Cate School 2021 Summer Bulletin

CATE Summer 2021

BULLETIN

CATE B U L L E T I N EDITOR

Avani Patel Shah CONTENT LEAD Matt McClenathen GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Mya Cubero PHOTOGRAPHERS

Aimee Stanchina Alicia Afshar ARCHIVIST

Judy Savage HEAD OF SCHOOL

Benjamin D. Williams IV ASSISTANT HEAD OF SCHOOL FOR EXTERNAL AFFAIRS

Charlotte Brownlee '85 COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE

Avani Patel Shah Matt McClenathen Aimee Stanchina ADVANCEMENT OFFICE

Lindsay Newlove Evan Akers Katie Convoy Chris Giles Guille Gil-Reynoso

Laura Jespersen Andrew MacDonnell Sarah Preston Elana Stone Tiarzha Taylor

MISSION STATEMENT

Through commitment, scholarship, companionship, and service, each member of the Cate community contributes to what our founder called “... the spirit of this place ... all compounded of beauty and virtue, quiet study, vigorous play, and hard work.”

For alumni wishing to update contact information, please email alumni@cate.org or access the alumni portal: https://accounts.veracross.com/cate/portals/login.

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The Cate Bulletin is published three times a year by Cate School and is distributed free of charge to alumni, parents, and friends of the School. Send correspondence and address changes to: communications@cate.org The Cate Bulletin is printed by V3 on Topkote paper.

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In this

Issue 5

INVOCATION

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HEAD OF SCHOOL’S ADDRESS

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Karl Weis

Our Quest for Meaning Benjamin D. Williams IV FACULTY COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

May Kindness Go With You Everywhere Lisa Holmes

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STUDENT COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

Weathering the Storm Asa Sam '21

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2020-21 AWARDS

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CUM LAUDE ADDRESS

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BACCALAUREATE ADDRESSES Nkemka Chukwumerije '21, Leilani Mendez '21, Chatom Arkin '01

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THE CLASS OF 2021

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DEPARTING FACULTY & STAFF

The Value of Inquiry Joshua Caditz and Anna Fortner

In a Commencement tradition, Head of School Ben Williams gathers observations, teacher and advisor comments, and campus lore to craft a “literary snapshot” of each senior.

We bid a fond farewell to four members of the Cate faculty and staff.

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

Frankie Nieman '21 and Jay Hernandez '21 are awarded the Ellis Cup, named in honor of Sandy Ellis, and given to a student whose spirit, energy, and unselfish concern for others has a positive impact on the School.

In Every Issue 64

CLASS NOTES

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IN MEMORIAM

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

On the Cover: The Shapiro advisory gathers for a photo in the Johnson Library before Commencement. (From left: Jet Ochoa '21, Alexander Erlington '21, Grace Johnson '21, Nick Parker '21, and Lucian Prinz '21)

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Morgan Lui '21 (left) and Riley Borchardt '21 during the processional of Cate’s 107th Commencement.

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Invocation

By Karl Weis, History Instructor

Welcome.

It’s wonderful that we’re all gathered together in this special place after so much time apart. One of the greatest strengths of Cate has always been its people – the students, the faculty and staff, the alumni, trustees, and this larger Cate community – and as we meet here to celebrate the Class of 2021, let’s relish this time together. Let us also acknowledge this difficult, challenging year, a year shaped profoundly by the pandemic and all that it has brought. Other events have also tested all of us, both here on the Mesa but also nationally and globally. I will leave it to each of us to reflect on a year we won’t forget. But let us be grateful for those who have sustained us and brought us comfort in the months that have passed. Let’s look around us not just at our friends, family, and neighbors, but at the beauty of this setting, and take part in, as Mr. Cate said, the spirit of this place. Let this ceremony serve as a true commencement, a beginning. We are celebrating what you, the Class of 2021, have done in your years on the Mesa, but we are also looking forward to bright days ahead, a future of boundless possibilities. Let us take strength in all that has happened, all that we have learned, and all that we strive to become. Enjoy the day!

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Head of School’s Commencement Address

Our Quest for Meaning

By Benjamin D. Williams IV, Head of School

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It is hard to believe, frankly, that we are all here, in this place, together. Collective moments have been hard to come by this year.

No doubt we appreciate them all the more as a result. This one we need to savor.

A year like the one we have just lived should be a boon to would be speakers and philosophers. The New York Times had an article last weekend with excerpts of all the various commencement addresses from folks far more famous and insightful than I am. They even had one from Dr. Fauci, who spoke via Zoom to the University of North Carolina. He assured graduates, “We will come out of this stronger than we were.”

I’m quite sure he is right. There is so much to ruminate on, but I can’t get to such endings as the good doctor and so many others have. Maybe I’m just not all that astute, but conclusions of any weight don’t seem all that achievable right now. Or maybe the present is just more interesting to me (for once) than the past. I have no intention of trying to make sense of it all. I’m not sure it makes any sense, at least not now.

A friend sent me a poem recently about a dog walking through some ferns. It was lovely to read, at least for a dog lover.

“There is joy in the soft butt of a dog disappearing into its daily necessities,” it begins. “I’m not sure I have ever had such a joy,” the poet continues, “either in discovery or expectation.” Great stuff.

Not just about the dog either. Discovery and expectation. We all know something about both of those, especially now.

But what caught my attention wasn’t so much the verse but a blurb written by the author about the poem. “I’m interested right now,” she said, “in writing poems that aren’t weighed down by my desire to make them more significant than they are.” Sometimes a dog walking through ferns is just that, I imagine. Nothing more. Like Nkemka said in his talk a few weeks ago, it’s enough.

Can we overdo our quest for meaning?

Or get hung up on significance to the point that we miss other equally important things? An educator shouldn’t ask such questions, I suppose. We are trained and have trained you to find meaning or significance in everything.

But that doesn’t mean we should always be looking for it, especially in the moment when it is happening. It is possible to over-analyze and over-think.

We’ve been doing it all year actually and in the years before this one. Our relative isolation just exacerbated that inclination this year. Too much time to think or worry or wonder is never good.

In that maelstrom of sensation and contemplation and lack of understanding, I found comfort in a few places, most of which won’t be surprising. Walking was good. I don’t know how many laps I did of campus or how many times I climbed the Franklin Trail, but enough to feel fulfilled by the strain on my lungs of a steep ascent or the welcome weariness in my legs for the remainder of the day. The puppy helped, too. Actually, the puppy pretty much saved me from an overall well-being standpoint. Hopper. I love that dog.

Funny how a little creature who poops and pees where he chooses and when he chooses, chews everything he can find (particularly the expensive stuff), and can’t sit still especially when you need him to sit still can be such a blessing.

But if you’re thinking about his needs, then you aren’t thinking about your own, until you realize that helping him is actually just what you need to help you.

Oops. That might be meaning. Sorry.

That poet I mentioned at the outset of this talk, her name is Analicia Sotelo.

And she made one other observation about her poem that she worked so hard

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Maybe our own lives are much the same, filled with sensations and moments we’ll never fully comprehend, but lovely and important nonetheless and meaningful, at least for others. Surely this moment is one of those. We can welcome it or in the case of a few others this year recoil from them without knowing or appreciating their meaning. As the Reverend Maclean once noted in A River Runs Through It, “We can love completely without complete understanding.” We do it all the time.

The only difference from now and before now is that we have all been through the same thing that we can’t yet understand.

I expect there will be some value from that common experience. Maybe it’s the significance that will arrive later, like Ms. Sotelo said. We’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, we are here, in the company of those we love and those who love us most in the world, celebrating a moment that has been a lifetime in the making. It may mean a lot, but how does it feel? Pretty damn good, I hope.

My 85-year-old father took a different approach to managing life this past year.

In the midst of all of this tumult, Dad decided that what he really needed was a fish tank. Not some dinky little freshwater bowl, mind you, but a big industrial sized saltwater tank full of coral and bright reef fish and colorful crustaceans. In Connecticut. I was sort of amazed when I heard about it. He worked on it for months.

“Wow, Dad, what was the impetus for this?” I asked. “I like fish,” he said.

“Always have. And they are just so

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colorful.” It reminded me of the character Baby Suggs in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, a grandmother who just kept asking folks to bring her colorful pieces of fabric. Let’s see a little yellow, like a Daisy, she might say. Sometimes that’s all we need.

I don’t know what you need. I’m not even sure what I need. But I wonder if it is less than we imagine. After a year that left us unsatisfied or unhappy or unable to engage with each other as we might choose, we imagine the promised land of the familiar. “I just want things to get back to normal.” How many times have we said or heard that? But however better normal might be, it isn’t perfect either. Maybe that’s why the wise ones like my Dad and Baby Suggs go looking for beauty.

It’s out there. It’s here. It’s all over the place. We’re Cate so we tend to dwell on the things that vex us rather than those that inspire us. We read criticism carefully and dwell on it. The praise we pay no attention to, often denying ourselves the very moment Analicia Sotelo happily granted to her dog but doesn’t fully give herself. She knew it, too. Towards the end of the poem Sotelo writes, “I am here, too. Living.”

A reminder perhaps, of a moment she owes herself and a nod to the ones we owe ourselves. That’s meaning again, I guess. I gotta stop doing that.

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My own sense of the year we just shared is that we did our best. Celebrated the small victories before the big ones arrived.

Had Thanksgiving together. Laughed together. And cried together. We still take in the view from Sunset Bench or hike to Bee Camp or enjoy a beach walk. We still smile with anticipation when Frankie Nieman steps on stage or Lily Riehl takes a faceoff or any of our seniors approaches the podium to deliver a Servons Speech.

We still love each other even when we push each other away. This final act of separation – at least from your chapter of life as a student at Cate – is also an act of love. I think that’s the sentiment that we should devote the vast majority of our attention to.

I began with Analicia Sotelo, so I will also end with her. She called her poems “independent and undetermined.” They are distinct and unique and perpetually more than their creator imagined, their richness evoked and revealed by those who encounter them. We are no different, I hope, as fortunate to be ourselves, as we are to be undetermined: ever on the way, ever inspiring, ever the beneficiaries of those who invest the time to truly understand us.

That more than anything else is what the Cate journey or any journey should be all about.

Congratulations, my friends.

And thank you.

My own sense of the year we just shared is that we did our best. Celebrated the small victories before the big ones arrived. Had Thanksgiving together. Laughed together.

And cried together.

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to keep focused on the sensations of a single moment, “By the time I’m done [writing] … the significance [of the poem] often shows up—having arrived without me.” She knew there was more than she could see in her rendering, but she also knew that significance belonged to someone else, for only someone else could see it or bring it.

Members of the Class of 2021 gather for a photo in the Johnson Library before Commencement.

Joshua Gabbay '21 receives his diploma from Head of School Ben Williams.

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Faculty Commencement Address

May Kindness Go With You Everywhere

By Lisa Holmes, Director of Studies Good morning and welcome families, friends, my beloved colleagues who have poured their very souls into the work of the school this year, and very special greetings for the Class of 2021. It is an honor to be part of your celebration.

These words were written for you.

Beginnings and endings, rituals and ceremonies are critical to our ability to understand our lives and the passage of time. Today is an end and a beginning and your families are here to celebrate both. It has been a 15-month odyssey to get to this point. Months marked by uncertainty and sorrow but also by resilience and growth.

One of my favorite writers, Barbara Kingsolver, once said that the opening lines of a novel have to tell the whole story. Ever since reading that, I always return to the first page of a novel after reading the last. It’s a lot of pressure to put on the writer, the telling of the story on the first page, but I have found that the best books and memoirs, and poems too, actually accomplish this.

Think about the books you have read in your time at Cate and consider these sentences:

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…”

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.”

“I am an invisible man.”

“It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.”

“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”

“It is a doubt if my body is flesh or fish,” he sang in his grief; “hapless the woman who loves me.…”

When I was in high school we didn’t read Dickens, Woolf, Ellison, Plath, or Hurston. We were certainly not assigned David James Duncan’s The River Why. But in 9th grade I had to memorize the prologue of Romeo and Juliet and I still remember all of it: the two households both alike in dignity, the star crossed lovers, the deaths that bury the parents’

strife. Shakespeare’s famous play is all there in the prologue and so why hang around for the two hour traffic of the stage?

Recently I was looking at your photos from those warm first days on campus.

The weekly photos are telling of who you were and what you were leaving behind by coming to Cate. You were not expecting the head of school and admissions director at the bottom of the hill or a mob of seniors dressed in matching on the middle Mesa and your faces show your surprise. There’s a beautiful photo of Rachel smiling while Mr. Williams and Ms. Brownlee move to surround her car and a picture of Fritze with senior Apple Lieser '18 squeezed into her back seat. Fritze looks both joyful and very afraid. A young Cooke stands with his dad and the Cate Ram in the McIntosh Room and I imagine this picture is taken just before they say goodbye. There’s Jay shaking hands with Mr. Mack on the Kirby Quad, Bella sitting on her bed in '25 House, Ella and her mom looking up tentatively at Mr. Williams, Brenda and her mom listening to a CPO pitch. And in those

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COMMENCEMENT 2021

first months on the Mesa there are many more pictures of your new student selves in classrooms, playing sports, singing, and finding your way at Cate. Deb and Nkemka in Spanish with Ms. Sommers, Riley and Grace in one of their first varsity volleyball games, the Deardorff brothers together on the soccer field in the winter, Jasmine, Tega, and Jolea on freshman public service day, and Rae, Shion, Zaq, and Hector at another public service day site, the boys look so heartbreakingly young. There’s a team picture of the 3rds volleyball team – with Asa sitting in the middle holding the ball and looking ready to take over the world as around her sit a collection of girls thrown together then by the Cate sports requirement – who will grow up to be the who’s who of our influential senior scholars, leaders, and public servants.

Each new year the Cate photographers capture the beginnings of Cate life.

I love the beginning and end pictures that appear in the library each May. These images are laid out in alphabetical order and starting with Alexander

Albrecht, the theme of dramatic transformation is well established. I come back to these pictures when I pass through the library working my way each time to the final pictures that end with Lily Zanze. Soon, Mr. Williams will read your citations in the same alphabetical order. You have accomplished much since the first line you wrote on this campus. Do you remember what it was?

A creative piece from the writing period?

A structured TEAC topic sentence? In some foundational way it began your story and here we are at the end, but throughout each of those years there was time. Time that ticked slowly by during the initial stages of the pandemic, but rushed unhelpfully during a math test, that slowed to a stop during a first date on the '25 House lawn, or ran away during the last minutes of an unwinnable game. There is a complicated story of lived moments in between your first and last piece of written history on this campus, a story that matters and is so important because of the change it has created in your very soul. The middle of a story is always the most interesting.

When I think about your class as a whole, I’m drawn to memories of your Kern trip in your junior year in part because the arrival of Avery, Layton, and Ned, the “new juniors” made your class complete. The Kern freed them from the awkwardness of being new in those first days and launched them into the wilderness with the rest of you. I will just acknowledge that the class wasn’t as complete as it is today; Susana was in Spain and Will Morse and Michael Duprau had left and not yet come back from Hong Kong and the East Coast. Will may have had enough of the California trails anyway and wasn’t interested in Compass references, but the important thing is that they all came back. And in the meantime, the Kern trip offered an experience of your almost full class, an experience that you probably did not have again until the senior-faculty dinner a few days ago.

Your Kern trip was also distinctive because of the storm that came out of nowhere at the halfway point of the trip.

I had planned to say something about

on the th Apple Lieser '18 Fritze Mayer '21 wi . us mp ca to Hill ride up Heartbreak

Cooke Tarlto n '21 with his father John '8 and the Cate 7 Ram in the M cIntosh Room .

Rachel Wilkes '21 greeted by Charlotte Brownlee '85 on New Student Move-In Day in the fall of 2017.

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The rain eventually stopped, all was wet including dinner. The next morning the sun did come out, we put sleeping bags by the fire, hung wet socks and t-shirts on the clothes lines ringing camp, ate every last breakfast burrito, and then spent the day by the river and in the sun. We had a bonfire in the evening and then the Kern Olympics, and in case you have forgotten, the Holmes/ MacDonnell Pod, the pod of destiny, emerged as champions. The hike out the next two days was the most beautiful I’ve experienced on the Kern. The water was roaring under the natural bridge at the top of the east side switchbacks, Little Whitney Meadow sparkled with green and all that rain had stamped down the dust of the trail. And we all returned to the Mesa together, dirty and tired, some with blisters so that you could start your junior year.

At the end of outings week junior year, you were in the middle of something that you may not have been aware of at the time. Whether you were miserable on the Kern or found refuge in the wilderness or some of both, or were far away from Cate on another adventure, at that point you were on your way to building an adult life. You were becoming the students you imagined, you had found friends, faculty advocates and had carved out your place at Cate, you were the confident voices in upper level and really hard classes, the varsity athletes, the leads rather than the understudies on the stage, the art relayers, the musicians and the people generally who had a lay of the land, and you began to look to the future too.

Building a life – this is no small thing.

As Walt Whitman wrote and Robin Williams emphasized in “Dead Poets Society,” “That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

The fact that you have learned to make this sentence-level contribution is important. And the anatomy of that built-up life is different for each one of you. You’ve told these stories of the passage of time in your Servons speeches, shared your doubts and personal losses, the places and people on and off the Mesa that have helped you change and

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Long House and High House and after a brief gaze from Sunset Bench, we walked into our lower High House apartment and started our new lives at Cate. We all have a version of this story and like many who made that transition, our first year was hard and sometimes lonely.

Our son Scott was born in December of our first year so we were new parents

I have also been reminded this spring how important seniors are to the engine that drives this community, in part because you are in those urgent final chapters, far enough along from the beginning to have a perspective on what students need to build their Cate lives.

grow, crossroad moments and mistakes.

And since we are in the West, it may be worth noting as a member of the history department that the West is a place where lives are built and remade, reconstructed and reimagined from the overland trail in the mid 19th century, to the Great Migrations out of the south to Los Angeles in the early 20th century. You might have noticed that Mr. Williams often references the West.

Even his favorite book, The Great Gatsby, is about a group of people who leave the West to begin their lives in the east and pay for it dearly. “This has been a story about the West, afterall,” Nick says at the end. And the first line of Gatsby, “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.” If that’s not the perfect first sentence for Mr. Williams, I don’t know what is… …My husband and I came West to Cate 20 years ago, in 2001 on a nonstop flight from Boston to LAX and then to the lovely Santa Barbara airport.

Gwendolyn Pierce was also new at Cate that year and so Bob Bonning sent her to fetch us. She dropped us off between

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this storm, but I think that Asa covered it. All I will say was that it was epic.

trying to find our way in a new place.

In addition, the world was in the midst of a serious transition. On September 11, exactly four weeks after we came to Cate, that same flight that took us to California ended its journey in the south tower of the World Trade Center, and the world was forever changed.

My first friend at Cate was Lauren Jared, my office mate, and she became the first brick in my Cate foundation that expanded each year; Mr. Wood and the girls soccer team, the Dorion family, colleagues in the English and History departments, and students with whom I shared classrooms and dorm spaces. Our second son Matthew was born in 2004 and this campus became the backdrop of our family life. And then one day, in 2010, I was standing with Ms. Brownlee on the upper field after a brunch in an enormous tent that had been set up for Cate’s Centennial celebration, our sons were playing on the field below and it hit me – I was home; I felt connected and invested. I had stitched together a life out here and not really noticed or thought about it. Like many of you, I have lived in four different places on campus – High House, Cook House 13

COMMENCEMENT 2021

The Class of 2021 lines the stage in anticipation of the start of Commencement.

