The Avonian, Spring 2020

SPRING 2020

Together, apart: REMOTE LEARNING SPRING 2020

INSIDE: PREP4WARD PROGRAM EDUCATES THE WHOLE BOY

SPRING 2020

contents

FEATURE

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Prep4ward: Educating the Whole Student

BY M O R G A N C . CUGE LL

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Search Group: Avon Old Farms School Alumni Association avonoldfarms.smugmug.com

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from the EDITOR Dear Readers,

SPOTLIGHTS

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ACADEMIC SPOTLIGHT:

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT:

Digital Arts

Alex Hitz ’87

BY M O R G A N C. CU GE LL

BY MOR GA N C. CUGELL

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FEATURED ARTIST:

IN MEMORIAM:

Jordan Bernard ’20

Jorge Consuegra ’51

BY M O R G A N C. CU GE LL

BY MOR GA N C. CUGELL

18 ATHLETIC SPOTLIGHT:

Max Gart ’20

BY M O R G A N C. CU GE LLL

38 STUDENT SPOTLIGHT:

Po Lam Fung ’20

BY M O R G A N C. CU GE LL

42 FACULTY FOCUS:

Graham Callaghan ’95

BY M O R G A N C. CU GE LL

DEPARTMENTS

3 4 18 55 72 73

Headmaster

Village Green

Athletics

Class Notes

The Last Word

Parting Shot

Spring has sprung, but campus just isn’t the same without the boys on campus.

Because of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Avon Old Farms School shifted gears for the final quarter and, like schools around the world, moved to a remote learning model that allowed our students to thrive in their virtual classrooms, thanks to the talent and dedication of "our faculty. Though our seniors aren’t physically here this spring, we look forward to celebrating the graduation of this extraordinary group of leaders, scholars, artists, and athletes at some point in the near future.

AOF also celebrates the close of a successful capital campaign: Inspiring Boys, Building Men exceeded its goal of $50 million thanks to the generosity of the Avon family. Such profound support will benefit our school for generations to come.

As the school year comes to an end, we reflect on the first year of the Detora era, marked by tremendous success and progress. One of the first initiatives our new headmaster implemented was Prep4ward, an innovative program designed to educate the whole boy. Take a look at page 24 for more information about Prep4ward and how we’re using it on campus to emphasize leadership, life skills, personal growth, and health and wellness.

Stay tuned for the summer issue of the Avonian, which includes the AOF Annual Report, to see how you make a difference.

Aspirando et perseverando, MORGAN C. CUGELL, EDITOR

cugellm@avonoldfarms.com (860) 404-4239

Established 1927

HEADMASTER

Jim Detora P’12 ASSOCIATE HEADMASTER

Robert Whitty ’87, P’16 EDITOR

Morgan C. Cugell ALUMNI NOTES

RJ Fiondella ’12 DESIGN

2k Design PRINTING

Benchemark Printing, Inc., Schenectady, NY. The Avonian is published for the alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends of Avon Old Farms School. It is distributed to approximately 7,000 readers. All rights reserved.

AVON OLD FARMS SCHOOL

500 Old Farms Road Avon, CT 06001 www.avonoldfarms.com (860) 404-4100 ADMISSIONS

(800) 464-2866 admissions@avonoldfarms.com ALUMNI

We enjoy hearing from you!

Please send us your latest news and notes: EMAIL:

fiondellar@avonoldfarms.com PHONE:

(860) 404-4213 FAX:

(860) 404-4631 EMAIL

Members of the administration and faculty can be emailed by using the following formula: last name + first initial @avonoldfarms. com. The directory on the school website also includes email links.

Avon Old Farms School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, disabilities, or sexual orientation in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school administered programs.

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FROM THE HEADMASTER

Persevering “Life is not always a smooth road, but we have the opportunity to show our community the value of teamwork, adaptability, and flexibility in coping with a real-life, unprecedented scenario.”

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he spring issue of the Avonian was in the final stages of design work when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in March, and my letter at the time was filled with updates on the success of the Inspiring Boys, Building Men campaign and other positive highlights around campus. Though still important, those elements are now a distant memory as I faced making critical decisions to keep our students and the community safe during a whirlwind two-week period. Ultimately, on March 17, Avon Old Farms announced the historic decision to cancel the spring semester and move to a virtual learning model because of the coronavirus.

In true Avon spirit, my team and I embraced the challenge before us and pivoted quickly to plan and implement a virtual learning strategy that would engage our boys from home while keeping the brotherhood bonded and connected. The result is a program that is inspiring, innovative, creative, and dynamic and a new path for Avon: R.E.A.L. (relationships, experience, activity, and lifelong) learning online. We are currently in the first days of our new program, and I look forward to providing a more detailed update in the next Avonian.

The move to a virtual semester was especially hard for the members of our senior class, who could not return to campus for their last few months of school and will most likely have to celebrate graduation in a very different way. All the special spring events, sports celebrations, and

senior activities will not be. It is a heartbreaking reality, but as I reminded parents and our students, life is not always a smooth road, but we have the opportunity to show our community the value of teamwork, adaptability, and flexibility in coping with a real-life, unprecedented scenario.

I cannot thank our students, parents, friends, and the brotherhood enough for your steadfast, loyal support and encouragement. The rally of support validated difficult decisions and energized our faculty and staff to create an amazing online program.

Without a doubt, the class of 2020 and this time in our lives will forever be a part of Avon Old Farms School history.

Aspirando et perseverando!

JIM DETORA P’12

Headmaster

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village green COVID-19 AND OUR COMMUNITY

BY ROBERT WHITTY ’87, P’16

Associate Headmaster

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n the evening of March 17, 2020, I was sitting in Brown Auditorium. The room was empty and felt devoid of its usual pulsing energy. The landscape of the world was rapidly changing. Headmaster Detora said to me, “I never thought I would be doing this,” referring to the decision to close the school for the remainder of the academic year and the pending livestream address to explain that decision to our community—our family.

Coronavirus was at our doorstep, and we had to act.

My job was to address the community about the plan’s specifics, the support we would provide, and the challenges we faced. At the core of this issue and amid the cloud of uncertainty gripping the nation and the world, our community has an opportunity to grow. Our school motto— aspirando et perseverando—is an unwavering beacon during this turmoil. We did our homework and reviewed all CDC and WHO guidelines, the recommendations of health professionals, and the urgency of responding decisively to this pandemic. The Avon Old Farms leadership made the right decision.

As I approached the front of the auditorium, my emotions overwhelmed me as I considered the feelings of the students and families our decision would affect. Mostly, my heart ached for our seniors. Spring at Avon is an incredibly special time, especially for seniors, and the Avon leadership felt the weight of the message. The unshakable

foundation of our school is built upon relationships. It is much of what makes this place so special.

The process of deciding to close the school wasn’t easy.

It began on March 10 when Headmaster Detora canceled spring athletic trips to Florida because of growing concerns about the coronavirus. Frequent meetings with local health professionals; constant monitoring of CDC, WHO, and Farmington Valley Health District restrictions; and the guidance of the federal, state, and local governments prompted our decision. Director of Nursing Heather Callaghan took the lead, keeping the Avon Old Farms COVID-19 task force and community aware of the constantly changing information. Her insight, along with conversations with area private schools, led to many invaluable discussions. Callaghan’s leadership was and continues to be integral.

A few days later, Headmaster Detora decided to postpone classes for three weeks after the conclusion of spring break, which would have required students and faculty to return on April 13. This gave us a chance to evaluate developing information and time to communicate with our community, make informed decisions moving forward, and, most important, create an online academic strategy. Hindsight is always 20/20, and the decisions to cancel the athletic trips and delay the reopening of school impacted our community, but we were straightforward about hoping we would return this spring.

On the morning of March 17, Headmaster Detora announced that the school would close for the remainder of the academic year and that the entire program would move to an online platform. Making that decision was not easy, but we did it to protect the safety and health of our community, which has always been paramount at school.

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program was fueled by curiosity, research, and a deep Furthermore, federal, state, and local recommendations passion to provide the best experience for our students. for social distancing to inhibit the spread of the virus, advice Geoff Barlow and John Bourgault developed a grassroots from trusted health professionals, and consults with other athletic program that allows the varsity coaches to work Founders League leaders supported our resolution. closely with their athletes. Our athletic department When Headmaster Detora made the final decision, he prepared daily workouts for all students, understanding had one very clear directive: this was an opportunity that that physical exercise is incredibly important, especially we, as a school, would embrace. With our school motto in the world today. fueling our steps forward, our The Dean of Students Office, community would not simply led by Brian Doyle, Mike Symes, brave the storm; we would do “Avon’s culture of teamwork and Mike Murphy, worked with everything in our power to thrive. solidifies the bond of our Bob Dully and his talented He challenged faculty and staff to communications team, Kristen lead by example, grow as teachers brotherhood every year and and administrators, and demonhelps create a lifelong connection Kerwin and Jacqueline Keller; they tackled the very difficult strate to our students what “aspire to AOF and each other.” task of moving our special and and persevere” truly means. unique community to the online Headmaster Detora wanted to platform. They created daily, bring the entire Avon experience interactive content centered on keeping the Avon to our students and families, including R.E.A.L. (relationbrotherhood alive through virtual student participation, ships, experience, activity, and lifelong) learning, student daily morning meetings, alumni involvement, and other life, athletics, and student support. Although we would connections with students. operate in a digital space, our community needed to Ultimately, the most impressive aspect of the Avon continue to be relational, impactful, and innovative. plan is the way the faculty embraced this opportunity.

The academics team—Rob Dowling, Roger Cantello, We are lucky to have a collection of brilliant and inspiring Graham Callaghan, Jill Harrington, and Trevor Stern— teachers who welcomed the challenge of executing their developed a dynamic, flexible, and student-centered online work digitally. They understand what makes Avon special program that focuses on relational learning. This new and are completely committed to their relationships and landscape is not only an opportunity to deliver content mentorships. Although we live in times riddled with but also serves as a medium to help students master uncertainty, Avon Old Farms will continue to uphold important skills, stay connected with classmates and Mrs. Riddle’s vision of creating an oasis, a “semblance of teachers, and become proficient in the digital sphere. permanence,” no matter what challenges we face as The academic team truly represents what being a lifelong individuals or a community. learner means; the determination to uphold a premier

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VILLAGE GREEN

CAMPAIGN CELEBRATION

Inspiring Boys, Building Men AVON OLD FARMS SCHOOL CELEBRATES SUCCESSFUL CAPITAL CAMPAIGN

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von Old Farms School, at the conclusion of its Inspiring Boys, Building Men campaign, exceeded its goal to raise $50 million. The milestone came right on schedule as Avon’s largest and quickest campaign in its history.

“It’s for the boys,” comments Headmaster Jim Detora.

“Every dollar raised supports and improves their experience.

We’re humbled by the widespread support of the Avon community. They rallied for the boys.”

Detora said one of the key parts of the campaign is to enhance the school’s programs while ensuring its financial stability, strengthening annual and endowment fundraising.

“I am particularly proud of our ongoing work to expand endowment for scholarships as well as for faculty compensation and professional development so that Avon can better serve its students,” Detora said. "This campaign matters.”

In addition to enhancing Avon’s endowment, contributions developed key areas on campus, strategic

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renovations that were earmarked as priorities by the Board of Directors.

Updates about the campaign and its transformational effects will be shared with the Avon family throughout the spring. “Every donor made exceeding our own ambitions a reality,” Detora commented. “$51.44 million is a difference maker for Avon. Thank you for believing with us.” To learn more about Inspiring Boys, Building Men or to take virtual tours of our new facilities, log onto www.campaignforavon.com.

Caret-Circle-Left JENNINGS FAIRCHILD RINK RENOVATION Because of the long-standing, record-breaking hockey tradition at Avon, the rink is a major hub of campus activity. This overhaul matches the caliber of our program with a facility that provides top-notch player amenities, a modernized rink, and an improved fan experience. The reconfigured rink upgrades spectator seating and increases capacity by 15 percent. New locker rooms include a varsity suite equipped with a state-of-the-art team video room with HD projection capacity and XOS software for running NHL-quality teaching videos. The new trainers’ room boasts four tables and updated rehabilitation equipment. The aesthetic is rounded out with a new metal roof, LED lighting, and new restrooms.

caret-circle-up THE NEW TONY WATERS ’86 SERVERY AND REFINISHED REFECTORY The care and keeping of Mrs. Riddle’s aesthetic was our focus in the dining hall, from preserving the trim work to refinishing tables and benches. The kitchen renovation modernized the dining experience by expanding dining options, shortening wait times at lunch, and maintaining family-style dinners. Key features include a fully stocked, self-service salad bar as well as a new, fresh-cooking wok station; an indoor grill to accommodate an added buffet option; a brick oven for pizza; expanded hot food options; and rotisserie cooking.

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VILLAGE GREEN

caret-circle-up ENGINEERING & ROBOTICS CENTER The renovated building of one of Avon’s hallmark structures is now where students design and build robotics and learn about 3-D printing, capabilities that support the exploration of science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics (STEAM). The renovation extends to the water tower’s new Volk Family Computer Lab. The Forge and water tower are also home to Avon’s Robotics Team and Technology Club. The boys now enjoy a renovated space retrofitted as a project-based learning classroom, workshop, robotics arena, and 14-workstation computer lab equipped with wireless iMac computers that dual boot Mac OS and Windows. A wind tunnel and 3-D printers round out the new learning space.

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caret-circle-up ORDWAY ART GALLERY The creativity and energy of our students and visiting alumni artists are now on full display in our new Ordway Art Gallery. Crafted oak cabinets for three-dimensional presentations and special lighting for hanging exhibits celebrate Avon’s many juried, award-winning artists in a space students visit daily.

Caret-Circle-Left THE NEW NIMROD CABIN The Nimrod Club has a storied tradition of brothers—peer laborers—working in unity to carefully protect the lasting impact each boy has on Earth. The new cabin, home base for the Nimrod membership, replaces an aging structure built in the 1930s and welcomes generations of Avonians who have participated in this quintessential Avon experience. The new cabin resides on the same ground as the original structure but now faces the pond and has a porch and a large stone chimney.

