent online to look up Gilmour Academy and I came up with something that really hit home – the mission statement – “to develop the compeetence to see and the courage to act in creating a more humane and just society.” In the early 1970s, students had a different mission statement. Our mission statement went like this, “Beat US” (University Schoo ol). I always felt that Gilmour was a nurturing and d caring environment. From 1969 when I first cam me to Gilmour, there was a huge difference from thee other schools I attended in the approach to education, to working together as a team and to focusing on how you can be successful. Those lesssons have meant a lot to me and have helped me where I am today. I played baseball when I was here along with all the other sports. Ray Janasek was the Varsity Baseball coach. He was standing behind our bench and I had just struck out. I took my helmet, threw it on the gro ound. I took my bat and threw it on the ground. And next thing you know, Coach Janasek – a big guy, 6’2, 240 pounds – put his arm on my shoulder, raised me up from behind and gently took me behind this big tree. He looked me right in the eye and said, “Marc, you made the mistake. The equipment didn’t make the mistake, you did. So, next time up, make a difference. Don’t blame it on the equipment.” That was probably 40 years ago and I have always remembered it is up to me to make the difference.

16

Marc Stefanski ’72

Gilmour is all about building relationships, about enhancing your ability to move on, to have fun and to learn from those experiences. Earlier today, someone spoke about what’s important in life. It isn’t about money, sports or self-gratification. It’s more about what kind of a mother, father, sister or brother you are; what kind of a teammate or teacher you are; what kind of a human being you are. The previous speaker asked, when you are going out in the world what are you going to do for others? What are you going to do for a cause? I understand that the Class of 2011 donated 11,000 hours of community service, raised more than $5,000 to assist Holy Cross missions in Haiti and the Red Cross African Measles Initiative and that you have continued a 10-year tradition of assisting a village in Honduras. That’s good stuff. If you’re doing that now, can you imagine how you are going to change the world? Can you imagine what you’re going to do from here on out? And I guess I am not just speaking to the senior class, but to all of us. If we are living and working and doing things for others, how much more meaningful our existence can, should and will be. It is a powerful statement.


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Evan ’11 and Marc Stefanski ’72

I would like to close with a reading that I picked up. A Zen master noticed that one of his disciples had done nothing for several days but sit in the meditative position. When asked the reason for this, the student replied, “I wish to become a Buddha and acquire the Buddha nature.” At this, the master sat down behind him, picked up a brick and began polishing it with a stone. After a while, the student asked him what he was doing. “I am polishing this brick into a mirror,” was the reply. “But no amount of polishing would make the brick into a mirror,” exclaimed the student. “And no amount of sitting with your legs crossed will make you into a Buddha,” the Zen master said. “And no amount of sitting will bring about the changes

that we desire. We must do something if we wish to pursue the goals we’ve described – goals that affect our work, our recreation, our relationships with others, and most of all, our deepest understanding of our own nature.” So I guess my final thought for all of you, the graduating Class of 2011, is do something, do something meaningful, do something meaningful for others. Let your values be your guide. Don’t lose your moral compass.

Br. Robert Lavelle’s advisory group

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Commencement Gilmour Academy

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had the pleasure recently of reading college recommendations for many of our departing seniors and, as you can imagine, those for James were particularly stellar. Most remarkable, for me, was that James’ Latin teacher, Mr. Grejtak, and U.S. History teacher, Dr. Gutowski, neither known for their hyperbole, both shared that James was perhaps the most scholarly student that they taught in their respective careers. For those of you who may not know either Mr. Grejtak or Dr. Gutowski, this, folks, is a combined 68 years of classroom teaching! You can be sure I need no additionaal convincing that James is a uniquelyy scholarly young man. But in case I did, theere is ample enough evidence throughout his four-year academic record to support the claim. And in case you need more con nvincing . . . well, you can wait for this yearr’s yearbook to come out and read James’ seenior statement – it is written entirely in Latin n! James is a polymath but he has a particu ular love for languages. He could have justt as easily written his senior statement in Fren nch or Spanish and probably would have befo ore settling for English. Languages are that much fun for him. But dwelling on James’ academic excellence would be to diminish what I and I trust others have come to really appreciate about James and that is his deep commitment to his relationships with others. Whether it is in his leadership of very young and talented boys cross-cou untry and track and field teams, the pleasure he haas in keeping company with his friends and classmates, the extraordinary rapport hee has with his teachers, or the deep concern he has for the well-being of family members, James, perhaps to a fault, puts others first. But this is how we come to have hope in thee future isn’t it? When the education of the heaart and mind combine in such a way as it haas in James, we are all at least a little bit encourraged about all of our futures. James will be continuing his education next fall as a recipient of a full scholarship from John Carroll University. It is our good fortune that we’ve had him on our campus these past four years. Please welcome our valedictorian, James Miller, to the podium. J. Brian Horgan Director of the Upper School 18

Valedictorian

2011

James Miller Valedictory Address May 29, 2011

I

found that the most difficult part of writing this speech was figuring out not only what I wanted to say, but also what all of you wanted to hear. I asked a few of you for some tips and I can safely conclude that a majority said either one of two things; either “Make it funny, and don’t use big words” or “Write your James Miller ’11 speech in Spanish, Latin and French.” The first command was simple: scan through my memory to recall all of the “funny” moments of our high school. The second task was also rather easy; after all the largest word I know is “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcaniconiosis.” Come on, that’s really nothing difficult to say five times fast. It comes out just as naturally as the . . . excuse me . . . “Yips” we used to hear at convo for four years; you should try it sometime. As for the second suggestion, as pleasing as it was to me, I believe that it would have given Rousseau and Shuttleworth more of an excuse to sleep during this. Four years ago, this day seemed so far away, like some event in the future that we knew was inevitable (unless, of course, some kind of rapture happened), but slow moving so as to seem as though we had the control to choose when the day would come. Well, whether we’ve chosen it or not, the day is here; the final length of the race of high school has arrived and another is about to begin as we go our separate ways to make our future! But, before you begin to smile at the end of our days at Gilmour, I would like to pose a few questions. Are you prepared for the challenges ahead? As one important part of our lives ends and another begins, are you ready to enter the world, to live out the instructions and teachings that we have been given? In other words, what have you done in preparation for leaving? What is it about you, about us as a class, that says we are ready for the changes that life will bring? I know these questions require us to return to the past experiences as students at Gilmour. Yet, I am well aware


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that history has never been our subject; Crabtree had trouble concentrating freshman year; I think his countenance is still engraved on the wooden table. Gabrielsen struck Debick in the head with a dictionary just to keep him awake; and junior year . . . well, I guess Peter Jennings was able to keep most of our attention! Anyway, despite all of these downsides to our experience with history, we must take at least a moment to look back and determine whether or not we are truly prepared for what lies ahead. Of course, it is obvious that we have changed since the beginning of high school, and I’m not just talking about Evan gaining a few inches in height, Pestotnik’s voice finally maturing, Kenny finally growing a mustache or Tobbe learning to drive a car instead of a golf cart. Rather, I’m referring to the changes that we have made both with respect to our minds and to our hearts. Like statues of Pygmalion, we’ve been sculpted in such a way to tackle the most rigorous intellectual problems of our time; likewise our hearts have been instilled with fires to forge new, long-lasting relationships with our families, friends, classmates and teachers. However, it would be foolish to think that we, alone, on our own, were able to make ourselves who we are, or that we arrived where we are by our own power. Instead, we have reached this point because we have “stood on the shoulders of giants,” as Stephen Hawking once described his success. The giants to us were our parents, teachers, peers, counselors and of course . . . Mrs. Brubaker, who fought tirelessly to provide us with everything we ever needed. And so it is to them that I would like to extend the highest possible thanks on behalf of the Class of 2011. It has come to my knowledge that most of these addresses end with words of wisdom or advice for the upcoming diaspora. I suppose that if I had to choose some advice to give, I wouldn’t try to come up with any kind of “catch phrase” to characterize our class; for I highly doubt that the words “fluff the shnee” would do justice for the future. Instead, I would rather leave every one of you with this. I know for a fact that the future will bring a lot of challenges before us; time itself has put us through trials in high school already. I’m not referring solely to academic or intellectual challenges. Include athletics and still the scope of what I’m speaking about is much greater. Life can be unforgiving at times; this is not foreign to anyone standing here

today. However, with minds and hearts like ours, there is little doubt in my mind that “we shall overcome” any and all things that life throws Congratulations, James Miller into our path. In some ways, our success will ultimately depend on how well we adapt to and confront our challenges. In other ways, it will be determined by our relationships with those most important in our lives. People come into our lives for reasons, whether apparent or hidden, and there is no doubt in my mind that each one of us has come into each other’s lives for a reason. It is true that after we depart from high school some of us may never cross each other’s path again. I cannot guarantee that my road and Kenzie’s road will ever intersect again. In fact the two may diverge as intensely as a function and its Taylor series that only converges for a short interval. (Ms. Merkel, that one was for you.) However, it is not fundamentally important if we see each other again. What matters is that we knew each other for a short period of our lives and that we affected one another for the better. We’ve learned from each other’s mistakes, laughed at the jokes, shared the moments of joy, pain and success. Whether we know it or not, all of us have left a mark both on this school and its students and on each other. As we walk out those doors into what we call life, never forget what you have learned here, whom you’ve impacted, and what has left an impact on you. Only through an understanding of what your heart and your mind can do will you be able to tackle the future that lies ahead. These four years have already gone by so quickly, and time only starts to move faster from this moment onward. It seems just like yesterday we were struggling to learn the words of the student prayer, amazed at what came out of the physics box and dumbfounded that Cambodian rats are so large. We’ll look back on these days in the future and we’ll ask ourselves what we learned. Perhaps we’ll even turn to the next generation and give them the advice that our teachers, parents and elders gave us: “Take advantage of every moment you have. Don’t back down from any of life’s challenges. You’ll learn the most from them. Never do anything you might regret and don’t regret anything that you shouldn’t; don’t take any moment for granted, for you know as well as I that the present moment is valuable; but at the same time it’s very elusive; seize every opportunity you can because in an instant it can be lost and time will continue to move without you. Time will continue to go regardless of what you do or how you feel . . . and it goes and it goes and it goes.” 19


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Commencement Gilmour Academy

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arlier this year, students, faculty and staff were invited to participate in the rereading project in which an opportunity was afforded to revisit a book read perhaps much earlier in life, in order to see how it may resonate anew – and to see how a reading experience may be given shape by time and life’s unfolding. At the conclusion of the project, readers were asked to provide a statement, summarizing their experience and I was particularly moved by Kenzie’s statement, which I found hanging in our library’s display case. Kenzie had reread “The BFG,” by Roald Dahl, and in her summary, she expressed the delight she had, both as a young child, and now, in Dahl’s imaginative story and his playyfully inventive vocabulary. Words like snozzcu umber, frobscottle and whizzpoppers tickled Kenzie and she was moved by the story of the lone selfless benevolent giant (among many, less-benevolent giants), protector of little child dren and their good dreams. It is hard not to take delight in such a story, but harder still, to not take delight in such a smart, scholarly yo oung woman who realizes that imagination,, inventiveness and playfulness have a role in n all our lives and not just those of little childrren. Ken nzie possesses a self-confidence that can be disarrming – disarming because it is not the all-toocommon and transparent type of self-confidence that is loud and boastful and is usually trying to distract from underlying insecurity, but rather because it is a self-confidence that emerges auth hentically from a sorrt of agility that allows one to flow unselfconssciously through life, with genuine grace and joy. It helps, I suppose, that Kenzie actually does excel at everything. Obviously, she is a superb student, but her openness to exploring opportunities has led her to be, among many notable roles, the lone female on the golf team, a founding member of the Service Club, and a committed member of Life Teen. Much of what Kenzie takes on would call for resilience in your typical teen, not unlike he resilience requireed perhaps of the BFG. But it th doesn’t feel that wayy with Kenzie. It just doesn’t seem like that much work for her. Because Kenzie just is, she just does. And so, while everything she does is impactful, what Kenzie is most excellent at is being Kenzie – and from where I sit, that looks like a lot of fun! Kenzie will be making her mark next year at Washington University in St. Louis, but for now, we have the pleasure of welcoming her to the podium to deliver the salutatory address. J. Brian Horgan Director of the Upper School

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Salutatorian 2011 Mackenzie Alexander Salutatory Address May 29, 2011

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few summers ago, some friends and I went to see the movie “Up” at our local movie theater. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the film, “Up” is the story of Mr. Fredricksen, a cantankerous old man who won’t leave his property, and Russell, a charmingly tubby little boy who – for reasons I don’t want to give away – cannot leave the old man’s property. At first I simply thought Russell to Mackenzie Alexander ’11 be no more than an adorable little ball of Boy Scout badges, but after about an hour of watching him interact with Mr. Fredricksen and the very strange new environment around him, I began to feel connected to Russell. Something struck me about this young character, his readiness to help others and his persistence. And then it hit me, I was Russell, I mean apart from the chubby cheeks and maleness and everything. Just like Russell, I, too, felt the frustration of being a child in a grown-up world, wanting so desperately to make a difference, but unsure how to do so. I began to believe that this character was, in fact, me. But I didn’t just make these comparisons to myself. Upon returning to school in the fall, I started noticing similarities between classmates and other notable film characters. Throughout the hallways I saw “The Sandlot” boys, making strange noises at each other and constantly plotting their next debacle. I spotted the “Anchorman” Channel 5 News Team, providing lots of entertainment, and occasionally some announcements, at Convocation. How could I not notice Allie Hamilton and Noah Calhoun playing out some of the most uncomfortably romantic scenes from “The Notebook” in the Student Center? The Class of 2011 also has its Ferris Buellers, making life for Mr. Teisl a bit less boring. Not to mention, our athletic Rocky Balboas, our studious Hermione Grangers, our pure of heart Frodos and our lovably dense Forrest Gumps.


