Brooks Bulletin Spring 2022

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BROOKS BULLETIN

Brooks Bulletin Brooks School 1160 Great Pond Road North Andover, MA 01845-1298

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BROOKS

BULLETIN • SPRING 2022

Please visit www.brooksschool.org for information on alumni and parent events, and to catch up on the latest news from campus.

SPRING 2022

B OA R D O F T RU ST EES President Steven R. Gorham ’85, P’17, P’21 Ipswich, Mass.

Vice Presidents John R. Barker ’87, P’21, P’23 Wellesley, Mass.

Whitney Romoser Savignano ’87 Beverly Farms, Mass.

Secretary Craig J. Ziady ’85, P’18, P’20, P’22 Winchester, Mass.

Treasurer Valentine Hollingsworth III ’72, P’17 Dover, Mass.

TR USTEES Cristina E. Antelo ’95 Washington, D.C. Iris Bonet ’90 Houston, Texas Peter J. Caldwell Providence, R.I.

Brian McCabe P’18 Meredith, N.H. Diana Merriam P’08, P’11 Boxford, Mass.

Sally T. Milliken ’88, P’22, P’24 Byfield, Mass.

A LUMNI TR USTE E S Alysa U. James ’11 Washington, D.C. Ikenna U. Ndugba ’16 Boston, Mass.

W. J. Patrick Curley III ’69 New York, N.Y.

John R. Packard Jr. P’18, P’21 Head of School North Andover, Mass.

T R UST E E S E M E R I TI William N. Booth ’67, P’05 Chestnut Hill, Mass.

Peter V. K. Doyle ’69 Sherborn, Mass.

Daniel J. Riccio P’17, P’20 Atherton, Calif.

Henry M. Buhl ’48 New York, N.Y.

Cheryl M. Duckworth P’22, P’23 Lynnfield, Mass.

Belisario A. Rosas P’15, P’21 Andover, Mass.

Steve Forbes ’66, P’91 Bedminster, N.J.

Anthony H. Everets ’93 Brooklyn, N.Y.

Vivek Sharma P’24 Boston, Mass.

Nancy C. Ferry P’21 West Newton, Mass.

Juliane Gardner Spencer ’93 Rockport, Mass.

H. Anthony Ittleson ’56, P’84, P’86 Green Pond, S.C.

Shawn Gorman ’84 Falmouth, Maine

Alessandro F. Uzielli ’85 Beverly Hills, Calif.

Paul L. Hallingby ’65 New York, N.Y.

Meredith M. Verdone ’81, P’19 Newton Center, Mass.

Booth D. Kyle ’89 Severna Park, Md.

Christopher T. Wood ’85 Los Angeles, Calif.

Michael B. Keating ’58, P’97 Boston, Mass.

Frank A. Kissel ’69, P’96, P’99 Far Hills, N.J. Peter A. Nadosy ’64 New York, N.Y. Peter W. Nash ’51, P’81, P’89 Nantucket, Mass.

Cera B. Robbins P’85, P’90 New York, N.Y. Eleanor R. Seaman P’86, P’88, P’91, GP’18 Hobe Sound, Fla. David R. Williams III ’67 Beverly Farms, Mass.

Taina Mair ’22 capped off an amazing Brooks basketball career by being named the 2021–2022 Gatorade Massachusetts Player of the Year. She was also named the NEPSAC Player of the Year and took home ISL Most Valuable Player and All-League team nods.

It’s the bottom of the ninth!

Please consider a gift and help us top $2.45 million by June 30.

Thank you, and Go Brooks!

BROOKS SCHOOL BROOKS FUND

Four easy ways to give: Credit Card — Check — Stock—Venmo.* Visit www.brooksschool.org to make your gift. *Venmo: @Brooksschool. For more information, contact Director of the Brooks Fund and Family Engagement Mary Merrill at mmerrill@brooksschool.org.

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Head of School John R. Packard Jr. P’18, P’21

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Director of Institutional Advancement Gage S. Dobbins P’22, P’23 Director of Alumni Programs Lauri Coulter Assistant Director of Alumni Programs Angela Augusta Director of Admission and Financial Aid Bini W. Egertson P’12, P’15

Director of Communications and Marketing Dan Callahan P’19, P’20, P’23

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Director of Print Communications Rebecca A. Binder Design Aldeia www.aldeia.design

FEAT UR ES

D E PA RTME NTS

Alumni Communications Manager Emily Williams

20 Building on History

02 M essage from the Head of School

The Brooks crew program is inspired today by its own history.

In this piece, the Bulletin tours the boathouses, speaks with former crew coaches and reveals plans for the future.

03 News + Notes

Director of Digital Communications Jennifer O’Neill

30 Following the Stars Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Opinions expressed in the Bulletin are those of the authors and not necessarily of Brooks School.

Correspondence concerning the Bulletin should be sent to Editor Rebecca A. Binder: mail Editor, Brooks Bulletin 1160 Great Pond Road North Andover, MA 01845 email rbinder@brooksschool.org phone (978) 725-6326

© 2022 Brooks School

Jonathan Taplin ’65 has had a remarkable career that includes time spent with some of the greatest legends of music and film. Here, we excerpt his recent memoir and discuss the current intersection of media, technology and culture.

44 Alumni News 50 Class Notes

38 A New Look at Winter Term Following a hiatus last year, Brooks reintroduced Winter Term to an enthusiastic campus community this January. Here, a group of newer faculty reveal their new additions to the Winter Term course catalog and the fresh spin they’ve put on this signature program.

ON THE COVER: Ellie McCuine ’22 (right) and Jack McDermott ’23 at work in an honors anatomy and physiology class this spring.

Students and faculty alike were excited to maintain a full slate of classes and programming through the ebbs and flows of the COVID-19 pandemic this year.

A MESSAGE FROM JOHN R. PACKARD JR. HEAD OF SCHOOL

Gratitude and Beginnings

“ This particular spring has a different feel to it than most, however, with some bittersweet departures and exciting arrivals on the horizon.”

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As we move further into our least restricted spring since 2019, we are enjoying the greater degree of liberty that has come with a firmer grip on how to navigate the ebbs and flows of the pandemic.

This has allowed us to experience all that a typical Brooks School spring offers, with parents, guardians, alums and guests joining us on our blooming campus for a full and rich calendar of events stretching all the way to Alumni Weekend in June.

It has been so nice to find more and more ways to be with one another all over our 270 beautiful acres. We are looking forward to more of the same!

This particular spring has a different feel to it than most, however, with some bittersweet departures and exciting arrivals on the horizon. This starts, of course, with the class of 2022, who will collect their diplomas on Prize Day and head off to what is next in their lives after persevering through three pandemic-altered years. We are incredibly proud of them. With Leigh Perkins ’81, Deb Davies and John McVeigh all moving onto next steps in their lives, we are losing three deeply talented and long-tenured faculty members who have given enormously and unconditionally to the school. Conversely, Nina Hanlon will begin as assistant head of school in July, along with a cadre of new colleagues in school leadership positions certain to bring fresh perspective and new ideas to the fold. To a degree, this is how our school has evolved for generations, but this year’s comings and goings feel a bit weightier than most. And, that is before taking into account an additional departure that would likely go unnoticed if he had his way.

Steve Gorham ’85 started his 14-year tenure on the board of trustees in 2008 —

the same year I started as head of school.

Little did I know then how consequential his service and leadership would prove to be — especially his six years as president.

The task of adequately capturing all that Steve’s leadership has meant to the school will require much more than a few words in this edition of the Bulletin. For now, let it suffice to say that his departure at the end of June will mark the end of as distinguished a tenure on our board as any the school has ever known. Steve’s character, humility, selflessness and unabashed belief in Brooks School have lifted our work with students over the past decade.

It is not hyperbole to suggest that the progress we have made would have been out of reach without his time, care and support. Thus, the prospect of continuing without him when his term officially expires at the end of June is bittersweet, indeed. As board leadership passes to John Barker ’87, who has served the school for decades in every imaginable capacity, and who is better suited than anyone I know to lead the board forward with so much in our sights, my gratitude for all that Steve has meant to and done for the school knows no bounds.

This spring, we are incredibly fortunate to be part of a school community with so much reason to feel gratitude when reflecting on the profound difference those who are departing have made.

Similarly, we are equally fortunate to be on the verge of new beginnings full of promise and possibility that will build upon all that so many who have come before us have positioned us to reach for — boldly and confidently. The sum total of all this good fortune leaves me feeling as grateful as I ever have been to lead such a school. Have a wonderful summer.

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N E WS + N OT ES History teacher Amanda Nasser was named the school’s Waldo and Ruth Holcombe Faculty Chair in November 2021. Dr. Nasser assumed the endowed chair that was vacated by faculty emeritus Randy Hesse, who retired from his teaching career at Brooks at the conclusion of the previous academic year. Head of School John Packard quoted a colleague’s testimonial as he presented Nasser with the chair during a Chapel service. “I am inspired by her energy and passion for teaching,” Mr. Packard said. “I think about how she has always leaned in and sought ways to be engaged in school life that have gone far beyond any kind of job description.

We are a far better community because she is a part of it.”

NEWS + NOTES IN THIS SECTION 04 News from Campus 08 Campus Scene 16 Athlete Spotlight 18 Athletics News

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Nina Hanlon Named Assistant Head of School The school’s newest leader will bring a depth of knowledge and a breadth of experience to campus.

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BROOKS NAMED Nina Hanlon its incoming assistant head of school in January. She will join the faculty in July. Her position will fill the void that will be left when current Associate Head for Faculty Affairs John McVeigh leaves Brooks to assume the role of head of school at Holderness School. Hanlon is currently the director of enrollment and financial aid at Greenwich Academy, a position she has held since 2016.

Head of School John Packard announced Hanlon’s appointment in a January 28 email to the Brooks community. “I am thrilled that Nina Hanlon has accepted our offer to join the faculty as assistant head of school,” said Mr. Packard. “From my initial conversation with Nina straight through offering her the position,” he continued, “it has been abundantly clear that she will add tremendously to our school.”

Hanlon got her start in education as a faculty member at Noble and Greenough School in 2002. Since 2011, she has been at Greenwich Academy, where she has held a number of different roles, including history and English teacher, rowing coach and assistant head of the middle school. She will complete her Ed.M. from Teachers College at Columbia University this spring.

Hanlon is a graduate of Nobles and holds a bachelor’s degree from Brown University, where she was a two-time NCAA Division I champion. She also holds an M.F.A. in acting from American Conservatory Theater.

“I am so excited to be joining such a warm and welcoming community at Brooks,” Hanlon said when her appointment was announced. “I’ve known Brooks for what seems like forever, going back to my days as a student at Nobles. When I read the assistant head of school job description, I was struck by how organically it ties together the work I’ve done in enrollment, hiring, delegating, teaching and professional development.

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Over the years, I have become a mentor to many faculty members, both seasoned and brand new to the profession. Along with my administrative duties, I’ve stayed connected to what is most important to me: my students.

However, working in admissions can often pull me away from the day-to-day experiences of students and teachers, and I am thrilled to re-engage in that aspect of school life.”

Brooks cast a broad net in its search to fill this position. There was considerable interest from a national applicant pool. However, after Hanlon visited campus in December 2021 to meet with students and faculty, the search concluded quickly.

“Through a series of conversations and meetings with Nina Hanlon, it became overwhelmingly clear that she is already an exceptionally accomplished school administrator who has long appreciated the opportunities we have in independent schools to make a profound difference in the lives of our students,” Mr. Packard wrote. “Her colleagues at Greenwich Academy were unanimous in their view that Nina is both ready and especially well-suited to be assistant head of school as her independent school career ascends and her talent for building close and productive relationships within and beyond school communities continues to grow. Her demonstrated ability to reach students, colleagues and families in meaningful ways bodes well for the relationships she will surely forge as assistant head of school at Brooks.”

“While Nina’s initial focus will be appropriately centered on building relationships with the school’s faculty and coming to know our school community, we are excited about how the position and its day-to-day responsibilities will evolve and grow as both the school’s needs and Nina’s many strengths intersect over time,” Mr. Packard continued. “The room we have made for growth with this position is exciting to think about.”

In the Lehman A series of exhibits showcased artistic talent and creativity, and reactions to current events.

