Branson Magazine: Joy (Fall 2024)

FALL 2024

RADIATE JOY

HOLI Branson’s annual celebration of Holi is one of the most joyful—and colorful—days in the school year.

Long celebrated in the Hindu tradition, the holiday is best recognized for the exuberant throwing of colorful powders, transforming the surroundings into a kaleidoscope of hues. However, Holi is much more than a spectacle of color. It ushers the arrival of spring and symbolizes the triumph of good over evil. It is a time for family and friends to come together and strengthen their bonds.

Branson’s student-led celebration was revitalized several years ago to include an educational assembly, traditional foods, mehndi (art with henna) and other activities, and the colorful festivities pictured here. It’s a time when students, faculty, and staff come together to celebrate differences, to learn, and to let loose in the most vibrant way imaginable.

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BRANSON MAGAZINE

Branson Magazine

Fall 2024 4 Why Joy?

By Chris Mazzola, Head of School

6 Julia, Becoming JULIA CHILD ‘30

By Jasmin Darznik ‘91

12 Transformation 13 QUESTIONS FOR JAIMEO BROWN

By Guy Raz P‘27

14 Winged Beauty THE ART OF TERRY TURRENTINE ‘66

By Kristin Ohlson ‘69

18 Loving the Process JONNY MOSELEY ‘93

By Jason Warburg ‘80

22 Gospel Night at 30 24 Joy at Branson

By Carina del Valle Schorske ‘05

30 The Perfect Recipe

By Jenna Zimmerman Robinson ‘02 Photography by Daniela Gerson ‘00

36 The Love of Problem Solving OWEN XU ‘25

38 Profiles in Joy AUDREY KNOWLES ‘24 LIZZY LIU ‘25 JULIA BOULIGNY ‘25 TERENCE MOLLOY ‘24

40 All In BEST BUDDIES AT BRANSON

42 Credits

Why Joy? We are delighted to share with you the second edition of our reimagined Branson magazine. The theme, drawn from our mission statement, is Joy. Why joy? Because we feel that any excellent educational experience teaches its students to recognize, find, and honor the joy in their lives.

In this day and age, we seem to focus more on the negative—the parts of our lives that we find difficult, hurtful, or challenging. That is human nature, I suppose, but life is short, and we do ourselves a disservice by not seeking joy at every turn.

Joy is about people, not about things, and it might just be that experiencing joy regularly is the answer to a happy, fulfilled life. Mother Teresa wrote, “Joy is prayer; joy is strength; joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.”

The good news is that joy is alive and well at Branson. It exists in every corner of our school and no one is better at expressing joy than a

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teenager. Our students not only bring joy to Branson, but they create it in myriad ways.

There is nothing like the elation of winning a championship alongside your friends, dancing with abandon at the Winter Formal, belting out a song to hundreds of people at the musical, completing a work of art that you have toiled over for months, or finally understanding a topic that has been difficult to crack.

My joy comes from watching our students as they grow into the adults they will become: people who not only have the capacity for joy, but who share it widely and freely with all who cross their paths.

I hope that when you have read this magazine from cover to cover, you too will experience some aspect of the joy we experience every day at Branson.

EnJOY this issue, and we hope you have as much fun reading it as we did in creating it for you!

Chris Mazzola, Head of School

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Julia, Becoming

By Jasmin Darznik ‘91

She left for Branson in September of 1927.

At fifteen, she already cut a striking figure: reed-thin and well on her way to her eventual height of 6’3”, with a booming, sing-song-y voice, freckled face, reddish blonde mop, and bangs that flopped over her eyes.

“Don’t play cards with strangers on the train and don’t accept drinks from them either,” her mother warned her, and with that she was off, her cousin Dana at her side.

The girls traveled by train from Pasadena, lurching and swaying along until the San Francisco Bay came into view. Here a chaperone joined them. Since the Golden Gate Bridge wouldn’t be built for another decade, they took a ferry from San Francisco to Sausalito, then boarded a train to San Anselmo.

They were many hours into their journey when they at last reached Ross and passed through a grand Mission-style arch. She must have been exhausted, but if she felt a flutter of anxiety or a sudden yearning for home, she’d soon overcome it. In no time at all, the gangly girl with the funny voice would be at the center of any circle she joined.

Julia Child had arrived at Branson.

••• For many people, the appearance of Julia Child’s books and television programs in the 1960s was one of those moments that seem, in retrospect, a touchstone of twentiethcentury American culture. Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her public television show The French Chef were not only runaway hits but were credited with having led to a shift in how Americans thought about food. In an era awash in convenience and consumerism, Child became a beacon for eating fresh and beautifully prepared meals and for the 6

larger idea of eating as a source of pleasure, creativity, knowledge, and connection.

The French Chef aired for a decade and garnered national and international recognition. Child also won a Peabody and Emmy Award for the program. She went on to publish more cookbooks, including a second volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

She hosted several other television series, including Cooking with Master Chefs and Julia Child & Jacques Pépin Cooking at Home, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award.

To inspire others to share her love of food and expand their awareness of cooking, she co-founded the American Institute of Wine & Food in 1981 and created the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts in 1995. For her work, she was awarded honorary doctorate degrees from numerous schools, including Harvard University and Brown University.

What’s perhaps most impressive about Julia Child was the effect she had on people—all kinds of people. Biographer Laura Shapiro explains her extraordinary appeal: Julia Child was unlike any other celebrity in America. People gawked at her in restaurants, of course; greeted her joyfully on the street; excitedly pointed her out to one another when they glimpsed her in an airport; and crowded into bookstores whenever she arrived to sign copies of her latest cookbook. None of this was out of the ordinary in the realms of fame. What was unique about Julia was the quality of the emotion she inspired, which was remarkably direct and pure. Julia attracted love, torrents of it, a steady outpouring of delighted love that began with the first pilot episode of The French Chef in 1962 and continued beyond her death in 2004.

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Photograph by Lee Lockwood, Getty Images

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the school moved to its present campus, a one-time estate and dairy farm set among the foothills of Mount Tam. With no bridge to connect it to San Francisco or the East Bay, Marin County was then a collection of small towns, with large tracts of land between them.

The tree-lined streets, clapboard houses, and walled mansions of Ross would have reminded Julia’s mother of the New England towns of her own childhood. So too, would KBS, which had been fashioned in the mold of East Coast boarding schools.

The ethos, the curriculum, the whole enterprise that was the Katharine Branson School was spearheaded by a woman raised on the East Coast, educated at Bryn Mawr College, and handpicked to come West to lead the fledging school: Katharine Fleming Branson. KBS was known for encouraging academic excellence and spirited camaraderie among the students. Many of them, like Julia, were both well-heeled and precociously bright. Nearly all the “KBS girls” went to college, either directly or after a gap year to travel and study. Daily prayers and weekly church attendance were mandatory.

A bell woke students in the morning and sent them off to sleep at night.