East, a house on the nature trail and the house across the street where we live now. And in each place, our lives have changed and our roots have grown deeper. And, I am just beginning to understand what that all means.

I have lived on this Mesa for 36% of my life, the majority of my adult life and all my life as a parent. You have spent as many as four of 17 or 18 years at Cate, a little more than 20%, of your lives here, but they have been more concentrated. As I have gotten older and particularly passed the 50 mark, I am better able to take the long view and have grown more patient with myself and authentic with others. But there is a fine line between patience and complacency, and your sense of urgency and want for change now has pushed us, particularly this year, which has been a kind of reckoning for the school.

Young alumni and current students have asked us to examine issues of race, bias, gender, sexual identity, mental health, our environmental practices, discipline policies and curriculum, and most of all what it means to belong and build a life at this school. We need that push and will continue to need you if we are to make this school a place that is proactive when it comes to change. This is a part of your story likely not written about in citations, but essential to the plot.

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One lesson for me in my life at Cate is that intergenerational communities offer so much possibility, the mix of the long view and the immediate present is something I so appreciate about living here. I have also been reminded this spring how important seniors are to the engine that drives this community, in part because you are in those urgent final chapters, far enough along from the beginning to have a perspective on what students need to build their Cate lives.

While I may never get over the absence of sports and music and theater from this campus last spring and much of this year, the teams you led, the assemblies you ran, your music and voices helped us reconnect. Your inquiry projects took us to Mars and the Pacific Ocean, prompted us to think about our environmental choices, the psychology of cults, the First Amendment and how we learn, and introduced us to new artists and components of board games. You stayed connected to our Servons motto by going back into the community and also taking care of the people around you.

And especially in the past week, you brought back fun to the Mesa at a time when it was sorely needed. More than anything it was the lip-sync contest that brought that home to me. That brief Friday night interlude in the theater

was joyful, raucous, and occasionally inappropriate. I am glad we were not streaming the show for parents. I loved how you fell out of your chairs cheering for each other with each upper school dorm from Bothin-Pars girls in the middle of the room, CHE to their left, CHW in the back of the theater and the lip synch champions in Schoolhouse setting their own mark and, in their joy, suggesting something profound about resilience.

But it was seeing the prefects on stage, first with the '25 House boys, and then with the Long House girls and finally as a group, that actually brought tears to my eyes. You must know that most 14-yearold boys would not walk on stage and lip-sync “Call Me Maybe” to an audience of peers, but in Frankie, Alexander, and Ahbi we trust. And from my seat in the theater, I watched Rachel, Tori, Almira, Lelani and Ms. Bond dance with and among their Long House tribe and could see their love for you and also sense that their hopes and dreams are modeled after you. The prefects ended with a lip-sync medley that included lines from a song by Simple Minds, “Don’t You Forget About Me,” that took me back to high school.

You packed a lot of fun into the last weeks, the dance last weekend, the American Wilderness trip, and prom. I was so moved by your senior dinner toasts and Peter’s final comments expressing gratitude to all and I am so grateful to you, the Class of 2021, for bringing back the spirit of this place. There is no chance we will forget about you.

There is a poem I’ve been reading recently.

Ms. Wyatt told me that she has been reading it too. And, I was sure Chatom [Arkin '01] was going to reference it last night at Baccalaureate. It’s called “Kindness” and it’s written by the ArabAmerican poet Naomi Shihab Nye. And, the first line tells the whole story: Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.

We know this feeling. The sudden absence of expectation that you have faced

individually, together, hearing the news of fire, flood, illness, and Mr. Williams’ words choke in his throat. What emerges from the middle of Nye’s poem has to do with resilience, acceptance, growth, and recognizing what matters most. Just as each of you have learned to be resilient, accepting, attentive to your own growth, and so aware of what’s most important.

Here is the poem in full:

I find so much comfort in these words: It is only kindness that makes sense anymore. You have lived that kindness this spring and shared it with the younger students. You have recognized it in faculty and friends. You have seen the size of the cloth and found ways to go out into the day and take care of each other. The last line of the poem is what

I most wish for you now. May kindness go with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.

May you give and receive kindness in equal measure and keep this Mesa forever in your hearts, goodluck, godspeed, and congratulations.

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Soon-to-be-graduates await the conclusion of the processional.

“

I’m so grateful to you, the Class of 2021, for bringing back the spirit of this place. There is no chance we will forget about you.

“

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.

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Student Commencement Address

Weathering the Storm

By Asa Sam '21

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Before I begin, I’d like to make clear that some of the events I mention here may be triggering for some.

In the past, many of the commencement speeches have noted how unusual it is to live at Cate. How a lot of the experiences we face here, we’ll probably never see again. But if those classes think they’ve had a crazy year, they’ve got another thing coming. I think it’s appropriate to say that the Class of 2021 takes the cake.

Parents, grandparents, relatives, anyone sitting in the audience, I’d like for you to take a moment to think about your high school experience and your craziest high school stories. And I can bet money that our high school stories will make yours seem mundane.

I’d like to start at the beginning. I think the Class of 2021 knows exactly where I’m going to start. Camping. When we first got to Cate, we learned that we would live in the woods for a week, with no phones, no real showers, and hiking miles on end. We also found out that the trips would get progressively harder as they went on…Yay! After Pyles our freshman year, we realized how thankful we were to sleep in actual, clean beds, use working showers, and to have each other. We started to figure out our way around Cate. I

We learned how long it takes for a piece of bread to toast, how many waffles we can eat before the bell, and which teachers don’t tolerate lateness. Little did we know that in the midst of this, we would find Thacher sleeping on our gym floor because they had to evacuate from the Thomas Fire. Fire? Right now? In the middle of February? Yes. Fire. Our once blue sky turned orange, and our once yellow sun turned red. “Pack a bag,” they said. “It’ll only be three days,” they said. Until we found ourselves at home or at alumni houses for a month. From a boarding student’s perspective, it just seemed like one month off from school!

Woo-hoo! But this meant something completely different for the day students who could’ve lost their homes or had to evacuate to another space. To those day students, I apologize for my inconsideration and ignorance that came with the fires.

But it didn’t stop there! I remember arriving back to campus after a month’s vacation, running into my friends just to hear, “Bro, we might have to evacuate again! There are mudslides and floods happening. We might be going home.”

“Oh hell no,” I thought to myself. “Is this what California is about? Fires, floods, what’s next?” But being stuck on campus led to an eruption of different activities. My friends and I engaged in activities like hide and seek, manhunt in the dorms, watching movies – basically anything other than school work. Similar to the fires, the mudslides had a greater impact on our day students and local folks. Again, I want to apologize for any insensitive comments that were made during this time. Especially since times like these bring out different emotions and experiences for everyone. Even after such tough times, though, we were able to hold it together by being together, and finish the year strong.

After the fires and floods, any smell of burning and any sight of drizzle led my

We can no longer sit and wait for the next bad thing to happen, we have to take initiative and work together, move with integrity and compassion in order to overcome any challenge that comes our way. Because that’s what a community is about. It’s about being there for each other and helping to rewrite the old epistemologies that hindered our growth in the first place.

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remember our very first assembly. I was sitting in my advisory, watching everyone make their announcements, wondering why we had to clap after every speech, but starting to clap anyway. Once the bell rang, everybody automatically stood up and started to leave the theater through all exits. You can imagine how overwhelming this would be for a freshman. I remember asking my advisory brothers, “What is an A-block and how do I know where everything is?”

“You’ll figure it out,” they told me. “Oh, okay,” I muttered. And I’m pretty sure my class can attest to how confused we all were. Eventually, though, we started learning our way around.

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mind to think, “not this again.” Thank God, that has not been the case. But this doesn’t mean that the universe was finished throwing curveballs at us. If anything, that was far from the end.

Of course everyone’s experience is different, but it’s safe to say that sophomore and the beginning of junior year were relatively normal compared to the rest of what we’ve had to endure.

Actually, not even.

At the beginning of junior year, waiting for us was Kern. Kern was supposed to be the hardest trip with the longest hikes.

Lucky us! About halfway into the trip, all the pods met up together at Henry’s camp. You would think that’s exciting right? Well, let me finish this story. My pod, the best pod I think it’s safe to say, got to Henry’s camp and decided to set up early so we could go hang out with the other pods. First it started drizzling, and Leilani and I already knew

the drill. Rain = tent. So we zipped up our tent and started up a conversation.

The rain poured down harder. And harder. And harder. After a while, we invited other people in our tent so they wouldn’t be drenched. Frankie, Rachel, Leilani, Almira, and I were in the tent singing songs from Lion King, Moana, and anything else we could think of.

A little while later, we noticed the tent caving in. Rain started pouring in and trails of water ran throughout our tent, drenching or sweeping away our clothes, sleeping bags, and other belongings.

When we finally escaped from the tent, we saw another pod hiding behind this fallen tree and yet another running down the switchbacks. As everybody started rushing to Henry’s camp, Dr. Kellogg yelled, “PLEASE GO BACK TO GET COATS! YOU WILL GET HYPOTHERMIA AND DIE!” As encouraging as that was, it completely went over our heads. Next thing you know, everyone was crying and shivering, and Joshua actually GOT hypothermia.

The whole thing was a mess. Not to mention before we left, we were asked to help clean up the camp. Everybody was required to pick up something that looked like it was involved in a murder scene. Broken bottles, a rusty chain saw, and a bunch of garbage bags. Thankfully, we have not been invited back to the camp. Audience, do you still think your stories are crazy?

The trip was fun, though. Like aside from all the bs, the trip really wasn’t that bad. Can’t speak for Joshua, but I know my pod had a good time.

After Kern, we were excited to be upperclassmen. We were no longer in '25, we could shower before 10, and we could basically do what we wanted.

Junior year was okay. At first…

After the college trip ended in New York, it then became the epicenter of COVID-19. While we were supposed to be enjoying our winter break, everything shut down completely. I knew it was real once the NBA season was canceled. Next thing we know, we all received emails

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letting us know that we would be doing virtual learning for a couple of weeks, then we would be coming back to school.

Those couple weeks turned into months, and those months turned into the next school year. Adjusting to virtual learning was difficult, to say the least, but we got through it. Just like the fires, just like the floods, just like Kern. We got through it.

Now, our senior year… Surprise surprise!

More traumatizing events! We started on virtual learning but the school made it clear that this time it was for real. We got off easy last year by having no finals and having our grades only improve. But this time, they said that they weren’t playing those games. Meaning… we had to (excuse my French) get our shit together.

The first bump in the road began on MLK Day. Because we were home, we had to do our MLK activities online.

One of the activities contained a padlet where you can post comments and other things and anyone who has access to the padlet can see it. Someone posted racist memes on this padlet, leaving everyone uneasy. The School reacted by having a virtual all-school assembly addressing the issue and why it was wrong. I wish there was more that could be done, but since racism can be hidden so well through anonymous posting these days, it’s difficult to pinpoint who the culprits are.

Then when we came back on campus, not only were we struggling with trying to hang out with each other but also being bombarded with COVID-19 rules.

Yet another can of worms opened all over us. Ella wrote an insightful article about misogyny at Cate, about her own experience and with actual evidence to back it up. Someone commented, “MAGA 2024 Grab her by the p****y.”

How disgusting. This definitely didn’t sit well with the vast majority of us. WOFO (The Women’s Forum) met endlessly, allowing the young women on this campus to share their experiences. While I understand that more people were directly impacted by this incident than the MLK situation because there are more women on this campus than there

are black students, I wish that the same amount of action was taken for the MLK problem. We shouldn’t pick and choose which problem matters more, because, at the end of the day, they’re all problems that shouldn’t exist in the first place.

Cate struggled with transparency through this process of following through with this problem. But nobody is perfect, and we’re all learning.

Even after all of the meetings, Cate never seemed to settle down after that.

After this, we unfortunately had to deal with something we never thought we would have to experience on this campus. The death of one of our own.

This hit the community extremely hard.

Harder than the fires, harder than the floods, harder than the Kern, harder than racism and misogyny. Hard. Cate responded with compassion centers, and overall understanding of students who didn’t have the mental capacity to do school. All of my blessings, and the Class of 2021’s blessings go to the Ke family. Ophelia is watching over all of us, every step of the way. I wish that it didn’t have to get to that point for everyone to understand that the events that happened this past year have taken their toll on everyone, but specifically the students, but again, nobody is perfect.

And we’re learning. And in learning, there’s hope. But no more of this “hope.”

We’re going to do it.

We can no longer sit and wait for the next bad thing to happen, we have to take initiative and work together, move with integrity and compassion in order to overcome any challenge that comes our way. Because that’s what a community is about. It’s about being there for each other and helping to rewrite the old epistemologies that hindered our growth in the first place.

So to the class of 2022, we have tried to pave the road for you guys to the best of our abilities. Now, the baton has been passed on to you in striving to create the Cate that we all know is capable of becoming the greatest it can possibly be.

No more talking, just doing.

Covid hit us this year like a big yellow school bus. We weren’t ready for it. We weren’t ready for anything we had to endure. Being isolated from each other made everyone and everything fall apart.

As William Yeats said, “the falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…”

This year, Cate lost its center. Everyone was looking to point a finger and somebody to blame. Not to be corny, but it seemed like we lost the spirit of this place.

But that’s okay. Not that Cate was ever perfect, but nothing stays perfect for long. For those who are unaware, vastating is the process of going through those times that seem impossible and shedding those layers in order to grow and become the best that we can be.

Vastation is necessary in order to reach our higher selves and be in a better place.

Cate needed this; these traumatic events were vital in that they helped to deliver the growth and self-reflection that was long awaited.

Unfortunate as it was to go through all of these crazy events, I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way. I wouldn’t have wanted to go through any of it all without the Class of 2021.

We have literally been through it all.

So now that we’re off to our next stages in life, I hope that everybody knows that if we can withstand this stuff, we can overcome anything. Life sucks sometimes, as we can evidently see, but that won’t stop us. All of our colleges are more than lucky to open their arms to such smart and strong individuals.

Congratulations to the Class of 2021 for weathering the storm. Congratulations on the next step we’re about to take.

Good luck 2021, we’re going to need it.

I hope all of our lives will be easier than this, but even if they’re not, we got this!

Thank you.

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2020-21

Awards

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Peter Coors '21, Bella Lucente '21, and Frankie Nieman '21 are awarded the Head of School's Award, Biddle Cup, and Ellis Cup, respectively.

2. Lily Zanze '21 receives the Head of School’s Award.

3. Alexander Albrecht '21 is awarded the Miramar Award, presented to a senior who has demonstrated exceptional growth and progress.

4. Almira Bowo '21 with her mother, Thesia, after she received the Morgan Gwynne Temby '69 Award.

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5. Asa Sam '21 is awarded the Santa Barbara School Medal, given to a senior for exceptional leadership and service to the School.

6. Esteban Paulino '21 and Nkemka Chukwumerije '21 share the Nelson Jones '48 Medal, given to a student whose leadership by example demonstrates humility, integrity, and dedication.

7. Yuki Kobayashi '21 receives the Santa Barbara Scholarship Cup for exceptional intellectual interest and achievement.

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Lily Riehl '21, Jolea Moes '21, and James Marin '21 receive the Most Inspirational Athlete Award.

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Madeline Vanica '21 is recognized for her seven varsity letters.

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Nick Parker '21 and Michael Armstrong '21 share the Peter Folger '25 Music Cup.

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Co-Editors in Chief Athena von Bothmer '21 and Avery Carter are awarded the El Batidor Award.

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Rae Fox '21 is awarded the Public Service Award along with Athena von Bothmer '21 (not pictured).

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Taylor Kane '21 receives the Peter Cate Athletic Award.

Joshua Gabbay '21 receives the Marion Wolsey Cate Acting Prize, English Department Prize, and the Hans F. Summers Award from the Science Department.

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

Commencement Awards Stephen Spittler '63 Cup

Ben Soto Jeffrey Sumner Pallette '88 Award

Nkemka Chukwumerije '21 William New, Jr. '59 Servons Award

Sandi Pierce Santa Barbara Scholarship Cup

Yuki Kobayashi '21 Ellis Cup

Jay Hernandez '21 Frankie Nieman '21

Academic Awards

Art Awards

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

Fred Bradley '68 Prize: 3-dimensional

James C. Durham '02 (Hon.) Writing Prize

Nick Parker '21

Yuki Kobayashi '21 Susana Vosmik '21

Tony Hooker '56 Sculpture Award

English Department Prize

Marion Wolsey Cate Acting Prize

Joshua Gabbay '21 HISTORY DEPARTMENT The James Masker Global Studies Award

Yuki Kobayashi '21 Bella Lucente '21 History Department Prize

Peter Coors '21 Ryan Suh '21

Nick Parker '21 Joshua Gabbay '21 Rachel Wilkes '21 Drama Award

Frankie Nieman '21 Peter Coors '21 Franklin Ellis Vocal Prize

Almira Bowo '21 Bella Lucente '21 Peter Folger '25 Music Cup

Almira Bowo '21

MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT

Michael Armstrong '21 Nick Parker '21

The Miramar Award

Allan J. Gunther Mathematics Award

Photography Prize

Morgan Gwynne Temby '69 Award

Alexander Albrecht '21

Cloris Cheng '21

Dohrmann Pischel Class of 1914 Medal

MODERN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT

Leilani Mendez '21 Nelson D. Jones '48 Medal

Esteban Paulino '21 Santa Barbara School Medal

Asa Sam '21 Head of School’s Award

Peter Coors '21 Lily Zanze '21 William Shepard Biddle '18 Cup

Bella Lucente '21 FACULTY AND STAFF AWARDS W. Burleigh Pattee Fellowship Award

To the Faculty and Staff of Cate School Fellowship Award: Centennial

To the Faculty and Staff of Cate School Fellowship Award: Circumspice

To the Faculty and Staff of Cate School

French Prize

Esteban Paulino '21

Ella Klaerner '21 Digital Imaging Award

Jay Hernandez '21 Joseph Bradley Art Prize

Jolea Moes '21

Japanese Prize

Brenda Martinez Ruiz '21 Spanish Prize

Cooke Tarlton '21 Susana Vosmik '21 SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Biology Prize

Extracurricular Awards Mesan Award

Brenda Martinez Ruiz '21 Susana Vosmik '21 Alex Elrington '21

Physics Prize

El Batidor Award Avery Carter '21 Athena von Bothmer '21

Fritze Mayer '21

Public Service Award

The Hans F. Summers Award

Athena von Bothmer '21 Rae Fox '21

Bella Lucente '21

Joshua Gabbay '21

Noah W. Hotchkiss Memorial Award

Bella Lucente '21 Technology Prize

Alexander Albrecht '21 Human Development Award

Taylor Kane '21

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2020-21 AWARDS

Athletic Awards Outdoor Program Award

Nick Parker '21 Redington Cup Award

Will Deardorff '21 Anna Disorbo '22 Most Inspirational Athlete Award

Boys Volleyball

Boys Cross Country

Girls Volleyball

Shion Kato '21

Riley Borchardt '21 Grace Johnson '21

Boys Water Polo

Cole Hillyer '21 Girls Water Polo

Albert Barber '21

Girls Swimming

Lucy Van der Reis '21

Lucy Van der Reis '21

Boys Swimming

Squash

Jet Ochoa '21

Alex Elrington '21

Boys Ultimate Frisbee

Sportsmanship Award

Football

Lily Zanze '21 Nkemka Chukwumerije '21

Michael Armstrong '21 Will Deardorff '21 James Marin '21

Layton Harding '21 Ned Sigler '21

Jolea Moes '21 Lilly Riehl '21 James Marin '21

Beach Soulé Award

Will Deardorff '21 Peter Cate '37 Award

Boys Basketball

Nkemka Chukwumerije '21

Taylor Kane '21

Girls Basketball

SENIOR VARSITY SPORTS LETTER AWARDS

Deborah Brittain '21 Lily Zanze '21

Six Varsity Letters

Boys Soccer

Jasper Bennett '21 Alex Elrington '21 Shion Kato '21 Bryce Kim '21 Ryan Lack '21 Fritze Mayer '21 Tega Umukoro '21

Will Deardorff '21 Andrew Mabon '21

Seven Varsity Letters

Boys Lacrosse

Michael Armstrong '21 Riley Borchardt '21 James Marin '21 Jolea Moes '21 Tali Nam '21 Madeline Vanica '21

Girls Lacrosse

Eight Varsity Letters

Grace Johnson '21 Taylor Kane '21 Lilly Riehl '21 Ryan Suh '21 Cooke Tarlton '21 Lucy Van der Reis '21 Nine Varsity Letters

Girls Soccer

Taylor Kane '21 Jolea Moes '21 Tali Nam '21 Peter Coors '21 James Marin '21 Lilly Riehl '21 Lily Zanze '21 Baseball

Will Deardorff '21 Daniel Panadero '21 Cooke Tarlton '21 Boys Tennis

Michael Armstrong '21 Bryce Kim '21 Lucien Prinz '21

Lily Zanze '21

Girls Tennis

Twelve Varsity Letters

Fritze Mayer '21 Yuki Kobayashi '21

Will Deardorff '21

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VARSITY SPORTS CAPTAINS AWARDS

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

Class Agents Alexander Albrecht '21 Rae Fox '21 Frankie Nieman '21 Nick Parker '21 Sarah Ruelas '21

Cum Laude Society CUM LAUDE SOCIETY INITIATE 2021

Cloris Cheng '21 Josie Erickson '21 Rae Fox '21 Joshua Gabbay '21 Yuki Kobayashi '21 Bella Lucente '21 Fritze Mayer '21 Tali Nam '21 Jasmine Ross '21 Ryan Suh '21 Cooke Tarlton '21 Madeleine Tunnell '21 Susana Vosmik '21

The Jeffrey Sumner Pallette '88 Award: Nkemka Chukwumerije '21

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The Jeffrey Sumner Pallette '88 Award is presented by the graduating class to a classmate whose presence and character have inspired our class to laugh, question, and care for each other through a combination of honesty, kindness, and optimism.” This person has shown us what it means to lead through small ways.