The Robert Lehman Art Center has the opportunity to bring meaningful art to the Brooks community, and it delivered this winter. First, the Lehman gallery space hosted an exhibit of cartoons and glasswork by Robin Lehman ’55. The collection was titled “Surviving a Pandemic with Creativity,” and its stay on campus included screenings of Lehman’s Academy Award-winning documentaries “Don’t” and “The End of the Game” in the Center for the Arts.

“Art has a way of bringing us together and bringing us joy,” says Babs Wheelden, arts departmentment chair and director of the Lehman gallery. “Robin’s images and work capture levity and beauty in a way that is inspiring to our students. We are grateful for the Lehman family for their commitment to Brooks and the arts.”

Winter Term, and the Winter Term class “Environmental Artivism,” brought a thoughtful exhibit by printmaker Pippin Frisbie-Calder to the Lehman. “Canceled Edition: The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker” encouraged Lehman visitors to consider the effect of climate change on this species of bird, which was once plentiful and is now endangered. Visitors were asked to remove one of dozens of prints of ivory-billed woodpeckers from the wall of the gallery, thus contributing to a visual representation of the depletion of the species.

A piece from “Surviving a Pandemic With In February, Peruvian artist Paola Denegri Creativity,” an exhibit from the collection showed her exhibit “Volaverunt.” While in a of Robin Lehman ’55.

COVID-19 lockdown in Lima, Denegri turned to Japanese paper art to experience the vibrancy of the world outside her apartment. Her pieces echoed colors of the sea, the sky and the world that had suddenly become far away.

“ Her demonstrated ability to reach students, colleagues and families in meaningful ways bodes well for the relationships she will surely forge as assistant head of school at Brooks.”

HEAD OF SCHOOL JOHN PACKARD

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Left: Aidan Shea ’22 in his debut role as Gaston in the winter 2020 production of “Beauty and the Beast.” Right: Colin Rosato ’22 starring as Wadsworth in the fall 2021 production of “Clue.”

I ended up singing and dancing a lot, which was, well, it was fun! I was wicked nervous on opening night — I had never sung in front of an audience before, and Gaston has a big number — but I felt ready and it went really well.

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Fast 5 // Q+A Sixth-formers Colin Rosato and Aidan Shea have excelled in two spheres at Brooks: They are both accomplished 1st-team athletes who have also found a home in the theater. Rosato, a formidable presence on the boys 1st hockey team, came to Brooks already invested in theater; Shea, who is a captain of the boys 1st lacrosse team, found his way to the stage at Brooks.

The Bulletin sat down with them both to learn why they love performing, how it compares to team sports, and what they see as their legacies at Brooks.

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Aidan, how did you end up working in the theater at Brooks? I came to Brooks as a hockey player, but I wasn’t sure that’s what I wanted to do. I tried wrestling for half a season as a third-former along with hockey, and then as a fourth-former I wanted to do something completely different in the winter season. I tried out for the musical thinking I’d be cast as a tree or something, but my first role was as Gaston in “Beauty and the Beast.” I had never been on stage before, and then

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Colin, you came to Brooks already experienced in theater. What brought you here?

I’ve been doing theater since first grade. I did theater all through middle school, and when I went to Cardigan Mountain School, I picked it up a little bit. I started high school at Groton School and started acting, and I got a bigger role than I expected in the fall of my third-form year. That’s when I realized this is maybe something I could do something with. I loved Groton, but I left and transferred to Brooks for the hockey opportunities here. It’s interesting: I came to Brooks with the intention of playing college hockey, and now I’m leaving with the intention of pursuing theater in college.

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Aidan, do you also plan to pursue theater in college? I plan to play lacrosse at Connecticut College next year. Conn is known for its theater program, and I don’t want to mess that up for them [laughs], so I think I’m going to leave my time in theater in high school. I enjoyed my time, though. I’ve stayed involved since “Beauty and the Beast.” When we did “Rent” this winter, I worked on the stage crew and had a small speaking role. It’s been a great experience.

There’s definitely a team aspect to working with this group of 20 or 30 people toward the goal of putting together a good performance.

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Colin, it’s not often that the hockey world and the theater world intersect. Tell me about the ways in which these two sides of your experience interact. It’s two different ways of releasing stress. In the rink, I get to bang shoulders with defenders and stuff like that; there’s

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a physical aspect to it. Then in the theater, all the stress I carry from being a dorm prefect, practice, serving on student government, even my grades— all that goes away because I get to put on the shoes of someone extraordinary.

When I was younger, I dealt with a lot of banter about theater from my hockey teammates. As I’ve gotten older, my teammates have realized it takes a lot to put on a face of makeup and perform in front of a few hundred people, and now they’re always in the front row when I’m on stage. And, I love bridging the gap in the other direction, also: I love seeing my castmates come to cheer at the hockey games and say hi to me afterwards. I think that’s really cool.

Aidan: On the first day of “Beauty and the Beast,” I brought a lacrosse stick to rehearsal, and I called rehearsal “play practice” for the entire first year.

I didn’t really know what to do or what anything was, and I think it took time for my castmates to realize that just because I care about and am good at lacrosse doesn’t mean that I can’t care about and do this, also. I think that’s also helped my castmates’ relationships with other kids who focus on sports across the school.

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Do you see yourselves helping to make the school a more accepting space for all our students? Colin: I think the fact that Aidan and I do a great job in both athletics and theater really matters. Aidan and I are two older and respected kids, leaders on campus, and we’re helping younger kids find room to do both also, or to bridge the gap between two other areas of school life that might not be typical. A lot of my hockey teammates enrolled in a Winter Term class where they staged a performance of “Harry Potter.” Once the performance was over, one of my teammates told me that his heart was beating faster before the show than it ever had before a hockey game. He told me he had a lot of respect for what I do, and that means a lot to me.

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H EARD IN CH AP EL

“ Black love is recognizing your own privilege based on your class, gender and non-racial identities, and acknowledging the struggles of others. It’s placing the most directly impacted of us at the forefront of conversation, even if that means taking a step back and letting others speak. It’s sacrifice; it’s excellence; it’s taking care of your beautiful skin full of melanin.”

SHELLEY GRANT ’25 in Chapel in February. Grant shared three poems she had written over the past two years: two in reaction to the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and one inspired by her experience as a Black girl at Brooks. Over the course of the month, members of the Black Students Union celebrated Black History Month by sharing their life experiences in moving, thoughtful and meaningful Chapel speeches.

A Valued Award Brooks was recently recognized with a 2021 AP Computer Science Female Diversity Award. The College Board noted the school’s expansion of females’ access to computer science classes. According to the College Board, “overall, female students remain underrepresented in [American] high school computer science classes, accounting for just 34 percent of AP Computer Science Principles participants and 25 percent of AP Computer Science A participants.” The College Board further noted that schools receiving this award “serve as inspirations and models for all U.S. high schools.”

Kihak Nam ’99, who teaches the course, says that he’s proud that Brooks has received this honor, given that the department has intentionally tried to introduce more diversity into its computer science enrollment. “It’s great,” Nam says. “We hope many female students continue to sign up for this course!”

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Olivia Cohen ’23 in her algebra Nat E WS + this N OT ES class Brooks spring.

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Model UN Shines The Brooks delegation performed well at the annual Model United Nations conference in Boston.

Dr. Keisha N. Blain, the keynote speaker on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

An MLK Day Speaker Brooks welcomed an address and question-and-answer session by Dr. Keisha N. Blain on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January. Dr. Blain is a historian, professor and author of the books “Until I am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America” and “Four Hundred Souls.” She addressed the school community over Zoom and spoke about the legacy of Dr. King, the intersectional work and influence of civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, and recent developments in the ongoing battle over voting rights.

Following Dr. Blain’s address, students gathered with their Winter Term classes and teachers to discuss the session and current events related to voting rights. After a break for lunch, the school held space for affinity group meetings. Afternoon activities were scheduled as usual, and students were given the option to take reflective time instead of attending.

Brooks showed up to this year’s Boston Invitational Model United Nations Conference, which was held February 4–6, well-prepared, excited and ready to go.

They also had a stroke of good luck: When the group arrived at The Boston Marriott Copley Place, where the debates took place, they discovered Nashr El Auliya ’20 was filling in as a committee chair.

Five Brooksians won awards after the weekend spent discussing international politics and historical topics ranging from the 1918 flu pandemic to climate change refugees. Jerry Chen ’23 won Honorable Mention as Brian Lang in Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker’s Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Tvisha Devireddy ’23 won Honorable Mention as the Republic of Uganda in the African Union. Melanie Kaplan ’23 won Outstanding Delegate representing Trindad and Tobago in the Economic Commission for Latin America.

Angelina Lieberman ’23 won Best Position Paper representing Luxembourg in the EU 2050. And, Shalini Navsaria ’23 won Verbal Commendation as a Republican Senator from Indiana in the U.S. Senate.

History department chair and Model UN advisor Michele Musto praised the group, reporting that they put a lot of time into their excellent work. And, El Auliya, the Brooks graduate who filled in as a committee chair at the last minute for an ill friend, was impressed by the ways in which the students, some of whom he knew at Brooks, had progressed.

“Although I had to be impartial and objectively assess the delegation awards,” El Auliya says, “my amazement came from the progress, the difference, the ‘delta,’ if you will. That was honestly the best part about seeing the people I used to work and study with — to see how much they’ve changed, to see how they’ve allowed Brooks to touch them.”

<< A Snow Day Students took advantage of a wintry storm in February to sled down the Green Machine, the hill that leads from the girls 2nd soccer field to the fire trail behind Gardner House.

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“Survival,” by Maeve Gaffney ’23, which received a Gold Key honor from the regional Scholastic Art Awards. Gaffney shot this photograph last summer while traveling with her mother in Indiana.

Scholastic Art Awards A group of talented Brooksians was recognized for its work in the visual arts.

Since 1923, Scholastic Art Awards have recognized creativity at the regional and national level. Out of more than 7,000 regional submissions, 11 Brooks students received either Gold Key, Silver Key or Honorable Mention honors this winter for their recent work.

Five Brooks student pieces received Gold Key honors: Jack O’Brien ’22, Maeve Gaffney ’23, Noela Chung ’23, Tri Nguyen ’22 and Tvisha Devireddy ’23. Nguyen and O’Brien also received Silver Key honors. Nine Brooksians received Honorable Mention recognition: Kofi Boakye-Mensah ’24, Chung, Sofia Fortenberry ’24, Laura Kahu ’23, O’Brien, Lindsey Stafford ’24 and Kaisi Xing ’23 each received one Honorable Mention, and Devireddy and May Eggleston ’24 each received two.

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A SUPREME COURT CONNECTION Newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has a family connection to Brooks. Justice Jackson’s husband, Patrick Jackson, is the grandson of faculty emeritus Frank Jackson ’33.

Patrick Jackson’s father, Gardner Jackson, grew up on campus. The Jackson family lived in Thorne House for many years.

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A scene from the Brooks staging of “Rent: School Edition,” which ran in the Center for the Arts for three nights in February.

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No Day But Today This year’s winter musical, “Rent: School Edition,” allowed Brooksians to bring a renowned musical to life while exploring themes of love, loss and living for today.

In February, an appreciative and enthusiastic audience welcomed performers back to the stage for the first musical performance in the Center for the Arts since 2020: a three-night showing of “Rent: School Edition.”

Set in the East Village of New York City, “Rent: School Edition” is about falling in love, finding your voice and living for today. Winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, it has become a pop cultural phenomenon with songs that rock and a story that resonates with audiences of all ages.

Based loosely on Puccini’s “La Boheme,” “Rent: School Edition” follows a year in the life of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York’s Lower East Side under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. How these young bohemians negotiate their dreams, loves and conflicts provides the narrative thread to this groundbreaking musical.

Preston Wong ’23, who played the character Angel, says that he enjoyed the challenge of all the moving parts of the musical. “I was also doing drag, which took a lot of guts to do in front of my fellow community members,” Wong says. “I was very proud to represent Angel and share their story with my peers. I hope that ‘Rent’ served as a reality check to the greater Brooks community, as we are very privileged,” Wong reflects. “Even though we are past the time period ‘Rent’ is set in, the harsh truth is that the struggles the characters went through are still struggles that real people in the world are facing, whether it is addiction, discrimination or hopelessness.”