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VILLAGE GREEN

ACADEMIC SPOTLIGHT

THE DIGITAL ARTS

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s Avon’s thriving academic program continues to expand, new offerings in the visual arts add depth to the school’s outstanding art department.

The newly expanded digital arts curriculum balances the school’s strengths in the fine arts—drawing, painting, darkroom photography, sculpture, and woodworking—by capitalizing on the many multitalented student artists on campus who seek further creative challenges.

“The arts have just flourished at Avon,” explains department chair Cristina Pinton. “We want to keep building the visual literacy that our boys demand and deserve.”

Pinton offered the first digital course—digital photography—five years ago. “It was really learning from the ground up how to teach Photoshop and do real digital-based assignments,” she says. “I was teaching

darkroom to boys who had taken two years of it and wanted more.” At the time, exposure to digital media was limited to WAOF, which was housed in the Brown Student Center and focused on producing digital content, often in the form of athletic videos.

In 2015, there were three courses available; next year, there will be eight, taught by four teachers, including Pinton as well as Ryan Davey, Carty Campbell, and Brian Lee.

2020–2021 DIGITAL ARTS COURSES Digital Media and Production Digital Painting Digital Graphic Design Motion Graphics and Animation Digital Photography Advanced Digital Photography Studio Lighting Photography AP Photography

“The variety of courses that we offer now is unparalleled,” she states. “We are taking advantage of the strengths of our teachers.

“We are pushing the boys’ knowledge and understanding of techniques and concepts and harnessing the powerful possibilities of digital arts,” she continues. “We still teach a drawing class, the kind with pen, pencil, and charcoal, which we all understand and appreciate as involving key skills: hand-eye coordination, follow-through, tactile discovery and manipulation, visual/ spatial relationships, dexterity, developing an immediate project, and learning that vocabulary.

“We are super excited to boast a Visual Arts Department that is strong both in the digital world and fine arts; boys can take courses in both areas and become versatile and flexible in their thinking and creating.”

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FEATURED ARTIST

JORDAN BERNARD ’20

BY MORGAN C. CUGELL

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would take 1,000 Jordan Bernards if we could clone him!” states Director of Choirs Will Lea. Indeed, Jordan Bernard ’20 has made quite the impact on the Avon Old Farms campus since his arrival as a freshman four years ago.

“Jordan has been the most enthusiastic music student at our school,” agrees David Raposo, chair of the music department. “He is not just

involved in the program; he takes advantage of all the opportunities presented to him.”

Jordan’s participation in the performing arts is profound. He is the four-year pianist for the elite jazz band; though he began playing piano at the age of six, he gave it up when he was 12 and did not rediscover his passion until he came to Avon. “Before Avon, I had only

played piano by myself, but I had never been inside of a band before,” Jordan explains. “Coming to Avon

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FEATURED ARTIST

allowed me to expand my skills as a piano player and provided me with many opportunities to share my passion with audiences. And,” he notes, “I have the opportunity to play any one of around seven pianos whenever I want!” Jordan particularly enjoyed the jazz band’s trip to Nashville to play and record there. “I am grateful to make music with my brothers every day as the other kids are so talented,” he states.

Jordan is also a two-year member of the Riddlers, Avon’s elite choir ensemble. Surprisingly, he had never sung before auditioning at the end of his sophomore year; this winter, he took his first role as a lead in the musical.

“At Avon, although we vary in many different interests, everyone is supporting you for the interest you have. I get constant support from everyone,” he states—though that’s not to say he doesn’t get nervous. “I

feel stage fright and anxiety before all of my performances,” Jordan says.

“My thinking is that anxiety should come with something that you have done for a while. For example, I was not nervous in performing for the musical because it was something I have never done before, so I was bound to make mistakes because no one is great at something he does for the first time. However, I have been playing piano for basically all my life, and every time that I perform, I get anxiety because I want to be the best I can. I don’t want to make mistakes.

Because I have been playing for so long, I feel there is a certain standard that I have to live up to.”

Off stage, Jordan keeps his standards equally high, and he is just as involved. He’s vice warden of the student body as well as the head monitor in Elephant 3 dormitory.

He serves as co-head of three clubs: Student Activities, Big Brother, and Network Club. He also captains

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the varsity track and field team. A dedicated scholar, Jordan is a Headmaster’s List student and has earned the UPenn, Middle East, and Elite Jazz Band book prizes.

“What is most striking about Jordan, beyond his musical talent, his diligent work ethic, and his impressive résumé, is his sincerity,” notes Lea. “He is a sincere, caring student. He is the first to volunteer to help clean up. He rallies his fellow students to work harder and strive longer. It is striking to find a young man who commands respect among his peers while also being a genuinely kind human being. It is just a bonus that he also excels at almost everything he does.”

Though he’s now quite the Renaissance man of the student body, Jordan’s prior school experience proved to be a less than ideal environment for him to harness his many and varied abilities; unsurprisingly, he was delighted to find a place for

“This environment has given me the confidence to try new things that I never envisioned myself trying, and I have grown as a person because of that.”

himself in a community of highly achieving students all similarly seeking opportunities to excel.

“In 8th grade, I found myself frequently conforming to the norm,” he recalls. “I never pushed the boundaries of being unique, trying new things, or doing anything that would make me stand out; my school’s atmosphere was not ideal for those who wanted to strive. I was expecting Avon’s atmosphere to be similar to my middle school’s. My preconceived notion proved to be

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false in my first couple of weeks on campus. No one was comfortable with being regular. Everyone had their own goals they wanted to accomplish, and they were not embarrassed to pursue them. I heard of kids joining multiple clubs, playing sports, and even starting independent projects.

“I have always wanted to push myself, but I never had the confidence to do so. However, with a change of atmosphere, I found plenty of opportunities for me to break out of my comfort zone and try new things.”

One of those new experiences was this year’s musical, The Putnam County Spelling Bee. “This was the first season at Avon that I chose not to play sports,” notes Jordan. “However, throughout the whole process I found enjoyment through learning the music, dancing, and lines with all the other cast members. And after the performance yesterday was a moment of happiness that I can’t explain.

“This environment has given me the confidence to try new things that I never envisioned myself trying, and I have grown as a person because of that.

“Going to this school is one of the best decisions I have made in my life,” Jordan continues. “The brotherhood is real. Everyone is looking out for each other; everyone wants the best for everyone else. My only goal now is to enjoy my last year at Avon,” he states.

Next year, Jordan will attend the University of Connecticut. He hopes to begin pursuing a medical career, with a minor in music. “I do not want the thing I have as a passion to be something I have to do on a daily basis,” he observes. “I just want music to be something I can do whenever and however I want.”

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VILLAGE GREEN

RETHINKING RACE AND SLAVERY AT 400 YEARS

BY JACQUELINE KELLER

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n Friday, November 8, 2019, Avon Old Farms School hosted the Rethinking Race and Slavery at 400 Years conference to mark the quadricentennial of the origins of slavery at Jamestown. The goal was to identify and challenge conventions of teaching and scholarship about slavery and race in the classroom.

“About a year ago, I was struck by a comment my mentor Dick Brown made over dinner: if he could go back and do it all over again, he would put slavery at the center of his history courses,” shared conference director Chris Doyle, Ph.D., a history teacher at Avon Old Farms School. “The conversation that ensued combined with 2019 being the 400th anniversary of the introduction of African slaves

into North America was the impetus for this conference.This anniversary comes at a moment of heightened political polarization and heated discussion surrounding race and racism today. Is the United States a post-racial society, or do Americans continue to avoid reckoning with the legacies of slavery? I organized this conference with hopes that academics would come together to seek new directions in scholarship and classroom approaches to race and racism.”

To kick off the conference, keynote speaker Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, author of Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap and Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity, presented an idea he hopes to explore in his next book. First, Ogbar recapped a series of three

existing frameworks used when discussing black culture in the United States: integration, black nationalism, and a radical black tradition. Using a story from General William Sherman’s march through Georgia in the closing phases of the Civil War, Ogbar identified a fourth black tradition: the desire of former slaves in the path of Sherman’s march to support American nationalism, to have the means of making a living (at the time, the goal was 40 acres of farmland per family), and to live in unique black communities.

The introduction of an entirely new framework through which to view race, racism, and African American responses to them set the tone for the rest of the conference.

Twenty-three scholars from across

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“I’m just a parent from Hartford who heard about this conference and wanted my two sons to be involved. I try to show them that they have to be a part of change. They have to understand what’s happening in the world. And today, they witnessed dedicated teachers ask the questions ‘How do we help?’ and ‘How do we create change?’ Today, you gave us a lot to discuss at home. Today, my sons saw that teachers are here to help them. Thank you.”

— P R O S P E C T I V E PA R E N T

the United States and as far away as England presented ideas that Doyle thoughtfully organized into three categories: race as a political, cultural, and educational problem; slavery and race taught and commemorated; and rethinking discourses of race and slavery.

In speaking with presenters, attendees, and students, one thing became clear throughout the conference: the best way to teach history is to tell stories—American stories, black stories, real stories.

By making history real, educators hope that students continue to see their country as a story of progress but come to realize that the country still deals with the legacy of the past in a very real way every day.

“I’m reeling from everything I

have heard today,” Doyle said in his closing remarks. “I’ve told our students that academic conferences are places to test ideas. I think some of today’s ideas will help me reexamine my own classroom and help me shift slavery into the center of how I

teach American history.”

Avon Old Farms thanks Dr. Doyle for his leadership and hopes students and conference attendees found some inspiration for change through this endeavor.

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VILLAGE GREEN

INTERSESSION

2020 Theodate Pope Riddle, the founder of Avon Old Farms, strongly believed that students should work alongside faculty mentors to produce meaningful results.

Intersession honors that tradition by offering courses team-taught by faculty and staff that are often on topics outside the traditional curriculum but nonetheless relevant and centered on the R.E.A.L. learning model. Intersession extends the classroom and opens the academic schedule to allow students and faculty to explore topics of interest in greater detail with an experiential component because field trips and project-based learning feature prominently in the courses. Intersession is a compulsory, week-long academic program.

The idea behind Intersession is to broaden the curriculum while creating opportunities for excursions, experiential learning, and interdisciplinary work.

Here are some scenes from Intersession 2020.

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athletics at avon

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ATHLETIC SPOTLIGHT

MAX GART ’20

BY MORGAN C. CUGELL

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hough Avon Old Farms School proudly boasts a storied tradition of athletic excellence and scholar-athletes who go on to top collegiate and professional programs, few students have accomplished the level of athletic achievement that Max Gart ’20 has as a figure skater for Team USA. “Figure skating has been a part of my life since the age of three, and it is an activity I’d like to continue well into my salt and pepper years,” he notes. “Proudly, I compete for Team USA with a dream of representing our country at the Olympics.”

An ice dancer for Team USA, who has competed at the national level since 2014, Max is a four-time medalist; he’s also a three-time international competitor, earning a bronze medal for the United States.

Unsurprisingly, an athlete of his caliber requires regularly scheduled long hours of training. For Max, it is an exercise in self-discipline and work ethic. “Balancing my training and competition schedule with my academics is a full-time job,” he states. “The combination of enjoying my classes plus my love of skating has always been key to keeping the balance. Catching up on sleep on the weekends is also essential!”

During the school year, Max trains three to four hours a day, six days a week, including on-ice training, strength workouts, ballet, and ballroom dancing. This also entails 6:00 a.m. skates two to three times a week. Over the summer, his training increases to eight hours a day at least five days a week. Throughout the

“Succeeding in these situations, whether it be receiving a medal on the podium or having a personal-best skate, is really about giving my best effort and then afterwards being humble enough to attack my weakness and be better the next time.”

year, he works with coaches in Italy and the United States in preparation for competitions. He’s a skilled ballroom dancer and uses those skills to choreograph skating programs.

He is also a music editor and uses technology to create competition music for skaters.

“Being part of Team USA has been amazing,” Max notes. “It is such an incredible honor to compete for the United States. I have always been proud to be an American, but I didn’t realize how patriotic I felt until I was competing internationally against skaters from many different countries, including Russia, China, Japan, Canada, and most of Europe.

“Wearing my Team USA jacket and stepping onto international ice to compete was truly a defining moment for me,” he continues. “It was not without some nerves, but anything worth fighting for typically comes with some degree of stress. Succeeding in these situations, whether it be receiving a

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medal on the podium or having a personal-best skate, is really about giving my best effort and then afterwards being humble enough to attack my weakness and be better the next time.”

Despite his demanding training schedule, off the ice, Max is just as dedicated, and with his rigorous academic course load has remained the top scholar in his class each year.

He’s also earned the Harvard Book Award, the Hamilton College Book Award, and subject book awards in AP Calculus BC, AP Physics C: Mechanics, honors precalculus, honors chemistry, honors geometry, early U.S. history, world religions, and graphic design.

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ATHLETIC SPOTLIGHT

He’s an active member of the student body, serving as a peer tutor in the Learning Center; a member of the Comedy Improv group; and an intern in the Alumni and Development Office. Max is also the two-year president of the STEAM-driven Club Forge, which benefits from his aptitude for science and mathematics.

Membership in the club has quadrupled, and the group designed and built a 212cc go-kart, a high-altitude air balloon, and a gas-fueled RC airplane. They’re currently working on converting the go-kart from gas to electricy and building a hovercraft.

In what little free time he has, Max coaches at both the International Skating Center of Connecticut in Simsbury and Champions Skating Center in Cromwell.

“My love of learning has cultivated my passion for teaching,” he observes.

“Skating has contributed significantly to my life, teaching me time management, determination, and perseverance. As a Team USA figure skater, I am blessed with being a role model to the other skaters in our skating community. I realized early on that each skater learns differently; it is rewarding when I discover the best way

to effectively teach them, especially with their varied backgrounds and ages, ranging from six to 60.