He naturally draws people into him through his kind and thoughtful words and welcoming smile. As we have heard in his talk, he questioned his presence here on the Mesa, but I say this without hesitation that he has impacted every single one of us whether he knows it or not. He has proven that with hardwork and dedication you can truly accomplish anything. He inspires me in my own role, and am so honored to call him a close friend of mine.”

– LEILANI MENDEZ '21

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I am grateful to be able to present this award to one of my closest friends and one of the best people I know. Known for his silent confidence and humility, he never fails to serve others. He is a man of tall stature that most of us literally have to look up to. What he may not know though is that we all look up to him, not just literally, but in all aspects that embody this community. Whether he is challenging the depths of biology, posterizing his opponents on the basketball court, or hosting a Black Student Union meeting on Senior Lawn, he never fails to connect to people of all backgrounds. He is a man who is loyal to his morals and genuine to the people, but most importantly, he is curious to learn, just like his idol Kobe Bryant. We are honored to present the Jeffrey Sumner Pallette Class of 1988 Award to Nkemka Chukwumerije.”

– ESTEBAN PAULINO '21 25

2020-21 AWARDS

The Stephen Spittler '63 Cup Presented by Peter Coors '21 and Asa Sam '21

“The Stephen Spittler Cup, Class of 1963, is awarded to a faculty member whose endeavors on the Mesa push their students to the limits of their capabilities, inspire the people around them to hold themselves to a higher standard, and who, each day, make us laugh.”

Two nights ago, the senior class and faculty gathered in Booth Commons to celebrate our graduation, and for the students to extend our most sincere gratitude and appreciation to the teachers that have made our last four years at Cate so memorable. However, there was one conspicuous absence from that dinner that deserves the highest praise.

Ben Soto embodies the attributes of this award in a way that few faculty fully can, and he’s been doing it for nearly 30 years. As a coach, Soto certainly does push us to our limits. He expects nothing but our complete and total dedication to our sport, whether it be on the football field or the baseball diamond. As someone who spent just a couple of weeks on one of his teams, I can personally attest to his remarkable, sometimes scary ability to push us to the “limits of our capabilities,” and then to push that limit just a bit farther.

Every day, he inspires us with his words, and even more so with his actions. We fight so hard for Coach Soto because we know he would do, and has done, the same for us. Because of him, thousands of students have left Cate ingrained with the mindset of getting 1% better every single day. That doesn’t just apply to football or baseball; it’s a lesson for everything. Because of Coach Soto, we do indeed hold ourselves to a higher standard.

And finally, Soto certainly does make us laugh.

His quick, harsh wit and famous “Soto-isms” are infamous, and unfortunately not suitable for public consumption. Not only is he funny, but when it comes to his sneaker knowledge, he’s untouchable.

He has never failed to point out my sneakers or even recommend new ones to me. Even last night, at our first formal event of the year, he questioned why I wasn’t in sneakers! With all of this in mind, it’s fair to say that without Coach Soto, there would be fewer smiles, and less genuine happiness on this Mesa.

So for all of these gifts and more, we thank you.

On behalf of the graduating class, it is our honor to present Ben Soto with the Spittler Cup.

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William New Jr. '59 Servons Award

The William New Jr. Servons Award is given to individuals whose service to this school community has been remarkable and distinctive. The award was conceived in response to the sustained and imaginative service to the School of Bill New '59, and until his passing a few years ago Bill presented the Servons Award to each recipient at this ceremony. Over the years it has been awarded to trustees, faculty, staff, and friends of the School. The recipient this year is in many respects all of those things. Her tenure at Cate now spans three decades and it began when she took over the leadership of our food service.

In one way or another she has been nourishing this community ever since, but the character of the sustenance she offers has evolved a bit. Now she oversees all of the operations of the School, our finances, and our budgets. She ensures that our people are well cared for and supported, that our homes and classrooms contain all that we need, that our fiscal health is

sound and our prospects unlimited. In times of challenge and crisis, we turn naturally to her. Her patience, sound judgment and practical insight always put us in the eye of the storm, the place where we can make the decisions that need to be made. In truth she might have been the recipient of this award any year, such is the quality and character of her service. But in this one, when the circumstances we confronted required unprecedented agility and poise, she was perpetually there with whatever we needed. The Mesa Clinic is the product of her ingenuity, as are the hundreds of other mitigations to ensure community wellness. We often say of this community that its measure is best taken when times are hard. For Cate, folks always step up when they are needed. Perhaps we do so because for the last 30 years we have watched our recipient do the same time and time again. It is an honor and a privilege to bestow the William New Jr. '59 Servons Award on Sandi Pierce.

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Commencement

Through the Lens 1.

James Marin '21 (right) helps Tega Umukoro '21 with his boutonniere.

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Cooke Tarlton '21 with his advisor Monica Garcia-Gamero in the traditional receiving line following Commencement.

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Ryan Suh '21 pauses for a photo in the Johnson Library before Commencement.

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Morgan Lui '21 and Avery Carter '21 take a classic Cate photo through the Johnson Library window.

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Tali Nam '21 and Madeline Vanica '21 share a moment before the ceremony.

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Lucy Van der Reis '21 and Grace Burroughs '21 capture one last moment together on the Mesa.

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Yuki Kobayashi '21 and Jolea Moes '21 embrace upon the conclusion of Commencement.

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From left: Jet Ochoa '21, Hector Silva '21, Abhi Bangaru '21, and Alexander Albrecht '21 stand proudly as they await graduation.

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The boys from Cook House West.

10. Rachel Wilkes '21 and Aida Pouye '21 laugh together while posing for the camera.

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Commencement

Through the Lens

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Ned Sigler '21 and Michael Armstrong '21 smile for a photo together while the Class of 2021 gathers in the Johnson Library.

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Ariana Sterling '21 and Jasmine Ross '21 during the processional.

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Alexander Erlington '21 in a moment of thought while waiting to receive his diploma.

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From left: Jolea Moes '21, Tori Hodkin '21, Ryan Lack '21, Riley Borchardt '21, and Katie Prudden '21 take a photo through the Johnson Library window.

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

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Nick Parker '21 beams while listening to his Commencement remarks from Ben Williams.

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Ella Cassulo '21 with her Schoolhouse Dorm Head Dr. Laura Moore

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Sarah Ruelas '21 receives her diploma from Head of School Ben Williams.

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Madeleine Tunnell '21 and Fritze Mayer '21 are all smiles on Commencement day.

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Cum Laude Address

The Value of Inquiry

By Anna Fortner and Joshua Caditz

Good morning.

It’s great to be here with you.

We have spent years with you.

As teachers, we believe in the value of inquiry, in its ability to empower students to generate meaning and become independent learners.

In the classroom, in the dorms, on the field, in the oceans, mountains, and rivers.

But we also believe inquiry is a useful guide for navigating life’s complexities outside of the classroom.

On runs, paddling kayaks, talking around a table.

Seriously. Let us prove it to you.

We have come to know you, respect you, and care deeply for you.

When we observe, we name what we see.

Do you remember what it felt like to observe in Humanities for the first time?

The awkwardness of telling others what was so obviously right there on the Apple TV? “There’s a building. It has columns.

There are stairs leading up to it.” Do you remember how annoying it was when

We are honored to celebrate you and all your wonderful efforts.

As you stand at the edge of a very big unknown – your adult life – we want to be sure you know just how prepared you are to navigate what’s to come. Of all the lessons you’ve lived at Cate, there is one 32

we believe to be most important.

And it’s inquiry.

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

your teachers made you keep doing it soooo much longer than you wanted to?

Do you remember how often we told you to hold off on those inferences you were busting at the seams to share? We did that because we didn’t want you to miss anything. We wanted you to fully experience what was in front of you, so that when you went on to have ideas about it, those ideas were based on a breadth of observations and so more likely to be accurate.

How often do we fail to do this in life? How often do we bypass direct experience and make assumptions?

Determine something is too hard before even trying? Or decide someone or something is for or against us before we’ve fully observed that person or thing? How often do we find out later we were wrong?

The power of observation – in Humanities, in the Sciences, and in life – is that it interrupts the impulse to leap to what we think we know, it encourages understanding by reminding us to pause and with an open mind and heart experience the entirety of what we’re observing – whether primary artifact, a dataset, new college roommate, or nagging anxiety about what’s to come. Only through observation can we understand instead of judge.

Because curiosity has the power to quiet the ego and its fear of vulnerability – of being embarrassed, or wrong, or unwelcome. It frees us from a life of limited experiences that lead us to a limited sense of reality. Curiosity reveals a world and a self that are bigger and brighter than we knew and to a panoply of experience that proves reality is full of boundless possibility.

One of the more exciting discoveries we’ve made of inquiry is that the byproduct of sustained observation is questions. Think about that. Sustained observation expands rather than constricts our thinking. It makes us more curious. It makes us more full of wonder.

But we have to say, the more we have sought to make observing and questioning a way of life, the more curious we have become, the less attached we are to inferences. Maybe that’s the privilege of being in our forties – of having a partnership and children and a way to be of service to others, of having certain unknowns known. But we have found that when we don’t get too

What happens when you turn this into a way of life? Anything. Everything.

After we observe and question, we infer.

attached to who we think we are or what our lives are supposed to look like, what comes next is adventure, and that’s okay by us.

On the eve of your high school graduation, your life is more yours than it has ever been. That’s no doubt exciting… and maybe it’s a little scary, too. Whatever you’re feeling, trust your preparation for this moment: observe and question for yourself; be curious; make what inferences you need to to put one foot in front of the other…expect to stumble, …but be ready, too, to skip or to dance or to fly.

Thank you… …and congratulations Class of 2021!

Fourteen members of the Class of 2021 were inducted into the Cum Laude Society: Back Row (from left): Jasmine Ross '21, Cooke Tarlton '21, Fritze Mayer '21, Susana Vosmik '21, Ryan Suh '21, Joshua Gabbay '21, and Bella Lucente '21 Front Row: Madeleine Tunnell '21, Josephine Erickson '21, Yuki Kobayashi '21, Tali Nam '21, Rae Fox '21, Almira Bowo '21, and Cloris Cheng '21 (not pictured)

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FEATURE

Class of 2021

Baccalaureate Ceremony Finding Our Strength

By Nkemka Chukwumerije '21

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About the Baccalaureate Ceremony Baccalaureate is an old ritual that came to this country from Britain.

The term comes from the Latin “Bacca” – meaning “berry” – and “lauri” – referencing the laurels that were used to adorn those who earned their degrees.

Over the past few weeks, I have found myself in constant reflection as I go through my “lasts.” My last move-in day, my last advisory dinner, my last free day, my last class, my last assembly, my last spring fling, and my last commencement weekend. As I think back on my decision to leave my hometown at the age of 14, I can recall being filled with mixed emotions. At one end, high school would now mark the start of a new beginning and at the other end it would mark the conclusion of being completely dependent on my parents.

This evening, as I stand here and reflect on the past four years, I can admit that we as a class have been hit pretty hard.

We have arguably had the most time away from Cate since the students that were here during the days of World War II, and have endured a great deal during our time on this Mesa. Although we have lived through similar experiences, we each have our own unique stories.

On December 6, 2017, our Long House prefect, Desmond Castillo '18 informed Alex Albrecht that there would be a possibility of evacuation in response to the raging Thomas Fire that set Ventura and Santa Barbara County ablaze. When Alex heard the news he was scared. The place that he had started to grow accustomed to, seemed to not be so safe after all. Realizing that

he would be away from school for an extended period, he was happy at first, but as time went on he wished he was back at Cate. Even though he loved his hometown of Pasadena, he missed the familiar cheering of the student section at sporting events and the late night pool games in the Com Cen. He recalls this period as being the first time Cate had become his “new home.”

One month later, I woke up sweating.

Perplexed as to how it had possibly gotten so hot in my room, I sat up and noticed that my fan was off. Instantly I got up to switch it on. After many clicks, I noticed nothing else was working either, not even the lights. It wasn’t until later that morning that I realized that mudflows had struck Montecito and other areas of Santa Barbara County, leaving most of Carpinteria without power. I didn’t know how long it would be until things got back to normal, all I knew was that we would be stuck up on the Mesa until things cleared up.

Two years later, it was junior year. We all returned home to enjoy the first week of spring break. After a week or so we were all becoming more aware of the increasing concern due to the Coronavirus and were later informed that we would be moving online for the foreseeable future. After a week of college tripping, Jasmine Ross returned home to the Bay Area. A few days later after clicking through her emails, she saw the title: “Coronavirus Update.”

When she finished reading the email she remembers smiling at that news that we didn’t have school for another week. However, as the uncertainty of the timeline and the increase in cases worldwide started to become more apparent she recalls becoming “completely overwhelmed.”

On May 7, 2021, Esteban Paulino had just walked out of his class, when he heard rumors of a student harming themself. After a while of confusion and a day of unanswered questions, he felt out of sorts as a solemn mood filled the campus. A day later we all were

informed of the severity of the student’s condition. Esteban, like many of us, found it extremely difficult to actually accept the fact that something like that could happen on this very campus.

He states, “It didn’t really affect how I viewed Cate, it just made me realize how much we have been struggling this year.”

And tomorrow, on June 6, 2021, each one of us will have our own graduation story. We will conclude our time in high school and leave this very Mesa, on which we have spent the past several years.

The stories I mentioned are a few of our truths and our experiences. Like the uncertainty that we have all encountered when dealing with various hardships during our time here, there is a lingering question of what we will remember in the next 20 years. What will we remember when we look back at the time we shared?

Will we remember our first goodbye to our family, when we took the leap of faith freshman year.

The strength of the cold current of the river at Pyles.

That faculty member yelling at us from across campus to stop looking at our phone.

Groggy early morning walks to kitchen crew.

Cheering at the top of our lungs at dance convo in disbelief at how well our friends could perform.

Looking out the window of the team bus, listening to music while taking in the beauty of the shoreline.

Shaking a seniors hand at the Sunset Ceremony, thinking we’re going to be them some day.

The echo of Mr. Williams’ laugh during a Tuesday talk in the chapel.

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Or even, realizing that the problem on a T Smith’s math quiz today is the same one he had yelled out in class yesterday, and provided solutions to at four this morning, and that he has gone over countless times as he passed on his bike, yet you are still struggling to muster up an answer that will earn full credit…or that may only have been me.

Either way, we all have our own unique stories of our Cate experience. Through the hard times and happy times, we’ve all gone through this journey in our own way, and although events have kept us from being together as much as we’d have liked, when we look back, we’ll know we went through it together and we’ll always remember how close it made us in the end.

As I look around this amphitheater, I see a class that has persevered. A class whose graduation date itself, which now falls in June, is a direct representation of the uncertainty we have all endured.

Although we have had to separate far too many times, each time we come back, we are bonded by that time away as much as we are bonded by our time together. In other words, our separation from each other is in of itself a shared experience and has allowed us to realize how much we need one another. On countless occasions we have been tested.

We have been thrown obstacles that not many people can and have overcome. And through it all the Class of 2021 has found strength in unity. We have found strength in valuing one another and lifting each other up. We have found strength in knowing that in times of adversity we will always have our classmates to count on.

No matter where you all end up in the future, no matter how long we have been apart, no matter who you reach out to, and no matter what happens from here on out, I can confidently say that we, the Class of 2021, will forever and always remain connected. The forces of life have tried to break us apart. And they didn’t succeed. We will never drift too far away, we will never feel separate, and our bond will never break.

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CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

One Foot in Front of the Other

By Leilani Mendez '21

To be giving this speech right now feels so surreal. Graduation is really tomorrow. If I am being completely honest with you all, I have never really paid attention during the baccalaureate ceremony because underclassmen always sat outside, unable to hear, and used the time to quietly chat with friends while passing around yearbooks. When I found out that I would be giving this speech, I had no idea what I was going to talk about, but then the phrase “put one foot in front of the other” inspired me. To put one foot in front of the other could mean to adapt, or to simply keep on moving forward. I feel this phrase captures the Class of 2021’s time here at Cate in all of those aspects.

To adapt. The past four years never failed to throw something in our path. The Class of 2021 has had to adapt to so many things, from the moment we stepped foot onto the Mesa, to this very day. Driving up Heartbreak Hill on move-in day and having seniors jump into our cars and even sitting on our laps because our cars were full of belongings, is the first thing we had to adapt to.