An Accompanying Exhibit As “Rent: School Edition” was performed in the main theater of the Center for the Arts, the hallways outside the theater became home for the traveling art gallery of the Visualize Health Equity community project. The National Academy of Medicine, a nonprofit research organization in Washington, D.C., called on artists of all kinds to illustrate what health equity looks, sounds and feels like to them.

The collection of stories and data held in the exhibit illuminates inequity in the American healthcare system in spheres ranging from access to nutritious groceries and clean drinking water to affordable housing and connection to cultural heritage. The exhibit provides valuable perspective by sharing insights directly from people in diverse communities around the United States.

“This exhibition coupled with our theatrical production demonstrates the power of the arts in communicating wider perspectives,” says Chair of the Arts Department Babs Wheelden. “This kind of artistic synergy is what makes our Center for the Arts impactful for the Brooks community beyond the studios and stage.”

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R EMEM B E R I N G

Preston Settles The Brooks community suffered a tragic loss this winter with the death of thirdformer Preston Settles. In his short time on campus, Preston became a loved resident of Whitney House, a devoted member of the football and basketball programs, and a well-known member of the campus community who brightened the lives of those around him.

Preston Settles ’25 suffered a serious health event while he was playing in a boys 2nd basketball game at Brooks on February 5, 2022. Preston was surrounded by family and friends throughout his journey and until he passed away on February 27, 2022.

“In his far too short time at Brooks, Preston cast a long shadow,” Head of School John Packard wrote in a letter informing the Brooks community of Preston’s death. “His ebullience, infectious spirit and numerous talents earned him many friends and connections on our campus. In and out of the classroom, on football fields, basketball courts, his dormitory and everywhere in between, he was a wonderful student, teammate and friend. He made every group and community he was a part of more fun and joyful in his own intangible and inimitable way. The outpouring of support for Preston during these three weeks has underlined the extent to which he reached people in ways that mattered to them; in ways that were important to them; in ways that will hold over time.”

Hundreds of Brooksians attended a memorial service for Preston held at Trinity Church in Boston’s Copley Square on Friday, March 4, 2022. United States Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley opened the service’s time of remembrance. “We are not here because Preston died,” Pressley said. “We are here because he lived … without limitations on where his mind or body could take him. May his memory be a revolution.”

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“A BLESSING ON THIS EARTH” “Preston’s energy is best described as a light. Even during the most difficult moments, Preston was able to spread a fun-loving and warm energy throughout the team. Whether he was lightening the mood on the team bus after a tough loss or reminding everyone in practice that he made a left-handed layup, his voice and presence is unmistakable.”

Boys 2nd Basketball Coach S H A MI B E RY

“Preston made everyone he was with a better person and put them in a better mood. I still miss him. He was a blessing on this Earth, and I would do anything to hear him laugh one more time.”

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O B I T UARY

“Preston’s absence is felt by this community, whether it be walking to class, on the football field or basketball court, or the stretch of Main Street in front of Whitney, where he called

Preston Blair Settles, loving son of Darryl Settles and Lisa Owens, M.D., and devoted brother and best friend of Taylor Settles, went on to his next journey on February 27, 2022.

Preston enjoyed his elementary school years at the Underwood School in Newton, Mass., and fully immersed himself in town youth sports. He was known to run from one game to another, sometimes not taking the time to tie his shoes. Preston was an athlete and beloved friend to many during his middle school years at the Fessenden School in Newton, Mass.

He forged long-lasting friendships playing on the baseball, basketball, football and lacrosse teams. He was a weekday boarder during the COVID-19 pandemic and cultivated long-term relationships with friends and faculty. New to Brooks as a third-former, Preston quickly formed tight bonds within Whitney House, and with classmates and his football and basketball teammates. Preston had shared that going to Brooks had exceeded his expectations. Preston had crafted a vision for his future that included studying business and law at Duke University, from which his grandmother, Ida Owens, was the first African American to receive a doctorate. Preston never had a bad day and embraced all that he did with positivity, perseverance and upbeat energy. He enjoyed making others laugh. Fearless and adventuresome, Preston loved challenging himself by trying new sports, including boogie-boarding, snowboarding and paddle-boarding. He also enjoyed playing street hockey and fishing. On his 15th birthday, Preston reeled in a 357-pound tuna with his best friend, Manny Pereira, with whom he enjoyed countless adventures. Preston was anchored by a loving family that relishes time spent together. Preston enjoyed traveling with his family to places like Spain, Morocco, Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica and the Bahamas. At age

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so many of our names to come talk at his window. While we may never be able to fill the hole Preston left in the community’s heart, we can begin to heal by embodying his passion for life on a daily basis. We honor him by living the lessons he taught us: caring for one another; treating others in a way that makes them feel valued and that their thoughts and opinions matter; living in a way that would make him smile.”

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“I was really impressed with how quickly Preston’s enthusiasm for Brooks and Brooks football came through, even more so for a new third-former. It was evident really quickly how much he cared about the team and the school, and that he wanted to find ways to make it better in the moment but also better in the future. Preston was also a natural tour guide for our admissions office because he was super outgoing and could become fast friends with anyone. He shared his enthusiasm and helped our prospective students and families feel at home here. Preston really cared about Brooks, and there will be kids here next year who will be here in part because of Preston.”

1st Football Head Coach and Associate Director of Admission PAT FO L E Y

13, he traveled alone to Sweden to visit with a Fessenden friend on summer holiday. One of his most memorable father-son getaways was to the 2017 Super Bowl in Houston. Born just 16 months apart, one of Preston’s best friends was his sister, Taylor. They were inseparable, sharing friends and supporting each other’s pursuits.

They had their own special orbit, a special bond that fortified them. Preston lived a short — but full — life. Preston was “that guy” who people gravitated to, someone whose magnetic personality, kind soul, sincerity and devotion endeared him to many as their dear friend. He was a life changer; truly one of a kind. He will be sorely missed by family and friends. Along with his parents and sister, he leaves to cherish his memory his grandfather Herbert Owens; uncles Jeffrey Owens, Alan Settles and Ervin Settles; aunt Rose Settles; and a host of extended family and devoted friends. He was predeceased by his grandmother Ida S. Owens and grandparents Rebecca and David Settles.

PRESTON’S HOPE In honor of Preston, the Preston Settles Charitable Foundation has been established in partnership with the Boston Foundation to honor PReston’s Hope: Accelerating discOvery and Care for people wiTh HypErtrophic CardiomyopaThy (PROTECT). The foundation will fund research of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which increases the risk of sudden cardiac death due to an arrhythmia. Donations can be made via www.tbf.org/ donors/forms/preston-settlesmemorial-fund

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Sam Dewey ’22 Sam Dewey ’22 anchored the Brooks girls 1st basketball team to two New England Championships in two seasons, and next year she’ll play at the University of Illinois — a Big Ten school.

Her time on the court has changed the trajectory of the Brooks basketball program, but she’s also worked hard to promote girls sports in general and enjoy her time on campus.

Below: Sam Dewey ’22 (left) with Brooks head coach Ushearnda Reynolds.

Opposite right: Sam Dewey ’22 in action for Brooks.

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Sam Dewey ’22 came to Brooks as a fourth-former following two years at her hometown Melrose, Massachusetts, high school. She was in search of opportunities to play basketball at the college level.

“We had a good team at Melrose,” Dewey says, “but I was thinking more about wanting to play at a high level in college, and I thought going to a prep school would give me a better chance.”

Dewey’s talent gave her a choice of independent schools to choose from, and, she readily admits, the idea of leaving home to go to school at 15 years old was “scary.” She mustered up the courage to apply, though, and visited Brooks during a spring revisit day. “Revisit day blew me away,” Dewey says. “This was somewhere I totally wanted to be.” Dewey fell in love with the school.

She also took comfort in knowing that Ushearnda Reynolds, her longtime club coach, would be at the program’s helm, and that Taina Mair ’22, Dewey’s longtime club teammate, would also suit up for Brooks.

“Coach U. told me that I could come to Brooks

and make an impact,” Dewey recalls. “She told me I could help raise the profile of the girls sports program in general.” Since Dewey arrived on campus, the 1st basketball team has won back-to-back New England championships, and the stands in the Brooks gym have filled up with students, fans and other spectators for every game.

“A lot of people show up to our games, which is really nice,” Dewey says. “It’s a better space to play in when you have support from people, especially other students.”

“Sam is, first and foremost, just an amazing, genuine, wellrounded, incredible human being,” says Reynolds, the Brooks coach.

“She has this amazing ability to be an incredible athlete and an incredible competitor. But, at the same time, she can look at the player who is just starting out, show them the ropes and also demand that they do what they can do to the best of their ability.”

Dewey says that a lot of the basketball team’s success is due to the fact that the team spends so much time together. “I love it,” she says. “I feel like it’s a little friend group. I’ve met a whole group of third-formers that I never would have if they didn’t play basketball. And, we play in tournaments over breaks and get to stay in hotels together, which is great for team bonding. The basketball culture here is really nice. Even aside from the winning, just being with the team is pretty nice.”

The COVID-19 pandemic caused some hiccups in players’ ability to pick up playing time and experience as they age. Dewey notes that this year’s fourth-formers had never played in a high school basketball game before this season.

But, Dewey notes, the pandemic and its attendant restrictions also allowed the team to become even closer than they might have.

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“When we were in the bubble, we couldn’t hang out indoors,” Dewey says, referring to the 2020–2021 school policies that prevented boarding students from leaving campus and congregating indoors in most campus spaces. “One thing that I found I really liked was just walking around campus with my teammates. We found the fire trail, which I had never walked on before.

It’s really nice! I went snowshoeing a bunch with [faculty emeritus John] Haile, T, Kendall and Maeve [Mair, Kendall Eddy ’23 and Maeve Gaffney ’23]. It was so fun! I also attempted to play squash a couple of times. I’m terrible at it. Not very good at all. It’s really hard. We just went to everything we could. It was good.”

Dewey discovered new hobbies and outdoor pursuits while at Brooks. She also spread her wings to lend her athletic talents to two additional programs: She’s a foundational player for the 1st volleyball team and also tried her hand at rowing crew this spring.

“I just think volleyball is awesome,” Dewey says. “It’s such a fun sport. It’s my second sport, but I do take it seriously.” Dewey is a team co-captain, and she’s worked hard to try to rally the volleyball team together in the same way the basketball team has grown close.

“The volleyball team, in my opinion, isn’t volleyball players who also play other sports,” she says. “It’s athletes from other sports who play volleyball. Like me, I’m a basketball player who also plays volleyball. So my co-captain, Ellie McCuine, and I have worked hard to get people to invest in volleyball and work together as a team.”

TH E BIG STAGE

Dewey’s next stage will be slightly larger than the court in the Brooks School Athletic Center. After receiving 14 NCAA Division I offers,

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Dewey chose to continue her career at The University of Illinois. At first, Dewey says, she was skeptical of attending a school so far from home. When she visited, though, “I stepped into the arena and I fell in love with every single part of it,” she says. “The basketball part aside, a big thing for me when I was going through recruitment was thinking about if, God forbid, I couldn’t play basketball, would I still go to that school, be on that campus, be with those people? And, I would,” she continues. “I love the community, because it’s a little town. I love the school and the student body. And, because it’s a Big Ten school, the

student fan section at games is a really big thing, and I like that. Not to mention, the basketball’s amazing also.”

Dewey anticipates feeling comfortable at Illinois, and she acknowledges that “there’s going to be a learning curve at first.” She points out that the student population at Brooks is miniscule compared to Illinois, which has more than 40,000 students. “There are a lot of kids there,” she says, “but I think it’s going to be good. I think it’s going to be as big or as small as I make it with the people that I’m with, with my basketball community.”

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NE WS + NOTES

AT H L ET I CS N EWS

Kendall Eddy ’23 battles Suffield Academy in the semifinal game of the New England championship tournament.

Winning Ways The Brooks athletics program covered a lot of ground this winter. Girls basketball won its second straight New England championship, and boys basketball and girls hockey both made noise in the postseason.

Girls Basketball Dominates The Brooks girls 1st basketball team defended its 2019–2020 New England championship this winter.

