Bulletin - Spring 2018

Spring 2018

BULLETIN

Can you see the drone?

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

This photo by Tony Zhang ’19, titled “Waves,” was named to the 2017 High School Photo Contest Top 100 Gallery by the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT).

Zhang’s photo and another by Phil Liu ’19 titled “Illusion City,” (bottom right) were selected from more than 1,000 images submitted by high school students from around the world. View the full gallery at www.Gunnery.org/aapt.

BULLETIN

Spring 2018 2 Message from the

Head of School 4 In Celebration of Young Women 8 IDEAS Program 16 Speaker Series 20 Campus Life 26 The Arts 30 Athletics 39 School Store 40 Alumni Association 41 Off-Campus Events 42 Founders Society Dinner 44 Highlander Journeys 52 Class Notes

SPRING 2018

On the cover: Riley Pengue ’19 and Margaux Barthelemy ’21 building the school’s first robot in the IDEAS Center.

1

FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL

Our character develops as we respond to ideas that challenge our assumptions.

Do we respond with respect and compassion even if we don’t change our position?

Are we willing to change our mind? Do we have the courage of our convictions?

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Dear Gunnery Community,

2

Our school’s 40th anniversary of coeducation offers all of us an opportunity to reflect on the institution’s journey over four decades. Although cliché and a contradiction in terms, we are today similar to the school of 1978, and vastly different. It is important to note that from the outset, Frederick Gunn welcomed girls as well as boys to his school, a practice that continued until 1922. The partnership between our school and nearby Wykeham Rise in the 1960s signaled a willingness to once again open our doors to girls, to some degree, based on the sense that boys needed the “civilizing” influence of girls in a boarding school culture. Eventually, and fortunately, like most boarding schools at the time, The Gunnery chose to formally, once again, admit girls in September 1977, not out of a deep sense of purpose but, rather, out of competitive and economic necessity.

Therefore, like most of its peer schools, The Gunnery’s culture adjusted slowly and not entirely intentionally once young women arrived on campus. (That is no more a criticism than I hope people writing about today’s school in the year 2058 will

level about various things we take for granted in 2018!) Gradually, the culture became more intentional on this point, as on others, and open to questions about why we structure life on campus the way we do given our mission and principles.

Over time, small and large parts of our culture shifted as the school connected the “why”— our mission and purpose — with the “what”— the shape of campus life. An ever-popular topic on campus, for example, has been and remains the dress code. What is the right dress code for a coeducational boarding school with our mission? (Have at it!) When we built Graham House in 2016, we were faced with questions, the answers to which would take the shape of brick and mortar, harder to change than a dress code.

Prior to this, we were challenged by moving girls into spaces formerly occupied only by boys. Now the question became: what shape should the first major building project designed specifically for girls take? The result is a beautiful new dormitory, one that fits into the campus and is designed to house students and faculty, regardless of gender. We still need to bring the same attention

S. Perakos ’69 Arts and Community Center. From its inception, this project — including the building itself, the creation of the quad in front of the dining hall, and relocating parking out of the center of campus — grew out of a long-term vision of what we hope campus will look like 20 years from now. Our plan calls for the east side of campus to be dedicated to athletics while all other aspects of school life are moved to the west side of campus. As a result, we are seeking to create a more integrated community whereby students and faculty do not need to cross a state road for School Meeting and arts classes, and at the same time, we will have a theater and visual and performing arts spaces that are on par with, or better than, our peers. All of these improvements reflect a campus plan that highlights our hillside’s natural beauty.

Moreover, both because we are Mr. Gunn’s school and care about the environment that informed so much of his life and teaching, and because we are pragmatic and cost-conscious over the long term, the building has been designed to minimize its energy use and derive as much energy as possible from renewable sources. These are investments that will pay for themselves within a decade, a short amount of time given the building’s life expectancy. And, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor, the building will be the first LEED-certified structure on campus.

As we endeavor to build a culture of philanthropy around the school, we hope to provide more opportunities for alumni, parents and friends of The Gunnery to match their passions, interests and generosity in a similar way with our strategic priorities for the future.

These are just a few of the exciting examples of what it looks like to try to connect, intentionally, our mission (our “why”) with the shape of life on campus (our “what”) in 2018. We hope that, 40 years from now, future generations of students, parents and alumni will be grateful for the decisions we make, humbly and with the best of intentions, even as we know that they will also laugh at or scratch their heads about others.

As always, thank you for your engagement with and support of the school. And if you haven’t done so in a while, please plan to visit campus soon and see all of this in person.

With best wishes,

Peter Becker Head of School

SPRING 2018

to other spaces, for example our athletic facilities, as we did with Graham House. We remain, like all institutions, a work-inprogress, constantly evolving.

Gunn’s vision of “an ideal school... composed equally of boys and girls” is being fulfilled today through many exciting opportunities intended to appeal to students based on their interests, not their gender. Alumni from the Class of 1978 who visit our campus today will find, I hope, that Gunnery girls are quite comfortable in all endeavors, from building a robot in the IDEAS lab, to sitting in front of a fire pit with friends on a cold January night, working out in the fitness center, or competing on the ice at Linen Rink. They fearlessly pursue a variety of classes, programs, sports and activities, just as girls did when they arrived at The Gunnery 40 years ago.

Our commitment today is to evolve, as intentionally as possible, our place and our programs. While that might sound obvious, it actually takes a lot of hard work. But the evidence around campus that we are doing so is plentiful and exciting.

For example, I invite you to learn more about the revamped Speaker Series, led now by Melissa Schomers, holder of the Wallace Rowe Chair and a member of the English faculty. Melissa is linking an impressive lineup of guest speakers with the themes we are pursuing across the school about the relationship between culture, learning, and the impact of technology. She addressed these themes at a School Meeting in the fall, noting that we as a society are being bombarded by information from many different sources, friends, teachers, parents, the media and the digital realm, and all are presenting us with “competing ideas, competing morals and competing ethics.” Not only do we have to process and learn from all of that information, but we confront these competing ideas through the lens of our personal morals and ethics. Our character develops as we respond to ideas that challenge our assumptions. Do we respond with respect and compassion even if we don’t change our position? Are we willing to change our mind?

Do we have the courage of our convictions?

Others areas in which innovation and our “evolution” are evidenced include the new IDEAS program (see page 8), the LEADS program and our Outdoor Program. These initiatives are informed by overarching goals we have for all Gunnery students, and almost serve as labs from which we can learn as theory meets practice. These are just a few programmatic examples. There are many more.

A more concrete example of connecting the “why” with the “what” is the design, planning and construction of The Thomas

3

In Celebration of Young Women

40 19782018 years

A view of a dorm room in Bourne in the 1970s

As we celebrate 40 years of coeducation in 2018, we contemplate many prominent civic issues: The continued paucity of female CEOs of large companies, the Women’s March, the gender gap in pay and law, and the sexual abuse and harassment scandals. Frederick Gunn could not possibly T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

have foreseen the twists and turns the social contract between men and women

4

would take in the 21st century when he defied social norms to include girls in his school in 1850. Yet his educational philosophy of fostering character, respect and responsibility in an educational community lends itself to dealing with the foremost topics and issues of our day as it did in his.

David Kern H’79 greeting students in Bourne, the first dormitory for girls

Students studying on senior rock in 1978

The Gunnery was coed from 1850 until 1921 when Stella West, Class of 1921, daughter of Joseph West and Evelyn Kingman West (both from the Class of 1893), was the last female graduate until the Class of 1978 graduated nine girls 57 years later.

SPRING 2018

In a speech to a teachers’ convention in 1877, Gunn said, “I have in my mind an ideal of a school. (You will pardon me; I was asked to speak of confidence between boys and their teacher, but, properly speaking, an ideal school should be composed equally of boys and girls.)” Indeed, The Gunnery was coed from 1850 until 1921 when Stella West, Class of 1921, daughter of Joseph West and Evelyn Kingman West (both from the Class of 1893), was the last female graduate until the Class of 1978 graduated nine girls 57 years later.

When Wykeham Rise, a girls-only school, opened in Washington in 1902, The Gunnery boys were happy to build a social calendar with joint receptions and dances. It wasn’t until 1964 that a more formal sharing of facilities and classes was contemplated and a period of coordination ensued. In 1965, a few of the Wykeham girls started attending Rod Beebe’s math classes.

By 1976, most of the visual and performing arts and language classes were held on the Wykeham campus and most of the athletic co-curriculars, math, English, science, and history classes were held on The Gunnery’s campus. Buses ran between the campuses every two periods carrying faculty and students.

Unfortunately, the missions of the two schools did not mesh easily. Wykeham Rise had been founded with an emphasis on fostering excellence in the arts and taking advantage of the artistic resources of nearby New York. The Gunnery had built its curriculum, facilities and faculty base on fostering college-ready, civic-minded students. In 1922, the school was purchased by a group of alumni acting as trustees, who converted the institution into an all-boys school, in keeping with the prevalent practice of independent schools at the time. The administrations and faculty

5

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Ron Whittle P’80 teaching a coed history class in 1976

6

in the two communities had difficulty solving the inevitable problems of equitable division of logistics, facilities, finances and human resources. By 1976, it was clear that a radical adjustment was necessary. While encouraging Wykeham students to apply, The Gunnery was determined to welcome girls as an independent, coed institution in the fall of 1977.

In addition to a full curriculum, nine new sports were offered: field hockey, crew, cross country, basketball, volleyball, softball, golf, tennis, and Outdoor Club. To prepare for them, Kris Collum ’69 undertook the renovation of the Bourne dorm for female occupation, creating a common room and altering the bathrooms. Nancy Sklavos was hired to initiate an arts program to take the place of the arts classes previously based at Wykeham.

Brinsmade was refurbished to provide a visual and performing arts area and a student center. Gus Kellogg ’52 supervised the installation of girls’ dressing rooms and facilities at Memorial Gym.

The first admission of girls in fall 1977 numbered 43, compared to 147 boys; there were nine senior girls. Nicki Lazare McDonald ’78 was named the first female prefect and Andrea Wells ’78 was named class valedictorian. One year behind them was Ann Watson Lipham ’79, who attended Wykeham Rise her first year and then transferred to The Gunnery. She knew the school, having spent time at The Gunnery on weekends. “From the first year in the classroom, I never felt like a girl. I was just a student, even though it was a change for me having been in girls schools since kindergarten,” Lipham said. “We were certainly given every opportunity. I also felt like a minor celebrity because I had come from Wykeham with, I believe, five or so other girls and we knew the system.”

After the first decade of reintroduced coeducation, faculty

member Robert Birch summed up the results of an impact study in 1989: It pointed to the increase in female administrators and faculty and a gender-blind approach to the curriculum and athletics as strengths. Birch, however, pointed out “…it is suggested that, while the traditional competitive style of learning that studies show males prefer is the rule in the middle grades, the more collaborative learning style women prefer was the norm for the 9th and 12th.” Girls tended to excel in their freshman and senior years while boys excelled in the middle years. After the report was disseminated, the whole school participated in a “Gender Issues Day” with discussion groups and role-playing.

With the selection of the first female head of school, Susan G. Graham H’12, in 1990, The Gunnery committed to an effort to improve the school’s offerings in the visual and performing

Moving in day, 1978

The first admission of girls in 1977 numbered 43,

arts. In 1996, under the leadership of separate area for pottery and ceramics, compared to 147 boys; there Board Chair Virginia Solley Risley and a darkroom for photography. were nine senior girls.

H’85, The Emerson Performing Arts The Lee Room within the center Center, with the Norman Lemcke was given by Mike and Irene Lee in Theater, replaced the inadequate arts honor of their daughters, Donna Lee facilities in Brinsmade. The new center was made possible by ’03 and Lisa Lee ’04, who were both active in The Gunnery The Fred L. Emerson Foundation with support from Richard C. arts program. In the 1997-98 school year, the math department Colton, Jr. ’60, and members of The Gunnery Board of Trustees. instituted a pre-calculus course solely for female students that is It included practice rooms, dressing rooms and faculty offices for still offered, providing further evidence of the school’s growing an ever increasing number of opportunities for classical, jazz, and consideration for girls and their alternative approach to learning.

The past decade, which has seen the passing of the baton rock instrument groups, private music lessons and voice lessons. to the new generation on the administrative level, has brought The Woodward Center for the Visual Arts was dedicated in 2006, a new appreciation of the importance of gender considerations giving students access to art studios, a classroom for digital art, a in all aspects of The Gunnery’s community life. Designed and built as a girls dorm to accommodate 22 young women and as part of the Strategic Leadership Initiative, Susan G. Graham house was dedicated in 2016. The promotion of new leadership opportunities, the expansion of co-curricular and curriculum offerings, and the inclusion of gender issues under a comprehensive and intentional Student Life program are indications of a growing sensitivity and commitment to the empowerment of women and The Gunnery’s part in educating and preparing them for success and fulfillment as participating adults. The opening of a new arts and community center at the heart of campus in 2019-2020 will further synthesize the coed experience at The Gunnery today.

As daughters of the early pioneers in The Gunnery’s reinstitution of coeducation are welcomed to The Gunnery of today, we are striving to provide a safe, inspirational ethos on Some of the first members of The Gunnery girls crew team: Ellen Liburt ’81, Ann Walker ‘83, Wendy Milas ‘83, Poppy Baldwin ’80 a campus where serious academic stimulation and character and Avery Bross ’80 education for all students is part of the daily experience. n

SPRING 2018

Mr. Gunn’s “ideal school,” circa 1980

7

The Gunnery Gears in action (left to right): Gwendolyn Brown ’20, Jacob Bruck ’20, Wyatt Cicarelli ‘19, Nathaniel Ince ’20, Monte Blaustein, Director of the IDEAS program, Will Brodhead ‘20 and Riley Pengue ’19

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Ross O’Connor ‘18 and Noor Alsairafi ’18 working as a team

8

New IDEAS Program Inspires Next Generation of Highlanders

Maggie Xiang ’21 and Margaux Barthelemy ’21 check the calculations for their trebuchet.

On March 16, The Gunnery’s premier robotics team, The Gunnery Gears, faced off against 29 robotics teams from high schools in four states in the 2018 FIRST® Robotics Competition at Fairfield University. The rookie team, composed of nine boys and four girls, brought with them the robot they had built over the course of six weeks, fueled by creativity, teamwork and a $6,000 start-up grant from NASA.

The Gunnery was the only school in Connecticut to receive a Program Growth Grant from the NASA Robotics Alliance Project for the 2018 season. The grant covered the cost of registration for The Gunnery Gears to compete in the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics

Competition against teams from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont.

Each team designed a robot to complete a series of tasks outlined by FIRST Robotics on January 6.

Teams operate under strict guidelines with limited resources. Like other fledgling teams in the competition, The Gunnery Gears was issued two totes stuffed with supplies such as a throttle motor, circuit breaker, USB connector, pneumatic tubing, a joystick, power distribution panel, voltage regulator module, and various cables, wires and valves.

Guidance could be provided by mentors, including veteran math teacher and The Anne S. and Ogden D. Miller Senior Master Ed Small, and science teacher Monte Blaustein, who is Director of The Gunnery’s new

SPRING 2018

Students work together to build a robot, a drone and a dream home

9

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

(left to right) Students in the IDEAS program visited the offices of architectural firm Kohn Pedersen and Fox in New York City; the U.S. Army’s 1109th Aviation Sustainment Maintenance Group (TASMG) in New London where Army helicopters are maintained, and the Naval Submarine Base in New London.

10

IDEAS program, but the students did the work of designing and building the robot themselves.

“The IDEAS program was a big reason I chose the school,” said Margaux Barthelemy ’21, who worked on building the wireless controls for the robot. “I wanted to be able to pursue more applicable STEM courses and thought that the IDEAS program would enable me to do so. Unlike most schools, the courses aren’t clubs, but rather classes, which allow even the busiest of students to have some time for it and not lose time normally spent socializing.”