From then, we adjusted to our new environment, the rigorous academics, and navigating our social lives. I can speak for us east-coasters when I say it felt absolutely incredible to go to school in a place that always has clear skies and warm weather – but let’s not get it twisted, the East Coast is still the best coast. Academics here at Cate were a huge transition from middle school. I remember being in Algebra 1 with Ms. Venditta, where she had corn dogs, dino nuggets, cake, and her dogs Churro and Lenny present while we were taking a quiz. I have to say that freshman year was the only year I enjoyed taking quizzes in math. I also remember being in the best Humanities class with Mr. Barry and Ms. Hammond.

One day in the middle of class, Mr.

Barry received a phone call and had to step out of class. We were all very confused, but got surprised when he returned with many boxes of pizza in return for being late to class so many times – truly an iconic moment. As for navigating our social lives, we all have our own stories to tell. I would say that most of us found our lifelong friends pretty quickly within the last four years but, of course, friend groups change and expand – but that’s life.

As I am sure we all know, this past year has been one that everyone has had to adjust to. Dealing with COVID-19 on campus surely put a damper on our senior year. We were not allowed to be within six feet of our closest friends, couldn’t give a hug to a friend who needed it most, and couldn’t experience our last year here in the traditional fashion. However, just as we always do, we made the best of it and moved on.

Before we move on, we need to make sure to be present. Through everything that has been thrown in our path, the Class of 2021 learned to be in the moment. Over the years, we took advantage of everything our campus had to offer. When there was a trip to Riverpark, everyone made sure to pack the buses, and once the buses were parked, we would sprint out and race to Korean Barbecue. When there was a game on campus, everyone showed up, wearing their Cate blue and screaming at the top of their lungs, “You can’t beat the blue” whenever we scored a point.

When there was a school dance, we all showed up in our themed attire to mosh and jump around each other in the very hot, sweaty, oddly smelling, comcen. Or even when the dining hall served “B4D,” and everyone would eat waffles and berries, bacon, and smoothies until we were stuffed. Through all the events and obstacles in our path, the Class of 2021 managed to still make our time here on the Mesa meaningful by creating all these memories and simply by putting one foot in front of the other.

To keep moving forward. The Class of 2021, for lack of better words, did our thing this year. I am so incredibly proud of us and am truly honored to be a part of this class. And as we keep moving forward, I want to leave you all with a few words. These qualities that we have acquired here at Cate are what we need

“It is our final night here on the Mesa. Tomorrow after graduation, we will each be moving on to the next chapter of our lives, where we will once again start adapting, and putting one foot in front of the other, because we have Cate to thank for that.” to continue to use once we leave the Mesa. Know that even though things can get stressful and hectic sometimes, you know how to adapt, and continue moving forward. It is our final night here on the Mesa. Tomorrow after graduation, we will each be moving on to the next chapter of our lives, where we will once again start adapting, and putting one foot in front of the other, because we have Cate to thank for that. Take advantage of these last few moments with each other. Share those last laughs, those last trips to the dining hall, those last walks around the campus.

Take in the last sunset at Sunset Bench.

And simply, just take in being with each other. I cannot wait to see what the future holds for everyone, but I do know that we are built for success. Keep putting one foot in front of the other, Class of 2021.

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Baccalaureate Introduction to Chatom Arkin '01

By Benjamin D. Williams IV Chatom Arkin '01 is the oldest of three Arkin boys, all of whom came to Cate. Chatom arrived as a sophomore in the fall of 1998, the same year that I did. As a student and a community member, he was everything anyone could want. His easy-going, gregarious nature quickly earned him friends and admirers who gravitated not simply to Chatom’s warmth but to his genuine interest in everyone. Chatom seemed truly content in company of any sort, though he did develop a particular fondness for a fellow student named Emily, who he later married. I’ll let Chatom tell you that story.

It would not have been hard, knowing Chatom as a student at Cate, to imagine the life he has led since. Chatom seemed destined to do something generous and meaningful.

After earning a degree in Literature and Psychology at Claremont McKenna College, Chatom went on to Pepperdine to do graduate work in the field of education. Then he became a teacher of language arts, first at Corona High School and then beginning a decade ago at Harbor Day School, an elementary and middle school in Corona Del Mar. There is something special about anyone who chooses to teach, but Chatom landed in middle school, the place where those whose insight and understanding and patience is necessarily greater than the rest.

Seventh grade English and Eighth grade literature are Chatom’s classes, a specialty we understand because of the number of students coming out of Harbor Day who apply to Cate and talk or write – unprompted – of what Chatom Arkin has meant to 38

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them. He has also taken on the role of Dean of Students.

For those wondering what it looks like to make a mark on the world or to accomplish something worthy and memorable, listen to the lessons that students who spent time in Chatom’s classrooms learned from him: • People remember how they’re treated above anything else.

• Patience is a skill that’s acquired through practice. It’s not an inherent trait.

• Discipline, hard work, and fun aren’t mutually exclusive.

• Stick up for the person that no one else will stick up for.

• There’s more than enough love to go around for everybody so there’s no point in saving any; give it out instead.

• True colors always shine, no exceptions.

Chatom’s always have, which is why he has become such a vital community member wherever he goes, improving the world one class or classmate at a time. We leave our interactions with him somehow better. I cannot speak to the lessons that any of us will take away from our time here tonight with Chatom, but I trust we will understand more when he is done than we do now.

And in a year when our inquiry question is, What is Education? It is hard to imagine a better or more knowledgeable final speaker.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce a life-changing teacher, Chatom Arkin.

Baccalaureate Address

Choose Servons

By Chatom Arkin '01

Good evening, faculty, staff, families, wife, and most importantly, Class of 2021. What a beautiful venue. Mr. Williams, I would like to thank you for the invite. I would also like to thank Ms. Diaz and Ms. Oopik for doing such a good job of making me feel at home this weekend. Looking around the room tonight I see old teachers of mine: the Pierces, Summers, Weis, the Woods, Denison. And by old, I mean old. If you want some perspective, I am the same age or older than they were when they taught me. And while I learned much from all these people, the most important piece of wisdom came from Coach Soto after I got busted for “creeching” my junior year. He wisely shared, “Charkin, don’t you know nothing good happens after midnight!”

Hellos aside, time to nip this in the bud and address the elephant in the room.

It might surprise you to hear this, but I got expelled from Cate. I hope this doesn’t come as too big of a shock to you, since I am in the company of other great expelled alum, such as David Crosby '60. I also hope you don’t think the school ran out of choices and picked some dud from the bottom of the barrel.

This is a big moment for me. I did not get to participate in a baccalaureate as a senior at Cate. Because of that, and because of who I have been since that moment in my life, the School has invited me back. To be clear, I have never wavered in my support of the school, of any of the faculty, or of the people who participated in the expulsion.

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Upon the completion of his Baccalaureate Address, Chatom Arkin '01 was surprised with a Cate School diploma from Head of School Ben Williams.

To give you a background on me, after my expulsion, I worked very hard through three semesters of community college (while I also visited the Mesa frequently to hang out with my future wife and sometimes the Dean who signed off on the expulsion). I then transferred to Claremont McKenna College where I graduated with a degree in Literature and Psychology.

After graduation, I almost immediately became a teacher – there was a stint as a ski instructor, but my wife quickly absolved me of that life-choice. Since then, I’ve been a middle school teacher, and, ironically, I am currently a Dean of Students. Yes. This irony is not lost on anyone in the room.

Since my expulsion, I have had to make many choices and face various challenges, but that mistake is still so pivotal in my life because it opened me to a new form of struggle that I had yet to face. I think that’s why when I was recently reading a book called, Democracy in Black, by a professor at Princeton named Eddie Glaude, Jr., I was hit super hard by a seemingly insignificant but 40

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poignant comment he made. At one point in the book, he asserts that we humans have one universal truth that connects us all: suffering. Synonymously, struggle. This point stopped me in my reading for it resonates so much with the moment we find ourselves in.

Let us pause and reflect on the gravity of our last two years on Earth. For me, as a teacher and Dean of Students, I have dealt with the tragic loss of a student of mine; I have helped others manage their mental health with that loss; I have helped a school navigate the pandemic; I have had to support my four kids and work on my own piece of mind. From Zoom fatigue, to emotional well-being, to physical health, the pressure these past few years has been overwhelming.

You here at Cate have endured similar sufferings – similar struggles. Your fires; your relocations; your loss; the pandemic. Separately, but as one, you have endured. If we can, let us recognize our universality: despite our varying life paths, we can connect; we can empathize.

Because we can bond in our feelings that come from our suffering and struggling.

What’s great about this truth is that our intersectionality of how we came by struggle is less relevant. It is not irrelevant, but the means by which we made it here today is not as important as that we are here today. And that we can connect. And that we can love others we don’t understand because we can feel some part of their history. In Glaude’s book, he speaks about participating in a 2014 movement called Forward Together, in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Upon arrival, he claims immediately being struck by the cross-section of people there: young, old, straight and gay, black, white, and Latinx. After sitting and talking with different people at a local McDonald’s, he states, “These were people from different walks of life who understood the common ground of suffering in this country. For them, that understanding did not require anyone to leave the particulars of their suffering at the door. It was about showing people the intersectionality of moving together.

The issue is not what I can do, but what we can do when we stand together, work together, and we feel movement together.”

While suffering has the potential to bring us together – to inspire people to find common ground and work for common good – this outcome is not a given.

We have to choose to work together.

This brings me to an elementary school down the street from where I work, south of here in Newport Beach. They have this chain link fence that restricts outside visitors from accessing their playground fields. What makes this otherwise insignificant fence germane to us today is that on their fence they have a dixie cup arrangement that reads “Choose Kindness.” I love that. Choose kindness. Because the truth is people don’t wake up kind. People wake up with bad breath, creased faces, pools of drool on the pillow. And, when you’re Swain’s age, aches, cracks, and pains. It’s as you stop hitting snooze, sit up, and throw your legs over the edge of the bed that you have a moment where you get to choose: do I want to be kind today? Do I want to give back to my community?

Whether that community is family,

friends, school, work, the world, it’s a choice. And there’s so much power in that choice. So much privilege. How many other things can you truly control in your day?

Back to me because that’s obviously why you’re all here. My expulsion has forced me to change more than any other moment in my life. I endured dysfunction as a child of divorce. I have also felt the losses of friends and family and a student. While these do mark varying pieces of my identity, as far as struggle goes, my expulsion has molded me the most. I do want to make clear that I am not so irresponsible as to declare that getting expelled is the same suffering as loss; measuring pain or adversity isn’t the point. It’s that struggle is our universal share. If we distill the feelings that come with tribulation, it’s in there that we find our connectivity.

So, my expulsion has defined me. Of course it has. It is part of my identity.

I suffered the ignominy of leaving, unceremoniously, this beautiful Mesa six months premature. I walked back into my hometown public school the next day and explained why, and it was humiliating. I trudged through community college in order to atone, and it was humbling. It should come as no surprise then that transferring into Claremont McKenna is one of the most important days of my life. But, at the risk of sounding trite, my expulsion has helped me become a better person.

Quick aside, make no mistake: I blew it; I do believe in regret; and I wish I had it all back. But, my mistake has made me who I am. I chose my profession – teaching and interacting with youth and participating in the development of community – because of that mistake.

I learned that I wanted to help me.

Not just the “cavalier” me that gave Mr. Barton such a tough time through junior year Spanish that I had to look up that word after he used it on my report card, but the NOW me, as well. The person who can look in the mirror and actually like what he sees…(despite the thinning hair, newfound double-chin, and disrespectful wrinkles). I like that I can look my four children in the eye and

demand kindness and goodness from them. I like that with my students, my colleagues, and my friends know that I am living a life of Servons.

So now to you. Because that’s actually why we’re here. You are now adults. And you have endured serious struggle. At the risk of fulfilling the old guy trope, here’s my request for you: Choose Servons.

Much like that adorable school down the road from me in Newport Beach that beseeches its students to choose kindness, I do the same for you now.

Choose Servons. We live in a world on the precipice, and I cannot tell you what’s on the other side of the cliff.

It could be a pit where people choose divisiveness and difference, or it could be a hilltop where you decide to choose a path towards giving and kindness. I don’t know which way it leads, but I can tell you that you will be the generation who decides. You are the generation bound by shared sufferings who has the potential to choose empathy and connection over

lazier avenues. Choose Servons. Because if you choose to serve your community, no matter how small or large, you too will feel the power of looking in the mirror and seeing someone whom you can be proud of. There’s a power in that kind of sincere self-love. You have enjoyed the privilege of going to Cate, of having access to this incredible faculty and staff, of being an in-person student this last year, of having a graduation on this gorgeous campus.

Use your accumulation of privileges.

Recognize your responsibility. Give back.

Choose Servons.

Class of 2021, thank you for your time today. With each of you by my side, I am so proud to call myself an alumnus of this great school. I am also excited to welcome you to the next phase of your life: the one where you choose Servons and join me in the good fight.

Thank you.

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The Class of

2021

Every year, before Head of School Ben Williams confers diplomas upon graduating seniors, he speaks of their individual character and achievements, noting the unique ways they’ve enriched life on the Mesa. These “literary snapshots,” composed of observations, along with excerpts from teacher and advisor reports, speak to the depth and breadth of the Cate community.

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ALEXANDER ALBRECHT

WITH HONORS

Villanova University

Alexander is one of our heroes. He just steps up in moments when we need him most. He is a prefect this year for that very reason, and because he can be relied on at every minute to be kind and gracious, principled and wise.

Athletes in particular have a certain reverence for Alexander, and will identify him as a reason for their and the team’s success. He has been on the sideline of every football game and basketball game in his tenure. He is a coach of sorts, a brilliant statistician, and a student of sports. Over trimester break, it was Alex who was setting up screens around campus so that all could partake in the men’s and women’s final four. He has grown, too, at Cate. Grown into his scholarship, which is profound, into his leadership, which is gentle yet resolute, into his size 13 shoes, which may be twice as large as the sneakers he first walked on campus in four years ago. We knew he’d be special then. We were right.

MICHAEL ARMSTRONG University of Chicago

Michael plays percussion, is the center on our basketball team, and carried most of the group’s gear a year ago on the Kern. He is the guy in each ensemble or team or collection of people who will likely say the least but do the most. And to watch him in each setting is to acknowledge his fortitude, his grace, his rhythm, and his joy. It wasn’t an accident that Michael became the prefect in Savage House, the newest dorm on campus this year, or that when a saxophonist or a vocalist or a guitarist grabs the spotlight in a musical performance, you can still see Michael in the background holding the baseline rhythm on the drums. It isn’t always the one in front who matters but the one just behind making it possible for everyone to do their part. That’s how this humble, gentle giant has carried us all along, even keeping us all smiling with the best comedic timing in the world. Michael not only knows how to make his mark, he knows when, too.

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CLASS OF 2021

ABHIMANYU BANGARU

ALBERT BARBER

Abhi’s advisor recently opened a letter by writing, “Abhi Bangaru does the right thing even when no one is watching.” His principles and values are deeply ingrained and they contribute to the most generous forms of citizenship and leadership. “He is the nicest guy I’ve ever met,” said a classmate. He became a prefect this year because his kindness is contagious and it’s clear there is no one better to help a new student find a home on the Mesa. There is no greater role model either, for Abhi’s scholarship is also full of virtue and insight and wisdom. He is an exceptional student and one who never really stops or even slows down in his search for answers or understanding. Abhi’s summers are as rich in scholarship as the school year, and the energy of his inquiry seems to infuse his every gesture with meaning and good will.

Who can forget the year he dressed up for Halloween as a bee?

A clever, sweet soul indeed.

Based on his first two years of play, Albert was headed for Cate volleyball stardom. He is quick and skilled, a brilliant defender, a soft-handed setter, and a powerful hitter. Though the pandemic put an end to volleyball these last two years, the metaphor of Albert orchestrating the play of his teammates has not been lost. We just see it in other ways now: in Albert’s diligent scholarship, in his love of the outdoors and his eagerness to be in the backcountry, in his Teaching Assistantship and the guidance of his freshmen seminar students, in the character of service distilled in him through years of scouting, which resulted in his Eagle Scout designation this past summer. Warm, welcoming, well-meaning, and well-balanced, Albert stills seems to approach his life as one long volleyball game, where he uses his broad array of skills and the trust he so naturally builds within his communities to ensure collective momentum and a winning season.

JASPER BENNETT

ADRIAN BINNS

In a lacrosse game this spring, Jasper slid toward his teammate, who had the ball and was being tightly defended. Jasper stopped just to his teammate’s right, setting a pick that cleared the way for a Cate goal. It is the kind of play Jasper has been making for years in a Cate uniform, the ones that show not only knowledge of the game but commitment, unselfishness, and presence. We saw the same from Jasper on the Kern trip last year, when he made a habit of shouldering far more than his share of the load and was often the one moving along the line of hikers encouraging each one with a kind word or an entertaining story.

Jasper’s work in the classroom is similarly focused on narrative and making things work. He loves a good argument and his wry wit always seeps into his dialogue. And his favorite pastime is restoring an old car or making something work again. One way or another, Jasper makes things go or go well.

Adrian traveled a long way from his home in Brooklyn to learn on this Mesa, and it is clear now what brought him to the West. It is the people that compel Adrian and perhaps the possibilities intrinsic to a place that is new and different from that which he has known. Easy-going, wellgrounded, and curious, Adrian is only beginning to see the potential of his scholarship.

But his relationships he has already profoundly enabled. Rarely do we see Adrian without a smile on his face or miss that big-hearted laugh. When his teammates needed someone to play goalie in lacrosse a few years ago, Adrian happily stepped forward. He has his private moments, too, of course, and often he’ll break out the fantasy card games that he has always loved, mostly because the games offer him an opportunity to spend time one on one with somebody else. And any time with Adrian is time well spent.

Case Western Reserve University

Kenyon College

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CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

Loyola Marymount University

Bates College

RILEY BORCHARDT

ALMIRA BOWO

Riley is always diving for something. On the volleyball court it’s an attempted kill by an opposing player.

In the classroom it’s a particularly engaging topic or a fulsome debate.

And at sea, it’s the biology of our marine systems and the many life forms that entails. SCUBA certified and headed for collegiate study in marine biology, Riley misses no opportunity to literally immerse herself in her passions. And the result, regardless of the area of endeavor, is an experience that transcends Riley herself.

It is no accident that our volleyball program – before it was interrupted by the pandemic – perpetually contended for a CIF title, or that the lacrosse team relies on Riley to lead and organize its defense. She brings a level of commitment and resolve, along with a conspicuous joy in work and competition, that makes her the ideal partner, teacher, or teammate. Our oceans will surely be in good hands, too, now that Riley is on the job.

We came to know Almira through song. It was her voice we heard fronting the Cate Rock Band or harmonizing a cappella style in Last Call. But the resonant tones of Almira’s vocals simply foreshadowed the many contributions that would follow. A student of uncanny grace and insight, Almira’s voice in class discussions has become as compelling as her song, prompting one teacher to note Almira’s obvious “delight in sharing her ideas and hearing from others.” Said another, Almira “energizes the school in ways seen and unseen.” That very character of contribution led to Almira’s election as a prefect this year and distinguishes her commitment in this unprecedented time. Her unflappability and even-keeled nature make Almira a tempering and reassuring presence amidst the tumult. And thankfully, even as she has enriched our lives in other ways, Almira has not stopped singing, carrying in her lyrics the hope that sustains and supports us all.