Brooks, which was itching to come back strong from a COVID-caused pause in 2020–2021, tore through every opponent in its path. The team was undefeated and regularly beat the competition by dozens of points. A close 60–58 win over

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The Loomis Chaffee School on December 17, 2021, lit a fire under the team. The final score of a game wouldn’t be nearly that close again until Brooks took down Dexter Southfield School, 65–62, on January 26, 2022.

Brooks picked up the top seed for the New England championship tournament and quickly dispatched eighth-seeded Proctor Academy,

78–59. Saturday, March 5, 2022, brought the semifinal game, and a 76–45 win over Suffield Academy, to Great Pond Road. Finally, on Sunday, March 6, 2022, Brooks took the court on Great Pond Road for the championship game against a talented St. Luke’s School squad. The championship game was a white-knuckle ride: Brooks was behind for the majority of

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the game and only managed to catch up in the final few minutes.

Sixth-former Taina Mair scored to tie the game with seconds left in regulation, forcing overtime. The fast-paced overtime period ended with another Mair bucket, as she scored with four seconds left to lift Brooks — and the championship trophy — up. The final score of the championship game was 76–75.

Mair’s accomplishments earned her a windfall of postseason recognition, which is detailed on the inside front cover of this issue. Sam Dewey ’22 also picked up an impressive amount of hardware. Maeve Gaffney ’23 earned All-ISL Honorable Mention accolades, and Kendall Eddy ’23 was named to the All-ISL team and the All-NEPSAC team.

“One of the things that I talked about when coming to Brooks is that basketball, the women’s game, has absolutely just exploded,” says head coach Ushearnda Reynolds.

“Athletes can win you games, but you need basketball players to really compete in the ISL. Finding those pieces to grow the program, and bringing in those high-level students and high-level basketball players, is what we’re going to continue to do.”

Boys Basketball Battles to Postseason The Brooks boys 1st basketball team put up another strong showing this year. Brooks hauled in a 10–5 record in the ISL, and a 17–5 record overall, and landed a spot in the NEPSAC tournament.

Although sixth-seeded Brooks fell in the first round of the tournament to a talented third-seeded Dexter Southfield team, the squad is proud of its performance.

“We beat a number of teams that were more talented than us this year, and we were more than the sum of our parts because we

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played so hard and so well together,” reflects head coach John McVeigh. “This team will hold a special place in my heart, and they were a lot of fun to coach. I will take so many great memories from our time together.”

Sixth-formers Darrel Yepdo and Brady Cummins pulled in All-New England team honors and All-ISL honors.

“I could not be more excited that Kenya Jones will take the reins of this program,” McVeigh says. “He is a terrific coach and mentor to our players. I am so grateful for having the chance to share the sidelines with him and even more grateful for his friendship. I am so excited to watch him and the team in the future and will always be rooting for them!”

Girls Hockey Makes Noise The Brooks girls 1st ice hockey team powered through a difficult winter season to compile a 12–9–3 record, including a 4–6–2 ISL record. Along the way, Brooks put up lopsided scores against Kents Hill School, Tilton Academy and Proctor Academy, as well as solid wins against Middlesex School, Worcester Academy, St. George’s School and St. Mark’s School.

Brooks entered the smallschool New England Tournament as the sixth-seeded team and put up a valiant quarterfinal-round fight against third-seeded New Hampton School. The Brooks season ended on New Hampton ice, but three Brooksians took home postseason awards: Molly Driscoll ’23 was named to the All-New England team, and sixthform captain Brooke Rogers and fifth-former Maria Pierce were given All-New England Honorable Mention accolades.

McVeigh’s Legacy This winter season marked the last for Brooks 1st basketball coach John McVeigh, who will become the next head of school at Holderness School this summer. McVeigh’s impact on the Brooks basketball program cannot be overstated. In his first year at the helm, Brooks went 1–14 in the Independent School League.

Since then, the team has notched a 225–30 conference record, including a stretch of 84 straight league wins.

In the more than 60 years that preceded McVeigh’s tenure, the basketball team won one league and one New England championship. In the 18 years McVeigh has coached the team, Brooks has won seven ISL titles and three New England championships.

Inzirillo Strong in Net Boys 1st hockey goalie Jake Inzirillo ’22 had a strong sixth-form season.

He started every game and played almost every minute, racking up a 1.42 goals-against average. His .955 save percentage led all prep goalies.

Inzirillo gave Brooks a chance to win every time out and notched six shutouts. He was named to the All-NEPSAC team and to the All-ISL Eberhart team. Inzirillo was also named the Neutral Zone Goalie of the Year.

Postseason Recognition Christian Bejar ’22 led the way for the Brooks boys 1st soccer team this season, and he’s been recognized for it. Bejar, who plans to play soccer at Boston College next year, was named the ISL’s Most Valuable Offensive Player of the year and was also named to the All-NEPSAC team. He received all-state honors also, culminating in a place on the United Soccer Coaches All-America team. The squad finished its season in the New England semifinals and looks poised for another strong year this fall.

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History

Building on

The school plans to build a new boathouse that will honor and build on the crew program’s history, traditions and near-century as a foundational experience for so many Brooksians.

This look forward is exciting, and it is possible because of the program’s D I REC TO R O F ROWI NG Tote Smith knows where to bring strong past. Here, the prospective rowers when they visit the Brooks campus. “As soon as you crack the door into the upstairs of Lyman,” Smith says, Bulletin explores the referring to the school’s Lyman Boathouse, “you are immedimeaningful collection ately overcome by what we always talk about, which is that we stand on the shoulders of those who come before us.” of tangible objects That sense of history, of accomplishment, of support stretchthat memorialize the ing across generations of rowers: That’s special, Smith says, in part because it often steers Brooks students into the highest program’s history, and pinnacles of the sport. “One of the things that I love is that for why that tradition will be so many of our athletes, rowing at Brooks is just the beginning,” he says. “People create these things, and they come back. This honored and replicated was just the beginning of a trajectory in their life.” in the new space.

The Lyman Boathouse, and Holcombe Boathouse next to it, ← “The first thing you see when you walk into Holcombe Boathouse is this banner,” says girls crew captain Ashley Brzezenski ’22. “We have a tradition: As we come into the boathouse before a race, everyone jumps up and hits that banner.”

BY REBECCA A. BIN D ER

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have housed the Brooks crew program through the school’s first century. They’ve witnessed New England champions, national champions, and even Olympic champions find their footholds in the sport, and they’ve been the hub of generations of dedication, determination and belonging for Brooksians. That presence is felt through the buildings, but also through the items that reside inside the buildings: The artifacts of a program dedicated to greatness, to community and to growing students and athletes for the next stage of their lives. Here, we reflect on the importance of place, of home, of history to the crew program, and we reveal initial plans to honor that foundation as the school looks to the future.

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The Captain’s Logs The Brooks crew captains steward and add to the program’s “captain’s logs.” When faculty emeritus Ox Kingsbury P’59, GP’87 founded the crew program at Brooks, he began the tradition, which has been in practice ever since. The captain’s logs are a series of bound journals that serve as a diary for the program’s captains: They take notes on daily practices, use the pages as a scrapbook to document major events and write their thoughts on the program’s day-to-day feel.

The logs are kept by the school, and captains, when they take up their captaincy, are invited to read the previous logs as they begin their own.

Boys captain Luke Desmaison ’22 read through the previous captain’s logs when he received his own. He calls the logs a “very, very important piece of writing” that changed his sense of what it means to captain the Brooks crew.

“I don’t think I realized the extent of the history of Brooks School rowing,” Desmaison says.

“I know Brooks has been around forever and so has rowing at Brooks, but I didn’t know that everything was so well-documented and that you could actually see what it was to be a Brooks rower. There are records of every single practice in past years, and everything that happened at practice, the conditions, and every single boat lineup of every practice. It helped me realize the weight of what I’m carrying as captain. This means a lot to me, and now we’re trying to teach younger rowers that they’re part of a tradition that’s stretched on for almost 100 years now. We don’t take that lightly.”

Girls captain Ashley Brzezenski ’22 paged through her captain’s log the day she received it last spring. “I was excited to read it,” she says.

“I’m in the same position as all these people I’ve heard about. It feels as though I’m the equivalent of them. There’s such an extensive tradition in this program; I want future captains to understand the way I feel about it, and I want this to translate to the younger kids. I’m doing this now for everyone who has preceded me and has worked so hard to keep this tradition going.”

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“ There are records of every single practice in past years, and everything that happened at practice, the conditions, and every single boat lineup of every practice.

It helped me realize the weight of what I’m carrying as captain.”

Luke De sm a i s on ’22

↑ Girls crew captain Ashley Brzezenski’s captain’s log. The tradition of keeping captain’s logs has stretched for the entirety of the crew program’s existence.

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← The first page of the first Brooks crew captain’s log.

This foreword was drafted by program founder Ox Kingsbury. The text recounts the founding of the program and the construction of Lyman Boathouse, and then describes “the really great day” on which the first Brooks crew began its work on the “machines” in the school’s gym. The foreword concludes: “This book will be an attempt to keep an accurate record of crew, day by day, in the hope that someday it will be a source of enjoyment and interest to those whose names are ‘gilded’ in its pages and those who aspired to have their names enrolled.”

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COAC HES’ ROUNDTABLE

Sally Morris and Ed Kloman The Bulletin hosted a conversation between former crew coaches Sally Morris and Ed Kloman, and current Director of Rowing Tote Smith, via Zoom. Morris and Kloman shared stories of their time at Brooks and the ways in which the program helped them come into their own as coaches.

What do you see as your contribution to the Brooks crew program?

How did it evolve under your leadership?

Sally Morris: I showed up in 1985, which was really pivotal for my life.

I mean really and truly. I answered a job description for somebody who could teach Greek and coach crew, and I was right out of college. Liz O’Leary was the head coach at the time, and it was just a fantastic opportunity for me because she’s an Olympian and a great athlete herself and a huge role model. I don’t think I could have had a better introduction to being a coach than having Liz O’Leary be there.

Ed Kloman: I was a beneficiary of people who came before me who just set up a pattern. What I remember most is coming back early for spring breaks. And it was a tradition that the boys would sleep in the wrestling room, literally on the wrestling mats.

We would travel down to Harvard because I knew Harry well enough, and so we’d jump in and we’d row in the Harvard rowing tanks. I stuck by the traditions that were already there. The culture was also being surrounded by really excellent people, and it’s just more to me about the people who collected there, both past and present and now future.

Sally Morris: I’m most proud of rowing next to Ed in “Henley Hall,”

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in the mornings or early afternoons before practice [laughs].

We used to do an hour-long erg workout down there. In terms of the culture, I think that grungy, really hardcore, wild-man sort of place to be was a very good way to see the intensity of what Brooks School crew wanted to be. Some of the potential national team kids and Olympians would go down in the morning on their own and work out before school.

Ed Kloman: It was really important to think that it wasn’t boys rowing or girls rowing, that it was really about Brooks rowing. And I think to me, that’s always been really important to sort of knit the two together as opposed to being one or the other.

Sally Morris: There was a lot going on in just keeping that space, like you said, Ed, very inclusive of both so that there was representation everywhere. And then when I went back for that single ceremony a couple years ago, I was amazed at how much more they’ve done up there. It’s even more inviting.

What particular moment stands out as your proudest as a coach of the Brooks crew?

Sally Morris: Something I’m really proud of is the challenge of the erg tests we held right there at the boathouse. Our rowers improved a lot right there while working

together and looking over our own lake and racecourse. It was pretty inspiring to get in shape right on your own course.

Ed Kloman: The Brooks rowers were always willing to be led; they were willing to listen. They were willing to open their minds to different kinds of training techniques and how to approach it, whether it’s visualization to just how to prepare for a regatta, what you need to do for sleep. They’re incredibly absorbent. They ask a ton of questions.

We persevered through a lot of just crummy weather and we just got over to the far shore without sinking and then we’d do our work.

I keep coming back to that theme.

It was never about the bricks and mortar: We didn’t have the best boats and all of that, but we did have each other. And that was enough to really set Brooks rowing to continue the tradition that was established for me, and then carry the torch to the next person keeping it going.

Why is it important to have tangible reminders of those who have rowed for Brooks before you?