“Whether it be a teenage hockey player focusing on his edges to gain speed and power or a special needs child skating over geometric shapes and angles that I have drawn on the ice with a marker, I am thrilled when those light bulb moments occur, and I see in their eyes that it all makes sense.”

Max also volunteers in the community as a coach for the Special Olympics winter games. “Working with the Special Olympics athletes is a gift and an honor,” he states. “My goal with all of these skaters is to positively impact them in some way by helping them foster a love for the sport, encouraging their efforts and determination.”

Max is quick to credit his parents with helping instill this philosophy in him as a child. “They are two people from completely different backgrounds, now married 25 years, always retaining and celebrating their own traditions and cultural differences together,” he notes. “They exposed this cultural blend to my sister and me with a common goal of allowing us to explore, learn, love, and embrace our interests and strengths while actively working toward improving our weaknesses.

“My parents taught me that regardless of one’s racial, ethnic, religious, gender, or socioeconomic group, we will need to establish relationships with people that we may know very little about in order to come together and find solutions to problems that we have in common,” he says. “Personally, I know that I am a better version of myself from

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“Building relationships with people from different cultures is key to creating diverse communities capable of achieving significant outcomes for the overall betterment of society and, ultimately, the world.”

growing up with a family filled with strong women.”

Because of his upbringing, Max says, he was unsure about how he would make the transition into an all-male school environment.

Fortunately, the feeling of belonging to the brotherhood was instantaneous. “I had no idea how being a part of this student body from all over the world could impact me,” he recalls. “Avon is truly a community that celebrates multiculturalism, and I have been fortunate to call it my second home. The brotherhood is amazingly inclusive, demonstrating strong support across the community.

The brotherhood embraces the quest

for knowledge and self-improvement, a goal at any age, while remaining palpably positive.

“I have grown intellectually, athletically, and, most important, personally,” Max states. “My four years at Avon Old Farms truly have embodied Theodate Pope Riddle’s spirit of cultivating young men of integrity who honor wisdom, justice, inclusion, service, and the pursuit of truth. The core values of Avon have become my own: brotherhood, scholarship, integrity, and sportsmanship. Attending Avon Old Farms has been one of my best decisions, and I am incredibly proud to be an Avonian.

“We may come from different

experiences and backgrounds, but we share common goals,” he continues.

“Building relationships with people from different cultures is key to creating diverse communities capable of achieving significant outcomes for the overall betterment of society and, ultimately, the world.”

Max plans to study mechanical engineering next year. In the long run, he says, “I want to become a broadly educated, global collaborator and an entrepreneurially minded innovator focused on positively impacting society and ultimately the world.

“I know this sounds ambitious, but I believe that Avon has helped me construct a solid foundation, and I am more than excited about jumping into the next phase of my growth.

“I hope to continue competitive skating, but this will be directly dependent on which university I attend. Regardless, skating will always be a part of my life. Stay tuned!”

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athletics

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This spring, our athletes were sidelined as we moved to a remote learning model for the end of the academic year. This has been especially disappointing for our seniors, many of whom will join prestigious collegiate programs this fall, who were unable to compete in their final season as Winged Beavers. We wish them all the best in their future athletic endeavors and look forward to seeing returning athletes on the fields, courts, and greens next year!

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Educating the Whole Student

BY MORGAN C. CUGELL WITH GRAHAM CALLAGHAN ’95, DEAN OF STUDIES, AND HEATHER CALLAGHAN, DIRECTOR OF NURSING

Avon Old Farms School Debuts Innovative Cocurricular Program

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his year, Avon Old Farms School introduced an innovative cocurricular program that quickly and emphatically elevated Avon’s comprehensive educational experience. In the fall of 2019, Prep4ward made its debut—and in doing so, poised Avon to set the standard for peer schools as more and more have begun to embrace a “whole student” curriculum. Prep4ward empowers students to successfully navigate their lives in the short term and long term with a mentally– appropriate curriculum focused on four key themes: personal growth, leadership, life skills, and health and wellness. This fall, students met according to grade level during Thursday mornings for presentations and small-group discussions led by Avon faculty members and local experts on topics related to the four key themes. The feedback from students, faculty, and parents about Prep4ward has been decidedly positive, validating the collaboration that went into its development and confirming it as a difference-maker in Avon’s student-centered program. As so many people on campus say, “It’s all about the boys,” and the Prep4ward curriculum was developed with this refrain in mind.

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“As an all-boys school, we have a responsibility to not only teach a progressive, established curriculum but also focus, with intention, on the overall development of our students.

This commitment is mission-driven and is designed to produce good men of strong moral character. Our Prep4ward program is designed to empower our students to establish a principled foundation, instilling life skills and a moral compass to effectively navigate the challenges of being male in today’s world and as they look to their futures.”

PREP4WARD:

— J I M D E TO R A P ’ 1 2 , H E A D M A ST E R

Educating the Whole Student

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PERSONAL GROWTH

LEADERSHIP

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

LIFE SKILLS

• Core Values/ Brotherhood

• Leadership

• Emotional Wellness

• College Prep/ StudentAthlete Program

1 • Masculine Identity • Community Outreach • Online U: Social Media, Gaming, Etc. • Transition to College

• Diversity and Citizenship • Choice: The Good Life • Community Outreach • The Global Village: Diversity and Sustainability • The Competitive Edge

• Sexual Health • Drugs, Alcohol, Vaping • Mindfulness • Healthy Relationships • Nutrition

• Study Skills • Personal Finance

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The current Prep4ward program has its roots in the Avon Advantage program that developed from the same desire to incorporate a program that teaches students essential lessons in personal growth, leadership, life skills, and health and wellness. The difference with Prep4ward, and what sets it apart from similar programs at peer schools, is the attention given to the grade-level appropriateness of each of the weekly programs. In truth, Avon has always had some sort of time dedicated to teaching boys about character and health—Saturday morning all-school residential life programs and Sunday night sex education for sophomores, for example— but those important programs felt like one-offs that were not intentionally tied to the overall student experience. The idea to combine programmatic character education with health and wellness came out of the Student Health Council, a team of adminis-

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“When we rolled out this program to our Parents of Avon group last fall, I knew we had something really important and powerful when one of the parents in the audience said to the panelist, ‘I know that you guys do an amazing job with the English, math, science, and other courses, but I would ask you to consider doing those only 25 percent of the time, and this program 75 percent of the time! These topics are the thing that I’m most interested in seeing my son learn!’

— C H R I S W E B B , D I R E C T O R O F I N S T I T U T I O N A L A D VA N C E M E N T

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“Prep4ward is fundamentally educational and information-based. Understanding good information empowers students to be leaders in their own lives at a time when many may feel that things are out of their hands.”

—ROB WHITTY ’86, P’16, A S S O C I AT E H E A D M A S T E R

Heather and Graham Callaghan

trators from the academic and residential sides of school who began meeting weekly during the fall of 2017 with our health center and counseling staff to identify students who need additional support. Two important members of that team were Heather Callaghan, director of nursing, and Graham Callaghan, at that time the academic dean.

Together they have spearheaded the effort to develop the curriculum for Prep4ward and make it a reality.

As with many things, timing is everything, and in 2018, shortly after Jim Detora P’12 was appointed headmaster, he met with school leaders and shared his priority to implement a comprehensive health and wellness program to work in a coordinated way with the existing character education that happened in the dormitories and as part of Avon Advantage. At the time of that meeting, members of the Student Health Council had already begun working on such a program, and they pushed forward with tailoring the material to be grade-level appropriate and forming what would become Prep4ward.

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COURSE SPOTLIGHT:

PERSONAL GROWTH

Our boys should recognize that there are many different models of masculinity. They should know the joy and perspective that comes with contributing to something larger than themselves. They need to care about their various communities and appreciate the variety of people that live in them.

They should value service and inclusivity.

MASCULINE IDENTITY WITH THE FRESHMAN CLASS Academic Dean Trevor Stern collaborated with faculty members Tim Watt and Win Ford to put together a unit built around the documentary The Mask You Live In. The movie, viewed by the entire freshman class, and the breakout sessions that followed covered the dangerous implications of conforming to long-held ideas about masculinity—wearing a mask to hide the truth of what boys feel and think.

“Ultimately, masculinity is packaged in a specific way for boys in our society, and these preconceived notions can be and are damaging,” explains Stern. “Our hope was to have the students reflect on what it means to be a good man and, more important, an upstanding citizen of our world. Masculinity comes in many shapes and sizes, and we need to nurture and accept all of it. Our world will be better if we do.

“As an all-boys school, it’s imperative that we help guide our students to explore their own masculinity in a healthy and productive way,” he continues. “Adolescent males, more than ever, need to break free from what society has dictated a real man should be. Our school has the opportunity to the right the ship and help place great human beings into the world.”

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“Two of my 9th-grade advisees said they found the core values/brotherhood Prep4ward program helpful, relevant, and extremely engaging today.”

— J I L L H A R R I N GTO N , AC A D E M I C D E A N

The group spent the spring and summer of 2019 writing curriculum. Graham Callaghan comments, “Our objective was to create a curriculum to fit into an already-established time period during the academic week. The curriculum would have scope and sequence by grade level and could work strategically to inform our residential life curriculum [and] weekend speaker series, and educate our boys about issues related to mental and physical health and wellness. To determine the content, we asked ourselves, “What do we want our boys to learn about in order to prepare them for success both in the short term and long term?” We came up with four foundational pillars: We want them to know what it means to be a good leader. We want them to understand personal growth. We

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want them to have practical life skills to use to pursue their goals and manage their lives. We want them to be healthy and well, both physically and mentally.” Much of the leadership, personal growth, and life skills content already existed in some form as part of Avon Advantage, but the health and wellness content needed to be developed.

Heather Callaghan researched national standards and information from other curriculums and programs and the CDC. “I came up with a list of topics that I felt needed to be included,” she explains. “We sat down in front of a huge white board and mapped out the content. Associate Headmaster Rob Whitty; the deans of students, Brian Doyle

“That was some heavy stuff. We discussed some scenarios that really showed the value of talking through situations ahead of time to make good decisions later.”

—CURRENT STUDENT

and Mike Symes; and our school counselor all helped determine what would be the right grade level to address each topic. And, as much as the design is strategic, it is also practical. Many schools, for example, have human sexuality programs situated in the sophomore year, but it doesn’t make sense that that is the only time students need to learn about human sexuality. Human sexuality is developmental and is going to be talked about differently with 15-year-olds than it is with 18-year-olds. There is such a range of topics from basic anatomy to reproduction, pornography, sexting, healthy relationships, consent, sexual identity, their rights as minors, contraception, and STDs.” Similar attention was given to developing the mental wellness component of Prep4ward.

Conversations in the Student Health Council identified a real need to provide education about the realities of depression and anxiety and other related issues common during adolescence.

Other topics are covered with similar intent. All of the boys need to learn about substance abuse, but that program was planned for the sophomores in the spring,

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COURSE SPOTLIGHT:

LEADERSHIP

We want our boys to be leaders. They need to know that the world needs good men who have the confidence and strength to lead and to solve problems. They need to know the importance of understanding group dynamics and to develop the confidence and courage to step in and stand up.

LEADERSHIP FOR THE SOPHOMORE CLASS “We introduced the concept of leadership to the sophomore class,” explains Dean of Students Brian Doyle P’12, ’14.

“As sophomores, there are limited leadership opportunities, but as juniors and seniors, there are many.

We need these sophomores to develop into leaders.

One objective of the two-day seminar was to have boys consider their own personalities and which types of leaders they might become. Sometimes we make leadership out to be something beyond us. When we think of great leaders, we often think of MLK, JFK, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Mandela, or Oprah Winfrey. How can we ever put ourselves in this category? But if we define leadership as having the moral courage required to act when those around us might be paralyzed or simply helping someone when they are struggling—service leadership—we realize that we are all capable of being leaders. We explored effective leaders, such as Herb Brooks, who motivated a group of college hockey players to win the 1980 Gold Medal despite overwhelming odds, and also some immoral leaders who were able to take advantage of weaker people. We finished with a practical application: boys were asked to consider a situation where high school lacrosse players were put in an uncomfortable situation and asked how they would respond.”

Citing Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,” history teacher Ray Sweetland says, “I specifically dealt with moral leadership and the consequences of immoral leadership. We asked the boys to consider what their responsibility would be given a variety of scenarios.

Would they be leaders, followers, bystanders, resisters, or rescuers? What are the consequences of inaction in the face of immoral leadership?

“Moral leadership is the responsibility of all good men.”

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when many of them are turning 16, to work alongside a driving safety program. Mindfulness is another program in Prep4ward, and it was planned for the seniors in the fall, when college applications are due and stress levels tend to run high. The seniors also have college counseling sessions as part of Prep4ward in the fall with a specific recruited studentathlete component. In this way, Prep4ward is strategic by design. It has scope and sequence the way a traditional curriculum would.

Once the content of Prep4ward was

“I was extremely impressed with your presentation, and with the program you have created. It provides insight and exploration of many topics that I wished had been addressed when I was a student. The thing that stuck out to me the most was how intentional everything was. Everything ties in to the core values of the school and works toward reinforcing those values in the students.”

— A N D R E W C O R R I G A N ’ 9 8 , N AT I O N A L C O U N C I L

established, the group needed to decide how to organize and deliver the content each week.

Who would actually bring the content to the students in a way that they could access it and relate to it? To lift the program off the ground, Avon’s faculty answered the call, volunteering to run programs according to their own special areas of interest, expertise, or involvement with specific grade levels.

“Prep4ward is intentional and inclusive,” states Graham Callaghan. “It is designed first and foremost for the boys since it speaks directly to what they value most about their experience and what they need the most in terms of navigating the difficult realities and certain pressures of adolescence. Although experts in specific fields have been consulted, the faculty who teach, coach, and advise the boys are primarily the ones who are leading the sessions and developing the content.”

This fall, approximately one-third of the faculty was involved either in giving a grade-level lecture or presentation or facilitating small-group discussions following up on the content of the presentations.