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Our class is full of characters performing their art on the set of Gilmour Academy, each with his or her own role to play. Whether that role is boldly heroic like that of the blue mob bravely bending benches and cheering loudly in the face of defeat, or riddled with humor, like the laughable members of the Announcement Club creating the memorable “Teach Me How to Lancer” video. We have more than our fair share of profoundly gifted parts, winning national mathematics competitions and writing lucrative business plans. And there has never been a shortage of compassionate characters, always offering a shoulder to cry on when the going got rough. Because, let’s face it, we all know it did. And yet, here we are today. An outstandingly acted, deftly directed, painstakingly produced work of art, with an all-star cast, too. It wasn’t light work, that’s for sure. In fact, it was the hardest thing any of us have ever done. Nothing ever came easy. We can’t even decide which genre to classify ourselves by. Our time here has certainly been dramatic, but we’ve had our comedic moments, too. There has been lots of action/adventure, plenty of romance, and we certainly can’t put ourselves in the children’s section. The Class of 2011, as always, can’t really be placed under a certain category, and during our four years, we have believed that this dilemma has been our downfall. But it’s not. Our inability to be categorized is what distinguishes us from the endless graduating classes that have come before us and will follow after. We are

Kelly Kertis ’11 and Colleen Kelly ’11

unique. We are extraordinary. And don’t think Gilmour hasn’t noticed, either. Why else do you think we are here today but to receive the highest honor that the Academy has to offer, Gilmour’s version of the Oscar: a diploma, and I am so unbelievably honored to accept it. So thank you to my family, you’ve raised me to be the character I am today. Thank you to the teachers and administrators. You have directed us throughout this whole process and drawn out our best performances. And, most importantly, thank you to the Class of 2011, because all your hard work has turned these past four years into a masterpiece. Thank you, everyone, and bravo. The Academy is going to be talking about this one for a while.

Sean Curtin ’11, Kevin Dagg ’11, Allie Dahlhausen ’11

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Commencement

Congratulations to the Class of

2011

Matriculation List

MACKENZIE ALEXANDER WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS

Brynn ’14, Mackenzie ’11 and Patrick ’79 Alexander

ALISON ALTHANS CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY KAITLYN AMBROSE MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD ALEXANDER ANDREWS WITTENBERG UNIVERSITY

Alexander ’15, Olivia ’12, Claudia ’17, Alison ’11 and Jacob ’14 Althans

JEFFREY ANGIE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY BRADLEY BAKER ROLLINS COLLEGE

Connor ’17 and Kaitlyn ’11 Ambrose

GIULIANA BARNES JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY ADDISON BARNETT NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY EASTLYN BELLAMY PLATTSBURGH STATE UNIVERSITY

Jeffrey ’11 and Daniel ’05 Angie

22

LAIMIS BELZINSKAS JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY LELAND BENT MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD KATHLEEN BLOOM MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD

Austin ’09 and Addison ’11 Barnett

CARLYN BRANCOVSKY UNDECIDED CAITLIN BRETT THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

Vejas ’05 and Laimis ’11 Belzinskas

TAYLOR BROADBENT MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD GREGORY CALABRESE FLORIDA GULF COAST UNIVERSITY Grant ’15 and Leland ’11 Bent

KEVIN CALLAHAN HIRAM COLLEGE CAMERON CARMEN UNIVERSITY OF MOUNT UNION

Rebecca ’09, Kathleen ’11 and Kevin ’07 Bloom


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SAMUEL CASTELAZ CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY Carlyn ’11 and Caitlynde ’06 Brancovsky

JOHN CHANEY EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY ABIGAIL CLARK UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER

John ’14, Caitlin ’11 and Andrew ’03 Brett

ELIZABETH COERDT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY NOLAN COONEY COLLEGE EDOUARD – MONTPETIT

Shelby ’13, Taylor ’11 and Noah ’15 Broadbent

CAMILLE CORBIN UNION COLLEGE MEGAN COVINGTON UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME JESSICA COWAN UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER

Kevin ’75 and Kevin ’11 Callahan

THOMAS CRABTREE JUNIOR HOCKEY ALLISON CROSBY THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

Leah ’12, Samuel ’11 and McAllister ’09 Castelaz

SEAN CURTIN UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON NICHOLAS D’ANGELO UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON KEVIN DAGG MERCYHURST COLLEGE

Bailey ’10, Ryan ’08, Abigail ’11 and Bennett ’14 Clark

ALEXANDRIA DAHLHAUSEN THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY MATTHEW DEBICK JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY

Thomas ’78 and Elizabeth ’11 Coerdt

CONNOR DECKARD WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON COLLEGE GABRIELLE DeFRANCESCO HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY

Ryan ’14 and Sean ’11 Curtin

LAWRENCE DOLAN MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE JOSEPH ECHELMEIER JUNIOR HOCKEY KRISTEN ELIA LYON COLLEGE

Matthew ’13 and Kevin ’11 Dagg

MARY FARLEY MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD KENNETH FARONA JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY

Daniel ’09 and Matthew ’11 Debick

KIERA FINELLI MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD SEAMUS FINUCANE BOSTON UNIVERSITY ASHLEY FRYAR MARIETTA COLLEGE

Abbey ’12 and Connor ’11 Deckard

KAITLIN FUTEY WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY ANDREW GABRIELSEN DEPAUL UNIVERSITY Peter ’14, Jack ’11 and Paul ’76 Dolan

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Commencement

Kaitlyn ’14 and Kristen ’11 Elia

Caitlin ’09 and Keira ’11 Finelli

TORI GALLO PURDUE UNIVERSITY

KELLY KERTIS JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY

CATON GOMILLION XAVIER UNIVERSITY

ERIKA KLATTE MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD

HALLE GRANT The University of Akron

JENNA KLEIN MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

STEVEN GRECO PURDUE UNIVERSITY MATTHEW GRIDER EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY SAMUEL HANDY SALVE REGINA UNIVERSITY

Amber ’15 and Ashley ’11 Fryar

NICHOLAS HANSON XAVIER UNIVERSITY JOHN HARPER OHIO UNIVERSITY

Greg ’08 and Kaitlin ’11 Futey

HYUN SEUNG HONG STANFORD UNIVERSITY JEAN-CHRISTOPHE HOUDE UNIVERSITÉ MONTRÉAL

Charles ’80, Tori ’11 and Charles ’14 Gallo

EDWARD HYLAND NOTRE DAME COLLEGE OF OHIO ALLIE KASUBOSKI THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEEN KELLY UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON

Michael ’13 and Caton ’11 Gomillion

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MEGHAN KRAMER UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

Kyle ’07, Maggie ’09, Halle ’11 and Caitlin ’05 Grant

Caroline ’05, Steven ’11 and Allison ’08 Greco

MATTHEW LAMOSEK University of Dayton BRITTANY LAYTON LEHIGH UNIVERSITY

Benjamin ’07 and John ’11 Harper

ALISON LENCEWICZ PURDUE UNIVERSITY BRITTANY LINK BROWN UNIVERSITY DAMIEN LONA JUNIOR HOCKEY

Hyun Seo ’15 and Hyun Seung ’11 Hong

CANDACE LONGINO-THOMAS TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY NICOLE MANILICH WASHINGTON & JEFFERSON COLLEGE

Tara ’07 and Brendan ’11 Hyland

ANDREA MASSAAD NEW YORK UNIVERSITY ALLISON MAWBY PURDUE UNIVERSITY Courtney ’09 and Allie ’11 Kasuboski


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Caitlin ’07, Colleen ’11 and Alexander ’03 Kelly

Kristen ’13 and Kelly ’11 Kertis

MATTHEW McLAUGHLAN THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON

MATTHEW PESTOTNIK SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY

BRADLEY MEDINGER OHIO UNIVERSITY

MICHAEL PHILLIPS JUNIOR HOCKEY

JAMES MILLER JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY

NATALIE PIKE BUTLER UNIVERSITY

MORGAN MILLS CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ANDREW PIKUL BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY

JOHN MOHORCIC PURDUE UNIVERSITY COLLEEN MOORE THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

Mary ’10, Meghan ’11 and Lawrence ’08 Kramer

CHELSEA MYLES DARTMOUTH COLLEGE GEE JIN NAM UNDECIDED HANNAH NEWCOMB OTTERBEIN UNIVERSITY

Joseph ’17, Kaitlyn ’12, Mitchell ’21, Matthew ’11 and Christopher ’19 Lamosek

KATHLEEN O’BRIEN BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY MATTHEW OLIVER MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY CATHERINE PACE OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

Michael ’01, Brittany ’11 and Rickey ’10 Layton

MATTHEW PANZO JUNIOR HOCKEY MATTHEW PENDER HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES Alison ’11 and Joseph ’12 Lencewicz

Lauren ’15 and Andrea ’11 Massaad

Brittan ’07, Allison ’11 and Madison ’09 Mawby

FRANK PINES JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY NICOLAS PROVOST JUNIOR HOCKEY BRAEDEN QUAST JUNIOR HOCKEY

Patrick ’14 and John ’11 Mohorcic

JENNA RADCLIFFE LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO KEVIN RIZZO THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

Gee Hyun ’14 and Gee Jin ’11 Nam

ALYSIA ROSS PLATTSBURGH STATE UNIVERSITY JEFFREY ROUSSEAU EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY RYAN SHEPARD LYNN UNIVERSITY

Corey Newcomb Lesko ’06 and Hannah ’11 Newcomb

DOMINIC SHUTTLEWORTH JUNIOR HOCKEY

Sara ’16, Ann Chiarucci O’Brien GO ’76, Kathleen ’11 and Robert ’10 O’Brien

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Commencement

John ’16 and Matthew ’11 Oliver

KATHERINE SIDERAS UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT

ALEXANDRA VENZOR FORDHAM UNIVERSITY

KRISTINA SNYDER MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD

SAMANTHA VICARI NICHOLAS COLLEGE

EVAN STEFANSKI MIAMI UNIVERSITY, OXFORD

CLAIRE WAGNER THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

RYAN TOBBE CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY Nicholas ’13 and Matthew ’11 Panzo

Charlotte ’13, Marc ’83 and Matthew ’11 Pender

MELANIE TRUSHEL LAKE ERIE COLLEGE

LAURA WASNICK WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

HALLIE TURNER WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON COLLEGE

GORDON WELLS JUNIOR HOCKEY

LAUREN VALA OHIO UNIVERSITY

KURT WILBER JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY

KEVIN VARGO UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH

MICHAEL ZAVAGNO WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY

Morgan ’10 and Ryan ’11 Shepard

Leo ’10 and Katherine ’11 Sideras

Jennifer ’08 and Kristina ’11 Snyder

Andrew ’09, Michael ’11 and Samuel ’06 Phillips

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Amy ’14 and Kevin ’11 Rizzo

CASEY WEINFURTNER OHIO UNIVERSITY

Brian ’08, Matthew ’11 and Allan ’05 Pestotnik

Alexandra ’06, Braeden ’11 and Harrison ’09 Quast

Benjamin ’12 and Jenna ’11 Radcliffe

Candace Longino-Thomas ’11

Amanda ’13, Evan ’11 and Brian ’05 Stefanski


COMMENCEMENT.q8_COMMENCEMENT 10/17/11 10:47 AM Page 14

Class of

2011 John ’12, Ryan ’11 and James ’81 Tobbe

Fast Facts on Gilmour Academy’s Class of 2011 (114 graduates)