Ed Kloman: It’s always good to have that mentor, and also, to know that people before you have lived to tell about it. When you’re in the middle of an erg and your hands are being shredded, it’s just nice to know that, well, Doug Burden was once a knucklehead 15-year-old like

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→ Oars stand at the ready in Holcombe Boathouse.

Please visit www.brooksschool.org/alumni/ bulletin to read a coaches’ roundtable between Henry Fox, Booth Kyle ’89 and David Swift.

me. Just when you think you’re at that breaking point, to have those references of other folks who are like you shows your potential.

They took great pride in wearing that green; the green shirt meant something to them. When we put it on for a race day, it was a powerful symbol of commitment and responsibility to those who were in the past. So it was great for me as a coach to say, “Look, these folks have done it. You can do it too.

You’ve just got to put the work in.”

Sally Morris: I was just so humbled to be a part of that long tradition that I was somehow going to be in any way shaping people that had this past behind them. And so many of those guys were Harvard and Yale rowers and there I was, my little self. And it inspired me to really study the sport instead of just do the sport. And so there was always somebody there. Ed showed up; you had coached at Princeton too. So, coaches with all this experience, they were just there, and I wanted to be like them and I wanted to be as good as they were. So it inspired me to work harder, as hard at being a crew coach, certainly, as I did at being a Latin and Greek teacher. And the boathouse embodies that, from the plaques on the wall to the oars, to the trophies, to the posters.

“One of the biggest goals of a high school is to get boys and girls to understand that they are part of something bigger … What they do is important, how they carry themselves, the work ethic that they apply on a regular basis, those are all important things.

Sometimes, they need to be inspired by others. By having that history on the walls, being surrounded by great stories, that’s one of the best ways to inspire greatness. When you hear the stories or when you see those achievements, you can start saying, ‘Well, if someone else did it, then I could do that too.’”

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A Tour With the Captains Sixth-formers Ashley Brzezenski and Luke Desmaison, two of this year’s crew captains, toured the boathouses with the Bulletin in February 2022 to highlight the tangible objects they find most meaningful.

↑ The second floor of Lyman Boathouse at Brooks. This room is full of intentional memories — for example, photos of past crews and oars marking championships. It also brims with incidental memories — for example, benches crews meet on before races. “Every time I walk into this room, there’s a unique, very noticeable smell of old wood,” captain Desmaison says.

“I remember waiting in this room to race as a third-former and what it smelled like.”

↑ The benches that populate the upstairs room of Lyman Boathouse have long been a gathering place for crews before races. Rowers and their coxswain meet on a bench to center themselves and visualize the race ahead. “Caitlyn Ingram ’21, our coxswain last year, had us sitting back in that corner, visualizing, getting ready and gathering ourselves before our race,” Brzezenski says. “These benches really remind me of the ways in which our program is unified.” Director of Rowing Tote Smith agrees, and recounts program alumni from the 1970s describing a similar, time-tested ritual. “When alums talk about their experience, I guarantee they talk about this room and the importance of this room,” Smith says.

← “For me, the big thing is the oars,” Desmaison says. “That’s what we’re chasing: Winning New Englands or Nationals and hanging up an oar listing your name, your year, your boat, your seat, your time.” Included in the large collection of oars memorializing Brooksian victories are two oars documenting Ox Kingsbury’s time as a rower at Yale University.

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↑ The program’s shells are named for vaunted Brooks faculty, coaches, rowers and other people who are important to the program.

Desmaison says that’s important. “I christened the Ox Kingsbury,” he says. “You get to hear the stories of the people the shells are named for. We row in a shell named after an Olympian.” Brzezenski agrees. “We remember them,” she says. “We can see our history growing as we commemorate it and as we create it ourselves.”

← Oars that are no longer in use (far left). “When we have a championship crew, their names will go on one of these oars and it will go up in the rafters,” Desmaison says.

← In 2017, the program implemented a practical method of assigning crew to shells: Each athlete has their name written on a popsicle stick, and as the boats are set the popsicle sticks are hung on a board to indicate in which shell and seat a rower or coxswain sits. Those popsicle sticks have led to a meaningful newer tradition: On the night before the NEIRA regatta, the program hosts a formal dinner in the upstairs room of the Lyman Boathouse. Each graduating sixth-former is presented with their popsicle stick, which they “retire” by hanging it on the wall of the boathouse. “Every sixth-former I’ve known in this program is up there,” Brzezenski says. “They’re remembered forever here.

I think it’s really cool for people to leave this program knowing that they’ll always have their mark on it.”

← The upstairs room in Lyman Boathouse is lined with photos of past Brooks crews. “It’s really cool, from time to time, to just walk around the room and look at the different crews,” Brzezenski says. “We take similar photos every year.” Pictured in the background this photo are the retired sixth-form popsicle sticks, which also reside on the boathouse wall.

↑ Bow numbers from previous entries in the Head of the Charles Regatta.

The number is the place the crew finished in the previous year; the program takes pride in the number getting lower each year.

← The lineup board, which, pictured here, contains the final lineups from the 2021 season, minus the graduating sixthformers who retired their popsicle sticks last spring.

→ “These oars are trophies from our Amsterdam Cup, which is a fun tradition we have,” Brzezenski says. “It changes each year, but it’s essentially an intra-team competition.

It really helps bring our team and community together.”

← This ship’s clock, long dormant, came back to life when John Barker ’87, P’21, P’23 found the winder needed to operate it. Now, the program uses it for its intended purpose as a timepiece. Bells connected to the clock ring every four hours.

↑ “Before practices and during races, we all hang out at these benches outside Holcombe Boathouse,” Brzezenski says. “This area is a gathering place for our program — before practice, after practice, and other times. This space is special.”

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NEW B OATHOUSE

Forward Looking

Here, we share a preliminary rendering of the planned new boathouse, along with details on how it will benefit the crew program, the school and the ecology of Lake Cochichewick.

→ A spring 2022 draft rendering of the planned new Brooks boathouse.

STEWARDING THE LAKEFRONT The new Brooks boathouse will provide a number of environmental improvements to

Lyman Boathouse and Holcombe Boathouse have stood sentry on Lake Cochichewick and been home to the Brooks rowing program since its inception. The crew program at Brooks has grown due, in part, to the permanence and space that those structures provided. Lyman Boathouse was built for a school of less than 200 boys.

Now, Brooks enrolls more than 350 students, and the crew program alone has more than 80 students on its roster.

The current facility does not serve the full needs of the program or the school. Today, the Brooks crew program is at a crossroads: In order to remain strong, it would benefit from a new building that is better equipped and intentionally designed to serve its needs and support our student-athletes into the school’s second century.

Beginning this summer and pending approval from the Town of North Andover, the school will replace the two current boathouses with a new boathouse that will serve and support the program’s needs and growth well. The new boathouse seeks to provide the current and future crew — and the school community as a whole — with the training facilities, meeting spaces and storage and team rooms it needs. It balances that look toward the future with an intentional and thoughtful embrace of the past, and of the traditions, tangible objects and people that are such a seminal part of the current crew’s success.

We look forward to sharing more news and details on the new boathouse as construction gets underway.

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Lake Cochichewick, which provides drinking water to North Andover. Most importantly, the new boathouse will be located outside of the tributary wetland and the flood plain.

A vegetated buffer and a fieldstone wall will further separate the boathouse and its traffic from the wetlands that feed water to the lake. These are considerations that were not taken into account when Lyman Boathouse was built. The new boathouse will also be solar-oriented to help with temperature regulation.

SUPPORTING STUDENTS The new boathouse will be built in a way that is mindful of the regatta experience at Brooks. The construction aspires to provide a beautiful, intentional and functional lakefront location for both the Brooks crew and visiting crews to use as a base. We also intend the new boathouse construction to provide a better experience for fans of all rowers as they cheer their teams.

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T H O U G HTS F ROM ALU MN I

“Lake Cochichewick is a great place to row. Having this beautiful body of water on campus, where you can just walk down to the boathouse, is so special. I was very lucky to have that experience. I think the reason I love to row is because of my early experiences at Brooks.”

ELL IE LOGA N ’06, three-time Olympic gold medal winner, as told to the Bulletin in 2016

“In terms of the program today versus back in the early 1990s, many things are the same while there are some differences. Success in the sport still comes from hard work. The lake has not changed much, so the kids experience much of the natural environment we experienced 30 years ago. There are two notable differences.

The first, which is a great change, is how the girls and boys programs are [now] run as one. I think the full team culture [the program has] built is great. The other difference, which you can see across all sports, is that the kids train more in the offseason. I think during my entire three-year Brooks career I sat on an erg less than 10 times. Some kids do that in a single week these days.”

JO N G IB B O NS ’92 , P ’ 24

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FOLLOW IN G BOB DYLAN

OKS N P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y O F J O N A T H A NBRO TA P LBIULLET N ’ 6 I5

THE STARS JONATHAN TAPLI N ’65

HAS HAD A STORY B OOK C A R E E R

A chance meeting with music manager Albert Grossman sent Jonathan Taplin ’65 into the world of icons such as Bob Dylan and the Band, and then into a career in music, film and the intersection of media, culture and technology.

STORY BY REBECCA A. BINDER

J

onathan Taplin ’65 came to Brooks with a set of expectations placed on him by his family: He was to go to college, go to Harvard Law School and then move home to Shaker Heights, Ohio, where he would work alongside his father and take up the mantle of the family’s law firm.

That’s not how it worked out. At Brooks, Taplin found his voice and galvanized his values as the Civil Rights movement grew in the world surrounding campus. He matriculated to Princeton University, and then his future changed. Fresh off of his Brooks graduation, Taplin got a gig helping move equipment for the Kweskin Jug Band at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The band’s manager, the legendary and influential Albert Grossman, offered Taplin a summer job as road manager for the Kweskin Jug Band two years later, and Taplin’s path was set.

With Grossman as a defining force in his life over the next decade, Taplin became the tour manager for Bob Dylan and the Band. He witnessed firsthand the power that music has to expand the individual’s and society’s collective vision of what could be. As Taplin writes in his recently published memoir, “The Magic Years: Scenes from a Rock-and-Roll Life,” the sense of possibility that art carries is hopeful; it “allows culture to be at its most vital and powerful, even in difficult times.”

In “The Magic Years,” Taplin explores this idea as he recounts his own career in the music industry, alongside greats such as Janis Joplin, George Harrison and the Rolling Stones; as film producer, and producer of the Martin Scorsese film “Mean Streets”; as an executive at Merrill Lynch; as creator of the Internet’s first video-on-demand service; and now, as a cultural critic and author focused on the ways in which technology has and will continue to affect our culture and its foundations. Here, and with permission, the Bulletin excerpts portions of “The Magic Years” to share some of Taplin’s memories from his extraordinary life, and his thoughts on topics ranging from his time at Brooks to the role musicians and artists must play in our collective future.

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EXCER PTS FROM “ TH E MAGIC YEARS ” On Frank D. Ashburn, founding headmaster of Brooks: The first headmaster of Brooks was a twenty-five-year-old Groton and Yale graduate named Frank Ashburn, and he was still headmaster when I arrived in 1961. We named him Prune, and his wife Phyllis we called Fille. They were both tightly wound and spoke with the Boston version of a British upper-class accent.

Ashburn had the kind of slicked-back hairstyle you might see in a silent movie from the 1920s, and he wore small wireframe glasses. His pinched-in mouth led to the nickname Prune. He had the appearance of a stodgy old man, but, as I eventually found out, he was, unlike many of his station, open to new information.

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<< Jonathan Taplin’s new book, “The Magic Years,” is a memoir that recounts his journey through the music and film industries, and that discusses the effect technology has on our collective artistry and culture. In the cover photo, Taplin is on the far right, facing the camera.