Photograph by Paul Child. ©Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Image ID # 29864975

Charmingly quirky and a late bloomer to boot, she won the hearts of millions with her signature ebullience and authenticity, suggesting that there was more than one way to arrive at not only a fantastic meal but at one’s life’s work. All it took to succeed, she’d say, is a set of sharp knives and the courage to start.

••• But all that was in the future. Before she was Julia Child, the world-famous television personality and author, she was Julia McWilliams. Born August 15, 1912, she was the oldest child of John McWilliams and his wife Julia Carolyn Weston. The family lived in Pasadena, an affluent, Edenic outpost of a rapidly growing California. They were the West Coast version of the people F. Scott Fitzgerald had in mind when he said that fortune comes to them comfortably early and easy.

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A photograph taken of Julia the summer before her departure for boarding school shows a girl in a messy bob and frilly dress looking both sweet and mischievous. Girls of her social class weren’t expected to do or be much outside of the traditionally sanctioned roles of daughter, wife, and mother; their education could therefore be less than intellectually taxing. Julia, however, had the good fortune to not only be born into a prosperous family, but to grow up with a supportive and freedom-loving mother who’d graduated from Smith College. When it came time for Julia to attend high school, the McWilliams family chose the very best: the Katharine Branson School.

The school had been open a little over a decade when Julia enrolled. Started in 1916 in San Rafael, the Katharine Branson School (KBS) officially opened with fiftyfour students in September of 1920. In 1922 BRANSON MAGAZINE

It wasn’t all discipline, gentility, and scholarship, though. In 1927, the year of Julia’s arrival, the Jazz Age was in full swing. Writers have alternatively described the era as a decadent spectacle rife with taboo-shattering antics and a time of buoyant social and political change. Both descriptions hold true and have a certain resonance to Branson’s first years.

Decked out in their blue-and-white uniforms, these early KBS girls seem like an unlikely band of rebels, yet Julia and her classmates stood at the crossroads of two worlds: a genteel world bound by tradition and privilege, and an era bound only to a love for newness.

From inside their beautiful, sheltered world, the students and all-women faculty alike were harnessing an energy that surged through the febrile world of early twentieth century America. Together they were part of a broader movement that saw women seizing new opportunities and freedoms. Against expectations, these young women would be among the first generation of American women who were politically active, who pursued professional work, who sought out new and sometimes revolutionary ideas about what it meant to be a woman in the world.

Charmingly quirky, she won the hearts of millions with her signature ebullience and authenticity.

There were sixteen girls in Julia’s class, which made it the largest up to that point.

Ten boarded on campus and six attended as day students. Blue was Miss Branson’s favorite color, and the students were outfitted accordingly: blue plaid skirts and white blouses in winter, blue-and-white gingham dresses in the spring. Tuition was $1,500 a year. Circle Cottage, where Julia lived with her cousin and a roommate, still stands, its distinctive front gable rising then, as now, like a witch’s hat.

A classmate later described Julia in her early boarding school days: She was gangly, a little awkward, standing tall but stooping slightly to look benignly down on the rest of us. She was serious about life, but had a unique way of seeing the humor in incidents, and expressing it in her deep, rather thick manner of speaking. She wasn’t attention seeking...

She [was] just herself. But as I think back, I suppose her complete lack of self-consciousness, her modest natural responsiveness, feeling at home and at ease anywhere, was true of her then and was the secret to her charm and appeal.

Apart from its academic excellence, what was it about Branson that made it such fertile ground for a young Julia Child, allowing her confidence to root and flourish? Both her niece Philadelphia Cousins, herself a Branson graduate (Class of ’69), and Eric W. Spivey, Chairman of The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, believe the fact that KBS was a girl’s school was central.

Spivey became friendly with Julia in 1981 when he was a student at UC Santa Barbara and participated in the first meetings of The American Institute of Wine & Food. In 2000, Eric reconnected with Julia. They had many meals together and Julia often spoke fondly of Branson. Spivey says it was clear that her time at the school left an indelible mark on her.

He does wonder how Child, with her flirtatious streak, felt about attending an all-girls school. Years after graduating, she herself would quip that if she’d known co-educational education existed, she would’ve raced in that direction. She also observed that young women’s intellectual development seemed to suffer in co-ed schools, acknowledging the benefits of having attended an all-girls boarding school.

Removed from a culture that diminished women’s achievements, the school steered students toward fresh ways of seeing themselves and one another, inspiring each with a belief in herself that would serve them well for the rest of their lives. This must have held especially true for Julia. While supportive of his daughter’s education, John McWilliams, was a staunch political conservative.

Much later she’d fall out with him over his enthusiastic support of Senator Joe McCarthy, but as a teenager she was already butting heads with him. Living outside her father’s orbit for the first time, Julia was launched into a world peopled and led almost entirely by women. Here she had the chance to explore new ideas and express herself more freely than she had at home.

On the KBS campus, girls could mingle, study, and misbehave (to a point). From the back row of a group posed for a class photograph, she towers over the others. With their pageboys and jauntily placed neckties, the girls exude an air of precocious maturity.

Julia was lovely looking, but in the style of the period “pretty” meant petite and dainty, which she most definitely was not. What she had in ample quantity was presence.

She wasn’t a star student, not in the classroom at least, but as one of her teachers would put it, “she earned 100 points perfect in school spirit.”

While she received an excellent educational foundation, it was Julia’s pursuits outside the classroom that point to the extraordinary woman she would become.

She loved people, and people noticed and loved her back for it. One person who noticed it especially was Miss Branson. With her patrician bearing and high-mindedness, she led the school with stern, if not chilling, authority, but the students she favored tended to be quirky, bright, and mischievous— characteristics Julia embodied to a T. When she started at KBS, Julia was assigned to the blue-clad Blue Bonnet athletic team (the other team was the Tam O’Shanters, who appeared in red). To the girls’ unending annoyance, their sports uniforms included black satin “bloomers” bound in elastic at the knee. Julia wasn’t the best player on the court, but she’d grown up playing sports and her height made her ideal for basketball. Her jumping skills were legendary.

She adored acting in the school plays, in which she was invariably cast as a man on account of her height. She contributed witty pieces to The Blue Print, the annual literary magazine. She became president of the “Vagabonds,” the school’s hiking group. Once a year, with Julia and Miss Branson leading the pack, the group climbed the peak of

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Mount Tam. Weekends meant motoring to West Marin and enjoying outings to nearby beaches. There were marshmallow roasts, Halloween parties, dances, play week, and May Revels. To round out the offerings, there was also horseback riding.

In the evenings, in the dining hall, the tables laid with silverware, the girls alighted in their blue crepe de Chine dresses. According to her niece, Philadelphia, to Julia there was nothing remarkable about the food at KBS, except that she ate huge amounts of it. “I was always hungry,” Child later said of herself. “I had the appetite of a wolf.” The food at Branson was simple, but enjoyable, much of it sourced from local farms. Julia ate with relish.

And then there were the unsanctioned outings and forbidden extracurriculars.

She befriended another high-spirited girl who lived across the street with her uncle as her guardian. Some afternoons, when the uncle was away, they’d raid the liquor cabinet to make themselves martinis. In the structured world of Branson, it was a rare and thoroughly pleasurable interlude of lighthearted abandon.