Grace ’08, Alexandra ’11, Anne ’10 and James ’15 Venzor

11,000 hours donated to community organizations

Michael ’13, Lauren ’11 and Timothy ’09 Vala

John ’09 and Kevin ’11 Vargo

$5,000 donated to the Holy Cross Mission in Haiti, The Red Cross African Measles Initiative, Nuevo Paraiso, and the Gilmour Academy Scholarship Fund 2 full-tuition scholarships to MIT and John Carroll University along with numerous college scholarships and grants to some of the nation’s most competitive colleges

Nicholas ’07, Claire ’11 and Michael ’06 Wagner

Mara ’07, Kurt ’11 and Jack ’09 Wilber

Fifth state golf championship in school history 3 state Final Four appearances in volleyball Katharine ’14 and Michael ’11 Zavagno

Kevin Dagg ’11, Matthew Debick ’11, and Connor Deckard ’11

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COMMENCEMENT.q8_COMMENCEMENT 10/17/11 10:47 AM Page 15

Commencement

Days Go By By: Casey Weinfurrtner ’11

CLASS OF 2011

Stuck here on Memory Lane Wishing thatt I could reegain The days of thee past The good timess never last Coloring outsiide the lines Wasting just a little more timee Til it passes away Is it so much to stay? Days go by We wait We cry Time goes by It’s hard But we make it It goes, it goes, it goes, And it goes Days go by Remember all the times we shared Complaining how life wasn’t fair And the times we smiled Even just for a little while Wanting every big dream we made Sitting back as the seasons fade Going in and out Isn’t that what life’s about? Days go by We wait We cry Time goes by It’s hard But we make it It goes, it goes, it goes, oes And it go Days go by

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Look Look Look Look

at at at at

all our different faces all that we’ve created how we rise together how we stand togetheer

Days go by We wait We cry Time goes by It’s hard But we make it It goes, it goes, it goes, And it goes Days go by Days go by We love And we fight Time goes by It’’s sad But we move on It goes, it goes, it goes, And it goes Days go by Look what we’ve become Look who we’ve become In these days pa assed by

Casey Weinfurtner ’11


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Campus On/Or About

CUM LAUDE SOCIETY Dr.W. David Seibert, Jr., Upper School social studies instructor, was the featured speaker during the 2011 Cum Laude Society’s ceremony. Alison Althans,Taylor Broadbent, Elizabeth Coerdt, Jessica Cowan,Allison Crosby, Kenneth Farona,Allie Kasuboski, Brittany Link, Morgan Mills, Chelsea Myles

“ Academy Awards ” The

Congratulations to those students in the Class of 2011 who were honored at the 2011 Senior Awards program. The following students were recognized with special awards and commendations:

James Miller and Mackenzie Alexander

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and Kathleen O’Brien were inducted joining classmates Mackenzie Alexander, Kathleen Bloom, Caitlin Brett, Megan Covington, Hyun-Seung Hong, Jenna Klein, Brittany Layton, James Miller, John Mohorcic, Michael Phillips and Laura Wasnick. Inducted as juniors were Jayme Castillo, Michael Clark, Megan Diemer, Madalyn Kosar, David Mirando, Holly Rapp, Madison Ratycz, John Renner, Rachel Staton and Kyle Wiggers.

VALEDICTORIAN James Miller

PHI BETA KAPPA RECOGNITION James Miller

2011 GRADUATING SENIORS WHO MAINTAINED 4.0 GRADE POINT AVERAGE FOR FOUR YEARS Mackenzie Alexander Kathleen Bloom Caitlin Brett Elizabeth Coerdt Megan Covington Hyun Seung Hong Jenna Klein Brittany Layton James Miller Morgan Mills John Mohorcic Michael Phillips Laura Wasnick

GILMOUR TROPHIES Mackenzie Alexander Kenneth Farona

THE ROBERT B. TOMARO ’67 HONOR AWARD Colleen Kelly

BR. THEOPHANE SCHMITT TROPHIES Steven Greco Claire Wagner

THE DENIS HOYNES ’51 AWARD Brittany Layton Michael Phillips

THE DIRECTOR OF THE UPPER SCHOOL AWARD Bradley Baker Taylor Broadbent Sean Curtin Nicholas D’Angelo Hyun Seung Hong Allie Kasuboski Chelsea Myles Melanie Trushel

THE CHARLES A. MOONEY ’52 TROPHIES Brittany Link Michael Zavagno

SALUTATORIAN Mackenzie Alexander 2010-2011 NATIONAL MERIT SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM FINALIST Alison Althans COMMENDED STUDENTS Brittany Layton

THE BR. DAVID BALTRINIC AWARD John Mohorcic THE BR. ROBERT KELLY OUTSTANDING STUDENT SERVICE AWARD Claire Wagner


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Michael Phillips and Brittany Layton

THE SAINT BR. ANDRÉ AWARD Sam Castelaz THE CHARLES MURRAY ’60 STUDENT HUMANITARIAN AWARD Colleen Moore THE CHAPLAIN’S AWARD Elizabeth Coerdt Jessica Cowan Mary Farley Matthew Grider John Harper Megan Kramer Hannah Newcomb Matthew Pestotnik Katherine Sideras THE BR. JAMES O’DONNELL CAMPUS RESIDENCY AWARD Jenna Klein

Claire Wagner

Brittany Link and Michael Zavagno

Vince Bonacci and Jenna Klein

THE JOHN GALE ENGLISH AWARD Andrea Massaad Michael Phillips

JOURNALISM/YEARBOOK AWARD John Harper Morgan Mills

2011 HOLY CROSS LITERATURE AWARD Megan Covington

MUSICAL CONTRIBUTION AWARD Brittany Layton Casey Weinfurtner

THE WILLIAM G. MOORE II ’51 ENGLISH AWARD Kristen Elia OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE Lawrence Dolan James Miller

DISTINGUISHED MUSICIAN AWARD Jenna Radcliffe OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN ART AWARD Abigail Clark Andrea Massaad

JOURNALISM/LANCE AWARD Steve Greco Claire Wagner Casey Weinfurtner

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE IN AP PHYSICS Megan Covington THE PAUL PRIMEAU SCIENCE AWARD Hyun Seung Hong THE THOMAS JEFFERSON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AWARD Mackenzie Alexander Cameron Carmen Michael Phillips THE AP THOMAS JEFFERSON AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AWARD Seamus Finucane Jenna Klein John Mohorcic Kevin Rizzo The Director of the Upper School Award Recipients

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Campus On/Or About

A SITE VISIT BY NATURE’S STEWARDS G

ilmour students with a bent toward ecology had an ecotourism heyday in Costa Rica for a week in late July. Eleven Upper School students, science instructor Deanne Nowak and her husband, Tim, explored the Central American country with its rain forests, mountain ranges and live volcanoes with coastlines on both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. “Costa Rica is a world leader in environmental protection based upon land conservation, alternative energy development and protection of endangered species,” Nowak says. The country is the third-most ecological country, following Iceland and Switzerland, according to the 2010 Environmental Performance Index developed by researchers from Columbia and Yale universities. The EPI index provides a gauge on a national government scale of how close countries are to established environmental policy goals. Costa Rica’s biodiversity includes a national park known for sea turtle nesting, biological reserves, natural parks, cloud forests and canals that are home to protected species. “The trip allowed students to discover the complexity and immense beauty of the cloud forest, an endangered ecosystem rich in biodiversity,” says Nowak, dean of institutional and curriculum research at Gilmour. “We heard the howler monkeys, saw the poison dart frog, felt the cool mist of the clouds, tasted the fresh plantains and smelled the sweet aromaa of rare orchids,” she says adding, “Rather than reading about these thingss, students experienced them.” While on their ecological odyssey, the Gilmour nature scouts traveled with Earth Explore, which provides on-site education an nd experiences. In Tortuguero National Park, they watched sea turtles nest and explored canals on a boat. They went river rafting, monitored a hummingbird garden, went ziplining (traveling on cable lines) in the clou ud forest, visited a butterfly and bug preserve and went horseback riding in Monteverde, which houses the cloud forest – all the while keeping g journals. The seniors who participated d were Erin Abdalian, Olivia Althans, Diana Klonaris, Maggie Schm midt, Camille Dottore, Ben Radcliffe and Connor Moriarty. Juniors Sarah Abdalian, Jacqueline Schmidt, Greta Thomas and Aidan Coyle weree part of the group too. “Our visit,” No owak says, “taught and inspired us to be better stewards of the environm ment.”

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Campus On/Or About

Creating DNA Fingerprints in Class S

ix forensics students from Gilmour and a Gates Mills police detective learned to analyze their own DNA using a technique applied in the O.J. Simpson case. As part of their forensics class, the students created a DNA fingerprint using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to copy targeted genes in DNA isolated from cheek cells. The technology can copy DNA billions of times. “Gilmour’s science department acquired the PCR machine this year to support student research,” says Deanne Nowak, dean of institutional and curriculum research and a science instructor at Gilmour. The $10,000 instrument generates sufficient DNA to allow for analysis by gel electrophoresis. “Basically gel electrophoresis is a way to sort a mixture of DNA fragments by size,” notes Nowak, who has a doctorate in organic chemistry. “The little dark lines you see on a DNA fingerprint result from this process.” Earlier this year, Michael Day, a detective from the Gates Mills Police Department, showed the students how to do fingerprinting and expressed interest in the PCR process, so he signed on to learn alongside the students. “High school students sometimes isolate DNA from strawberries, bananas, or onions, but they rarely

have the opportunity to do PCR,” Nowak says. “There are PCR simulations available, but students are more engaged by authentic work, particularly when the DNA is their own.” Purchasing the PCR machine for Gilmour’s science program also made it possible for Edward Turk, a postdoctoral fellow at Case Western Reserve University, to join the Gilmour faculty. He started a molecular genetics research laboratory at Gilmour this year mentoring students such as senior Madison Ratycz, who created a system to investigate the localization of proteins to the mitochondrion. Mitochondria are the power house of the cell that convert the energy of food molecules into a form of energy used by the cells. Turk has a doctorate in biology and conducts research on the molecular genetics of mitochondrial biology and says that the PCR machine makes it possible to obtain a large quantity of DNA for analysis. The six Gilmour students – now seniors – who worked on the DNA project were: Alex Corkwell, Alexandra Farone, Bradley Gazdag, Austin Semarjian, Sarah Spech and former student Miguel Cisnal Perez.

Gilmour’s Chessman I

n just seven years, Jonathan Botek, a Middle School seventh-grader, has become one of the 100 best chess players in the nation among 11-yearolds, according to the U.S. Chess Federation. Only three students from Ohio made the list. What began as an after-school project learning the game from the Vivacity School of Chess has blossomed into monthly local and regional competitions. Botek competed in his second national tournament – the National Junior High Chess Tournament – in April in Columbus. He also is listed among the top 50 chess players in Ohio in the Kindergarten-Grade 6 group.

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Playing against his brother Matthew, a sophomore in Gilmour’s Upper School, helped Botek hone his skills. Jonathan also assists with the Lower School’s Chess Club, which includes his brother Daniel, a Gilmour third-grader. Playing chess has spurred Botek in his concentration, confidence and patience, according to his parents, Georgeanne Goodrich ’86 Botek, medical director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Diabetic Foot Program, and attorney Fred Botek ’85. Both are Gilmour alumni and Fred Botek is a Gilmour Trustee. The game also has helped their son excel in mathematics and in taking standardized multiple choice tests where he can apply analytical thinking. Not one to be pigeonholed, Botek also plays piano, baseball, basketball and football. “Jonny loves competition in all of his endeavors, especially chess,” his mother says. With chess he is able to employ his concentration, his understanding of the game and his desire to outperform the player across the table.