On Students for a Democratic Society and its Port Huron Statement:

On the evolution of Bob Dylan’s songwriting from folk music to rock-n-roll:

What’s so astonishing about the music Dylan and the Hawks made in the eighteen months they were on tour is that it prefigured punk rock. Every night was a battle. Bob would tell his band as they went onstage, “Don’t stop playing, no matter what.” Occasionally, angry fans would try to storm the stage, and Robbie Robertson said he sometimes felt he might need to use his Telecaster as a weapon to fight his way off. << An article in the Brooks Shield recounting Jonathan Taplin’s and other students’ participation in a march through Boston led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Though some of the Port Huron Statement can seem dated, its emphasis on “participatory democracy” was extraordinarily prescient … If only the Democratic Party had been able to reconnect with its Jeffersonian roots, with its emphasis on the innovative power to be discovered and developed at the state and local level, as opposed to believing that all wisdom flowed from a gigantic (and distant) federal government. Those of us who study innovation realize that true breakthroughs come from organizations that have pushed power out to the edges.

On the role technology will play in our democracy and culture:

In an age when there is so much fear around the rise of autocratic regimes … we need to remember our source of power is in these ideas of freedom, not technology and weaponry …

On Mr. Ashburn’s reaction to Taplin’s piece in the Shield advocating for Brooks to integrate, Ultimately I have faith that our and following Taplin’s participating in a march in country can reform itself and that Boston led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: the techno-determinists can be At my school, it was a moment of change. When I brought to heel. And I believe that reported back to Frank Ashburn, I sensed that even if Bill Coffin had upset him a year earlier, the tide of artists can be part of that effort. history had changed and he knew it … By the time I graduated, the school had begun to transform itself into the wonderfully diverse institution it is today.

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E XC E RP TS FROM “ T H E M AGIC YE ARS ”

What the politicians of the right didn’t understand was that the Berlin Wall came down not because Reagan was any smarter or tougher than Gorbachev but because the world itself had changed.

Bruce Springsteen, George Lucas, and Marvin Gaye had broken through the wall years before; Gorbachev was just smart enough to finally accept that a wall wasn’t going to keep his people from the type of freedom they were seeing on MTV Europe and listening to on pirated American CDs. On the ways in which streaming music services have changed songwriting and artistry:

DAV ID GA N S/ W IKIM E DIA

On the ways in which music helped usher in democracy in the former Soviet Union:

On “The Last Waltz,” Martin Scorsese’s documentary concert film of the Band’s final performance. The film featured appearances from musical icons Muddy Waters, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Dr. John. Taplin was the executive producer:

Looking at “The Last Waltz” nearly half a century later, it is an astonishing film that captures a group of musicians at the height of their craft … It is a film for the time capsule, filled with truth and sorrow, but always based in the essential notion that this wonderful wellspring of American music that flowed from the churches and bars of the Mississippi Delta could be shared by musicians from Arkansas, Ontario, Ireland, England, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Vancouver.

There was common ground.

Today’s streaming scene has made even U2 change their approach. Back in 1987, the Edge would begin “Where the Streets Have No Name” with forty seconds of ambient noise. Then a guitar arpeggio enters and accelerates into the driving rhythm of the drums and bass, which arrive about a minute into the song. Nearly two minutes pass before Bono starts to sing. They still do this onstage, but services like Spotify have reshaped the music business — and pop songs. If the singing doesn’t start immediately, users click to the next tune.

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Above: Photograph of “The Last Waltz.” Here, the Band with Bob Dylan and other guests performing “I Shall Be Released.”

>> Jonathan Taplin (center, black coat) with the Band at Woodstock.

Manager Albert Grossman, who fundamentally changed the course of Taplin’s career through a chance meeting and the offer of a summer job, is pictured at far left.

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On managing the Band during its appearance at Woodstock:

On Sunday at 1 p.m. the helicopter sent by the festival landed in my backyard in Woodstock. The Band and I piled in and within twenty minutes were coming up over a ridge in Bethel, which revealed a sea of humanity dancing below to Sly and the Family Stone. It was a stunning, almost biblical sight. There was a sense that Youth Culture had reached some sort of critical mass … The fact that three hundred thousand kids were camped out in the mud below us in order to celebrate their culture, with no regard to the responsibilities of adulthood, must have opened the eyes to the advertising executives that read the morning paper over the weekend. If there was a single point at which the symbols of rebellion got co-opted

by Madison Avenue, it was those three days in August.

Also by Jonathan Taplin Jonathan Taplin’s 2017 book, “Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy,” tells the story of how a group of “monopoly firms” — Facebook, Amazon and Google — have come to determine the future of the media, publishing and news industries. Taplin offers a forward-thinking blueprint for how artists can reclaim their audiences by working together and using lessons from the past. “Move Fast and Break Things” draws on Taplin’s own career to reimagine the ways in which we interact with the firms that dominate the Internet.

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A CON VE RSATION WITH

Jonathan Taplin The Bulletin sat down with Jonathan Taplin to discuss his life and work, and to get his opinion on some pressing current issues in technology and the media.

Tell me more about your time at Brooks. What did it feel like to be here during the 1960s in the middle of the Civil Rights movement and increased efforts at social justice? Those notions didn’t really exist at Brooks. They weren’t really in anyone’s consciousness, and that’s why I felt like such an outsider. Because I was managing editor of the Shield, the campus newspaper, I had a platform and I was able to write about it. That caused more trouble, though there were some teachers who were supportive. Fortunately, a few students became supportive and then went down to Boston with me to march with Dr. King. The fact that Mr. Ashburn was willing to accept what I thought about integrating the school was helpful. And then, when Brooks became coeducational, I think it changed radically, and the idea of what it means to be a Brooks School student has continued to evolve. In the end, Mr. Ashburn gave me the Allen Ashburn Prize at graduation, which was a shock to me. It turned out that he had a sense of grace about the whole thing, and I think that’s partially because he was a religious man and he understood that was the right thing to do.

Your dad wanted you to go to college, go to Harvard Law School and then follow in his footsteps at his law firm. Your career ended

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up pretty far from that. Do you attribute that to fate or to luck?

It’s a combination of both things.

I mean, in some sense, there was a certain amount of luck involved. I wanted to go to the Newport Folk Festival in July of 1965, the year that I graduated from Brooks. I was determined to do that, but the fact that Bob Dylan would go there and then change the whole tenor of the music business; that I would happen to be there at that seminal time and feel the extraordinary energy that was coming out of that scene. I got sucked in and there was no way I was going to law school after that.

The fact that the most powerful man in the music business, Albert Grossman, took a shine to this 18-year-old kid and thought that maybe I could do something, maybe I could work for him: That made it even easier because then I knew I could make some money from it and I could be around that extraordinary change in the culture.

I wonder if you can speak to the ways in which changing ways of making a profit in music and media has changed the idea of “culture eating strategy for breakfast.” With the rise of streaming services, have the arts become more mainstream and safe? Well, look. There’s always been pop, whether it’s in the music or the movie business. Probably it wasn’t until George Lucas came along and

did “Star Wars” or Michael Jackson came along and did “Thriller” that people understood pop was a global phenomenon, not a U.S. phenomenon, and that the amount of money that a single piece of intellectual property could earn was so huge.

I mean, it was beyond the ken of anybody that I knew. Bob Dylan’s first album sold 4,000 copies, and “Thriller” sold 60 million copies.

The money became very interesting for a lot of people, but that didn’t prevent the more artistically oriented musician or filmmaker from continuing to try to make the work they wanted to make. That was never going to be super popular around the world. But you could still get them made, there was still a mechanism for them to get made.

And quite honestly, I think that continues to this day. So as long as the system continues to make not just the Marvel Cinematics Universe, but makes both kinds of movies, we’ll be okay. The people who want the Marvel Cinematics Universe will be able to get that, and the people who want “Don’t Look Up” or “Drive My Car” will be able to find that too. That’s a hopeful sign, and I think the same thing is happening in the music business. There’s still some really interesting stuff getting made.

My sense is that it’s just necessary for the industry to be able to keep financing both the super-pop stuff and the artistic stuff.

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<< Jonathan Taplin (right) with Janis Joplin in July 1968.

J O N AT H A N TA P L I N

JANIS JOPLIN Jonathan Taplin ‘65.

Below: The cover art to the Rolling Stones album “Exile on Main St.” Jonathan Taplin suggested in a meeting with Mick Jagger that the photographer Robert Frank create the upcoming album cover, then recruited and handled Frank throughout the process. This cover art is widely considered one of the best of all time.

What do you feel that you have left to do? You’ve had an amazing career; what do you want to do next? I’m in the midst of writing a book called “The End of Reality: The Metaverse, Mars, Crypto, QAnon, and the Age of Unreason.” The thesis of the book is that we have now entered into a world in which nothing is true and everything is spectacle.

It’s a postmodern reality in which even the richest people on the planet — Bezos, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg — have basically decided to give up.

The whole notion of the metaverse is that reality sucks, so you can go and put this headset on for eight hours a day and live in an alternative reality that won’t suck. You can pretend like you have a great mansion and you can fly through the air like Superman and all of this. It will cost you some Bitcoin, but you can live in a total fantasy world. Some time in the last few years we just disconnected from reality, and we’re living with the result of that. It’s partially a human issue. In other words, it is in the realm of the spiritual more than the realm of the

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technical. These are people who are lost, who have no sense that there’s any meaning in life. I still believe that there are higher reasons for us to be here. We have to keep coming back to, well, thinking about what it means to be a human. Hopefully schools like Brooks continue to try to ground their pedagogy in things that have to do with virtue and humanness, and love and the bigger virtues.

>> Jonathan Taplin ‘65 was the coxswain for the Brooks crew team as a third-former.

Here, he is pictured seated on the ground.

“Hopefully schools like Brooks continue to try to ground their pedagogy in things that have to do with virtue and humanness, and love and the bigger virtues.”

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Four sixth-formers created a Winter Term independent course in which they explored architecture through LEGO. Pictured here is a model of Peabody House at Brooks.

Boston City Hall is to the right.

A New Look at

WINTER TERM* Brooks reintroduced Winter Term in January 2022, following a year off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The campus buzzed with the excitement of three weeks of focused classes on everything from quilting to raku pottery to stage productions. Newer Brooks faculty had the chance to engage with Winter Term for the first time, and their fresh ideas lent a new dimension to the term. The Bulletin dropped in on Winter Term classes taught by new Brooks faculty — and one independent in which students charted their own path — to hear their thoughts on the benefits of the break from the traditional school year.

*WIN T ER T ER M: An intense, three-week, one-topic course of study held each January. The goal of Winter Term is to put into practice the concept of “depth over breadth,” something that supports the school’s mission of providing the most meaningful educational experiences Brooks students will have. The single-course structure of Winter Term allows students and faculty to work together even more closely than they do in regular classes.

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BY REBECCA A. BINDER

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Crime Junkies Faculty: Sarah Downey, Alexandria Sacco and Susannah Voigt

Ella Finegold ’24 uses an iPad to operate a robot used by SWAT teams in hostage situations.

The class enjoyed a visit by two officers from the Essex County Sheriff’s Office.

FR OM TH E COU R SE C ATA LO G

Over the course of the “Crime Junkies” Winter Term class, students were asked to work together in small groups to solve a murder mystery and then create a podcast about it.

Here, a group’s notes, files and evidence fill a table.

Brooks faculty representing three different academic disciplines — mathematics, science and English — joined forces for this class, which asked students to investigate a mocked-up crime and record podcasts on their findings. The course touched on forensic investigation, statistics and analysis, and storytelling. It also brought in real life: The group traveled to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, for example, to learn more about its infamous and unsolved art heist. On the day the Bulletin visited, Sergeant Foley and Officer Sacco from the Essex County Sheriff’s Office met with the group. The officers shared their knowledge and experiences working in the criminal justice system and in high-risk situations, and gave students a chance to try on gear and operate a robot used by SWAT teams in hostage situations.

From the Faculty: “We hope our students come out of this class with curiosity; that they come out of this class thinking about the world in slightly different ways and with the ability to access information about questions that they have. A podcast is a 30-minute conversation about something that can be huge.

Knowing how to find out more information and being curious is one piece of that. Storytelling is another.”

— Susannah Voigt

“Students will investigate a fake crime (inspired by true events) through a podcast they will write and perform.

They will utilize skills such as fingerprint analysis, blood spatter science and human anatomy, while also discussing historical events. We will head out into the field and investigate a ‘real’ crime scene, putting what we learn to the ultimate test, and we’ll also watch some films to get us even more inspired.”

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Teen-Noir: A Cinematic Winter Term Faculty: Max Nagel and Sonja Nagel

From a Student: “I really like this class because now, when I watch movies, I notice so much more and it makes my thoughts expand when I’m watching.