Asked what she finds challenging about the program, Barthelemy said, “Some of the big challenges include finding enough time to work on it, getting everyone together, and troubleshooting various problems that come up. Unlike most classes, it’s student-driven. We can’t just go up to Mr. Blaustein and ask him the answer because in many cases, he doesn’t know either. Instead, we research the problem and come up with our own solutions.”

IDEAS stands for Innovation, Design, Engineering and Applied Scholarship. Introduced in fall 2017, the program is open to all students and includes a total of seven courses.

During the fall term, students in Machine Design, a mechanical engineering class, successfully designed, built and flew a drone.

In the fall and winter terms, the Process Plant Design class built a working model of a cogeneration plant using a pressure cooker and magnets repurposed from microwave ovens, while students in the Applied Building Design class designed a house for a family of five based on a budget of $2.25 million.

In January, the Applied Building Design class visited the New York City offices of Kohn Pedersen and Fox (KPF), one

Lucas Boyden ’19 and Charles Yu ’19 helped to build a working model of a cogeneration plant in the Process Plant Design class, which is part of the IDEAS program. Here they are fitting the metal housing with a turbine that will be driven by steam power to generate electricity.

Whether they are designing a house, an “

electric car or a wastewater Call-out heresystem, students here are learning howcall-out to define problems, call-out here ideas and work develop solutions, test their call-out here “

as a team in real-life situations.

Putting it all together The IDEAS program is intended to encourage creative design thinking and engage students through a hands-on approach to innovation, problem-solving, teamwork and collaboration.

Whether they are designing a house, an electric car or a wastewater system, students are learning how to define problems, develop solutions, test their ideas and work as a team in real-life situations.

Mack Leonard ‘19 and Lucas Rosati ‘20 building a trebuchet

“We don’t want this to be a class where the teacher stands up and lectures. We want this to be an opportunity for students to do things, build things, solve problems, work as a team and use skills from all of their classes — science, English, art, math,” said Blaustein, who holds a degree in civil engineering and worked for manufacturing companies in Canada, Minnesota, and New Hampshire for three decades before turning to a career in teaching. “We want it to be a fun class, but also one where students come out with some new skills: how to use a

SPRING 2018

of the largest architectural firms in the world. The company’s current projects include One Vanderbilt, which will be the tallest office tower in Midtown, and Abu Dhabi International Airport. KPF Chairman and co-founder Gene Kohn, who is a neighbor of The Gunnery campus, visited class and invited the students to come to his offices and tour several of the firm’s nearby projects.

The field trip and the NASA grant are among the highlights of an exciting and productive first year for the IDEAS program, which also encompasses an Engineering Club, in which students are designing and building an electric car that will be entered into the statewide Electrathon America competition in April 2019.

11

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Maggie Xiang ’21 measuring aluminum tubing for the robot arms

12

drill press, a 3-D printer, a screwdriver, how to work as a team, and when things don’t work right, how to go through the process of solving the problem.”

The emphasis on teamwork and collaboration is based on his own experience in manufacturing. When he was looking to hire someone in the field, he said there was never a shortage of intelligent, capable candidates but very few knew how to work together as part of a team.

All of the courses in the IDEAS program also support The Gunnery’s mission of developing character. “Even if you’re not going to become an engineer, problems occur in life and how you respond to them is so important,” Blaustein said. “To be able to sit back, evaluate the situation and solve the problem in a methodical manner is a skill.”

Immediately after the FIRST Robotics challenge was revealed, students in the Robotics class were divided into five smaller teams that worked simultaneously on various aspects of the robot. Some assembled the base, complete with six wheels, motors and a gear assembly, while others worked on programming the robot and another team built a custom pneumatic mechanism that allowed the robot to pick up and carry a milk crate.

Much of what was done was accomplished through trial and error. “They’re dealing with complex problems. They’re figuring out how to make stuff happen,” Blaustein said. “This is not a kit. This is not Legos. This is hard.”

“They’re dealing with complex problems.

They’re figuring out how to make stuff happen,” Blaustein said. “This is not a kit. This is not Legos. This is hard.”

Rapid growth and early success The IDEAS program has experienced rapid growth and early success, attracting current as well as prospective students who are considering attending The Gunnery. Blaustein estimated the number of students enrolled in the program could more than double in a year.

The program came together quickly. In November 2016, Blaustein looked at courses and spoke with faculty at eight other schools before developing a curriculum for The Gunnery.

Michel Williams, The Gunnery’s Project Manager and Director of Safety and Security, worked with the S/L/A/M Collaborative, an architectural and interior design firm with offices in Glastonbury, Connecticut, to convert the former computer science room on the first floor of the Science Building into what is now the IDEAS center.

“It was nothing like this at all,” Blaustein said, explaining that in addition to expanding the space, the walls were repainted in cheerful, primary colors, carpeting was removed and the floors were redone. The room is now furnished with a long meeting table to accommodate class discussions, demonstrations and collaborative work. A wireless projector is connected to a 65-inch TV mounted on one wall, allowing students to display information and discuss projects. Another wall features an eight-by-12 foot white board used for brainstorming sessions, assignments, and schematic drawings.

On the opposite side of the room, height-adjustable workstations give students space to work, with designated

areas for a drill press, vice, band saw and soldering equipment.

A smaller room houses a 3-D printer and a fully-stocked tool chest neatly organized with screwdrivers, a socket set, hammers, levels, calipers, wrenches, pliers, a glue gun, staple machine and saws. The center is also equipped with nine new computers.

Blaustein is already fine-tuning the curriculum for the coming academic year. Early on, for example, he learned that while some students knew their way around a toolbox, others had never held a screwdriver or did not know the difference between a bolt, a screw and a nail. So in the fall, he will begin each course with an overview of all the tools in the center and how they are used.

On a Friday afternoon in January, Maggie Xiang ’21 was learning how to use a drill press for the first time. She and Maxwell Rhodes ’20 were beginning to assemble the “grabber” arms for The Gunnery Gears’ robot using sections of aluminum square tubing. They had cut the tubing into sections of various lengths. The next step would be to drill holes for a four-inch screw so they could attach one section of tubing to another.

“I’m thinking it’s a good goal for today,” said Rhodes, one of the few members of the robotics team who had built a robot before.

Wearing safety goggles and gloves, Xiang took her place in front of the drill press next to Blaustein. “I’m going to hold this and you drill,” he said, placing the short piece of metal tubing beneath the drill bit. Xiang turned the feed lever and both watched carefully as the drill cut through the aluminum to produce two holes.

SPRING 2018

Students divided into smaller teams to work simultaneously on various aspects of the robot.

13

The Engineering Club, accompanied by Monte Blaustein, Director of the IDEAS program (left), Ed Surjan, Library Director, (right), Major Nowakowski and Master Staff Sergeant Cone, with a U.S. Army helicopter at TASMG

Xiang said she decided to enroll in Robotics because she loves anything related to math and physics. “I’ve loved math since I was young. I enjoy the sense of achievement,” she said, as she smoothed the surface of the holes using a metal file.

Across the room, Riley Pengue ’19 and Barthelemy were trying to connect an electrical circuit to a USB plugged into a laptop, so they could program the robot.

In the fall, Pengue was part of the class that built the drone, and like many students, he comes to the IDEAS center in the afternoon, after classes, to build things that interest him, such

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Riley Pengue ’19 (right) shows Jacob Bruck ’20 how to strip a wire while Gwendolyn Brown ’20 looks on.

14

as a liquid sand box. It uses an air compressor to transform fine sand into liquid. “You can push stuff down into it and turn the air off and it gets stuck. At most schools, you don’t ever get to do things like this. It’s good hands-on work,” Pengue said.

The IDEAS center is a great place for “any student who is creative, technically inclined or someone who just wants to learn,” he said. “To any makers who are looking for a school that gives them the tools to build anything, their imagination is the limit in the IDEAS center.”

Maxwell Rhodes ’20 working on the gears for the robot base with Blaustein

Innovation and engineering This spring, IDEAS students began using Computer Aided Design (CAD) software to produce engineering drawings, and MATLAB software that allows them to work with a large amount of data for analysis and presentation.

“We have a weather station on campus, where we collect all of the weather data: wind direction, precipitation, the closest lightning strike, temperature, barometric pressure,” Blaustein said. Anyone can view the hourly forecast on campus using an app on their phone, but his students are using the data with the MATLAB software to become budding meteorologists. “We will look at the data and do a statistical analysis to predict what the weather is going to be,” he said.

Students in the Innovation and Engineering class are working on a series of challenges, such as how to build a mini cell-phone tower, rocket launcher or remote control door opener. They may also design and build a trebuchet, or catapult, which students in Robotics did at the start of winter term to prepare for building the robot.

Blaustein said he taught the students how to use the tools but how they built the trebuchets was up to them. “Failure is part of what we expect,” he said. “I don’t expect everything to

go right. I’m not concerned if someone cuts a piece of wood the wrong size. That’s OK. I’ll just go get another piece of wood, or try to fix it if we can.”

In the fall, Blaustein plans to introduce students to a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine. “It’s going to allow us to build things we could not build before,” he said, adding “It’s unusual to put it in a high school environment.”

IDEAS is opening students up to opportunities and experiences that Blaustein hopes will lead some of them to careers in engineering or related fields. “We are doing what students are doing in colleges right now,” he said. “We’re trying to get students interested in something so they will take the next step.” n

Students in the Innovation and Engineering class are working on a series of challenges, such as how to build a mini cell-phone tower, rocket launcher or remote control door opener.

SPRING 2018

Two teams in Robotics work on their designs for trebuchets.

15

Speaker Series Seeks to Expand its Reach PROGRAMS TO CONNECT THE GUNNERY’S COMMUNITY, CURRICULUM AND CULTURE Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben speaking at The Gunnery in 2011

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Melissa Schomers, a member of the English department since 2015, and the new coordinator of The Gunnery Speaker Series, has outlined an ambitious expansion of the series designed to increase its reach, and support and enhance its academic standing, now and in the coming years. In addition to forging more links with the curriculum and the school’s culture through the choice of speakers, she plans to include more community voices in the planning, implementation and format of the series. Among her

16

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at Conroy House in 2000

goals are making the program more academic, and providing more accessibility and engagement for today’s students.

Beginning with town debates on political topics on Friday nights under Frederick Gunn, there have been a multiplicity of outside perspectives and influences brought to The Gunnery throughout its history. William Hamilton Gibson, Class of 1866, discussed insect cross-pollination with his patented poster boards.

Cold War experts from the surrounding community were guest speakers in the 1960s, college singing groups gave concerts in the 1980s, and poet, writer and artist friends of faculty visited classes in the 2000s. The Speaker Series was more formalized in 2000, a year when prominent American diplomat and Kent resident Henry Kissinger made an appearance on campus. He was followed by such luminaries as author Frank McCourt and sports commentator Peter Gammons (2004), the Rev. Ralph Lord Roy, civil rights activist (2009), New Yorker writer Ian Frazier (2010), and environmentalist Bill McKibben (2011). Schomers plans to build on those traditions and facilitate the plans and ideas generated by both students and faculty.

Schomers gave the community a window into her thinking when she

Author Andrea Wulf signing copies of “The Invention of Nature” in 2016

Beginning with town debates on political topics on Friday nights under Frederick Gunn, there have been a multiplicity of outside perspectives and influences brought to The Gunnery throughout its history.

Poet W.S. Merwin, left, and author Frank McCourt, second from right, were both guest speakers at The Gunnery in 2004. With them are former Dean of Students Nick Carter, Susan G. Graham H’12, and Brighid King ’03.

with Professor James Nolan, slam poetry with Taylor Mali, and the environment with Washington neighbor David Owen this year. I hope to add mathematics, the physical sciences, and the visual and performing arts next year.”

Speight, who holds a doctoral degree in applied entomology from the University of York and is an Emeritus Professor in Zoology at the University of Oxford, spoke in February at the request of Brian Taggart, a Gunnery biology teacher. Speight’s work as a conservationist and marine ecologist has taken him to Honduras, Puerto Rico, Tobago, the British Virgin Islands, Zanzibar (Tanzania), Kenya, Mozambique, Sri Lanka, Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, Indonesia and Australia. In addition to speaking about the 3-D mapping and ecology of coral reefs to the whole community, he visited The Gunnery’s science classes.

Nolan, who holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Virginia and is the Washington Gladden 1859 Professor of Sociology at Williams College, came to speak as a result of

SPRING 2018

delivered a School Meeting address in the fall entitled, “Hyper-thetically,” which spoke of wisdom in the age of the information glut and quoted from Neil Postman’s “Technopoly” and Chuck Klosterman’s “But What If We’re Wrong.” (To read the address, please visit www.GunneryHOS.wordpress.com)

“That is the large, essential question,” she said recently, “and that is really the overarching theme for the program. I want to relate it to each and every aspect of our curriculum, co-curriculars and community life.” To that end, Schomers has engaged Jim Balben, a member of the History Department faculty and Prefect Advisor, as an ally. She has approached Fran Kielty, owner of the Hickory Stick Bookshop in Washington Depot, about joint projects, and she consulted with the Gunn Memorial Library and Museum.

Schomers is also plumbing the riches of our alumni base seeking thought leaders and inspirational advocates, who are already so close to The Gunnery.

“This first year is a process year,” she admitted. “All of our speakers have been serendipitous finds. I have been exploring possibilities. We have covered the life sciences with Dr. Martin Speight, history

17

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

SPEAKER SERIES

18

his friendship with Seth Low, Assistant Head of School and Director of College Counseling. Nolan’s latest research project, “Delivering Little Boy,” focuses on the Manhattan Project and the nuclear age.

Schomers’ choice for April, which is National Poetry Month, is a personal favorite: Taylor Mali, an American slam poet, humorist, teacher, and voiceover artist. The same month, New Yorker writer David Owen will speak about his latest book, “Where the Water Goes,” which was required summer reading for the environmental science classes.

Coincidentally, Owen is one of the school’s neighbors and, in fact, lives in a former Gunnery dorm, Hurlburt, which The Rev. Ralph Lord Roy with Ross Anderson ’09, left, who researched Fred Gunn’s was moved down the street in 1971. abolitionist’s conscience for his Gunn Scholar Project, and three schoolmates

“As I quoted from Fred Gunn in my speech at School Meeting, I want our students to ‘get heretical,’” I see that as the ultimate goal of the Speaker Series as it relates to Schomers said. “Part of being heretical, or counter-cultural as Frederick Gunn.”

I would define that idea today, means asking students to think

Schomers’ ambitions for the program don’t end with the goal beyond previous accepted notions of both who they are and of having two or three formal speakers in the program each year. who they can be. My main goal is to use the Speaker Series for She wants to incorporate more interaction and coordination with just that. If we are moved to give up our ‘present notions’ to get campus activities, such as the very successful, student-organized ‘heretical,’ as Gunn said, then we must be given the opportunity governor’s forum held last fall. The event was the culmination to wrestle with and engage in ideas that encourage such thought. of the work of Anthony Cochrane ’18 and Mark Choi ’18, who worked closely with History Department Chair Bart McMann. Based on the success of their program, Schomers said she would like to adopt a similar format for another event: “I’d like to put together a panel of powerful female speakers to engage students in the give-and-take of gender questions.”

Schomers sees herself as a facilitator for other members of the community to plan and execute programs for large and small audiences alike so that some niche interests, which wouldn’t attract the whole school but might animate a smaller group, could be met. One example would be to ensure that recent alumni are scheduled to speak with Gunnery seniors every January, when many college students are on break. “It’s always popular with the students, but it sometimes gets lost in the calendar shuffle,” she said.