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Learning the Rapture of Music Cleveland Orchestra musician Robert Woolfrey

The musician visits are a great benefit, according magine the best musicians in the world visiting a to Camilla Cameron, Lower School music instructor. classroom to personally teach students about the magic of music. Gilmour’s Lower School students don’t “They are a way to link the arts to the classroom curriculum,” she says. “Mr. Woolfrey used his clarinet have to imagine because the reality is right under their to address problem solving and making musical noses. decisions for a performance: whether to play loud or Cleveland Orchestra musician Robert Woolfrey soft, fast or slow or when to accent musical notes. introduced third-graders to the wonders of the clarinet. The students learn to identify the problem, gather The avid hockey fan from Toronto engaged his young information and to list and consider all the options,” listeners in a way that made music fun yet still informative. Cellist Alan Harrell mesmerized Montessori explains Cameron. “Alan Harrell talked about musical and Kindergarten students with the For the last 90 years, the families and introduced students to the ability of a snake charmer wooing with beautiful music of the cello,” Cameron melody. Steven Greenman, an orchestra Cleveland Orchestra’s says. “We also have enjoyed Steven violinist who plays Gypsy music, regaled educational programs have Greenman who played klezmer music on first-graders through whimsical tunes while second-graders were drawn to the brought life to the wonders his violin and taught about the cultures of Eastern Europe through his music. power of Shachar Israel’s trombone of music to more than four He brings to life the book ‘Something music. From Nothing’ with musical motifs that The musicians, all part of the million schoolchildren. represent each character,” she adds. Cleveland Orchestra’s Learning Through Classes on the clarinet and the trombone were added Music School Partnership Program, visited Gilmour this year. throughout the spring semester and each time the The Gilmour instructor says that the resource children were awestruck. While these visits were a books that are part of the curriculum packets from delightful way to spend class time they also had a the Cleveland Orchestra are a real addition to her own serious purpose. curriculum specifically citing “Mysterious Thelonious,” The program fosters the use of music and the arts which graphically shows the sound of Thelonious to support general classroom learning by K-5 students Monk’s song “Misterioso.” employing a combination of curriculum resources, For the last 90 years, the Cleveland Orchestra’s teacher professional workshops and classroom visits educational programs have brought life to the wonders by members of the Cleveland Orchestra. Gilmour of music to more than four million area schoolchildren. introduced the program to the Lower School in 2005. Fortunately Gilmour’s Lower School students are among The musicians have been specially trained as teaching the beneficiaries. artists. The program is funded by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation and the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation.

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Campus On/Or About

CLOSING THE GENDER DEBATE “Coeducation offers an educational experience for both boys and girls to interact in the same classroom and to learn how each other thinks to forge opportunities for shared leadership.” Gilmour Headmaster Brother Robert Lavelle, C.S.C.

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n 1982, Gilmour Academy, then an all-boys school, merged with the all-girls Glen Oak School convinced that coeducation would better prepare students for life’s challenges and that it is better for students to compete intellectually than just socially. The Board of Trustees believed that coeducation also would lead students to embrace a broader understanding of their world since men and women tend to view things from different perspectives and bring different strengths to assessing and resolving problems. Almost three decades later, Gilmour’s commitment to K-12 coeducation has not wavered. Though the topic has been greatly debated, the U.S. Department of Education notes that research indicates no measurable advantage or disadvantage for coeducational

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or single-sex education. A 2006 study “The Paradox of Single-Sex and Coeducational Schooling,” concurred after examining more than 50 years of research on the subject. The study also indicated that coeducation might be more favorable in students’ transition to college and their satisfaction in school. In striving to create a climate of diversity, Gilmour Academy believes that coeducation reflects the kind of real-world diversity students will face in the workplace and beyond. It allows both boys and girls to interact in the classroom and share ideas fostering opportunities to see each others as equals. Interestingly enough, over the last decade at Gilmour, the distinction of graduating as class valedictorian or salutatorian has been evenly matched by both girls and boys. For the last 28 years, 16 girls and 12 boys have been valedictorian and 16 boys and 12 girls have been salutatorian. “The culture of Gilmour allows both boys and girls to succeed and to develop their own personal leadership styles,” says Gilmour parent and Trustee Ann Chiarucci O’Brien (G.O.) ’76. The National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education says, “research does not show that gender is an accurate, consistent or even useful determinant of educational needs . . .Given the commonalities between boys and girls far exceed the differences, the drastic step of separating boys and girls in public schools is not warranted.” The coalition also suggested that single-sex schools “risk reaffirming stereotypes about the interests, abilities or learning styles of both genders.” In 2005, the U.S. Department of Education reviewed eight research studies that cited the benefits of coeducation: increased test scores, improved self-esteem and student satisfaction and participation in science-related courses. Deanne Nowak, dean of institutional and curriculum research at Gilmour, did a


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Humanities Instructor, Bob Gralnick

longitudinal profile of Gilmour graduates from the classes of 2000-2007 who participated in Gilmour’s Catalyst Program. An elective course, it allows students to work on a research team in academia, industry, government or health care under the direction of a scientist mentor. “Science is an area where women aren’t normally represented well,” says Dr. Nowak, director of the Catalyst Program. “The fact that more girls participate in Catalyst by a ratio of 2 to 1 levels that out. Even though we are coeducational it doesn’t mean that we ignore the special needs of women.” In analyzing student interest in science and career choices in scientific fields, she cited a 2004 study in New Directions of Child and Adolescent Development indicating that belief in achievement and behaviors in children are impacted by opportunities presented by parents and the attitudes they convey about their children’s abilities. Coeducation is a choice just like single sex education is. It prepares students for the world they will encounter in their careers and in life. Coeducation allows both boys and girls to share their ideas and opinions inside the classroom and beyond in a setting that recognizes them as equals. Students learn from different leadership styles and are exposed to people with diverse values and from different backgrounds in an enriched academic environment.

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Campus On/Or About

HISTORY HOUNDS A

n article published in Education Week earlier this year – “National History Day Lifts Achievement, Study Finds” – sings the praises of the program founded by a history professor at Case Western Reserve University back in 1974. Originally National History Day was designed to stem the tide of lackluster teaching and scholarship in school systems. “The first-ever national evaluation of National History Day suggests that students who participate in the yearlong academic program and competition perform better on standardized tests, are better writers, and are more confident and capable researchers,” the articles notes. A program that started with 129 schools in the Cleveland area now attracts 600,000 in the United States and beyond. National History Day starts off with district competitions and those winners advance to state tournaments. Then, each year in June, the state victors compete nationally at the University of Maryland in College Park, Md. Nine Gilmour sixth-graders who were recognized in the district tournament had the opportunity to travel to Columbus for Ohio’s National History Day with their exhibits on the 1960s war

protests and a controversial truck tariff as well as a performance entry on women’s rights. Sixth-graders Katherine Clark, Maggie Kubicek and Margot Reid advanced to the national competition for their performance called “Four Women, One Dream.” The students acted out portions of history through letters covering issues such as voting rights for women and the Equal Rights Amendment. Gilmour’s Lower School students compete in the junior division and have advanced to nationals five times since 2005. That year the entries focused on America’s first spy satellites and their impact on modern warfare and a secret language used by slaves in the Underground Railroad. In 2006, Gilmour exhibits on the Miranda Decision, which defined constitutional rights during interrogation; women’s rights and school desegregation were selected for the national competition. Two years later, Lower School students advanced with documentaries on Cleveland’s civil rights busing controversy and a program to rescue burros in the Grand Canyon. In 2009, a documentary on evolutionist Charles Darwin and an exhibit on aviator Bessie Coleman were showcased at nationals.


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Margie Picciano This year, a performance based on women’s voting rights and the Equal Rights Amendment advanced to the national competition in June. National History Day invites students to develop a historical topic and to link its significance to society and history. They examine pivotal people, places, and events in world history through their projects. Through National History Day, students acquire historical knowledge and perspective and develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills that will help them manage and use information now and in the future. “There is always a different side of a historical moment to uncover, a journey worthy to take, as the skills learned along the way will last a lifetime,” says Lower School humanities instructor Carmel Fantelli who coordinates the program at Gilmour. “National History Day teaches students research, writing, product development, technology use and interviewing skills. It is an excellent piece of our curriculum.” For National History Day 2011, Gilmour sixthgraders interviewed auto industry executives and ’60s war protestors. They conducted research using PBS, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Oberlin College, Kent State University and archives at the Library of Congress and the Truman Library, among other sources. In the past, students have mined resources such as the Western Reserve Historical Society, John Carroll University’s broadcast archives, television stations, Georgia’s Peabody Awards archives, Northern Indiana’s Women’s Baseball Collection and the Ryan White Collection at the Kokomo Library in Indiana. Students have interviewed lawyers and law professors as well as firsthand witnesses in the Cleveland Schools’ desegregation case. “The cornerstone of the Gilmour experience is the rich and varied resources students use to research their topics,” says Fantelli. “Our students analyze and interpret information from their sources and draw conclusions about their topics’ significance in history.” As two-time Pulitizer Prize-winning historian David McCullough views it, “History is who we are and why we are the way we are.”

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n many ways, Gilmour Academy and the Picciano family have been connected for nearly four decades. When Margie Picciano, Gilmour math instructor, announced her retirement at the end of the 2010-11 school year, veteran faculty and administrators paused to think of a time when she or her husband, Andy, were not a part of the daily fabric of life at the Academy. Margie’s first introduction to Gilmour occurred in 1975 when she was dating Andy Picciano, an Upper School social studies teacher and dorm proctor. Two years later they were married in Gilmour’s chapel and had their wedding reception in Tudor Gardens. During this period they forged lifetime friendships with faculty members and Gilmour parents. Margie taught in the Mayfield City schools for five years and then “briefly” retired to raise her three children, Jen, Lexi and Drew. All three of the Picciano children were baptized by Campus Minister Father John Blazek ’58, C.S.C., in the old chapel, and two years ago, Jen was married by Father John on campus in Our Lady Chapel. In 1986 Andy departed Gilmour for public school administration and eventually became a principal in the Cuyahoga Falls School system. In the interim before Margie’s hiring at Gilmour, the Piccianos attended Lancer athletic events and homecoming activities, cheering on former students and good neighbors, the Embleton and McCamley children. In 2001 Margie returned to Gilmour as a math instructor. During her 10 years at Gilmour she taught every grade level and most subjects that the Math Department offered. Andy is joining Margie in retirement, and both look forward to playing a lot of golf, traveling without worrying about following an itinerary and spending time with their first grandchild due in June. Safe travels, good friend; well earned!

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Campus On/Or About

ATEACHER’S TAKE ON POETRY D

ave Lucas sits in the Thomas More Library late one morning in mid-March reflecting on his days as an English instructor at Gilmour – and on how welcoming the Academy’s faculty and students are to those around them. “Welcoming is something Holy Cross does beautifully,” he says. “It is the sort of thing I want to do with my poetry.” Now a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan, Lucas recently published his first collection of poetry, called “Weather,” and stopped by to visit with Gilmour students. In his book, he “rewrites the myth of Cleveland,” he says. “It is nothing near a dying city. It is a city that has so many lives like all cities do.” The poems sometimes use seasons and “weather as a metaphor” in the sense of surviving grief, adolescence or whatever life throws at us. The son of teachers, Lucas grew up in Mentor and d taught at Gilmour between 2005 and 2008, and also o at Oberlin College and John Carroll University,, wheere he earned his bachelor’s degree. He graduated d with ha Master of Fine Arts in creative writing g from m the University of Virginia and also taugh ht creeative writing there as a graduate student. Lucaas lov ves the wonderful

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sense of freedom that comes from his profession. “I have never felt guilty,” he confides, “about going into something that some would view as esoteric or removed from society.” Lucas and his wife, Amy, live in his grandmother’s old house in Lyndhurst. He delights in the fact that so many of his former Gilmour students keep in touch, want to know what he is doing and to tell him what is going on in their lives. “A teacher helps you go through the world,” Lucas says. He admits that he has learned humility, self-criticism and forgiveness from his students. “Spending time with them reminds you of how difficult adolescence is and gives you an empathy for them.” When Lucas addressed Middle and Upper School students during Convocation he asked how man ny of them had ever been to a poetry reading. One stud dent raised his hand. “On behalf of poetry, I apologizee to you,” said Lucas, who puts poetry read dings on a level with infomercials. “I want to sell yo ou on poetry – and I don’t mean my book.” He grrabbed the audience’s attention when he told his listen ners that they didn’t need to understand whaat a po oem means. “All you need to know is that you feel compelled, if only for a moment or a singlee lin ne when a poem has spoken to you,” he said. Lucas bridged that notion with teachers, too. He faavors allowing students to enjoy poetry without haviing to figure out its secret meaning. Teacchers say, “‘I don’t know how to teach poetry an nd to get students involved,’” Lucas said. “We fear th hat poetry is this mystical thing that needs to be deciphered the way scholars pore over the Gospels and the Torah.” While this can be part of teaching poetry, Lucas believes it should be secondary to the pleasure of experiencing poetry, concluding, “The reader is as important in the process as the author.”