It’s also just really fun to have a break from regular classes, and get to know about something new and interesting.”

— Emily Haley ’25

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The “Teen-Noir” class learns about noir-style lighting — and how to capture it well with the settings on an iPhone — using Elsa Barton ’25 as a portrait subject.

“Teen-Noir will be devoted to the creation of a StudentNoir film and daily screenings of classic Hollywood noir films filled with vigilante antiheroes, corruption, murder, organized crime, existentialism, duplicity and jazz. We will learn the components of noir: its themes, its narrative structures and its aesthetics. We will study noir’s roots in German Expressionism, Depression-Era gangster movies, pulp fiction and hard-boiled detective fiction. We will consider the contemporaneous cultural moment and its factors in the post-World War II America that gave rise to the genre … [S]tudents will be exposed to art history, brilliant directors and an understanding of how film/moving images came to be … Students will also make a film of their own! They’ll be introduced to the technical and fundamental skills needed to create short films, such as visual/audio capture techniques and Adobe Premiere Pro. By exploring the medium through screenings and lighting demos, students will study narrative structures, creative concepts, editing techniques and visual rules to understand the Noir style.”

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F R O M T H E CO U RS E CATALOG

When the Bulletin visited the Teen-Noir Winter Term class, students were learning about noir-style lighting and photography techniques in preparation for creating their own short films in noir style. Faculty Max Nagel and Sonja Nagel, who teach photography, and English and art at Brooks, respectively, combined their talents and knowledge. Max Nagel focused on the noir technique — the lighting, photography and filming style — and Sonja Nagel focused on the storytelling process as students created their short films.

Max Nagel notes that the Winter Term format, where classes meet for a few hours at a time, lends itself well to the arts. “The students get so much more invested and focused,” he says. “You can teach, show students something, have them ask questions about it, and then let them try it themselves and take your own hands off it. You can lose that thread easily when that’s split up over the course of a week.” Sonja Nagel speaks of the diverse interests students had. “Some students were attracted to the acting portion of the class,” she says. “Some were more interested in the screenwriting process, and the storyboarding and the thumbnails. Some were really interested in directing and managing, and then some were really interested in editing. That’s the cool thing about film: There’s always a role for everyone. There are a lot of different ways in which different students can get something fun out of it.”

A Winter Term Independent Course: LEGO Architecture For the first time this year, students were able to craft their own independent Winter Term courses, and two courses emerged. In one of them, four sixth-formers — Edo Spadaccini, Luke Desmaison, Alex Tobias and Adam Jac — used the opportunity to create a course that took a fresh look at architecture through the LEGO building system. The group studied various styles of architecture and traveled off campus to view buildings of architectural significance. For example, they took in Boston’s City Hall, examples of Colonial-era architecture and several buildings on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus.

They then returned to campus and built models of the buildings they studied using LEGO. “Winter Term, as we have had it for a long time, has been really about exploring passions and curiosities,” says Interim Curriculum Coordinator Joanna McDonough. “A lot of that is driven by our amazing faculty and the passions that they have in these various areas. As we were thinking about how to empower our students to say, ‘I have a passion in a specific area and I would appreciate spending three weeks working on this project,’ the independent course option emerged as a way to extend that as an on-campus or surrounding-community experience.”

F ROM TH E COUR S E PR OP OSA LS

Course participants at work building a model of the Macallen Building, which is located in South Boston. The group picked the Macallen Building, which is the home to a parent of one of the students, because they thought it was a good example of modern architecture.

“Our goal is to be able to examine the many different styles of architecture that often go unappreciated and develop a new respect for the creative styles of certain specific architectures in our own backyard. LEGO is the best medium in which to do this, as it allows us to use what we have learned about architecture, reconstruct our own versions of a style and also develop our own styles. Architectural changes are a sign of the times, and architecture changes as countries industrialize and develop. Especially today, we can see the implications of architecture; new buildings are being built in lessdeveloped neighborhoods, effectively contributing to exploding gentrification in many cities.”

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A Basement Bonanza: The group made more than one trip to a local LEGO store for specialized and specific blocks that they needed, but much of the LEGO they used came from their own childhood toy caches and their basements at home. The group reports that it took them almost a week to sort the thousands of blocks they used by color before the model-building could start in earnest.

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Dream It, Design It, Build It! Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century Faculty: Shami Bery First-year Brooks faculty Shami Bery came to Brooks with experience as an entrepreneur, and he was eager for Brooksians to apply “design thinking” to their own talents and inspirations. “Design thinking is a process by which you take a problem or idea, or a challenge that you’ve encountered, and make real solutions that address that,” he explains.

Bery’s Winter Term course, he says, allowed Brooks students to use the school’s makerspace lab to create products that addressed something they’d noticed in the world, or that they had long had an interest in but no way to make tangible.

“The thing that always surprises me with high schoolers is the reservoir of abilities that they naturally possess, and the willingness to put those abilities at the forefront when given an opportunity to make something real,” Bery says. “I wanted them to catch the design bug, and have them all want to come back into this space and think in the way that they were thinking during those three weeks.”

— Darrel Yepdo ’22, who worked on creating a clothing line geared toward Black athletes and families

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“Do you have big ideas? Are you interested in designing products? Have you always wanted to monetize your expertise? This course focuses on dreaming, designing and building your own business idea! We will use design thinking to create a product or service that helps to address a problem (small or large) that you encounter in your life or in the world at large. Join us and you will learn how to pitch an idea for funding, and combine teamwork with Makerspace technologies to develop, prototype and take to market your original idea.”

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F R OM THE COU RS E C ATALOG

From a Student: “This class was my first choice.

I wanted a place in which I could speak my mind, and this class helped me be creative and think more deeply about myself.”

Shami Bery (left) works with Eleonore Kiriza ’22 during Winter Term. Kiriza, a talented sketch artist, was experimenting with different ways to transform her sketches into sculpture using Makerspace technologies.

B R O O K S CO NNEC T IO NS

BROOKS CONNECTIONS IN THIS SECTION 46 Alumni News 50 Class Notes 73 In Memoriam

WHAT’S IN A NAME? The Brooks fire trail in spring. Today, the fire trail is used for scenic walks on the Brooks lakefront, but it used to have a more urgent purpose. According to the school archives, the building that is today Russell House was designed by noted architect Ernest Machado and built in 1902. It was rebuilt in 1906 following a fire, and again in 1925 following a second fire. Both total building losses were due, in part, to the local fire department being unable to bring water to the site quickly enough. As a result, a fire hydrant was installed on the lakefront, and the so-called “fire trail” was cleared to access it easily.

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BR OOKS CON N ECT I O N S

A LUM N I N EWS

Giving Day Success Brooks held its annual Giving Day on February 17, and once again, the mighty Brooks community stepped up to show its support for the school. At the end of the 24-hour Brooks Fund push, 762 community members had donated a total of $442,779, exceeding the school’s goal of 750 gifts.

The class of 1975 logged the overall highest participation rate. The class of 1985 had the most donors, and the class of 1992 had the top participation among reunion classes. New donors had an immediate impact, as $10,000 of new-donor gifts were matched by a generous graduate.

Finally, the larger community benefited from your generosity: Each gift made toward Giving Day also secured a donated supply to the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence, an organization with longstanding and meaningful ties to Brooks.

Thank you for your support on Giving Day. Your generosity will immediately impact all areas of day-to-day life at Brooks.

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A group of Brooksians shows its appreciation to Giving Day donors and volunteers outside Ashburn Chapel.

A LU M N I BRI E FS Alexander Taylor ’93 became chairman and chief executive officer of Atlantabased Cox Enterprises on January 1. Taylor formerly served as the company’s president and chief executive officer. Cox is a global company whose subsidiaries include Cox Automotive and cable and broadband giant Cox Communications. In Taylor’s career at Cox, he has served in numerous executive roles in the company’s cable, newspaper, radio and television subsidiaries.

SAVE T H E DAT E Upcoming On-Campus Events

Alumni Weekend June 10 – 11, 2022 Please visit www. brooksschool.org/ alumni/events for information on upcoming alumni events on campus and in your hometown.

We look forward to seeing you soon!

Nick Marckwald ’99 continues to gain a following for his Cincinnati, Ohio, snack food company, Hen of the Woods. Recently, Graeter’s Ice Cream, a beloved local ice cream chain in the Cincinnati area, introduced a “Midnight Crunch Sundae.” The delicious dessert confection features Graeter’s Midnight Snack ice cream — which contains peanut butter cups, chocolate-covered pretzels and brownie pieces — topped with sea-salted kettle chips from Hen of the Woods, hot fudge and whipped cream.

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B R O O K S CO NNEC T IO NS

<< Current Brooksians took the alumni board up on the opportunity to meet and learn networking and professional skills from a group of graduates in January.

A WINTER TERM RUN-IN

Networking Seminar Five Brooks graduates offered their time, expertise and services back to the school and its current students in mid-January as part of an alumni board effort. Current Brooksians learned networking do’s and dont’s, how to draft a resume, how to build a LinkedIn profile and how to use social media as a positive marketing tool. The event in the Science Forum featured five mentors from across the career spectrum: Kelsey Domoracki ’11, Rachel Feingold ’14, Gabi Hillner ’17, Katie Keating ’88 and Hannah Latham ’17. Students didn’t just walk away with knowledge and some new connections: Latham, who is a professional photographer, offered students a chance to have professional headshots taken at the event.

Assistant Director of Alumni Programs Angela Augusta facilitated the event, and she says she enjoyed watching current students find ways to interact informally and organically with graduates. “It was a great opportunity for students to meet some exceptional alumni,” Augusta says.

The Winter Term class “The Great Outdoors,” led by English teacher Tim Benson and chemistry teacher Leo Lafond, braved below-zero temperatures to navigate New Hampshire’s Tuckerman Ravine in mid-January. Along the way, the class ran into Emily Enos ’02. The group was delighted to meet a Brooks graduate in the course of its adventure!

B RO O KS WO R KS Henry Lee ’64 and a small group of China scholars recently published the book “Foundations for a Low-Carbon Energy System in China.” The book details ways in which China can reduce its carbon emissions. China accounts for more than a quarter of the world’s emissions and is the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses. China has committed to stabilize its emissions and dramatically increase the share of electricity produced from non-fossil fuels by 2030. In the longer term, China has also committed to reaching net-zero emissions by 2060. “Foundations for a Low-Carbon Energy System in China” explores how near-term policy shifts can affect long-term decarbonization pathways. The book focuses primarily on China’s electricity sector and provides a valuable resource for researchers, policymakers, and energy and climate experts.

Lee is the Jassim M. Jaidah Family Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is also faculty

BROOK S WORK S WA NT E D Have you recently published a book? Has your album just dropped? Tell us about it. We want to hear about your creative successes, and we want to highlight your work in an upcoming issue of the Bulletin. To have your work considered for inclusion in a future installment of Brooks Works, please send a review copy to:

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Editor, Brooks Bulletin 1160 Great Pond Road North Andover, MA 01845

The magazine does not purchase the materials listed in Brooks Works. The materials we receive will be donated to the Luce Library or another appropriate outlet. The Bulletin reserves the right to reject works that, in the judgment of the editorial staff, do not promote the mission or values of Brooks School or the Bulletin.

co-chair of the sustainability science program and a senior lecturer in public policy.

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A Crucial Message A Brooks graduate returns to campus to address students on healthy relationships and abuse, and to share the story of college teammate Yeardley Love.

Brooks graduate Whitaker “Whit” Hagerman Willocks ’05 returned to the Brooks campus in April to address the school community during a special all-school gathering. Willocks is a member of the Brooks Athletics Hall of Fame and currently assistant director of college advising and girls lacrosse coach at Kimball Union Academy. Willocks was previously a lacrosse captain at the University of Virginia and the teammate of Yeardley Love, who was killed by her abusive ex-boyfriend shortly before Love’s college graduation.

Willocks spoke on healthy relationships, on how to recognize relationship abuse and find support for yourself or for a friend, and on the goals of the One Love Foundation. The One Love foundation, founded

by Yeardley Love’s family, empowers young people with the knowledge to identify and avoid abusive relationships. Today, according to the foundation’s website, One Love is the national leader in preventing relationship violence and abuse.