By engaging local institutions, faculty contacts Melissa Schomers, Speaker Series Coordinator, a member of the English faculty and neighboring schools for prospective audiences and and the Wallace Rowe Chair, with Nick O’Brien ‘20, Jean Fang ‘19, Jared Rainville program collaborators, Schomers hopes to broaden the ‘19, and James Nolan, Ph.D., the Washington Gladden 1859 Professor of Sociology at Williams College, who presented at The Gunnery on February 15 reach of the Speaker Series and increase the human and

World-class runner, motivational speaker and Special Olympics athlete Loretta Claiborne with Head of School Peter Becker and guests in 2012

Poet Naomi Shihab Nye with Gunnery students in 2007

SPRING 2018

financial resources needed to support the on The Gunnery’s Gunn Scholar program,” “If we are moved to give events. The visit this fall of David Hinton, Schomers said. “High schools are adopting up our ‘present notions’ to a recipient of the Thornton Wilder more and more of the college examples of get ‘heretical,’ as Gunn said, Lifetime Achievement Award, is a case in academic exchanges and we know of several then we must be given the point. A personal friend of The Gunnery’s local history projects that other schools have Nick Benson, Ph.D., and a fellow translator sponsored.” opportunity to wrestle with

With most of the first year’s offerings of ancient classical poetry, Hinton comes to and engage in ideas that under her belt, Schomers is optimistic The Gunnery every few years to share his encourage such thought.” about the success of the revamped Speaker intellectual and experiential journey (see Series. “I can see The Gunnery becoming a related story on page 20).

“There is a strong group of poetry enthusiasts in this town, of leader in exposing our students and community as well as those of which I am one,” Schomers admitted shamelessly, “and this year surrounding areas and schools to the most exciting and inspiring we have Taylor Mali, whose slam poem, ‘What Teachers Make’ I of current ideas, research and activity,” she said. n frequently teach in my English classes. One of my goals is to have a poet of that caliber to celebrate poetry month every year, and to collaborate with the Hickory Stick and Shepaug Valley School to attract an enthusiastic audience that anticipates and prepares for the guest’s arrival.”

As part of her effort to increase the academic reach of the Speaker Series, Schomers has partnered with Jennifer Wojcik, Ph.D., Arts Department Chair and Director of Diversity, and Librarian Misa Giroux to create an academic conference based on The Gunnery’s signature Gunn Scholar Program and featuring presentations, performances and workshops based on primary source and place-based research. A call for proposals was sent to surrounding schools and institutions inviting them to participate in the event, which will be open to adult researchers and students this spring. “We can include the Shepaug Middle School group, which is working with the Gunn Museum on a program modeled Writer and humorist Ian Frazier with students in 2010

19

CAMPUS LIFE

Poet, Essayist and Translator of Poetry David Hinton Returns to The Gunnery David Hinton, the internationally recognized poet, essayist and awardwinning translator of classical Chinese poetry and philosophy, returned to The Gunnery on November 30. He spoke with students from multiple classes in the Leo and Frances Bretter Student Center after being introduced by Nicholas Benson, Ph.D., a member of the English Department faculty who has published translations of classical Italian poetry and Poet, essayist and translator of Chinese poetry David Hinton talking with students in November was the recipient of a translation fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Hinton spoke about the weaving Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the together of cultural traditions as in the similarities between Humanities, as well as a Guggenheim fellowship and a fellowship modern American poetry and classical Chinese poetry in from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars translation. To the mix he added the practice of importing cultural and Writers. components from elsewhere enriching both of those traditions.

His latest books include “No-way Gateway, the Original

A frequent visitor to The Gunnery since 2009, Hinton Wu-men Kuan,” published in February, and “The Wilds of received a master’s degree in poetry from Cornell University and Poetry: Adventures in Mind and Landscape,” published last July. has been a recipient of multiple fellowships from the National His new volume of poems titled “Desert” is due in June.

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

The Gunnery Honors Lake Waramaug Association

20

The Gunnery welcomed the Washington community to campus this past November for the annual Town Party, and presented the 2017 Friend of the Green Award to the Lake Waramaug Association, which celebrated its centennial last year.

The award is presented annually to an individual or group that has contributed to the well-being of the town of Washington through their volunteer efforts.

Head of School Peter Becker provided a warm welcome, noting the party provides an opportunity to visit with friends, neighbors and supporters from the town, and to recognize local organizations and individuals who have enriched the entire community by presenting them with the Friend of the Green Award.

“In the future we look forward to having many more opportunities to bridge the gap between our campus and the community through our new Arts and Community Center,” Becker said. (see related story on page 24).

In presenting the award, Becker noted the Lake Waramaug Association has worked to preserve the lake, protect its shores and steward the surrounding land for 100 years. The association collaborates with the Lake Waramaug Authority and the Lake Waramaug Task Force to maintain the water quality and overall environmental health of the lake, which is the second largest natural lake in the state.

“As a resident of this community, and the leader of this school, I see daily the

impact the lake has on members of all the surrounding towns. We are fortunate to count the lake as part of our ‘satellite’ campus, as we have ever since the early days of Mr. Gunn, and it is the home of our crew teams each spring and fall,” Becker said. “It is the jewel of our town and, like Washington Green, a place for us to come together as a community.”

The award was accepted by Gail Berner and Anne Block, who noted the lake association’s first president, Nelson Mead, attended secondary school at The Gunnery. He was in the Class of 1876.

“I am often struck as I drive around the lake each evening by the fortitude and dedication of The Gunnery crew team, whether they are rowing on a chilly

Gunn Association Highlights Religious Diversity

evening or running around the perimeter of the lake,” she said.

As part of its centennial celebration, the association is seeking to plant 100 trees throughout the town and to preserve 100 acres surrounding the lake, by partnering with organizations and individual landowners. It also hopes to build on the success of its centennial picnic, which was held in July 2017 with some of the “100-year families” around the lake, including the Hopkins family, the Randall/Allens and the Tallmadge/Allins, by making it an annual event open to the public.

“We are humbled and honored by this award and look forward to collaborating with The Gunnery and the Washington community

for many years to come,” Block said.

Past recipients of the Friend of the Green Award have included: the Washington Lions Club, accepted by John Quist, president (2016); Sheila Anson, Washington’s Town Clerk and Vice Chairman of the Parks and Recreation Commission (2015); Laurie Lamarre and The Institute of American Indian Studies (2014); JoAnne Torti of the After School Arts Program (2013); The Washington Fire Department and Washington Town Hall Employees, accepted by First Selectman Mark Lyons and Fire Chief Mark Showalter (2012); Kirsten Peckerman, Steep Rock board member (2011), and Phil and Gretchen Farmer, board members of the Gunn Memorial Library and Museum (2010).

Gail Berner and Anne Block of the Lake Waramaug Association accepting the Friend of the Green Award from Peter Becker in November

SPRING 2018

In her Gunn Scholar Project, published last year, Claire Lee ’17 focused on “The Role of Religion and Spirituality at The Gunnery,” noting that when Frederick Gunn established his school, “he did not officially make the school secular or religious… Mr. Gunn did not force religion on any of his students. He provided a platform for them to become religious if Members of the Gunn Association with Imam Ghazi, spiritual leader of they chose to be, but he always allowed his students to forge their the Albanian Muslim Community in Waterbury own paths.”

Lee’s research also touched on the history of the Gunn Gunn Association hosted the Rev. Dr. Bradley J. Bergfalk of the Association, a club for students interested in religion. Its members First Congregational Church of Litchfield, and Imam Ghazi, the led chapel services on campus and attended local religious spiritual leader of the Albanian Muslim Community in Waterbury. conferences. From 1956 to 1961, The Gunnery hosted its own In January, the association held a “lunch and learn” with Zachary religious conference, which was attended by more than a dozen and Alyssa Prenoveau of the Church of Latter Day Saints. private schools and featured religious “The focus is on introducing different guest speakers, Lee reported. religious beliefs, traditions and practices

Her suggestion, to revive the Gunn to students on campus to learn more Association, was implemented in the fall, about what other people believe,” Wojcik led by Jennifer Wojcik, Ph.D., Director said. The group is carrying on the work of Diversity and Arts Department Chair. of the original Gunn Association, which The group welcomed Rabbi Andy as Lee noted, hosted conferences “as a Bachman P’19 to campus in September way to get the entire community involved to lead a celebration of Rosh Hashanah, in religious-based thinking” outside of which included a demonstration of formal services or practice.

Rabbi Andy Bachman P’19 blowing the shofar blowing the shofar. In November, the in celebration of Rosh Hashanah

21

CAMPUS LIFE

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

International Fair Celebrates Cultural Diversity

22

Gunnery students were invited to take a virtual trip around the world at the annual International Fair, held January 16 in Virginia Hamilton Solley Dining Hall.

The event featured international cuisine, costumes, music and displays reflecting the school’s culturally diverse community.

Gunnery students currently hail from 22 countries, and the fair provided many of them with an opportunity to highlight what makes them and their countries’ cultures unique.

“This year you could have anything from bubble tea from China to borscht from Russia. The students really put themselves out there,” said Karoline

Theobald P’04 ’14, International Student Coordinator and a member of the English Department faculty. Theobald serves as an advisor to several international students and helped to organize the fair with faculty member Lili Dyer, who teaches French and English as a Second Language (ESL).

The bubble tea, Lithuanian tree cake, French crepes and spicy Korean noodles were big hits. Students sampled sweet durian pastry and chung cake from Vietnam; triangular-shaped meat pies from Lebanon, and pupusa, thick corn tortillas filled with cheese, a favorite from El Salvador. Canadian students offered

samples of Timbits from the Canadian chain Tim Hortons, which they described as “a step up” from the Dunkin’ Donuts munchkin. German cake and gummy bears and French madeleines were also on offer.

Several students wore traditional dress representing their home countries of Lithuania, Bahrain, Korea, Germany and China. Many prepared posters and presentations and shared maps, books and other items, while their personal selections of international pop music played in the background.

Girls Club of Greater Waterbury as part of the national Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service.

SPRING 2018

Gunnery students celebrated the life and legacy of Dr. Martin

The Gunnery’s Boys and Girls Varsity Basketball teams Luther King, Jr. on January 15 by participating in a national Day of organized and ran a basketball clinic for children ages 9 to 12 Service. The students helped clean up city streets and local hiking at the Boys and Girls Club in Waterbury. “Engaging in service trails, prepared meals in a soup kitchen, ran basketball and hockey connected to the ideals of Dr. King is a great way for our students clinics for elementary school children and collected donations to to understand what we mean by ‘character’ at The Gunnery — that restock area food pantries. Many also participated in discussions it is not only about knowing what the right thing is, but doing the and programs honoring Dr. King. right thing,” said Dean of Students Jess Matthews, Ph.D. “The workshop also challenged students to work together, to teach new

Students in AP U.S. History and AP Government visited the skills, and to provide positive leadership for their younger peers.

Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford to discuss Dr. King’s It was wonderful to see them engage in that growth in such a fun “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and ring bells for peace. Another and meaningful activity.”

50 students and faculty attended the 22nd annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy of Environmental and Social Justice program at

Additionally, students helped clean, paint and organize a new the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven. The event included a facility for Girls, Inc. in Waterbury, worked in the community soup professional poetry slam, world-class performances, a teen summit kitchen at The Friendship Center in New Britain, performed winter and art contest. trail maintenance for Steep Rock Association in Washington, hosted a clinic at Linen Rink for Northwest Connecticut Youth Hockey,

More than 100 students and faculty traveled to the University and helped stock the pantry for Friends in Service to Humanity by of Bridgeport, where they participated in activities such as collecting more than $300 in donations and food at local Stop & “Common Ground,” a discussion of issues surrounding Dr. King’s Shop grocery stores. legacy, race, privilege, diversity, social justice and equality, and “Freedom Writers,” a program that encouraged students to reflect See more photos at www.Gunnery.org/MLKBBall on Dr. King’s legacy through free writing and other creative expressions. Some students participated in a workshop on how to be an ally to the LGBTQIA community, while others painted ceramic hearts to spread hope to first responders, hospital patients and others in need through Hearts of Hope.

“It is a day where we do not have classes, but we engage together as a school in reflection of Dr. King’s question, ‘What are you doing for others,’” said Jennifer Wojcik, Ph.D., Director of Diversity and Arts Department Chair at The Gunnery, who spearheaded the MLK Day of Service.

The Girls Varsity Hockey Team participated in a street cleanup near the University of Bridgeport.

The Boys and Girls Varsity Basketball teams ran a basketball clinic for members of the Boys and

PHOTO: DEREK WARD

Honoring the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

23

CAMPUS LIFE

Plans for New Arts and Community Center Near Completion

Main Floor Plan

Community Space

Stor.

Gallery

The “Hearth”

Toilet

Pantry

Lobby Off. Group Study

Toilet Instrum.

Storage

Choral Rehearsal

P.R. P.R.

P.R.

P.R.

Open to below

Stair Off.

Theater (415 Seats)

Elev.

Stor.

Off.

Open to below

Stor.

Stor.

Drawing / Painting Studio

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Graphic Arts Studio

24

Clockwise from top left: An overview of the site, including the green space between the new building and Solley Dining Hall; a view of the northwest corner of The Thomas S. Perakos ’69 Arts and Community Center; inside the Richard C. Colton, Jr. ’60 Art Wing; the floor plan for the second floor of the Arts and Community Center; the lower level of the art wing

To learn more about the Arts and Community Center, and view the animation video of the project plans, go to www.Gunnery.org/ACC.

The Gunnery announced last summer its plans to construct a new, 32,000-squarefoot facility to house the school’s visual and performing arts programs. The design for the new center includes an art gallery, a 415-seat auditorium, classrooms and studios, and ample community gathering space. As proposed, the project will also include a newly landscaped green space between the new building and Solley Dining Hall, requiring the relocation of an existing parking lot to draw traffic away from the center of campus.

This first step in Phase One of the Campus Master Plan will begin the process of bringing all academic, residential, and community facilities to the west side of Route 47 and will provide appropriate venues for key academic programs and our three-times weekly

School Meetings. The total cost of the project is estimated to be $22 million.

During a meeting of the Board of Trustees on January 19, Sean Brown P’21, Director of Alumni & Development, shared that $14,572,861 has been raised toward the project. The Board’s approval of the plans was contingent upon completion of both the final architectural designs and financing for the new building. While the Board and the administration continue to prepare for construction, some additional fundraising goals will need to be met. As of March 7, more than $16 million had been raised.

“The path to completing the funding will be steep, but we are confident that, with the continued support of our constituents, we can reach our fundraising

goal of $22 million by May 31, 2018,” said Trustee Roy B. Simpson, Jr. ’68.

The committee of the Board that is overseeing the project is finalizing arrangements with a construction management firm that will be responsible for hiring and managing all subcontractors. The firm will work closely with the committee and Michel Williams, Project Manager and Director of Safety and Security, to ensure the project stays on schedule and on budget.

Site-work will begin as early as May 2018, with a proposed occupancy date of winter 2019-2020. The formal groundbreaking ceremony will be held on Saturday, June 9, 2018 during Alumni Weekend. Please save the date and plan to join us on campus.

SPRING 2018

In January, The Gunnery Board of Trustees voted unanimously to move forward with the plans for The Thomas S. Perakos ’69 Arts and Community Center.

25

THE ARTS

AT T H E G U N N E R Y

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

The Gunnery’s Winter Musical, “Rent: School Edition”

26

The Gunnery Drama Society performed “Rent: School Edition,” in the Lemcke Theater of the Emerson Performing Arts Center in late February. The production featured a group of seniors who had been developing their talents and working together since freshman year. It was ambitious, both technically and in subject matter, and Gabby Lescadre ’18, Sabryna Coppola ’18 and Clare Costello ’18, took on the additional responsibilities of student directors, creating original choreography and staging for the show, their final performance at The Gunnery.

“When I first started thinking about a show for this incredible cast, I knew I wanted a piece that was as inspiring as our students,” said Elizabeth Dayton ’08, Director of Dramatic Arts. “Before this journey, it was clear that many of them loved the music, but after a couple of months they seemed to sing the songs from a more soulful place. I am most proud of this cast for truly making this piece their own.”