In the spring of her senior year, she and a fellow classmate hightailed it to the City. Her biographer Noël Riley Fitch recounts the adventure in Appetite for Life: When the ferry landed at Fisherman’s Wharf, they had artichokes with

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hollandaise sauce and cinnamon toast oozing in butter. At the City of Paris shop they bought lipstick and Prince Matchabelli perfume...On Market Street at the Army-Navy store they bought white sailor pants, a daring adventure in an era when neither girls nor women wore slacks.

The pleasure she gleaned from these escapades suggests the exuberance for which she would one day be known. They also presaged the shenanigans of Julia’s younger sister, Dorothy McWilliams, who would follow in Julia’s footsteps when she came to Branson in 1931. Two inches taller than her very tall sister, she went by the nickname “Tiny.” As her daughter Philadelphia tells it, Miss Branson took one look at Dorothy and knew at once she was Julia’s sister.

Another story told by Cousins reveals another aspect of the McWilliams sisters’ contribution to Branson. Spurred by the same voracious hunger as her older sister, one night Dorothy climbed up the attic in the residence hall and inched her way across the beam that connected the dorm to the dining hall.

Stealing food became a nightly event.

It all ended the night she slipped and her foot plunged through the floor...and right through the ceiling of Katharine Branson’s bedroom.

“Is that you, Tiny?” the headmistress called from her bed.

©Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute

Photograph by Paul Child. ©Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Image ID # 7239831

Photograph courtesy of Everett Collection

To look at this young woman of nearly six feet three, it’s easy to imagine the leader she had become, to think of her as an emblem of the school’s best qualities.

Not long afterward, John McWilliams received a bill for repairs to the ceiling. Whatever he made of the exploit, the bill was paid and with that the matter was settled.

••• A grainy black and white recording preserved in Branson’s online archive shows Julia leading the procession of graduates and students on Prize Day in May 1930. Like the others, she wears a white drop-waist dress, white stockings, and white shoes. Her gait is less than dainty and she’s smiling ear to ear.

To look at this young woman of nearly six feet three, it’s easy to imagine the leader she had become during her three years at KBS, to think of her as an emblem of the school’s best qualities, a cheerful giant in an enchanted world.

She scooped up pretty much all the awards that year: captain of the Blue Bonnets, captain of the basketball team, Vagabond Chief, member of the track and swimming

teams, president of the student council, recipient of the White Beret and the School Cup for the school’s First Citizen.

Not usually one for flattery, Miss Branson didn’t hold back in listing Julia’s best qualities on this occasion: “interest of mind and heart, joyousness of spirit, kindliness, refreshing naivete, understanding, generosity—a thoroughly lovely and perfectly delightful girl.”

It must have been a joyous but bittersweet day, as graduations are, but that year there was trouble on the horizon. Nothing about the smiling graduates and their families betrays it, but the world was sliding toward economic and social cataclysm. A few months earlier, in October of 1929, the Roaring Twenties had ground to a sudden halt with the stock market crash. The Great Depression would eventually reach the Katharine Branson School, but it hadn’t yet.

Soon Julia would be off to Smith College. She’d leave high school with little idea of what she’d do with her life apart from knowing she FALL 2024

wanted to write—perhaps by becoming a novelist or journalist. Until she left college and began working, she likely didn’t know that as a woman even a first-rate education could often only get you so far. She certainly didn’t foresee that after a series of disappointing jobs and a few seasons as a Pasadena socialite, she’d join the Secret Intelligence Branch of the Office of Strategic Services, a forerunner to the CIA, during World War II; or that moving to France would spark a lifelong love affair with cooking and inspire her to write what’s still regarded as the goldstandard of cookbooks; or that she’d one day create a television show that joined food, love, and pleasure with such panache that every episode still sparkles with joie de vivre.

For all that, she was a “Branson girl.” Standing on the front lawn of campus that day, shaded by the magnificent old blue cedar and surrounded by her many friends and teachers, she must have known her confidence and joyful spirit would eventually get her everywhere she cared to go—and they did.

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Transformation 13 Questions for Jaimeo Brown

By Guy Raz P‘27 Guy Raz sat down with Jaimeo Brown, Branson music teacher and parent, to talk about inspiration, self-discovery, and fulfillment through music.

Q: When were you first exposed to music?

A: Both of my parents are musicians; they worked for the National Endowment for the Arts and traveled the United States, performing and doing music education.

When I was a newborn, if they couldn’t get a babysitter, my mother would carry me in a backpack up on stage. They did music therapy as well, so at an early age I understood that music had different functions and could play a role in healing.

Q: Did you grow up in the Bay Area?

A: Yes, but we moved around a lot. For a while, we lived on a Native American reservation in a small city named Arlee, Montana. It was so remote, the nearest store was 45 minutes away and grizzly bears would occasionally wander into the yard!

Q: Even though you grew up surrounded by music and musicians, you were resistant to it for many years. You didn’t take up an instrument until you were 16, right?

A: I was hanging around with the wrong people and didn’t have a strong sense of why I should try my best in school. Over time I came to know other musicians who were my age. And what really started to pull me into music was the idea that I could communicate with my peers using music. Once I realized that I could have something that was my own—and something where I could use the gifts that I had absorbed through osmosis— that was the catalyst that caused me to realize, boy, I now have to start developing these skills. I became addicted and wanted to practice six hours a day.

Q: And it was the drums that you went to. Not your dad’s bass, not your mom’s piano. You picked your own instrument.

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A: Yes, that was part of establishing my own identity. My first drum teacher, Sly Randolph, had a huge influence on my life. I found it just at the right time. I was a junior in high school, a critical time to start making decisions about my future. Once I started to find music, I got straight A’s in every subject for the rest of my education.

Q: What was it about the drums that spoke to you? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone play the drums without a hint of a smile on their face.

A: There’s definitely joy in drumming because it’s connected to movement—and movement has a lot to do with physiology. When we get physiologically involved, we can discover new ways to shift emotional states. When I discovered music, I started to understand spirituality. Drums have always been connected to spiritual practices and ideas.

Q: How did music change you?

A: I was very social growing up, but when I found drums, I became much more comfortable being alone. My peers had been playing music for years, so I needed to figure out how to do this quickly. I locked myself into a room with a drum set to practice, asking, “Okay, if I want to grow, how am I going to get better? I’ll have to identify my weaknesses and confront areas for improvement.” That was really a rebirth.

Q: It’s interesting you use the word rebirth because it sounds like you were totally transformed—at age 16—through the drums.

On one hand, I imagine it was a joyful experience, but on the other, you’re describing a kind of self-isolation to become better and more proficient. Was there an element of struggle as well?

A: When we talk about joy, we use it as such a casual word for happiness, but I find that joy is often coupled with overcoming hardship.

When you’re lonely you go to your drum set and through self-actualization and practice, come out full of light and joy just from being BRANSON MAGAZINE

by yourself. It’s powerful, especially when you have been accustomed to receiving satisfaction from others. People can’t take joy from you when you learn how to generate it from inside.