To monitor the effectiveness of the program, Callaghan collected feedback after each program by surveying both students and

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faculty; an overwhelming majority felt Prep4ward’s content was relevant. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, students indicated what they really enjoyed were the small-group discussions, where they had the freedom to ask questions and interact much more personally with the material.

“That feedback was really satisfying.

Students wanting the small-group discussions suggested that they really wanted the content— they didn’t want to be lectured or presented to but wanted to interact with our faculty in a classroom atmosphere,” Callaghan notes.

The students have responded favorably to Prep4ward, and so have other key groups on campus. The Callaghans presented the program to the Parents of Avon as well as the National Council this fall.

Commenting on the big-picture nature of Prep4ward’s content, current parent Margot Mineau P’18, ’20 remarked, “It’s not just about these four years, but the next 40.”

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“Last night’s Parents of Avon impressed me beyond words.

I cannot imagine the amount of work, hours, effort, and true dedication that went into producing the Prep4ward program.

I am grateful that [my son] will have the opportunity to learn and will hopefully take these lessons beyond high school into adulthood.” — C U R R E N T PA R E N T

Although plans for spring 2020 had to be significantly altered, the development of Prep4ward continues with an eye toward the next school year. The changing academic schedule to be implemented this coming academic year (2020-2021) makes room for the Prep4ward period to be a permanent fixture each week, all year long. Based on the feedback from this fall’s programs, the

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small-group discussions will be a fixture of the program, and being able to run Prep4ward over the course of the fall, winter, and spring means more content will be covered.

In addition, the Callaghans are working to find ways to involve families more. Currently, the Prep4ward website houses program information and updates, but the hope is to promote active engagement and find ways to make the information more dynamic and accessible for families at home. Heather

“It is clear you have worked very hard to create a valuable curriculum for the boys at AOF. I feel like this is a necessary and brilliant addition to creating well-rounded boys at Avon.”

— C U R R E N T PA R E N T

Callaghan recognizes, “Families want to know what we’re doing and how to continue the conversations at home.”

“Prep4ward is an ambitious program,” Graham Callaghan notes, “but it is based on the proven model that boys want to learn what they consider is relevant to them, and they want to learn from people who they know care about and understand them. We are confident that Prep4ward will serve our boys well, and, of course, we will listen to their feedback as we consider how to move the program into the future.”

The evolution of the program began in 2017, at the conclusion of Avon’s most recent self-study, which identified the need for the school to extend its curriculum beyond academics, specifically with a strategic health and wellness program. The idea for the Avon Advantage program, focused on life and study skills and incorporated into the weekly schedule, was already in the works at that time. continued on p 31

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COURSE SPOTLIGHT:

HEALTH AND WELLNESS

Perhaps nothing is more important than the all-around health and wellness of our students, and the secondary school environment gives us a great chance to educate the whole student, as the summer 2019 issue of Independent School magazine reminded us all. Topics in emotional wellness, nutrition, and healthy relationships in the real world and online world, as well as comprehensive and grade-level appropriate sex education, are part of our Prep4ward program.

NUTRITION WITH DENISE AND ROB OLSON ’04 “I’m sure we all wish we could go back and tell our high school versions of ourselves something that would have made us better,” explains Rob Olson ’04, who owns local gym CrossFit Simsbury with his wife, Denise; they visited campus this fall as part of Prep4ward to talk to students about health and wellness. “As an Avon student, I was a mediocre athlete on all levels. Fast forward a few years past graduation, and my life took a dramatic turn. My college co-op showed me that I did not want an engineering 9 to 5 for my life. What has unfolded since that pivot has been a life of fitness. I spent six years as a Navy SEAL, and I constantly look for new challenges, from dead lifting over 500 pounds to completing Ironman Lake Placid to running my first 50-mile ultramarathon.

“That college career I left behind was biomedical engineering,” Olson notes, “and my specialty in the SEAL teams was combat medic. I love science, I love medicine, and I love fitness. My drive now is unlocking the human potential and sharing that with others.”

Denise Olson is a certified nutrition coach, yoga instructor, life coach, CrossFit coach, and, her husband

claims, a “nutrition mastermind!” Together, the Olsons talked with the boys about the importance of nutrition, sleep, and other healthy habits. “We gave them tips to implement immediately into their daily lives but also aimed to plant a seed that will one day enable them to unlock their true potential,” Rob Olson observes. “These topics are not just for excelling at sports; they also help foster better study habits, better relationships, and a better quality of life.”

The Olsons also enjoyed lunch in our recently renovated kitchen and servery, surveying all the healthy options available to the boys. “This wasn’t just nutrition for athletes but for healthy living,” explains Denise Olson, who also wrote a blog post for AOF’s health and wellness page.

“I am looking forward to spreading education about basic nutrition and how to use food as fuel to support optimal performance in both school and sports,” she notes. “My approach to nutrition is fairly simple: I believe in eating real, whole foods and keeping processed foods and sugar to a minimum to feel your best. I focus on healthy habits and behavior change because this is what yields long-term results. When it comes to kids and teenagers, my focus is on helping them see the relationship between the food they eat and the way they feel.

It’s my ultimate aim to train the young men at Avon Old Farms on how to use their nutrition to function at their best and be the best students and athletes they can be.

AOF students are really lucky to be in a setting where their coaches, teachers, and dining staff understand how important nutrition is and want to facilitate a better understanding of it.”

“It is a great honor to be able to give back to the community that changed my life,” agrees Rob Olson.

“We look forward to developing an even greater relationship moving forward.”

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COURSE SPOTLIGHT:

LIFE SKILLS

Our boys need to know how to stay organized, and this might look different depending on the kinds of tasks and information that need to be organized.

Organizing personal space is not the same as organizing personal finances or organizing one’s time or the process necessary to achieve a particular goal.

THE SOCIAL INSTITUTE This year, Avon Old Farms deployed the Social Institute program. Its purpose is to educate students about how they can safely, appropriately, and confidently engage with the several social media outlets available to them, explains leader of the program and math teacher Matt Proffitt. Students also learn how to leverage their online presence when looking for educational, athletic, and employment opportunities.

“Now more than ever, social media and a young person’s ability to engage online and with technology are of extreme importance,” Proffitt explains. “Social media is omnipresent. It is our responsibility as educators and advisors to provide our students with the tools in their toolbelt to succeed in such an environment.”

During her kick-off campaign, the founder and CEO of the program, Laura Tierney, shared with the boys that she credits her use of social media with landing jobs and providing opportunities to advance her career. Rather than rebuke its use, her goal is to empower students by showing them how, if done well, social media can do the same for them. #WinAtSocial is the program’s tagline, and the Social Institute has developed a comprehensive curriculum to help faculty speak with students about how to navigate social media and technology positively.

The objective of the Social Institute is to provide an

appropriately paced program aligned with our R.E.A.L learning initiative that will empower students and give them the information and practice to make good decisions while using social media. Social media is used in nearly every industry, and the benefits and risks to students begin the moment they sign up.

“Our goal for the Social Institute program is to highlight the benefits while mitigating the risk of using social media and technology for our students,” explains Proffitt. “If used appropriately, technology and the use of social media can be some of the most important tools.

Rather than running from its complexities, as a school, we are leaning into the challenge and embracing the positives while addressing the risks.”

The Social Institute provides relevant and engaging lesson plans that accompany a competitive “gameplay” type activity. Students break up into small (age-specific) groups and meet weekly with a faculty member who facilitates discussions. The meetings are meant to be conversational, engaging, fast-paced, and student-driven.

Each week, students play the “game” and discuss the questions that accompany it. Later in the week, they complete a hands-on activity that illustrates the learning outcomes of the week. This often includes students, modifying and engaging with their own social media accounts.

“Social media provides real educational and employment opportunities for young adults that haven’t always existed, and we are energized by helping our students unlock that potential,” states Proffitt.

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“That fell on the shoulders of relatively few faculty members,” Callaghan recalls. “So we used that foundation as we were talking in the student health council about the issues our students were facing—pressure, anxiety, depression. We knew we needed to put some programming in place to deal with that, and we wanted to develop a curriculum that could provide education about what we were discussing.”

RELATIONAL

EXPERIENTIAL

“Prep4ward is impressive to say the least. It goes on the top of the list of things that distinguishes AOF from other schools.” — C U R R E N T PA R E N T

ACTIVE

LIFELONG

L E A R N I N G

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STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

Po Lam Fung ’20

BY MORGAN C. CUGELL

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any students use their time in high school and even college to consider the many career opportunities available to them before eventually narrowing down their fields of further study.

For Po Lam Fung ’20, who is heading to Middlebury College this fall, that was never the plan. A fouryear student from Hong Kong, Po Lam has been driven by his passion for the medical field since day one.

Po Lam has completed two different Afternoon Independent Project (AIP) semesters, taking advantage of the opportunity to pursue more specialized learning outside his academic curriculum.

As a junior, he was an intern at UConn Health in osteosarcoma stem cell biomarker research, which he attended after the school day ended. This past fall, he completed a local EMT program, which proved much more difficult to

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“ ’’

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manage. He took training classes in a town about a half-hour drive from campus during enrichment and study hall on weekdays and then spent entire Saturdays working eight- to 12-hour shifts in an ambulance—all while staying on top of his rigorous academic schedule, going to the gym, participating in clubs, and trying to navigate the college application process as a first-semester senior.

Despite the challenging schedule, Po Lam speaks highly of the program and of its place in his Avon experience.

“To me, the AIP seemed like a shining opportunity to gain some experience in the medical field during the school year rather than only during the summers,” he explains. “I gained some valuable insight in the medical field. I also determined what, exactly, I want to pursue in the future: cardiothoracic surgery.

“I find that this opportunity is absolutely essential for the students here,” he continues, “since it gives them not only the experience to do what they are passionate about but also the courage to pursue it in the future. I hope that in the coming years, the AIP program will continue to grow and more people will take this opportunity.”

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STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

Live up to the name you were given. To me, this means that it is your duty to reach the peak of your potential and be the man that you were born to be so that you may in turn inspire others to do the same.

Po Lam completed a summer internship at the cardiothoracic surgical skills and education center at Stanford University and served as the only high school intern, co-author, and co-presenter at the advanced cardiothoracic surgery skills conference in Maui. “I am extremely passionate about the medical field and try to find every opportunity I can to gain some experience in it,” he states. And though he admits that finding balance is, at times, a struggle, he continues to excel in all aspects of student life.

He is a Headmaster’s List scholar who received the Princeton Book Award, president of the Red Cross Club, president of the Meditation Club, the head monitor in Elephant 2 dormitory, and the head Admission Ambassador. He competes in varsity wrestling and is also on the varsity track-and-field team, for which he has earned the Coaches Award twice.

Po Lam counts on many people in his life for support and guidance, including his parents and sister, as well as Dr. Dianna Malchoff, whom he describes as an “invaluable advisor, emotional counselor, and friend.”

He has also grown close with his faculty advisor and varsity wrestling coach John Bourgault ’80.

“I first came to admire Major as I lay in pain on the floor at 3 a.m. during Push-ups for Patriots,” he recalls. “I watched Major continue to do an endless amount of inclined pushups without stopping. Ever since then, he has shown me what it means to be tough and persevere through tough situations.” Alongside Coach Bourgault, Po Lam completed the full 24 hours of exercise during Avon’s annual Push-ups for Patriots event for the last three years.

At the end of his Avon career, Po Lam has found a distinguished place in the student body. But he is quick to note, “I have changed vastly since I came to Avon Old Farms. In fact, I would say I [am] the complete opposite of what I used to be. I saw Avon as my second chance. Now it is also my second home. The all-boys aspect that I had originally feared has become the brotherhood I love today. This camaraderie is the very essence of Avon Old Farms, and it is what makes us seniors nostalgic and sad to leave here.”

In his Chapel talk this year, Po Lam encouraged his peers to “Live up to the name you were given. To me, this means that it is your duty to reach the peak of your potential and be the man that you were born to be

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so that you may in turn inspire others to do the same.” But he also acknowledged a startling truth to many in the room: he wasn’t always so ambitious or successful.

“The truth was I couldn’t try because I had given up,” he says. “I believed that my peers were too far ahead of me, that my own talents were nonexistent, and that hope had long abandoned me.”

However, after a series of tragedies in his personal life, including his

mother’s battle with cancer and the accidental death of a close childhood friend, “I knew that I wanted to become someone my family could be proud of," Po Lam explains, "become something bigger than myself. A man who could not only stand tall on his own but also help others in need, just as the surgeon who saved my mother had done for us.

“So, to those of you who feel lost and hopeless, stop digging and look

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up,” he advises. “There is still time for you to climb back out. And to all of you, look at yourself in the mirror tonight and ask yourself these questions: Am I someone that my parents are proud of? Am I someone my siblings look up to? Am I someone my peers aspire to become? Am I living up to the name that I was given? There is still time, and I believe that each and every one of you has the potential to one day smile and proudly say yes.”

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FACULTY FOCUS

Graham Callaghan ’95

BY MORGAN C. CUGELL

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“We want to make sure that we’re always paying attention to best practices in terms of boys’ school education and that we’re continually developing our curriculum.”

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hen the coronavirus made its way to Connecticut this spring, Avon Old Farms School made a monumental and unprecedented decision to close its doors—and open an innovative remote learning program so students could finish the school year from the safety of their homes.

Leading the charge as the school quickly turned its attention to the task at hand—designing and implementing a new program in a matter of weeks—were members of the upper administration as well as the academic deans, including Graham Callaghan ’95, in his first year as dean of studies.

Inheriting the role from former Dean of Curriculum and Instruction Art Custer, Callaghan notes that the position is centered on, as Custer described, “what we teach and how we teach it.”

“We want to make sure that we’re always paying attention to best practices in terms of boys’ school education and that we’re continually developing our curriculum,” Callaghan explains.

He came to Avon first as a student in the Class of 1995. “My experience as a day student was deeply rewarding,” he recalls. “My teachers and my classmates challenged me in healthy ways in the classroom, as did my coaches and teammates. Like so many alumni, I look back on my years fondly, appreciating them even more the older I get and especially as I continue in my career as an educator.

