Mercersburg Magazine - Spring 2014 by Mercersburg Academy

Mercersburg A magazine for Mercersburg Academy family and friends

VOLUME 40 NO. 3 spr i ng 2014

Teaching at Mercersburg:

Innovation and Celebration Page 14

VOLUME 40

NO. 3

SPRING 2014

Teaching at Mercersburg: Innovation and Celebration

A magazine for Mercersburg Academy family and friends

Mercersburg 1,024 Words

Celebrating good times. Page 10

Announcing: 1893 House Take a photo tour of the new multifunctional residence for Mercersburg’s head of school. Page 12

Finishing Strong Upper-level Mercersburg students are choosing in droves to accept the many challenges of MAPS and SpringBoard, Mercersburg’s two new capstone academic programs. Page 14

A Salute to Retiring Faculty From art studios to athletic fields, science classrooms, and even the Conococheague Creek, Brent Gift, Mark Flowers, Kristy Higby, and Ron Simar have left their mark on generations of Mercersburg students. These are their stories. Page 26

You Should Know

A photographic composition by Tony Yim ’14 of the iconic Main Hall cupola earned first place in the “digitally altered” category of Mercersburg’s Beat The Pros student photo contest. Other first-place winners included Daniel Kim ’15 (campus beauty) and Nick Tennes ’15 (campus life). To see these images and more exemplary student work, visit Mercersburg’s new Tumblr page at mercersburg.tumblr.com. Photo credits: p. 2 Chris Crisman; p. 3 Melanie McLean; p. 5 (all photos) Bill Green; p. 6 (Purnell/Corbetts) Commonwealth Media Services, (Jones/Kim) Stacey Talbot Grasa; p. 7 (Cum Laude) Jillian Kesner, (Lowe) courtesy Rebecca Lowe ’99; p. 8–9 (all photos) Green; p. 12–13 (all photos) Kesner; p. 15 Kesner; p. 16 Heather Prescott; p. 17 Lee Owen; p. 19 (all photos) Kesner; p. 20 courtesy Pete Gunkelman; p. 21 Kesner; p. 23 Green; p. 24 Green; p. 25 (Nadar/Tomasso, Boggs) Green, (all others) Kesner; p. 26 (all photos) Green; p. 27 courtesy Brent Gift; p. 28 Green; p. 30 Mercersburg Academy Archives; p. 33 Green; p. 34–35 (all photos) Green; p. 36 Ryan Smith; p. 37 Green; p. 38 (football) Green, (tennis/volleyball) Smith; p. 39 (all photos) Smith; p. 40–41 (Stony Batter) Green; (artwork) Mark Flowers; p. 42 (Band) Richard Rotz, (all others) Bob Stoler; p. 45 (Bumgardner) Holly Czuba ’01.

From the Head of School Via Mercersburg Irving-Marshall Week Athletics Arts Class Notes Mercersburg magazine is published three times annually by the Office of Strategic Marketing and Communications. Mercersburg Academy 300 East Seminary Street Mercersburg, Pennsylvania 17236 Magazine correspondence: Lee_Owen@mercersburg.edu Class Notes correspondence: classnotes@mercersburg.edu Alumni correspondence/ change of address: alumni@mercersburg.edu 800-588-2550

2 3 8 36 39 43 Read us online: www.mercersburg.edu/magazine Editor: Lee Owen Class Notes Editor: Tyler Miller Contributors: Jillian Kesner, Zally Price, Tom Thorne, Wallace Whitworth Art Direction: Aldrich Design Head of School: Douglas Hale Director of Strategic Marketing and Communications: Wallace Whitworth Assistant Head for Enrollment: Tommy Adams Assistant Head for Advancement: Brian Hargrove

Cover illustration: Celia Johnson

Mercersburg Academy abides by both the spirit and the letter of the law in all its employment and admission policies. The school does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or national or ethnic origin.

Green Inks

From the Head of School

We Will Remember “I have always felt that the true text-book for the pupil is his teacher.”

—Mahatma Gandhi

hen I think about my own high-school years, I confess that I don’t recall many particular lessons from my Algebra II class, but I definitely remember my teacher, Mr. Cartwright. I also don’t recall any specific discussion in senior English, but I vividly remember Mrs. Hammer, my twelfth-grade English teacher. The details of most of my basketball practices aren’t imprinted in my mind, but I most emphatically remember my coach, Mr. McGee. In fact, I remember very few specifics about my high-school years, but I can tell you the names of the teachers who taught every class I took and what that teacher did to help shape me, my intellect, and my world view. Those things which are permanently stored in my highschool student memory banks, though, are the newspapers we published with an article that created a bit of a stir, the trips we took, the student council store we ran, the basketball games we played—all of which leads me to conclude that what I remember best are those things which had me at the time deeply involved in the critical act of doing—enacting, leading, implementing, performing—a particular thing. Scientific research today clearly shows that by doing something, we retain better; through retention, we learn; through learning, we grow. And we remember those people—and those activities—that helped us grow. In 2010 a comprehensive program review was completed, which contained a strong recommendation that we try to infuse experiential learning in more of all we do at Mercersburg. Yet, in truth, that kind of teaching has been going on at Mercersburg—in one form or another— since the school’s earliest times. Today, we are simply much more intentional about it. At the end of this academic year, we bid a loving farewell to four Mercersburg faculty—Mark Flowers, Brent Gift, Kristy Higby, and Ron Simar—whose combined service to Mercersburg comes to 114 years. Before experiential teaching and learning became more central to the vocabulary of

our educational efforts here, these wonderful teachers were already practicing that approach—naturally. Brent is the one who puts students into waders and plops them into the middle of the Conococheague Creek so they can collect samples of various organisms; Mark teaches kids to put their hands in paint—often for the first time—and make something wonderful from it, frequently to their utter surprise and amazement; Kristy teaches her charges how to take photographs and make films, and put together documentaries that can be spellbinding; and Ron, being a coach, athletic director, and administrator during his time here, has worked with young people of greatly varying athletic talent, patiently coaxing each one to take that stance one more time, throw the ball a different way this time, or handle a stinging defeat with grace and maturity. As members of the Class of 2014 disperse after Commencement to begin the next phase of their educational journeys, they will eventually look back on their time at Mercersburg. And when they do engage in such reflection, I daresay they also will remember few particulars about their own classroom lessons here. But, they will remember those Mercersburg teachers who gave them the skills and confidence to have focused, intelligent conversations about myriad topics and pushed them to do many other things they thought they could never do. They may well remember the trips to the river together to do field biology, the art they created, the athletic contests they both won and lost. And perhaps some of them along the way will send “thank you” notes to Brent or Mark or Kristy or Ron. All of us at Mercersburg will certainly remember these wonderful teachers and the countless ways they helped young people and this community become better, stronger, and more relevant. Godspeed.

Douglas Hale Head of School

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D at es to Rem em b er

Jun 5–8

Reunion Weekend

July 19–25 RoboCup Junior International 2014,

Mercersburg A roundup of what’s news, what’s new, and what Mercersburg people are talking about.

João Pessoa, Brazil

Aug 31 Registration for new students Sep 7 2014–2015 Opening Convocation Oct 31–Nov 2 Alumni Weekend Schedule subject to change; for a full and updated schedule of events, visit www.mercersburg.edu

Arlo Crawford ’96 at New Morning Farm

Home Grown

Book by Arlo Crawford ’96 focuses on family connections to local land A Farm Dies Once a Year, a book by Arlo Crawford ’96 set mostly at his family’s farm in nearby Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, was published by the major publishing house Henry Holt and Company in April. Crawford, who came to Mercersburg as a lower middler (10th grade) and attended the Academy for three years from 1993 to 1996, left Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2009 to spend several months at his family’s New Morning Farm, which is in Huntingdon County near the communities of Hustontown

and Maddensville. The farm is about 25 miles north of Mercersburg. “I grew up on a farm and have spent a lot of time not being so comfortable with that fact,” Crawford says. “My mother [Moie] is from New Hampshire and my father [Jim] is from Massachusetts, and they moved to Pennsylvania back in the 1970s to become farmers. I had been working at the Harvard Art Museum, and to be honest I wasn’t really sure what I was doing there. I was taking a writing class at the time, and one of the

pieces I wrote was about the farm—and people in the class lit up when they read it. Then one of my pieces was published in a journal called Gastronomica; it was the first thing I ever published. It got a great reaction and maybe that flipped a bit of a switch for me. Rather than shying away from the fact that I grew up on a farm, I thought, maybe this was something I should really be interested in and should spend time thinking about. “And I had just turned 30. You get to this

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age where your parents turn into real people. It really interested me that my parents started this farm—it was such a crazy idea. I thought, ‘If I were to do something crazy, would I ever have it in me to do this?’” In April 2008, a C r aw f o r d e s s a y o n organic farming and dating was published in the New York Times M a ga z i n e . H e h a d worked in book publishing after graduating from Cornell University, and decided to move back to the farm to examine his roots for the project that became A Farm Dies Once a Year. “I wanted to appreciate, for the first time as an adult, the farm— what it takes to do that and what its real value is,” he says. It’s an amazing place and has had a huge impact in a lot of places and fed a lot of people. It’s also a hell of a lot of fun.

I even built a small cabin to live in while I was back there. It was a little bit of a break for me at that point in my life.” Crawford relocated to San Francisco in late 2009 to be near his girlfriend, Sarah, while he worked on the book. (The couple married last fall.) In the meantime, he held odd jobs as a census taker and in the produce department of a vegetable store. He leveraged some of his contacts in the publishing world and Henry Holt offered a deal to publish the book last year. The New Yorker called the book “an unembellished but evocative account of the romantic myths, harsh realities, and genuine allure of American rural life.” “Even though I’ve always been a huge reader, Mercersburg was really the place where I felt engaged with reading and writing

for the first time,” says Crawford, who thanks his English teachers—Phil Post, Suzanne Wootton, and Joel Chace—in the book’s acknowledgements. “When I was writing the book, I was thinking about who the most important people were in my development as a writer. And three of them were my English teachers at Mercersburg.” Crawford lived in Swank Hall and Fowle Hall as a student; he played varsity football and lacrosse and was a member of the Fifteen. His sister, Janie ’00, followed him to Mercersburg and now lives in Pittsburgh. Crawford is working in communications for the deYoung Museum in San Francisco while he pursues his next writing projects. “Maybe there will be another book somewhere down the line,” he says. “I’ve started focusing more on essays and journalism. It’s been a really interesting process to walk through all of it and publish pieces. We’ll see where it goes.” The book is available on Amazon.com and in many bookstores nationwide.

From the Mailbag Miss Fatima Rezaei ’13 wrote in the winter 2014 issue of her remarkable story of coming to Mercersburg from Afghanistan. She will no doubt be fascinated to learn of another Afghan who was at our school nearly 60 years ago. Mohammed Aziz Naim ’56 was a prince of Afghanistan. He arrived from Washington by chauffeured limousine. He was tall, quiet, well tailored, and exceedingly polite. We called him “Tom,” which was an attempt, I suppose, to keep his presence confidential. One incident from that time which will bring a smile to men from the era was an encounter with Dean Roy “Spike” Andrew. Tom had left some textbooks on the steps of Old Main. When he returned, he found Spike waiting for him. The Dean said, “Mister, you just joined my army!” Tom replied with a civil “Thank you.” Imagine the next Saturday the prince of Afghanistan marching Spike’s well-worn guard path. Tom was the nephew of the last king of Afghanistan, Mohammed Zahir Shah. The monarchy ended in 1973 when his uncle, Daoud Khan, deposed the king, declared a republic, and became its first president. Tragically, he and at least 20 of his family members were assassinated on April 28, 1978, during the Saur Revolution—the Communist takeover of the country. Our gentle Mercersburg friend was murdered in the palace that night.

Bud Sheesley ’57

Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida

Naim

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Daring to Lead Goes On the Road Alumni, parents, faculty, members of the Board of Regents, and friends of Mercersburg gathered in January at the RitzCarlton Battery Park in Manhattan for the New York City launch of the Daring to Lead Campaign. The event in celebration of Mercersburg’s $300 million comprehensive campaign attracted more than 300 guests, making it the largest off-campus event in school history. Eight decades of the alumni body were represented among the attendees. Seven faculty members presented mini-classes for the attendees to offer a look at how the educational and residential components of the Mercersburg experience are evolving in dramatic ways. The launch also included a reception, dinner, and program with remarks from current and former presidents of the Board, Campaign Executive Committee members (including co-chairs John Prentiss ’65 and Deborah Simon ’74), and Head of School Douglas Hale. This winter and spring, the Office of Advancement & Alumni Relations took the Campaign on the road with events in five Florida cities; Hagerstown, Maryland; and Charlotte and Durham, North Carolina. Events are planned for the fall and winter in Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Texas, Washington, D.C., California, Denver, and even Asia. Visit www.mercersburg.edu/ daringtolead for updated information. For a highlight video from the New York City Daring to Lead event, scan this QR code with your mobile device or visit www.vimeo.com/85387375.

(top to bottom) Board of Regents President David Frantz ’60 with Blair LeRoy ’50 as well as Bill Jackson and Pat Fiori (parents of Matt Jackson ’04); Olympic gold medalists and Regents Emeriti Charles Moore ’47 and Betsy Mitchell ’83; Liza Rizzo ’11, Giovanni DeSantis ’11, and Shayna Rice ’11.

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The State of Poetry

Tatiana Purnell ’15 (center, with Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett and First Lady Susan Corbett) became the second straight Mercersburg student to win a regional Poetry Out Loud competition when she placed first at the 2014 event in January at the Majestic Theater in Gettysburg. (Alex Jackson ’15 took first in the event last year.) Purnell was one of 14 students from across Pennsylvania to be invited to compete at the state finals in March at the Governor’s Mansion in Harrisburg.

’Burg’s Eye View Kim

campus notes

Jones

Andrew Kim ’14 and Alec Jones ’15 were chosen by the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association for its 2014 All-State Chorus and All-State Band, respectively. Kim is the first student musician in Mercersburg history to successfully audition for All-State Chorus, while Jones is Mercersburg’s first All-State Band member since 2009, when Dan Kwak ’11 was chosen for the group. Kim, of Seoul, Korea, sings Bass II and was also Mercersburg’s first-ever member of PMEA’s Region 7 Chorus. He sings with the Chorale, the Octet, and the Mercersburg Area Community Chorus; serves as a dormitory prefect in Culbertson House; plays piano and organ; and is a member of The Fifteen and the Cum Laude Society. Kim will attend Swarthmore College in the fall, and an essay he submitted as part of his successful application to Swarthmore will be published this August in The Fiske Real College Essays That Work, Fourth Edition. Jones, of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, is the principal French horn player for the Harrisburg Youth Symphony Orchestra. He

also plays in Mercersburg’s Concert Band and is a member of the school’s tennis, squash, and soccer teams.