Q: This dichotomy of joy and struggle didn’t just change your life; it also came to define your work with Gee’s Bend?

A: Yes, I was at a point when I realized that there was something calling me to go deeper and find something more purposeful. There was a collection of spirituals sung by quilters in the tiny town of Gee’s Bend, Alabama.

It was originally a plantation, and after Emancipation their farming and the resources of the surrounding river allowed this community to be self-sufficient, even during the Great Migration. Because their culture was so isolated, their spirituals had a specific feeling and tone. This caught my attention like nothing I had heard before. These spirituals brought me a sense of purpose, and I would listen to them whenever I had something important to do because it put me in a place of authenticity and courage. Soon, I found myself down in Gee’s Bend, sharing with the community how much they had impacted my life. We shared a special bond, and I ended up creating a lot of my life’s work and purpose through them. Their music became a microcosm of something bigger which has been very connected to my identity as a man, as an African American, as a musician, and as a spiritual being.

Q: You hear this music and almost instantly you are able to draw direct links between what you’re hearing there and contemporary rock or jazz or hip-hop?

A: American music is like a tree with roots that turn into different branches. When I started to appreciate the roots, it gave me a much clearer understanding of the branches. It ended up strengthening what I had already learned in school and giving me a greater understanding of the cultural relevance of the music itself. In school, you’re often taught the academic side, the “fruit,” but if there’s no context of the why behind it, you’re robbed of knowing the full emotional and spiritual context.

Q: How did you end up in education?

A: I’ve always been connected to education because of my family. A lot of this interest stems from the ways music transformed my

life so profoundly. As an educator, I’ve wanted to express that music has the ability to create joy; it is deeper than just the notes. Emotional and spiritual things are inherently woven into music itself. When I’m talking about music, I’m also talking about empowerment, and that’s what really motivates me. I’m teaching those areas that make me feel excited to be alive.

Q: There’s a photograph of you on stage with a student playing a guitar and you have this really big smile on your face. When you work with young musicians, how do you convey that sense of joy?

A: No matter where I am in the world—Kazakhstan or Africa or Europe or Paterson, New Jersey—I find patterns of race or class but it all tends to disappear when I start using the language of music. I’m usually searching to figure out a person’s mood and state of mind, so I can find out what they need. There are a lot of emotional needs that can be fulfilled with music: significance, certainty, uncertainty, unity. Music is a perfect tool to show students how those needs can be fulfilled, and joy comes from this. Joy also comes when they are really afraid, but they accomplish things that they didn’t think they could.

Q: You’ve been able to show that creativity and growth comes from a willingness to improvise and take risks. When you’re working with a student who’s a perfectionist, how do you break through and say, “That’s not the goal here”?

A: The first time I told a student to improvise, their eyes were as wide as if I’d asked them to jump off of a bridge. Perfectionism is a fragile place; I think there’s a lot of love that needs to be given. Love can always give courage when there’s fear, and I think music is a way to transmit love. And love is able to communicate that if you make a mistake, that mistake can actually be turned into something even better than what you planned to create in the first place.

Q: You’ve worked with legendary artists like Stevie Wonder, Carlos Santana, and Q-Tip. When you think about this amazing career that you’ve built and your future, where are your greatest moments of joy?

A: When I see students playing music with each other, not because anyone told them to, that gives me great joy. Some people like to perform the same things over and over trying to perfect it. I’m not like that. I am always trying to find new places to go musically, and when I do, it brings me great joy.

When I see students laugh in the middle of a song, that brings me great joy too.

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Winged Beauty The Art of Terry Turrentine ‘66

By Kristin Ohlson ‘69

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T

erry Turrentine ‘66 began photographing bats in 2019, unaware that the world would be riveted by these creatures and the viruses with which they coexist when the pandemic struck the following year. However, she already knew it was a dark time—turbulent for humans and deadly for bats, as they struggled with the White Nose Syndrome plague that humans likely introduced—and she turned her eye to these tiny balletic mammals that thrive in darkness. She spent months finding the perfect location: a pond ringed with rusted machines on an Arizona survivalist’s land, where the bats dove and pivoted to pluck mosquitos from the night air. She winnowed down the hundreds of resulting images to sixteen stunning photographs for an accordion-fold book entitled Swords and Angels. Like a book of poetry, each photograph interrogates and expands the others.

When Terry was a junior at Branson (then the Katharine Branson School), she won a photography contest sponsored by a local newspaper, the first step in what became an award-winning career. Fifty-five years

later, her work was acquired by the Library of Congress. She has exhibited her artist books and photography in juried exhibitions and galleries locally and internationally, and her work has been collected by the Getty Research Institute at the Getty Center—an international center for the study of visual culture and home to one of the world’s largest art libraries—as well as Stanford University’s Rare Book Collection, the Yale Art Museum, and many others. She and her wife of 35 years live in San Francisco.

Terry shot winged things as a child, but with a different implement and intent. She grew up in a storied family of hunters—her great-grandfather was the inventor and firearms designer John M. Browning who sold his patents to Winchester, Colt, and Remington—and she owned a gun by the age of ten. She roamed alfalfa fields with her father and brother, competing to bring down the most birds. But she sickened of killing as she grew up. One day, she saw a Great Egret standing on a shoreline. Struck by its beautiful white feathers and graceful flight, she realized she could experience these creatures through her photography without FALL 2024

harming them. She hoped her images might even rally others to protect them, as the egrets almost became extinct early in the 20th century from overhunting.

Of course, birds are often the hunters themselves. Terry’s book Widening Circles captures the fierce collaboration between raptors and their human handlers, MexicanAmerican falconers employed to fly their birds at seagulls congregating in city dumps.

Both the hand of nature and that of humans dazzle: the birds are gorgeous and so are their colorful hoods, sewn by traditional artisans.

Spurred by a quirky interaction on a city street, Terry’s newest work leaves the natural world behind. She saw a tricked-out car with a vanity license plate containing the message, “hidden from view,” and asked the driver whether the message had to do with God or the future. “Lady, I have tinted windows!” he laughed. But the phrase echoed and stirred. For her newest book, she has created abstract black and white photographs in the high modernist tradition, both the method and the subject matter— like so much of life—hidden from view.

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LOVING THE PROCESS

Olympic Gold Medalist Jonny Moseley ‘93

By Jason Warburg ‘80

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Photo by Nathan Bilow, Getty Images

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At Branson, his freestyle ambitions ran headlong into the reality of going to school Monday through Friday on a campus more than four hours’ drive from the mountains.

And not just any high school: a college prep school with high academic standards and expectations.

“My first year at Branson was hard. I remember it being a whole new level of academics and a workload that I had never experienced before. Coming home from Tahoe on Sunday nights and going straight into school the next morning was really challenging.”

••• What could have been a crisis turned into an awakening. Moseley realized he needed to start communicating with his teachers— going to their offices, getting to know them, and explaining what he was doing.

Boston Globe, Getty Images

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reestyle skiing legend Jonny Moseley ’93 found his passion on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada at nine years old.