To a person, the teachers and coaches with whom I was fortunate enough to work as a student-athlete had a profound impact on me.”

Callaghan earned a BA in English from Amherst College and an MA in English with a concentration in fiction writing from Temple University. Avon hired him as a teacher in the fall of 2003.

In 2008, he was appointed chair of the

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FACULTY FOCUS

Like so many alumni, I look back on my years fondly, appreciating them even more the older I get and especially as I continue in my career as an educator. The teachers and coaches with whom I was fortunate enough to work as a student-athlete had a profound impact on me.

English epartment, a position he held for five years before moving into the role of academic dean for five years. Throughout each of his positions, he has taught in the English Department, worked as an advisor and in dormitories, and served as the faculty advisor to several clubs. He is also a coach with the varsity baseball program.

Before becoming dean of studies, Callaghan, a former academic dean for juniors, seniors, and postgraduates, had firsthand insight into the daily challenges many students face. “That was an incredibly student-centered role,” he notes. “You’re working with students every single day. It wasn’t just the students who were in my classroom, and it wasn’t just my advisees.

I had so much involvement with such a wide range of students—thinking about what their schedules would be like as seniors, helping them strategize and develop plans that would serve them well for their academic interests and also in the college application process, helping students navigate challenges in the classroom and develop strategies for communicating with their teachers and putting the right support in place, and helping families in that regard as well.

“And then, as academic dean, you’re

on the very front end of communication with new families and new students,” he continues. “So in the summertime, once we had our new enrolls in place, I was one of the first points of contact. That was a really energizing part of the job: to be the representative of the academic program, to help them make good choices about scheduling, to basically be a cheerleader and celebrate all the wonderful things that we do here as educators and what our curriculum is and how it’s developing.

“It was a very active role. You’re involved with the students in so many ways, but in order to best help them and support them, you need to understand so many areas of school life. I left that office feeling like I knew the school inside and out.”

Throughout the course of the 2019–2020 academic year, Callaghan spearheaded the school’s efforts to revamp the daily academic schedule, a project that reflects his dedication to continual progress in the best interest of the students. Working alongside department heads and academic deans, Callaghan turned his attention to what he calls the health and wellness aspect of the schedule—in other words, trying to avoid “the grind.”

“Avoiding overscheduling, primarily,” he explains of the need to make some more room in the students’ daily schedules. "What can we do to reorganize time to allow for the best teaching and learning to happen across all of our programs?

“I think effective teaching and learning doesn’t happen in a grind atmosphere,” he continues. “Students need time to process what they’re learning, and teachers need time to process what they’re teaching and how they’re teaching it. So, the new schedule design addresses that idea of pace of life on campus. We’re going to be busy, and we’re going to be challenged, but we need to provide time and space for programs to grow."

Earlier in the fall, students and faculty were surveyed to solicit feedback about their experiences managing workload. “Then we had a series of meetings to make sure that we were understanding what we were trying to achieve and address with the schedule design,” Callaghan explains. “It wasn’t just let’s change the schedule for the heck of it.”

With a personal interest in health and wellness, he puts a lot of time and research into learning as much as he can about the ideal learning environment for adolescent boys.

The Avonian // SPRING 2020

This winter, he attended The Association of Boarding Schools conference, and last spring, he attended a health and wellness summit hosted by the International Boys School Coalition (IBSC) in Toronto. He also participated in a weeklong conference in Delaware hosted by Independent School Management with Academic Dean Jill Harrington, whom he cites as integral in the collaborative efforts to revitalize the student program.

“We sat and listened to a lot of the current research and collaborated with other schools,” Callaghan recalls. “The information that I learned about there really built some momentum behind thinking about our schedule. And we wondered—is our schedule really doing for us what we want it to do? It was not necessarily the best for teaching and learning and for the development of our

academic programs. Then, based on the information that we had, we came up with a number of models to see which one would be most effective, and that’s what we returned to campus with at the end of January.”

Proposed changes to the schedule— which, as of press time, will be implemented in the fall—include an increased passing time of 10 minutes and fewer but longer class periods: three 60-minute blocks each week.

“In those 60 minutes, teachers can get a lot more out of class time, especially when students are coming to class not having just rushed from the Forge to the Quad to try to get there on time,” Callaghan notes.

“We’re not getting more minutes each week, but we’re getting more quality in-class minutes to work with.

Teachers will have the time now to look at more project-based exercises,

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experiential exercises, active approaches to learning, everything that we want to accomplish with that R.E.A.L. learning model. We’ve got blocks of time to work with now where we can really leverage that, so then that has [us] looking at curriculum and thinking about ways in which we might want to push and develop our curriculum, which is an exciting idea also.

“Department chairs are doing that already on a department level,” he clarifies. “I know they’re constantly looking at scope and sequence and content, but again, when your schedule changes, you have opportunities to innovate.”

Another important feature of the new schedule: a year-round time slot for the Prep4ward cocurricular program, which debuted this year (see page 24 for more information) and focuses on four pillars for students: personal growth, leadership, life skills, and health and wellness.

The ultimate goal of the foundational program is to educate and inspire boys to be successful in their academic pursuits while attending the school and in their lives after Avon.

The curriculum of the program has scope and sequence, so it’s grade-level appropriate, a feature Callaghan was critical in executing.

“We intentionally designed that so that it was grade-level appropriate and so that it worked across the four years that we imagined a student coming here,” he explains.

“Insofar as the dean of studies is responsible for looking at our curriculum, it’s not just our academic curriculum. In my mind it wasn’t, anyway,” he notes. “Let’s look at this as a cocurricular program that directly

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FACULTY FOCUS

Let’s look at this as a cocurricular program that directly affects the academic program and our students’ abilities to perform to their best.

affects the academic program and our students’ abilities to perform to their best. The more I think about what it means to be at your best as a student, the more I realize that you have to have a healthy routine,” he continues. “You have to be physically active as well as mentally active. All of that certainly informs my work or has informed my work with these couple of projects, but my role in the Prep4ward program was to help develop the curriculum strategically, and that’s another important feature of it.

“These aren’t a bunch of one-off programs; they’re very intentional, they’re very deliberate.”

Callaghan has been working on Prep4ward alongside his wife, Heather Callaghan, Avon’s director of nursing.

They met just before he was hired in 2003; she joined the faculty as a teacher in 2004. Over the years that followed, they were married on campus and had two children— Owen and Sarah—and Heather Callaghan made a major career move from education into nursing. She now leads the health center team and

was instrumental in helping coordinate Avon’s response to the rapidly evolving Covid-19 situation.

The Callaghans were due to present their work with the Prep4ward program at the IBSC annual conference in Spain this summer; though that conference has been postponed, their work on developing and implementing this groundbreaking health and wellness curriculum will be sure to set the standard for private school programs for years to come.

Similarly, as the decisions were made to move to remote learning, the school was driven to create not just a sufficient academic program online but also an experience that would highlight our extraordinary faculty and pedagogy to engage students in their learning. “We are very focused on not compromising the academic program or the educational experience of our students, and so we very much needed to provide an exceptional experience for them this

spring,” Graham Callaghan says.

In addition to creating a remote learning experience that would help students thrive academically, the team was equally invested in making sure the relational aspect of the Avon Old Farms community experience would translate as well. “We have a spring program, and we are going to do everything we can to deliver an optimal experience to our students.

It’s just a different kind of learning community.

“This is a way for us to reimagine the ways that we’re connected to our students,” he explains.

In an interesting turn of events, Callaghan notes, the pivot we’ve made to remote learning will actually be beneficial in advance of the schedule change. This confluence, though unpredicted, will help classroom teachers adapt to meeting with their classes only three times a week, for 60 minutes at a time.

“In some ways, this is going to be

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incredible professional development,” he observes. “It requires you to think a little bit differently about how you’re going manage the content and move from one class meeting to the next.

When you move from four meetings a week to three meetings a week, you have to reimagine the kind of assignments you give the students outside of class—what do I want the boys doing outside of class to get ready for the next class?—and I think we’re forced to imagine how to use technology in a way that perhaps we haven’t before.

“How often do we have a chance to collaborate with our department members or between departments and just together figure out solutions to the challenges or the problems that we’re facing?” he wonders.

Callaghan is quick to note, however, that he hopes the focus remains on the learning—not the way students are learning. “Everybody’s talking about distance learning, remote learning,” he states.

“What I hope to achieve is that we set up these learning communities with our program, and we turn the volume down on the distance part of it; we emphasize the idea that this is just a different kind of learning community.

“I think that’s where we’re going to be really successful,” he continues.

“With the proliferation of online programs, sometimes education can feel like a transaction. That you can just get your credit, you can get your degree, and you never really have to interact with anybody.

“That’s not what our spring program is,” he states. “It’s very dynamic. It’s not stagnant. I think our teachers are going to enjoy learning about the necessary technology and

learning how to use it effectively, and I think our students are going to learn how to use it in a way that’s going to benefit them a lot moving forward. Conferencing technology is part of the business world; this is part of continuing education. Their experience this spring is going to be really valuable, and they’re going to develop a lot of skills that they perhaps wouldn’t have gotten had they been on campus.

“That’s the tradeoff, right? We have to look at it as an opportunity.

It’d be great to have the kids around— absolutely it would. But this is what we have to work with right now, you know? When something falls down, it’s an opportunity to build something else up. I think that’s very much the way that we have to see it.”

As a former student, a current

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faculty member, and a potential future parent—Owen is due to start at AOF in the fall of 2021—Callaghan offers a unique perspective that informs the conversations he is a part of and the many decisions he makes on a daily basis.

“To think about my son being an Avon student is a bit staggering, but that is only because I cannot quite grasp how quickly the years have gone by,” he observes. “From another, more important perspective, I am excited for him to start his student experience here. I’m excited for him to experience firsthand what I already know: Avon is a special place with a talented faculty committed to challenging each student to fulfil his potential.

“The school community is powerful, and I’m proud to be a part of it.”

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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Alex Hitz ’87

BY MORGAN C. CUGELL

C

hristened “the very best host in the world” by the Wall Street Journal, Alex Hitz ’87 is an internationally renowned chef and entertainer whose Southern-charm-meets-Le-Cordon-Bleu style is influenced by a life of food, travel, family, and hospitality.

Over the course of his career, he has offered his unique perspective and many and varied talents to the world, not only as a host, chef, and restaurateur but also as an author, an editor, a speaker, an event designer, a decorator, and an educator. As a consultant to leading hotels, restaurants, nonprofit organizations, and country clubs, Hitz collaborates with clients to define, design, and deliver a signature, singular guest experience.

Hitz’s first book, My Beverly Hills Kitchen: Classic Southern Cooking with a French Twist, garnered editorial raves from the Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Southern Living, O, House Beautiful, and the New York Times. Alex has been a frequent guest on TODAY, The Chew, Access

The Avonian // SPRING 2020

Hollywood, CBS Morning, and more than 60 local television broadcasts. He is a contributing editor at House Beautiful and Town & Country and writes regularly for multiple publications. As exclusive food columnist for two years at House Beautiful— a position he inherited from Ina Garten—he shared his step-by-step recipes, tips, and no-nonsense approach to cooking and entertaining in his monthly column, “Alex’s Kitchen.”

Hitz grew up in Atlanta and traveled often to his family’s home in France; his culinary acumen was developed through years of hands-on education, in his mother’s kitchen, at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and at Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School, which became the Institute of Culinary Education.

As a student, he apprenticed in the kitchens of Andre Soltner at Lutèce in New York and Michel Guérard at Les Prés d’Eugénie in France. He draws on an encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s upscale culinary classics as inspiration and six generations of Southern tradition and hospitality.

“As early as I can remember, I was interested in food and entertaining. My mother claimed that I planned the meal for my second birthday party. As a child in the 1970s, I experienced a genteel world of entertaining, best characterized as … ‘a cradle of the Old South, a crucible of the New South,’” he observes. “In other words, I didn’t grow up on collard greens or pigs’ feet, but my Southern experience was profound just the same.”

In the introduction to My Beverly Hills Kitchen, Hitz details his rise to success and notes how important his family was along the way. His stepfather, world-famous conductor Robert Shaw, and his mother, Caroline, a self-taught cook and quintessential Southern hostess, brought a warmth to their upscale way of life that instilled in him a certain sophistication while at the same time maintaining a casual, unpretentious appreciation. “My parents were proud of their ability to bring diverse groups of people together,”

There is no love sincerer than the love of food! ­— G E O R G E B E R N A R D S H AW

he recalls, “constantly crossing the racial, socioeconomic, and political boundaries of the day. They entertained often.”

Though his parents welcomed the likes of Leonard Bernstein, Coretta Scott King, and Jimmy Carter into their kitchen, Hitz says, “their parties were civilized—elegant and pretty but never stuffy: monogrammed linens, family silver, Derby china, French wines, electric conversations, and lots of laughter.

Then, as now, I never wanted to miss anything.”

The stories of his childhood reflect a life filled with opportunities many children can only dream of. He was aware of it at the time and treasures those memories. He recalls late nights backstage at Carnegie Hall, dinner at

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the Russian Tea Room, and eggs Benedict after concerts at the Carlyle. “There was a magic and a glamour to it that was palpable [to me] even as a young child,” he states.

Family vacations were spent traveling in Europe. “We spent endless hours driving through the French countryside in search of Michelin-starred restaurants or a remote chateau hotel that was recommended by the Gault Millau guide. At every brasserie, bistro, or grand restaurant, each bite was exciting, and excellence was the norm.

“Eating in fine and ordinary restaurants in France as an impressionable youth gave me an education that influences me to this day.”