As part of a pilot program dedicated to reducing anxiety about st andardized testing and the college-admission process, Mercersburg has partnered with Marks Education of Washington, D.C., to offer formal SAT and ACT test-prep courses during the school year—at no cost to students and their families—during the upper-middler (11th-grade) year. The 104 members of the school’s Class of 2015 have participated in individualized test-prep sessions on a weekly basis with tutors from Marks during a free period in their class schedules. Students completed a diagnostic screening in the fall that was used to determine which standardized test—the SAT or ACT—is the most appropriate place for each student to focus his or her energies on. The program is preparing students for the administration of the tests in the spring and/or fall of 2014. “We did a lot of searching to find Marks, and have been very pleased,” says Academic Dean Julia Stojak Maurer ’90. “They’ve been very responsive and very helpful. Our goal is to have better test outcomes for our students and reduce their stress. I feel like where we’ve landed is the best possible solution for our students.”

Invited speakers on campus this winter and spring included Erik Wahl, who gave the Jacobs Residency Lecture in March; Wahl Tony Campolo and Anu Yadav , who each visited for a residency as part of the William C. Fowle Forum; and Richard Gerver , who brought his experience working as an adviser to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to a workshop he held with Mercersburg’s faculty. Wahl is an acclaimed speed-painter and entrepreneur and author of the best-selling book Unthink: Rediscover Your Creative Genius, which was a summer reading selection for Mercersburg’s students and faculty in 2013. Campolo, one of the most sought-after American voices on religion and Christianity, has appeared as a guest on The Colbert Report, Larry King Live, and Nightline, and has served as a spiritual adviser to former President Bill Clinton. The Washington, D.C.-based Yadav presented her one-woman show, Meena’s Dream, to the school prior to her talk the following Sunday. And Gerver, author of Change: Learn to Love it, Learn to Lead It, was one of several speakers to visit campus to interact with faculty members as a speaker and workshop participant.

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This Year’s Class of Cum Laude Twenty-five members of the Class of 2014 have officially been inducted into the school’s chapter of the Cum Laude Society. The group is the secondary-school equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa. Dr. Nancy Roseman, president of Gettysburg College, was the invited speaker at the Cum Laude Convocation in March.

The new members are:

Merrall Echezarreta, Loxahatchee, Florida Margarita Fedorova, Penza, Russia Robin Fisher, Bethesda, Maryland Jack Flanagan, Delmar, New York Vincent Hsu, Taipei, Taiwan Steven Jo, Seoul, Korea

Andrew Kim, Seoul, Korea David Lee, Seoul, Korea

Elizabeth Long, Washington, D.C.

Duy Mai, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Rose Pennington, State College, Pennsylvania Anna Qin, Shanghai, China

Charlotte Rhoad, Charleston, South Carolina James Riford, Mercersburg, Pennsylvania Gun Ho Ro, Daegu, Korea

Rachel Rosa, Hockessin, Delaware

Katie San Filippo, Mercersburg, Pennsylvania Josh Setliff, Richmond, Virginia

Jordan Shihadeh, Leesburg, Virginia

Elizabeth Stern-Green, Hummelstown, Pennsylvania Keegan Sullivan, Overland, Park, Kansas Delaney Taylor, Berryville, Virginia

Christopher Thomas, Austin, Texas Philip Yang, Shenzhen, China

Tommy Zhou, Shanghai, China

Mercersburg’s

Winter OlympicTeam Rebecca Lowe ’99 (right) was one of five studio hosts for NBC’s broadcasts of the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. Lowe, who has worked for the BBC, ESPN UK, and Setanta Sports, teamed with Bob Costas, Al Michaels, Dan Patrick, and Lester Holt as hosts for NBC’s Olympic coverage. She was joined as a member of the international press corps in Sochi by The Wall Street Journal’s Pia Catton ’92, who covered perhaps the Winter Games’ marquee event—figure skating—in her second Olympic assignment.

Mercersbu rg magazi n e spri ng 2014

Irving-Marshall Week 2014

FINAL SCORE

Irving 800 Irving declaimers (standing, L–R): Nikki DeParis ’15, second-place winner Tatiana Purnell ’15, third-place winner Julia Gledhill ’15. Sitting: AnnaBeth Thomas ’15, Newell Woodworth ’15.

Marshall 1150 Marshall declaimers (standing, L–R): Jacob Leebron ’14, Maggie Collins ’14, Alex Jackson ’15, Max Furigay ’15. Sitting: first-place winner Caitlin Cremins ’14.

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Second-place declaimer Tatiana Purnell â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15

First-place declaimer and Scoblionko Declamation Cup winner Caitlin Cremins â&#x20AC;&#x2122;14

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1,024 Words Members of

Mercersburg’s girls’ varsity soccer team are all smiles as they celebrate a 4–0 victory over Mid-Atlantic Prep League rival Blair Academy. Photo by Bob Stoler.

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Mercersbu rg magazi n e spri ng 2014

1893 House

A new multifunctional residence for Mercersburg’s head of school • Located directly across McFarland Road from North Cottage (at the northeast corner of McFarland Road and Rutledge Road)

• Designed by Centerbrook Architects and Planners LLP of Centerbrook, Connecticut, which also designed the Simon Student Center • Approximately 5,500 square feet; includes 5 bedrooms and 4 ½ baths; is designed with spaces for entertaining groups large and small and with dedicated separate living quarters for the head of school’s family

Entrance to private living area

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above: Living room featuring

artwork by John Suplee (left, a gift to the school from Marguerite and H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest ’49) and Lance Balderson (right) left: The solarium includes a large window seat and a granite coffee table fashioned from the Maine coastal property of Medary A. Prentiss Sr. (1914), the grandfather of Board of Regents member John Prentiss ’65 left, below: Formal dining room with artwork by Peter Max

Mercersburg magazine spring 2014

Finishing Strong Mercersburg students tackle high-level challenges through new capstone experiences By Lee Owen

This year, groups of students have visited a computer animation studio in Connecticut that makes some of Hollywood’s most-popular animated films. They’ve sampled the cuisine of a James Beard Foundation Award-winning chef at one of his bustling restaurants in downtown Washington, D.C., and talked with him about creating their own businesses. They’ve examined issues of hunger and poverty, debated ethics and Freudian theory, traveled internationally to conduct independent research and immerse themselves in cultures very different from their own, and have begun work on what will become a 40-to-50-page research paper on a topic of their choosing. None of these students are in college. Some have yet to even begin their senior years at Mercersburg. They are the first group of Mercersburg students to enroll in one of two capstone academic programs that were offered for the first time during the 2013–2014 academic year. Fifteen members of the upper-middler (11th-grade) class were chosen by application as the first students in Mercersburg’s Advanced Program for Global Studies (or MAPS), and approximately 45 seniors elected to sign up for one of three interdisciplinary SpringBoard courses—Entrepreneurship, The Global Food Chain, and 3D Design. Beginning in the 2015–2016 academic year, all students will be required to enroll in SpringBoard or MAPS in order to graduate—but for members of the Classes of 2014 and 2015, the courses are completely optional. Still, nearly 35 percent of this year’s senior class opted to sign up for a SpringBoard course, including a full 50 percent of postgraduate students in the student body. “I think it really speaks to our students’ desire to do something novel and challenge themselves,” says faculty member Pete Gunkelman, who is team-teaching the 3D Design course. “When we presented the idea of our course to the students last spring, we described it as ‘a synthesis of math and art.’ We knew there were kids who were really interested in the math side, and we knew there were some interested in the art side. And we have some kids doing undergraduate-thesis-level work.” “I’m thrilled with how the students have responded, when you consider this is a course the students aren’t getting Advanced Placement credit for, or even departmental credit,” says Emily Howley, a history faculty member who teaches The Global Food Chain and also serves as director of the SpringBoard program. “I’ve already had kids come up to me and say they wish they could have taken this class even earlier.”

Mercersburg magazine spring 2014

The background

At the request of Head of School Douglas Hale, Mercersburg’s faculty began an intensive review of the school’s curriculum in 2008. The resulting recommendations were wide-ranging and included the official affirmation of six 21st-century skills (critical thinking and problem solving; effective communication; collaboration; information literacy; creativity, curiosity, and imagination; and personal responsibility and accountability) as those most important for Mercersburg students to master; the adoption of a slightly later start to the academic day (in accordance with research by cognitive scientists on creating an optimum environment for adolescent learners); the requirement that all students take courses in each of the core disciplines (classical & modern languages, English, history, mathematics, religion, science, and fine arts) in their ninth- and 10th-grade years; and the creation of two capstone experiences for the senior class, which became MAPS and SpringBoard. For the previous decade, seniors could choose immediately before graduation—in lieu of taking final exams during the spring term—to produce an independent research project on a topic of their choosing. While a fair number of the projects were successful, many of the projects were completed at the last minute due to the often-frenetic nature of the end of the senior year, and the results sometimes reflected that approach.

“We found through research and frank discussion that 96 percent of the faculty were not happy with the execution of the senior-project idea,” says Academic Dean Julia Stojak Maurer ’90, who is Mercersburg’s academic dean and served as co-chair of the school’s Program Review Committee. “It was clear that for our seniors, taking on a yearlong project would be more meaningful.” The school created two options for students to satisfy the capstone requirement: MAPS, which begins in the 11th-grade year and is a two-year program available by application only; and SpringBoard, which is a one-year, interdisciplinary, project-based course for seniors. Both utilize the principles of Apple’s Challenge Based Learning model—which promotes learning that “encourages students to leverage the technology they use in their daily lives to solve real-world problems through efforts in their homes, schools and communities.” The two programs allow all members of the senior class to participate regardless of when they first enroll at Mercersburg; postgraduates and other students entering the school as seniors will sign up for a SpringBoard course along with the majority of the rising senior class, while students entering prior to their 11th-grade year are eligible to apply for MAPS.

MAPS Director Phil Kantaros and Assistant Director Peter Kempe

Mercersburg magazine spring 2014

Looking at MAPS

As 11th graders, MAPS students t ake Thought, Knowledge, and Belief, a seminar-style course taught by MAPS director and history department head Phil Kantaros. There is no formal textbook for the course— instead, Kantaros and the students digest, discuss, and debate content from media outlets as varied as The Economist, Psychology Today, National Public Radio’s Radiolab, and TED Talks, as well as more traditional assigned readings dealing with ethical questions and issues. “The course is based upon the Theory of Knowledge course offered as part of the International Baccalaureate program, but since we’re not an IB school, we have much more freedom to investigate and follow intellectual trajectories that I think are worthwhile,” Kantaros says. “We can always stop and cover something current

right away if the situation lends itself to our discussion. Our curriculum is what we decide it is at any given moment, with the necessary precondition that it challenges the students and pushes them to think in new and different ways.” Each MAPS student is required to complete 150 hours of community service, a four-week study-abroad experience with a homestay component, 15 credits in the highest-level courses from at least four different disciplines in the curriculum (including a foreign language to Level 4 or higher), and a yearlong research project that includes a substantial (40-to-50 page) paper and presentation during the senior year. The project, which is called SEARCH, stands for “study–engage–apply–research– create–help,” and students choose topics for their projects during the spring 2014 term. As seniors, they will not meet together every day as a class rotation, but instead will conduct independent research on their respective projects in consultation with Kantaros, MAPS assistant director Peter Kempe, and off-campus mentors from Mercersburg’s robust community of alumni. “This is a significant undertaking for the students, but it will be very impressive to prospective colleges that our students will

MAPS student Annabel Taylor ’15 giving a presentation in Bordeaux, France

Mercersburg magazine spring 2014

The Entrepreneurship SpringBoard class with José Andrés (back row) outside his Zaytinya restaurant in Washington, D.C.

“ Our students have been able to significantly expand their understanding of how businesses work.” have essentially written and defended a thesis—and at the same time, a 15-page paper will not worry them when they get to college,” Kantaros says. “The kids are working very hard, and it is a privilege for them to be part of this. Beyond all the requirements is the idea of being a positive contributor to our community. We all see the program as, organically, much more than the sum of its parts.” “It’s been a great first year,” says Kempe, who teaches German in addition to his work with MAPS. “The students deserve a lot of credit. They are a wonderful representation of our student body as a whole—they’re from different international backgrounds and have very different interests, sports, activities, and class schedules. It’s a great cross-section of who our students are, which is exactly what we wanted it to be.”

Taking care of business

The resume of faculty member Todd McGuire includes a section not often found in the background of a typical English teacher: he built and operated a skate park for several years in the Seattle area. Even before Mercersburg introduced the SpringBoard program, McGuire and history faculty member Nate Jacklin ’96 had talked about proposing an interdisciplinary course that would examine elements of history, economics, business, and marketing. Combining McGuire’s experience as a small-business owner and Jacklin’s interests in business (and his time working on Wall Street), the duo settled on a proposal for the Entrepreneurship course, which is one of the inaugural three SpringBoard offerings running this year. “When I was teaching AP Economics, I had a lot of students tell me the main reason they were taking the class was that they one day wanted to run their own businesses,” Jacklin says. “So I thought this class would attract a lot of interest. We have some students who are also taking AP Economics in the course, and we have others who might not necessarily take a course like that.” In the Entrepreneurship course, students—working individually or in small groups—propose a plan for a hypothetical business. They begin the year by examining the components of successful

Mercersburg magazine spring 2014

Going Outside (Outside of Class) Students enrolled in SpringBoard courses visited businesses, farms, retail food establishments, and even movie studios as part of their study of issues raised in the courses, while a handful of their MAPS classmates have already taken international trips to further their global awareness and conduct research for their respective SEARCH projects: Entrepreneurship

McLean, Virginia: Visited with Marc Katz, co-founder and president of CustomInk (an online apparel company named one of America’s fastest-growing companies by Inc. magazine) and toured corporate offices. Washington, D.C.: Met with José Andrés, founder and CEO of ThinkFoodGroup (named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2012); toured corporate headquarters and his mezze-inspired restaurant Zaytinya. Reston, Virginia: Visited AOL Fishbowl Labs to meet with three executives at the startup business Mhelpdesk—Vincent Wong, founder and chief executive officer; Jacob Garlick, senior vice president; and Ryan Shank, chief operating officer. Fred Schaufeld, a successful Northern Virginia-based entrepreneur and investor, accompanied the group in the D.C. area; he is the father of Max Schaufeld ’13 and the uncle of Entrepreneurship class member Jordan Shihadeh ’14. The Global Food Chain