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Everything is Illuminated I

ndia once was a place of British Bengal Lancers and busts of Queen Victoria. Visions of Gandhi at his spinning wheel, the Taj Mahal and women wearing shimmering saris are deep rooted in our mind’s eye of the nation. The books that made up Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet flesh out India’s literary lore alongside Rudyard Kipling’s works of “Gunga Din,” “Kim” and “The Jungle Book.” From the days of the East India Company that traded tea to today’s bastion of information technology, India is the site of a rich historical past and a burgeoning future. And Gilmour’s Cindy Sabik was right at the heart of it all. Sabik, an English instructor in the Upper School, spent part of July and August in Calcutta, where as much as 17 inches of rain the first month and 14 the month following can deluge the city’s occupants. She was there for a month on a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship teaching English, writing and literature at St. John’s Diocesan Girls’ Higher Secondary School. Established in 1894, the Christian school serves the country’s various communities. The United States-India Educational Foundation sponsored the program through the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Nine Americans were selected for the Summer Teacher Exchange Program. Sabik’s first bit of culture shock came on the streets of Calcutta. “I absolutely cannot imagine driving here,” she blogged. “Cars come within inches of other cars, bikes, rickshaws and pedestrians.” She described walking through the streets as a “sensory experience” and compared the hawkers, the colors, the crowds and the chaos to a kind of “cacophony.” The Fulbright teachers’ days in India began at 3:20 a.m – another practice that required adjustment. Sabik’s goal in traveling to India was to “gain cross-cultural understandings and connections and to learn about another educational system,” she said. The Gilmour teacher views the opportunity as a

conduit for lifelong learning and reflective practice that provides a context for a comparative experience. With a doctorate in Urban Education: Policy Studies from Cleveland State University, Sabik contends that “Education is a critical, comparative endeavor; all things happen against something.” She explains, “We recognize good writing in juxtaposition to bad; clarity in juxtaposition to ambiguity; brilliant insight as opposed to an inadequate theory.” She taught students in various grades during 40minute classes and thought they were “polite and curious.” The students were interested in knowing about their counterparts in the United States and the country’s geography. “They wanted to know about our school, our food, our lifestyle,” Sabik said. She taught poetry and personal essays to a group of 12th -grade girls who elected her class despite language challenges. “The girls are so bright and articulate and want to know about American colleges and the American system,” she noted on her blog. In India, the teachers switch classrooms; not the students. Teachers are inundated with grading student compositions. “With 60 to 90 students per class and six or seven classes a day that’s 360-to 630 essays to grade in one day,” Sabik pointed out. On her first day, Sabik noticed that she was the only one in the classroom with her shoes on, but she felt right at home with the high school’s commitment to service. On Friday afternoons, each student brings one potato and one onion to school and students send 4,000 onions and 4,000 potatoes to a retirement home operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor. Sabik, associate dean of academic programs and planning, hopes her experience in India will benefit her Gilmour students by enhancing her classes through a more critical perspective. “Comparative studies are one of the most powerful approaches to learning,” she says. “When you compare another system – whether it be language, religion or education – your own education system is illuminated.”

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Campus On/Or About

Taking the Full Measure of Ukraine Elizabeth Edmondson

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efore Gilmour English instructor Elizabeth Edmondson traveled to western Ukraine in May as part of a two-way exchange program for secondary teachers her view was “USSR bad; America, good,” she noted in a blog about her adventure. The experience redefined her thinking. “It was the Ukrainian children that really got me thinking when they were discussing Ronald Reagan’s comment that the USSR was an ‘Empire of Evil,’” Edmondson recalls. “Thanks to the children I realized the complexity of the situation for the Ukrainian people,” she says. Where Americans are “united by our ability to see a problem and fight for change,” she says, “Ukrainians do not fight back; they endure.” While there, Edmondson says she made a point of “piecing together a general sense of public opinion about communism and freedom from those who have lived under both.” One of the things Edmondson learned was that although Ukrainians lacked choices under communism and had to wait in long lines to get goods, they never went without necessities like food and clothing. “Although almost everyone said that life wasn’t fancy, the tradeoff was that life was reliable and the government was dependable, she says adding, “There were no questions of affording your rent or groceries under communism.” The downside, she says, is that the Ukrainian people knew nothing about the rest of the world. The Gilmour Upper School teacher was one of 110 U.S. teachers selected for the Teaching Excellence Award by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and IREX (the International Research and Exchanges Board). Teachers from other countries traveled to the United States for

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professional development at the nation’s universities. The goal was to swap best teaching practices. Edmondson has taught at Gilmour for seven years. Chair of Gilmour’s English Department, she teaches AP literature, literature and film, and English and is coordinator of the Peer Tutoring Program. She has a bachelor’s degree in secondary education from the University of Akron, a master’s degree in reading specialization from Kent State University and plans to pursue a doctorate in curriculum and instruction at Kent State. While in Ukraine, Edmondson team-taught at her host school, spoke about U.S. education and culture and ran workshops on teaching methods and curriculum design. It was during the workshops that Edmondson “saw the effects on a generation of teachers who never learned to make their own choices and who rely completely on the state for direction,” noting that the Ministry of Education dictated the country’s education system. “Teachers have no say in what they teach and very little choice in how they teach it,” she says. At the same time, Edmondson was impressed with the warmth and enthusiasm of the students, especially an eighth-grader named Alex who was almost fluent in English and was the perfect gentleman, opening doors for her, reading a menu and ordering. “I wonder how many American high school graduates are even remotely comfortable with a second language,” she says. Edmondson was impressed by Nataliia Reutska from Gymnasia #1, her host teacher in the city of Khmelnytskyi. “Nataliia believes strongly that everything happens for a reason,” she says, and that communism “had to happen in order to shape her into the woman she is today.”


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“We live in an increasingly globalized world, and now, more than ever, an international perspective in the classroom is imperative.” Elizabeth Edmondson

Edmondson was the keynote speaker at an English language learning conference and gave two television interviews. During her trip Edmondson also visited local schools, parents’ committees and non-governmental organizations and met with the board of education and Ukrainian educational leaders and American Peace Corps volunteers. One poignant moment came when Edmondson participated in a nuclear evacuation drill to protect against radiation at a school two hours from Chernobyl. “I was profoundly moved watching teachers pass out surgical masks to students evacuating the building and watching children don gas masks pulled from their book bags,” she admits. Chernobyl is a lifedefining event for Ukrainians the way 9/11 is for Americans. The Gilmour teacher believes that a global perspective is important for teachers and students alike. “We live in an increasingly globalized world, and now, more than ever, an international perspective in the classroom is imperative,” Edmondson says. Prior to leaving Ukraine, fifth-graders presented Edmondson with a handmade doll in traditional Ukrainian clothing and a handbeaded forget-me-not pin, although that’s not likely to happen.

ADDING SKYPE TO MIDDLE SCHOOL LEXICON A

t a time when our nation is touting its military might eighthgraders at Gilmour Academy used Skype to have an Internet telephone conversation with a Marine serving in Afghanistan. What did the students want to know? Where were you during the attack on the Pentagon on 9/11? What is it like being on the front lines during war? Why did you become a Marine? Can you leave base in Afghanistan and visit its villages? Have you been to the War Room and seen the Big Board? The students conversed with Lt. Col. Ricardo Player, a public affairs officer. They emailed their questions and the Shaw High School graduate directly answered the students posing the questions. Their discourse was dramatized because the soldier and students could see each other. Gilmour English instructor Bonnie O’Leary taught Player at Shaw, was his mentor and is his friend. “In the early 2000s, Rick visited Gilmour and talked to our students,” O’Leary says. The eighth-graders learned that the Marine had a lot to teach them about English. He was selected for a U.S. Pentagon program that allows military officers to work in corporations. Player was an intern for the Chicago Tribune from 2002 to 2004 to better understand how the media works and spent time gathering news. After receiving a full scholarship to Ithaca College, he graduated from there and was a Marine with the Washington Barracks assisting at ceremonial affairs. The students also discovered during their interaction with Player that he served in Desert Storm and in Iraq as a public affairs officer for former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.


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ay Rhode ’51 is one of Gilmour’s “pioneers” (early graduates). In fact, he graduated in the Academy’s second class. Rhode gets together with other pioneers to reminisce about swimming classes in the Tudor Arms Hotel, Gilmour’s Blue Bus, the orchards and the greenhouses. “We considered ourselves as the leaders of the generations Ray Rhode ’51 to follow,” says Rhode, an honorary Gilmour Trustee and current member of the school’s Academic Affairs and Institutional Advancement Committees. As pioneers “We knew that what we were doing would set the tone for those who followed us and set an example for future classes,” he says. Still the pioneers had a special place in their hearts for St. Mary’s Lake and the inflatable raft anchored there. “Best place to smoke on campus,” Rhode notes. After graduating from John Carroll University, Rhode was an officer in the U.S. Army Transportation Corps from 1956 until 1959. In 1995, Rhode retired from the East Ohio Gas Company where he worked in sales, marketing and public affairs for 29 years. Still active in the community, he is chairman of the Records Commission in South Euclid where he lives with Noreen, his wife of 50 years. He organizes the city’s band concerts, is a credit union officer in Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish (formerly St. Gregory the Great) and is coordinator of the Lectors and Extraordinary Ministers group. Rhode is scribe for John Carroll University’s Class of ’55, a member of 44

the university’s alumni group and served on the President’s Council from 2003 through 2004. His hobbies are photography and traveling. Rhode believes that Gilmour’s history has a message for present day students and he has been asked to address them several times about what the early years at Gilmour have meant to him adding, “I was always proud to be asked to do this.” “Gilmour is an outstanding prep school,” he says maintaining that the philosophy imparted by the Holy Cross Brothers is what makes the school outstanding. Rhode regularly volunteers as a class agent with Annual Fund phone solicitations and he is a member of the Blue & Gray Society. In 1989, Gilmour named him Alumnus of the Year for his service to the Academy. Three of his sons – Patrick ’88, Christopher ’93 and Matthew ’96 are Gilmour graduates and Rhode and his wife are members of the Gilmour Academy Alumni Parents Association. Rhode recalls a summer day in 1947 when he and his twin brother, Bob ’51, joined their father on their first visit to Gilmour. “It was not encouraging,” Rhode says. The trio was to attend a Cleveland Indians game following their visit with Brother Theophane Schmitt, C.S.C., Gilmour’s Headmaster. After touring the facilities, the group ended up in the tower at Tudor House and when Brother Theophane reached in his cassock for his keys he came up short. “The door to the tower was securely locked and we were stuck up there,” Rhode says. After almost two hours they got out but missed the baseball game. “My brother and I opined that the Jesuits would certainly never go up in a tower without their keys.” Despite the dubious beginning, Rhode views Gilmour as “a wonderful experience that can never be duplicated.”


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o one can say Colonel Vincent Horrigan ’67 isn’t a go-getter. The U.S. Air Force fighter pilot retired in 1998 after 27 years as a career officer flying Pentagon, NATO and Command assignments and serving as deputy undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force in Washington, D.C. Horrigan began his second career as executive director of the American Red Cross for Chautauqua County, the same position he held with the Southwestern New York chapter. Last May he retired from the Red Cross after being named a Hometown Hero by the organization. Now he is running to represent District 17 in the Chautauqua County Legislature. The Gilmour alumnus is a trustee of the Village of Bemus Point, N.Y., where he lives with his wife of 40 years, Barbara, and serves on the board of directors of the Chautauqua Lake Association and the Red Cross Southwestern NY chapter. In reflecting on his days at Gilmour, Horrigan recalls how hard his parents worked to send him to the Academy. His father used to tell him “That coat and tie you had to wear to Gilmour didn’t do you any harm did it?” One memorable moment involved playing footsie with Barbara at his junior prom. Their son, Sean, daughter, Carrie, and their respective spouses, Lynn and William, plus four granddaughters round out the family dynasty. As a youngster, Horrigan’s family often visited Chautauqua Lake and his father bought a

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cottage at Bemus Point. Vincent Horrigan ’67 After various additions to the cottage, it is now the Horrigans’ year-round family home. What did Horrigan learn at the Academy that prepared him for such rigorous careers? “Live your life with integrity and respect others with different points of view,” Horrigan notes. “Always look for the glass half full. Surround yourself with good people – and never jump out of the emergency door of a school bus or you will face discipline measurers of Mr. Frank ‘the Tank’ Urankar.” After graduating from Gilmour, Horrigan earned a bachelor’s degree in management from Kent State University and a master’s in business management from Troy State University, then attended Graduate Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Ala. Flying and boating are among Horrigan’s favorite pastimes and he remains active in his parish and local Catholic organizations. Previously president of the Rotary Club of Jamestown and the Chautauqua Leadership Network, he received awards from both, as well as from the Jamestown Chamber of Commerce.