When the time came to attend high school, Hitz notes, a consultant in Atlanta directed his family to Avon Old Farms. “I didn’t know one thing about Avon at all,” he says. “But we went to see it, and it was so gorgeous that I loved it. There was a period of adjustment, but I loved it.” At Avon, he was one of the top scholars in his class and extensively involved in the visual arts. His mother joined the Board of Directors and was an integral force in supporting the visual arts and building a music program from the ground up. Years later, Hitz’s connection to Avon Old Farms emerged purely by happenstance. At an alumni reception in Florida, hosted by Pam and Skip Gozzo P’11, ’12, Pam prepared the entire menu for the reception from Hitz’s first cookbook—having no idea that Hitz had

gone to AOF. Former faculty member Sue Evans and Headmaster Detora’s wife, Karen, were complimenting Pam on the food; when Pam revealed her source, Sue made the connection. Since then, Hitz has been in talks with Detora to return to campus to visit with the boys and perhaps provide some sort of demonstration or presentation.

After Avon, Hitz matriculated at Washington and Lee University. During his summer breaks, he worked at an Atlanta restaurant— The Patio by the River—starting as a dish boy “for a lone week” and then graduating to the front of the house; over the next few years, he mastered the sauté and grill stations, the pantry, garnishes, table service, and the front.

After college, he bought a half-ownership share in the restaurant, working with partner Mary Boyle Hataway, whom he still counts as a close friend and advisor. Many of the recipes in his first book were developed with her counsel—“about ingredients, depths and subtleties of flavors, cooking temperatures, varieties of vanilla extracts, forgotten main

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I’ve taken ideas from my family, my travels, from excellent restaurants, world-class chefs, from amateur cooks and those lucky enough to cultivate their food tastes.

courses, colors of roux, and other general culinary arcana.”

His time in that kitchen gave Hitz his first informal education in “speed, timing, and humility,” he explains, though he quickly realized he needed more education and headed to Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and then Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School. But the restaurant business proved to be grueling; “despite Herculean efforts, nothing ever seemed to change,” he states. He and Hathaway decided to sell the restaurant; it still stands today, under the new name of Canoe.

Hitz moved to New York and tried several different hats on for size: Broadway producer, movie producer, clothing designer, and real estate agent, to name a few. “Nothing quite seemed to fit,” he says. “Amazingly, I missed the kitchen.” He traveled all over the world; he ate in the finest restaurants. He built a house in Los Angeles with a state-of-the-art kitchen and, just like that, was back in the game. He realized that, thanks in part to Julia Child, the collective American palate had evolved; traditional Southern cooking was, to many, simply inadequate. “The ideas are great, but the recipes are merely ordinary,” he explains. “Markedly bland and too basic.”

He decided to research plantation food from all the Southern states and soon realized

he had his own interpretation that could appeal to people's newly sophisticated tastes.

“I wanted Southern food, but I wanted it on my terms: the strict European standards of quality and technique applied to those grand old plantation traditions.” And although most of Hitz’s recipes continue to find their foundation in the South, his work is not purely Southern. “I’ve taken ideas from my family, my travels, from excellent restaurants, world-class chefs, from amateur cooks and those lucky enough to cultivate their food tastes.” He breaks down his recipes into three categories: taste, depth of flavor, and the finish—or aftertaste. “It should leave you with a happy memory and not a needling reminder,” he explains.

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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Over the years, Hitz has reconsidered dozens of Southern classics: biscuits, fried chicken, corn pudding, Carolina pulled pork, shrimp and grits, fried green tomatoes, cole slaw, peach cobbler, and sweet potato pie, among others. “My goal was to revive lost dishes and to update ones that were no longer in favor,” he says. “I wanted to remake these recipes into timeless classics that even a finicky, mercurial eater with today’s tastes might enjoy.

“I entertain often, and I always try to give my guests what I find they really like: comfort

food—nothing pretentious, trendy, or precious. Save the test tubes and foam for another time. As I have found with most things in life, simple is always best.”

In 2009, Alex launched his gourmet frozen food line, My Beverly Hills Kitchen, on QVC with one product, beef bourguignon. He went on to HSN with an expanded line of 28 products, and his show consistently ranked No. 1 in the kitchen-and-food category.

The book version, My Beverly Hills Kitchen, was published in 2012 after seven agents and multiple versions. “I’ve been working on this book my whole life,” Hitz states, noting that he was determined to craft a book that was entirely his own. After a bidding war among 28 publishers, his first book sold to Knopf— the same publisher who had discovered Julia Child—in just three hours, at a record price for a first-time food book.

In 2019, he released his second book, The Art of the Host: Recipes and Rules for Flawless Entertaining. That work, also inspired by traditional Southern fare and French haute cuisine, presents comfort-food classics with romantic sophistication, offers 12 expertly curated menus for different occasions, and shares Alex’s essential bits of truth and advice for hosts seeking to create “memorable parties and delicious dinners.”

Also in 2019, Hitz received one of the biggest honors of his career thus far. He was selected by a prestigious committee—which included the French president—to serve as the executive chef and event designer for a dinner celebrating the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The Palace of Versailles joined with the National World War I Museum and Memorial on June 28 to commemorate peace and to celebrate American philanthropy in France. The celebration was marked by a three-course dinner for 700, held in the Hall of Battles.

Alex and his team spent six months designing the event. The food was a reinterpretation and modernization of the original dinner that

The Avonian // SPRING 2020

I entertain often, and I always try to give my guests what I find they really like: comfort food— nothing pretentious, trendy, or precious. As I have found with most things in life, simple is always best.

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ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

If you’re an American cooking at Versailles, it must be more than merely good; the stakes are too high for it to be anything less than perfect.

was served after the signing of the treaty 100 years ago; he coordinated with the best florists and caterers in the world to make it as authentic as possible, even consulting the archives of the Élysée Palace.

“If you’re an American cooking at Versailles, it must be more than merely good; the stakes are too high for it to be anything less than perfect,” he said at the time.

After dinner, guests proceeded to the Hall of Mirrors to view an exact reenactment of the original fireworks display from the day of the signing of the treaty as musicians played a piece by Jean-Baptiste Lully, Louis XIV’s court composer. “I had been to Versailles many times before,” Hitz recalls. “But I had never seen it without all the tourists and the

noise. “It was a haunted, magical night.

You could feel it.”

As his brand continues to move forward, he splits his time between his residences in New York City, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, which houses his test kitchen, the home of all of his research and recipe development. He’s currently spending more time in Atlanta as he works on his third book—a cookbook—as well as a “double-top-secret” project.

“The plate is pretty full right now,” he laughs. “Every day is a different day.”

Hitz travels 40 weeks a year and spends most of every day in and around a kitchen.

When the workday is done, he heads out for dinner—a cherished tradition. “I go out to dinner every night,” he explains. “I don’t like to go out to lunch. I’m in workout clothes all day long. At the end of the day, I get changed and go out to eat for dinner.”

Hitz is a purist and prefers the classics.

“Wherever I go, I want to go to the places that you can’t get anywhere else,” he says. “I’ve never wanted to go to the latest new restaurants, even as a child. France in the ’70s was nouvelle cuisine, and I came to love it. It’s how I developed relationships to food: simple stuff, straightforward, with nothing to hide behind.

“Now, when I go out, I look for a super classic restaurant that has maintained its standards.

Places that still matter, places that maintain currency without becoming trendy.”

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class notes

Peter Mogielnicki ’58 fishes for striped bass off the coast of Rhode Island.

40s ’42 RUSSELL HUNTER

Head Class Agent 100 Sarah Ln., Apt. 112 Simsbury, CT 06070-1985

50s ’50 HARVEY S. RUBIN

Head Class Agent 102 Barbour Cir. Newport News, VA 23606-2201 harvo2516@verizon.net

’51 CARL A. CANDELS

Co-Head Class Agent 6 Mountain View Ave. Avon, CT 06001 ’51 WARREN T. FORD SR.

Co-Head Class Agent 115 Center St. Wolcott, CT 06716 jodir@aol.com ’52 SETH F. MENDELL

Head Class Agent 232 Tellidora Ct. Fort Myers, FL 33908 sethalicemendell@gmail.com

’54 DOUGLAS H. MACPHERSON

Head Class Agent 5405 Dranes Tavern Dr. Fairfax, VA 22030-4603 dhmacpherson@verizon.net ’55 EDWARD J. HAWIE

Co-Head Class Agent 138 Hampton Point Dr. St. Simons Island, GA 31522-5426 ehawie@bellsouth.net ’55 CLEON M. SHUTT JR.

Co-Head Class Agent 511 Garrison Forest Rd. Owings Mills, MD 21117 chipsamerica@hotmail.com

’56 CHARLES R. SCAGLIONE

Head Class Agent 3328 Eagle Nest Point Virginia Beach, VA 23452 scag3328@gmail.com 58 AUSTIN CHAMBERS

Co-Head Class Agent 335 Lake Dr. North St. Petersburg, FL 33710-7751 susan.chambers3@aol.com ’58 STEPHEN R. HOLT

Co-Head Class Agent 75 Bridge St. Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA 01944 stephenholt@comcast.net

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IN MEMORIAM

Jorge H. Consuegra ’51, P’77, ’80, GP ’11, ’14

J

orge H. Consuegra ’51, P’77, ’80, GP ’11, ’14 died peacefully surrounded by his loving family at his home on Key Biscayne at the age of 86 on December 9, 2019.

A beloved member of the Avon Old Farms family, Jorge graduated from Avon in 1951; he returned in 1963 and served as a Spanish teacher, celebrated coach, and residential leader throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. Jorge welcomed generations of Avonians into the brotherhood, making them feel at home and at ease while away from their families.

Jorge first glimpsed the Avon campus in 1950 when he left his family’s Havana home for a postgraduate year at the school. Dubbed “Chico” by his classmates, Jorge won the Buckley Cup that year for his team leadership and athletic abilities as a member of the football, swimming, and baseball teams.

“I also learned to be more independent,” Jorge

said in a 2011 interview with the Avonian. “I understood the meaning of aspirando et perseverando, and I always had that in mind during my years as a teacher and coach and with my own family values.”

Jorge returned home after that postgrad year, graduated from the University of Havana, married, and settled down to what he expected would be a fulfilling and prosperous life in Havana. Fidel Castro and his revolution, soon shattered that future.

“We left Cuba as political exiles, when Freedom Flights were taking thousands of Cubans in opposition to the Castro regime to Miami, in October 1960,” recalled Jorge’s wife, Miriam. “We left everything we had behind on the island and were able to take out only a few suitcases.

“We didn’t realize then that we would never come back home,” Miriam admits today. Instead, they would find a new home— Avon Old Farms School.

Jorge taught Spanish and later headed the Foreign Language Department. He was also head of Eagle dormitory and coached several sports.

His 1975–1976 varsity swim team went 12-0, the first undefeated swim team in school history. Jorge coached his swimmers to four Connecticut Independent School Swimming Association championships and numerous school records. In 1994, Jorge was inducted into Avon’s Athletic Hall of Fame for his contributions both as a student and as a varsity coach.

Jorge and Miriam raised four children: sons Jorge Jr. ’77 and Andres ’80 and daughters Ana and Julie.

Twelve grandchildren followed for the couple of 62 years, including two more Consuegra men of Avon: Eddy ’11 and Luis ’14.

Friends, colleagues, and former students and athletes continue to recall Jorge’s far-reaching influence and inspiration.

Avon Old Farms, through

the generosity of an alumnus and his family, set up the Miriam L. Consuegra and Jorge H. Consuegra ’51 Scholarship Fund to honor this proud Man of Avon. “He never imagined his experience as a student at a prep school in Connecticut would trigger the start of a wonderful new life that created a great family and impacted so many people,” states Jorge Jr. In 2018, the Class of 1968 honored the impact he had on their lives as a friend and mentor with the dedication of a plaque in his name.

As a former colleague wrote, “Jorge was one of the most beloved men who stepped on the Avon campus. He was so instrumental in the development and success so many of us found through his caring attitude and ability to find a spark to get the most out of each and every one of us. “[Jorge] was one of the great men that the foundation that is Avon today was built on.”

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’58 R. PETER MOGIELNICKI

shared he has retired after 40 years as an internist on the faculty of the Dartmouth-Geisel School of Medicine. During his time there, he published regularly in the medical literature. He has now taken up creative writing. His medical crime novel, Dissection, is available on Smashwords, and a series of brief personal essays is posted at https://cereflections.com. When he is not grinding out sentences on his Apple, he keeps busy advocating for a halt to fossil fuel extraction and a reversal of the ongoing destruction of wild land.

For fun, he pursues the elusive striped bass off the Rhode Island south shore. ’59 CHARLES W. DAVIS

Co-Head Class Agent 6905 West 99th St. Overland Park, KS 66212 cwdavis@waretec.com ’59 DOUGLAS B. MARSHALL

Co-Head Class Agent 2 Berkshire Rd. Bloomfield, CT 06002 douglas.marshall@raveis.com

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60s ’60 RICHARD L. WILLIAMS

Head Class Agent PO Box 218 South Orleans, MA 02662-0218 rclumberclan@aol.com ’61 GEORGE F. HENSCHEL JR.

Head Class Agent 101 Seminary Rd. Bedford, NY 10506 gfhjr@aol.com ’62 ALAN D. ROZINSKY

Head Class Agent 13620 Via Flora, Apt. B Delray Beach, FL 33484 alroz@lycos.com ’63 JACK R. STOKVIS

Head Class Agent 25 Pine St. Haworth, NJ 07641-1926 smarts@galaxy.net ’64 W. BRADFORD HARWOOD III

Head Class Agent 24 Overhill Ave. New Britain, CT 06053 wbhtcc@aol.com ’65 PERRY BENSON JR.

Head Class Agent 2135 Naudain St. Philadelphia, PA 19146-1218 pb2@jacobswyper.com

Kevin Driscoll and Larry Friel, old friends from the class of 1972, reconnect at homecoming.

’66 MICHAEL D. BARKER

Head Class Agent 40 Bay Hill Dr. Bloomfield, CT 06002-2376 ’67 JAMES W. CORRIGAN

Co-Head Class Agent 202 Smithfield Road Contoocook, NH 03229 jwc915@gmail.com ’67 WILLIAM F. ROBERTS JR.