Mercersburg, Pennsylvania: Toured Bending Bridge Farm with owner/ operator Cameron Pedersen ’92, who spoke about the challenges of producing organic vegetables, the community-supported agriculture (CSA) model, and his efforts to create new markets for his crops. Waterford, Pennsylvania: Visited at Blue Rooster Farm with Julie Brubaker, who shared her experiences raising grass-fed livestock and the ethical reasons for doing so without genetically modified organisms. Chambersburg, Pennsylvania: Toured Martin’s Potato Rolls corporate office and visitors’ center with Julie Martin ’90, whose grandparents started the company. Martin’s has plants in Pennsylvania and Georgia and distributes its products all along the East Coast. Miscellaneous: Met with Neal Barnard, founder of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine; visited local McDonald’s and Food Lion locations; attended Pennsylvania Farmland Preservation Board meeting. 3D Design

Greenwich, Connecticut: Toured Blue Sky Studios, a computer-animation studio that has produced the popular animated films Ice Age, Rio, and Epic. Carl Ludwig, one of the company’s founders and its head of research & development, led the students through a sampling of various departments (including layout, modeling, and animation) and the Sculpture Room (where they saw how clay, 3D scanners, 3D printers, and software were leveraged to create computer models). Students also viewed presentations from departments that make up the company’s animated movie pipeline. MAPS

In the first year of a two-year program, class members have already visited China, France, and Spain for cultural immersion and field research; individual trips are planned this summer to all three of those countries, as well as Germany, Italy, Japan, and Taiwan.

businesses (viability, target markets, publicity, fulfillment, and more). Class members are also required to plan and hold two public events during the year for the school community or the borough of Mercersburg itself; two of the more successful events included a dunk tank at the borough’s fall Townfest (which raised money for the Tuscarora Area Chamber of Commerce) and a live-music night featuring a food truck from Romeo’s and performances by faculty members Katie LaRue and Dave Holzwarth ’78. “Our students have been able to significantly expand their understanding of how businesses work, and of the sheer complexity of what business owners take on,” McGuire says. “Even businesses that appear simple on the surface have a lot of moving parts, and those parts have to be controlled to produce good, sustainable results.” The students then transition into work on their individual business plans, which this year ranged from restaurants to a mobile app for photojournalists to a credit card that assists international students without a U.S. address in purchasing airline tickets. This spring, students presented their final plans to a panel of outside business leaders in a format reminiscent of the ABC television show Shark Tank. As with all three SpringBoard courses, a select number of students were asked to give a talk to members of the rising 11th- and 12th-grade classes, both as a showcase for highlevel student work and to promote SpringBoard courses to the next group of potential enrollees. The presentations were featured in a special evening event on campus called “Springtalks.” “A lot of people outside the class—students, faculty members, and even other adults in the community—will be very surprised at what these students have been working on and what they’ve been able to achieve,” Jacklin says. “Some of these businesses are very complex and have a real viability about them.” We are what we eat

In many ways, Mercersburg is an ideal setting to teach a course that examines the journey of our food from seed to plate. The borough of Mercersburg is surrounded by working farms, providing class members ample opportunities for field research and discussion with those working in the industry. But Howley’s Global Food Chain course, as its name suggests, deals with much more than local matters, as the students in the course—and the teacher—can attest. “The nature of this course has really allowed me to form relationships with these kids that are different and unique, because we’re working through this process together for the first time,” says Howley, who grew up in Mercersburg and created an e-textbook for the course. “It’s been fun for us to confront some of the issues that we might think are simple, like food, and then have those lightbulb moments where we realize how much detail there is and how many bigger issues come into play. “As a teacher, this is an opportunity to step outside your disci-

Mercersburg magazine spring 2014

pline and teach something you feel passionately about. And that’s really valuable.” For the students, the value of being pushed somewhat outside their comfort zone and delving into unfamiliar issues can have lasting positive effects. “It can be hard for the students at first,” Maurer says. “But at the end, when you ask the students to challenge themselves, they discover things about themselves that they didn’t know before—their strengths, their weaknesses, how to solve problems, and how they work best, but in a safe way. They have the space here to wrestle with big questions. And they are truly helping to drive the class and where these classes go.” There is a community-service component to Howley’s course as well; students in the class prepared, delivered, and served meals on multiple occasions for approximately 20 people at the Chambersburg Cold Weather Drop-In Shelter. Howley says that after the class watched the 2012 documentary film A Place at the Table (which examines hunger in the

“ When you ask the students to challenge themselves, they discover things about themselves that they didn’t know before.”

Global Food Chain students Emily Mitchell ’14 and Elizabeth Stern-Green ’14 with a bottlefed calf at Blue Rooster Farm

The Global Food Chain SpringBoard class in Waterford, Pennsylvania, with Julie Brubaker of Blue Rooster Farm (far right) and SpringBoard Director Emily Howley (far left)

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The 3D Design SpringBoard class at Blue Sky Studios in Greenwich, Connecticut, with co-founder Carl Ludwig (back row, center)

“ It’s not just about the content covered but the experiences they have and the connections they make.”

United States), the students were inspired to delve into the problem of hunger in Franklin County. They connected with faculty member Jim Malone, a longtime supporter of the Chambersburg shelter, to coordinate and provide the meals. Class members presented individual in-depth research projects on the link between hunger and childhood obesity, how iron deficiency affects health, and even perceived connections between meat and traditional masculinity. “At the end of the day, our students are finding their voice,” Howley says. “When students are calling and visiting experts and personally interacting with them as part of their research, it shows them directly how these issues affect people, both in our local community and in the wider world.” Exploring new worlds

For more on MAPS and SpringBoard, including a closer look at some of the projects completed this spring, scan this QR code with your mobile device or visit www.mercersburg.edu/MAPS-SpringBoard.

When Mercersburg faculty first received an invitation to submit proposals for SpringBoard courses, the challenge read as follows: “Propose a course—potentially outside your job description—that you would be excited to teach to a group of seniors. Your proposal should consider the Challenge Based Learning model, be interdisciplinary and experiential in nature, and can be team-taught if necessary.” The 3D Design course meets all these requirements. It’s a collaboration between Amy Kelley, a mathematics teacher with a Ph.D. and experience teaching upper-level courses to both highschool and college students, and Gunkelman, the school’s direc-

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Payton Lissette ’14 sculpting in the 3D Design class

tor of outdoor education and a talented sculptor who majored in studio art with a 3D concentration at the University of Richmond. “With the rise of computer-graphic animation, video games, and digital art, the connections between the fields [of math and art] are increasing rapidly,” Gunkelman says. “We both have friends and contacts in the computer-graphics industry and were interested in the crossover. As we talked about topics like proportion, ratios, and scale, we found we were using different languages to talk about the same principles. The overlap is obvious.” Students began the fall term by tackling three challenges designed to help them develop the tools for their success in the course. They were asked to replicate a clay model of a human skull that was placed before them; compose a perspective, two-dimensional graphite drawing of a three-dimensional campus scene; and create a three-dimensional copy of a rubber duck using the software program Autodesk Maya, which is a crucial part of the course and is fast becoming required knowledge for those working in the field of computer graphics. “The earlier you gain experience working with a program that is an industry standard, [the more] it becomes a part of who you are instead of something you’re working with,” Kelley says. “And as a result, you then spend your time pushing boundaries instead of trying to learn the basics of a program like Maya. It will be a huge advantage for any student who decides to go into this field.” For the course’s overarching challenge, students worked in groups or individually to create a 3D model of an object of their

choosing in response to this question: “Can you synthesize math and art to communicate your perception of 3D space?” Several students designed furniture or other objects using Maya or sculpture and drawing. One student, Dikachi Osaji ’14, even conducted a focus group with faculty children, who provided feedback for the makeup of a virtual playground that she modeled in Maya. Aspiring filmmaker Chantel Yague ’14 created a model of a cat in Maya and didn’t stop there; she rigged the cat for animation and in the process modeled and textured an entire virtual living room. Gunkelman describes Yague’s effort and results as “more typical of an undergraduate completing a thesis project in the animation discipline than a high-school student.” “This is a really independent and collaborative class,” Yague says. “I’ve always been interested in art and technology, and I’ve taken as many courses as I can. And I love self-teaching; I love going to YouTube and watching tutorials. I definitely want to add computer graphics to my skillset as a filmmaker.” “3D Design is behind everything our students—and all of us— consume on iPads, smartphones, and in so much of the media today,” Kelley says. “When we teach this course next year, we could get an entirely different set of projects. The possibilities are truly endless.” The finish line

Before they walk across the Commencement stage at the end of their high-school careers, the more than 60 students currently taking MAPS or SpringBoard courses will have immersed themselves in independent, college-level, publishable work. And not one of those students will have been required to do so. “There is a huge amount of dedication on the part of the students and the faculty involved with these new capstone experiences,” Maurer says. “It’s not just about the content covered but the experiences they have and the connections they make. This is high-level work and it will be really important to our students going forward.”

Mercersburg magazine spring 2014

For the Classics, 21st-Century Skills are Back to the Future By Tom Thorne

2014 marks my 29 th year as a Latin teacher, and I wish that I had kept track of how many times people had asked me over the years the inevitable question, “What’s the point of studying a dead language?” At the risk of displaying the fatal flaw of hubris, I would claim that Latin may well be the most relevant, up-to-theminute element of a modern curriculum. When Mercersburg’s Program Review emerged with its list of 21st-century skills, I was delighted. Finally I had been provided with an institutional stick with which to beat back the barbarians. As it turns out, 21st-century skills match up brilliantly with what my esteemed colleague Greg Lynch and I work toward every day in our classrooms. The study of the classics has always been about critical thinking and problem solving. Ask any Latin student fighting her way through one of Vergil’s similes or scratching his head over a joke in Martial’s epigrams; every sentence is a problem to be solved, with the meaning obscure until you have looked at the text from several different angles. The skill of effective communication? Check. Precision of language is the cornerstone of effective communication, and Latin teaches precision like few other pursuits. Studying a language other than one’s own, modern or ancient, is a key to understanding how meaning is made and how it can be changed via syntax, diction, voice, and a dozen other factors. Our faculty also identified collaboration, creativity, curiosity, and imagination as vital skills for the future, and Latin at Mercersburg earns high marks in these areas as well. Students work in small groups to bring combined brainpower to bear on translation passages, and they collaborate on group projects and presentations, creating elaborate board and video games, short

films, children’s books, and a thousand other projects limited only by their imaginations. Our customized, home-grown Latin eBook series (Mercersburg Latin I–AP, written by yours truly and Mr. Lynch) seeks to kindle students’ curiosity about the ancient world through original text, rich illustrations, hundreds of interactive activities, and links to hundreds of relevant articles and websites. It is imagination and curiosity, after all, that often attracts kids to the study of the classical world in the first place: a world that is in many ways familiar but in others just as bizarre as the pages of a fantasy novel. It’s a far cry from the solitary poring over dusty tomes that characterized previous generations’ early exposure to Latin. Personal responsibility and accountability made their way onto Mercersburg’s list of essential characteristics in the students we aspire to produce, and here, too, Latin fits the bill. Cicero, anyone? In fact, Vergil’s Aeneid is built largely around these ideas, and our class explorations of Stoic, Epicurean, and earlier philosophical systems strive not only to inform our students’ readings in Latin, but also to enrich their lives. What better or more receptive time than adolescence to begin to plan a life well lived? I am often struck by the interest that my students (and even more so, Greg’s students) express in considering the questions that so occupied the intelligentsia of Athens and Rome. A final pillar of Mercersburg’s educational manifesto for the coming age is to sharpen students’ skills in the area of information literacy. While historians and librarians take special interest in this area, evaluating the quality of various sources of information and tracing the provenance of ideas and texts has been the central pursuit of classicists through the ages. As a group, we have been engaged in this pursuit for at least 1,700 years (though I

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personally did not get involved until the fall of 1976). Of course, the development that has made information literacy crucial for the modern world is the deployment of networked information systems, which find their way into the classroom in the form of the ubiquitous iPad and flood us with information—good and bad—that requires evaluation in much the same way that an archeologist or papyrologist must assess a new find. Latin literature students encounter issues in manuscript transmission, textual variants and transcription errors, problems in transliteration, and cultural and authorial bias on a daily basis. As schooling is remixed and schools are reimagined, interdisciplinary approaches are fast becoming the norm. Mercersburg is taking the lead in adapting by offering interdisciplinary classes of all sorts built around our six basic principles. We in the classics welcome everyone else back to the way we have worked since Caesar was a discipulus. To me, the question should not be, “Why are we studying a dead language?” The real question is, “Why isn’t everyone studying this dead language?” Tom Thorne in the classroom

Tom Thorne has taught at Mercersburg since 1993 and is head of the Academy’s classical & modern languages department. He has held the David F. Chapman Chair since 2001. A graduate of Dickinson College and the University of Florida, Thorne was the featured speaker at Mercersburg’s 2008 Commencement exercises and at its Baccalaureate ceremony in 2013. He and his wife, Barb, are the parents of two Mercersburg graduates, Elissa ’06 and Julia ’07.

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Legally Blonde cast members on a Tech Crew-built two-sided staircase piece

Behind the Scenes:

The Stage is Their World In the Burgin Center for the Arts, not all the stars are on stage. Stony Batter Players’ winter 2014 production of Legally Blonde The Musical featured 32 cast members—but also four stage managers and 16 students in the production’s Tech Crew, six faculty members, a choreographer, a vocal coach, and many other staff working behind the scenes. The production—quite possibly the largest in Mercersburg’s long and storied theatre history— was a true 21st-century Broadway-style production, according to Director of Technical Theatre Steve Crick. The show included 28 different wagons (pieces of mobile scenery on wheels) and almost as many specific scene locations. Students and faculty worked in the Burgin Center’s stateof-the-art scene shop adjacent to the Simon Theatre to create the pieces. “There are so many things our students learn in their work here,” says Crick, who teaches a term course in Stagecraft in addition to all his work with Burgin Center productions. “They learn how much it takes and how many people it really takes to put on a show like this. They learn about teamwork, creativity, cooperation, time management, problem-solving, and self-discipline. And they learn about themselves and what they’re capable of.”

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1. From left: Luke Staisiunas ’15, Crenshaw Allen-Hall ’17, fine-arts intern Molly Serpi ’09, and James Boggs ’14. 2. Steve Crick working in the scene shop with Rick Rodriguez ’16. 3. Sarika Nadar ’17 and Morgan Tomasso ’17 adjust scene pieces during rehearsal. 4. Faculty member Matt Maurer with Haley Carter ’16 and Rick Rodriguez ’16. 5. Laurel Kipe ’17, Caroline Holmes ’17, and Taylor Siner ’17 work on scenery. 6. James Boggs ’14 on the lightboard.

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A Salute to Retiring Faculty

Brent Gift, Mark Flowers, Kristy Higby, and Ron Simar are retiring from Mercersburg at the close of the 2013â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2014 academic year with a grand total of 114 years of service to the Academy. Enjoy this spotlight on their Mercersburg careers and the countless lives theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve touched here.