Led by Christian Kummer ’18 as documentary filmmaker Mark Cohen, and Sean Douglas ’19 as his roommate and struggling musician Roger Davis, The Gunnery’s cast of talented veterans and aspiring newcomers alike embraced the complex social issues — addiction, poverty, AIDS — depicted in “Rent,” and the story’s exuberance and somber implications in equal measure.

The cast included Yamna Abdi Jama ’18, Bella Byrne ’18, Mark Choi ’18, Rachel Cohen ’18, Kate Hayward ’18, Ross O’Connor ’18, John Crabtree ’19, Katie Nemergut, ’19, Mary Carew-Miller ’20, Charles DeVos ’20, Isabel Martin ’20, Travis Powell ’20, Harry Sutton ’20, Charlotte Xu ’20, Sylvie Edelstein ’21, Max Farrar ’21, Hailey Lovallo ’21 and Maggie Xiang ’21. One of the surprise hits of the production was the music provided by Nikolaus Franz ’20, who was on stage for the entire show keeping the music in tune with performances.

Like one of its acknowledged inspirations, Puccini’s opera, “La Boheme,” about artists suffering from tuberculosis in Paris, the New York City artists in “Rent” are struggling with life, poverty, love and AIDS. The music, lyrics, and book are by Jonathan Larson, who died before the show opened off Broadway in 1993. The school edition perfomed at The Gunnery retained the dramatic intent of the groundbreaking rock musical, with minimal changes to language and the omission of one song.

27

SPRING 2018

THE ARTS

AT T H E G U N N E R Y

A Joyous (and Rockin’) Holiday Concert An eclectic mix of traditional carols, classical music and more contemporary hits by The Beatles, Journey, Alicia Keys, and Neil Diamond made the annual Holiday Concert a night to remember. Students, faculty, family and friends filled the Meeting House on the Green on December 12 for performances by The Gunnery Troubadours and Chamber Ensemble, directed by Jennifer Wojcik, Ph.D., Performing Arts Chair, and The Gunnery Jazz Band and two rock bands, directed

by Jesse Perkins, Performing Arts faculty.

The Ukulele Ensemble performed a lively rendition of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” and in keeping with school tradition, the audience was invited to participate in the grand finale, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

To watch the holiday concert visit www.Gunnery.org/holiday2017

28

29

SPRING 2018

AT H L E T I C S

Boys Varsity Hockey Wins Avon Old Farms Christmas Classic

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Boys Varsity Hockey won the 35th annual Avon Old Farms Christmas Classic on December 16, 2017, for the first time since 2008, and JP Mella ’19, The Gunnery’s goaltender, was named MVP of the tournament, stopping 79 of 85 shots over the course of the weekend.

In The Gunnery’s first game, against Trinity-Pawling, the score was tied 2-2 after a five-minute overtime. Both teams competed in a shootout and The Gunnery took the win. The Highlanders faced off against Berkshire the following day and won again, 4-0. Nick Vankka ’18 was steady in the net as he stopped all 23 shots to record the shutout. Hours later, The Gunnery beat Loomis Chaffee 7-3, earning the Highlanders a spot in the championship game against Kent.

30

The last game went into overtime, ending in a 1-1 tie. It was during a double overtime period that team captain Zach Pellegrino ’18 drove home a rebound, giving The Gunnery its second Avon Christmas Classic championship win in 35 years.

Congratulations to Girls Varsity Ice Hockey Captain Noemi Neubauerova ’18 of Prague, who signed her National Letter of Intent to play for Colgate University’s Women’s Ice Hockey Team on November 10, 2017. Go Raiders!

The Gunnery Girls Varsity Field Hockey team hosted its 8th annual Play4theCure game vs. Westover School on October 28, 2017 to raise funds for cancer research. The Gunnery beat Westover 2-0 and the team and its supporters set a new record, raising $2,844 for the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR).

“While the girls typically wear pink, it is important to note that this is a fundraiser for all cancers, not just breast cancer,” said Head Coach Tanya Nongera, who lost an aunt, Mercy Tarumbwa, to cancer and was inspired to raise additional funds this year after learning that Tapuwa Gandari, the sister of one of her childhood friends, had died of cancer this fall.

“I put in a lot of effort in memory of her,” Nongera said. “For me it’s about all cancers not just breast cancer, and trying to find a cure for all of it. It touches so many people and so many girls on our team have been touched by it. This is an opportunity for them to be part of the solution.”

As part of this year’s fundraising effort, the field hockey team also organized a scrimmage between two Gunnery teams, Red vs. White. Each team included eight varsity field hockey players and eight boys, who were each required to secure sponsorships from fellow students in order to play. The sponsorship amount was set at a minimum of $20 per player.

Students could make additional donations in support of their favorite team, Red or White, and were invited to dress in their team’s colors to cheer them on from the sidelines. The teams competed to win a student dress down day but since the game ended in a tie, 2-2, the prize was awarded to all participants.

Cash donations from this year’s event totaled $1,209 and online donations from the team’s Crowdrise page totaled $1,635.

In 2016, The Gunnery field hockey team played a fundraising game against the boys hockey team and the boys helped raise funds by securing sponsorship dollars to play. The proceeds from the event, when combined with funds raised by the Play4TheCure game against Westover, totaled $1,603 that year.

In 2015, the field hockey team sponsored a head-shaving contest, sent out a Crowdrise link and hosted a Pink-Out night field hockey game vs. Westover, raising more than $2,300 for NFCR.

SPRING 2018

Play4theCure Nets Highest Amount to Date for Cancer Research

31

AT H L E T I C S

LEADING THE PACK

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Gianna Russillo ’20 and Harry Harwood ’20 had very successful seasons with The Gunnery’s Girls and Boys Varsity Cross Country teams. Both runners finished in the top 20 in the New England Private School Track Association (NEPSTA) Division III Cross Country Championship, held November 11 at Weston High School in Massachusetts. Harwood placed second out of 152 runners from 22 schools with a time of 16:04. Russillo placed 19th out of 157 finishers with a time of 21:08.

Both were invited to compete November 18, 2017 in the NEPSTA All-Star Cross Country Meet at St. Mark’s School in

32

Southborough, Massachusetts. They also competed in the Foot Locker Northeast Regional Cross Country Championships held November 25, 2017 at Van Cortlandt Park in Bronx, New York, where Harwood placed 16th out of 142 boys with a time of 17:46.

Russillo came in 28th out of 65 girls with a time of 22:09.

Their coach, Morgen Fisher ’03, science teacher and Assistant Dean of Students said of them, “Both athletes have done an awesome job and it is very unique to have two sophomores leading the pack for us. Both are serious runners and are looking to keep running and improving their time here.”

Russillo came in fifth overall out of 102 finishers at the season-opening Canterbury Invitational on September 23, leading the girls team to a third place finish and their first trophy ever. She came in first at the September 27 home meet against Millbrook and Hoosac, with a time of 21:18, three minutes faster than the next finisher, and finished first in the October 14 girls race at Forman School, with a time of 21:19, two minutes ahead of the next competitor. She then took first place in the October 18 run against the Westover, Cheshire Academy, and Ethel Walker girls teams at Westover School, with a time of 20:57 on the 2.9-mile race.

Russillo said she ran her first real race at the Little Britches 5K in Bridgewater when she was in the sixth grade and it almost ended her career. “There was a very, very large hill near the end, and I hated it so much. I thought

Harry Harwood ’20

I would never run again, but looking back on it now, it wasn’t true. Actually, I joined my middle school’s cross country team that following fall and have been doing it ever since.”

Harwood posted several first place finishes, September 30 at the O’Connell Invitational in Cheshire, October 7 in the Salisbury meet against Salisbury and Millbrook, and at the Forman meet. He came in fourth out of 117 boys at the Canterbury Invitational with a time of Gianna Russillo ’20 18:08 for the 3.1-mile course. He came in 2.5 minutes ahead of his nearest competitor at the Forman race with a time of 16:53 on the 3.1-mile course.

Harwood maintained a rigorous training schedule last summer. “During July, I found that I had developed a specific weekly schedule that involved distance runs, sprint work and casual runs with other runners. I ran with a group that was primarily runners from my old school but was open to anyone who wanted to participate. My coach from my old school helped

me throughout the summer by hosting track workouts and by going on runs with me and several others,” he said, adding, “I think one of my goals is to keep progressing every year at The Gunnery by trimming my 5K time. I also want to run in college, which makes my Gunnery cross country seasons very important and serious to me.”

Cross Country Boys Varsity

3-7-0

Field Hockey Junior Varsity

0-6-2

Soccer Boys Junior Varsity

7-3-3

Cross Country Girls Varsity

6-2-0

Football Boys Varsity

1-4-0

Soccer Boys Highlander

5-7-0

Soccer Girls Varsity

8-8-1

Field Hockey Varsity

5-10-1

Soccer Boys Varsity

3-12-2

SPRING 2018

FA L L 2 0 1 7 AT H L E T I C S R E C O R D

33

AT H L E T I C S

Scottish Exchange Brings Edinburgh Rowing Team to The Gunnery

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

A

34

n international exchange took faculty and students from The Gunnery to Edinburgh, Scotland, last summer, and brought a team of Scottish rowers to Washington and the 2017 Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston in October.

The relationship between the two schools was initiated in October 2016, when Jason Foster, Head of Rowing for George Watson’s College (GWC), a coeducational independent day school in Edinburgh, contacted Lincoln Turner, Head Coach, Boys Varsity Crew at The Gunnery. Foster was intent on arranging an international exchange program for his school and its rowing club.

GWC is considered one of Edinburgh’s best private schools. It has a student body composed of 800 primary and 1,200 secondary school students and a thriving boat club, with rowers who compete at events and regattas across Scotland and Great Britain.

At the time, Foster was unaware of Gunnery founder Frederick Gunn’s Scottish heritage, or that historically, several of George Watson’s alumni have hailed

from the Gunn clan. “That was a happy coincidence,” Foster said.

He visited Turner at The Gunnery and, soon after, arrangements were made for Turner to travel to Edinburgh with Tim Poole, Head Coach, Girls Varsity Crew, and six Gunnery students. The 10-day trip in June 2017 was funded through a new enrichment grant that provides professional development opportunities for Gunnery faculty.

Turner, a member of the Visual Arts faculty, visited the art department at GWC and The Gunnery rowing team practiced and competed with GWC rowers.

Together, they traveled to Eton College and Dorney Lake, the rowing venue for the 2012 Olympics, where rowers from GWC and The Gunnery participated in the Marlowe Regatta. The GWC girls team also competed in the Henley Royal Regatta on the River Thames during the trip.

From Scotland to the Head of the Charles

Jason Foster, Head of Rowing for George Watson’s College, Lincoln Turner, Head Coach, Boys Varsity Crew at The Gunnery, and GWC’s Assistant Head of Rowing Matt Mole at Lake Waramaug

Then last October, 10 students from GWC, accompanied by Foster and Assistant Head of Rowing Matt Mole, arrived from Scotland to spend a week at The Gunnery.

The GWC students attended classes and trained alongside The Gunnery teams on Lake Waramaug for the Head of the Charles Regatta.

In Boston, The Gunnery boys first boat finished sixth out of a field of 86 in the Men’s Youth Fours with a school recordsetting time. Coxswain Juliette Gaggini ’20

The Gunnery boys first boat ready to launch at the Head of the Charles Regatta

The Gunnery boys team heading to the starting line at The Marlow Regatta at Dorney Lake, Eton College, Scotland

Members of The Gunnery crew team under the rainbow at Arthur’s Seat in Scotland

SPRING 2018

navigated flawlessly for bow seat Kasparas Kersanskas ’19, 2 seat Nathan Quelle ’21, 3 seat and Co-Captain Jake Perda ’18 and stroke seat and Co-Captain Kenyon Kay ’18.

The GWC boys boat did not fare as well after their top rower became ill and could not race. In order not to scratch, the team was given permission for the coxswain from their girls boat to row in the boys boat and they finished 83 out of 86.

The coxswain seat in the GWC girls boat was filled by Jenna Sittler ’18, a coxswain for the boys rowing team, and they finished 74 out of 84. “Jenna did a fantastic job on very short notice,” Turner said.

In the future, Turner and Foster said they would like to arrange for additional exchanges between the two schools.

Also on their wish list is a chance for them to co-coach a composite eight, a boat comprised of four rowers from each school, at the Henley Royal Regatta. “With a little bit of time and practice, it can be done,” Foster said. n

35

AT H L E T I C S

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Boys and Girls Crew Celebrating Milestones

This year marks the 70th anniversary of The Gunnery’s Boys Crew Team and the 40th anniversary of the Girls Crew Team.

Alumni are invited to join the celebration at the annual Founder’s Day Regatta, set for May 6 at Lake Waramaug. “Next year, the regatta itself turns 60, which also will be cause for celebration,” said Boys Head Coach Lincoln Turner.

The 1948 Red and Gray includes photos of “The Pioneer Gunnery Crew” and their coaches, William Chattin Wetherill, Jr., who was also Director of the Outdoor Club and the Woodworking Shop and an instructor of biology and math, and Roderick Beebe Jr., who started the school’s rowing program and served as Director of Athletics and Head of the Math and Science Department. Beebe, of course, would go on to serve as head crew coach for decades, and the boathouse on Lake Waramaug is named for him.

The Gunnery Girls Crew team 1983-84

36

SPRING 2018

The team’s first race was at Salisbury on May 8, 1948. The boys first and second boats “trailed in all races,” but the yearbook staff noted, “they covered the course smoothly driving through to a spirited finish.”

“With practically no experienced oarsmen to build a first-class boat, plus a minimum of equipment, the coaches, nonetheless, launched four crews that performed magnificently, under the The Gunnery boys crew team, 1949 conditions, in three interscholastic regattas,” the yearbook said. reported in reference to the New England Interscholastic Rowing

The team recorded all three as losses but Association Championships, which are held annually at Lake was buoyed by enthusiasm and increasing interest, so much so that Quinsigamond in Worcester, Massachusetts. the yearbook staff in 1949 predicted “crew should take its place as

Two years later, in 1980, the girls team won their second and one of The Gunnery’s leading sports.” third races against South Kent and Choate. The first girls boat,

In 1956, The Gunnery lost by one second to the U.S. Naval comprised of Julia Alling ’81 P’19, Cox, Dana Kowal ’81, Julia Academy team, the Admirals, in the first heat of the Olympic trials Peck ’80, Poppy Baldwin ’80 and Alison Klein-Robbenhaar at Onondaga Lake in Syracuse, New York. The Founder’s Day ’81, “was quite dedicated and accordingly, met with considerable Regatta began in 1959, when The Gunnery hosted Choate and success,” the yearbook staff said, noting: Haverford.

“The best record of the year was turned

The advent of coeducation in 1978 The Gunnery has raced in The in by the second boat,” which consisted brought with it several new girls teams Head of the Charles Regatta in of Avery Bross ’80, Alex Farnham ’80, at The Gunnery, including the first Boston for 45 years, defeating Liz Johnson ’82, Ellen Liburt ’81, and girls crew team. Though the season was teams that have included Yale Kim Cullerton ’82, “and they won the marred by bad weather — the opening women’s second fours petite finals at the was delayed due to ice on the lake — both and Princeton.

NEIRA.” teams performed admirably. “At the The Gunnery has raced in The Head NEIRA the rookie oarswomen duplicated of the Charles Regatta in Boston for 45 years, defeating teams the performance of The Gunnery’s more experienced male first that have included Yale and Princeton. “We’ve won it a number of boat, as both finished 3rd in the petite finals,” the Red and Gray times and that was when the boys high school category was in with the college freshmen,” Turner said.

A number of rowers have competed on the U.S. Junior and Senior National Teams and many have forged college careers at the Division I and III levels. Robert Fountain ’64 went to the University of Pennsylvania, where his team won three NCAA Rowing Championships and went on to the Pan American Games and the Olympics. “We have his medal here,” Turner said.

The Gunnery boys first boat won their first national championship in 2014 at the first National Schools’ Championship Regatta sponsored by the National Scholastic Rowing Association in Saratoga, New York.