DEBORAH BRITTAIN

GRACE BURROUGHS

Deborah learned to trust at Cate – to trust in her own abilities and aptitudes, to trust her peers and teachers, to trust this place so far from her home in Boston. In so doing, she told us in her Servons Speech earlier this Spring, she found not only remarkable and meaningful friends and mentors but her own conviction and confidence. She has become a leader at Cate – a prefect and our Head Tour Guide – because she has consistently stepped forward in the face of opportunity, even if doing so brought some degree of vulnerability or discomfort. And she has found things that she loves as a result: biology and genetics, for one. Said a teacher last year, “There were many moments last winter when it was just the two of us geeking out over genetics.”

She has led our Black Student Union for two years and been a cornerstone of our basketball program even longer. There her teammates know she’ll always be waiting on the low post. There is no one – in any situation it seems – that we trust more than Deborah to do what needs to be done.

Grace seems at her most fulfilled when she is creating something.

Maybe it’s a canvas in studio art, where her technical expertise in rendering images is unusual and conspicuous.

Or maybe she is in the recording studio, singing, playing guitar, layering beats and mixing recordings. Whether it is with her ear or her eye, Grace is perpetually evoking some image or idea to share with others. That capacity has distinguished Grace’s time at Cate and given her confidence in her ability to use her art to express herself in this world. Already an adept student in every discipline, Grace has demonstrated the breadth of her insight at Cate. And with each passing year, she is refining it ever more carefully and thoughtfully. This spring, in fact, she gave her first formal address to the community, revealing the art of her written and spoken expression all the more vividly. Grace’s truth will surely drive her vision from here forward, whatever medium she chooses to use for its expression.

University of Miami

University of Southern California

WITH HONORS

Duke University

Parsons School of Design at The New School

45

CLASS OF 2021

AVERY CARTER

ELEANOR CASSULO

Avery arrived at Cate as a junior and then headed into the wilderness with her new classmates on the legendary Kern River backpacking trip.

Challenged with truly epic blisters, Avery refused to ride a horse, opting instead to wrap her sore feet as best she could and complete the trek in Crocs. That exercise in fortitude and resolve foreshadows all that has come since from Avery. A determined, insightful, undaunted student, Avery has in the words of one of her instructors, “shown us that any education is about finding new ways to learn and adapt to change and challenge.” She has also become one of the leaders of our Model Unite Nations program, one of the editors of our school newspaper, El Batidor, and this year a teaching assistant in our Human Development program. As important as any of these accomplishments, though, is the generous spirit of Avery’s commitment, the thrill she finds in a healthy debate, and her unselfish efforts to be of service to communities and organizations that are important to Avery. Just like ours.

Teachers writing about Ella use Latin phrases about still waters or quote Henry VI, “Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.” There is something decidedly timeless about Ella, her reserve, and her conviction. We think of ancient learning traditions – one letter about Ella made reference to her “Yoda-like calm” – because of their fundamental teachings and the understanding that Ella possesses a similar sort of wisdom.

At its root is empathy, kindness, integrity and resolve, the very qualities that build friendships and partnerships and push back on those who would deprive others of their humanity and dignity. Composed and thoughtful as she is, Ella is far from silent. She enjoys a good discussion and is masterful at working through uncertainty to the conclusions that wait on the other side. She may be, in fact, one of our best students, for Ella makes no distinctions between what she learns and where she learned it. Everything she discovers Ella devotes to the common good.

CHU XIN (CLORIS) CHENG WITH HIGH HONORS

IAIN CHOI

There is a great story about a few seniors wrestling with an advanced math problem a few years ago. Finding themselves at an impasse, they decided to seek Cloris’ guidance. She was a sophomore at the time. When it comes to mathematics, though, or the application of quantitative principles, Cloris has always been way ahead of her time. At one point interested in becoming a professor of mathematics, Cloris has an unusual aptitude not simply for understanding mathematical concepts and principles but for evolving them, applying them, and teaching others how to use them. She has won every award we bestow for the study of mathematics, is our champion in the California Mathematics League, and leads our team in virtually every math competition. She has also shown an interest in service at Cate and at her home in China, which complements nicely her commitment to her studies. Surely it will be that blend of service and scholarship that will guide Cloris’ contributions to our world in the future.

Iain’s journey at Cate has taken him through an incredibly broad range of interests and aptitudes.

Already an accomplished musician when he arrived on the Mesa, one whose perfect pitch was instrumental in helping the orchestra get in tune before concerts, Iain used his artistic sensibilities to organize and focus his scholarship. He dove into his writing, for instance, and his love for fantasy and stories. He began composing and writing music, often in response to pieces he had authored. And his work gained focus and direction, prompting Iain to write in his junior year, “I feel like I really got a grasp of myself this year.”

Not surprisingly, his favorite classes at the time were music, English, and French. Creating and ideating will always be a part of Iain’s identity, and that is surely the good news. For his imaginative adventurous spirit is captivating and his ability to use it in service of his art and his music will be a gift indeed to all of us who eagerly await whatever Iain creates or composes or narrates hereafter.

Cornell University

California Institute of Technology

46

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

Colgate University

New York University

NKEMKA CHUKWUMERIJE

PETER COORS

A faculty member wrote earlier this year, “Nkemka is that rare person who asks how you are and actually wants to know the answer.”

He has become one of our standard-setters at Cate, because of that very generosity of spirit.

Communities depend on those whose citizenship is a model for how to be and contribute, and Nkemka is surely one of our models. Not simply because he is kind and empathetic but because he is principled, unselfish, humble, and gracious. Try to complement Nkemka, for instance, on his play on the basketball court or his service as a prefect or his insight in an English class, and he’ll find a way of turning the focus back to you. Maybe Nkemka doesn’t see his own brilliance or maybe he is just not that interested in it, especially if there is someone else to engage with. Whatever the reason or his motivation, Nkemka moves through life the same way he moves on a basketball court, with captivating grace, disarming skill, and unrelenting commitment to his many exceedingly fortunate teammates.

Peter Coors took center stage in the fall play his freshman year and he has remained in the spotlight ever since. That first role was as a wonderfully self-absorbed prince, but Peter’s staying power in the community comes from the fact that he is just the opposite. Sincere, kind, well-meaning, and self-deprecating, Peter spends most of his time trying to do something this community will enjoy. He is our Student Body President this year for that very reason, the architect of all sorts of dorm competitions, and still a mainstay of our theater program. One faculty member called Peter, “an idealist and a helper.” And another described him as “passionately inquisitive.” Politics and the study of history energize Peter as completely as a good monologue, and he seems destined to hold other offices as he moves into larger and larger communities. What will not change, though, is the quality and character of his service and the fundamental virtue that inspires and informs it.

YULIANNA CRUZ-TRINIDAD

WILLIAM DEARDORFF

There is a gentleness and a warmth to Yulianna that makes every interaction with her reassuring and affirming.

If Yulianna supports us, then we are worthy and seemingly capable of greatness. For that is how we see Yulianna – someone who will make a difference in this world.

In our community, she already has. But Yulianna has her sights set on bigger things – on the study of engineering and the way the parts make the whole, on service efforts in support of those in need, and on connecting with people and places throughout the world. Just ask the youngsters she tutors in Carpinteria, or the communities she visits in Mexico, or the folks she worked with in Korea at the National Security Language Institute. Yulianna simply makes a point of doing something generous and thoughtful and unselfish everywhere she goes. A teacher called her “a gentle soul with a bold spirit whose aspirations and aptitudes will not only help Yulianna to reach for the stars, but to sail among them.”

William prefers to let his work speak for itself. He does not instinctively reach for the microphone or step into the spotlight.

And yet, his genius is unavoidable and conspicuous. We saw it last year on stage of all places, when William shared the details of his Metherell Service Project – a playground that he raised the funds for and ultimately built with a team of friends and local volunteers in a small community in Mexico. There was William, quietly understating his achievement while images of this spectacular project appeared on the screen behind him.

It is the kind of moment we are used to seeing in other venues, like when William does something with a soccer ball or makes contact with a fastball, or trots off the field after yet another touchdown. An unparalleled athlete, William just has a special grace in any arena – of life or sport – allowing him to confront that which would daunt others and achieve the wonderful, the admirable, the amazing as a result.

Wesleyan University

Brown University

WITH HONORS

University of Notre Dame

University of Southern California

47

CLASS OF 2021

MICHAEL DUPRAU

ALEXANDER ELRINGTON

Michael belongs in a different time, an earlier time when people dressed more formally, when good manners and a kind greeting were welcome, where academics sat around a table in robes and argued the virtues and deficits of one theory or another. History and law are Michael’s particular passions, but he can hold his own on any topic with anyone.

And his thoughtful stoicism assures that Michael will never lose track of the argument, never lose composure, never lose, actually. In a community like ours where Michael is surrounded by folks who seem to belong in this century, Michael remains distinctly and generously himself, and the only student who will claim a copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelis as his most prized possession. He leaves us fittingly to continue his studies in Scotland, where his incredible intellectualism is bound to find fertile ground and his old soul all kinds of kindred spirits.

A faculty member wrote recently that Alex is a “connector” – the guy in any collection of people who helps the group cohere. That virtue is certainly conspicuous in the many communities Alex is a part of on this Mesa, in his contributions to our lacrosse program, for instance, or in the measured sincerity of his responses to peer comments in class discussions. Whatever Alex does, he does with earnest conviction and patient resolve, deriving as one teacher described, exuberant curiosity from the study of biological minutiae. That is how he actually built his first computer some time ago, fashioning it from pieces he was able to save for and buy over time, knowing ultimately that he could find a way to connect them. People, parts … Alex is equally facile with both, knowing intuitively how the connected whole transcends the sum of the parts. That is the truth Alex leaves behind here, that together we are better, especially when he is around.

JOSEPHINE ERICKSON

RAE FOX

University of St Andrews

Northeastern University

WITH HIGH HONORS

Barnard College

Josie’s natural, selfeffacing modesty fits with her delightfully casual, gently gregarious, thoroughly unselfish nature. She makes friends easily and thoughtfully, reaches out to help intuitively to any in need, is wise in every moment, and is quick to join a worthy effort. That very tendency brought her to involvement with the Carpinteria Flames and the group of elementary and middle school girls who she teaches the game of lacrosse. For Josie, this is an opportunity to enjoy a group of kids to support. But for those girls in the program it is not about a game but about identity, dreams, individual power, and agency.

And who better to teach such things than Josie, a student who can elevate any classroom, an athlete who can confound any opponent, and a community member who can improve any gathering. Care and compassion, kindness and determination, insight and interest, hope and its realization – these are the virtues Josie has so ably and generously personified at Cate.

48

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

WITH HONORS

Cornell University

Rae Fox helps orphanages in far off lands design businesses that will assure them a steady stream of revenue. She speaks at international consortiums about liberty and freedom and service. The last of those took place in Vilnius, Lithuania, and her fellow speakers were ambassadors and heads of state. She collects stories of friendships that she can compile and publish, and she is one of our most passionate and dedicated public servants, known and loved by all at Stevens House. And this is simply what Rae does with her free time. There is a commitment in Rae to making a difference in the world that is as strong and unyielding as her relentless compassion and endless hope. Her scholarship flows from that very well of good intentions and captures every bit of her earnest conviction. And it is colored by learning challenges that have helped the ever self aware Rae to appreciate the value of great accomplishments that do not come easily or without phenomenal commitment.

JOSHUA GABBAY

WITH HIGH HONORS

University of Southern California

ZACHARY HANSON Pennsylvania State University

Since he arrived on the Mesa as a freshman, Joshua has been “that guy.” The guy who played one of the hilariously narcissistic princes in Into The Woods. The guy in class that seemed to know the answer before anyone else. The guy whose textual annotations on reading assignments are so thorough and precise they belong in a museum, or a library. The guy who greets everyone with a broad smile and a generous greeting. He is already among our most decorated students, earning honors for broad-based excellence and exemplary achievement in individual areas of study. Last spring his many turns on stage were to have culminated in his role as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. The pandemic put an end to that possibility, sadly, but Joshua has found other ways to energize and amaze this community this year. Whether he is tutoring students in mathematics, studying advanced genetics on his own, or supporting underclassmen as a prefect, Joshua is perpetually our leading man.

Said a faculty member recently, “Zach enjoys life in the present, and smelling the flowers rather than racing through his day.” His contemplative nature and his always thoughtful expressions affirm not only the peacefulness of Zach’s demeanor but the insight behind it. Zach’s penchant for introspection has taken him from jazz trombone to electronic music and now to music production. It has taken him to the Samoan Community Center in San Francisco where he volunteers and works with children. And it has taken his scholarship to new and personal levels as Zach has immersed himself in work that piques his interest and inspires his curiosity.

Such growth has led faculty and students alike to identify Zach as one of our most compassionate citizens, a fitting moniker for a guy who gave up football a few years ago because, as Zach himself put it, “I don’t really like hitting people.”

Helping is better.

LAYTON HARDING

JACOB HERNANDEZ

There is a profound sincerity to every thought Layton has, every gesture he makes, every action he contemplates. It’s evident in his listening. He is there with you, meeting your eyes, hearing what you have to say. In class discussions, Layton is generous, precise, and animated. He likes the sharing and the learning.

Having come to Cate as a junior, Layton had little time to sink into this place, and yet he has done so marvelously. The things that matter to him – like sustainability, environmental responsibility, equity, and dignity – are the very things that support our planet and its people. Layton wants to solve the big problems, one step at a time. The reduction of plastics on this campus is a testament to Layton’s advocacy and effort. Wherever Layton goes, even the soccer field where he is a strong player, Layton improves the dynamic, reminds us of what matters, and energizes the moment.

Since arriving on this campus as freshman, Jay has said “yes” to virtually every opportunity, setting a standard for humble engagement that is as rare as it is wonderful. In so doing he has become one of our leaders. A prefect this year in '25 House, Jay is one of those seniors that students and faculty look to for counsel or simply a willing ear. He has become a digital artist, taking classes each summer to augment his skills and becoming a teaching assistant in the program this year. Standup comedy, rock climbing, co-head of Girls Who Code, even Cate ambassador to one of our Round Square peer schools in India, Jay does it all. He has even, despite his remarkably gentle nature, become a football player, a sport Jay loves because of the shared commitment he feels from his teammates. Mortal though he surely is, Jay seems composed almost exclusively of virtue. And in each engagement he initiates or accepts, he brings fulfillment and joy.

Tulane University

Union College

49

CLASS OF 2021

COLE HILLYER

VICTORIA HODKIN

Cole loves a great physical challenge.

An Eagle Scout, he is completely at home in the outdoors and the tales of his efforts on last year’s Kern trip are still making the rounds: like Cole making dinner and cleaning up when much of his pod was exhausted by the day’s hiking. Cole carrying extra weight as the pod climbed farther and farther up. When everybody else took a rest day, Cole grabbed his fly rod and went fishing. Perfect priorities, those are. On campus, Cole carries his responsibilities deftly, contributes thoughtfully, and works incredibly hard. “A soft-spoken, kind-hearted leader” said one of his teachers, unafraid to put in the time and effort to be successful. Academically, Cole finds meaning in each discipline and the means to apply ideas across the spectrum of scholarship. Water draws Cole, too, and not just to fish. He is an accomplished swimmer and water polo player, one who thrives on the discipline and effort intrinsic to the sports and resonant with his nature.

“Before we have even stepped through the doorway into the Shepard Place Senior Center,” a member of the Public Service team wrote in the fall, “Luella has wrapped Tori up in a massive hug.”

Since arriving at Cate, Tori has spent virtually every Wednesday night supporting people others don’t see, calling bingo, and generally making life special for those who need her love.

It is an immense responsibility Tori has taken on, to brighten the lives of so many, and yet she carries it gracefully, like she did her large heavy backpack on the Kern trip, as though it is not a burden to her. Her support of the girls in Long House as a prefect this year flows from the same well of good intentions. Conviction, purpose, and perspective radiate from Tori, coloring her scholarship, her artwork, and her citizenship with a distinctly humanist glow. We certainly understand the excitement of those Tori visits each week, for we too find ourselves winning when Tori is in charge.

GRACE JOHNSON

TAYLOR KANE

Bowdoin College

Colorado College

WITH HONORS

Johns Hopkins University

Grace Johnson is someone we trust in every moment. Empathy, intensity, determination, and wisdom seem to form the foundation of her character, making her the ideal partner at any time and for any purpose.

On the volleyball court, Grace is capable not simply of feats of athletic prowess but holds a kind of steely composure that makes her nearly unstoppable. She is the rock upon which the opposing team’s ship breaks apart. Off the court, Grace speaks up for those who are still trying to find their voice, reminds us when we are missing the point or not treating each other well, and models the generous citizenship to which we all aspire. A prefect by inclination and title, Grace uses her office to support the community that needs her, to keep us smiling, and to assure us that we always have a friend in her. Said one beneficiary of her kindness, “Grace has made our school better every day simply by being here.”

50

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

Pitzer College

A faculty member was talking with Taylor after a particularly rough and competitive soccer game last year. Taylor had an ice wrap on her shoulder and was limping. She had played the game and much of the season with a nagging injury and still made countless unbelievable saves, preserving the win for Cate. “When do you get to take a break and recover?” the faculty member asked. Taylor smiled. “Who needs a break?” Certainly not Taylor. She pushes herself relentlessly and joyfully. And Taylor is every bit as determined in the classroom as she is to stop a breakaway or support her seminar students. Tour guide? No problem. Teaching assistant? Happy to. Learn lacrosse? Where do I sign up? Every once in a while we come across community members whose commitment to the things they love and the community itself is so profound, so energizing, and so genuine that they end up teaching us all about what it takes to be truly exceptional. That’s Taylor.

SHION KATO

BRYCE KIM

If you ask Shion a question, he’ll look at you and then pause before he answers. It is a show of respect, of sorts, to honor the query itself and the person offering it. But it is also an opportunity to provide an honest response. In that way Shion’s dignity constantly affirms each of ours. It’s a fitting truth for a guy who rarely seeks attention but gets it anyway. Dorm faculty over the years have remarked on the fact that everyone seems to gravitate to Shion’s room. Said one faculty member, “There’s often a lot of noise, but none of it is coming from Shion.” He’s listening, laughing, and in his own way making every one of his visitors feel honored and comfortable. His efforts in the community are of a similar ilk: Shion heads the peer tutoring program in PBL math, Japanese, and Digital Arts.

He co-heads the Student Activities Committee. When he is not doing something remarkable with his own intellect, he is helping another do so with theirs.

When the pandemic prevented students from returning to the Mesa last spring, Bryce called immediately to ask that his violin be shipped home. That instrument is one of the means by which Bryce expresses himself, gives sound to thoughts and feelings.

He’s pretty remarkable with a tennis racket in hand, too, captaining our team this year as a standout doubles player. Put a pen in his hand and Bryce is just as facile demonstrating an uncommon ability to capture energy and nuance and emotion. Said one of his teachers, “Bryce is nimble in seemingly any language.” And given that math, too, is a language of sorts, Bryce thrives there as well. It is that very panoply of complementary aptitudes, in fact, that distinguish Bryce and give creativity and depth to his every gesture. No wonder he was asked to play his violin at the DMZ between North and South Korea. There is just no telling what factions Bryce’s work will bring together.

ELLA KLAERNER

YUKI KOBAYASHI

Case Western Reserve University

WITH HONORS

Brown University

WITH HIGHEST HONORS

New York University

University of Southern California

During a remarkable convocation by an Olympic bobsledder held on Zoom this spring, a group of students got off on a tangent in the chat around the physics of sleds.