“We were learning to do tricks and I fell in love with the process of iterating. Freestyle dug its hooks in me and made me want to do it all the time.”

Channeling that feeling into a consuming drive took Moseley from Squaw Valley’s junior ski team to the gold medal podium at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. Among the obstacles he faced was the challenge of balancing his demanding training regimen with life as a Branson student—but ultimately, he achieved his goal.

It was a great feeling in the moment, but also confronted him with a question every person faces at a certain point in our lives.

Joy is ephemeral, a shutter-click of fulfillment that humans can spend years chasing without any real idea of how to catch it.

Moseley caught it, and then had to figure out what to do next.

••• The youngest of three brothers who thrived on competitive sports, Moseley grew up in Tiburon with his family making weekly ski trips to the Sierra. The attraction to the flashy, exuberant world of freestyle skiing was 20

“That experience changed my life. Not just at Branson—my whole life. That’s when I started to turn my grades around and enjoy the process of learning. I got so much joy out of learning how to do ski stuff, but it had never crossed my mind that I could feel that way about school. That changed everything for me.”

immediate for at least one Moseley brother— even if it wasn’t Jonny. “My older brother Jeff saw people doing freestyle and told our dad ‘We want to do that!’ It was a newly formed team. The sport was burgeoning. It wasn’t in the Olympics yet, but it was being considered.”

Moseley remembers several teachers Moseley pauses, smiling at the memory. who made a difference: Joann Garfinkel (“great, very approachable”), Susan Clark “It was pure.” (“incredible—stern with me, but in a funny way”), Steve Mahoney, and Jeff Symonds It wasn’t just the relative newness of the (“so encouraging”). Jackie Caplan-Auerbach sport that ended up turning the youngest inspired a curiosity about physics “that I Moseley into a hardworking prodigy, though; still carry today.” And Ted Walsh spotted the it was the total experience. “It was a very natural performer and taught him theater cool environment, a locker room with kids skills that he still uses today as a broadcaster. of different ages, and every day was about trying to get a little bit better,” he says. “We ••• were learning how to do ballet skiing and tricks and how to ski the mountain. What “In my senior year at Branson, I made the hooked me was the atmosphere and the US freestyle team—and got my ass kicked.” learning process, sharpening these very Moseley did not make the Olympic team in specific skills.” Which he did.

1994. “But that reignited the fire—how do I get to the next level?”

••• Four years later, with his reputation in the sport developing rapidly and high school on the horizon, Moseley was surprised when his ever-supportive parents told him they were not going to enroll him in a ski academy, which would have allowed him to train full time. “They basically said ‘No; you got into Branson, and you’re going to Branson.’”

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Four years of intensive training followed, the process of iteration intensifying. “You start out young doing very simple moves and then you keep adding a little more, one step at a time. It’s years and years of progression. I always saw it as physics and science. You’re trying to eliminate variables so you can focus on the one thing that you’re trying to do.”

Inside that pressure-cooker atmosphere, When the dust finally began to settle, he moments of clarity would appear. “At the apex found himself facing a question that felt as of the jump, when you’ve done the work, daunting as getting to the Olympics in the you’ve hit the take-off, you’ve got the position, first place: now what? there is usually a moment of bliss where you’re on automatic, before you have to start “After ’98, I wasn’t super motivated to go get looking for the landing. And eventually I did another gold medal and you have to have have that moment at the Olympics where I some kind of motivation to do the work, to be was able to see the crowd for just a second obsessed with something to the point where and think ‘Oh my God, I nailed this!’” you’re waking up thinking about it. And how do you manufacture that?”

Still, in that supercharged moment at Nagano when Moseley hit the run that clinched the The answer that unfolded over the next gold medal, what meant the most was the three years was to find a new challenge, a reaction of the village surrounding him: the different challenge—the so-called Dinner people who had stood by and supported him Roll. It’s a Moseley-invented twisting-turning year after year, practice after practice. “It was aerial razzle-dazzle so mind-blowing in its such a joy to see my coaches and my family complexity that the international panel of celebrating. Sports, it bleeds. Everybody’s judges overseeing the Olympic freestyle invested and there’s a lot of sacrifice and competition initially wouldn’t allow it. emotional strain on everyone. For us all to be in that moment together, that was amazing.”

“I had made up the Dinner Roll for The X Games, so I had done it, but the notion that I ••• could do it at the Olympics was what lit the fire and got me back in the gym...I don’t know The aftermath of Moseley’s gold medal run if I would have even qualified to get back to was a whirlwind of media appearances, the Olympics if I hadn’t had the Dinner Roll to sponsorship deals, and public attention. give me that focus and motivation.”

Moseley made the team and performed the Dinner Roll at the 2002 Olympics before a global audience. He was as shocked as anyone when he landed the hardest trick attempted in the competition and placed fourth. The following year the Olympic Federation revamped their entire scoring system to account for the unprecedented level of difficulty and skill represented by Moseley’s new invention. In essence, he broke the system—or transcended it.

••• Moseley’s fourth place finish in 2002 still stings, but over time he has come to view the experience as a different kind of success.

“It’s great to compete for results and I’m susceptible to that. I love winning as much as the next guy and it’s a great motivator. But you can go too far with it, wanting people’s approval all the time for things you’ve done.”

“I think if you work on something that you really believe in and put in the hours and do the work, and it ends up being a fourth place or a fail, it doesn’t matter. Enjoying that process is what matters. I’m not saying you’re not going to look back and second guess. But I do get a lot of joy out of the fact that I put my mind to something, and I did it.”

The converse is also true: “Oftentimes the hardest times in my life are when I don’t have a project and I’m floating. I’m always searching for the next obsession. It’s joyful when you find that thread, because even if it fails, you’ve still got the journey and that’s always fun.”

These days Moseley’s obsessions are less flashy than the 720-degree, off-axis, horizontal-and-vertical rotation trick that blew up the Olympics’ scoring system. Married to fellow Branson alum Malia Rich ’94 and a sports dad to their two baseball-playing sons, Jonny Moseley now chases after goals in the media and marketing world, where he has hosted Saturday Night Live, The Challenge, and American Ninja Warrior, as well as being a frequent commentator on NBC’s Winter Olympics coverage. He has also served as Warren Miller’s go-to narrator for his skiing documentaries for more than 15 years.

All the while, he continues to put into play the lessons he learned at Branson: chiefly, don’t just trust the process—learn to love it, and the rest will flow from that.

Photo by Angie Silvy

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t’s a packed house in Branson’s theater and the room buzzes in anticipation. As the house lights dim, student MCs take the stage; their call-and-and-response greeting is affirmed enthusiastically by the crowd. Tonight, audience participation is expected—and welcomed.

And then, the music begins: heart-pounding, soul stirring, jump-to-your-feet-and-dance rhythms and sing-along melodies. Solo performers and duos pour out their hearts and souls to a willing audience that’s come to receive. Dancers dance.