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ven Emily Post, the doyenne of social mores, knew that thankyou notes are more than just good manners. Their absence in our modern world not only is a social gaffe – it’s a real loss. For Gilmour alum John Kralik ’73, thank-you notes became a lifeline that pulled him from the desperation of divorce, distance from his children and an impending trial that John Kralik ’73 threatened to derail his legal career but instead led him on a journey of gratitude. Today Kralik is a Superior Court judge for the County of Los Angeles and hears criminal and civil cases. He talks about how his life turned around in his 2010 memoir, “365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life.” During a walk in the California hills on New Year’s Day 2008, Kralik came up with a plan to make life more tolerable by being grateful for what he had instead of focusing on what he didn’t have. Each day throughout the year, the attorney sent handwritten thank-you notes to loved ones, friends, foes, business associates, store clerks, doctors, neighbors and others who had shown him kindness in some way. He gained a sense of peace, companionship and a stronger financial base. As a result, Kralik discovered that “Until you learn to be grateful for the things you have, you will not receive the things that you want.” Kralik attended Gilmour from 1969 to 1972 and finished high school in three years by doubling up on courses and taking the required senior courses

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John Kralik’s “enrobement” ceremony

during free periods. Looking back, he wonders why he was in such a rush. “I lost what I have always viewed as a precious year at Gilmour,” he says. “Looking back now, I realize I had nothing better to save it for.” Kralik recalls a beloved teacher and basketball coach Brother Gerontius McCarthy, C.S.C., who died his freshman year. “His death left us reeling,” he says, and taught him the “impermanence of life.” Brother Thomas Maddix, C.S.C., coached him in speech and debate. Kralik and classmate Dave Schaumberg teamed to debate issues. “My experience on the debate team, my first burst through painful shyness, gave me the confidence to attempt law school,” Kralik says. Brother Thomas stressed the importance of outlining an argument, he notes, “a skill I would later use in law school, and in writing every significant legal brief of my life.” The judge earned his baccalaureate and law degrees from the University of Michigan. After law school, the Gilmour graduate joined the Wall Street law firm Hughes, Hubbard & Reed and became a partner in 1988. He also was an in-house attorney for the Atlantic Richfield Company, known as ARCO, and formed his own law firm Kralik & Jacobs in Pasadena, Calif. He has three children – Johnny, 30, Josh, 26, and Katie, 11. In his spare time, Kralik hikes and runs marathons for charities and is learning to dance. After his book was released, he connected with a few friends from Gilmour who found him on Facebook. Gilmour classmate Larry Weber, who has written seven books, encouraged Kralik in his writing and provided a blurb for his book. Reflecting on his days at Gilmour, Kralik says, “You will never find it so easy to make friends, or to be sure that your friends are really your friends.”


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aising $95 million in charitable gifts and dues for nonprofit organizations qualifies as a pretty big challenge, but telephilanthropy (phone-based fundraising) combined with intelligent email technology has put a whole new spin on fundraising. Ask Martha Holzheimer Connor GO ’72, president and CEO of DirectLine Technologies in Modesto, Calif. “I believe we have the most sophisticated call center management technology in the nation,” Connor says. She has led the corporation since 1990, applying her skills in strategic planning, market development and financial management. Connor says the most important thing she learned at Gilmour/Glen Oak was how to use critical thinking skills. “They support strong decision making, leadership and persuasive writing techniques – another strong suit at Gilmour,” she notes. Connor holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance from Case Western Reserve University, where she graduated cum laude. She earned a master’s degree in Non-Profit Agency Administration from California State University (CSU) Stanislaus in Turlock, Calif., and a doctorate in the same field from Bryson University in Columbus, Miss. In 2006, the executive was named Alumnus of the Year at CSU Stanislaus. During her career, Connor was director of enrollment service at the University of Southern California and held a similar position at a nursing school in Portland, Ore. She also served as director of annual giving and alumni at her alma mater, CSU Stanislaus. She met her husband, Gary

Martha Holzheimer Connor GO ’72

Connor, there and the two have been married for 29 years. The couple love gourmet cooking, wine collecting and entertaining, and Martha enjoys contemporary dance, reggae music and jazz, plus reading the classics – with a bestseller thrown in sometimes. As a Glen Oak student, Connor learned the importance of service for one’s sense of completeness and well-being. “My service on many nonprofit and civic boards (including the Modesto Symphony Orchestra) and 21 years as a Rotarian, has brought me fulfillment and broadened my perspective,” she says. Connor counts herself as a “glass half full” person and believes in tackling problems pronto. “No problem or challenge gets better with time, it just gets harder to resolve,” she says. “So solve it now, act now, do it now.” Her other honors include Outstanding Woman of Stanislaus County in 2009, Large Business of the Year from the Modesto Chamber of Commerce in 2001, a market research and analysis award from the U.S. Commerce Association in 2010 and a slew of awards recognizing women who own businesses. Over the years, Connor says she has lost track of many high school friends, but she is reconnecting with them through Facebook. The entrepreneur is greatly anticipating her 40th Gilmour/Glen Oak reunion next year. She also looks forward to seeing the Holzheimer clan again, especially cousins, Martha Holzheimer Dempsey GO ’73 and Tim ’61, adding “There is a long-shared tradition between the Holzheimer family and Gilmour, which I’m proud to be a part of.”

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atherine Butz ’84, a pediatric psychologist, crosses paths with more than her fair share of kids. She is associate clinical professor in the Department of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University, director of the Catherine Butz ’84 with her family pediatric psychology fellowship program, and is on the staff at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus. “I specialize in stress and pain management,” Butz says, “and work largely with a chronic pain population implementing biofeedback technology.” She also provides clinical care to burn victims and those having surgery, and works with neurology, cardiology and rheumatology medical specialties. Using virtual reality to minimize the stress of medical procedures has landed the alum in guest spots on radio and television news programs. Her research also focuses on pediatric burn problems. Butz, who lives in Columbus, received her Bachelor of Science in human development from Cornell University and her master’s and doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She notes that her father imbued her with a strong work ethic and that her experience at Gilmour provided “a level of dedication and investment in each student that exceeded just encouraging and tracking academics,” she says. “Faculty worked at educating the whole person.” Butz emulates this in her own profession by working with individuals to identify barriers and ultimately achieve their personal potential. Although Butz hopes to visit Gilmour sometime soon, she says, “I am sure I will hardly recognize the place.” Living in Columbus with her husband, Brad Hughes, an attorney, and children, Matthew and Helen, Butz is active with the children’s ministry at her church and serves on its staff parish relations board. She also volunteers at a community resource center providing meals to the community. She enjoys boating on Lake Erie, running, organic gardening and cooking. “While I love what I do professionally, I also love being a mother,” the psychologist says. “As a working mom, achieving a balance is key. Among busy schedules and to-do lists I strive to be in the moment.”

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Lancer Spotlight “There is never a day in my professional, philanthropic or personal life that I do not use many of the life-changing lessons learned at Gilmour,” says Matthew Figgie ’84. “As my daughter begins her own Gilmour journey, I cannot think of a more perfect environment for her. We had many choices, but there was never a doubt that I wanted her to gain the very same advantage through Gilmour’s broad-based, multi-faceted educational experience.” Figgie is chairman of Clark-Reliance Corporation, a global manufacturing firm that serves the power generation, petroleum, refining and chemical processing industries. He also is chairman of Figgie Capital, a diversified, multidisciplined investment company that invests on a global basis, and vice president of the Board of Trustees for The Figgie Foundation. This eighthgeneration Clevelander says his competitive spirit was honed on the Gilmour athletic fields. “I remember my coaches saying that as long as the scoreboard is on, we are playing to win. That same mindset is so true in business every day,” Figgie says. He recalls that work ethic was paramount as well. Off the athletic fields, Figgie was learning about business from the ground up, working as a code welder, machinist and assembler in factories and machine shops. This direct, collaborative approach to business and his coworkers ultimately contributed to Clark-Reliance twice being named one of the Plain Dealer’s Top Workplaces and the company also being honored by NorthCoast 99 as a great place to work. In addition to his other responsibilities, Figgie fine-tuned his passion for investments on Wall Street, increasing his knowledge and experience in equity investing, economic forecasting, currency and commodity trading, global asset allocation and mergers and acquisitions.

Matthew Figgie ’84

Having a greater calling through charitable work is another critical defining factor of the Gilmour experience. “My parents instilled the wisdom in me that ‘to whom much is given, much is expected,’” Figgie says. “This ideal was completely reinforced at Gilmour and it has been the cornerstone of the work I do in our community.” Figgie serves on the board of University Hospitals, on its Quality and Development committees, and on the Leadership Councils for both Orthopedics and Cardiology. The Figgie Foundation has set up seven professional chairs across the nation, most recently at University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University. He will co-chair the hospital’s corporate committee for the 2013 Five Star Sensation fundraiser and will also serve as the 2012 corporate chairperson of the National Kidney Foundation’s Kidney Walk of Cleveland. Last year, Figgie was a co-recipient of the Cleveland Public Theater’s Pan Award. An Academic All-American in baseball, National Merit Scholar and 1984 Gilmour Trophy recipient, Figgie believes that Gilmour’s rigorous academic curriculum provided the discipline and structure for his higher education, as he proceeded to simultaneously earn a Bachelor of Science from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts from Baldwin-Wallace College. He then completed an MBA from Case Western Reserve University. “The defining factor that sets Gilmour far apart is its people ... that is what makes my school so unique and fantastic,” said Figgie. “It is not only the lifelong friendships that I have made and the successful people who have walked these halls, but the new friends that I look forward to meeting now as a Gilmour parent. It is this special network and the common goals of a broad-based, total education that lead to the quality people, leaders and good corporate citizens who graduate from this very special school. That’s why I am so thrilled to give my daughter the gift of ‘Gilmour!’”

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amilies taking care of loved ones with multiple sclerosis have a surefire friend in Joe Bradley ’96. Bradley and his brother, Michael ’98, and their friend Dan Johnson are raising funds to provide respite and healthcare services to families in Northeast Ohio. The trio started the Karen Foundation for MS in 2007 named for Joe’s and Michael’s mother, Karen Bradley, who has lived with MS for 20 years. The foundation holds an annual NFL Draft Benefit Party and other fundraiser events. What began as a fundraising party with a small group of friends in his parents’ basement has grown dramatically. In April, ESPN broadcast a live on-air interactive analysis of draft day picks from the benefit at Barley House with Cleveland Browns player Peyton Hillis and former player Gregg Pruitt. When he was in fourth grade, Bradley found out that his mother had been diagnosed with MS. “She was the strongest person I had ever known,” he says. “It never occurred to me that the disease would affect her in any major way.” When Bradley was in college, his mother’s condition declined quickly and then she suffered a stroke. Despite the loss of her ability to talk, eat normally and move voluntarily, he says, “our family vowed to do everything possible to maintain the vivacious spirit in her otherwise failing body.” Bradley, president of the Karen Foundation for MS, says that the foundation wanted to provide hope and immediate help to families and that respite care has traditionally been an unfunded need. Proceeds from the fundraisers go to the Ohio Buckeye Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. In 2010, the Karen Foundation for MS received the organization’s

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Joe Bradley ’96 (third from left) with his wedding party

Award of Inspiration. The foundation is the largest third-party contributor to the Ohio Buckeye Chapter providing more than 85 percent for respite care grants. “The foundation helps families acquire services that make an immediate impact on their ability to keep loved ones at home, maintain a high quality of life and carry on with their daily responsibilities,” Bradley says. The alum attributes many of his core values and principles to his years at Gilmour. “I was surrounded by really smart and competitive classmates,” he says. Bradley notes that he also benefitted from “some outstanding and exceptional teachers and coaches.” Bradley, who graduated from Cleveland State University, is a business development manager at Ganeden Biotech, which makes and sells probiotic enhanced food, beverages and nutritional supplements for the food, health and nutrition industries. He has helped develop Pierre’s Yovation frozen yogurt, enLiven yogurt and Sustenex Probiotic Gummies. Bradley and his wife, Krista, live in University Heights with their two dogs. He hopes that the NFL Draft Benefit Party will spread across the country to every city with an NFL team to benefit families providing care for MS patients. Bradley says that his spirited mom is still valiantly fighting MS “with the same fortitude and sense of purpose as ever” with the help of his father and grandmother who provide ongoing care.