The Founder’s Day Regatta remained a small race with just five or six teams until the 1990s when it expanded to include rowing clubs and schools such as Salisbury, Kent, Northfield Mount Hermon and Brunswick. For more information about this Boys crew on Lake Waramaug, 1948-1949 year’s regatta, visit www.Gunnery.org/FoundersDay. n

37

Summer Camps at The Gunnery

2018

Rowing Camp offers athletes a fun and positive environment in which to develop their rowing skills. Three one-week sessions run in June and July for rowers of all skill levels. It’s a safe and nurturing environment, and a program that introduces young athletes to the sport of rowing, helps intermediate rowers improve their skills, and assists advanced rowers in refining their training and technique to improve June 25-29, July 9-13, performance. (Coed, day camp with overnight options, entering grades 7-12) and July 16-20 Founded in 1997, Litchfield Jazz Camp now serves 70-150 residential and day students each week for 1 to 4 week sessions on The Gunnery campus. Run by Litchfield Performing Arts, a charitable organization dedicated to changing lives through music, the camp philosophy is simple: We start with a faculty of amazing and inspiring jazz musicians, to that we add eager music students in a non-competitive program.

(Coed, day and residential campers, ages 12-17)

Children ages 9 and up can enjoy summer 2018 at The Gunnery!

Our 220-acre campus is an ideal location for campers of all ages.

This year we offer Rowing, Field Hockey and Soccer programs. Each program is led by accomplished, dedicated, and energetic counselors who provide campers with a learning environment that will encourage growth and enjoyment.

And new this year, the Litchfield Jazz Camp!

July 1 – 27

Contact Jesse Perkins, Director of Summer Programs

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

August 5 – 10

38

Offered by Dutch Total Soccer, this full-day camp provides a high-level training program in combination with the overnight experience of a soccer camp within a private school setting.

Players will be challenged to think about the game and encouraged to develop all skills in game situations, improving greatly in a short period of time. The camp is led by DTS staff, all of whom have KNVB and UEFA licenses.

(Coed, day and residential campers, ages 9-16)

Field Hockey Camp offers middle school and high school players a wide variety of training under the instruction of an experienced and dedicated coaching staff. The curriculum features the latest stick work, passing, offensive and defensive techniques, and goalkeeper training. Daily scrimmages provide players an opportunity to compete against top camp competition and improve their game.

(Girls, day camp, entering grades 7-12)

August 13 – 17

www.Gunnery.org/SummerCamps

(860) 350-0172 perkinsj@gunnery.org

Stainless steel travel mug Heritage hat (mesh, snapback), one size League hooded sweatshirt, sizes S – XL iWallet

What’s New at the

School Store?

SHOP ONLINE!

www.Gunnery.org/Store

Sunset Hill Stoneware pottery mug

quarter zip,

Champion packable

sizes XS – XXL

windbreaker, sizes S – XL SPRING 2018

Space dye

39

A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N

It’s been a great year so far for the Alumni Association! Thanks to Andy Powers ’11, our Mentoring and Networking committee is up and running. Andy has been working hard to organize this new alumni network and so far we have mentors in education, entrepreneurship, financial services, real estate and technology. If you’re interested in serving as a mentor to fellow Gunnery alumni, please contact Christine Steiner (steinerc@gunnery.org) in the Alumni & Development Office. To find out more about what the alumni network does, visit www.Gunnery.org/AlumniNetwork.

We are also rolling out our new Class Agent program. Class Agents are the liaisons between your class and The Gunnery and they look forward to connecting with you. If you haven’t heard from your Class Agent yet, you will soon. Beyond encouraging Gunnery Fund participation, they’ll also keep you apprised of events on campus. If you would like to find out who your Class Agent is, or if you would like to be a Class Agent yourself, please contact Hope Wayman (waymanh@gunnery.org) in the Alumni & Development Office.

Alumni Weekend is June 8–10 this year, and there is no nicer time (in my opinion) to come back to The Gunnery, spend a weekend in beautiful Washington, Connecticut, and reconnect with old friends! We hope to see many of you on campus for what promises to be a great few days. Saturday, June 9, will be the groundbreaking for The Thomas S. Perakos ’69 Arts and Community Center, and we will also be celebrating 40 years of coeducation, 40 years of girls crew and 70 years of boys crew. Make sure to register now at www.Gunnery.org/Reunion.

As the parent of a current Gunnery sophomore (I know, hard to believe!) and the spouse of a teacher, I get to see firsthand the daily engagement of The Gunnery community. From the casual conversations I overhear at the PO, to the numerous clubs and programs that my daughter has the opportunity to participate in, to the interactions with students and colleagues that I hear about from my husband, I am regularly inspired by all that goes on both formally and informally at our school. The daily commitment to preserving and strengthening the deeply rooted culture of The Gunnery continues to impress me.

I encourage you all to stay connected (or to reconnect) and to take the time to learn about The Gunnery today. We all have our Gunnery story, and that legacy continues.

Please stay in touch!

Warmly,

If you’re interested in serving as a member of one of the following committees, please contact AlumniAssociation@Gunnery.org.

Regional Clubs and Events Mentoring and Networking Young Alumni Gunnery Fund Admissions Alumni Weekend Nominations and Awards Executive and Governance

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Laura Eanes Martin ’90 P’20

40

Save the date for Alumni Weekend 2018 CELEBRATING CLASSES ENDING IN 3 & 8 (ALL ALUMNI ARE INVITED) Register at www.Gunnery.org/Reunion

June 8-10, 2018

OFF-CAMPUS EVENTS

Alumni, Parents and Friends Celebrate the Holidays The Alumni & Development Office invited alumni, parents and friends to celebrate the holidays with faculty and staff at three festive events, held in Washington, D.C., Boston and New York in December.

Each event provided an opportunity for those living nearby or in town visiting to connect with fellow Highlanders and catch up on the latest news from campus!

On December 6, alumni gathered at The Chilton Club in Boston, including: (front row) Julia Reid ’15, Michael Cohen ’13, Mallory Farmer ’05, Kirsten Cleary ’07, Kara Grogan ’07, Aaron Levy ’12, Nick Collins ’02, Susan Wynn; and (back row) Morgan Chamberlain, Jack Reynolds ’68, Jeremy Marks ’13, George Moseley ’58, Tom Meek ’81, Miranda Yang ’17, Scott Wynn ’79, Bob Bellinger ’73, Olivia Collins.

An evening reception was held at The University Club of New York on December 6. Guests included: (front row) Andrew DePaulis ’12, Dana Ross ’17, Elle Sutherland ’13, Jessie Kaplan ’13, Falon Moran ’13, Darby MacKay ’13, Peter Bergen ’84, Bob Savarese ’68 (kneeling), Gillian Horn ’13, Katie Quinlan ’13; (second row) Stuart Orfuss ’10, Maryann Levesque P’18, Ian Riley ’13, Matt Williams ’13, Erin Sullivan ’13, Patricia Olvany P’17, Deborah Doody, Mimi Naylor P’21, Sarah Phillips P’17, Elaine Quayle, Stacey Nelkin P’20, Amy Julia Becker, Peter Becker; (third row) Leif Wigren ’82, Sam Anderson ’13, Zafar Mirzaliev ’14, Leigh Buckens ’02, Kate Buckens, John Quayle ’66, George Olvany P’17, Larry Maxwell ’85 P’16 P’20, Michael Naylor P’21, Scott Schwind ’89, Breck Perkins ’76, Van Wilshire ’89, John Anning ’90, Marco Greenberg P’20; and (back row): Jack Cullen ’13, JP Collins ’03, Carol Maxwell P’16 P’20, Otoja Abit ’04, Charlie Pigott P’21, James Estreich ’06, Josh Feil ’98, Jesse Terry ’97.

SPRING 2018

Alumni gathered at Hank’s Oyster Bar in Washington, D.C., on December 5, 2017, including: (front row) Doug Greene ’73, Doug Francis ’82, Jun Baek ’12, Dick Tager ’56 (BOT) , Charles Barringer ’71; and (back row): Susan Trinter, Sam Bramson ’04, Kate Boynton, Troy Machir ’05, Patrick Dorton ’86. Not pictured: Michael Eanes H’90 P’90 GP’20

41

The Gunnery Founders Society Annual Dinner

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

The Gunnery Founders Society Dinner was held January 23, 2018, at the Cosmopolitan Club in New York. The event is held annually in honor of the school’s leading supporters and provides an opportunity for alumni, parents and friends to connect and celebrate our shared commitment to Mr. Gunn’s school, its mission and our vision for the future. Members of the Gunn Society have contributed $1,850 (a nod to the year our school was founded) or more. This year’s dinner was hosted by former Trustee

42

Christine Stonbely P’99 and included student leaders representing the Gunn Society, which was established in 2003 to stimulate connections between current Gunnery students and alumni and prepare students for their future roles as ambassadors for The Gunnery. Thank you to all who attended, including Gunn Society members Catherine Lawrence ’18, Emeline Smith ’18, Ross O’Connor ’18, Katie Nemergut ’19, Carter Matthews ’18, and Tyler Sullivan ’18.

Trustee Patrick Dorton ’86 and Laura Eanes Martin ’90 P’20, Alumni Association President

Trustee Kirsten Peckerman, Steve Baird ’68 and Peter Clarke ’70

Christine Stonbely P’99 talking with current Gunnery students

Trustee Larry Paredes P’20 and Trustee Jon Estreich P’06

Spencer Houldin ’87, Dana Ross ’17, Tanya Nongera, faculty member

Cindy-Ann Hersom and Mikey Hersom ’89

Teresa Dufour and Brandon Dufour ’02

SPRING 2018

Trustee Emeritus Leo Bretter ’52 P’88, and Edgar Auchincloss ’82 P’12

43

HIGHLANDER JOURNEYS

Russia Program Launched a Career in Foreign Service

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Douglas C. Greene ’73 retired from the U.S. Department of State in 2015, following a long and distinguished career as a Foreign Service Officer. His 35-year career took him to Lebanon and Croatia during civil wars, to posts in Damascus, Dhahran, Casablanca, Abu Dhabi and Warsaw, and to Washington, D.C., where he served under Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.

During a telephone interview in January from his home in Falls Church, Virginia, Greene spoke about his experiences abroad as a young political officer and a member of the Senior Foreign Service, as well as his years at The Gunnery, which he described as “critical” to his academic, intellectual and personal growth.

Greene came to The Gunnery as a junior in 1971, having spent his childhood and early adolescence in Mexico, Iran, Lebanon and Turkey, where his father was stationed as a Foreign Service Officer. “I grew up moving from country to country

44

U.S. was almost like a foreign country to me, and I knew nothing about how to operate there.”

After interviewing by phone with several U.S. boarding schools, he chose to attend The Gunnery, holding fast to his decision even after learning that his father was being reassigned to the State Department, instead of India, and his parents would be stateside for the next few years.

Doug Greene ’73 relaxing in Poland circa 2014

overseas. We had just finished five years in Turkey, so that was for me from sixth through 10th grade,” Greene, now 62, recalled. “My father learned from the State Department that he was being transferred from Turkey to India. I was 15 years old. He and my mother said to me, ‘Doug, you need to have two years of school in the U.S., junior and senior year of high school, before you go off to college in the U.S.’ I think they correctly felt the

At his retirement ceremony at the American Embassy in Warsaw, Greene was honored by U.S. Ambassador to Poland Stephen Mull for his “countless contributions to advance the foreign policy of the United States during 37 years of exemplary service.”

The Russia Program Upon arrival, Greene had a quick, introductory meeting with Headmaster Burgess Ayres. “He said, ‘We have a new program and we’re looking for kids who are interested in Russian language and Russian area studies. Given your background overseas...maybe you’d like to try it.’ I understood who he was and I said, ‘Of course, sir.’”

The program was directed by David Stevens, who came to the History Department in 1969 with degrees from Yale and the Russian Institute at Columbia University (now the Harriman Institute).

Greene enrolled in his Russian history and Russian language courses for two years and became passionate about his studies, so much so that upon graduation, he chose to major in Russian area studies and political science at Colgate University.

“Almost no one at Colgate was arriving with a Russian language background, and I had it because of David Stevens and The Gunnery,” he said.

Greene said Stevens was one of several faculty members who had lasting impacts on Gunnery students at that time. “There are so many other people [students] who had that experience in my years there, who had a teacher who

Greene with Prince Mishari, Commander of the Saudi National Guard, in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, circa 1998

First Assignment To become a Foreign Service Officer, Greene was required to pass exams as well as lengthy security and medical background checks, and complete six weeks of general training. He was given a list of places where there were job openings and asked to write down his top preferences. He listed Moscow, Leningrad, Warsaw, and other posts in Eastern Europe, which reflected his training at The Gunnery and Colgate.

“Then that big day comes at the end of the training course where they announce where you’re going. They said, ‘Doug, you’re going to Beirut, Lebanon.’

I think some clever person looked in my file and found out that I grew up in the Middle East,” he said. Although it was not the assignment he hoped for, he said, “It was a very exciting, fascinating first tour.

It got me off to a great start.”

Greene served as a consular officer in Beirut from 1981 to 1983. He spent his days interviewing visa applicants, issuing visas and assisting American citizens in Lebanon. The country was in the midst of the civil war and following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June, 1982, the U.S. initiated peace negotiations between Israel and Lebanon, which led to an unexpected assignment. “They needed

They needed someone to be a note taker and travel with the senior delegation from Washington. I ended up being a junior member of that delegation.

It would be hard to overestimate how much I learned in that relatively brief assignment.

SPRING 2018

opened them up to a subject and did it with passion in a way that engaged the interest of the students,” Greene said. “When you’re 16, you don’t know what you want to do, or be, with a few exceptions, of course. To have a very capable, impassioned teacher was a powerful experience.”

He and Stevens have been in contact in recent years. “He was one of my best students,” Stevens said in February. Ron Whittle P’80, Chair of The Gunnery’s History Department at the time, hired Stevens to teach Russian history as an elective for juniors and seniors. Stevens used his curriculum from Yale as a basis for the class.

“It was the height of the Cold War,” Stevens said, noting there were many intellectuals living near The Gunnery who participated in panel discussions at the school, including Harrison Salisbury, who was in Moscow from 1949 to 1954 as a correspondent for The New York Times, and won a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.

Greene graduated from Colgate in 1977 and began taking night classes at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), a division of Johns Hopkins, before joining the Foreign Service at age 25. He was, in essence, following in the footsteps of his father, who also graduated from the SAIS prior to joining the Foreign Service.

“It was obviously there in my background, and in my blood,” Greene said. “I have to say that coming into The Gunnery, and into Colgate after that, I didn’t have any set views as to what I would do later. I don’t think it was until my last couple of years of Colgate that my professional ambitions jelled. When I arrived at The Gunnery I was a kind of average student who was not very inspired or focused and I left Gunnery two years later as a very focused and good student.”

45

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

someone to be a note taker and travel with the senior delegation from Washington.

I ended up being a junior member of that delegation. It would be hard to overestimate how much I learned in that relatively brief assignment.”

Greene also recalled the challenging environment. “It was kind of dicey living and working in and around Beirut. We were very cautious about security,” he acknowledged. “So the delegation traveled by a U.S. Marine helicopter, based on an aircraft carrier off the Lebanese coast, which picked us up and took us to and from the negotiating sessions.”

Just weeks after Greene’s tour ended and he left Lebanon, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, where he had been working, was struck by a suicide bomber. “Most of my close colleagues in the consular section, and then later in the political section, were either killed or wounded. I was extremely lucky to have left Lebanon two weeks earlier. It was a very sad and depressing event to witness from Washington,” he recalled.

Two years ago, when he retired, Greene said he reflected on the question of what was, for him, the high point of his career. “It’s really very hard to come up with an answer to that question, but looking at it over the 35 years I was in the Foreign Service, that first assignment in Beirut left some deep imprints given my experience, and given what happened afterwards.”