It was well-meaning, but it distracted from the presentation. So Ella waited until the appropriate time and then reminded the students of where their focus should be. That is what Ella always does, it seems, helps us understand where we should focus our attention. When she sings, we are captivated.

When she writes or challenges us to do better, it is often because she sees opportunities that others miss. When she advocates for others or on an issue of importance, we are compelled by her perspective. And when she produces one of her films, we are amazed by her ability to shape a narrative. In a time when the whole world has been reminded that we can and should be better than we are, Ella’s voice has become part of that clarion call for change. And she’ll do the work always to help us live up to our best aspirations.

Yuki wrote just a few weeks ago, “I don’t think van Gogh would have painted with such vivid yellows if he wasn’t capable of seeing the world in that way.”

Genius, she suggested, is at least partly about a unique perspective. Hers is undeniable. Answers to the most challenging questions seem to tumble out of Yuki’s mouth, like her gestures of kindness that are equally prolific. Foster homes visits occur every Wednesday and Yuki is always there. And the girls in her dorm trust that Yuki the prefect is perpetually on the job. In fact, Yuki will be there before they know they need her, anticipating the challenge and knowing how to solve the problem. In a class full of powerful intellects, Yuki still stands out. She likely always will. Asked about her nearly flawless performance in a recent trimester, Yuki shrugged and said, “I did pretty good.” It’s an understatement worthy of Yogi Berra or Ben Soto. Yuki’s love affair with scholarship is a lifelong commitment, and she is indeed off to a “pretty good” start.

51

CLASS OF 2021

RYAN LACK

ANNABELLA LUCENTE

Ryan is an artist who loses herself in the things she loves: a song she is writing, a bowl she is throwing, or a research topic that intrigues her. Depth of insight, depth of study, depth of expression, depth of interest – these things compel Ryan and distinguish the manner in which she does just about everything. That’s why she is perpetually in motion, whether it is during the school year or not. Ryan wants to experience things. So she does Wilderness First Responder training in Alaska or learns to fly a plane in Indiana or studies music in Boston. A Chinese peer tutor and one of the editors of El Batidor, Ryan seems to be adept at communicating in a host of languages. And her manner and level of engagement reveal her great interest in and affection for the people with whom she is communicating. “A generous friend,” said one community member of Ryan, “and a gracious spirit.”

Bella likes to sing. She is a member of Camerata, and Last Call, our a cappella group, and we have become accustomed to listening to her as she gives herself wholly to her art. It is a magnificent rendering not simply of song but of the need for an artist to commit completely to their craft.

Bella does the same as a teaching assistant this year, and she loves introducing families to Cate. She has been our Head Tour Guide for two years. Politics interest her so she leads that club too, and this is just how Bella spends her free time. Watch her in an academic setting and she is a maestro there, too. This earnest, amazing, community-minded soul is awash in curiosity and insight, decorated with awards and honors beginning in her freshman year and unabated since. Even her inquiry project, which focused on slowing climate change by changing our eating habits, speaks to the scale of a difference Bella believes we are all capable of making. Said one of her awed teachers of Bella, “There really aren’t enough superlatives.”

MORGAN LUI

ANDREW MABON

Morgan likes things that he has to work hard at. That’s why he took up squash, only to become one of our strongest players. It’s why he participates regularly in our Foster Homes program, because the kind of support he wants to offer has to be sustained and personal. You have to invest yourself in it, and Morgan knows a lot about that kind of commitment. It is the very quality that has made him such an insightful and successful student. Mathematics and biology compel Morgan most profoundly, allowing him to excel in some of the most difficult courses at Cate. Thankfully, too, there is a warmth and levity to Morgan’s aspiration, making him the guy you want to be in class with. Said one faculty member, “Morgan is ridiculously funny and ridiculously smart.” It’s quite a combo and it has given us access to a young man who not only pushes the bounds of scholarship but brings us all merrily along, laughing all the way.

Andrew connects. It is his nature, his mantra, and the first line in most letters about him.

This warm-hearted, well-meaning, energetic young man just finds every opportunity to engage. And the virtues of his interactions are consistent wherever they take place. His sense of humor is never absent, his profound curiosity is insatiable, he has an obvious affection for banter or repartee, and he exudes a genuine joy simply in being. Coaches and teachers call him a glue kid, because they like so much what his presence does to the dynamics of a class or a team. He was selected as a teaching assistant in Human Development this year for that same reason. We know how he can influence a community of peers. There are things he loves, too: like soccer and fly fishing, the really important stuff. But Andrew seems poised for a life where he loves most everything.

That’s just his particular energy.

Tulane University

Brown University

52

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

WITH HIGH HONORS

Middlebury College

Loyola Marymount University

JAMES MARIN

BRENDA MARTINEZ RUIZ

James Marin is softspoken, gregarious, adventurous, occasionally mischievous, lovable, generous, kind, and easy-going. He smiles when he says hello, and if he is wearing a mask you can see the greeting in his eyes. He works hard in everything he does, contributes to the best of his ability, and always has something special to give. Every team on which he has competed has been improved not simply by James’ play but by his presence and his spirit. He is also the first guy to acknowledge an error or mistake, to take responsibility if something doesn’t go right, to set the principled example. Such integrity is always memorable, but for James it is particularly so because of his earnestness. His intentions are as easy to trust as he is. James leaves us for West Point and the very honor, unselfish service and commitment the military requires. It’s a perfect fit.

There’s a song by Prince released in the mid-1980s called “Baby I’m a Star.”

“You might not know it now,” he sings, “but I are.” Despite the subject verb agreement problem in the lyric, faculty agree that he might well have been singing about Brenda. She has been our fundamental, generous, and ever brightening light. She invests herself in every thing she does, producing nearly flawless work that one teacher noted, “still does not capture her personal growth, her extreme diligence, nor her ambitious goals for the future.” Her brilliant communication skills she puts to work as a teaching assistant and as the editor of our yearbook, The Mesan. She captains the track and field team with the same discipline and zeal, distinguishing herself as one who excels most profoundly at times when others falter.

That’s what stars do, after all, send us illumination and trust we will see.

CHARLOTTE (FRITZE) MAYER WITH HIGH HONORS

LEILANI MENDEZ

A trustee of the High Mountain Institute, where Fritze spent a portion of her junior year, recalled a presentation that Fritze gave to the Board about her experience in the program. “She was brilliant,” he said, “such poetry in her insights.”

We have become accustomed to Fritze’s ability to capture ideas or experiences or sensations or emotions and render them in a manner that the rest of us can understand.

She helps others do the same, in fact, as one of the leaders of our Servons Speech series, teaching classmates how to share that which matters most to them with us. It helps that Fritze’s presence is both joyful and peaceful, that she is welcoming and gracious, and that she is capable of scholarship and friendship on a level to which we all aspire. A captain of our tennis team, a teaching assistant, and a profound believer in the best in all of us, Fritze has quietly brought out the best in this community. And she has helped us capture our virtue and our challenges in the language we share with each other.

The efforts of faculty over the years to capture the essence of Leilani Mendez have yielded some remarkable sentences. “Leilani is a vessel of determination and hope.”

“Leilani is her own mason and carries her own karma, good karma by the way.” “Leilani approaches each day with intention, intellectual focus, and a relentless pursuit of finding even the tiniest particle of good in every fortunate person who crosses her way.” “Leilani’s laughter is like music.” It is hard, candidly, to do justice in language to the expression of being that Leilani so graciously inhabits. She is one of our Head Prefects not simply because we trust and admire her, but because we know that when others lose sight of what’s important, Leilani won’t. In a year that required more from all of us than we knew we could give, Leilani is one who never doubted and never gave less than her very best. Only one, as her advisor wrote, “with extraordinary humanitarian vision” is capable of such service.

United States Military Academy West Point

Georgetown University

WITH HONORS

Duke University

Barnard College

53

CLASS OF 2021

JOLEA MOES

WITH HONORS

Columbia University

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Jolea’s inquiry project this spring focused on a single artist from the early 1900s in whose work Jolea found not simply creative expression but female empowerment.

We see the very same artistry, strength, and expression in Jolea.

Faculty members have described her as “fierce, focused, and full of grit” and they note the intrinsic energy and conviction that compels her scholarship. Jolea believes as profoundly as she acts, revealing a wonderful parallel of intention and accomplishment.

That is as conspicuous in her work on behalf of our Women’s Forum as it is in the classroom or when she plays saxophone in our jazz band. It’s there on the soccer field, too, where her leadership is as conspicuous as her skill and tactical brilliance.

Authentic expression of Jolea’s identity is everywhere, in fact: in her words, in her athleticism, in her music, in her interests, in her artwork, leading one faculty member to conclude, “In a few short years, Jolea will take the world by storm.”

Kevin spends his time working on the skills he wants to build, the care he wants to provide to friends and family, and the citizen he wants to be. His reserved, wonderfully placid bearing gives his diligence and commitment an immensely kind, easygoing character. And with each day we see him progressing towards his goals. As an athlete, which is not a word Kevin would likely use to describe himself, he became a contributor to our baseball program as an underclassman and in recent years a model for training and fitness. He has become a musician, making time with friends to mix beats in the recording studio. He has joined and led the Young Men’s Forum and HLA, and he even finds time to stay close with his sister at home, who is ten years younger. She calls Kevin “a hero and a giant” descriptors that capture the scale of the impact Kevin can have on those with whom he shares his gentle soul.

WILLIAM MORSE

TALISSA NAM

“Will Morse,” said one of his teachers, “is the quintessential nice guy, one who shines during community outreach activities, encourages his teammates on the sports field, supports his classmates in the dorm, and brings a positive spirit to advisory meetings.” Every venture Will joins is improved in some way by his participation. Not simply is he kind, but he relishes a good discussion in class or a debate outside of it, and he values and cares for his friendships assiduously. Those very friendships brought Will back to Cate after a junior year spent at home in Hong Kong – a decision for which we and his classmates are immensely grateful – not simply because we enjoy our time with Will, but because he is so clear about the things he loves. Among those affections are movies. Will is headed to film school next year, so it was no surprise that he was one of a very few in his class not voting for Godzilla vs. Kong at Mesa House movie night. Taste comes in many forms. It is easy to trust Will’s.

Tali Nam moves around the soccer field in the same manner she moves through life – with skill, artistry, speed, joy, resolve, and unflagging energy. She never stops, actually, ever. In part because there is always something more interesting to do than resting or waiting. Life, like a soccer ball, is something you go to, especially if you are Tali Nam. And then, of course, you run with it, pass it to someone else, get it back, and repeat. And though the field of play has boundaries and limits, Tali’s potential, her aspirations, her insight, and her spirit do not. The fact that she can lead our Business Club and our Cultural Cuisine Club, advise our Blue Ewe leadership on new swag, run student activities and serve as a residential life advisor speaks to the diversity of interests Tali expresses simultaneously.

She is simply unstoppable wherever she is. The best we can do, like her opponents on the pitch, is just try to keep up.

University of Southern California

54

KEVIN MORALES

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

WITH HIGH HONORS

Duke University

FRANK NIEMAN

JET OCHOA

Frankie Nieman is often the reason that we are joyful. It isn’t simply his personal warmth or his kindness or his wonderfully gentle gregariousness. It’s more the sense we get when we are with Frankie that there is nothing he would rather be doing than be in that moment with us. He affirms us all, makes us feel connected to him and ourselves, reminds us how much we matter. And when times are difficult, Frankie makes it manageable, makes us laugh or cry – whichever we need – keeps us going, helps us see the brightness in the world.

His renderings on stage or his vocal performances are the stuff of legend, not simply because he can inhabit characters so masterfully or sing with such clarity and poise, but because his comedic timing is impeccable, his physical humor hilarious, and his obvious joy in performing contagious. To each of us, Frankie is someone special. To all of us, he is the gift that we need at the time that we need it.

Jet Ochoa is aptly named.

This young man, who has been competing in triathlons since middle school, can move. The water seems to be his preferred element. Jet is the foundational athlete in our swimming program, capable of moving through the pool with the kind of speed that suggests that he is not so much working or even swimming but sliding without resistance through a watery world. That is what the great ones do. They make it look like it’s easy. But we watch Jet train and we know it is not. Every accomplishment is earned, and Jet has committed himself broadly at Cate, becoming successful in every area of endeavor. One teacher lauded Jet’s “inspired creativity and endless measure of persistence.” Another called him “an amazing story teller, humble, reliable, gracious.” Given his trajectory and pace, surely Jet will have ever more stories to tell in the years to come.

AJIBOLA OKE

DANIEL PANADERO

Northeastern University

Bates College

Ajibola has grown into Cate and has found ways to bring his unique light and spirit to the work and life of this community. Humble, unassuming, deeply insightful, and ever aware of the people around him, Ajibola has managed to become a leader at Cate, a person others look up to and trust. Put him in any group of people and Ajibola will help everyone cohere, help them see their importance to the work of the group. His studies reflect that same kind of insight – an ability to divine what is important and to work on those fundamental questions. He has been a great big brother to his freshman sister, Abby, dealt with the loss of his favorite sport – basketball – to Covid, and has kept a positive attitude and a wonderfully contemplative spirit. Said one faculty member, as much as Ajibola has grown and achieved at Cate, “he hasn’t yet peaked.” So much lies ahead for this engaging young man who thinks deeply, listens attentively, and has found his unique voice.

California State University, Northridge

Occidental College

When the Mesa is otherwise empty, we can still hear a rhythmic pinging sound from the baseball field. Daniel is taking some swings in batting practice, is throwing on the mound, or is shagging flies. He decided to be a great baseball player many years ago, and then he accomplished just that. There is a certain type of genius to such conviction and its realization. It isn’t just about work ethic or skill. It’s about belief. And Daniel’s belief is not simply about baseball. We see it in his music, that which he composes electronically and that which he plays on the piano. We see it in his scholarship and his understanding of himself as a learner, how he thrives in collaborative environments and amidst the give and take of a good discussion. As adept at listening as he is at sharing his own thoughts, Daniel reveals with his own process the combination of humility and confidence that make even the most ambitious goals achievable.

55

CLASS OF 2021

NICK PARKER

ESTEBAN PAULINO

“Nick is a flautist, a ceramicist, a rock climber, a linguist, an excellent conversationalist, a lover of obscure '90s Star Trek, our lone shot-putter and discus thrower, a pursuer of complexity, and possessor of a deeply peaceful soul.” So began a letter about Nick this fall and an attempt to capture a kind of spirit and quality of engagement that has caused us all over the years to stop and listen. It happens often, actually, when Nick plays his flute, which is entirely captivating. He has moved on to the organ, though, in the last few years, meaning the sound literally fills the Mesa whenever Nick decides to practice. Expression of one sort or another is what Nick is all about, which is why he enjoys his work with clay or fashioning a new route on the rock or simply listening to the booming tones of the pipe organ. Relatively soft spoken though he may be in person, Nick can make a joyful noise or make us joyful, often with the same artful gestures.

Esteban is in possession of a level of maturity and poise that normally accrue to a much older man. “Observant, strongwilled, independent, and determined,” said one faculty member, “Esteban is what I would have liked to be at his age.” He is one of our Head Prefects for that very reason and because he carries himself with the kind of earnest interest in every one else that causes all of us to gravitate to him. Maybe, too, we are compelled by Esteban’s optimism and his understanding of why we are all here. Said he last year, “Education should be directed towards the development of the person and that should be a right not a privilege. In this way, peace can be brought to the world.” Esteban’s leadership and conviction have had that very peaceful impact here. There is no telling what impact he will have in a world that sorely needs his kind of vision and contribution.

SOKHNA AISSATOU (AIDA) POUYE

LUCIAN PRINZ

Aida has a lyric name that suits her soothing presence and her evercreative spirit. Most at home in the arts, Aida sings and dances and acts with remarkable grace.

The stage seems to draw her out, causing her to leap into the song she is singing or the character she is rendering or the meaning she is expressing through movement. Her maturation as a student is similarly powerful and purposeful. She has built her scholarship with insight and unflagging resolve. As a senior, Aida has also taken on leadership roles in the BSU, our video yearbook, and our activities program. In such positions we have watched her confidence grow with her conviction and have seen her impact first hand. Born in Senegal but raised on this campus, Aida’s journey to Cate and through Cate has given her a distinctive understanding of culture, both here and elsewhere. Building culture, and with it community, is what Aida seems poised to enable through her education and beyond.

Lucian loves a good puzzle, a problem he can’t figure out, or a teacher who tells him he’s wrong. Granted, the last two don’t happen very often – Lucian is a brilliant problem-solver and is rarely incorrect about anything – but he is inspired by the questions he can’t answer or solutions he has to figure out. Challenge him and he’ll call it motivation. And then he’ll show you how to do whatever the rest of us can’t figure out. One example from real life might be the sneaker broker business he conceived as a middle schooler with a friend which has become a full-fledged phenomenon since his sophomore year at Cate. Lucian took an interest of his and created a service available to everybody. It’s hard to imagine a more productive style of problem-solving or one more likely to serve as a harbinger for the career Lucian has ahead of him. Lucian will look for the challenging opportunities, the ones that daunt others, and then he will build the solutions everyone needs.

Interlochen Center for the Arts

Santa Barbara City College

56

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

Duke University

Loyola Marymount University

KATHERINE PRUDDEN

LILLY RIEHL

Katie Prudden knows something about building momentum.

She does it each day, everywhere. Adept at working through areas of study or transitions that are difficult for her, Katie has become one of those students we can trust to see the hard stuff through. This year that meant serving as a teaching assistant in freshman seminar and contributing to community dialogue and growth as an inclusion rep. Where others are daunted, Katie is curious. And because she knows herself and her unique and substantial skills and aptitudes, Katie will find pathways through even the most complex problems.

It helps, too, that Katie operates from a position of hope and optimism. She can only see a future that is better or a result that is productive, which is why she works so hard to achieve such ends. Said one Cate teacher, “Katie is pure joy during hardship and attempts to bring others along when they are having a difficult time.”

Lilly might enjoy the game of lacrosse even more if the referees allowed more contact.

As phenomenally skilled as she is with her stick – it almost looks like part of Lilly when she plays – and as fast as she moves, Lilly could easily just avoid defenders, score at will, and call it good. She does that a lot actually. But she actually looks on the field that she’d rather just run right through somebody on occasion or casually knock an opposing player off the ball. She does that, too, sometimes, but technically it’s not allowed. That’s not a problem for Lilly or for us. We admire her spirit, her tangible aspiration, her interest in really mixing it up. We see it everywhere, and credit so much of her substantial success in the classroom to that very inclination to grind it out and see what she can do. A lot is the answer.

Pretty much anything Lilly puts her mind to. And we’ve been delighted to be carried along with her as she goes, grateful for her company and eager to be where she is.

JASMINE ROSS

SARAH RUELAS

Scripps College

WITH HIGH HONORS

Yale University

Jasmine has a bit of the Midas touch. She excels in virtually every endeavor she undertakes, in part because her natural aptitudes are so broad and significant but also because she knows what to do to become great at something. She has spent much of her life doing just that. Her scholarship is distinctive for its detail and its structure. Jasmine prepares relentlessly and works tirelessly. We often say that real genius lies in the questions we construct, an area where Jasmine is truly expert. And she doesn’t just ask them in the classroom. She leads our BSU with the same vision and conviction, challenging our community to be better.