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ristin Franco Kirkpatrick ’94 is no stranger to fame. She has appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and “Larry King Live” and is a regular guest on “The Dr. Oz Show.” Kirkpatrick is a dietician and wellness manager for the Cleveland Clinic’s Wellness Institute. The Gilmour alum is the nutrition expert on Dr. Michael Roizen’s and Dr. Mehmet Oz’s “you beauty” website and is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post blog, Doctoroz.com and the Cleveland Clinic’s wellness website. She has been quoted in Martha Stewart Living, Fitness, Self and Better Homes and Gardens. “Gilmour provided me with the confidence to reach for the stars,” Kirkpatrick says. “The Academy molded me into a professional who can effectively communicate and work among diverse groups.” After graduating from Gilmour, Kirkpatrick earned a bachelor’s degree in communication and political science from George Washington University and a Master of Science from American University. “The coolest job I ever had was that of a White House intern during the Clinton Administration,” Kirkpatrick says. The registered

Kristin Franco Kirkpatrick ’94 with husband, Andy

dietitian graduated from the University of Akron’s Dietetic Internship Coordinated Program. Before her current position, Kirkpatrick managed large-scale initiatives and projects for Cleveland Clinic Employee Wellness. She has been a lobbyist for the American Dietetic Association’s Policy and Advocacy Group for medical nutrition therapy reform and was regional coordinator of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s Hearts N’ Parks program in Montgomery County, Md., designing, implementing and measuring health promotion programs in the Washington metro area. She and her husband, Andy, an attorney, met in Washington when they were working as paralegals. The couple is in the process of adopting a baby from Bogota, Columbia. She visits Colorado for hiking, running and skiing, and enjoys taking care of “the Kirkpatrick farm” with its three dogs, two goats and pot-bellied pig. Since recently joining Facebook, Kirkpatrick has connected with more than 20 Gilmour alumni and has kept in touch with others over the years. “The secret to fulfillment in life,” she says, “is to do what you absolutely love for a career and surround yourself with people that help you grow and learn as a person.”

Dr. Oz, Kristin, Andy Kirkpatrick

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ichael McHugh ’03 learned just how fast an earthquake can rouse you from your routine when Japan’s earthquake hit March 11. The engineer moved to Tokyo last January to work for Boyd and Moore Executive Search and is a recruiter in the medical device industry. He was at work where he matches Japanese executives with positions in international firms when his office began to shake. He and his coworkers were forced to evacuate onto the street. With no trains or cabs, the alum waited out the day and evening before venturing home at about 10 p.m. “After experiencing the earthquake in Japan firsthand and then watching the tsunami unfold on the news, I have gained a strong desire to help in the relief effort up north,” McHugh says. He has attended fundraisers and donated goods, and plans to do more. “People in northeast Japan were left with absolutely nothing after the disasters,” he says. “Anything one can offer, no matter how small, is Michael McHugh ’03 not only (in the brown shirt on the right) helpful but also appreciated.” He used to question whether trivial donations were worthwhile. “Now I know that the answer is, a million times over, yes,” he says.

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“Even something as simple as a set of plasticware goes a long way for these people.” McHugh has a degree in medical engineering from Vanderbilt University and a master’s degree in engineering management from Case Western Reserve University. He has also worked as an IMS consultant at a hospital and has been a healthcare systems consultant. McHugh visited Japan twice as a tourist and had some basic language skills and knowledge of the culture before he moved there. He explains that it is very hard for a foreigner to get the opportunity to work in Japan especially someone with limited Japanese language skills. “The most difficult part is not being able to do some of life’s basic tasks on my own,” he admits. “I cannot visit a post office by myself, since I am unable to read any of the signs and do not know what to ask of the staff.” Though he finds the Japanese to be “friendly and approachable,” McHugh notes that he is a foreigner in a “homogenized city” that has its pros and cons, he believes. “To many Japanese, a foreigner is intriguing and some enjoy the opportunity to interact with foreigners,” he says. On the other hand, due to this homogenization “many people in Japan are still rather xenophobic,” he says adding, “Sometimes the only empty seat on the train will be the one next to me.” Another thing he has noticed is that customer service is better in Tokyo than in America. “No matter what kind of establishment you go to, no matter how menial the job,” he says, “you are practically guaranteed the greatest of service from someone with a glowing, enthusiastic demeanor.” From a business perspective, McHugh believes a global experience is “priceless,” noting that globalization allows for limitless growth potential, broadens one’s knowledge, strengthens understanding and expands one’s skill-set.


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ith some impressive research under her belt before she heads off to Bucknell University, Kathleen O’Brien ’11 earned a second place award for a poster presentation at the American Spinal Injury Association’s International Conference on Spinal Cord Medicine & Rehabilitation, held in Washington, D.C., in June. At the conference, poster presentations are recognized for excellence by a research committee and are based on subject matter, clarity and visual presentation. Cash prizes are awarded. At the poster presentation, O’Brien discussed research to assess peak force as a wheelchair is propelled over obstacles during a wheelchair skills test. The work Kathleen O’Brien ’11 to aid individuals with spinal cord injuries, was part of O’Brien’s senior year Catalyst project. Catalyst, a semester-long science elective at Gilmour, connects students with an externship and shows them how science takes shape as they work alongside a scientist. O’Brien worked with Gilmour parent Jennifer Nagy, project manager for SCI Model Systems Grant at MetroHealth Medical Center. The research team studied 23 individuals with spinal cord injuries who are full-time manual wheelchair users. They used a system called SmartWheel to analyze manual wheelchair use during each push while subjects negotiated standardized obstacles over tile, carpet, soft surfaces, ramps and curbs. “I helped run the computer while the subjects were put through different tests with the SmartWheel attached to their wheelchair,” O’Brien says. “I then ran the data analysis through software on the computer.” O’Brien spent four to five hours each week collecting and analyzing data and helping to evaluate results. At the conclusion, she formally presented research findings to peers and mentors in an exhibition at Gilmour. “Kathleen did outstanding work,” says Catalyst director Deanne Nowak. The Gilmour graduate plans to study economics or math at Bucknell while preparing to attend physical therapy school. She was inducted in the Gilmour Chapter of the Cum Laude Society, which honors scholastic achievement. 56


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ATHLETIC DIRECTOR TOM BRYAN RETIRES T

om Bryan, Gilmour Academy’s athletic director since 2001, announced his retirement, effective August 1, but will remain as a consultant to the athletic program during a transition period. A search for the athletic director position will begin in early 2012. Kristy Booher, associate athletic Tom Bryan director, has been named interim athletic director. “Tom has provided invaluable time, guidance and expertise to Gilmour’s athletic program over the years and the program has grown in offerings, participation and statewide success this past decade,” says Gilmour Headmaster Brother Robert Lavelle, C.S.C. Bryan has had a 50-year career as coach and athletic director and has helped Gilmour’s Athletic

Program become one of the most comprehensive in the state of Ohio with 70 percent participation in at least one sport by Gilmour students. The Academy offers 23 varsity sports (12 for boys and 11 for girls) with the only girls prep hockey team in the state. The total expands to 50 teams with the addition of junior varsity, freshmen and Middle School teams. In the 10 years during which Bryan served as athletic director, Gilmour teams have won six state championship titles and finished as state runners-up seven times. The Lancer Varsity Football team reached the playoffs six of those 10 years. Bryan has a master’s degree from Kent State University. Prior to joining Gilmour, he was athletic director at Hawken Upper School for 31 years and director of its Middle School athletic program for seven years.

GILMOUR SKATER IS ACES ON ICE N

o doubt about it. Gilmour Academy sixth-grader Gianna Stafford is a show-stopper on the ice with her rock and roll sequined jacket and guitar and Swarovski crystal skate dresses. But she backs this up with artful skill and talent. Stafford just wrapped up a spectacular season of ice skating for Gilmour in May with consecutive second-place finishes in the North American Regional Figure Skating Invitational in Ann Arbor, Mich. Her performance in the compulsory and showcase competitions earned her the right to compete at the North American National Figure Skating Invitational in August where she won a bronze medal. Earlier this year, the Lower School student placed first and won two gold medals in the compulsory moves and free skating competitions in the Ohio High School Team Figure Skating Competition. Gilmour established its figure skating club to allow its students to participate in that competition. Stafford has been skating competitively for three years. She works with both a freestyle figure skating

coach and a choreographer. While the top-notch student may have dreams to compete in the U.S. Olympics one day, her focus is on a legal or medical career. The Lower School student also plays the piano, softball and soccer. “Gianna trains hard on the ice and stays focused,” says Alease Cameratta, figure skating coordinator and director of Gilmour’s Learn-to-Skate program. “Many skaters go their entire careers without reaching the pinnacle she has at such a young age.”

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GILMOUR ALL-AMERICAN SWIMMER ADVANCES TO OLYMPIC TRIALS E

dging closer to a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team, Gilmour Academy sophomore Macie McNichols qualified for next summer’s Olympic Trials in the 50meter freestyle while competing in the Junior National Championships Aug. 12 at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Her time of 26.29 seconds places her among the top sprinters in the nation. “Qualifying for the Olympic Trials is a special honor and achievement,” says Adam Katz, head coach of Gilmour’s Girls Swim team. “Only the top one percent of all swimmers nationwide qualify for this honor. This puts Macie in an elite class and is the result of a lot of work and determination on her part.”

The Gilmour student plans to take some time off from training before fall after a rigorous summer when she was named All-American by the National Interscholastic Swimming Association. McNichols also was recognized for being runner-up in the Division II State Swimming and Diving Championships for her performance in the 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle competitions. She was named to the News-Herald First Team, the Plain Dealer All-Star team and the All-Sun Team.

Macie McNichols ’14

USA HOCKEY CAMPS SELECT 4 FROM GA G

ilmour Academy senior Jayme Castillo was selected for one of the premier USA Hockey Select Player Development Camps June 24-30 in St. Cloud, Minn. The camps identify, train, Jayme Castillo ’12 educate and assess the best female hockey players in the country. Throughout the week, players chosen for the national camp receive outstanding coaching while professional

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scouts and college recruiters evaluate their performance. Castillo, a defenseman, was named by the Southeast District. This is the third time she has been selected for the player development camp. Two seniors from California – Celine Whitlinger, a goaltender, and forward Micayla Catanzariti – joined Castillo. Both were selected by the Pacific District, and Whitinger was picked as the best goalie from the Pacific District. Jocelyn Hunyadi, a Gilmour freshman and defenseman, represented the Mid-American District at the USA hockey camp in Rochester, N.Y., July 21-27. Gilmour has the only girls prep hockey team in Ohio. It is one of 10 teams from the United States and Canada in the North American Prep Hockey Association. The Lancers finished their regular season with a 37-17-7 record.


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Lancer Athletics

GA CROSS-COUNTRY INVITATIONAL NAMED FOR CATALYTIC COACH hen Gilmour Academy hosted its 52nd annual cross country event in September, it marked one of the key reasons the Lancers have proven to have a tradition of great team chemistry over the years. Paul Primeau, a consummate chemistry teacher at Gilmour for 36 years, sparked energy and commitment to Lancer cross country teams for more than two decades as head coach. In honor of his contribution, the event is now called the Gilmour Primeau Invitational. Primeau began coaching the team in the fall of 1960. Back then the invitational was held on a Monday, the only day Vern Weber, Gilmour’s longtime football and basketball coach, didn’t have practice. Primeau, a mainstay at Gilmour athletic events and the cross

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country team’s unofficial photographer, was recognized at the meet. Gilmour’s invitational brought together a field of competitors from high schools such as St. Edward, Benedictine, Solon, Bay, Perry, Chardon, Shaw, Avon Lake, University, Geneva, Brush, Orange, Trinity, Independence and others. It is Ohio’s oldest continually-run meet with the exception of the state meet. About 800 athletes competed. The 5000-meter race is primarily run on a grass surface with some paved road crossings and concluded on the Lyle J. Smith Track. Matt Lindley ’89, head coach of Gilmour’s cross country teams for 15 years, noted that the invitational attracts runners from across the state.