46

Greene speaking at the annual meeting of the U.S.-Morocco Chamber of Commerce in Casablanca in 2007

Working for Peace in the Middle East Among his many assignments overseas, Greene was stationed in Yugoslavia, now Croatia, from 1988 to 1991, a time of great political unrest. “I was there during the period when new political parties formed, the communists were voted out of power, democracy broke out, and Yugoslavia broke up and entered into a long civil war,” Greene said, describing the work of the U.S. Consulate in Zagreb from 1988 to 1991 in particular as very satisfying professionally. “In Zagreb, we had a lot of contact with the new democratic political parties and I was the point person on those issues.” But he reflected, “It was tragic to see the civil war break out in Yugoslavia. That lasted a decade after I left.”

I think everyone who serves in that part of the world in the Foreign Service at least hopes to be part of major progress in Middle East peace.

From Croatia, he returned to the Middle East, serving as Political Section Chief at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria, from 1993 to 1996, where he also joined the U.S. delegation, led by Secretary of State Warren Christopher, aiming at a peace deal between Syria and Israel. The U.S. government came very close to achieving a peace agreement in those years, but the talks collapsed following the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Israel in 1995, and the death of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in 2000, and Greene said it was frustrating to watch all of the work of those years dissipate.

“I think everyone who serves in that part of the world in the Foreign Service at least hopes to be part of major progress in Middle East peace,” he said. “While my personal and professional lives were very positive, one of the things I regret is that I wasn’t in the Foreign Service when a major deal for peace in the region came about.”

Transitioning to Leadership From Syria, Greene transitioned into high-level management roles within the State Department and abroad. He was Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Next, while in Washington, he was Chief of Staff for Charlotte Beers, who served from 2001 to 2003 as Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs under Secretary of State Colin Powell. In 2003, Greene became Deputy Executive Secretary of the State Department for Powell, and served in the same capacity for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Both traveled extensively, and Greene often accompanied them to Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

“Basically what I did was manage the paper flow into and out of the Secretary’s office from all over the State Department

at the U.S. Consulate in Casablanca, Morocco. Later he served as Deputy Chief of Mission in the United Arab Emirates, overseeing a staff of 600 at the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi from 2008 to 2011, and in 2012, he became Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, Poland.

Ready for Reunion Despite his world travels, Greene has kept up with news from The Gunnery over the years. He said it was wonderful when the Bulletin arrived through the diplomatic pouch, and he was able to flip through the pages and remember his own time as a student. He recalls being fascinated by the arrival of the school’s first computer in 1972 and has fond memories of School Walk, of English teachers Mac Simms and Wally Rowe ’57 P’77 ’79, who both helped him with his writing, and of being in a rock band with Sam Abady ’73 and Chris MacAlpine ’73.

“We practiced almost every afternoon after sports in the Schoolhouse basement, which had been given to us as a place we could play. Occasionally, we performed

Greene playing guitar at The Gunnery, from the Red and Gray, 1978

elsewhere on the weekend,” including at a local ski hill, Greene said.

His senior year, he also took piano lessons at Wykeham Rise. “I ended up participating in a recital there, which was a major personal accomplishment,” he said.

“In 1981, when I took off for Beirut, there was no such thing as email. I lost touch with a lot of people,” he said. Now that he has retired and is living in the Washington, D.C., area, Greene said he is looking forward to reconnecting with fellow Highlanders, both at Washington, D.C., events and at The Gunnery, and he has been working with Abady and other classmates to plan their 45th reunion this spring.

Asked if he had any advice for current students, he said: “Follow your passions. If you become interested in a topic, whether you know a lot about the topic or not, pursue it. At the end of your life, you’re going to be most successful at the things you are most passionate about.”

Green said he was “lucky” that The Gunnery helped him find what he was passionate about through the Russia program. And while it may sound contradictory, he said it’s also important to explore things outside of your comfort zone, which he did when he went to Beirut on that first assignment. “It led me in good directions,” he said, noting that he met his wife, Randa, in Beirut. They worked together in the Middle East, and they have two sons, Brandon, who now works at the Office of Management and Budget in Washington, and Andrew, who works as a manager for Uber in Beijing and Singapore.

“Every time I see someone who is thinking about boarding school, I always point them in the direction of The Gunnery,” Greene said. “It’s just a wonderful institution. Even though it’s been far away geographically, it’s been a big part of my life wherever I have been.” n

SPRING 2018

and all over the world,” Greene said. “The second part of my job was arranging their trips overseas and traveling with them to make sure everything happened as planned. Every minute of those trips had to be choreographed working with our embassies in those countries.”

From Powell in particular, Greene learned about leadership. “He was actually, in retrospect...the person with the most capable leadership skills of anyone I met in my career,” Greene said, explaining how Powell would connect with everyone around him. He listened carefully to what people had to say, even if he was the most senior person in the room, and he demonstrated the importance of being clear and forthright. “It was really a gift.

A lot of it was due to his experience as a rising officer in the U.S. military — he knew how to motivate the troops and promote strong morale. I learned a tremendous amount as I watched him operate.”

Greene’s decision to transition from a policy role to a staff officer working for the Secretary of State was intentional, and it prepared him for his subsequent roles overseas, as the Principal Officer

47

HIGHLANDER JOURNEYS

Managing Up Dave King ’90 Shares his Expertise with Fortune 500s and The Gunnery

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Dave King ’90 leading a client workshop and demonstrating his company’s creative approach to problem solving

48

Last fall, Dave King ’90 made the trip from Amsterdam to his alma mater to spend some time getting reacquainted with The Gunnery; the campus, new and “old” faculty and current students. He also spent some time conducting workshops with senior administrators and students, visiting classes and learning about what’s new at The Gunnery.

King is the General Manager of Europe for XPLANE (pronounced like the verb, “to explain”) where he oversees the consulting and design teams responsible for servicing global clients.

He’s been with XPLANE for 12 years, starting in their Portland, Oregon, office as Director of Digital Services. In trying to clarify what his job entails exactly, King said, “XPLANE is ironically hard to explain. It’s a management consultancy that uses design to solve problems inside large organizations.” XPLANE has many clients that are Fortune 500 companies (Google, Nike, GE, UPS) or large NGOs (the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, the MacArthur Foundation).

XPLANE employees work in small, multidisciplinary teams that co-create solutions with clients. The approach involves a lot of workshops using design — and visual-thinking to solve complex or ambiguous problems. As King says: “The people who work at XPLANE are unicorns. They are incredibly creative.

They’ve all had diverse careers before coming here: start-ups, journalism, architecture, entertainment, product design, art and design, the military — you name it. We joke that we’re an island of misfit toys, but it’s the diverse experience that creates a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving. It enables more lateral thinking, which often leads to more creative solutions.”

“For example,” King described, “we recently helped a national mail service that wanted to find ways they could improve.

We ran a three-day workshop to draw a wall-sized diagram of their end-toend delivery system: the people, tools, and activities required to move a single envelope from sender to recipient. Then

we used that visual model to help their teams identify points of breakage, risk, and opportunity — doing in just days what would otherwise take weeks or months of research and analysis.”

A few years ago, King started a discussion with Kiersten Marich, Director of Leadership Giving at The Gunnery, about organizational culture. “When I was a student at The Gunnery, I remember the senior class being the main thing that set the school’s culture from year to year,” noted King. “A good senior class meant a good year, especially for the underclassmen.”

While King was in Washington, he spent time with this year’s Prefects to talk about culture, so that they could understand their role and their opportunity to influence the school’s culture. “In most organizations, the culture just happens,” King explained.

“But I know from my work that organizational culture can be created with more intentionality. It can be diagnosed, designed and cultivated whether you’re an organization with 300,000 people or 300.”

In the time King had with the Prefects, he ran a simple exercise, asking them to list all the things that create a positive school The Prefects sort through ideas for creating positive culture at The Gunnery

A bird’s eye view of an XPLANE design workshop

Learning a new habit takes time and practice, and it doesn’t take much to have an impact. One small thing done consistently can make a difference over time.

never felt bad being yourself around him.

That’s an amazing space for a high school kid to find. He treated us like adults while still finding a way to be a teacher, mentor and disciplinarian.”

King fondly remembers his time among the self-proclaimed “Bad News Bears on ice” when he played thirds hockey. “We were terrible,” King remembers. “We lost games 10, 12 and 15 to 0. Even the grade-school kids from Rumsey Hall beat us badly. In three years of playing thirds hockey, we only won one game, beating the Avon Old Farms fourths team 3-2. I still have a puck from that game.”

During King’s senior year, Tom Adolphson taught an elective history class on the industrialization of Europe.

Adolphson layered into the curriculum Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen,” which were written (in part) as social commentary on what was happening in Europe as a result of industrialization, so juxtaposing one with the other created a vibrant comparison.

“That’s classic liberal arts education,” commented King. “I learned a lot about both topics, but more importantly, I learned how to connect ideas across otherwise disparate information. It’s a powerful skill and one that I use daily in management consulting.”

When asked what advice King would give current Gunnery students he said, “I imagine it’s more complicated to be a teenager today, but the main thing I would do differently is try to ignore or avoid all the social drama of high school.

Instead, I would make more of an effort to be friends — or at least friendly — with everyone. Not everyone is going to like you and you’re not going to like everyone, but that’s not the point. If you can find a way to be positive, confident, and open, life gets a lot easier and is a lot more fun.”

King lives in Amsterdam with his wife Jennifer, whom he met in San Francisco in 1997 while they worked as theater designers, “several careers ago.” They’ve been married 15 years and together for 20. Jennifer is a brand director at Nike’s European headquarters in Amsterdam. n

Dave King ‘90 and his wife, Jennifer, in Amsterdam.

SPRING 2018

culture, and all the things that create negative school culture. They wrote their ideas on Post-it® notes, and then sorted them on the wall and discussed them.

Next, King asked each Prefect to select one idea that they could commit to doing going forward — something they could make a daily or weekly habit.

“The ideas ranged from things as straightforward as modeling good behaviors, to acts requiring more courage, like personally shutting down trash-talk or bullying,” said King. “The last thing we did was designed to help them to create a new habit. I asked them to put their Post-it someplace they would see it daily, follow-up with each other on how their commitment is going, and not let failures cause them to give up. Learning a new habit takes time and practice, and it doesn’t take much to have an impact. One small thing done consistently can make a difference over time.”

King spent three years as a boarding student at The Gunnery and is originally from Higganum, Connecticut. In his first year, he lived in Gibson with Andy McNeill as a dorm parent and the coach of King’s thirds hockey team. “Both my dorm and that team were oddball, ragtag groups. Andy appreciated our goofiness.

You could say he even celebrated it. You

49

HIGHLANDER JOURNEYS

From the moment I descended into the blue and saw the underwater world, I felt a profound sense of wonder and Amye Waterhouse diving with her mom, Elyse, in Thailand in July 2017

awe and I fell in love with diving...

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

When Your Office is the Ocean

50

In 2014, three years after graduating from Trinity College, Amye Waterhouse ’06 decided to take some time off. Her plan was to accompany her sister, Laurel, on a trip to Bali, and then continue on her own to Southeast Asia for six months.

Waterhouse said she had no idea the trip would lead to a major career change, and an exciting new life nearly 9,000 miles from her home in New York City.

“I had started working three days after graduation and never had the chance to really travel. I’d never owned a backpack, traveled alone or even stayed in a hostel,” recalled Waterhouse, who received a degree in American Studies and worked in development and communications after college. Her first job was in the Alumni & Development Office at The Gunnery.

She traveled to Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Thailand. “I had never traveled alone before, so there was some trepidation,” she said, but on her flight to Thailand, she met a Thai family who insisted that she join them for dinner. “Their gracious hospitality and the travel information they so generously and enthusiastically shared

helped to allay my fears and inspired me to fully embrace the new adventures to come.”

One of those adventures involved scuba diving. “I have always loved the ocean but had never been diving. I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic when presented with the opportunity to try it. I couldn’t imagine that I would like it, which is funny because now I’m an instructor,” Waterhouse said, reflecting on the trajectory that propelled her from her first dive in Thailand to a career as a certified Divemaster and instructor on the island of Koh Tao.

“From the moment I descended into the blue and saw the underwater world, I felt a profound sense of wonder and awe and I fell in love with diving,” she said. It took a few years for her to accomplish her goals, but her desire to train and become a Divemaster quickly became her singular focus.

Waterhouse continued training and achieved specialty certifications, including a certification in technical diving, which enables her to dive further than recreational scuba divers, to depths beyond 130 feet, and explore underwater caves and even shipwrecks. After serving

as a Divemaster for a year, she enrolled in the rigorous process to become a certified PADI instructor, and now trains future Divemasters.

When she is not training, certifying or guiding divers, she is involved in local events to promote environmental awareness, support ocean conservation and protect marine life. “I dive almost every day, sharing my underwater ‘office’ with people from all walks of life and every country you can imagine. I very much enjoy introducing my divers to whale sharks, barracudas, turtles, rays, and macro life,” which include some

Enjoying the view of her office, September 2016

Waterhouse, second from left, gearing up for sidemount diving, which requires two tanks, with a team from Big Blue Tech in Thailand

“He told us a story about the beauty of imperfection, and to live life like you’re writing an autobiography,” Waterhouse said, recalling that McCourt also told his Gunnery audience, “No one wants to hear about a perfect life with no struggles or failures. Your character does not grow without setbacks or challenges.”

“It has forever impacted me,” she said, adding that she has shared the author’s advice with her diving students many times as inspiration.

Waterhouse referred to science teacher Jeff Trundy and History Chair Julia Alling ’81 P’19 as “guiding figures” during her years at The Gunnery. “They each had different ways of mentoring me, but both were deeply impactful. If I wanted to give up, they both pushed me to continue.”

A member of the girls crew team for four years, Waterhouse was named MVP in 2006 and said her coach, Anna Kjellson, was also very influential, as was the school’s focus on the outdoors and the environment. “It was always instilled in our education. Nature was important from the very founding of our school, and we must protect what we love. It’s far more than just our love; it keeps us alive and every day in the diving industry we need to fight to protect our oceans (from) plastics… shark finning...coral bleaching.

No one quite understands the impact of losing our reefs,” Waterhouse said, adding, “I get very passionate about this.”

She participates in “Shark Week,” an annual event involving many of the dive centers on Koh Tao. Working together,

they promote awareness about shark finning, a practice that involves removing a shark’s fins, often while the animal is still alive, ocean conservation, and the protection of endangered or threatened marine species. Held in August, the celebration includes lectures, activities, films, and concludes with a 2.5 km “Swim for Sharks” around Koh Nangyuan, a smaller island off Sairee Beach on Koh Tao. Funds raised from the competition benefit Shark Guardian, a UK charity that supports conservation, education and research about sharks, and Sea Shepherd Australia, a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation and preservation of marine ecosystems and species.

As for what’s next, Waterhouse said she is continuing to gain experience as a diving instructor and would like to eventually work on a liveaboard, which means that her primary residence could be a small yacht. “I’m looking at the Maldives, Indonesia and Central America.

I also would like to become more involved in conservation. My mom and I have been talking about traveling to South America to volunteer in collecting marine data for research projects.”

Over time, her enthusiasm for the underwater world, and her sense of adventure, has continued to blossom.

As she said: “I enjoy sharing my passion with others. It’s also so rewarding to teach someone to dive. It’s more than just learning. It’s overcoming fears, igniting a passion to explore, showing people a part of this world we don’t always see.” n

SPRING 2018

strikingly colorful marine molluscs called nudibranchs, or “sea slugs.”

Last July, she had the opportunity to serve as a Divemaster for her mom, Elyse, who is the Chief Financial Officer at The Spence School in New York. Her father, Thomas, is a retired pilot. “It was so special, to not only share with her my new career, but to also introduce her to diving,” Waterhouse said. “She was nervous at first, and then when she was certified, I got to take her to one of my favorite dive sites. The conditions were awful that day. There were sizeable waves, strong currents and a lot of stinging jellyfish had been swept into the dive site.