It’s in her music, too, where her lyric voice captures sensations and expressions that compel us to listen and learn. She’s even a masterful bingo caller, which the senior citizens Jasmine visits on Wednesday nights will tell you is no small feat.

University of Wisconsin–Madison

WITH HONORS

Columbia University

“Sarah puts people first,” wrote a faculty member this fall, “She stands up for the people she loves, supports the underclassmen who rely on her, and is good to her community always.”

Her journey at Cate has been distinctive for that very empathy and compassion, for her leadership in so many smaller communities within our larger one, and for her profound and sustained intellectual aspirations. Whatever the forum, Sarah seems to understand what is needed from her. So if the JV basketball team and its raft of underclassmen need a little guidance and cohesion, that’s what Sarah gives. If someone in the dorm needs a little more attention, Sarah will step in. If a biology or chemistry lab needs a little more analysis, Sarah will provide it. In all of these things, Sarah seems pleased and invigorated by the opportunity. If the work is helpful or important or impactful, if it supports someone else or advances learning, if it makes Cate warmer and more welcoming, then Sarah is especially happy to be a part.

57

CLASS OF 2021

ASA SAM

WITH HONORS

University of Pennsylvania

WITH HONORS

University of Chicago

Letters about Asa are filled with words like “unprecedented,” “fearless,” “distinct,” and “charismatic.” Hers is an unforgettable personality – precocious, candid, exuberant, and wise.

Everyone knows Asa and Asa knows everyone.

That is our great good fortune. And Asa has used her knowledge of us to lead, to support, to guide, and to inspire. Her stories are legendary and they reveal her inclination to learn from every interaction and experience. This self-proclaimed city girl became a camper at Cate, and only she can explain how. But she will.

That’s the wonder of Asa. She will confide in us, tell us what she has discovered, and in so doing give us permission to confide or discover too. Her scholarship is similarly genuine and personal, revealing the brilliance of a young woman who processes life as she lives it and makes every journey that touches hers richer, more fortunate, and more meaningful.

Ned Sigler spoke to us a few weeks ago about time, about its passage, and about its relationship to each of us. We have had less time with Ned than we would have liked. He arrived at Cate as a junior, a rare entry point, and yet he has done everything imaginable with his time here. A prefect, an athlete, a decorated scholar, Ned has not just settled in. He has become part of our fabric. And he has done so remarkably gently, almost covertly. Said one faculty member, “Ned looks for opportunities, not obstacles.” And then he pursues them, much like he does his scholarship, with patience, curiosity, wonder, and resolve. “His maturity and intellect are commensurate with his kindness and humility,” said another. And the scale of his hopes are evident in his inquiry project, which focused on manned flight to and from Mars. Said Ned, it is our responsibility to look to the cosmos and discover what is there. With Ned’s help, it just might be possible.

HECTOR SILVA

DYLAN SOLOMON

Hector always wants to do something generous for someone else. He leads our Holiday Cheer program and delivers needed gifts and supplies to families who are struggling in Carpinteria. He goes to Mexicali, Mexico with our Los Niños program to work on behalf of the community there. Even when Hector is confronting his own challenges, he responds by serving the needs of others. His life is a remarkable rendering of unselfishness and courage. And his scholarship follows the same pattern. He is thoughtfully disciplined in the classroom, intrigued by mathematics and engineering, and determined always to advance his own learning. Summers are spent working and continuing his studies so that he might advance even further at Cate. Intentions matter in everything we do, and Hector’s intentions are exquisitely kind, which is why they make such a difference in so many lives.

Dylan has spent her life toggling back and forth from the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming where her family has made a home for generations and the neighborhoods of Los Angeles where she has grown up. Her many virtues speak to the complementary character of her two homes: friendly outreach, hopeful initiative, omnipresent curiosity, and an endearing blend of patience and resolve. Her work ethic is distinctly western, simultaneously unflagging and joyful. Said she of her work in mathematics where “we are never handed the answers … critiquing my own work and finding flaws in my process has led me to a deeper understanding of problem solving.” And Dylan is always searching for more to learn. She sees opportunity in every expression and concept, finds meaning in her own inquiry, and believes in the power of a well crafted sentence. A lover of stories too, Dylan is likely to craft some of her own in the years ahead to capture the truths only she can see and render clearly.

Carnegie Mellon University

58

NED SIGLER

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

Tulane University

ARIANA STERLING

EMIL STRAUSS

A faculty member wrote recently, “Ari has a particular power among her peers as a leader in group work, where she helps others grapple with complicated interpretations of a text or an experience.”

A humanist to the core, Ari thrives on the unique character of each person and the histories that make us all distinct. An avid reader, she is just as inclined to invest in dialogue as she is to dive into a published narrative.

In either place Ari’s compassion and curiosity and empathy are fired and engaged. Ari has also been involved in our Los Niños program, often serving as a translator for the children she works with there, and is a member of both the BSU and HLA, where she facilitates conversation in this community on who we are or who we want to be. In every setting, Ari’s compassion stands out as does her hope that she can help in some way, something we have seen her do regularly these last four years.

Emil came to Cate from his home in Alaska, where the lessons of the wilderness and Mother Nature are most profound. And Emil has applied them here with consummate skill. Not only do we see his work ethic and his resolve but his devotion to his studies, his affection for challenge, and his unflagging optimism. Emil always finds his way. When he had to give up his favorite sport, ice hockey, he took up water polo and lacrosse. When he had to leave behind the friendships he had built in the North, he formed new ones at Cate. Undaunted perpetually, Emil manages the world as he learned at home, by being prepared, by doing his best, by using his best judgment, and by trusting in his own abilities. Those are significant, of course, which makes Emil’s confidence quite reasonable. He claims to be interested in medicine, which would put him on a path not only to serve others but to bring his great skill and optimism to those who need it most.

RYAN SUH

COOKE TARLTON

Scripps College

WITH HIGHEST HONORS

Stanford University

Ryan publishes a journal with his sister called Humanities+, the goal of which is to connect intellectual discourse across the range of academic disciplines.

In the first article, Ryan unpacks the roles of religion and science in Genesis and the Big Bang. Lots of people like to ask the big questions, but Ryan is one of the few who might answer them. His insight flows from a well of curiosity and intelligence that is perpetually deepening and expanding, like our universe. And in the face of such ability, Ryan is immensely humble, unfailingly kind, and generous beyond measure. He invests himself broadly, playing volleyball and squash at the highest levels, leading Round Square and writing for El Batidor, even teaching in Human Development. Ryan is likely to teach far beyond this Mesa, for his unique brand of scholarship may well be the paradigm for future study.

Tulane University

WITH HIGH HONORS

Tufts University

Cooke made a catch on the baseball field a few weeks ago that saved the game. Running away from his position at first base into right field, with his back to the batter, Cooke snagged the ball at his waist after it came over his left shoulder. Then he turned and casually threw it back to the pitcher.

No celebration, no acknowledgement, just a guy doing his job on the field. That’s Cooke. Everywhere. He’s an Eagle Scout who is determined to protect the wild places in the world, an entrepreneur who manages to hold a series of paying jobs and start-up ventures simultaneously, and a lover of puzzles and a good game of cornhole. Said his advisor, “Cooke’s essence is his versatility. He is outstanding in everything he does and a real visionary.” His goals suit his energy and his conviction. “He is a caring human being,” another teacher explained, “who wants to achieve sustainable energy and transportation for humanity.” A little like that over the shoulder catch, so he just might do it.

59

CLASS OF 2021

MADELEINE TUNNELL

WITH HONORS

Harvard University

In our most challenging week this year, Maddy led our assemblies with another prefect. Amidst the various moods and emotions of that moment, from Maddy there was only warmth, energy, care, and hope.

She knew her audience, knew what we needed, and then gave it. That is how Maddy has lived her life at Cate, by paying attention to the opportunities we have to make a contribution, support another, enliven our spirits. As a student, she is distinctive for her preparation, her fearlessness, and her inquisitiveness, qualities that have led her to a stellar record of achievement. She left us for a portion of her junior year to take part in the Maine Coast Semester, a decision that jibed with her interest in the environment and sustainability.

Her absence from this campus also revealed how much we have come to rely on the very leadership that was so conspicuous in those assemblies a few weeks ago. Maddy’s presence brings unusual and welcome benefits, sustaining us day to day and lifting us up when we need her most.

LUCY VAN DER REIS

WITH HONORS

Duke Kunshan University

Because of the way she plays her viola, The Santa Barbara Youth Symphony and the National Honors Orchestra proudly lay claim to Lucy, just as do we at Cate. But we know that Lucy does everything with the same grace with which she plays the viola, that her preparation as a musician is no different from her preparation for class or a water polo game, that her ultimate expression of what she knows sounds like music. So broad is her scholarship that her advisor observed, “Lucy brings nuanced thinking, curiosity, precision, and creativity to each class.” The underclassmen she serves as a teaching assistant will certainly attest to all that Lucy brings to a classroom. She has even served as a student academic representative to the Curriculum Committee where Lucy can have a hand in molding the experience each student has at Cate. A virtuoso, indeed, is Lucy and one whose mastery of her art and her powerful mind will only lead to greater accomplishments in the future.

60

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

OGHENETEGA UMUKORO University of Southern California

It is wise to look to Tega for guidance or simply as someone to emulate.

Said his advisor recently, “Tega approaches every challenge with mindful intention and thoughtful analysis.” Since arriving on this Mesa from his home in Houston, Tega has committed himself fully to his studies, revealing an interest in engineering and the most challenging coursework. Working hard is what Tega likes to do, and that isn’t simply about his classwork. He has captained our basketball team for two years and has been a four-year contributor to our track and field program, distinguishing himself not simply with the quality of his play or his strength and speed but with the quality of his commitment and the character of his competition. To watch him on the court, in fact, is inspiring to more than simply Tega’s teammates. His name, loosely translated, means praise be to God. It’s fitting. For Tega is a gift of sorts who does everything with his whole heart.

MADELINE VANICA Yale University

Madeline is a goal-setter.

She examines the world carefully and asks herself, “What can I do?” At Cate she has answered in a host of memorable ways. In the classroom she has built an enviable record of achievement and accomplishment, demonstrating the impact of great aptitude and great commitment. When she surveys the world and sees struggle or difficulty, Madeline answers by trying to help. She was awarded a Metherell Service Grant to support a community in Mongolia with various technologies; did service work in the Philippines, and used her skills in Mandarin to volunteer at an elementary school in China, translate monthly newsletters, and work with refugees. Her impact in these many ventures has fortified Madeline’s desire to contribute meaningfully and it has given her a sense of the scale of the difference she can make. Said one teacher, “Madeline’s ability to express the complex in accessible ways sets her apart.”

In so doing she gives us all access to the solutions we need.

ATHENA VON BOTHMER

SUSANA VOSMIK

WITH HIGH HONORS

Brown University

New York University

When the Thomas Fire forced evacuation of the Cate campus several years ago, Athena mobilized her classmates in San Francisco to raise funds for disaster relief.

Whenever we are casting a play, no matter how full Athena’s schedule is, she’ll be there auditioning. If there is an opportunity to contribute or do more or be more responsible, Athena will likely be at the center of it. And because of Athena’s presence and conviction, stuff gets done. Her editorship of El Batidor is proof positive of that, for Athena changed the manner in which article submissions were made and the character of the publication itself. Much like her presence on stage, Athena is perpetually in character, gracious and gregarious, working on those issues that once addressed will lead us to be better people, a better community, and better stewards of our planet. Already changing the world Athena is, even though she has to do it between classes.

For as long as we have known Susana, she has kept journals. When she spoke to us just a few months ago, it was excerpts from those journals that she read, renderings of feelings and experiences, sensations and sentiments that reveal a young woman as astute and brave as she is thankful and hopeful. A student of rare depth and uncommon breadth, Susana manages to distill thoughts and ideas and insights into their very essence.

Neuroscience compels her as a discipline, but she could just as easily be a poet or a novelist or a linguist. She spent her junior year in Spain with School Year Abroad, an experience that has given her a perspective on the world beyond her years. It is fitting, too, that she is designing our yearbook, for who better than Susana to render the experience of her class. She noted in her talk, “These years have gifted me three journals worth of growth and memories.

Furious scribblings, lazy drawn out musings, and heartfelt love letters.” Such is the story of our journey.

RACHEL WILKES

LILY ZANZE

A faculty member wrote recently, “Rachel’s commitment to stories – her belief that each person’s story matters – is key to understanding how she sees the world.”

It explains why she gravitates to the stage so that she can inhabit lives other than her own and render them in a play or musical. It is manifest in her community involvement outside of the classroom, where Rachel finds opportunity to support those with whom she shares this Mesa. A prefect, an eager and energetic supporter of her fellow students, and a coordinator of our Servons Speech Program, Rachel is constantly finding ways to share in the stories of others or to help them articulate those narratives for the entire community. “Stunning, savvy, soft-hearted, and sage,” are just some of the descriptors used to capture Rachel’s unique nature and her unusual capacity, as a friend of hers noted, “to uplift the voices of all those around her.”

Lily Zanze likes to lower her shoulder. Watch her on the basketball court or on the lacrosse field. She moves forward always, unafraid of contact or resistance.

She seems to welcome it.

But rarely does anyone slow her down or stop her momentum. That’s as true off the court or the field as it is on.

She is resolute and purposeful, thoughtful and unflappable, a great student and an undaunted achiever. And she connects everything she does. Said Lily of her English 11 class, “The most useful skill I cultivated is awareness of myself, of my process, of my own definition of the well-lived life.” Such understanding has given power to Lily’s prefectship this year and her leadership of so many teams, even the Blue Crew. One faculty member wrapped up Lily’s mantra in a Japanese parable, loosely translated, “Don’t make excuses, look for solutions.” That’s exactly why Lily lowers that shoulder.

Vassar College

Northeastern University

61

Departing Faculty & Staff

62

LYDIAN BLOSSOM '07

JOSHUA CADITZ

ANNA FORTNER

Lydian Blossom’s return to the Mesa to teach felt like a return engagement on Broadway. Lydian is a show stopper. We knew that first when she was a student at Cate. But it’s no less true now that she is a teacher. Brilliant, thoughtful, ever-positive and undaunted, Lydian shepherded our performing arts program through every imaginable constraint.

And with her students she produced great art. Our amphitheater was activated by her efforts as was the big screen this Spring, and the celebrations and wellcrafted humor in her plays and musicals gave us all a welcome respite from our daily lives. Performance of the sort Lydian teaches is grounded in empathy.

You must know a character and a life in order to inhabit that character and live that character’s life. In a time when we are all aware of our own lives, Lydian helps us to see another’s. She leaves us in part to take her own advice and pursue her acting professionally. While her decision represents a loss for students it is surely a boon for those of us who know her immense talent and look forward to seeing her share her craft with a wider audience. Stay tuned!

When Joshua arrived on campus 13 years ago, as a faculty spouse, he was practicing environmental law. But there was something about teaching that appealed to him and we slowly convinced him that his future lay outside the law. We wanted to see what he could do in the classroom.

Joshua will tell you that the answer to that question in his first year was, “Not much.”

But that’s because Joshua’s standards are remarkably high, as is his discipline when it comes to inspiring young people. A former white water rafting guide who is perpetually serene and composed, even when working incredibly hard, Joshua built his pedagogy with relentless care.

His inventive courses have allowed our students to connect issues around the environment and sustainability to law and policy. He has become a resource for those who would do something good and responsible in the world, building a large cohort of such individuals with the Stream Team. He has even turned the seeming pastime of Ultimate Frisbee into an actual sport at Cate. It is hard to imagine our program without Joshua’s inventive and carefully structured contributions. But we trust that some of the lessons he has been teaching for the last decade aren’t just for his students. And we won’t forget them, either.

Anna brought the toolbox to our English program. That’s what she called the set of skills and techniques she used to help students craft good writing. So effective was it and she that the whole department has adopted the approach. At its core, Anna’s approach is deeply optimistic, for it tells students that they simply need to use the tools they have to render that which they have come to know. Her students will tell you that Ms. Fortner asks a great deal of them, believes in them, and is right not to expect less. They believe in themselves, too, as a result.

Thankfully, Anna has not restricted her teaching to the classroom. A professional mountain biker for a time, Anna showed many of athletes what real commitment looks like. She helped introduce students to the outdoors as well, either on the bike or in the backcountry, or in a kayak.

She has been the faculty advisor to El Batidor, our student newspaper, and is among the most prolific writers of student recommendations to college. Who would not want Anna in their corner. She leaves us to move closer to family in Oregon after a truly remarkable 14 years of service on our faculty. Every choice is a chapter in our lives, and we will remain ever thankful that Anna chose to come to Cate.

CATE B ULLET IN / S UMMER 2021

Employee Recognition 2021 5 YEARS Beth Caylor KC Collins Giselle Da Silva Martins Natalie Jackel Lindsay Newlove Gerardo Obispo Jessica Seriano

10 YEARS

Rebekah Barry Shannon Drew Monica Furmanski Chris Giles Andrew MacDonnell Taylor Wyatt

15 YEARS Margot Dorion Jose Ortega Mamadou Pouye LINDA SOMMERS

For two dozen years Linda Sommers has been caring for our students, teaching them lessons on life and language, inspiring them in the classroom and on the athletic fields. Her lessons are both carefully structured and wonderfully extemporaneous. Linda knows exactly how to scaffold good learning, and she is masterful at adapting to the individual needs of a given class or students. In our Modern Languages Department, where Linda teaches Spanish, we are able to ask as much as we do from students in large part because Linda made the decision over a decade ago to essentially take over the introductory and second year classes. She understood the foundation that the students need for advanced study, and she recognized in her own methods of instruction her suitability for providing that basis. And so our Spanish program continues to thrive on the foundation that Linda built and perpetually renews. We could say the same of our girls lacrosse program that Linda stewarded for so many years before taking over the junior varsity and focusing on building the capability of players that would ultimately contribute to our varsity. Everything Linda does, in fact, is designed to improve a student’s or an athlete’s readiness for whatever lies ahead. We could not be more grateful for her long and thoughtful service to this community nor more appreciative of the impact she has had on students and teachers alike.

20 YEARS

Lynn Dinning Lisa Holmes Will Holmes

30 YEARS Lauren Jared Sandi Pierce

35 YEARS

Esteban Samaguey

45 YEARS

Jose Vega

2020 5 YEARS Craig Bouma Joy Doyle Alicia Hammond Erin Hansen Alicia Olivares Sandra Perez Zohara Zamor 15 YEARS Joe Deguzman Teresa Mejia Kate Parker '85 25 YEARS

Tim Smith

10 YEARS

Ivan Barry Joshua Caditz Brooks Hansen Edgar Mora Joel Quezada Sufen Yen 20 YEARS

Peter Mack Renee Mack Linda Macias Bryan Rodriguez Stella Tate 30 YEARS

Enedina Garcia Karl Weis 63

In Memoriam

By Barbara Falconer Newhall Jonathan Newhall, a former editor of The Newhall Signal in Southern California and the founder of the scrappy alternative national news source Zodiac News Service, died unexpectedly on Friday, February 19, 2021, in Oakland, California, following a stroke and cardiac arrest. He was 79.

Jon was born in 1941 in Palo Alto, Calif. He grew up in Berkeley where he attended Hillside Elementary and Garfield Junior High School.

He graduated from Cate School in Carpinteria in 1959 and was a lifelong supporter of the school, organizing fundraising and class reunions.