Co-Head Class Agent 786 Brownsville Rd. Sinking Spring, PA 19608 wfroberts@fast.net ’68 GEORGE L. PURNELL

Head Class Agent 4822 Brighton Lakes Blvd.

Boynton Beach, FL 33436 glpluvssports@gmail.com ’69 DAVID F. COLEMAN

Beau and Sandy Martin ’65 and their 11 grandchildren

Head Class Agent 35 Adelaide Ave. Barrington, RI 02806 davidcoleman1150@gmail.com

70s ’70 HARRIS H. BUCKLIN III

Head Class Agent 3004 Margaret Jones Ln. Williamsburg, VA 23185 hbucklin3@aol.com ’71 TIMOTHY R. BEEBLE

Head Class Agent 63 Grassy Plain St. Bethel, CT 06801 tbeeble@aol.com ’72 KEVIN J. DRISCOLL

Head Class Agent 3 Muirfield Ln. Avon, CT 06001 driscollk@avonoldfarms.com

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CLASS NOTES

John Martinson ’73 and Stanton Perry ’74 are reunited! Stan and his wife, Kelley, moved to Scottsdale, Ariz.; their new neighbors include John and his wife, Suzanne.

’73 CHRISTOPHER L. ATKINS

’75 THOMAS B. BYRNE III

’79 ANTHONY M. GRAY

Head Class Agent PO Box 706 Hillsdale, NY 12529-0706 catkins702@gmail.com

Head Class Agent 31 Helena Rd. Avon, CT 06001-3433 tbyrne@thomasbyrne.com

Co-Head Class Agent 6212 Wagner Ln. Bethesda, MD 20816 tgray@tonygray.net

’74 GEORGE J. GIANNONI

’76 ALEXANDER N. WORLEY

’79 ANTHONY M. GRAY

Co-Head Class Agent 36 Twilight Dr. Granby, CT 06035-1212 ggiannoni@cox.net

Head Class Agent 20 Shore Grove Rd. Clinton, CT 06413 alexworley@sbcglobal.net

’74 EDWARD P. MOLLOY

’77 JORGE E. CONSUEGRA JR.

attended the World Pond Hockey Tournament Championships for the 17th year in a row. Other Avon alumni in attendance included SCOTT B. LINKE ’79 and

Co-Head Class Agent 6 Winhart Dr. Granby, CT 06035 Tmolloy@ArraySoftware.com

Head Class Agent 5 Andrews Rd. Greenwich, CT 06830 jconsuegra29@gmail.com ’78 JOHN M. GARVEY

Head Class Agent 389 Haines Ave. Long Beach, CA 90814 jmgarvey@garvspace.com

TODD L. LADDY ’93. ’79 SCOTT B. LINKE

Co-Head Class Agent 116 Eleven Levels Rd. Ridgefield, CT 06877-3011 scottblinke@comcast.net

80s ’80 THOMAS E. DAVEY JR.

Head Class Agent 6806 Joyce Way Dallas, TX 75225-2718 thomasdaveyjr@gmail.com ’80 WILLIAM CHERRY just

completed his service for Whole of Syria (CARE International).

As director of operations, he provided humanitarian emergency assistance to Syrians inside Syria.

He was based in Amman, Jordan, and coordinated operations from Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, and inside Northeast Syria (Kurdish Autonomous Region). Currently, he is based in London and looking for his next adventure.

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’81 S. COLEMAN BOOKBINDER IV

Head Class Agent 213 Midland Ave. Wayne, PA 19087 samuel.bookbinder @wfadvisors.com ’82 GREGORY T. FISH

Head Class Agent 32 Castlewood Rd. Simsbury, CT 06089 greg@gregorytfishllc.com ’83 WILLIAM E. ESCHERT

Marc Delnicki ’81 shared a photo of his soon-to-be-two daughter, Elizabeth, showing off her Avon school spirit.

Co-Head Class Agent 24 Westland Rd. Avon, CT 06001-3197 billeschert@yahoo.com ’83 RICHARD C. GREGORY

Co-Head Class Agent 30 Walnut Farms Dr. Farmington, CT 06032 ’84 JOHN S. GORDON

Head Class Agent 246 Nacoochee Dr. N.W. Atlanta, GA 30305 falconatlfan@gmail.com ’85 SAM L. RUBENSTEIN

John Franzosa ‘81 and Coach Gardner got together in South Florida and chatted about Avon Old Farms hockey. John works out of Miami and is president of Allied Plating Supplies.

Mike Lech ’88, Chase Lech ’23, Bennett Masterson ’22, Wells Masterson ’22, and Breck Masterson P’22 enjoy a rainy day of backcountry flats fishing in the Florida Keys.

Head Class Agent 1148 Apollo Gardens St. Henderson, NV 89052 richmondsr@aol.com ’85 STUART G. BAKER lives

with his family in Ticonderoga, N.Y. He’s been the senior planner with the Town of Queensbury on the south end of Lake George since

New York City N OV E M B E R 1 4 , 2 0 1 9

Jamie Tang ’03 hosted another lively mini reunion. More than 40 Avonians attended the gathering at Dorrian’s Red Hand.

Cole Miller ’14, Craig Moore ’14, Graham Welter ’14, and Chris Kincade ’15 SEE WHO WAS THERE: WWW.AVONOLDFARMS.COM/EVENTS

60

CLASS NOTES

Victoria and Jed Usich ’85, P’15, ’18, ’20 with their son Alexander ’20, on signing day at Avon Old Farms. Alexander committed to play collegiate lacrosse at Dickinson College.

late 2004. His wife, Tracey, is a guidance counselor for the Bouquet Valley Central School District. Their son, Douglas, is a sophomore at Boston College, and daughter, Chloe, is a sophomore in high school. Stu is an active member of the B.P.O.E. Ticonderoga Lodge #1494 and has served as an officer for the past nine years. He also currently serves as president of PRIDE of Ticonderoga, a local community development organization that provides affordable housing repair and historical preservation services. ’86 STEPHEN R. GORMAN

Head Class Agent 13 Smith Ln. Burlington, CT 06013-1201 stephen.r.gorman@gmail.com

Mike Conroy ’85 (front row, third from right) and Drew Graham ’85 (second row, second from right) celebrate a fun day of men’s league lacrosse with their teammates.

The Avonian // SPRING 2020

61

Avonians gathered to celebrate the life of beloved former faculty member Jorge Consuegra. For more about his life, see page 56. Pictured left to right: Dean Petow ’77; Eddy Consuegra ’11; Jorge Consuegra ’77, P’11; Ken Cloud ’78; Skip Flanagan GP’16, H’18, GP’20; George Iverson ’82, P’10; Luis Consuegra ’14; Headmaster Jim Detora P’12; Kevin Driscoll ’72, P’08; Peter Evans P’98, H’18; Andy Consuegra ’80, P’14; George Arellano ’78; Anthony Tattersfield ’81. In attendance at the mass but not pictured: John Franzosa ’81; Humberto Pertierra ’66; Manuel Ramirez ’71; Peter Matalon ’80; Linda (Matalon) Truppman P’11; Britt Flanagan GP’16, GP’20; Sue Evans P’98, H’18; Miriam Consuegra P’77, P’80, GP’11, GP’14; Maria Alejo Consuegra P’11; Mercedes Velasco Consuegra P’14; Fernando and Lillian Arguelles, P’82, P’83; and Eddy and Tota Salazar P’87

Brian Farrell ’90 proudly coaches his son Jack (7) in Avon Youth Hockey.

’87 HAROLD R. BEACHAM JR.

Head Class Agent 6 Tower Dr., Dover, MA 02030 hal.beacham44@comcast.net ’88 SHAWN E. ATKINSON

Co-Head Class Agent 428 Ridgewood Ave. Glen Ridge, NJ 07028 shawnatki@gmail.com ’88 PETER D. REED

Blake Ruttenberg '89 and Cam Atkinson '08 connect after a Columbus Blue Jackets game.

Co-Head Class Agent 91 Butternut Ln. Southport, CT 06890 pdreed18@gmail.com ’89 ROBERT M. WILEMAN

Head Class Agent 7425 N.E. 97th Terr.

Oklahoma City, OK 73151-9121 rmw@wilemanagency.com

90s ’90 PETER J. DECKERS

Head Class Agent 500 Old Farms Rd. Avon, CT 0600 deckersp@avonoldfarms.com ’91 MICHAEL M. MULLIN IV

Head Class Agent 8 Nickerson Ln. Darien, CT 06820 ’92 DAMIEN J. EGAN

Head Class Agent 52 Brookview Ct. Groton, CT 06340-5528 degan2@hotmail.com

62

CLASS NOTES

Leila and Eamon Sheehan ’99 became the proud parents of daughter Ava on July 7, 2019. Ava will be well protected under the watchful eye of her big brother, Knox.

’92 JASON RICKLES is living

’94 PAUL M. GOZZO

with his wife, Sarah, and their hound, Charlie, in Woodstock, Vt. Entering year 21 in the classroom, Jason teaches English and coaches mountain bike racing at Green Mountain Union High School in Chester, Vt., doing his best to honor the legacy of Mr. Evans, Mrs. Cutler, Mr. Custer, Mr. Balmer, Mrs. Nelson, and all the amazing teachers he learned from in his four years at Avon. Jason also joined the executive board of the Vermont Mountain Bike Association (VMBA), a trail use and advocacy nonprofit. He says, “If you ever ride your bike in Vermont, consider joining our group to help support our wonderful trails and outdoor opportunities.”

Co-Head Class Agent 1 Country Farm Cross Rd. Stratham, NH 03885-2536 11pgoz@gmail.com ’95 ANTHONY D. SILVESTRO

Head Class Agent 4 Haskell Rd. Andover, MA 01810 tony.silvestro@insperity.com ’96 MARK A. CARUSO

Head Class Agent 124 Westminster Rd. Chatham, NJ 07928-1364 mcaruso@gmail.com ’97 TIMOTHY B. STAY

Co-Head Class Agent 2024 Upland Way #205 Philadelphia, PA 19131 timothystay@gmail.com

’93 TRAVIS MERRITT

’97 KYLE R. YOUNGQUIST

Head Class Agent 121 Rumson Rd. Little Silver, NJ 07739 merritttravis@yahoo.com

Co-Head Class Agent 14 Wychview Dr. Westfield, NJ 07090-1821 bigkyleyoungquist@gmail.com

’94 GRAHAM C. FULLER

’98 GEOFFREY R. BARLOW

Co-Head Class Agent 2937 Morris Rd. Ardmore, PA 19003-1832 grahamcraigfuller@gmail.com

Co-Head Class Agent 500 Old Farms Rd. Avon, CT 06001 barlowg@avonoldfarms.com

Boston N OV E M B E R 2 0, 2 0 1 9

More than 40 Avonians, parents, and friends of Avon gathered at The Fours for our annual reception in Boston.

Kurt Weisenburger ’13, Pearse McEneaney ’13, Dennis Caulfield ’13, Tadas Jalinskas ’13, Bear Brink ’14, and Ian Browchuk ’15 SEE WHO WAS THERE: WWW.AVONOLDFARMS.COM/EVENTS

The Avonian // SPRING 2020

’98 J. ANDREW CORRIGAN

Co-Head Class Agent 78 West 85th St., Apt. 5B New York, NY 10024 jamesandrewcorrigan@gmail.com ’99 DAVID R. GRYBOSKI

Co-Head Class Agent 101 South Bay Suite B-3, PO Box 732 Anna Maria, FL 34216-0732 david@ghgdevelopment.com ’99 ANDREW M. KUNISCH

Co-Head Class Agent 936 S Howard Ave. Unit 307 Tampa, FL 33606-2492 kunisch23@yahoo.com ’99 STEPHEN A. ZAPPONE

Co-Head Class Agent 55 W Mountain Rd. West Simsbury, CT 06092-2306 zappones@yahoo.com

00s ’00 MICHAEL J. O’NEILL

Co-Head Class Agent 16 Old Colony Dr. Dove, MA 02030 michaeloneill27@yahoo.com

Avonians golf at Silo Ridge in August. Marek Krowka ’03, John Ducci ’05, Chris Webb, Russ Lallier ’03, Luke Archambault ’04, Jim Detora P’10, Kevin Driscoll ’72, P’08, Luis Matos ’01 (host) and Glenn Sieber ’19H, P’17

’00 DANIEL J. SEIDEN

Co-Head Class Agent 117 Willow Oaks Ln. Summerville, SC 29483 seidend@gmail.com ’01 CHRISTOPHER D. COLEMAN

Co-Head Class Agent 210 Foote St. Barrington, RI 02806-2943 christopherdcoleman@gmail.com ’01 NICHOLAS H. LAROCQUE

Co-Head Class Agent 60 Gardner Rd. # 1 Brookline, MA 02445-4524 larocque.nicholas@gmail.com ’01 CHRISTOPHER R. HIGGINS is working for the

Vancouver Canucks as director of player development. He oversees and assists in developing the organization’s top draft picks and prospects.

Nick Pacquee ’04, Jim Detora P’10, KC Tenukas ’00, Kevin Driscoll ’72, P’08, Nick Malinosky ’00, Luke Archambault ’04

63

64

CLASS NOTES

’02 WILLIAM N. PALMER

Head Class Agent 5835 Cherokee Dr. Fairway, KS 66205 wnpalmer@gmail.com ’02 PATRICK G. HORNBROOK

shared this: “After teaching and working as a principal in San Diego for 12 years, I decided it was time to return home to upstate New York to raise my own family in my hometown, where my folks still reside. San Diego was a wonderful place to live and begin my career, but despite the significant change in weather, I’m happy to be raising my daughter just a mile or two down the road from each of her grandparents. Since moving home, I acquired a job at Lansing High School in Lansing, New York.

It is a smaller rural town neighboring my hometown of Ithaca, New York. Last year, I started as the dean of students and this year became the principal. It’s a wonderful school and community, and I’m loving the transition.” ’03 JAMES T. TANG

Head Class Agent 300 East 84th St. Apt. 2A New York, NY 10028 jamesttang@gmail.com Luke Archambault ’04, Helen Pedersen-Keiser P’02, and Charles Ward ’02 smile for the camera at the sixth annual APK (Capt. Andrew Pedersen-Keel) 5K on November 2, 2019.