It was a bit overwhelming for a new diver and she handled it like a champ.”

She acknowledged it has been interesting to live and work in a climate that is so different from that of New York.

“We experience monsoon season, and with it, some very severe storms. When it rains it pours, literally. The climate is tropical with high heat and humidity. Koh Tao’s weather is more pleasant right now,” she said in an interview in February from her bungalow on Shark Bay. “Everyday life here is very different than home. Living on an island, we have issues with power outages, fresh water resources, and a lack of home amenities, like ovens and washing machines. Grocery stores are few and far between.”

Asked if there was an experience from her years at The Gunnery that prepared her for her new life in Thailand, Waterhouse cited a visit from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frank McCourt, who was a guest speaker at The Gunnery in February 2004. An account from the evening noted that he held the audience of students, faculty, parents and area residents spellbound with his tales of poverty in Ireland as a child, his adjustment to life in New York City as a young immigrant, and his years of teaching high school in Brooklyn.

51

What have you been up to since you last were in touch with us?

Drop us a line and tell us your news! Submit class notes to

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

Class Notes

52

1955

1957

From Bruce Porter: “I’m retired from the

Robert Johnson is going to New Zealand

Columbia Journalism School and now teach for Bard College in their prison program, which offers B.A. courses in a half dozen New York State penal institutions. I teach an intro journalism course to inmates at maximum and medium facilities.

My latest book, ‘Snatched’, published

by St. Martin’s Press, was just bought by Leonardo DiCaprio’s studio, Appian Way, and Entertainment One. No word yet on who would star, but I’m pushing for Ryan Gosling and Angelina Jolie. Of course, no one listens to me, probably smart of them.

The book is about a female undercover DEA operative who, in the early 1990s, was kidnapped by FARC, the Colombia guerrilla group. My wife Sara Jane, a painter, and I live in Greenwich Village and Hudson, New York.”

(for three weeks) and Australia (for four weeks).

From Lou Allyn: “Charlie Smith was very busy, as was usual, in 1957. Recently, he was awarded a plaque which reads, ‘Charles F. Smith, Volunteer of the Year, for recognition of his many years of service to the New Haven Community Soup Kitchen, presented Nov., 16, 2017.’

Also, the Town of Killingworth celebrated in 2017 the 350th anniversary of its founding, culminating in a parade and picnic Sept 2, 2017. Charlie chaired the fundraising ($24,000 raised) and Parade Committee (70 entries) and also was Vice Chair of the 350th Commemoration Committee. Charlie’s wife, Sandy, drew upon her artistic talents and interest in local history to create and organize a scavenger hunt of historical buildings and locations throughout the town. Cindy and I were given a greatly enjoyed private tour followed by some of Charlie’s made-athome artisanal wine.

You probably have heard that Fred Fields and Roxanne Holmes were recently married. Congratulations! See you at the reunion, June 8-10.”

clementj@gunnery.org or fill out the form at www.Gunnery.org/notes. = Alumni Weekend Summer 2018

franchises to individuals. I still enjoy golf but have been plagued with spinal stenosis so my playing time has been limited.”

1960 Congratulations to Andrew Littauer, who writes: “I’ve finally retired having just sold my interest in the Romanian company I founded nearly 25 years ago. I live mostly in Sarasota where I am focused, though not nearly enough, on completing a multigenerational novel. My 25 years of banking in America, Europe and Asia somehow now seem remote, even as my years in Washington — at The Gunnery — over 50 years past, increase in my mind’s recall.”

Jonathan von Ranson, reporting from

Wendell, Massachusetts: “Susan and I count our wealth in a good relationship, the thriving of our children, grandchildren

1959 Left to right: Sara Jane Roszak, Gabriel Gavidia, Hana Li-Sha Porter and Bruce Porter ’55.

“After selling my security company and retiring from the practice of law in 2005,” Bob Hall reports, “I have devoted my time to enjoying my condo in Florida with my wife, Arlene. To fill in the time gaps, I have affiliated with a company that sells

Susan von Ranson in the home she and Jonathan von Ranson ’60 built with their own hands

Bruce Moss shared “some reveries” about George Krimsky, and his four years at The

Gunnery: “The George Krimsky I knew as a classmate was a fun-loving, high-energy guy. He and I used to kid each other about who was the real Maurice Richard (George was a better hockey player than I was). I thought of those Gunnery years when in the mid-1970s I read of the troubles he was having in the USSR. Living in Italy with my wife and son in the early seventies, we spent summers in Moscow when my wife’s father was Belgium’s ambassador to the Soviet Union. My father-in-law was well acquainted with Brezhnev’s ruthlessness. I could imagine what George was up against as an American journalist.

I’ve been writing novels during my 24 years here in Santa Fe, New Mexico — a New York novel, a Florentine tragedy, and a New Mexico ‘quest’ novel, all still to be published. My agent reminds me that the market for serious fiction isn’t what it was 60 years ago when I was so energized by Pete Bennelli’s and Wally Rowe’s ’57 P’77 ’79 dynamic English classes. Still, Santa Fe has its compensations in literature, art and music. Playing a certain Brahms Intermezzo on my piano, my mind sometimes wanders to my Gunnery years… out on Lake Waramaug, the water cold in early spring, stroking the first four under Rod Beebe’s gaze, I think of the woods on the hill across the bay showing those first yellow-green signs of the year’s leafing. I also remember my fellow classical music-appreciating

roommate Hoagy Keep, who taught for years at Eaglebrook, now gone. Yet there he is, pulling his wood tennis racquet out of its press to play that last spring of 1960 for Guy Whittall’s P’80 ’82 boys. They were special years.”

1965 Steve Knight is “semi-retired but still

teaching college classes. I am also very involved with helping immigrants, ‘New Mainers,’ adapt to life here and to start college. It is a very rewarding occupation and a way to counter the negativity.”

1966 David van Esselstyn says he is “happily

retired in the Richmond, Virginia, area near our daughter and their two boys. Staying busy as HOA president (last year of that) and serving on the executive board for Anglican Chaplains. We have a spare room if anyone is traveling through our area. I am constantly amazed at the growth of The Gunnery and how going coed has enhanced the whole school.”

Roberto Chaskel ’66 received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Colombia Psychiatric Association.

From Roberto Chaskel: “I want to share with you the Lifetime Achievement Award given to me by the Colombia Psychiatric Association. It is the result of so many years of collaborative work with my American colleagues. I could not have developed this partnership had it not been for my years at The Gunnery.” Read more at: https:// uniandes.edu.co/noticias/premios-yreconocimientos/profesor-de-los-andesrecibe-premio-vida-y-obra.

Through his Wisdom Thinkers Network, Ralph Singh Rakietan continues his quest to nurture engaged compassionate citizens in a pluralistic world, focusing on spiritual and character development, and emotional literacy in public schools (and private) using

Ralph Singh ‘66 sharing a story, “The Real Bargain,” about sharing and caring, with children at a Montessori school in Syracuse, New York, circa 2010.

SPRING 2018

and ourselves, this home (pictured) — built our simple-minded way, you could say, with our own hands —– and the remarkable community that we’re part of. (We cook and fix things for neighbors, babysit, help with the food pantry and cultural council, advise on public transportation, take woodworking jobs, host coffee gatherings …) Recalling the loss of Hoagie Keep and George Krimsky, two of my best Gunnery friends, gives me a sense of the tender mutuality of life on this beautiful planet and a fresh urge to serve it as best I can. Hope to attend our 60th in 2020!”

53

CLASS NOTES

his award-winning audio CD, “Stories to Light Our Way.” He has presented at the Joint Conference on Civic Engagement at Harvard and the Tisch School at Tufts, and for the Center for Spiritual and Ethical Education. He helps children understand that the world is a virtual reality, and they have the power and responsibility to be the heroes to change it. He catches up with Chris Dunford, his old roommate, at least annually, to share both family and “change the world” stories. Chris is running Truelift, and is always taking time to add to his lifetime bird “collection.”

1967 Bruce Adams, who retired in 2005 from

expiration date occurs. Last fall, they went on safari in Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa and a month later spent a week in London before sailing back across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands on a five-masted sailing ship. This spring they will be aboard the cruise ship Prinsendam for more than two months, cruising to Africa and around the Mediterranean.

1968 Submitted by Lee Griffin: “My husband, Robert H. Griffin II, is presently offshore sailing single-handedly to Nassau, Bahamas, and back to our home on the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia. Contact can be made through robogriffin@hotmail.com.”

public school teaching after 34 years, wrote: “In 2009, I was elected First Selectman of the Town of Kent, Connecticut. Last November, I was re-elected to a fifth term.

It has been a good run and I am proud of many things I have accomplished. I now have six cute grandchildren, three in Kent and three in Seattle, and we all got together out west last summer. Unfortunately, Holly, my wife of 46 years, has had to move to a skilled nursing facility due to complications from M.S., which she has battled for over 35 years. I enjoyed reconnecting with a few classmates last year in anticipation of our 50th reunion.”

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

more than four years) Catalina and I have had a great year together, including travels to London, Bogota, Southwest Harbor, Maine, New York City, the Adirondacks, and my home in Warren, Vermont. We each continue to enjoy our separate, gratifying, professional careers, she as a clinical psychologist in private practice in Cambridge, and I as an investment counselor working with fortunate families.

Catalina’s younger daughter is enjoying NYU law school. My daughter is a psychotherapist at Hampshire College and her wife, Julia, just completed a double masters at UNH. Julia is a therapist/ counselor at the Kindle School in Brattleboro. I look forward to joining my classmates on campus for our 50th reunion, shocking as that sounds.”

Michael Armstrong has sent along a great

Robert H. Griffin II ‘68

54

Jack Reynolds shared: “My partner (of

1969

Bill Oman and his husband, Dr. Larry Crummer, are busy traveling the world as much as possible before their “sell by”

Bill Oman ’67, left, and his husband, Dr. Larry Crummer, right, with a guide on safari

Jack Reynolds ’68 and Catalina

“All is good here,” notes Lance White, “on the Jersey Shore in Mantoloking. Our town continues to recover from Hurricane Sandy (October 2012) but great progress has been made as we rebuild, etc. I have become active in local politics and now serve as the town’s Council President. Lots of work, but extremely enjoyable and fulfilling. I look forward to seeing my classmates in June.”

story about his senior year in the Outdoor Club with Ned Swigart P’82, where they discovered an important Paleolithic site, which resulted in the foundation of the Institute for American Indian Studies in Washington, Connecticut: “Mr. Swigart told us that in New England, places where a small stream flows into a river often had a Native American village. We visited several places, and we unanimously decided to dig at a place in Steep Rock, on the Shepaug River. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life, and an inspiration for future accomplishments for me.

1974 From Hank Landemare: “Living in Cancun with my chiropractic office on the island of Isla Mujeres. My son, Henry IV, 12 years old, surfs and sails, spends

summer at camp in Maine, and his golden retriever, Ace, is always by his side. I am still in contact with Maynard Webb and Lisa (Neuenschwander) Smith ’75.”

William Webb reports a life of leisure: “I have been happily retired for a long time now, and I don’t do anything except relax and enjoy the freedom. Still living in Florida, but hope to move somewhere less hot and humid soon. Would love to visit The Gunnery again, but that’s a long trip, and I rarely go on any kind of trip unless it’s to attend a good concert or festival. I’ve never married nor do I have any kids, so it’s just me and the cat, and a massive audio system. Since retiring, I have grown my hair back out, and also let my beard grow very long. I’m still a hippie, and my advice to all is ‘Relax and Abide!!’”

1975 Jeffrey LaCroix is still working for Verizon

and has just had his fourth telephone patent approved. “Furnace of Truth,” the book Jeff wrote about the controversial Christian forefather named Origen, is doing reasonably well (www.furnaceoftruth. com). His daughter, Audra, is working for a printing association and his daughter, Annie, is at the University of Texas in the School of Nursing. He and his wife, Rita, are still in Irving, Texas. (He adds: If you have never used your telephone as a browser visit foneval.com.)

1978 Jonathan Gourd is working as a sound

supervisor on a feature film, “The Groundskeeper.” During filming he got to record the sound of a 150-lb. python slithering up his body.

Hank Landemare ’74 with his son, Henry, and his golden retriever, Ace

Jonathan Gourd ’78 recording the sound of a 150-lb. python for the film, “The Groundskeeper”

1979 Peter Strandes muses: “Hard to believe we are entering the empty-nest stage of life. Two out the door and our youngest is a freshman at the University of North Florida. We married off our daughter last year and Kathy and I celebrated 31 years of marriage in October.”

SPRING 2018

Mr. Swigart, whom I adored, notified some Yale professors he knew about the discovery. They came and looked around for an hour. I was there. They then took over the site, and thanked us for finding it. I have never returned to The Gunnery, and have never seen the institute.

After graduating, I matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania, and majored in anthropology. I soon found out that most archaeologists never even get to visit a site like we found, and it is mostly really dull work! Later, I majored in geology at the University of California, and became a geologist, and eventually became a research geologist there. After that, I became a computer network manager at the Santa Barbara County Fire Department and I was the emergency IT response person for the county. I am retired now, but I had a really good career. I loved The Gunnery; it changed my life.”

55

CLASS NOTES

1983 From Judd Shapiro: “I recently celebrated the 14th year of marriage to my wife, Melanie. Combined we have three sons, a grandson, and four dogs. I am the English Department Chair at Gulliver Preparatory, I offer college-bound counseling at clearingcbc.com, and I coach soccer for Mavericks FC. Hard to believe it has been 35 years since graduation from The Gunnery… I hope everyone from the Class of ’83 is doing well.”

1984 Peter Bergen and Greg Keller share

news that they launched a partnership last September with a leading family-owned and operated firm serving the commercial hospitality space, sourcing interior furnishings (aka FFE). “Refurbs and new builds are our specialty and we would appreciate The Gunnery alumni network connecting us to anyone directly engaged in procurement within the space!” Contact Peter at pjbergenjr@gmail.com.

Arnd Wehner reports he moved from

Munich, Germany, to Athens, Greece, a couple of years ago to work for BMW Automotive. His daughter is “enjoying a high school exchange year in the U.S., however in Wisconsin and not at The Gunnery.”

1995 Jamel Long is the new Director of Academic Affairs at the Dornslife School of Public Health at Drexel University.

He joined Dornslife in 2015 as Graduate Programs Administrator in the Office of Academic & Faculty Affairs and Program Manager & Advisor for the Executive MPH Program. In his new role, he is responsible for the development and coordination of instructional policies and programs and is the first point of contact for all academic programs for any academic-related issues.

1996 Married alumni Jim Grant and Miranda Pasch-Grant moved to Oklahoma City

last summer with their three girls, ages 10, 7 and 3. Jim is working as an Exploration Manager at Chesapeake Energy and Miranda is at home with the children.

They try to get back to Connecticut every summer and hope to catch up with old friends then. They had the pleasure of meeting up with Nick Carter P’06, who works at Heritage Hall School in Oklahoma City. “We loved our small-world encounter,” Miranda wrote.

things within one month: I visited Oregon for the Great American total solar eclipse, then went to Burning Man for my first time, and I immediately summited Half Dome! All bucket list items, I’d say!”

Lorenzo, a miniature dachshund, also joined her family this year.

1997 Sean Stellato was honored November 8

as a recipient of the 2017 Ten Outstanding Young Leaders (TOYL) Awards, presented by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. “Boston’s next generation of leaders are hard at work solving some of the biggest issues facing our region. They bring bold, innovative, and creative ideas to the table and are shaping the future of the city,” the chamber said. Past recipients of the award include President John F. Kennedy and conductor Leonard Bernstein. “It was a moving night,” said Stellato, who is the CEO and founder of Stellato Enhanced Sports and an NPLPA certified sports agent.