A small band of the Bay Area’s finest musicians rocks the house. And in closing, an energetic choir representing all members of Branson’s community rallies the crowd with an ebullient finale that leaves everyone wanting more.

This is not just any night at Branson. This is Gospel Night.

Founding alumna Anndretta Lyle Wilson ‘94 shares, “When I was a student I really loved Branson but I didn’t fit in. My family was so very different from most families at Branson. For me, Gospel Night was a solution. I decided to bring my community, my culture, my traditions, my music into a place that sometimes felt foreign to me and make it feel a little more like home.”

For thirty years since, Gospel Night has served as a platform for Branson community members and professional gospel musicians to showcase their talents while uniting in the spirit of song and jubilation. Held annually during Black History Month, Gospel Night is a celebration of Branson’s Beloved Community—and is also a testament to how far the school has come.

Many have kept alive and nurtured the seed that was planted, demonstrating that the power of joyful music knows no bounds. In 2021, Gospel Night on Zoom amplified the celebration globally beyond campus for the first time, turning it into a beacon of hope and reconnection for Branson and reconnecting alumni and friends all around the world.

“Branson aspires to have every member of our community feel a deep sense of belonging and inclusion, and Gospel Night brings this to life,“ affirms Nathalio Gray, Branson’s Assistant Head of School for Mission Advancement. “Regardless of religious beliefs, singing ability, or role in the community, there’s a place for everyone at this event. I’ve helped organize Gospel Night for 23 years and I’m amazed at how each joyful celebration feels like the best one yet.”

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The PERFECT RECIPE

By Jenna Zimmerman Robinson ‘02 Photography by Daniela Gerson ‘00

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“The best part of my day at Branson? Lunch—it’s iconic!”

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t’s hard to discuss joy on the Branson campus without talking about lunchtime.

The food, setting, and community come together with ease, creating a buzz of excitement, warmth, fun, and connection.

Meals are delicious, nutritious, thoughtfully made and presented, and enjoyed in an airy indoor-outdoor space located centrally on campus to meaningfully bring the community together.

Joy is almost inevitable, and that is by design.

For starters, the food is restaurant-quality.

“Everything is scratch-made, including the stocks, organic whenever possible, and farm-raised locally,” shares Marcus Trigg, Branson’s Executive Chef & Director of Culinary Services. Menus vary daily to keep lunchtime interesting and to suit a range of palates. Allergies, aversions, and preferences are accommodated, with gluten-free, dairyfree, and vegetarian or vegan alternatives available daily. There’s so much variety in a month’s worth of menus, featuring five or six items a day (Wednesdays get an extra

dessert dish, because, joy!), it’s rare to find any single dish repeated.

The diversity of flavors and culinary traditions represented throughout the year is something Chef Marcus and his team approach with intention, knowing that food is cultural, and has the power to connect, excite, educate, and empower a community.

Lunch is served and enjoyed at the Commons, an airy space strategically located in the middle of campus with window walls on three sides to bring in light and blur the line between indoors and outdoors. Everyone eats together inside and on the surrounding patio—faculty, staff, and students of all grade levels have lunch at the same time, in the same space.

Julie Kuo, who teaches a popular food history course, notes, “There is such a warmth in the Commons during lunchtime that it just permeates. I noticed how welcoming it was the first time I came to campus.”

And of course, the centerpiece is the food.

When asked about their favorite Branson FALL 2024

lunch items, both students’ and adults’ responses varied, but the reaction was the same. Faces lit up. Speech patterns quickened with enthusiasm.

For many, the salad bar is a highlight of lunchtime. Its colorful array varies according to what is growing in-season in California, and the most common feedback is that there should be bigger bowls to accommodate bigger salad creations. Happily, larger bowls are on offer for Buddha Bowls, frequently served on Mondays, where this same farmfresh produce gets main stage treatment, inviting each person to combine hot and cold vegetables, proteins, and sauces into a beautifully vibrant array of delicious nutrition.

For others, the daily soups are the most exciting. Chef Caamal’s pozole is a schoolwide favorite, mentioned frequently and with great relish. Other soup options include free range chicken pho, Jamaican pumpkin beef soup, and kale and white bean soup. It is clear that the soups get the same thoughtful planning and care as the main courses.

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Often, students simply can’t contain their excitement at lunchtime. “You’ll see them literally run out of class to be first in line to get food,” laughs Assistant Head of School Nathalio Gray.

Which lunches do students love the most?

“The al pastor tacos!” shares Yasmin ‘26.

“Whenever it’s taco day my friend and I always meet up before lunch to get them because they’re so good.”

Ashley ‘26, exclaims, “The pasta trio! It just gives me that homey feeling.”

“I really like the Mediterranean day,” shares Alina ‘25. “The chicken, pita, hummus, and cucumber salad. It’s really refreshing and nice on a hot day.”

Maya ‘25 agrees, “Yeah, that would be my first favorite. My second favorite is ‘Meatless Mondays’ with the bowls when they have tofu, black beans, and sweet potato and you choose all your toppings and the sauces at the end.”

Charley ‘25 casts his vote for chicken wing day. “I’d say that’s probably a consensus favorite among students because it’s also the whole community aspect of who can build the biggest wing tower,” he offers. And who are the master architects of chicken bone sculpture? “Oh, it was my table for sure,” he responds, without missing a beat.

FPO

A chicken wing tower is lighthearted fun, but this anecdote touches on the power of the community being together at lunchtime.

“It’s that idea of a family meal to me, but at school,” says Eric Oldmixon, Chair of the Arts Department. “You wind up circling up with new people, expanding your friend zone or colleague zone with whomever’s there at the moment. Certainly, for the adults on campus, I think all our great collaborative moments start with conversations at lunch.”

“The energy’s great and everyone’s making jokes and everything,” adds Charley. “It’s just a fun environment.”

Fun, collaboration, and great cuisine are all at the heart of community building at Branson. Chef Marcus and his kitchen team regularly partner with student clubs and affinity groups to create special lunch menus for cultural celebrations and holidays, and to complement special assemblies and other learning moments. For example, in May the LGBTQIA+ affinity group collaborated to develop a Pride Celebration brunch menu to complement a morning of special programming. The menu included popovers with berries and strawberry compote, eggs and potatoes, smoked salmon with bagels and cream cheese, and fruit platters arranged in homage to the Pride rainbow flag. Tablecloths sprinkled with colorful fresh flowers completed the celebration.

Earlier in the year, Branson’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, led by students in the Latinx affinity group, featured menus inspired by our community’s cultural heritage and honoring international visitors to campus.

Highlights included Paraguayan favorites asado paraguayo a la olla with arroz kesu and bollos paraguayos filled with dulce de leche; Puerto Rican arroz con pollo y gandules and fried plantains, and Yucatecan pollo pibil con arroz amarillo. A colorful display of flags from all of the different Latin American countries welcomed all as they entered the Commons.

Oldmixon observes, “When our students help plan for their special assemblies to be reinforced with the menu served that day, it certainly nurtures a sense of uplifting celebration around whatever the serious topic might be.”