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brent gift: Finest in the Field By Lee Owen

Stay in one place for more than 40 years and you’re bound to experience some changes. This has undoubtedly been the case for Mercersburg faculty fixture Brent Gift, whose Academy career began in 1971 and has been interrupted only by a one-year teacher exchange in Hawaii and a brief sabbatical for graduate school at the University of Maine. He moved into South Cottage as a newly hired 22-year-old science teacher barely older than some of the students he supervised as a floormaster. And like most if not all of those students, he was living away from home for the first time—while attending college, Gift commuted from his family’s home in Chambersburg to nearby Shippensburg University. “Back then, we used to say you earned your combat pay in the dorms,” chuckles Gift, who is retiring from Mercersburg at the close of the 2013–2014 academic year. “I’ve started to get notes and emails from some of the guys that lived on my floors apologizing for the way they behaved sometimes. But I don’t regret any of it. Those guys helped me break in here.” Gift holds Mercersburg’s Robert R. Black ’25 Chair and has served as head of the science department (1999 to 2004), assistant dean of students (1984 to 1996), and chair of the Conduct Review Committee (2004 to 2009). He helped create Mercersburg’s volleyball program and was its varsity head coach for 17 years in addition to spending several years working with the junior varsity. Gift was also an assistant football coach under head coaches Joe Chandler and Al Pisano; the head coach in fencing (one of Mercersburg’s first coed sports); and is a longtime assistant coach of the Blue Storm’s powerhouse varsity baseball team, which has won or shared nine Mid-Atlantic Prep League championships since joining the MAPL in 2000—including each of the past four years. “I can’t imagine having had a better mentor than Brent,” says faculty member Eric Hicks, Gift (far left) with fellow faculty member Eric Hicks (far right) and students at an early Mercersburg Ecology Camp

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who has taught with Gift in Mercersburg’s science department since 1992. “He’s the kindest person I’ve ever known and the most generous. Whenever I’ve had a question for him, from my first day at Mercersburg until now, he’s always given me a really thoughtful answer, even if he’s busy with something else. There’s no question that I’ve learned more from Brent than I have learned from anyone else— except, perhaps, my parents.” In his “spare” time, Gift founded and ran the Mercersburg Ecology Camp for a decade prior to the creation of Mercersburg’s Office of Summer and Extended Programs; the Ecology Camp later became part of Mercersburg Adventure Camps. He has also been heavily involved with the Tuscarora Wildlife Education Project, where he is a past president and serves on the board of directors. “I couldn’t have asked for a more enjoyable and rewarding experience here,” Gift says. “The students and my colleagues have been wonderful. It’s an ideal situation. Somebody asked me once how I could be here for 40 years, but I’ve had no reason to look elsewhere. It’s really been natural to come here and stay. My family is from this area and my wife, Barb, is from Chambersburg as well. And time flies so quickly when you love what you do.” The familiar surroundings have provided Gift with countless opportunities for

the hands-on work so close to his heart— both in academic pursuits (he has taken his biology classes to local streams and fields on property owned by alumni and parents with connections to the school) and other areas (Gift raised cattle and grew corn and oats while teaching both on his family farm and in Mercersburg’s school farm program, which he helped run with fellow faculty member Neil Carstensen). “Think about where Mercersburg is located,” Gift says. “We’ve really been able to use our location to our advantage. It’s a great resource. Being out in the field is truly

the best way to learn. “And this is a baseball-rich area as well, which is another passion of mine. I played in the Franklin County Adult Baseball league into my 30s. The high schools have all had good-quality baseball. I grew up going to a bowling alley owned by [baseball Hall of Famer] Nellie Fox, who was from St. Thomas. Nellie would be there in the offseason behind the counter renting the shoes and talking about deer hunting and baseball. He even had a trophy case with his Gold Gloves in there.” For all the positive and memorable

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“I couldn’t have asked for a more enjoyable and rewarding experience here. The students and my colleagues have been wonderful.” times Gift has experienced at Mercersburg, it takes him no time at all to summon his worst moment from more than four decades at the school: a Saturday morning in September 1990 when volleyball team captain Erin Carey ’91 died in an automobile accident on her way to campus. Gift remembers waiting on the bus with the team for Carey to arrive before he went to Traylor Hall, where Dean of Students Tim Rockwell received a call about the crash. It fell to Rockwell, Gift, and then Associate Head of School Jackie Powell to convey the news to Carey’s mother, Patricia, and then Gift had the solemn task of telling the team. “We dedicated the season to her,” Gift says. “I remember asking the players what they wanted to do [about the season], and they said, ‘Erin would want us to keep playing.’ We ended up having a pretty good season record-wise, but it was a really tough year.” Today, students walking toward Nolde Gymnasium from Ford Hall or Fowle Hall pass by a memorial statue of Carey, which has the words “Forever Young” inscribed on its base. Mercersburg’s volleyball history is closely tied to Gift, who was named the program’s first head coach in 1986 after Headmaster Walter Burgin ’53 and Chandler (who had coached football with Gift and was the athletic director) decided to add additional sports for the school’s growing contingent of female athletes. Gift first stepped down as head coach when he assumed leader-

ship of the science department in 1999, but returned later to work with both the varsity and junior-varsity programs. He completed a final stint as head varsity coach in 2012 and spent 2013 as the JV head coach. Gift’s final season included an Alumni Weekend match that pitted a team of Mercersburg volleyball alumni against the 2013 Blue Storm varsity squad. A surprise reception was held in Gift’s honor following the contest. “The people here truly are like family,” Gift says. “It’s a supportive place. We have really good friends here. I’m going to miss it a lot, although Karl [Reisner] said he’ll still let me throw batting practice and I may help out a little here and there with volleyball and anywhere else if they’ll have me. I’m glad for us to stick around.”

About Brent Gift Began at Mercersburg in 1971; is retiring after the 2013–2014 academic year Has coached volleyball, baseball, football, and fencing; served as a floormaster in South Cottage, Main Hall, and Fowle Hall Worked as assistant dean of students from 1984 to 1996 and was head of the science department from 1999 to 2004 Has held Robert R. Black ’25 Chair since 1994 is professional memberships include the Pennsylvania Academy of Science, the H American Society of Mammologists, the Wildlife Society of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Wildlife Federation, and the scientific research society Sigma Xi

Mercersburg magazine spring 2014

mark flowers and kristy higby: Heart and Art By Lee Owen

In 1974, Mark Flowers was an undergraduate student majoring in art at the University of South Carolina. Each week, he would hand in his time card for his part-time work-study job in the art department to the administrative assistant in that office, a fellow undergrad named Kristy Higby. It turned out to be the beginning of a personal and professional partnership that took the couple up and down the Eastern Seaboard, including 23 years spent teaching and creating art at Mercersburg. The works on which they have left their mark (no pun intended) hang in dozens of galleries and private collections and may even appear soon in screenings or exhibitions near you. Some of those works are displayed next to those crafted by one of the hundreds or thousands of students to have cut their artistic teeth alongside Flowers and Higby in their classrooms—whether at Mercersburg, the Savannah College of Art & Design (where Flowers founded the painting department), or at Sea Pines Academy in Hilton Head, South Carolina, where the couple officially began their teaching careers. “It’s a rare thing to be in the same office with or next door to your spouse while you’re doing your jobs,” Flowers says. “We realize not every couple has that rare privilege and opportunity. And it’s something we wouldn’t change for the world. We’ve had that for the 23 years we’ve been here, and for longer when you factor in when we worked together at Sea Pines Academy.” After more than two decades of sharing office, studio, and classroom spaces at Mercersburg, Higby and Flowers will depart the Academy for good this summer to take up full-time residence at their studio and cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina. “Mark and Kristy are quintessential artists, educators, and colleagues whose dedication and passion transcend their classrooms, their lives, and their own work,” says Denise Dalton, Mercersburg’s director of dance and the former head of the school’s fine-arts department. “They have been steadfast members of our community, leaving a legacy of wise insight and fresh ideas and significantly contributing to the idea of the importance of being working artists.” Higby and Flowers in 1994

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Table for Two, Mark Flowers

“We came here for a challenge and are leaving for a challenge,” Higby says. “If you’re going to teach art somewhere, you could not top these amazing, motivated, brilliant kids. They’re so rewarding to teach. We’ve never had any reason to think about leaving, and it’s not about not wanting to stay—it’s just that after 37 years of being full-time art educators and part-time artists, we’re going to flip the script.” “This next part will be an adventure,” says Flowers, who grew up in an artist’s family; his father, Tom, was chair of the art department at Furman University for 25 years. “Everything we’ve done in our career has allowed us to make this decision. We certainly could not have made this decision 10 or 15 years ago or even five years ago. And we’re going to a place that is so creative and has been so supportive of

us, just as Mercersburg has supported us.” Flowers and Higby arrived at Mercersburg in 1991 with their two sons, Carson Higby-Flowers ’01 and Morgan HigbyFlowers ’03. One of Flowers’ graduate students in Savannah was from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and heard about an art-teaching job opening at a certain boarding school near Chambersburg. He passed this on to Flowers, who was interested and decided as part of his application to send examples of his work and his wife’s work to Mercersburg, “since if I got the job they’d be getting both of us anyway,” Flowers says. As it turned out, Flowers and Higby succeeded another husband-and-wife team, John and Jean Kortlander, as the leaders of Mercersburg’s visual-arts department, which was headquartered in the attic of Irvine Hall (before the building was reno-

vated in 1993). The “penthouse” they found there was a far cry from the sparkling Burgin Center for the Arts, which would be built more than a decade later. “There was basically a painting room and a drawing room, and the hallway between the two rooms was the ceramics department,” Flowers says. “And I made the rookie mistake of ordering an entire year’s worth of supplies in the fall of 1991 and must have carried 25 or 30 boxes of heavy supplies up six flights of stairs.” Still, the couple made the most of things, moving downstairs to the fourth floor of Irvine after the renovations. “Before we left the attic, we had the students painting and drawing on all the walls—as their assignments,” Higby says. “It was more of an installation type of environment than your typical student work.

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“We came here for a challenge and are leaving for a challenge.”

Promotional poster for Kristy Higby’s The Other Brother

“The Burgin Center is such an extensive facility—we don’t lack for anything here, which is something you really can’t say at many colleges. Our son Morgan, who’s teaching new media now [at Watkins College of Art, Design & Film in Nashville, Tennessee], just shakes his head when he comes back here and says, ‘I can’t believe the size of those monitors and how new everything is.’ One can easily take it for granted. It’s exceptional.” Higby traces her interest in making documentary films directly to Mercersburg, which funded her attendance about 10 years ago at a workshop where she learned the ins and outs of Apple’s Final Cut Pro software. “When the school put in the first digital lab here, we were doing a lot of design work, and the students were really interested in creating digital video,” she says. “So I went—somewhat reluctantly at first—and fell head over heels for it. The energy I found there has been passed on [in the classroom]. The school took a really smart approach with it, and the support we’ve had for professional development here has been phenomenal. Walter ’53 and Barbara Burgin and Doug and Peggy Hale have been great advocates for the arts and for us and we’ve all really benefited from their support.” Higby’s short documentary Flag Day was chosen for inclusion in a Norton Sociology textbook DVD. Another film, Cornie, spotlighted Robert “Cornie” Watson, an African-American World War II veteran who lived adjacent to the Mercersburg campus on Fayette Street and died in 2007 at age 95. Her latest work, The Other Brother, tells the touching and complicated story of two estranged brothers who were both artists. One of the brothers is Flowers’ father, Tom; the other was his uncle, Jesse, whom Mark Flowers never met. The Other Brother, which Higby directed and edited and Flowers produced, was screened at Mercersburg in April; at press time, the film had already been selected for inclusion in multiple film festivals this year. Higby and Flowers were both placewinners in the 2014 Pennsylvania Art Educators “Best of the Best” juried exhibition, and it’s somewhat fitting that in a year when the couple is beginning another professional chapter in a quieter locale, one of the pieces honored was Flowers’ painting Table for Two—which illustrates one’s longing to share a calm, secluded meal with a partner (as opposed, perhaps, to a slightly less-relaxed dinner in a boardingschool dining hall). “I remember driving up to Mercersburg full of anticipation and excitement at the new challenge we were about to begin,” Higby says with a smile. “And 23 years later, we are heading down the same road in the other direction, still with great anticipation and excitement about the future—but maybe with a little less energy.”

Mercersburg magazine spring 2014

About Kristy Higby A graduate of the University of South Carolina and Burlington County College; also attended numerous workshops at Penland School of Crafts and the Maine Media Workshops At Mercersburg since 1991; has taught drawing, book arts, and digital arts and created the school’s digital-arts curriculum; transformed the Blue Review from a text-only publication to a full-color, 60-page, student-designed awardwinning literary magazine Her documentary films have won awards at film festivals in New Jersey, Nevada, and Washington, D.C. Received a South Carolina Arts Council Fellowship and was a South Carolina Arts Commission artist-in-residence after teaching at Sea Pines Academy 1993–1994 James M. Johnston Foundation Chair recipient and 1996–1997 Zern Distinguished Teaching Award honoree (with husband Mark Flowers)

About Mark Flowers Graduated from the University of South Carolina; also earned a master’s of fine arts in painting from Western Michigan University, where he was named one of the school’s 100 Art Alumni for its centennial celebration At Mercersburg since 1991; has taught painting, drawing, and advanced studio art; spent nine years as a set designer and builder for Stony Batter Players productions; started the Mercersburg Academy Bike Club in the early 1990s Taught at Sea Pines Academy and the Savannah College of Art & Design (where he founded the painting department) His paintings have won awards in juried competitions throughout the South, Mid-Atlantic, and nationally 1993–1994 James M. Johnston Foundation Chair recipient and 1996–1997 Zern Distinguished Teaching Award honoree (with wife Kristy Higby) The couple’s two sons, Carson Higby-Flowers ’01 and Morgan Higby-Flowers ’03, are Mercersburg alumni; Morgan served as a Mercersburg teaching intern in 2008–2009