THE PLACES THEY COULD GO I

n the spring of 2010, the Gilmour boys golf team was wondering how they could beat a fourth-place finish in 2009 and become the Ohio High School State Champions. Meeting with team coach and Gilmour graduate, Charlie Tremont ’70, a strategy was developed by which the team would train much the same way as it did the year before, but go about that practice with a different emphasis and level of intensity. Coach Tremont gave the team members a mantra for the upcoming season that they were to repeat over and over in order to remind the team of the challenge they faced and how to face it successfully: We know the goal! Having travelled that road before, it was not unfamiliar. However, would the team be up for such a grueling trip? The answer was a resounding YES! The Varsity Golf team posted a regular season record of 11-0; a team tournament record of 73-10 and a remarkable postseason team record of 33-0. Gilmour’s state tournament champions were Alex Andrews ’11, Greg Calabrese ’11, Matt Oliver ’11, Duncan DeFino ’12 and Andrew Bieber ’13. Connor Moriarty ’12 was the

alternate. The team won the state tournament by a convincing 22 shots! Andrews was the State medalist in 2009 and 2010 – one of 15 players in Ohio history to be a two-time medalist. Included on the list are golf professionals Jack Nicklaus and Ben Curtis. The 2010 Lancer golf team has left enormous footsteps for the 2011 squad. With three returning players from the state championship team, Tremont has every reason to remind this year’s squad of the goal.

*The article on the 2010 golf team in the Spring issue contained some erroneous facts and omitted the name of Matthew Oliver ’11. Gilmour Magazine apologizes for these oversights and hopes this recount clarifies any doubts about this remarkable team.

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M e m o r i a l

Brother William Joseph Geenen, C.S.C.

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rother William Joseph Geenen, C.S.C., age 81, died on May 14, 2011, at Memorial Hospital in Sarasota, Fla. He joined the Gilmour Academy faculty in 1953 and spent the next 20 years as a teacher, counselor and administrator. He taught religion, English, writing and literature and was later appointed principal. Brother William served as Gilmour’s director of admissions for five years and was engaged in fundraising until 1973. He was an honorary chair of the FAITH IN OUR FUTURE Campaign and a member of the Campaign Steering Committee. In 1946, Brother William went to Sacred Heart Juniorate in Watertown, Wisc., where he completed his high school studies and joined the Brothers of Holy Cross. He began his novitiate year at Rolling Prairie, Ind., in 1948, pronouncing his first vows the following year. He then started his college studies at St. Edward’s University in Austin. In 1951, he taught at St. Edward High School in Lakewood for a year and returned to Austin to teach at St. Edward’s High School and complete university courses. Brother William earned a bachelor’s degree from St. Edward’s University and a master’s degree from Loyola University in Chicago. On a recruiting trip, Brother William met an elderly man and the encounter changed his mission and ministry. He began to develop centers and respond to the loneliness and isolation of aging adults. The mission of the Senior Friendship Centers was to correct the isolation and loneliness, which Brother William called the “malnutrition of the elderly.” He drew inspiration from the example of Brother André Bessette, the first member of the Congregation of Holy Cross to be canonized. The centers in Florida gained national attention when Charles Kuralt did a special feature on his CBS “On the Road” series. Presently there are Senior Friendship Centers’ programs in five Florida counties including 24 dining sites, six neighborhood activities sites, four adult day-care facilities, and five medical clinics that serve more than 15,000 seniors. The Sarasota Herald Tribune noted that a former Sarasota mayor said of Brother Geenen, “He was everybody’s brother.” From 1994 to 2000, Brother William was Provincial of the Midwest Provincial Chapter. He began to pursue a plan for a Holy Cross Village at the University of Notre Dame for laypeople and Brothers as a multi-generational community with medical care and retirement opportunities. He returned to his Senior Friendship Centers in 2000 and began work on the Center for Healthy Aging, which today has more than 300 volunteers who deliver health care and programs for seniors on limited incomes. Three years ago, the Brother William Geenen Founders Fund was established to ensure the future of the Senior Friendship Centers. Brother William has received numerous awards and honors including: Brotherhood Award from the Salvation Army, Life Membership with the Knights of Columbus, Outstanding Humanitarian for 2008, Citizen of the Year in 1987 and the Bicentennial Patriot Award. The street leading to the original Senior Friendship Center was renamed ‘Brother Geenen Way.’

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M e m o r i a l

Bernadine P. Healy Loop, M.D. T

o the world, Bernadine P. Healy Loop championed the cause of women’s health and became the first woman to head the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where she founded the Women’s Health Initiative. She was the first physician to become president of the American Red Cross and was once president of the American Heart Association. The former Gilmour Academy Trustee became dean of The Ohio State University’s College of Medicine and ran for the U.S. Senate in Ohio in 1994. Healy died Aug. 6 from complications of brain cancer. Her funeral Mass was Aug. 10 in Our Lady Chapel on Gilmour’s campus. To the Gilmour Community, Healy was a former Gilmour parent. Marie Loop, who graduated from the Academy in 2004, is the daughter of Healy and her husband, Floyd Loop, former CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, both physicians. Healy also has a daughter, Bartlett Russell, from a previous marriage. As a member of Gilmour’s Academic Affairs Committee, Healy was involved with curriculum review and efforts to assure that the Academy advanced academically. She also presented motivational talks to girls in Gilmour’s Upper School, showing them how to successfully navigate their future careers. A Science Magazine blog reported that “Just as she endeavored to remedy discrimination in medical research, she staunchly refused to countenance other forms of inequity.” “Dr. Healy was a great advocate and demonstrated leadership,” Gilmour Headmaster Brother Robert Lavelle, C.S.C., told the Sun News. “She was a resourceful person who kept her eye on the bigger picture.” He added that they shared conversations about Gilmour’s Holy Cross mission to make the world more humane and just, and that they discussed ways to encourage students to be critical thinkers. NIH’s Changing the Face of Medicine Exhibit notes that Healy “initiated pioneering research into women’s heart disease” and treated patients for a considerable part of her career. The Vassar College graduate earned summa cum laude honors and received her M.D. from Harvard Medical School. She did her internship and residency at Johns Hopkins Medicine and headed its coronary care unit. She served on the faculty of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and was an assistant dean. She also worked at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and later was chairman of the Cleveland Clinic Research Institute. In an NIH bio, Healy said that her biggest obstacle “was getting into medical school at a time when women were seen as an exceptional and questionable addition to the profession.” She added “That made me more determined, more studious, and in the long run, probably more successful.” Healy was a health commentator for CBS, PBS and MSNBC, was a columnist for U.S. News & World Report and wrote a book about her challenges with brain cancer.

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M e m o r i a l

MEMORIAL Gilmour Academy expresses sympathy to the families of the following:

AGNES M. BRODHEAD, grandmother of Craig ’04, Tyler ’07 and Owen ’12

JOHN M. ALFIDI ’86

KENNETH R. CALLAHAN, father of Kevin ’75; grandfather of Kevin ’11 and Mary Kathleen ’12

VINCENT A. CHIODI, SR. ’50 RICHARD L. DECATO ’51,

TERRY L. CARLSON, father of Deanna Carlson Ness ’95

brother of Alfred R. ’50; uncle of Alfred A. ’76

GRACE S. COUCHMAN, mother of Jeanne Bucchieri, former Gilmour instructor

DENNIS HIRSCH ’62

JAMES D’AMATO, former Gilmour softball coach

DONALD E. OSWICK, brother of Lawrence ’65 Ronald ’67 and Paulette Oswick Cossel GO ’77

HENRY J. SCHMIDT III ’57

Our sympathy also is extended to the alumni and families of the following: MARK BARREN, former Gilmour instructor and coach, son of Dan Barren, former Gilmour athletic director and brother of Mary Lee Barren Sprung ’88 LOUISE BESSICK, mother of Patti Strano, cheerleading coach; grandmother of Sam Strano ’06 BRUNO G. BOTTI, grandfather of Samantha ’10, Diana ’12 and George ’17 Klonaris

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JAMES BROADBENT, grandfather of Taylor ’11, Shelby ’13 and Daniel ’15

GLORIA DEMARCO, grandmother of Johanna Fabrizio Parker ’92 P. REGINA DIETRICK, grandmother of Kiersten ’15 NOREEN F. DOWD, grandmother of Jean Arkedis ’96 HELEN J. DUNN, mother of Duane ’88 JACQUELINE EGAN, grandmother of Morgan Amend, Gilmour Lower School instructor JAMES ESPENSCHIED, grandfather of Elizabeth ’19 and Elena ’22 ANTHONY CARMEN FERRANTE, grandfather of Caitlynde ’06 and Carlyn ’11 Brancovsky CHARLES J. GALLO, SR., father of Lori Gallo Zeiser GO ’76 and Charles, Jr. ’80; grandfather of Tori ’11 and Charles III ’14

MICHAELENE GARBO, mother of Robert Lighthizer ’65, grandmother of James Lighthizer ’84 and step-grandmother of Phillip Garbo ’03 WILLIAM GATES, father of Jeffrey ’75 BROTHER WILLIAM GEENEN, C.S.C., former Gilmour faculty member ANNE GONTERO, mother of Sandra Gontero GO ’78 JEFF GRALNICK, father of Robert, Lower School instructor MARY GREJTAK, mother of Richard Grejtak, Gilmour Upper School instructor STEVEN R. HARDAWAY, brother of Charles ’86 EDWARD HERNANEZ III, infant relative of Bradley Broadhead ’04 PATRICK J. HILL, father of Griffin ’81 WILLIAM W. HOLZHEIMER, brother of Roy ’64; uncle of Richard Coyne ’82 ROBERT KICHLER, stepfather of Susan Silverberg ’80 RONALD KIRKLAND, father of Lindsay Guidone, Gilmour Lower School instructor JOHN J. KOMPERDA, grandfather of James ’03, Kevin ’08 and Mary Elizabeth Komperda McDonald ’00 CATHERINE KRUDY, mother of George ’72 NEIL KRUSCHKE, JR., father of Berkley ’16 and Cole ’19


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M e m o r i a l

MARTHA DREW LINDLEY, grandmother of Matthew ’89, Gilmour upper school instructor and coach; great-grandmother of Benjamin ’24 and Nathan ’26

JOHN J. RODDY, JR., father of Daniel ’83 and Michael ’85; uncle of Matthew ’86 and Timothy ’87; great uncle of Matthew ’18 and Joseph ’21

BERNADINE HEALY LOOP, M.D., former Gilmour Trustee and mother of Marie ’04

ROSE R. ROSAPEPE, mother of Joel ’60 and Jon ’60 D’Orazio

CHARLES W. MEHLING, brother of Sr. Mary Ann, I.H.M, Gilmour Upper School instructor CATHERINE MERRIMAN, grandmother of Molly ’00 and Michael ’08 ROBERT MULVEY, JR., brother of Melissa Mulvey Crisp ’05 SANDRA JEAN MUSARRA, grandmother of Jason ’13 and Marley ’16 RICHARD NOONON, father of Michael ’87 DEBRA PORTLAND, wife of Ronald ’62 ISABEL PORTLAND, mother of Ronald ’62 FRED E. PRUSA, father of Phillip ’98 MARY PRYATEL, mother of Mark, ’76, Steven ’78 and Keith ’79; grandmother of Michael ’08, Steven ’10, Meghan ’13 and Kevin ’15

MARIE SZANCA, mother of Lynne Sojda, Gilmour Lower School instructor BEATRICE L. TANKO, grandmother of Ashley ’00 and Courtney Tanko Fraher ’98 BARBARA KATHLEEN TIGHE, grandmother of Kathryn ’06 TIMOTHY M. TULLEY, former Gilmour instructor and football coach JOSEPH R. VETO, SR., father-in-law of Monica, retired Lower School and Montessori director DELFINA VISCONSI, mother of Thomas ’60 and Anthony ’75; grandmother of Michelle ’91 and Katharine ’01 Poklar and Marissa Visconsi ’06 EVELYN WEDEWARD, great-grandmother of Cassandra ’17, Frank ’18 and Mia ’19 LOIS WEISMAN, grandmother of Robert ’05, Megan ’06 and Molly ’09

JOHN RADOVIC, grandfather of Christina Horvath ’21 LAWRENCE REYLEA, father of Kenneth ’83 JOSEPH S. REYNOLDS, grandfather of Brian Stephens ’96

* The memorial listing for Merle McLeod in the Spring issue of the Gilmour Magazine incorrectly identified him as the father of Norman ’50; and grandfather of Michael ’75 and John ’77.

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Gilmour Academy 34001 Cedar Road Gates Mills, Ohio 44040-9356

Non-profit org. U.S. POSTAGE

PAID Cleveland, Ohio Permit No. 1


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