There are also long-standing Branson traditions such as the annual Thanksgiving meal—turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes and all the fixings—served at long communal tables with white tablecloths.

Seeing familiar foods at lunch—inclusive of many cultures—also helps to create a sense of belonging. Ashley ‘26 reflects, “You just see yourself in it and you feel included, and that’s a really nice feeling. And when you see other cultures, it’s great. This is diversity. It’s one of the reasons I came to Branson.”

Building on students’ enthusiasm for food, Branson offers other avenues for exploration and learning as well: Chef Marcus works with food interns to share how he runs his program from sourcing to execution, and an aquaponics garden on campus is open for club and class participation. Academic offerings include Kuo’s food history class, a food literature class, and two-week food immersive courses in May. All include projects wherein students prepare food to share with the class. English teacher Alanna Hickey shares, “When the [Literary Feasts] students brought food into my classroom that they had chosen, studied, and made themselves it created such a close-knit classroom community. Students were complimenting each other and asking for each other’s recipes. It was incredible to see.”

Like a recipe, many components are purposefully assembled at Branson to create the joy felt at lunchtime and beyond. The results are worth savoring.

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The Love of Problem Solving

“It all began in second grade,” explains Owen Xu ‘25. “I would binge watch Art of Problem Solving math videos on YouTube.

Counting, number theory, geometry...I found it all fascinating.” Flashing a grin that lights up the room, he continues, “At the time, it took me a little longer to understand the videos geared for high school students. But it was always very satisfying to whittle down the algebra into a solution.”

A decade later, Owen is still just as fired up about math. He’s studying multivariable calculus and real analysis this year and he also engages in weekly Berkeley Math Circle meetings where he and other high schoolers from across the world gather online to explore new math topics. He brings this learning to the Branson Math Club, where passionate math students and faculty explore topics of interest: “One week, we learned about how 1+2+3+4 (and so on) all the way up to infinity is equal to -1/12,” he explains.

“Another week, Dr. Ryan taught us about Non-Euclidean geometry. You get to delve into something you might know a lot or very little about, and it sparks your curiosity even further.”

Competition is another way that Owen hones his skills. This year, the Branson Math Club earned first place in the California Math League regionals and ranked 33rd out of 112 participating schools. Owen was one of only four students in the state to earn perfect scores

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on all six California Math League tests— though he is quick to point out that math competitions are a team effort.

Perfection, though, is hard-earned. “During the competitions I think differently,” explains Owen. ”My brain goes into overdrive; I try to think quicker. If I get stuck, I scratch my head a lot. I try different things, see if I can see the big picture. I just keep trying.”

“Last spring, a problem that required calculating the specific area of several triangles and squares taught me a good lesson,” Owen explains with characteristic humility. “I tried to come up with one neat expression. I ended up with a really convoluted solution and I was completely unsure if it was correct. When I looked over my test a few weeks later, I saw that my wind-about route actually did work.”

Owen’s curiosity and drive extend into passions like NASCAR racing. “Something about the speed and design of the cars really captivates me,” he says. “Oh, and there’s a lot of math in NASCAR.” Looking ahead, Owen sees a world of possibilities where he can apply his math skills in areas like pure mathematics, computer science, or even aerospace engineering. “There are so many cool options out there.”

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Joy

Profiles in

Audrey Knowles ‘24

Lizzy Liu ‘25

The Girls Varsity Soccer team suffered a potentially devastating blow last winter when their star goalie went down with a season-ending injury. With playoffs looming, Coach Gottschalk had an idea: despite limited playing time, reserve defender Audrey Knowles had shown a can-do attitude, and he thought she might be willing to try it. Audrey recalls: “When I got the call from Coach, I said ‘Sure, why not?’” After after a three-day goalie crash course, Audrey started against archrival Redwood: “My teammates just wanted me to have fun with it, and they played great in front of me,” she recalls. Branson relied on its stellar defense to beat Redwood 2-1. A few weeks later, Audrey faced the ultimate goalie test: a sudden death shootout with the MCAL final on the line. Undaunted, she did her part, the offense did the rest, and the Bulls won the conference championship. A versatile athlete, Audrey also played four years on the Varsity Baseball team and distinguished herself as an infielder and the only girl on the team. “My favorite part of sports is my teammates,” she says. For Audrey, the road to athletic success went through the Branson weight room. “It’s my happy place,” she says enthusiastically. “I started lifting as a freshman and loved it.” Strength Coach Bruce Pruiett agrees; “Audrey’s played a key role in building our program,” he reflects. “She holds Branson records in the front squat and the bench press. She works harder than anyone, inspires others, and creates a space around her where everyone feels welcome.” Audrey is now beginning her college journey at Stanford University where she plans to play club soccer.

When challenged by her advisor to set a growth goal for her sophomore year, Lizzy Liu didn’t want to take the easy route. She could have started a new club or joined another affinity group. Instead, she decided she would get to know every single member of her class. It started at lunch.

Rather than sitting with her usual group of friends, she would sit with someone she knew only slightly or not at all. While she admits to a few awkward moments, she found the community open and welcoming. She says that she learned so many things about her peers she wouldn’t have known or even guessed, including hidden talents, hopes, and dreams.

“There are so many layers to a lot of people,” she says. “Everyone has their own stories and a hidden side to themselves.” Some classmates she met in this way have even become close friends. “I think other students and teachers see me as a fun, spirited person, and I like that they can recognize me, even from across campus, and know that I care about what’s going on with them.” Now a senior, Lizzy feels similarly about reaching out to underclassmen to make them feel welcome and to demonstrate that she is someone they can talk to. One of the premier high school golfers in Northern California and a two-time MCAL player of the year, Lizzy also works hard to meet the golfers from other schools and countries that she plays with. She notes, “you spend a lot of time with people you play with and against. You are sure to learn something new about them besides golf!”

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What does it look like to live joyfully?

A few Branson students and recent alumni show us.

Julia Bouligny ‘25

Terence Molloy ‘24

“My friends might describe me as a little bit random—but in a good way,” says Julia Bouligny with a shy smile. “I’m interested in a lot of niche things that aren’t super mainstream but I love them.” The co-founder of Branson’s first-ever Kazoo Club, she approaches everything she does with full commitment and a quirky sense of humor. You’ll find Julia up in the lighting booth for most of Branson’s theatrical productions. She enjoys managing the lights and sound and helping create the sets— though she acknowledges that it can be a little stressful, “because if you mess up it can set off issues for the whole performance.” Recently, after becoming more comfortable on stage, she acted a role in last year’s musical. She also parlays these interests into a long-time passion for filmmaking—short iMovies when she was younger and now longerform storytelling and teaching the craft to young students in the Next Generation Scholars program. Julia is also captain of Branson’s small but mighty club Fencing Team this year. “I love fencing,” she says. “I wish I could do it all the time.” But she can’t—because she’s ranked second in the country as a Freeride snowboarder and will be representing the United States at Worlds this January. “My sport’s venue is the natural terrain—trees and boulders,” she explains, “and essentially they score you on how well you can ride down it and how many features you hit or rocks you jump off of and that kind of thing. What gives me joy is the training, figuring out how to creatively get through the course and launch off those bigger and bigger cliffs.” Julia shrugs nonchalantly with a twinkle in her eye, “Yeah, I’m always doing something fun.”