Mercersburg magazine spring 2014

ron simar: Winning the Game By Lee Owen Before he arrived at Mercersburg to become the school’s director of athletics in 1988, Ron Simar had already worked at his high school (Randolph-Macon Academy) and college (James Madison University) alma maters. But it’s Mercersburg that ultimately became his home. Simar is retiring in June after a 26-year career at Mercersburg that includes 20 years as athletic director, five years as head of the physical-education department, and countless nights of dorm duty (in six of the Academy’s seven dormitories—all but South Cottage) and meals in the dining room, where he has had supervisory responsibilities for the past six years. The list of accomplishments during his tenure is significant—in 1993, Mercersburg joined an athletic conference for the first time in its history (the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference, or MAC), and then became a full member of the Mid-Atlantic Prep League (MAPL) in 2000. The school added or revived varsity programs in girls’ soccer, girls’ lacrosse, and softball; built the striking Davenport Squash Center and Smoyer Tennis Center; and made significant improvements to facilities in several sports, including baseball, wrestling, and track & field. Simar served as commissioner of the MAC from its creation in 1993 until Mercersburg joined the MAPL, and played a significant role in the creation of the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association (PAISAA), which holds statewide postseason tournaments for private schools in cross country, field hockey, golf, soccer, basketball, wrestling, track & field, baseball, and softball. Simar was a Mercersburg parent—and a Mercersburg opponent, as a player and a coach at Randolph-Macon—before he was a Mercersburg employee. He and his wife, Susan (a longtime administrative assistant in Mercersburg’s Office of Admission & Financial Aid) are the parents of three Mercersburg alumni: Matthew Simar ’86, Seton Simar-Moritz ’90, and Eric Mercer ’91. “When I was a student at Randolph-Macon, we played Mercersburg in almost every sport,” said Simar, who played football, basketball, and baseball for RMA, which is located in Front Royal, Virginia; he also coached all three sports during his time as a faculty member there, including stints as head coach in basketball and baseball. “In the 12 years I coached there I brought my baseball teams to Mercersburg every year to play. So my association with Mercersburg started long before I came to work here or even before my children came to school here.” Simar, who grew up in a military family in Aberdeen, Maryland, worked as RMA’s assistant dean of students and later became its dean of students in the late 1970s and early 1980s before deciding to pursue a master’s in counseling at his collegiate alma mater. “In working with high-school students, I found it easy to provide them Simar in 1993 with the necessary discipline, but the bigger challenge of knowing how to

Mercersburg magazine spring 2014

About Ron Simar Began at Mercersburg in 1988; retiring from the school following the 2013–2014 academic year Spent 42 years working with students at the secondary-school or college level; worked at Randolph-Macon Academy and James Madison University prior to coming to Mercersburg in 1988 Served as Mercersburg’s director of athletics until retiring from that post in 2008 Also worked as head of the school’s physical-education department; managed Mercersburg’s performance-group activity program and the dining room; served as an assistant coach for several sports; taught psychology; worked on the school’s counseling staff; and served as an adviser and dormitory faculty member in six different dorms

counsel them is what led me back to JMU to seek a master’s degree in counseling,” he says. “I ended up getting my degree in student personnel services, which turned out to be a better track for me.” As he finished his master’s coursework in spring 1988, Simar took a phone call from then Mercersburg athletic director Joe Chandler, who was leaving to accept a position at a school in Louisiana and wanted to gauge Simar’s possible interest in succeeding him. “As soon as I hung up the phone with Joe, I knew I was interested,” Simar remembers. “I never really set out to be an athletic director, but it was the natural way to go for me. I liked working with students in an administrative role and had always been involved in and interested in sports.” Simar was so excited about his new position that he took a twoweek vacation from his full-time job in JMU’s residence-life office specifically to meet with as many Mercersburg coaches and students as possible. “I wanted to do all the homework that I could and wanted to find out what the major challenges would be and what people wanted to have happen,” he says. “It became clear pretty quickly that one of my major goals should be to find a league for us to call home.” Eventually Mercersburg joined with Flint Hill School, Maret School, Potomac School, and St. James School to create the MidAtlantic Conference, which represented three states (Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) and the District of Columbia among its five charter members. As the only school of the quintet with postgraduate students and with its girls’ programs still lacking a league home (the MAC sponsored only boys’ sports), the fit was never truly a perfect one for Mercersburg. The Mid-Atlantic Prep League formed in 1998 with five members—Blair Academy, The Hill School, The Hun School of Princeton, The Lawrenceville School, and Peddie School—and soon looked west to Mercersburg

to make it an even half-dozen institutions in the league. “In addition to the obvious benefits of being part of a league made up entirely of boarding schools and all with postgraduates among their student bodies, our move to the MAPL was important because it is a coed league and thus offers our girls’ programs the same opportunities that our boys’ teams receive,” Simar says. Along with his work as athletic director, Simar was also a member of Mercersburg’s counseling staff, taught psychology courses, and served on the Conduct Review Committee. He stepped down from the athletic director’s post after the 2007–2008 school year and immediately began a five-year term as head of the school’s physical-education department. Simar has continued to oversee Mercersburg’s performance-group activity program and the dining room in addition to serving as an assistant coach at various times for the Blue Storm’s softball, junior-varsity baseball, and varsity boys’ basketball teams. “Ron has been as loyal as one could ever be to Mercersburg,” says longtime friend and colleague Karl Reisner, a faculty member at the Academy since 1971 and Mercersburg’s head varsity baseball coach. “He possesses a genuine love and respect for the school and its people.” Going forward, the Simars will continue to live on Main Street in downtown Mercersburg, and Susan Simar will remain in her familiar position as the first smiling face to greet visitors entering Traylor Hall on campus. “I haven’t put much thought into what it’s going to be like next year,” Ron Simar says. “I hope to remain involved here as a volunteer, whether it’s keeping the scorebook or coaching or something else. I’m sure I’m going to miss the whole experience. Schools have been such an important part of my life for so long, and they’ve always been where I’ve felt I’ve needed to be.”

Athletics

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D ate s to Re me mb e r

Oct 11

Family Weekend (most varsity sports vs. Lawrenceville)

Nov 1

Alumni Weekend (most varsity sports vs. Hill)

Schedule subject to change; for a full and updated schedule of events, visit www.mercersburg.edu

Fall 2013 Varsity Athletics Roundup Boys’ Cross Country

Captains: Kevin Duda ’14, Keegan Sullivan ’14 James D. Fallon Jr. Award (most outstanding contributions): Gabriel Allgayer ’16 Most Improved Runner Award: Max Furigay ’15 Head coach: Matt Geeza (3rd season) MAPL/IPSL finish: 4th/1st Highlights: Allgayer won the individual title at the Independent-Parochial School League Championships and placed third at the Mid-Atlantic Prep League Cross Country Championships to earn all-conference honors in both leagues… his time of 17:03 at the IPSL Championships was 17 seconds faster than the second-place finisher… the team took fifth at the Pennsylvania Independent Schools State Championships, led by a seventh-place effort from Allgayer… Newell Woodworth ’15 was also named All-IPSL after finishing sixth at the IPSL event… Nick Vogel ’14 was ninth at the IPSL meet and Jan Smilek ’16 took ninth at the MAPL event... Allgayer represented the squad on the Academic All-MAPL team.

Girls’ Cross Country

Captains: Sarabeth Henne ’15, Kathleen Mills ’14, Maddie Nelson ’15 Most Outstanding Contributions Award: Nelson Most Improved Runner Award: Mills Head coach: Betsy Cunningham (11th season) MAPL/IPSL finish: 4th/2nd Highlights: Molly Taylor ’16 earned All-IPSL honors after finishing fourth at the IPSL Championships… five of the team’s seven varsity runners ran lifetime personal records at the MAPL Championships, led by Taylor (who placed 18th); the group also included Mills, Carlie Stettler ’15, Laurel Kipe ’17, and Elizabeth Smilek ’17; Nelson ran a season PR at the meet… Taylor, Nelson, and Stettler were the team’s top three finishers at the Pennsylvania Independent Schools State Championships at Belmont Plateau in Philadelphia… Mills was named Academic All-MAPL.

Field Hockey

Captains: Natalie Burkardt ’14, Syd Godbey ’14 Carol Anderson Field Hockey Coach’s Award (most outstanding player): Godbey Shelley Beck ’72 Award (most improved player): Ria Giannaris ’16 Rebecca “Becki” Peace ’75 Award (most inspirational player): Burkardt Head coach: Alicia Hawk (4th season) Record: 10–7 (2–3 MAPL) Highlights: The Blue Storm reached double figures in the win column for the second time in three seasons… the team defeated Germantown Friends School in the first round of the PAISAA state tournament before falling to top-seeded Episcopal Academy in the quarterfinals… Nina Neumann ’16 earned All-MAPL honors; she scored 14 goals and added five assists… Godbey (.753 save percentage, five shutouts in goal) and Paige Richardson ’14 (team-leading 15 goals, plus nine assists) were named first-team area All-Stars by the

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[Chambersburg] Public Opinion; Neumann earned second-team honors and Meghan Peterson ’14 was honorable mention… Godbey and Peterson were four-year letterwinners… Elizabeth SternGreen ’14 signed a national letter of intent to play at the University of Virginia next season, while Godbey will play at Ursinus College and Burkardt will play squash at Hamilton College… Godbey and Stern-Green were named to the Academic All-MAPL team.

Football

Captains: game captains selected Most Outstanding Contributions Award: John Garrett ’14 Most Improved Player Award: Brad McGhee ’14 Head coach: Dan Walker (11th season) Record: 2–6 (0–5 MAPL) Highlights: Brendan Flaherty ’14 was named first-team All-MAPL as an offensive lineman and second-team all-league as a defensive lineman; he was joined on the first team by Garrett (62 tackles and 12 sacks as a linebacker)… Chris Buschi ’14, Tawfiq Abdul-Karim ’14, and Timi Tijani ’14 earned second-team All-MAPL honors as well… Buschi was a second-team Public Opinion All-Star, while Tijani and Kam Undieh ’15 were named honorable mention… the team scored six defensive touchdowns and six TDs on special teams… Flaherty (57 tackles, seven sacks) will play at Kutztown University next season, while Abdul-Karim and Garrett are bound for Gettysburg College… one of the year’s highlights was the Storm’s rally from a 20–0 deficit against Sidwell Friends to defeat the host Quakers, 33–26… Undieh and Max Lissette ’14 were named Academic All-MAPL.

Golf

Captain: Andrew Peterson ’14 Most Outstanding Contributions Award: Peterson Most Improved Player Award: Mitchell Smith ’16 Head coach: Doug Smith (1st season) IPSL finish: champion Match record: 7–5 Highlights: The team captured the IPSL title for the third-straight year, led by Peterson, who garnered medalist honors by shooting 37 over nine holes; Roland Morris ’16 and Charlie MacVicar ’16 tied for third (40) and joined Peterson on the All-IPSL squad… Mercersburg placed sixth at the Pennsylvania Independent Schools State Championships… Morris fired a 76 to help the team win the Franklin County Shootout by three strokes over Chambersburg; Liv Wallace ’15 earned girls’ medalist honors at the event… the team took second at the Dr. Marshall Glenn Invitational… MacVicar earned the team’s academic award.

Boys’ Soccer

Captains: Kenny Guerrero ’14, Philip Kistler ’14 Most Outstanding Contributions Award: David Coly ’15 Most Improved Player Award: Atticus Shorr ’16 Schweizer Soccer Cup (hard work/determination): Kistler Head coach: Quentin McDowell (6th season) Record: 13–3 (3–2 MAPL) IPSL finish: champion Highlights: The team’s 13 wins tied a school single-season record; 11 of the 13 wins were shutouts… the Storm’s 3–2 MAPL mark was good for a tie for second place and included victories over Blair, Peddie, and Hun… in IPSL competition, Mercersburg outscored its opponents 20–0 in four victories, including a 7–0 win in the league title

game against St. John’s Catholic Prep… Coly scored a team-high 12 goals and added six assists, which tied for the team lead with Zack Landau ’14… Coly was named first-team All-MAPL and Sakyi HyltonDei ’14 earned honorable-mention recognition… Coly and Hylton-Dei were Public Opinion first-team All-Stars; Guerrero and Kistler were named to the second team… McDowell was the Public Opinion’s area coach of the year for the second time, and coached the Pennsylvania squad in the Four Diamonds All-Star Game; Guerrero, Hylton-Dei, and Kistler played in the game… Hylton-Dei and Andre Garcia played in the Central Pennsylvania Scholastic All-Star Game… Landau and Pearce Bloom ’14 earned Academic All-MAPL honors.

Girls’ Soccer

Captains: Payton Lissette ’14, Melanie Rankin ’14, Teal Tasker ’15 Mary Curtis ’86-John VerStanding ’66 Award (most outstanding player): Rankin Most Improved Player Award: Madi Johnson ’16 Hendrickson-Hoffman Coaches’ Award (spirit): Megan Lafferty ’15 Head coach: Jason Bershatsky (6th season) Record: 7–8–1 (2–3 MAPL) IPSL finish: 2nd Highlights: Rankin (nine goals, four assists) and Katie Miller ’15 (a team-leading 11 goals, four assists) were named first-team All-MAPL… Rankin and Lissette (a team-high seven assists) were Public Opinion first-team All-Stars, while Miller was a second-team choice and Emily Schoenberger ’15 was an honorable-mention selection… Miller, who has 44 goals in three seasons, leads a group of nine rising seniors who will return to the varsity next fall… Lafferty recorded four shutouts after stepping into the goalkeeping role due to injuries… among the team’s seven wins were victories over

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Volleyball

Blair and Hill… Rankin and Lissette played for the Pennsylvania team in the Four Diamonds All-Star Game… Lissette earned a varsity letter all four years… Schoenberger and Johnson were named Academic All-MAPL.

Girls’ Tennis

Captain: Charlotte Rhoad ’14 Most Outstanding Contributions Award: Rhoad Most Improved Player Award: Margarita Fedorova ’14 Head coach: Mike Sweeney (10th season) Record: 3–6 (0–4 MAPL) Highlights: Rhoad was an All-MAPL selection in singles; she was the team’s No. 1 player and teamed with Molly Widdoes ’17 to form the squad’s top doubles tandem… Rhoad and Widdoes each won

a singles match in their flights at the inaugural MAPL Championship, which was held at Lehigh University… Widdoes earned the Sportsmanship Award at the State College Invitational… the Blue Storm swept a home-and-home series with the Grier School and also defeated Harrisburg Academy… Fedorova was named Academic All-MAPL.

Captains: Zoe Alpert ’14, Danessa Martin ’17 Erin Carey ’91 Memorial Volleyball Award (most outstanding player): Alpert Most Improved Player Award: Delaney Taylor ’14 Head coach: Cindel Hollenshead (1st season) Record: 4–10 (1–5 IPSL) Highlights: MacKenzie Brink ’14, who led the team with 212 kills, earned All-IPSL honors and was also named a Public Opinion first-team AllStar; she posted a team-best 73 blocks and 26 aces… Alpert recorded 206 digs, which was first on the squad… Martin recorded 256 assists as the team’s leading setter (as a ninth grader)… Taylor earned the team’s academic award… in celebration of longtime faculty member Brent Gift (the program’s first coach and a longtime faculty member who is retiring in 2014), the team’s seniors faced off against an alumni squad as part of Alumni Weekend festivities; the seniors claimed a close 2–1 win.