Krystalynn Schlegel writes: “2017 was

a great year for me. I did three amazing

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

1985

56

In the fall, we sent out table tent cards with quotes from Gunnery parents and alumni, who shared in their own words how The Gunnery has made a difference in their lives. In response, Alexander Fields sent us a note saying, “Because of The Gunnery, I met my wife (Eleanor (Dix) Fields ’86). So I owe The Gunnery EVERYTHING!”

Sean Stellato ’97, center, receiving a 2017 TOYL Award

Krystalynn Schlegal ’96 at Half Dome

Gunnery mom Maria Coffin shared this update about her son: Jonathan Coffin graduated from Yale Divinity School with an M. Div. degree in 2011. He is now teaching history at Greenwich Academy and is working on a Ph.D. in ecological studies/sacred spaces at Antioch University,

2000 From Owen Dodd: “After returning from the Peace Corps, serving in both Burkina Faso and Guyana, I went to work for the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. After working for the USDA for some time, I earned my master’s degree in international affairs, studying media on the international market. I now work for U.S. Representative John Larson, who represents Connecticut’s First District, as his Communications Advisor and serve as the agricultural, animal rights and national service Legislative Aide.”

2003 Daren Daniels has been promoted to Senior Attorney-Adviser at the Social Security Administration’s Office of Appellate Operations in Arlington, Virginia.

He wrote to us in December: “I have very fond memories of working with Paula Krimsky in The Gunnery archives. It’s amazing how The Gunnery has such a rich collection documenting its history over the years. In addition, Julia Alling’s ’81 P’19 fantastic history classes sparked my interest in history. I majored in history at Grinnell and am still fascinated with history. I enjoy living in Washington, D.C., in part because the Smithsonian system gives me a chance to come face-to-face with history and in part because history is being made here in the moment as well.”

Chad Taylor is the “Wolf” in Wolf + Rothstein, the Los Angeles-based creative agency and record label for Childish Gambino. As Variety reported in January: “Childish Gambino — a.k.a. actor/singer/ rapper and ‘Atlanta’ star Donald Glover — and his agency/label Wolf + Rothstein have partnered with RCA Records for a new recording and label deal.” The trade

magazine reported that Wolf was part of the team that helped create the “Awaken My Love!” album, which along with the single “Redbone” was nominated for five Grammy Awards this year.

2004 Mark Rhoads has enrolled in Brown

University’s Executive Master in Science and Technology Leadership program, a 16-month program designed to transform engineering, science, and technology professionals into leaders prepared to drive innovation in today’s complex, rapidly evolving global markets, while continuing work at Deloitte Consulting.

2005 Submitted by Gunnery mom Emily Taylor: “Wells Mueller married Jill Evans February 11, 2016 in Aspen, Colorado (Jill’s hometown). The ceremony was outside on Snowmass Mountain with the reception in a log cabin on the slopes. We had to take a snowcat there and back! It was a magical event. They are living in Cleveland where they manage their rental properties and Wells rehabs homes to ‘flip.’

They love to ski (Jill)/snowboard (Wells),

Jill Evans and Wells Mueller ’05 were married in Aspen.

mountain bike and rock climb. They took a belated honeymoon in September and October, traveling across the country in their Westfalia van, biking, hiking and visiting friends and family for seven weeks.

Wells’ new passion is his remote-controlled, battery-powered skateboard.”

2006 Amye Waterhouse has been living in Thailand for almost two years working as a scuba diving instructor and divemaster, is conducting technical dive training, and working on marine conservation efforts.

“It has been incredible,” she reports. “I have enjoyed traveling in Southeast Asia and plan to advance my career working on liveaboards in Indonesia and Central America in the future, hoping to found a conservation NGO. I have had the extreme pleasure of family and friends visiting me and diving with me! I welcome visitors!”

(See story on page 50.)

Seth Mahler and Max Kaufman ’12 were

selected for the Israel Lacrosse men’s national team that will compete July 12-21 in Netanya, Israel, at the 2018 Federation of International Lacrosse (FIL) World Lacrosse Championships. The sport’s pinnacle event includes 50 participating countries and attracts more than 5,000 fans, according to the team’s website. The roster is composed of both Israeli players and members of the Jewish diaspora, in accordance with FIL regulations. In conjunction with the Israel Lacrosse

At left, Sderot LC’s Max Kaufman ’06

SPRING 2018

New England. He and his wife, Ilana Ofgang, live in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport.

57

CLASS NOTES

Tzedakah Program, each player will be competing in honor of a charity of their choosing. Coincidentally, Seth played lacrosse at Whittier College in California from 2006-2010, as did Max, from 2013-2017.

Kirsten (Spelman) Albano and her

husband, Thomas, welcomed their daughter, Hailey, on December 15, 2017.

Cancer America on March 18. The team included Matthew, who is CEO and cofounder of Buffalo 8 and BondIt Media Capital, Patrick DePeters ’06, CFO and partner of the companies, and Luke Taylor, co-founder and COO. They were joined by Matthew’s wife, Perry (Costello) Helderman ’06, and his dad, Mark.

2008 Chelsea Simpson and Zack Grossman

were married December 30, 2017 in Sarasota, Florida. Pat Brennan was the best man, Andrew Simpson ’10 was a groomsman, and Darby Simpson ’14 was a bridesmaid.

Matthew Helderman wrote in January to let us know the team from BondIt Media Capital and Buffalo 8 was back and more excited than ever to take on the 2018 LA Marathon in support of Teen

Submitted by Peter Slone ’73: “Haley Slone is a senior instructor with Outward Bound in its Colorado-Utah district. She is a whitewater rafting specialist and has led 30 day trips that include leadership training and wilderness survival skills training. She also leads Wounded Warrior and Women Veterans expeditions. In the off-season, Haley is a dog sledding instructor in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.”

Fan Jiang is currently a graduate student at

Tufts University.

Chelsea Simpson ’08 and Zack Grossman ’08 were married in December.

2009 T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

2011

After graduating cum laude in art history from Connecticut College in 2016, Veronica McStocker relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, where she recently celebrated her one-year work anniversary at Yelp.

2007

58

Matt Ellison left for Bangladesh and Turkey in January and will be there for eight months filming and writing about the displacement of refugees from Myanmar and Syria.

2012

Thomas and Kirsten Albano’s ’06 daughter, Hailey

Joe Mashburn and Naomi Sobelson were married September 3, 2017, at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, and honeymooned in Tuscany.

Josh Johnston, Clark Johnson and Austin Ryer were groomsmen. Joe is head brewer at Night Shift Brewery in Everett, Mass. and Naomi is an account director at Human Care Systems in Boston.

Matthew ’07 and Perry Helderman ’06

2010

Sarah Auchincloss can be reached at sjauchincloss@gmail.com.

2013 Katie Quinlan: “A few months after

graduating from Union College with degrees in economics and environmental policy, I started working for an advertising agency called Posterscope in New York City. I work on the consumer insights team, conduct research on consumer habits and work on current advertising campaigns running across the country.

Planning a February ski trip with a few of my Gunnery alumni friends at my condo on Okemo for a long weekend!

From Gunnery dad Gregory Plante: “Jake Plante is finishing up his senior year as a construction management major at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. He just finished up his second senior co-op as an Assistant Project Manager for Columbia Construction, working on a large project at Gillette in Boston. He’s also about to start his senior year on the lacrosse team at WIT.”

Jackie Hagopian, MJ Kessenich, Kathleen Songco, Gillian Horn, and Tess Mindham

and I all graduated together in 2013 and have tried to get together at least a couple times a year.”

Sam Anderson reports, “Living life to the fullest in New York with my roommate Matt Williams.”

Michael Cohen writes: “I’m currently

finishing up my last semester of graduate school at Boston University, pursuing my master’s in management of hospitality.

Hoping to use my degree in the long run to start my own affordable wellness retreats for millennials, with the hope to decrease mental illness rates throughout the country.”

Skyler Clark ’14 was named to the Academic Honor Roll in November.

Christopher Davis was married in June

a student-athlete must be a sophomore, junior or senior and carry at least a 3.40 cumulative grade-point average.

2017. He and his wife, Kaley, are expecting a baby girl in March.

Sarah Hughson had a pretty exciting

Sam Walther, goaltender for the Hamilton College Women’s Ice Hockey Team, was selected as the NESCAC Women’s Hockey Player of the Week on February 5. At the time, Hamilton reported that Walther, who is a senior, had moved into second place on the program’s all-time list with 2,103 career saves, and held the team record with 25 career shutouts.

week in November. On November 7, she was named United Collegiate Hockey Conference (UCHC) Player of the Week and the next day, she received national recognition by landing a spot on the D3hockey.com National Team of the Week.

Hughson is a senior at Elmira College and one of only three skaters in the history of Elmira’s women’s ice hockey program to score three goals in a season-opener.

2014 Skyler Clark was named to the Centennial Conference Academic Honor Roll in November for the third consecutive year.

He was one of 10 student-athletes named to the list last fall from the soccer team at Washington University, where he is double majoring in biology and chemistry. In order to qualify for the Academic Honor Roll,

From Kori Rimany: “Gunnery classmates Kevin Darrar (Holy Cross) and Joey Fallon (Princeton) saw each other last fall when the Princeton Tigers took on the Holy Cross Crusaders at Princeton. Now Fallon has bragging rights over Darrar because the final score was 4-2 Princeton.”

Sarah Hughson ’14 is one of the leading scorers in Elmira’s women’s ice hockey program.

SPRING 2018

Sam Walther ’14, winning goaltender for Hamilton College

Congratulations to Kaley and Christopher Davis ’13

59

CLASS NOTES

zone but very rewarding. The Chinese liberal arts education group is going well! I held four conferences in China this past summer and we have over 12,000 followers online. Everything is heading in the right direction, I believe.”

Current and Former Faculty

Luke Sowa recently was awarded a full football scholarship to attend Kansas State University. Go Wildcats!

Joseph and Ineke Ghering P’78 are

Kevin Darrar ’14 and Joey Fallon ’14 at Princeton

great-grandparents! Their granddaughter, Kelly, and her husband, Peter, welcomed their daughter, Elle, on September 22, 2017. Joe was the cook at The Gunnery for many years and he is a faithful and longstanding Gunnery ice hockey fan who, until recently, could be spotted in the stands at every home game.

2015 Jessica Xu, a junior at Swarthmore College,

wrote to us via Facebook in October: “Wow I can’t wait to see the new archive. I’ll definitely visit sometime in spring. Classes are going well. I’m taking an acting class this semester.

So interesting! Totally out of my comfort

Luke Sowa ‘15

Ineke and Joseph Ghering P’78 with their new granddaughter, Elle

IN MEMORIAM

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

The Gunnery community is saddened by the loss of many cherished sons and daughters and sends its condolences to their friends and families:

60

Ben Judd ’17, and his sisters, Caroline ’15 and Olivia ’14, weren’t the only ones who missed out on this photo opportunity at Butternut in January … so did Pat Iannone ’15, Matty Logue ’15 and Jared Longo ’17. Instead, Sara Lynn Leavenworth, Director of Admissions, ran into this great group of Gunnery dads, including (left to right) Rick Judd, Mark Iannone, Peter Logue and Dave Longo, on the slopes!

Follow The Gunnery online

www.Gunnery.org

Mr. Owen O. Freeman, Jr. ’53 1/29/2018 Mr. Dean L. Gardner ’88 12/31/2017 Mr. Harry Jones ’53 2/17/2018 Mr. Scott W. Kiernan ’94 1/4/2018 Mr. Ted Koven ’53 10/22/2017 Mr. Edward Longstreth, Jr. ’48 12/7/2017 Mr. Alexander J. Morrison ’46 11/16/2017 Mr. Walter Joseph Schilo ’58 2/14/2017 Mr. Sean Sutton ’72 2/16/2018

Because of YOU...

BOARD OF TRUSTEES AND SCHOOL OFFICERS TRUSTEES

BOURNE ADVISORY COUNCIL

Peter Becker Head of School Gerrit Vreeland ’61 Chairman Jonathan M. Estreich P’06 Vice President Cynthia Urda Kassis P’19 Secretary Patrick M. Dorton ’86 Treasurer

Peter Becker Stephen P. Bent ’59 Leo D. Bretter ’52 P’88 Edsel B. Ford II ’68 Jonathan S. Linen ’62 William S. Smilow ’82 Jonathan M. Tisch ’72 Gerrit Vreeland ’61 Roy S. Walzer ’65 P’86

Christine Armstrong P’19 William Bardel Robert Bellinger ’73 William Graham Cole Sarah A. (Scheel) Cook ’82 Gretchen H. Farmer P’05 Ashleigh Fernandez Peter R. Houldin ’92 Sherm Hotchkiss ’63 David E. Kaplan ’81 P’13 ’15 ’20 Jonathan S. Linen ’62 Len Novick P’18 ’21 Larry Paredes P’20 Kirsten Peckerman Roy B. Simpson, Jr. ’68 Omar Slowe ’97 Richard N. Tager ’56 William T. Tolley P’08 ’14 Neil Townsend P’18 ’20 Daniel Troiano ’77 Wanji Walcott P’19

Omar Slowe ’97 – President Peter J. Bergen ’84 Sheila M. Boyd ’91 Alessandra L. Carlin ’97 James Estreich ’06 Bobby Gordon ’87 Peter S. Lorenz ’03 Laura Eanes Martin ’90 P’20 William S. McKee ’06 Nicholas Molnar ’72 Elizabeth R. Newman ’93 Juan D. Padro ’92 Altan R. Sadik-Khan ’06 Emma J. Schereschewsky ’94 Krystalynn M. Schlegel ’96 Scott A. Schwind ’89 Jonathan P. Sullivan ’98 Steven Vitale ’92 Jin Young (Clifford) Yang ’98

TRUSTEE EMERITI

Leo D. Bretter ’52 P’88 David N. Hoadley ’51

ALUMNI COUNCIL

PARENTS FUND CHAIR

Matt Dorf P’19 ’19

Gunnery students are prepared for what lies ahead: College. Internships. First jobs. “Real life.”

The confidence I gained at The Gunnery helps me succeed in college. ~ Connor Dahlman ’16

Faculty at The Gunnery, simply by being themselves, were role models who helped me find my confidence. ~ Emeline Smith ’18

PARENTS COUNCIL CO-PRESIDENTS

Jack and Julie Cary P’18

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT

Laura Eanes Martin ’90 P’20

MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE

Ken Mason Director of Strategic Marketing & Communications masonk@gunnery.org Jennifer Clement Bulletin Editor clementj@gunnery.org ALUMNI & DEVELOPMENT OFFICE

Sean Brown P’21 Director of Alumni & Development browns@gunnery.org

ADMISSIONS OFFICE

Sara Lynn Leavenworth Director of Admissions leavenworths@gunnery.org CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Jessica Baker, Peter Becker, Jennifer Clement, Paula Gibson Krimsky PHOTOGRAPHERS

Jessica Baker, Richard Bergen, Coffeepond Photography, Phil Dutton ’81, Chip Riegel, Kristen Tomkowid, Derek Ward

DESIGN John Johnson Art Direction, Collinsville, Conn.

PRINTING David Emery ’73, GHP, West Haven, Conn.

When you give to The Gunnery Fund, you directly support new programs, our impassioned faculty and classroom improvements that inspire Gunnery students every day.

Because of you, students build robots, travel to MOMA, explore Steep Rock, and create award-winning artwork.

These experiences shape our students as scholars, thinkers, problem-solvers, team players and citizens. They are prepared and ready to tackle the rest of their lives, and that is because of you.

To support students and faculty through The Gunnery Fund: • Visit www.Gunnery.org/MakeAGift • Mail the gift envelope, or • Call (860) 350-0103

Thank you!

Non-Profit Org. U.S. POSTAGE

PAID 99 Green Hill Road, Washington, CT 06793

www.Gunnery.org

Gunnery students make a difference!

See the full story on page 23 and a great photo gallery

T H E G U N N E RY B U L L E T I N

at www.Gunnery.org/MLKBBall.

62

Milford, CT Permit No. 80