The talk was well-received, and students were spellbound for the duration of Willocks’ time on stage. After, Willocks reflected on what it meant to her to return to Brooks and address current students. “I felt so at home here [that] there were things I shared today that I’ve never shared before,” Willocks said. “I was just trying to look into the eyes of the students, and I hope they caught a piece of it or that it resonated a little bit so if they take one thing away, they’re better prepared for life beyond Brooks. Then, I’ve done my part.”

“ That loyalty of knowing when to stand up to a friend, when to stand up for a friend, that matters. How you treat people matters, and how people treat you really matters.”

Whitaker Hagerman Willocks ’05, addressing the Brooks campus community in April.

The Brooks campus community hears Whitaker Hagerman Willocks ’05 in the main theater in the Center for the Arts.

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RECENT ALUMNI EVENTS We’ve been so glad to be able to host in-person alumni events recently. Here are photos from recent events held in Denver, Colorado; San Francisco; and Washington, D.C.

01 From left to right: Chris Erwin ’94, Bob Nylen P’13, Gay Nylen P’13 and Sean Nagle ’99 enjoy time together in Denver, Colorado in early April. 02 Giuls Istanbullu ’18 (left) and Jason Gold ’18 at the Brooks event in Washington, D.C. in April. 03 From left to right: Head of School John Packard, John Lewis ’65, Jon Cirome ’91 and Matt Cascio ’91 enjoyed the April event in Washington, D.C. 04 From left to right: Evan Merriam ’11, Omotayo Ajose ’99, Assistant Director of Alumni Programs Angela Augusta, Riley Jackson ’14, Lowell Abbott ’10 and Graham Grieve ’14 gathered in San Francisco in April.

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Mollet Otieno ’23 in her woodworking class. Courses in stagecraft and woodworking have become popular arts classes at Brooks.

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Ollie Niess ’53 Hal Hamilton ’53 interviewed classmate Ollie Niess about his time at Brooks and what he took with him from the school after Prize Day. HAMILTON: Ollie, how did you come to Brooks and what were your first impressions?

NIESS: Brooks was picked by my parents, who had an Air Force officer friend from North Andover and knew of Frank Ashburn. As my father was an Army Air Force doctor and Ashburn’s father was an Army doctor, there was a natural connection, and over time the two became friends. On a sunny fall day in 1948, I was dropped off by my parents, who were concerned about my happiness. I met some guys who were throwing a football around and enjoyed my experience with them. My mother heard me laughing and immediately saw I had fit in and felt better, a positive experience for both of us. [Ed. Note: During Niess’ time at Brooks, his father became Surgeon General of the Air Force.]

HAMILTON: Did you make friends right off?

NIESS: Yes. Even though I was an Army brat and had few similarities with the New York and Boston boys, I made friends easily. Sports were the common denominator, and good senses of humor helped tremendously. We were all in the same situation and closely shared our experiences with each other.

HAMILTON: Who was your favorite teacher?

NIESS: Ray Eusden was my alltime favorite, and we became good friends when I was his Peabody House prefect. His wife, Priscilla, was also very good to me.

HAMILTON: What were your favorite courses?

NIESS: I enjoyed and did well in my history courses, which led me to majoring in history at Duke. Oscar Root’s science courses were good, as were Doc Scudder’s courses. I even enjoyed Fessenden Wilder’s English courses, which were tough, but I liked and respected him and was forced to learn well. Academics were difficult for me from the beginning. My first year I took English, Latin, French, algebra and shop. My English was poor to start with, and I was supposed to learn Latin and French! Having Leo Cronin as my coach in three sports for five years was an important, satisfying experience. He taught us fair play and to never give up regardless of the score. I followed this dictum all my life and coached my son and his teammates never to quit, ever. This belief helped win games.

HAMILTON: How did you regard Chapel?

NIESS: Believing in Frank Ashburn made it easy to appreciate Chapel.

I even learned to like Episcopalian

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services, which were quite different from generalized Presbyterian services I had been exposed to at military bases during my upbringing.

HAMILTON: Sports being your thing, what can you say about them?

NIESS: Without going into detail, I think the records I broke in football, basketball and particularly baseball, where I was a four-year starting pitcher, some of which may still stand, speak for themselves. With luck, some of our narrow defeats, which I still vividly recall, could have turned into more.

Teammates became valued friends in the process. In being elected to the Brooks Athletics Hall of Fame, I accepted on behalf of all the other fine athletes of the 1950s who deserved this award as well, including Lud Kramer ’51, Butch Smith ’52, Pete Soby ’52, Bob Saltonstall ’52, Tim Keating ’53, Pete Ward ’53 and others.

HAMILTON: What about discipline at Brooks?

NIESS: It was fair and fitting, and I don’t think anyone was disciplined unless he deserved it.

HAMILTON: Did you take anything away when you left?

NIESS: Just the experience of attending a great school, now greater in every way, and lasting friendships.

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LISA P ETZOL D ’00

A Career in Diplomacy Lisa Petzold ’00 used the intellectual inspiration and opportunities she found at Brooks to discover her passion for living and working abroad. She’s now made a career of foreign service. Petzold is this year’s recipient of the Alumni Shield award.

Foreign service officer Lisa Petzold ’00 grew up a mile from the Brooks campus, and she says she always really liked school. “I was always sort of a nerdy bookworm and into school,” she says. “Now that I’m older, I’m very proud of being nerdy and a bookworm, and I think I was proud of that when I was at Brooks, too.” Petzold was attracted to the academic challenge that Brooks posed, and she entered Brooks determined to chase down those opportunities. Her brother, John Petzold ’03, joined her on campus three years later.

One of the first opportunities Petzold found waiting for her at Brooks was a choice of languages to study; her decision, and its consequences, resonates through her life now. “Taking French sounded exotic and exciting and fun,” she says.

Petzold took third-form French classes with former faculty Susan Wilmer. Although she entered school expecting to focus on math and science courses — she once dreamed of being a marine biologist — Petzold found herself falling in love with the cultural and linguistic aspects of learning French.

“French did not come easily to me when I started,” Petzold says, “but Mrs. Wilmer made French class so exciting and fun. I loved it.”

Petzold’s experience led her, she says, to School Year Abroad, a study abroad program that allows students to study in a foreign country for a full academic year.

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“I wasn’t really looking for something like School Year Abroad,” Petzold says. “I was a day student at Brooks, so I wasn’t even living away from home like the boarders. I hadn’t spent more than two weeks away from home, and I think I really shocked my parents when I came home one day and told them I wanted to apply for School Year Abroad.”

A Pivotal Experience “School Year Abroad happened, and it completely changed my future plans and my outlook,” Petzold says. Her year abroad in Rennes, France, gave her an opportunity, at the age of 16, “to experience being a cultural diplomat.” She made that her career: She’s worked for the United States Department of State for almost 13 years, and

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she’s currently a foreign service officer posted to London.

“The first experience I had doing that work, being drawn to it, was when I was in Rennes,” Petzold remembers. “Having to explain and defend the United States while sitting around a dinner table with my host family, all while speaking a different language. It gave me a taste for travel, for that kind of cultural debate. As soon as School Year Abroad ended, I started looking at international affairs programs because I had the bug and I felt ready.”

Petzold’s career at the State Department has seen her perform a variety of roles in a variety of locations. She’s worked as a consular officer in San Salvador, El Salvador; as a cultural attaché in Beirut, Lebanon; and as a political affairs officer in Paris. Now, in London, Petzold works as a deputy cultural attaché. Petzold explains that her current role focuses on public diplomacy and working with the British public.

“Each job has been different and each has had its excitement and challenges,” Petzold says. “I’m just incredibly proud to be able to do this. I think the opportunity to represent the United States overseas is not a job; it’s a privilege. It’s also a way for me to stay intellectually challenged and stimulated, and to try living somewhere new every few years.”

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Working for Equity In addition to her work abroad on behalf of the United States, Petzold has also worked to ensure that the State Department itself is a welcoming and inclusive work environment for women. She recently served as a mid-level board member of Executive Women @ State, the employee affinity group focused on achieving gender parity at the State Department.

“I think the State Department is currently in a big push for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, which is wonderful,” Petzold says.

“It has been great to hear that gender fits into that strategy for diversity. However, and unfortunately, I’ve been at the State Department for almost 13 years, and the change in the number of women at the most senior levels between 13 years ago and now is statistically negligible. Much work is being put in to change this.”

Petzold has always been invested in human rights and gender equality. She’s proud, she says, that even with its own challenges the United States is a model for so many.

Petzold says that she loves that the State Department seeks out “well-rounded thinkers and writers and communicators. You don’t have to have a certain degree,” she says. “You don’t have to have this many years of experience. The Department really looks for people who are interested in the work.

You’ve got to read the newspapers and know what’s going on.

You’ve got to be able to talk about and explain and reason through things. If you’re a student who likes language, who likes travel, who is excited by the chance to think and debate and write, and above all to represent the United States to the people of the world, this is an amazing career that can offer you so much opportunity.”

“ I’m just incredibly proud to be able to do this. I think the opportunity to represent the United States overseas is not a job; it’s a privilege.”

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PARTING SHOT

The field behind Thorne House showed early signs of spring at Brooks School in mid-March.

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B OA R D O F T RU ST EES President Steven R. Gorham ’85, P’17, P’21 Ipswich, Mass.

Vice Presidents John R. Barker ’87, P’21, P’23 Wellesley, Mass.

Whitney Romoser Savignano ’87 Beverly Farms, Mass.

Secretary Craig J. Ziady ’85, P’18, P’20, P’22 Winchester, Mass.

Treasurer Valentine Hollingsworth III ’72, P’17 Dover, Mass.

TR USTEES Cristina E. Antelo ’95 Washington, D.C. Iris Bonet ’90 Houston, Texas Peter J. Caldwell Providence, R.I.

Brian McCabe P’18 Meredith, N.H. Diana Merriam P’08, P’11 Boxford, Mass.

Sally T. Milliken ’88, P’22, P’24 Byfield, Mass.

A LUMNI TR USTE E S Alysa U. James ’11 Washington, D.C. Ikenna U. Ndugba ’16 Boston, Mass.

W. J. Patrick Curley III ’69 New York, N.Y.

John R. Packard Jr. P’18, P’21 Head of School North Andover, Mass.

T R UST E E S E M E R I TI William N. Booth ’67, P’05 Chestnut Hill, Mass.

Peter V. K. Doyle ’69 Sherborn, Mass.

Daniel J. Riccio P’17, P’20 Atherton, Calif.

Henry M. Buhl ’48 New York, N.Y.

Cheryl M. Duckworth P’22, P’23 Lynnfield, Mass.

Belisario A. Rosas P’15, P’21 Andover, Mass.

Steve Forbes ’66, P’91 Bedminster, N.J.

Anthony H. Everets ’93 Brooklyn, N.Y.

Vivek Sharma P’24 Boston, Mass.

Nancy C. Ferry P’21 West Newton, Mass.

Juliane Gardner Spencer ’93 Rockport, Mass.

H. Anthony Ittleson ’56, P’84, P’86 Green Pond, S.C.

Shawn Gorman ’84 Falmouth, Maine

Alessandro F. Uzielli ’85 Beverly Hills, Calif.

Paul L. Hallingby ’65 New York, N.Y.

Meredith M. Verdone ’81, P’19 Newton Center, Mass.

Booth D. Kyle ’89 Severna Park, Md.

Christopher T. Wood ’85 Los Angeles, Calif.

Michael B. Keating ’58, P’97 Boston, Mass.

Frank A. Kissel ’69, P’96, P’99 Far Hills, N.J. Peter A. Nadosy ’64 New York, N.Y. Peter W. Nash ’51, P’81, P’89 Nantucket, Mass.

Cera B. Robbins P’85, P’90 New York, N.Y. Eleanor R. Seaman P’86, P’88, P’91, GP’18 Hobe Sound, Fla. David R. Williams III ’67 Beverly Farms, Mass.

Taina Mair ’22 capped off an amazing Brooks basketball career by being named the 2021–2022 Gatorade Massachusetts Player of the Year. She was also named the NEPSAC Player of the Year and took home ISL Most Valuable Player and All-League team nods.

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