Arts D ates to Re me mb e r

Oct 10–12

Stony Batter Players: Taking Breath, Simon Theatre, Burgin Center for the Arts

Nov 8

Fall Dance Concert, 8 p.m., Simon Theatre, Burgin Center for the Arts

Nov 15 Fall Pops Concert, 8 p.m., Simon Theatre, Burgin Center for the Arts Schedule subject to change; for a full and updated schedule of events, visit www.mercersburg.edu

Dance director: Denise Dalton

above: “Bhangra in Mercersburg,” choreographed by Shahmeer Hussain ’14 (L–R: Katarina Johansson ’16, Chelsea Miao ’17, Hussain, Lillian Wilkins ’15, Rachael Ditzler ’15) right: Victoria Borregón Rodríguez ’16, “La Noche Oscura” (flamenco) far right: Lillian Wilkins ’15 and Madison Nordyke ’14 in the Denise Daltonchoreographed “Realm of Spirit”

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Stony Batter Players

directors: Laurie Mufson, Matt Maurer, Steve Crick

Zach McDonald ’17 and Fiona Flanagan ’17 in Mere Mortals Thomas Miller ’16, Nikki DeParis ’15, Eli Wenzel ’16, and Erin Pak ’17 in Mere Mortals

Visual Art

faculty: Mark Flowers, Wells Gray, Kristy Higby

Chosen for 2014 National K-12 Ceramic Exhibition in Milwaukee:

Caitlin Flohr ’15

A.B. Williford ’14

Juny Kim ’14, graphite drawing

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Kate Kistler ’15 and the cast of Legally Blonde

Caitlin Cremins ’14 and Alex Jackson ’15 in Legally Blonde Ayla Mellott ’14, mixed media

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Music

directors: Richard Rotz, Jim Brinson, Jack Hawbaker, Michael Cameron

Band

Magalia

Octet

The Chorale and String Ensemble performing together at the Christmas Candlelight Service

Jazz Band

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Submit class notes via email to classnotes@mercersburg.edu or by contacting your class agent. Submissions may appear online or in print. Mercersburg reserves the right to edit submissions for space or content, and is not responsible for more than reasonable editing or fact-checking. When submitting a photo, please provide the highest-quality version possible; some images captured by cell phones or other cameras may not be suitable for print. Class notes are also available online at www.mercersburg.edu/classnotes.

’30

Marjorie Read Smoyer, widow of Stan Smoyer, passed away May 23, 2013.

’46

Allan Neustadt’s wife, Marilyn, died October 22, 2013.

’47

Class Notes ’61

Dan Wilson returned to campus for Alumni Weekend in October and used the occasion to travel to nearby Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to visit his English professor, Donald Goodyear ’52, for the first time since 1960. “An enjoyable time for all,” Dan reports.

’62

Dan Miller completed Chateau Country: Du Pont Estates in the Brandywine Valley, a book of portraits featuring 33 homes built by the Delaware family. Produced by Schiffer Publishing and available on Amazon, the 272-page work features anecdotes and 172 fullcolor photos and line drawings.

David Lorentz has moved back to Chambersburg and returned to the producing business, running Lorentz Presents. He plays piano with the Shippensburg Swing Band.

’48 Edward Bou’s wife, Mary Ellen, passed

Weekend in October and met Joseph Jaime ’14, a postgraduate student who is planning to enroll at the U.S. Naval Academy and hopes to become a Navy SEAL. Drew is looking forward to working with Joseph, who will be applying to Drew’s SEAL mentoring program.

away March 23, 2009.

Rodney Minner’s wife, Geraldine, died October 25, 2013.

’51

Joe Silverman and Earl Glotfelty visited classmate and artist Joel Lichtenstul at his townhouse in Pittsburgh to view Jim’s paintings. “To this amateur’s eye, they were spectacular,” says Joe. “Some scenes are local; others are distant places that caught his attention while traveling. Bill Clutz is the famous artist in our class, but Jim works with an entirely different theory and style.”

’54

Chuck Hatch has been elected a deacon at Falling Spring Presbyterian Church in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

’60 Harvey Sargent III’s mother, Evelyn,

passed away March 19, 2013. She was also the wife of the late Harvey Sargent Jr. ’35.

’63 Drew Bisset visited campus for Alumni

’66

John Dyke sold his family business, Dyke Motor Supply, and is a certified ski instructor on the Seven Springs Resort ski patrol in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania. He also recently competed in the Ironman 70.3 Miami marathon and took third place in his age group.

’67

James Hendrickson’s mother, Virginia, died November 11, 2013. She was also the grandmother of Timothy Morgan ’94 and James Hendrickson ’11 and the wife of the late Mason Hendrickson ’40.

Tom Motheral published an article in the November 18, 2013, issue of Transport Topics, a weekly publication of the American Trucking Association. Tom works for Premium Environmental Services.

Drew Stewart ’61, pictured here with Assistant Director of Capital Giving Tim Crouch, visited campus in November for the first time in more than 50 years.

Ben Vinton III is an accomplished runner and recently finished fourth in his age group in a half-marathon on Long Island.

’73

John Jones has been selected by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to serve as a member of the Committee on Judicial Security, the 26-member policy-making body for the federal court system. John is a U.S. district judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

’74

Robert Naething shares the following update: “It has been an eventful few years. After serving as aide-de-camp for General Tommy Franks back in 2000, I commanded the tank battalion that guarded the Korean border, ran the U.S. Army’s Armor and Cavalry School, trained and certified every division going to Iraq as part of the Battle Command Training Program, and deployed to Iraq and the Middle East for four and a half years. During my last deployment, I worked for General David Petraeus in establishing Iraqi military education and training programs; building military posts, air bases, and

John Bennett ’58 and Cynthia Roe Goldsmith ’75 had a chance meeting in November 2013 outside the Model Bakery in Napa, California, while both were traveling in the area. John lives in Houston and Cynthia lives in Dauphin, Pennsylvania. “We began a conversation which lasted over an hour, sharing our different experiences at Mercersburg,” Cynthia says.

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and the nephew of Heidi Hammond O’Connor ’79. Lindley Peterson Fleury’s father, Norman, passed away December 26, 2013. He was also the son-in-law of the late George Kelly ’20 and the grandfather of Ashley Doughty ’04.

’79

Tom Motheral ’67 (center) with faculty members Matt Geeza, Karl Reisner, Dan Walker, and Peter Kempe. Tom was on campus in October to hear the Ammerman Family Lecture.

Molly Jones Mancini is appearing as a guest judge on a new Food Network program. She is proud to represent Utz Quality Foods on a pretzel-themed episode of the show.

’80

Jenny Lepley Mullins has been the main employee and manager of the Leavenworth Mosquito Control District in Washington state since 2003 with occasional forestry work as well. She and her husband, Rob, are proud to share that their 14-year-old daughter, Erin, won the 2013 Washington state 1A high school cross country championship. Barrett Burns ’63 and Scott Christopher ’72 at Scott’s art studio in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. Barrett and his wife, Patricia, dropped by the studio last fall to see a series of Scott’s paintings.

Mark Talbott ’78 (left) with Mac Williams ’13 at the 2014 Men’s College Squash Association National Team Championships in February. Mac plays for Georgetown University and Mark (an eight-time world professional squash player of the year and an inaugural member of the U.S. Squash Hall of Fame) is the head coach and director of squash at Stanford University.

ports; and training and equipping the Iraqi military. I was also part of a small team that developed the plan to withdraw forces from Iraq. Following my return to the States in 2009, I went to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to run the Army’s Command and General Staff College. Just as I was being selected for brigadier general, my wife of 35 years (and childhood sweetheart), Chris, was diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer. I retired to take care of her, and when she passed away in November 2011, the Secretary of the Army hired me to become a senior executive in the Department of the Army. I moved recently to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio to become the deputy of U.S. Army North (U.S. Fifth Army). We provide military support for Homeland Security and disaster assistance for the entire U.S. My three children are all doing well, and I am blessed with two young grandkids. If you are ever in the San Antonio area, look me up; I love visitors and cook a mean steak!”

’75 Rebecca Peace was named the Pennsyl-

vania Bar Association’s 2013 Government Lawyer of the Year. Rebecca has served as chief counsel for the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency since 1989. Tony Tito’s father, Ralph, passed away September 20, 2013. Billy Jarrett ’91 joined the private bank at Wells Fargo in Miami, Florida. He has also been elected by the Republican National Committee as committeeman of MiamiDade County. (Pictured: Billy, left, with Florida Governor Rick Scott.)

’77

Frederic “Fritz” Hammond’s son, George, died November 15, 2013. George was also the grandson of former faculty member James Hammond

’81

Karen Craig married John Ryland ’82 September 14, 2013, in Cooperstown, New York. Mercersburg School Minister Larry Jones officiated.

J.D. Koch and his wife, Barbara Lillafuredi-Koch, welcomed a son, Walter Tobias “Tobi” Koch, November 20, 2013, in Weiden in der Oberpfalz, Germany. J.D. and his family live in Grafenwoehr-Ochsenhut, Germany, where he is deputy director of the Simulations Center for the 7th Army Joint Multinational Training Command. Mark Montgomery and the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group, which he commands, were sent to the Philippines following Typhoon Haiyan as part of relief efforts by the U.S. military.

’84

Brian Wagner accepted the position of chief commercial officer at CAS Medical Systems. He previously was senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Philips Imaging Systems.

’85

Grammy-nominated music producer and songwriter Luke Ebbin has been chosen to receive the Denison University Alumni Citation. Luke has worked with Bon Jovi, Melissa Etheridge, The All-American Rejects, and will.i.am. Theodore Lichtenstein has returned from Bahrain, where he was working as the fuels officer at a U.S. Navy air base.

’87

Lucy Harrington Floyd owns her own business, Voice Maven, and is doing voiceover work and teaching improv to children and adults.

’88

John Brubaker, a performance consultant, speaker, and author, was the featured speaker at a Mercersburg school meeting in December. John, who is based in Lewiston, Maine, is author of The Coach Approach: Success Strategies from the Locker Room to the Board Room, and Seeds of Success: A Leader, His Legacy, and the Lessons Learned. Michael McGinn’s father, John, died June 21, 2013. Thomas Stauffer is the owner of Seaworthy Marine Services in Exmore, Virginia.

’90

J.J. Fabrega lives in Panama City, Panama, with his wife Mariana and their three children—9-year-old Luciana, 6-year-old Paula, and 1-year-old Julio José. J.J. is running his own consulting firm, FS Consultores S.A., specializing in business advising, public relations, and government affairs. He has also partnered with Marcelo Tenza in a branch office of SOLSEGUR to bring specialty products for the hotel industry to Panama, and serves as chairman of the board of the National Bureau of Science Technology and Innovation and the National Research System. “I have kept in touch with a number of fellow classmates from Mercersburg, mainly through email and other social networks,” J.J. says. “I do see Ruben Acoca on occasion, and we hope to make the 25th reunion in 2015.” Marty Whalen has been named to the Special Olympics Texas 2014 Board of Directors. Marty is vice president of managed care in the United States for Essilor of America.

’91

Erik Needham appeared in a story in the September 29, 2013, business section of The New York Times. The article featured an Internet service that Erik co-founded called Rabbl, which is a type of crowdfunding site that allows users to recruit favorite bands to play in one’s own town.

’92

Kimball Prentiss married Gerald Downes August 17, 2013, in Industry, Maine, near the Prentiss family homestead.

’93

Robert Hanvey is commanding officer of the Navy Operational Support Center in Greensboro, North Carolina. His command directly supports 13 reserve units and about 300 Navy reservists as well as 300 Marines and 250 Army personnel. “I never thought I would be stationed in the middle of a state instead of on the coast for a Navy job,” Robert says. “Shannon is back ‘home’ in the South, and I have much more time at

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Marriages 1. The wedding of Rachel Bumgardner ’01 and William Keith ’02, July 13, 2013, in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina (L–R): Holly Czuba ’01, Joel Bumgardner ’79 (uncle of the bride), David Posner ’02, Erich Bumgardner ’77 (father of the bride), Rachel and William, Daniel Wright ’02, Jonathan Brallier ’03.

2. Alaric Lambert ’95 married Shannon Starr September 28, 2013, in Sandestin, Florida. The couple lives in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, where Alaric is a fine-arts and commercial photographer.

3. John Mooney ’03 married Maria Quinn October 5, 2013, in Adare, Ireland. John is a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps and a graduate student at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Maria works as a sales administrator for the Vanguard Group in Philadelphia.

4. Sara Surrey ’90 married Gregory Lemkine September 21, 2013. The couple lives in Paris.

5. The wedding of Arlo Crawford ’96 and Sarah Ewick, September 21, 2013, on Spofford Lake in New Hampshire (L–R): Matthew Flaherty ’97, David Wilfert ’98, Molly Messick ’99, Janie Crawford ’00, Sarah and Arlo, Benjamin Smith ’99, Ross Smith ’96.

Karen Craig ’81 and John Ryland ’82, September 14, 2013. Kimball Prentiss ’92 and Gerald Downes, August 17, 2013. Colleen Booth ’03 and Curtis Shields, October 12, 2013. Brandy Bosta ’04 and Scott Colbert, June 2, 2012.

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25 minutes. She finished 33rd out of 200 women and is looking forward to other races.

’99

Brian Brentzel is in the process of moving back to western Pennsylvania and is working with his brother in the Marcellus and Utica shale industry with Aarcon Inc.

Bob Snyder ’97 caught up with Haven Barnes ’96 at a Seattle Seahawks/Tennessee Titans game in October. Bob and Haven both live in the Seattle area.

home. The Navy continues to treat me well, and I’ll keep with it until they kick me out or it stops being enjoyable and rewarding.”

’94

Katie Lasky and her husband, Andrew, welcomed a daughter, Sadie Raine Romero, December 24, 2013. “She’s doing great and her big sister Ella couldn’t love her more,” Katie says.

’96

Henry Jeanes IV’s father, Harry, passed away January 9, 2014.

’97

Leah Long is an assistant professor of art history at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. She is a past teacher at American British Academy (ABA),

an IB World School in Muscat, Oman, where a group of Mercersburg students traveled in December for a symposium on global water issues.

’98

Dean Hosgood is a cancer epidemiologist and faculty member at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. He has given lectures recently in Nigeria, Japan, and Thailand on his research into the environmental and genetic risk factors of cancer. Dean was honored with an award from the Princess of Thailand at the 21st Medical Sciences Annual Conference in Bangkok. He, his wife Sara, and their daughter Finnleigh continue to enjoy living in Connecticut. Abby Russell completed the Beach to Battleship Iron Triathlon in Wilmington, North Carolina, with a time of 12 hours,

Jessica Malarik has earned her architecture license and NCARB certification. She is an architect and LEED green associate at John Milner Architects, a design and historic preservation firm in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Jessica lives in the Philadelphia area with her boyfriend Greg and their yellow lab Sweet Pea. She stays in touch with several of her Mercersburg classmates and looks forward to seeing many of them this summer at their 15-year reunion. Ugonna Onyekwe completed his professional basketball career in 2011. He lives in New York City and is busy getting his real estate license and working as a marketing consultant and energy broker. Ugonna stays in regular contact with Kevin Harris ’98, Kyle Logan ’98, and Eddie Brown. Carol Powers graduated with a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Simmons College in 2012. “A bit of a shift from never taking a science class in my first undergrad and spending my 20s teaching English abroad,” she says.