Avon DECEMBER 20, 2019

The Christmas Hockey Classic reception and game was a great event with students, families, alumni, and grandparents gathering to cheer on the Winged Beavers as they defeated St. Paul’s School.

Orion Marco ’16, Andrew Waltzer ’16, and Nathaniel Shemo ’16 SEE WHO WAS THERE: AVONOLDFARMS.COM/EVENTS

The Avonian // SPRING 2020

65

’04 MATTHEW H. MORAN

Head Class Agent 1605 Sansom St. #206 Philadelphia, PA 19103 matthew.h.moran@gmail.com ’04 ADAM BERGENTY and

wife, Courtney, welcomed a son, Sisto Michael Bergenty, to their family on February 11, 2020. ’04 TIMOTHY P. CARTLAND

noted, “My wife and I are expecting our second kid this September, which is absolutely nuts. We have a soon-to-be three-year-old boy, and adding another in the mix is going to be wild.” ’04 ALBERT “MAC” MCDONALD started the year in

a new role as dean of students for the upper school at the Boy’s Latin School of Maryland. He has been at Boy’s Latin for 11 years, where he has held various positions, including history teacher and 9th-grade dean. ’04 ROBERT REED and his

wife, Mallory, welcomed their daughter, Fionaula Isla Preston Reed, to their family on October 4, 2019. ’05 DANE G. LEMERIS

Head Class Agent 239 W 4th St., Apt 2 New York, NY 10014-2664 dlemeris@gmail.com

Jeanna and Ryan Matalon ’04 meet Dave Matthews at a concert in New Jersey in September.

Mac Macdonald ’04 speaks to a large group of his students.

66

CLASS NOTES

In September, Luke Archambault ’04, Ryan Matalon ’04, and Nick Pacquee ’04 attended the wedding of Kyle Brewer ’04 and his wife, Heather.

Avon J A N U A R Y 1 7, 2 0 2 0

More than 80 alumni faced off during two competitive and spirited games spanning 1974 to 2017 at the 2020 Alumni Hockey Weekend.

SEE WHO WAS THERE: WWW.AVONOLDFARMS.COM/EVENTS

The Avonian // SPRING 2020

IN MEMORIAM

The school has learned of the following deaths: JOHN VICTOR GRAINGER ’46 Tobias Salmelainen ’04 returned to campus to visit with his former hockey coaches. Toby is the GM of HIFK Helsinki, one of the biggest hockey clubs in Finland. He is getting married in May.

JORGE H. CONSUEGRA ’51 GEORGE H. BETTS ’53 ALEXANDER M. FISHER JR. ’59

’06 KEVIN T. DRISCOLL

Co-Head Class Agent 252 E 61st St., Apt 3BN New York, NY 10065-0350 kevin.t.driscoll@gmail.com ’06 JOSHUA P. PAVANO

Co-Head Class Agent 60 Forest Hills Dr. Farmington, CT 06032-3017 jpavano@gmail.com

STEPHEN M. SCHWOLSKY ’59 WALTER H. REESE ’62 CHRISTOPHER COLFORD VAN SCHAACK ’69 GEORGE WHITNEY ALLEN ’69 RICHARD A. SPERANDEO ’70

’07 CASEY R. COONS

Co-Head Class Agent 50A Oak St. Wakefield, MA 01880 caseycoons4@gmail.com Jessica and John Hodgkinson ’08 welcomed a son, Roy Witter Hodgkinson, into the world on July 14, 2019. Roy will be a member of the Avon Old Farms class of 2038.

’07 TYLER C. HADDAD

Co-Head Class Agent 81 Brookside Dr. Longmeadow, MA 01106-2319 tyler.c.haddad@gmail.com

DENNIS G. MURRAY ’72 MICHAEL D. SARGENT ’72 TIMOTHY F. AGUDA ’73 BRADFORD M. TRACEY ’81 MARK J. PERRY ’82 JONATHAN LEE NEIDLINGER ’99

67

68

CLASS NOTES

’07 ALEJANDRO LA PLANA

spoke at the United Nations in November. He participated in the annual summit, a movement of more than 200 regional leaders creating alliances to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in the Americas. This event convened representatives of all sectors in the United Nations headquarters to discuss the challenges and propose solutions to contribute to the growth and advancement of the region. Themes discussed included the status of sustainable development, decent work and economic growth, blockchain for social impact, reduction of inequalities through renewable energy sources, and women in technology. ’07 MICHAEL J. RECCHIA

was recently engaged to Gabby Schiraldi. Congrats! They will exchange vows on August 15, 2020, in Youngstown, Ohio. ’08 WILL H. HENDRICKS

Co-Head Class Agent 3818 Highland Ave. Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 willheatonhendricks@gmail.com ’08 KEVIN S. SISTI

Co-Head Class Agent 64 Pinnacle Rd. Farmington, CT 06032 kevin@oldlimeproductions.com

John Mori ’05 and wife, Brooke, were married on July 8, 2019, at Villa Cimbrone in Ravello, Italy.

Harry Lyons ’11 enjoys the slopes in Big Sky Montana before Covid-19.

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Ryan Yen ’12 married Cindy Shaw on February 29, 2020, in Mill Valley, Calif. Congratulations!

Kieran Morris ’11 married Jacklyn on August 16, 2019 at Liberty State Park in New Jersey

’09 JOHN (BEN) BEATH

Head Class Agent 1152 Rue laVille Walk St. Louis, MO 63141 beathj@gmail.com ’10 MATTHEW R. COZ

Head Class Agent 172 Webster St. Boston, MA 02128 mcoz55@gmail.com ’10 PATRICK D. HAMPTON is

currently working remotely from Brooklyn, N.Y., for Johns Hopkins University as associate director of undergraduate giving. In New York, he performs comedy and music all over the city at places such as Upright Citizens Brigade, the Peoples Improv Theater, and Caveat Theater, to name a few.

His most recent projects include working with the group Hampton & Yates. They are a folk music duo that improvises very dumb songs on the spot about American

hometowns. He also produces and hosts Big Fat Juicy Desk Concerts, a monthly music and comedy show. Last month, the group was featured in Time Out New York.

“Inspired by NPR’s web series Tiny Desk Concerts, this musicalcomedy extravaganza features a live, intimate, acoustic performance, a meaningful conversation about writing, lyrics, and inspiration, followed by much less meaningful improvised comedy based on the band’s lyrics and sounds.” ’11 OLIVER K. ROTHMANN

Head Class Agent 50 Broadlawn P. Apt 506 Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 orothmann1@babson.edu ’11 HARRISON M. LYONS is

busy overseeing construction of the Montage Big Sky at Spanish Peaks Lodge, the largest project in Montana’s history. He is checking out the slopes in his free time.

Mike Pumphret ’13 has a new stage name, Michael Pace. A rising star in Nashville, he also has a new breakout song, “Your Cowboy.” Cheers to a Bostonian making his way in the world of country music.

70

CLASS NOTES

Nate Usich ’15 and Dr. Skip Flanagan, his lacrosse coach, meet in Delray Beach, Fla., for dinner.

Charles O’Brien ’12 is a student naval aviator. He completed aviation preflight indoctrination in the summer of 2019 and is currently flying the T6 Texan II at Whiting Field in Milton, Fla., for the U.S. Navy. In a few months, he will select his next aircraft and is excited to fly whatever the Navy needs him to operate.

’12 JOHN D. SHAMBURGER

’13 GUOBIAO (GARY) LI

Head Class Agent 3185 Nancy Creek Road NW Atlanta, GA 30327-1903 shamburgerd@gmail.com

graduated, in December, from the University of Pennsylvania with two master’s degrees, one in computer science and the other in data science. He is employed as a data scientist with Aetna Insurance in its New York City headquarters. He shared that he is very happy to see Avon heavily invested in computer science– related education.

’12 MICHAEL A. NICOLIA is

a stand-up comedian and actor based in New York. His act is an energetic and intelligent romp through his challenges in life. He jests about his family, dating life, and more awkward situations with rapid-fire charisma. Mike was the winner of the 2018 WBAB Comedy Thunderdome and a finalist in the Long Island LaughOff. He plays theaters and clubs all over NYC and Long Island. Mike emcee’s regularly at Governor’s Comedy Clubs on Long Island, and he most recently toured with global headliner Anthony Rodia. ’13 WILSON P. MEYER

Head Class Agent 355 Brook Mead Dr. Clarksville, TN 37042 wilsonpmeyer@gmail.com

’14 MICKOY R. NICHOL

Co-Head Class Agent 500 Old Farms Rd. Avon, CT 06001 nicholm@avonoldfarms.com ’14 CONNOR KELLY was voted

number 37 by peers ranking the top 50 players in the Premier Lacrosse League. ’14 RYAN D. PHILLIPS

Co-Head Class Agent 935 Sutter St., Apt 6 San Francisco, CA 94109 rydphillips@gmail.com

’15 WILLIAM C. DAVIS

Co-Head Class Agent 11 Parker Rd., Avon, CT 06001 cdavis7@me.com ’15 CHRISTIAN E. DIANTONIO

Co-Head Class Agent 520 Dingleton Hill Rd. Cornish, NH 03745-4521 diantoniochristian@gmail.com

Patrick Summers ’18 wears his Avon Old Farms alumni tie at a Temple University formal.

’16 MATTHEW T. HORTON

Co-Head Class Agent 41 Ironwood Rd. Guilford, CT 06437 horton_matt@bentley.edu ’16 ALESSIO R. MARCOGLIESE

Co-Head Class Agent 590 Kindersley Montreal, QC H3R 1S4 alessio.marcogliese@gmail.com ’16 PATRICK WITKOWSKI

recently became the fourth leading scorer in Coast Guard basketball history. He currently has 1,431 points. Congratulations, Packy, on a great collegiate career!

’17 KEVIN A. SIEBER

Head Class Agent 55 Shore Rd., Clinton, CT 06413 ksieber@friars.providence.edu ’17 XAVIER M. VEGA, a film/

writing for film major at NYU Tisch, recently completed a production–assistant internship with Desus and Mero on Showtime. ’18 KEVIN E. HUVELDT

Head Class Agent 96 Four Mile Rd. West Hartford, CT 06107-2703 kevinhuveldt4@gmail.com

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Blaine Riggle P’17, ’20; John O’Connor ’20; Alec Riggle ’20; Nick Ciacciarelli; Matt Riggle ’17; and Ryan Duffy ’17 attended the Patriots game together with tickets donated to the 2019 Blue Blazer Ball by Walter Suski.

Owen Wheeler ’18 took a gap year after graduating from Avon, and he started his first year at Yale in the fall of 2019. During Family Weekend, his dad snapped this picture of Owen with his Avon Old Farms flag proudly hung in the common room.

William Murray ’19 is sworn in at his ROTC Contracting Ceremony at Providence College in November.

Doug Zeytoonjian P’20, father of current student Hunter, instructs former headmaster Ken LaRocque ’19H, P’01, ’10 in his new livelihood: lawn maintenance!

’18 THOMAS J. SHAW is a

first semester at Brown has gone tremendously well. In addition to joining a few clubs and playing club-level ice hockey, I have become one of the first-year representatives of the Black Pre-Med Society, and I tutor disabled adults once a week with Partnership for Adult Learning.

Academically, I found I was significantly challenged, as I had used some of my AP credits to

psychology major at Syracuse University in upstate New York. He presented his research on trauma and attachment disorders at the annual meeting for the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation in San Francisco, Calif., in March. TJ presented “An Examination of Reactive Attachment Disorder as a Result of Structural Trauma in the Hate U

Give” orally at the Macksey Symposium at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., in April. ’19 MAXWELL A. MILLER

Head Class Agent 625 Treehouse Cir. Saint Augustine, FL 32095-6837 mmiller20413@gmail.com ’19 JARED M. HUNTER shared

the following update on how his first year at Brown is going: “My

place out of introductory-level courses. Despite this, I still managed to earn all A’s in my four courses.

I truly believe the success I have had at Brown so far is due to the lessons Avon taught me in time management and community outreach. I am incredibly grateful for the four years I spent at Avon and hope that donors can see what a positive impact this school has on the boys who attend it.”

72 FROM THE WARDEN

The Last Word

BY GENTRY SHAMBURGER ’20

Brothers, Not really sure where to begin. I certainly didn’t envision my time at Avon coming to a close in this manner. Yet the old adage holds true: don’t be sad it’s over; be glad it happened.

To the seniors, thank you for making this year great. The past four years have been the best of my life, and I owe it all to you. This isn’t the end for us. I know the bonds we created cannot be broken by any circumstances—even our current ones. As we move forward, remember the times we had at the Farms and be grateful that we got to share them. Every Avon army event, every Headmaster’s Day, every morning meeting, every experience we had at Avon shaped us into the people we are today. Cherish that forever. I love you all more than you know.

To the underclassmen, I’m sorry that this is how you must depart with the seniors. As a class, we were all lucky to have you with us in our final year. As you proceed in your time at Avon, know how fortunate you are. Make the most of your time of there because sooner or later, it will end. Avon is a special place that has touched the hearts of so many over the years.

I know that every member in the class of 2020 would do anything to be in your shoes.

Make the most of it, boys.

Love you all. Beavs forever.

Gentry Shamburger ’20

PARTING SHOT A few thoughts from our boys until we can all be together again

Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Albany, NY Permit No. 97 500 Old Farms Road Avon, Connecticut 06001 www.avonoldfarms.com

CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

Parents If this issue is addressed to your son or to your family, but your son no longer maintains an address at your home, please reach out to us with the correct address.

Email us at: alumni@avonoldfarms.com or use our form online at: www.avonoldfarms.com/UpdateAddress

Distance learning Ll SPRING 2020

Wells Masterson ’22, learning remotely in Watch Hill, Rhode Island.