Terence Molloy aspired to play the trumpet. However, when nobody else at his elementary school wanted to play the double bass, he thought it might be cool to try—and it was. After playing bass in orchestra at his large public magnet middle school, he initially found the freshman-year transition to Branson shocking—especially in music classrooms. He soon embraced the opportunities Branson provided for musical growth and personal development. Here, Terence found a home in smaller music classes that allowed him to explore jazz and chamber music, offering him avenues for improvisation and small ensemble work. He appreciated Branson Music Teacher Kindra Scharich’s background as a singer “because when you’re playing chamber music the biggest thing you want to do is emulate a singer.

You want your instrument to sound like a voice.” When his private bass teacher told him he was ready to audition for the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, Terence wasn’t sure, but he prepared thoroughly and was accepted as the 7th chair bass. Through hard work, he quickly moved to 6th chair and then to 4th, and following a summer at Interlochen, returned in the fall as principal bassist. “I love the power the bass gives to the rest of the orchestra,” he says. “When the bass drops, it’s really cool. It’s an energy you don’t get anywhere else.” Terence is now continuing his musical education at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music. “Music transcends words,” he says. “There is nothing that comes close to being in the zone, where every note flows effortlessly.”

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ALL IN In schools across America, a game of dodgeball divides people into “ins” and “outs.” But, on a crisp autumn day at Branson, two communities came together to play and everybody was “in.”

“There were a lot of Best Buddies and Branson students in the gym, and there was a perfect balance of competition and fun,” says Luke ‘26. “Everyone was smiling and laughing by the end of it, and everybody was present, either playing dodgeball or watching from the side with a friend.”

Best Buddies is an international organization that enhances the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities by facilitating friendships. It is also one of the most popular Community Engagement opportunities at Branson. Students from affiliate schools and institutions come to Branson regularly for lunch in the Commons, followed by enthusiastic pickup games of soccer and basketball, as well as watching movies, doing arts and crafts, singing and dancing, and playing games of all kinds.

Whitney O’Keefe ‘93, Assistant Director of Oak Hill School, notes the mutual benefit that comes with connecting across differences. “Branson students have had the opportunity to build relationships with neurodiverse peers, many for the first time,” she says. “They have gained knowledge in how to communicate, socialize, and work with people who may not learn, communicate, and function in the world the same way that they do.”

Experiencing the power of these relationships first-hand, Maceo ‘26 shared, “I was able to learn how to adapt my communication skills to each Best Buddies student depending on what worked best for them. Effective communication opens the door for connections that can be made if one is willing to go the extra mile to meet the other person.”

Jenny Diaz, Branson faculty advisor to the Best Buddies program, agrees. “This is one of the more joyful and authentic community partnerships that we have right now. I really love seeing all of the students at their best.”

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MAGAZINE CREDITS Christina Mazzola Head of School James Zimmerman Chief Advancement Officer Jennifer Owen-Blackmon Director of Communications Olivia Flemming Assistant Director of Communications

DESIGN Dallas Duncan Design

Jenna Zimmerman Robinson ‘02 is an Emmy- and James Beard Awardnominated writer, director, and producer based in Los Angeles. Her work has been featured on Food Network, Cooking Channel, Discovery, and PBS. Pages 30-35 Carina del Valle Schorske ‘05 is a writer and translator of Puerto Rican poetry whose work has been published in many venues including The Believer, Bookforum, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine, where she is a Contributing Writer. She earned her PhD in Comparative Literature from Columbia University in 2022, and her debut essay collection, The Other Island, is forthcoming from Riverhead.

Pages 24-29

WRITING Jasmin Darznik ‘91 is a New York Times bestselling author of three books, most recently The Bohemians. She is a professor and chair of the MFA Writing Program at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.

Pages 6-11 Kristin Ohlson ‘69 is a New York Times bestselling author and journalist based in Portland, Oregon whose articles have been published in Smithsonian, Discover, Oprah, American Archaeology, and The New York Times. Her most recent book is Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World.

Pages 14-17 Guy Raz P‘27 is the host and creator of several of the most well-known podcasts including How I Built This, Wow in the World, TED Radio Hour, The Great Creators, and others. Earlier in his career, he spent 15 years as a TV and radio reporter for CNN and NPR where he covered war, peace, and everything in between from more than 45 countries. He is the parent of a Branson 10th grader.

Pages 12-13

Jason Warburg ‘80 is a writer and communications consultant and the author of five books: three novels and two non-fiction collections. He spent nearly three decades in senior communications positions for nonprofits and elected officials.

Pages 18-21

PHOTOGRAPHY, ILLUSTRATION & VISUAL EFFECTS Robert Becker P’27 is a San Francisco/ East Bay-based photographer specializing in landscape, street, sports, and event photography. His photojournalistic approach brings to light the beauty in the world that one might not see on their own.

He is the parent of a Branson 10th grader.

Pages 42-43 Will Bollini ‘22 is based in Los Angeles where he is currently a Junior at UCLA, studying Human Biology and Society, Film TV, and Music Industry. He works freelance for music festivals around the nation including Coachella, Outside Lands, Stagecoach, and BottleRock as a photographer and videographer.

Pages 22-23

Paul Child was a retired diplomat and artist who became the official photographer for his wife, Julia Child ‘30, and designed her iconic kitchen. In the French Chef Cookbook, she honored him as “the man who is always there—porter, dishwasher, official photographer, mushroom dicer and onion chopper, editor, fish illustrator, manager, taster, idea man, resident poet, and husband.”

Pages 8,11 Denise Gallagher is an author, illustrator, and graphic designer whose work has been featured on products and in magazines and advertising. She shares her love of literature and art by speaking to students of all ages.

Denise has a passion for folktales and is inspired by her lush, green Louisiana home.

Pages 24-29 Daniela Gerson ‘00 is a Los Angeles-based food photographer, creative director, food stylist, and recipe developer. She began her career as a chef with a passion for sourcing colorful produce from local markets and loves emphasizing the beauty of real food with her images.

Pages 30-35 Terry Turrentine ‘66 is an award-winning photographer and art book publisher whose work is fueled by her passion for the subjects which most interest her—the beauty of wildlife in its natural habitat, and the profound need to respect and co-exist with all living beings. Her works can be found in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, Yale University Art Gallery, and The Getty Research Collection, among others.

Pages 14-17 Brian Wedge is a Marin and Hawaii-based, award-winning photojournalist, creative director, and visual storyteller who collaborates with editorial, commercial, and education clients around the globe. His work has appeared in print and online with Patagonia, Lululemon, National Geographic, The New York Times, Stanford, and Yale, among others.

Front & back cover; Pages 2-3, 4-5, 12-13, 22-23, 36-37, 38-39, 40-41

P.O. Box 887 39 Fernhill Ave, Ross, CA 94957 communications@branson.org