Zöe Tsoukatos’ “Valentine Bar,” produced by Zöe’s Chocolates, was featured in the February 2014 issue of O: The Oprah Magazine.

’00

Kyle Higley is practicing law at Brown Rudnick LLP in Boston, where he focuses on employee benefits and executive compensation. Jeremy McGarvey married Vivian Hsu May 25, 2013, in Philadelphia. Jeremy completed a two-year post-doctoral research fellowship focusing on the surgical treatment of heart failure. Following completion of his surgical residency at the University of Pennsylvania, he will enter a clinical fellowship in cardiac surgery. Vivian is a chief resident in plastic and reconstructive surgery at Penn.

’01

Mercersburg classmates Shelane Jorgenson and Molly Malone have both successfully defended their dissertations. Shelane earned a Ph.D. in education from the University of Alberta; her dissertation was titled (De)colonizing Global Citizenship: A Case Study of North American Study Abroad Programs in Ghana. Molly’s Ph.D. is in anthropology from the University of British Columbia. Her dissertation was titled Where the Water Meets the Land: Between Culture and History in Upper Skagit Aboriginal Territory.

Births/Adoptions

Mercersbu rg magazi n e spri ng 2014

’03

Colleen Booth married Curtis Shields October 12, 2013, in Galveston, Texas. Colleen’s father is Ken Booth ’63.

’04 Carlos Campos works for the Navy in

the Washington, D.C., area.

’05

Ethan Cline serves in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves; he has one combat deployment and will have completed six years in the Marines as of June 2014. Ethan lives south of Pittsburgh, where he works for Washington County Juvenile Probation in Washington, Pennsylvania. He has developed a program called SPEAR that gives troubled youth direction by preparing them physically and academically to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (or ASVAB) and join the military. “Among other things, juveniles in my program learn leadership, integrity, and hard work,” Ethan says.

Jeff Greenberg is an investment strategy economist with J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Tammy McBeth Armstrong has been accepted into the master of science in analytics program at North Carolina State University and will begin coursework in June as a member of the Class of 2015. She would love to connect with any alumni in the Raleigh area.

’06

Félix Alonso-Valenteen writes, “It’s incredible to think that it’s almost been a decade since I left campus, but however incredible, there is much to update you all on. After graduation, I went to Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia where I entered a pre-medical track in biology from which I earned my degree in 2010. I had a hard time deciding whether I should go on with science or medicine, so after graduation I found the happiest medium possible. I am currently working on the third year of my Ph.D. dissertation in biomedical sciences and translation medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. (Yes, this is the same hospital where the Hollywood stars get their help. No, I can’t provide autographs.) My research focuses on novel breast cancer therapeutics; I develop and test new nanoparticles to specifically target cancer cells and exclude healthy tissues. Stay true to yourself Mercersburg Academy: integritas, virilitas, and fidelitas always.” Vincent Rey recorded 57 tackles, four sacks, and two interceptions for the Cincinnati Bengals in 2013. Vinny played in all 17 games for the AFC North-champion Bengals and made three starts at middle linebacker, including a stellar performance against the Baltimore Ravens in November when he had 15

1. Cecilia Jane Matthias, daughter of Emily Kenzik Matthias ’99 and her husband, Colin, born October 28, 2013.

2. Nancy Gray, daughter of Gray McDermid ’01

4 To Jennifer Sadula deVore ’91 and her husband, Peter: a daughter, Norah, September 3, 2013. To Katie Lasky ’94 and her husband, Andrew: a daughter, Sadie Raine Romero, December 24, 2013. To Andrew Bramhall ’97 and his wife, Kate: a daughter, Sloane Lettie, January 15, 2014. To Eric Kass ’99 and his wife, Barri: a daughter, Sarah Rachel, December 5, 2013. To Irene Papoutsis Mulkerin ’99 and her husband, Andy: a son, Andrew Philip, January 28, 2014. To faculty member Michael Conklin and his wife, Cally: a daughter, Elise Maryann, November 19, 2013.

and his wife, Elizabeth, born October 19, 2013.

3. Walter Tobias “Tobi” Koch, son of J.D. Koch ’81 and his wife, Barbara Lillafuredi-Koch, born November 20, 2013.

4. Per Teigelack ’01 and his partner, Laura Schwarzien, welcomed a son, Matti, August 31, 2013. Per is a doctor and psychotherapist in Essen, Germany.

5. Flynn Corson ’99 with his three children: son Kelly Flynn, daughter Maeve Ailish, and daughter Imogen Poppy (born to Flynn and his wife Kate October 14, 2013).

6. Amelia Jane, daughter of Andy Shirk ’00 and his wife, Kathleen, born December 3, 2012.

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(L–R): Bobby Burg ’11, Mark Meloro ’13, and Brittany Burg ’13 at the Navy/Pittsburgh football game in October. Emily Bays ’10 and Josh Muller ’10 are engaged; a June 2014 wedding is planned. Both are scheduled to earn their bachelor’s degrees in May—Emily will graduate from the University of Arkansas with a degree in biology and will begin work this fall on a doctorate of dental surgery at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, while Josh will graduate from Rhodes College with a degree in English literature and a minor in Chinese language. Josh will pursue a career in teaching.

tackles, three sacks, and an interception. He was also the Bengals’ specialteams captain and scored his first NFL touchdown on a 25-yard interception return in the Bengals’ 42–17 win over the Minnesota Vikings in December. Chet Tippen finished his time in the Coast Guard and is working as a personal trainer at Anytime Fitness in Thurmont, Maryland. He is looking to go back to school to pursue a degree in nutrition or dietetics.

’07

Adam Fehn’s mother, Lucretia, passed away September 30, 2013. Chuck Roberts was one of two American representatives at the First International Model UN Security Council Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, in October. The conference, sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme and the government of Azerbaijan, brought together 45 representatives from current Security Council countries to simulate deliberation by the Council on the topic of cybersecurity. Chuck was president of Model UN during his time at Mercersburg and head delegate of Columbia University’s Model UN team in college.

’08

Chris McClintick is managing communications for U.S. Squash.

’09

Mariah Blake is working with KEYS Service Corps, a Pittsburgh-based branch of AmeriCorps. She serves as

While completing an English-Speaking Union exchange year at The Royal School in Haslemere, England, Emma Cranston ’13 met actor Hugh Bonneville, who plays Lord Grantham in the hit television series Downton Abbey. Emma will enroll at Duquesne University in the fall.

’12

Bucknell University students Collin Greene ’11, Jennifer Nelson ’13, Phoebe Moore ’13, Lane deCordova ’12, Chandler Steiger ’13, Fatima Rezaei ’13, and Sasha Karbach ’12 at the beginning of the fall semester.

a classroom aide at Urban Pathways Charter School in Pittsburgh, working with math students in grades 3–5 and helping to organize service-learning projects. Mariah graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in spring 2013; she is also an assistant coach for the Pitt Rowing Club. Curtis Feigt of West Virginia University wrapped up his college-football career by playing in the Medal of Honor Bowl, a postseason all-star game featuring 92 seniors from across the country. Curtis played in 31 career games (starting 19) for the Mountaineers, and started all 12 contests in 2013 at offensive tackle en route to honorable-mention All-Big 12 Conference honors. He has signed a free-agent contract with the Cincinnati Bengals. Lena Finucane completed a five-week medical internship in Sri Lanka with Projects Abroad.

’10

A.J. Firestone completed his senior year as a punter for the Wagner College football team, and earned first-team All-Northeast Conference honors after averaging 41.9 yards per kick. He was also named Wagner’s Men’s Student Athlete of the Month for November 2013. Brookke Mahaffey is finishing her final semester at Waynesburg University, where she is studying athletic training. She plans to apply to graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh and Old Dominion University.

Jae Nam received a prestigious Frederick Emmons Terman Engineering Scholastic Award as one of the top 5 percent of engineers at Stanford University. Jae, a computer science major, graduated from Stanford in January 2014 (a halfyear ahead of schedule) and now works for Palantir Technologies in Palo Alto, California. John Henry Reilly has been accepted into Teach for America as a math teacher in Baltimore and has been named an Amgen Fellow as one of the top 100 science, math, and engineering corps members selected this year. A season after shattering the NCAA basketball single-game scoring record (138 points), Jack Taylor scored 109 points for Division III Grinnell College in a 173–123 win over Crossroads College in November 2013.

’11

Bailey Blake and Christian Binford are engaged. Bailey is a junior at Penn State University and Christian is a fast-rising pitching prospect in the Kansas City Royals’ minor-league system. Peter Flanagan is spending the spring semester studying in Budapest, Hungary. Troy Nwanna is a junior at the Sage Colleges in New York, where he is playing basketball and majoring in business. His future plans include graduate school.

Aric DiLalla is a journalism major at Northwestern University and is managing editor for Rivals’ WildcatReport. com, which is part of the Yahoo Sports network.

Alfred Hylton-Dei started 21 of 22 games this season for Dickinson College’s men’s soccer team, helping the Red Devils to a 15–6–1 record and a berth in the NCAA Division III men’s soccer tournament, where they defeated Susquehanna University (which features Alfred’s Mercersburg teammate Augusto Lima) before falling in the second round to Franklin & Marshall College.

Faculty

Wells Gray, who has taught at Mercersburg since 1999 and is head of the fine-arts department, is one of four high-school educators selected to author an AP Art History Teacher Planning Guide. He continues to be active in the reading of the AP Art History exam each year, and contributes questions for use on future exams. Wells also serves on the advisory panel for Artstor Digital Library, providing feedback on the quality of content and context of visual images in the database. The Anecdote of a Citizen, a poem by Associate Academic Dean Matthew Kearney published in the Fall 2013 issue of Tule Review, has been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. It is Matthew’s third poem to be nominated for the prize.

Former Faculty

John Thorsen has been named headmaster at Athens Academy, a private day school in Athens, Georgia. John’s appointment is effective July 1, 2014; he was Mercersburg’s director of advancement programs from 1999 to 2002 and is married to fellow former faculty member and Mercersburg alumna Laura Morsman Thorsen ’87.

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Obituaries ’37

James I. Maguire, November 27, 2013. (Keil, Marshall, Stony Batter) James graduated from Princeton University. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and the Korean War, retiring as a lieutenant commander. James worked in purchasing for Alpha Portland Cement for more than two decades and later took a job with Mobay Chemical Company. After retiring, he spearheaded a small business administration retraining program based at Washington & Jefferson College. James was preceded in death by his wife, Betty, and a daughter. Survivors include two sons and two daughters, six grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

’40

a daughter and brother; three grandchildren, a great-grandchild, three step-children, and four step-grandchildren; and two nephews.

’42

Paul R. Hoskins, September 14, 2013. (Marshall, Glee Club, track & field) Paul graduated from West Virginia University and the University of Pittsburgh School of Dentistry. He served two years in the Air Force as a dentist and practiced dentistry in Fort Pierce, Florida, for 42 years. Paul was preceded in death by a son and a sister. Survivors include his wife, Jean; a son; and two granddaughters.

George C. Urschel Jr., January 31, 2012. (Irving, football, track & field) George attended Cornell University and piloted B-17s in bombing raids over Austria, Italy, and Germany during World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. He was chairman of the board of Woodville Lime and Chemical Company and president of Honker Company. George was preceded in death by a sister. He is survived by his wife, Harriet Figley; three children; three grandchildren, two stepgrandchildren, and five great-grandchildren; and a brother and sister.

Robert M. Mills, December 27, 2013. (Marshall) Bob served in the Army as a second lieutenant. After his discharge from the Air Corps, he enrolled at Allegheny College. Bob worked for the national tube division of U.S. Steel. He was preceded in death by his wife, Dorothy Frances Fiedler Mills, a son, and a brother. Survivors include a son, a daughter, a nephew, and two nieces.

’41

Arthur H. Selby Jr., December 31, 2011. (Main/Laucks, Irving, Camera Club, Laucks Hall Council, Les Copains, Stamp Club, Laticlavii, News Board, tennis, wrestling, KARUX editor-in-chief) Arthur graduated from Princeton University and had worked in accounting for ECCO Services. He lived in Howard Beach, New York.

Medary A. Prentiss Jr., February 5, 2014. (Main, Irving, baseball, football, swimming) Dary, the son of the late Medary Prentiss (1914) and brother of the late George Prentiss ’39, enlisted in the Army Air Corps after graduating from Mercersburg. He served in World War II as a tail gunner for B-29 bombers. After the war ended, he earned a degree in agriculture from the University of Maine. He married the former Marcia Devers in 1950 and farmed and lumbered at the family farm in Industry, Maine. After his first wife’s death, Dary met and then married Ann McNeil in 1979; he also taught chemistry at Farmington High School for more than two decades and served as a selectman for the town of Industry. In addition to his wife, survivors include two sons (Mark and Dary III) and three grandsons; a nephew, Board of Regents member John Prentiss ’65; and a great-nephew (Ames Prentiss ’89) and greatniece (Kimball Prentiss ’92).

Robert G. Xides, September 11, 2013. (Marshall) Robert was an Army veteran of World War II, serving as a B-24 tailgunner. He studied hotel administration at Cornell University and was the manager of the former STAR Restaurant and the national accounts manager for Jack Daniel Distillery. Survivors include his wife, Sidney McCandless;

John M. Sweet, September 11, 2013. (football, basketball) John served in the Marine Corps during World War II and was elected to the Alaska State House of Representatives in the 1960s. During his career as a geologist with Atlantic Richfield Company, he was actively involved in the discovery of oil in Alaska. John is survived

Charles F. Franke, November 16, 2012. (Marshall) Charles served in the Army and attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University. He spent his career at the Pentagon, serving as a civilian manager in the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Installations and Logistics. Charles was preceded in death by his wife, Mary Ellen St. John. Survivors include three daughters, a son, and three granddaughters.

’43

Mercersbu rg magazi n e spri ng 2014

by his wife, Mirabel; two daughters and four sons; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

’44

Richard J. Dorfman, September 20, 2012. (Main, Marshall, wrestling, track & field) Richard served in the U.S. military in the South Pacific during World War II. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Muhlenberg College and his master’s degree from Lehigh University. He was chair of the English department at Dieruff High School in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and later worked as an adjunct professor at Hofstra University and as an English teacher at South Side High School in Great Neck, New York. Survivors include a daughter. Justus H. Livingston III, December 14, 2013. (’Eighty-eight, Marshall, Glee Club, basketball) “Jup” was an Army veteran of World War II and served in the Pacific theatre. Following the war, he graduated from Union College. He owned and operated Protection Service Insurance Company in Bridgeton, New Jersey, retiring in 1995. Jup was preceded in death by his wife, Sarah Fithian Livingston, and two alumni cousins, Jesse Carll ’37 and Everett Carll ’39. Among his survivors are three daughters (including Sallie Livingston ’82), a brother-in-law (Herbert Fithian ’43), and partner, Claire Mecouch. William H. Stotz, November 18, 2012. (South Cottage, Irving, Concert Band, Blue and White Melodians, Radio Club, choir) Bill graduated from the University of Michigan and worked as an engineer for the Bendix Corporation. He lived in Lutherville, Maryland. Bill was preceded in death by his wife, Doris. Survivors include two sons and three grandchildren.

’46

Donald K. Isburgh, October 25, 2013. (’Eighty-eight, Marshall, Choir, librarian, News Board, Projection Crew, Camera Club, wrestling) Don attended the University of Maryland and Eaton & Burnett Business College. He worked for A.L. Watson of New York City, Hudson Coal Company, Crean Bros., and Amsterdam Coal & Oil Company (the last of which he served as president). Survivors include his wife, Mary Frances Kinsman; two sons and three grandchildren; and a half-sister. George W. Seymour Jr., October 16, 2008. (South Cottage, Irving, swimming, soccer, track & field) George was a veteran of the U.S. military and lived in Mays Landing, New Jersey. He was preceded in death by a son and survived by his wife (Lillian), a brother, a sister, and numerous nieces and nephews. William D. Sites, September 7, 2013. (South Cottage, Marshall, Caducean Club, football, track & field) Bill served in the Army and graduated from Hampden-Sydney College. He was an independent insurance agent and Realtor for more than 35 years, operating C.W. Green Inc. Survivors include his wife, Jeanette Abdoney Sites; a daughter and two sons; three grandchildren; and a sister and brother.

’48

John R. Roney, September 22, 2013. (Marshall, El Circulo Español, wrestling) John served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and farmed for 45 years in Clear Spring, Maryland. He was preceded in death by a brother, William Roney ’43. John is survived by his wife, Lucille Geiselman Roney; two daughters and a son; and three grandchildren.

Walter S. Spragg II, August 28, 2013. (South Cottage, Irving, News Board, Chemistry Club, Stamp Club, Projection Crew, Varsity Club, soccer, wrestling, baseball) Sandy graduated from Bucknell University and Dickinson College. He practiced law and was involved in other businesses, including Donora Lumber Company. He was preceded in death by his wife (Alice Hammond Spragg) and a brother (Addison Spragg ’45). Survivors include a son (W. Scott Spragg III ’82), a daughter, and six grandchildren.

’49

Albert H. Allen, October 13, 2013. (Main, Irving, Press Club, Lit Board, Les Copains, Stamp Club, soccer, tennis, track) Albert was a member of the Army’s 82nd Airborne and served during the Korean War, completing 29 jumps. He graduated from Lehigh University and received master’s degrees from New York University and the State University of New York at Albany. After 38 years of service, he retired from IBM, where he was a database research librarian. Albert was preceded in death by a daughter. Survivors include his wife, Frieda; a son; and a sister. Donald C. Jacobs, December 27, 2013. (Marshall, football) Don received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Princeton University and served in the military during the Korean War. He worked as a sales engineer for ALCOA Aluminum for 30 years and later served as owner and CEO of Houlton Enterprises, a family business he established in the early 1980s. Don was preceded in death by his first wife, Jacqueline Jean Jacobs. Survivors include his wife of 26 years, Barbara Anne Jacobs; five daughters and two sons; 19 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. Robert H. Keeton, September 15, 2012. (’Eighty-eight, Irving, swimming, baseball, Chess Club, Gun Club) Robert worked for General Tire for 24 years and lived in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. He is survived by his wife, Mary; a son; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. William W. Watkins Jr., December 2, 2013. (’Eighty-eight, Irving, KARUX editor-in-chief, Press Club, Fifteen, Rauchrunde, Chemistry Club, Concert Band, YMCA Cabinet, Dance Committee, Chess Club, Projection Crew, tennis, Cum Laude, Honor Oration, Stony Batter) Bill attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating from the Wharton School with a minor in engineering. He served in the Army for 26 years, earning the rank of colonel and completing a master’s degree in industrial administration from Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management. He also worked for 12 years in the private sector with defense-oriented firms. Bill is survived by a daughter and son. Walter L. Winterbottom, December 9, 2013. (Marshall, football) Walt served in the Marines in Korea and graduated from Drexel University and Carnegie Mellon University, studying metallurgical engineering. He joined Ford Motor Company’s scientific research lab in Dearborn, Michigan, where he worked from 1962 to 1995. He also served as an adjunct professor at Union University in the College of Engineering. Walt was preceded in death by his first wife, Joan Fiero Barr. Survivors include his wife, Jean; eight children; several grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and a brother (David Winterbottom ’57) and a sister.

Mercersbu rg magazi n e spri ng 2014

’50

B. Rodney Anderson, November 5, 2012. (South Cottage, Irving, News Board, Choir, Glee Club, Concert Band, Blue and White Melodians, Stamp Club, track & field, entertainment usher) Rod graduated from Carnegie Mellon University and served as a pilot in the Navy. He was president and owner of Permanent Sign and Display Inc. Survivors include his wife, Yvonne Manning Anderson; two sons and a daughter; two stepsons; seven grandchildren; and a sister. J. Edward Prickett, December 25, 2013. (’Eighty-eight, Irving, The Fifteen, Choir, Blue and White Melodians, Chess Club) Ed earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Cornell University and served in the Air Force for two years. He worked for more than 45 years at Modjeski and Masters in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, retiring in 2003. Ed is survived by his wife, Roberta “Bobbie” Hufnagel Prickett; three sons and a daughter; eight grandchildren and a great-grandson; a brother, Percy Prickett ’52; and several nieces and nephews.

’51

Walter J. Carl Jr., January 14, 2014. (South Cottage, Irving, Cum Laude, Laticlavii, Chemistry Club, Choir, Glee Club, Blue and White Melodians, Assembly Orchestra, Stony Batter, Jurisprudence Society, soccer, wrestling, tennis) Walter graduated from Hamilton College and worked in naval intelligence while on active duty with the Navy. He made a career in sales and also ran J.S. Hubbs Bed & Breakfast and owned Park View Wines & Spirits. Survivors include his wife, Linda; a son and daughter; a brother, Charles Carl ’53; three grandchildren; and a great-nephew (Andrew Carl ’06) and a great-niece (Emily Carl ’08). Gary F. Greer, September 13, 2013. (Main, Marshall, El Circulo Español, Chemistry Club, Glee Club, Caducean Club, swimming) Gary earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pittsburgh and a dental degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Dentistry. He practiced dentistry for almost 50 years, retiring in 2010. He was preceded in death by his wife, Marilynne Barnes Greer. Survivors include a daughter, a stepdaughter and a stepson, and three grandchildren. Robert Moos, July 18, 2010. (Laucks, Irving, Rauchrunde, Les Copains, International Club, Varsity Club, soccer, tennis) Robert lived in Annecy, France, where he served as president of the synagogue there for more than 30 years.

’54

Christopher W. Covert, December 7, 2013. (Irving, Les Copains) Chris graduated from Hamilton College and Case Western Reserve University. He served in the Navy and spent a career in education as dean of admission at Hamilton College, as assistant headmaster at Providence Country Day School, and as an independent educational consultant. He is survived by his wife, Catherine; two daughters and three sons; and 11 grandchildren.

’56

R. King Rainier, October 26, 2013. (Main, Irving, News Board, KARUX Board, Laticlavii, Chess Club) King graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University and earned a master’s degree from the University of

Michigan. He was a stockbroker and retired as CEO of Beaconsfield Financial Services, which he founded. King was preceded in death by a sister and brother. Survivors include his wife, Betty; two sons and a daughter; and four grandchildren. Thomas C. Williams, February 6, 2014. (South, Irving, basketball, track & field, cross country) Tom graduated from Washington and Lee University; he then completed the Navy’s officer candidate school at Newport, Rhode Island, and was commissioned as an ensign. He served in the Pacific aboard a nuclear-armed missile destroyer and retired with the rank of lieutenant. Tom taught German at W&L for a year before earning a J.D. from the University of Virginia. He worked as a lawyer in Europe, South America, and Africa before joining Lehman Brothers as an investment banker in London and New York. He later worked for Lazard Freres in New York and Paris. Survivors include a daughter and a son as well as three brothers (including Stuart Williams ’54).

’57

Gordon L. Harrison, August 30, 2013. (Main, Marshall, Stony Batter, Christian Service Group, Gun Club, El Circulo Español, Press Club) Gordon graduated from Coe College and ran the Alliance Hardware Company from 1962 to 1999. Survivors include his wife, Lucy Armstrong Harrison; four daughters and a son; six grandchildren; and two brothers (including Barry Harrison ’50).

’58

James T. Arbuckle, May 27, 2013. (’Eighty-eight, Marshall, Student Council, Gun Club, Les Copains, choir, Glee Club, Varsity Club, soccer, swimming) Jimmy, whose late father (Wesley Arbuckle Jr. ’32) and late brother (Wesley Arbuckle III ’69) also attended Mercersburg, earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Miami University and served as a corpsman in the Navy. Survivors include four daughters and five grandchildren.

Turner A. Duncan Jr., September 22, 2013. (South Cottage, Marshall, Senate, Student Council, Class Day Committee, YMCA Cabinet, Dance Committee, Caducean Club, Les Copains, Press Club, Choir, Glee Club, Varsity Club, soccer) Turner attended Cornell University and graduated from Auburn University. He was a principal of the interior design firm Duncan Miller Ullmann. Turner was preceded in death by a son. He is survived by his wife, Kimberley, three children, several grandchildren, and a brother and sister. Jon F. Holder, May 12, 2012. (Irving) Jon earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire. After working as a teacher and social worker in Maine, he attended the Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C., and graduated from the University of Maine School of Law. He and his wife, Kathleen, started their own practice, specializing in disability law for more than 30 years. In addition to his wife, Jon is survived by two daughters, two brothers and a sister, and his mother.

’59

Emory W. “Sonny” Parsons Jr., January 30, 2014. (Main, Marshall, Christian Service Group, Gun Club, Caducean Club, El Circulo Español, football) Sonny graduated from Juniata College and the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Sciences. In 1975, Sonny and

Mercersbu rg magazi n e spri ng 2014

business partner Anthony Colangelo purchased Jack McLaughlin’s Drug Store in downtown Mercersburg following the death of McLaughlin, a 1924 Academy graduate. The store and its sister location in St. Thomas eventually became known as Modnur Pharmacy; a third location in McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania, continues to operate as McLaughlin’s. Sonny was also chairman of the board of directors at Community State Bank of Orbisonia, Pennsylvania (his hometown), and chaired the finance committee at First United Methodist Church in Mercersburg. Survivors include his wife of 49 years, Carol Nelson Parsons; daughters Jessica Parsons Tice, Kathryn Parsons Scott, and Mercersburg faculty member Emily Howley; sons Andrew and Michael; eight grandchildren, including Harper Tice ’16; and niece Becky Barlow Rounce ’89.

’61

John F. Tims, January 9, 2013. (Irving, swimming, Chapel usher) John attended the University of Cincinnati and lived in Lewisville, Idaho. Survivors include his wife, Linda.

’62

Charles Bidelspacher III, October 27, 2013. (Tippetts, Irving, Student Council, Chapel usher, Kazaki, Chess Club, Jurisprudence Society, Gun Club, football, wrestling) Charles graduated from Denison University and attended law school at American University before enlisting in the Navy. He was preceded in death by two sons and a grandson. Survivors include a daughter, three sons, six grandchildren, a sister, and his twin brother (Robert Bidelspacher ’62). David M. Van Horn, December 12, 2013. (Main, Irving, Varsity Club, wrestling, cheerleader, Stamp Club) Dave graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara and earned a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He was an archeologist and lived in Castine, Maine.

’66

Robert W. Garner III, August 12, 2013. (Irving, Orientation Committee, Classics Club, Spanish Club, Boys’ Club, baseball, Political Science Club) Robert graduated from Duke University and lived in Rougemont, North Carolina.

’68

Richard E. Keefer, December 3, 2013. (Irving, French Club, football, basketball) Richard graduated from Pennsylvania State University and Mount St. Mary’s University. He was a financial officer for Waynesboro Hospital and Western Maryland Hospital Center, and retired as chief operating officer of Deer’s Head Hospital Center in Salisbury, Maryland. Survivors include his wife, Jan; a son, Scottland Keefer ’04; and a brother, Jere Keefer ’65.

Stephen R. Staub, November 13, 2012. (Marshall, salutatorian, prefect, Octet, The Fifteen, track & field, soccer, Ski Club) Steve owned and operated Staub Forestry & Environmental Consulting and was a forester for the Del Monte Forest Conservancy. He lived in Santa

Cruz, California, and passed away from mesothelioma. Memorials for a cure can be made to the Mesothelioma Applied Research Foundation. Survivors include his wife, Debbie.

’71

David U. Greevy, October 24, 2013. (Marshall, Jurisprudence Society, Political Science Club, WMER, KARUX, Lit, News, Stony Batter) “Dug” graduated from Dickinson College and attended the Dickinson School of Law. He worked for the Federal Election Commission in Washington, D.C., the National Technical Information Service of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Dug was preceded in death by his wife, Margaret “Peggy” Sims. Survivors include a son, two brothers, and a sister.

’92

Tarek A. Tannous, June 12, 2005. (Main, Marshall, soccer, International Club, prefect) Tarek graduated from Gettysburg College and earned a master’s degree in philosophy from West Chester University. He worked as a reporter in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and for the City Newspaper of Rochester, New York. Survivors include his wife, Jana Wintish Tannous; his mother; and a brother.

Former Faculty

W. Michael Greaney, October 19, 2013. Michael taught physics at Mercersburg during the 1963–1964 academic year, and also taught at several other schools in Pennsylvania. He lived in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania.

Robert S. Magruder, January 11, 2014. Robert, who was a greatgreat-great grandson of the lexicographer Noah Webster, graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Before joining the Mercersburg faculty in 1967, he served in the Army and worked as a technical editor at the Library of Congress and for the U.S. Information Agency at two exhibits in the Soviet Union. He taught French and Russian at Mercersburg until 1973, and lived in South Tamworth, New Hampshire.

Mercersbu rg magazi n e spri ng 2014

All together. An egalitarian spirit, sense of place, and relationships that stand the test of time continue to define our community of learning. Make a place at the table through Daring to Lead.

www.mercersburg.edu/daringtolead

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