Jon was a member of the Stanford University class of 1963. He took a year off after his freshman year to experience working “in the real world,” as he put it.

He graduated with a B.A. in economics in 1964.

A Renegade in Small Town Southern California

After graduation, Jon moved to Newhall, Calif., a town founded in 1876 by his great-great-grandfather, the gold rush pioneer Henry Mayo Newhall. Jon joined the staff of The Newhall Signal, a weekly newspaper owned by his parents, Scott and Ruth Newhall.

Jonathan Newhall '59 MARCH 18, 1941 - FEBRUARY 19, 2021

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Jon worked as general manager of the paper from 1964 to 1968, and then as editor. During his tenure at The Signal, the paper’s liberal editorial stance made it a renegade in the conservative NewhallSaugus community. Jon won an award from the Greater Los Angeles Press

Club for his 1969 editorial criticizing Gov. Ronald Reagan’s appointment of Ed Reinicke as lieutenant governor of California. Later, the Signal took the lead in a contentious school board recall election – which voters strongly approved.

to write code. He began with simple, animated educational games for John Boeshon & Company in Richmond, Calif., where he functioned as a one-man band, generating concept and graphics as well as code.

Shortly thereafter, in a different issue, Jon wrote an editorial for The Signal calling for the resignation of the local congressman. The editorial went on to win the Greater Los Angeles Press Club’s top award for a newspaper editorial that year. Ironically, the guest host presenting the award at the press club banquet was the embattled congressman himself.

He soon went on to more sophisticated projects as a software engineer and project manager at a series of Bay Area companies: Computer Logics in San Rafael; Simborg Systems – later Oacis Healthcare Systems and SAIC – in San Rafael; and GLR Consulting Company in Alameda.

Jon moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1970 and was an editor at Earth News Service, an alternative news service in San Francisco. It was there that he met Barbara Falconer. The couple married in March 1977 and settled in Oakland.

In 1972, Jon formed his own alternative news service, Zodiac News Service, which produced daily packets of anti-Vietnam War, civil rights, environment, and rock ’n’ roll news – also man-bites-dog items that Jon like to call “bizarros.”

The Zodiac staff printed the packets in their office on Howard Street in the then low-rent, south-of-market area of San Francisco. Monday through Friday, the packets were stuffed into envelopes and driven to the post office for delivery to subscribers.

Jon’s mission was to provide reliable news, produced according to journalistic ethics and standards, to outlets seeking sources of news not reported in the mainstream media. Subscribers included FM and college radio stations, newspapers, and alternative weeklies all over the United States and Canada.

At its height, Zodiac News Service was carried by hundreds of news outlets.

A Bold Mid-life Career Switch

Fascinated by the emerging computer industry, Jon eventually sold Zodiac and – now in his 40s – taught himself

Over the years, Jon’s lifelong affection for cats, dogs, and other animals led him to support local animal shelters.

Most recently he took an interest in the Friends of Oakland Public School Libraries and its efforts to create a digital library for Oakland school children.

Family, Friends, Chess – and the Giants

Jon enjoyed planning trips abroad with Barbara – to Mexico, Europe and China. Closer to home, he especially enjoyed reunions with the Newhall and Falconer families as well as his Cate School classmates.

Though he was a latecomer to the field, Jon’s young tech colleagues found him to be a gifted engineer and manager. He could debug the internals of Microsoft Windows code with the best engineers in the field.

Jon was a long-time fan of the San Francisco Giants, cheering them on at Seals Stadium in the 1950s, at Candlestick in the 1960s through 1990s, and most recently at Oracle Park.

While managing a workstation team, Jon carpooled with other staff from the East Bay to Marin county. The rides engendered many complex, crossfunctional conversations – often led by the gregarious, open-minded Jon – that in turn led to significant architectural advances in the company’s product line.

He was also an avid chess player, learning under the tutelage of Grandmaster George Koltanowski. He played alongside numerous Newhall family chess players – including his then 87-year-old mother – at such tournaments as the U.S. Open in Hawaii and the National Chess Open in Las Vegas.

After retiring, Jon devoted his time to his family and to his writing. Just weeks before his death, he completed his most recent novel, a political thriller, which his family hopes to publish soon.

Left Behind

Community Service

Wherever he went, Jon found ways to serve his community. In 1967, he helped organize what has become known as the Santa Clarita Valley Boys and Girls Club. The hugely successful club recently celebrated its 53rd anniversary.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, Jon served as a director of the family-based Henry Mayo Newhall Foundation and was the foundation’s president from 2003 to 2007. He oversaw annual contributions of $600,000 in grants to charities across California, including $200,000 to organizations in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Jon is survived by his wife of 44 years, Barbara Falconer Newhall, and by his children, Peter Newhall (Emily) of Minneapolis, and Christina Newhall (Tim Beedle) of Studio City, and by his granddaughters, Zelda Newhall and Eliza Newhall of Minneapolis. Also by his brother Skip Newhall (Lori) and his twin brother Tony Newhall (Reena), both of Valencia and by many loving cousins, nieces and nephews.

He was predeceased by his parents, Scott and Ruth Newhall of Piru, and by a sister, Penny Newhall.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to East Bay SPCA or to the Friends of the Oakland Public School Libraries.

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IN MEMORIAM Following Lionel’s untimely death in 1976 Muriel threw herself into teaching, spending her time with close friends, and enjoying her role as Grandmother.

Muriel never did things by half measure, whether it was teaching at Cate School, helping with the grandchildren, or supporting important causes, like preserving the Carpinteria Bluffs.

Muriel was also a Francophile at heart and relished her multiple trips to Paris, where she once lived for nine months, attending classes at the university there.

In 2009, Muriel retired at Vista Del Monte in Santa Barbara where she had many good friends. After her second stroke, which greatly limited her activity, she moved to Samarkand in January of 2018, where she was living when she passed away. Muriel is survived by sons Marc and Christopher, daughter Colleen, daughters-in-law Laurie and Elizabeth Purcell, her brother Ross Adams and wife Mary, as well as ten grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.

Muriel Purcell JUNE 7, 1929 - JANUARY 30, 2021

Published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on March 14, 2021 Muriel Purcell was vibrant, full of life, passionate about her causes, and fiercely loyal to her family and friends. She was the source of the love, humor, and good cheer that bound her family around her for over 90 years. A longtime resident of Carpinteria, Muriel died peacefully in her sleep, on January 30, 2021, leaving behind a host of devoted friends and family who will miss her wit, laughter, and love. Muriel was preceded in death by her husband, Lionel Purcell in 1976, her grandson Adam Bacon in 2005, and by her son Kevin Purcell, in September 2020.

Muriel was the daughter of William Adams from London, and May Adams of Montreal, where she was born Muriel May Adams, June 7, 1929. Following her mother’s untimely death in 1934, she 74

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lived with her grandparents in upstate New York, where Muriel grew up on a farm without indoor plumbing or running water. She loved to regale her children with stories of the “old days” when she got up at sunrise to milk cows and collect eggs, before walking multiple miles to school (in the snow of course).

It was always in fun, but she had little patience for laziness in her children.

Following WWII, Muriel worked at IBM in Binghamton N.Y., then moved to Santa Barbara to study at Santa Barbara College on the old Riviera campus.

Muriel loved music and had an excellent voice, singing with a band to help pay her school expenses. It was here that Muriel met her husband Lionel, leaving school in 1952 to start a family. But completing her degree remained a goal, and when her children were older, Muriel went back to school, graduating from UCSB in 1973 with a degree in History and a minor in Literature. It was a marvelous moment for her, and her “A” average was an eyeopener for her children.

The family held a private service on March 27th at the Craven’s Lane Cemetery in Carpinteria, where Muriel’s ashes will be buried alongside her husband Lionel, and near her son Kevin, her brother-in-law Cliff Purcell, and her mother in-law Madeline Egan Purcell.

Jeffrey M. Hayes '71 MARCH 3, 1953 - MARCH 9, 2021

By Greg Evans Jeffrey M. Hayes, a longtime producer whose executive tenure at Paramount Pictures Network Television saw him overseeing the development of series including MacGyver and Star Trek: The Next Generation, died March 9 in Los Angeles from an illness unrelated to COVID-19. He was 68.

Hayes graduated from Cate School in 1971 and went on to a career in producing, writing and directing, beginning at Aaron Spelling Productions, where his projects included Vega$ and T.J. Hooker. From there, Hayes became Executive VP of Paramount Pictures Network Television.

In the late 1980s, Hayes moved to Australia’s Gold Coast to help build a production operation that would span over 25 years and produce over 300 hours of US/International television. As President of Village Roadshow Pictures Television he executive produced Sahara, In Pursuit of Honor, the remake of the television series Mission Impossible and The Thorn Birds – The Missing Years with The Wolper Organization.

In 2000, Hayes formed his own production company Coote/Hayes Productions and executive produced television features, series and miniseries including the classic remake of On The Beach, The Lost World series, Salem’s Lot, Starter Wife and Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, where he first met director-producer Brian Henson.

“Jeff was one of the loveliest people in the world, with an infectious laugh that could shut down a room,” said Henson.

“Meeting Jeff on Battleground began a long friendship and working relationship that I treasured. He was an astute producer who could make tough decisions

while remaining kind – a tough balancing act in this work. I will miss him dearly.”

His enthusiasm, before, during, and after the games was delightful and uplifting.

Hayes received an AFI award for Best Miniseries for On The Beach, the VFX Emmy award for Stephen King’s Battleground and the NAACP award for Best TV Movie Trip To Bountiful.

Jeff was born into uniquely advantageous circumstances – a Californian in the second half of the 20th century, in the modern world’s defining cultural center of Southern California/Hollywood. His mother was a talented, notable movie actress who worked in memorable roles, with all the stars (Sinatra, etc.), and had wide experiences in television (Perry Mason, etc., etc.); yet, she also gave priority to her children. And Jeff’s father was a pilot, attorney, influential mover and shaker, etc. I remember the story of the Hayes’ being sleepover guests at LBJ’s White House, etc.

Hayes is survived by his wife and business partner Lisa Hayes, children Christopher and Jacqueline and siblings Chip, Cathy and Cindy.

Reflection by Michael Dewberry '71

Jeff was sharp, focused and quite competitive, whether on the soccer or lacrosse fields, or in “the business.” He was a successful television producer, raconteur, and citizen of the world. He was tough.

But most of all I remember his childlike qualities, his goofy sense of humor, and his infectious laugh. When Jeff was having fun – which was most of the time – his mirth was contagious. No one was immune. I’ll always remember him with a smile.

Reflection by Charles McConney '71

I had the good fortune to know Jeff since we were 14 – both new freshmen at Cate. He was already cool, self-assured, lively, socially adept, well-informed, and athletic. He was among the very first of our class to play on varsity teams, notably in soccer and lacrosse, always on offense – dexterous, fluid, anticipatory – he reliably delivered a good share of goals and assists.

Jeff had the opportunity to meet many fascinating people, go to many concerts, snow ski, entertain friends at the family’s Malibu beach house, travel internationally, live and work in Australia!

He could ‘hold his own,’ in the fast-paced, entrepreneurial, Hollywood world; and he developed a people-rich, creative, career wherein he could basically tell stories, and engage, direct, and coordinate others.

In Jeff’s marriage to Lisa, he seemed to have found a new, deeper, level of peace – ‘at home,’ happy, content.

He was taken too soon by illness, and will be greatly missed by his many friends, especially his 1971 Cate Classmates.

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IN MEMORIAM

Paul Granville Barton '78 NOVEMBER 24, 1959 JANUARY 29, 2021

Published in San Francisco Chronicle from March 31 to April 4, 2021 Paul Barton died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in the foothills east of Marysville, Calif. Paul grew up in Hillsborough, Calif. He went to St. Matthew’s Episcopal Day School and Crocker Middle School. He attended Cate School in Carpinteria and Mt. Hermon School in Massachusetts. Paul loved sports and played tennis and golf and spent many weekends and school vacations skiing at Sugar Bowl. During his high school years he went on scuba diving trips to the Cayman Islands, the Galapagos, and Hawaii.

Paul loved animals and always had dogs and cats as well as tropical fish and hamsters and even an iguana for some time. He also liked horses, and when he rescued a lamb in a drainage ditch on Bethel Island, the farmer was so grateful that he gave Paul a Welsh pony.

As a child, Paul designed and built gardens in his backyard at home, creating various styles of small gardens. Paul became a Landscape Contractor while at school in Humboldt State University.

He designed and cared for the gardens in his own homes and for various clients through the years.

Paul’s love of animals may have started In the early 1960s when children could borrow animals from Coyote Point Museum (now CuriOdyssey.) Animals were checked out like books at the library for two weeks at a time.

Paul is survived by his son, Justin, his mother, Judy Barton, his father Phil Barton, his sister Kim, his brother Web (Kelly), and his niece, Shay.

In lieu of flowers, any contributions in Paul’s memory may be made to CuriOdyssey, 1651 Coyote Point Dr., San Mateo CA 94401.

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Paul Barton '78 (third row, second from the right) with his fellow classmates on the Mesa.

Reflection by Charlie Ganz '78

I remember meeting Paul our freshman year in '25 House. Roaming the halls, I saw this long hair kid tending to this big fish tank in his room. I walked in and introduced myself. He started telling me all about the various fish and where they came from. It was interesting. As the year went on, we did many things together: going into Carpinteria, playing sports

(he was a pretty good soccer player), hiking in the back country and camping on the beach. He and John Stegall '78 took up scuba diving and they dove off the Channel Islands many times. As the 1978 Class Agent, I have often thought of Paul. Paul was at Cate for two years but he was one of my good buddies and I will miss him.

Sue Valikonis Published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on May 30, 2021

fearless and it was a life-changing trip as it led her to her next big adventure in Brownsville, Texas, where she met her husband, Bill Valikonis, and had her two boys – John and Bill. When her husband Bill died, Sue went back to school to become a nurse.

Sue Valikonis (Archibald), longtime Santa Barbara-area resident, passed away Saturday, May 22, 2021 surrounded by family. Sue was raised in beautiful Santa Barbara, where her adventurous spirit proliferated. After high school, Sue took a camping trip to Colorado and fell in love with Steamboat Springs and decided to go to college there. In Steamboat, she formed friendships and connections that would continue for the rest of her life. Sue was a lifelong traveler. Her first big trip was to Guayaquil, Ecuador after college where she worked at Colegio Americano. It nearly gave her mother a heart attack to send Sue off on a rickety airplane out of LAX to what was then a very foreign destination. But Sue was

After obtaining her degree, Sue packed up, and moved back to Steamboat Springs. Here she found her true calling as a school nurse at Soda Creek and Strawberry Park Elementary schools where she was beloved by children, and peers alike. Later, she moved back to California and worked at Montecito Union School and Cate School in Carpinteria. Students would sometimes make up an illness just so they could spend the night in the infirmary with Nurse Sue. At Cate, Sue’s beloved dog Henna was her constant companion.

When she wasn’t stealing tri-tip from the kitchen, Henna could be found sitting in Sue’s convertible Cabriolet waiting for the next adventure!

MAY 26, 1946 - MAY 22, 2021

The adventures continued throughout her life with travels to Africa, China, Thailand, Australia, Mexico as well as being a true “road warrior” domestically.

The brightest light in her life was her grandchildren, Sia and Lylas. Grammy and her girls had the best of times doing art, having sleepovers and sharing love.

Sue never complained, she was always cheerful, no matter the circumstances.

We share her loss with everyone who knew her. Sue was a bright light in this world – a true original. We will all miss her happy nature, easy smile, playful spirit and generous heart. She is survived by her son John Valikonis, grandchildren Sia and Lylas, siblings Robert Archibald, Sally Hertzog, Charlotte Hall and Cece Hall, niece Ashley Hertzog.

Sue was laid to rest next to her son Bill at Carpinteria Cemetery on June 5.

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IN MEMORIAM

Ophelia Ke '22 MAY 6, 2004 - MAY 11, 2021

By Charlotte Brownlee '85 Ophelia Ke '22 passed away on May 11, 2021. She was a beloved sister to Athena '23 and Kaiser '19, and daughter to Jing Li and Tao Ke. Ophelia’s quest for knowledge was relentless and astounding. A scholar of the first order, her genuine curiosity came through in ways large and small. Ophelia would often make connections across disciplines and ask incisive questions that got to the heart of life’s most vexing questions.

When she was awarded the Stanley Durrant Math Award in 2020, her citation read “Ophelia Ke is a patient, humble, poised problem solver whose solutions are a work of art. She is fiercely curious about connections between ideas and adept at uncovering them.

She shares her revelations and her questions generously, making her a wonderful classmate.”

A multi-dimensional artist, Ophelia found expression in everything from the art studio to the orchestra, and was particularly adept as a photographer. In fact, she spent the vast majority of the pandemic documenting the wildlife of the Central Coast. Memorable photographs of cross-eyed cats and birds of prey caught in the act were among the many fruits of her efforts. A video she created for National History Day perfectly exemplified the intersection of art and scholarship that was so important to Ophelia. In this animated short video, she examined the Columbia Livia Domestica, otherwise known as the homing pigeon, using her trademark dry humor and clever approach to illustration to charm her audience.

Ophelia’s friendships were as numerous as her talents.

Through squash (where she was an accomplished, ranked player) swim team, cross country, and many other activities such as student senate, she formed connections to a broad group of friends. Notably, Ophelia’s sense of humor and kindness for others made her a wonderful classmate and supportive teammate; any chance encounter could result in her unpeeling a slow smile and floating out a devilish wisecrack.

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Her desire to pursue deep investigation of the world around her was noteworthy, and Ophelia dedicated much effort to understanding the animal kingdom, as well as the human one. She was a founding member of Active Minds, a mental health peer support group. Often her own toughest critic, she often struggled to see the myriad ways she was positively impacting the world.

Perhaps the most serious dog-lover on the Mesa, nothing made Ophelia happier than being entrusted with the care of faculty pets.

She will be deeply missed by all the residents of the Mesa.

John Patterson Hamilton '59 AUGUST 25, 1941 - JUNE 1, 2021

By James Jonas Hamilton '83 John Patterson Hamilton, versatile writer, language teacher, story teller, and man of letters, died peacefully on June 1 at Saint Vincent Hospital in Beaverton, Ore. He is survived by his wife Hope, and their daughter Flora '17, who accompanied him in his final moments, along with Fudo, his French Bulldog.

John’s final entourage, a tribute to the prominent place he occupied in so many hearts, also included his beloved siblings, Jessie Jonas, David Hamilton Jr., and Edward Hamilton, as well as his four other children.

John’s diverse professional achievements, including journalism, speech writing, and college-level language instruction abroad, all exhibited his love affair with language, a requited love which bloomed early. As a high school senior, John edited Cate School’s student newspaper El Batidor, and went on to attend Harvard College, graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts in English in 1963. This same year, John wed Amanda Hamilton (née Mills), and survived a dangerous bout with Polio.

In the following year, John earned his master’s degree from Harvard’s School of Education. John and Amanda were married for 27 years, and raised four children: Jonas, Abigail, Alfred, and Anna (Pha Pha).

In 1967, John went to work for the Bennington Banner in southern Vermont as a photographer, commencing a career in print journalism which would span the next decade. One of the great professional satisfactions of this period was John’s coverage of the Watergate Affair as Wire Editor for the Rutland Herald, another prominent Vermont daily. For years, John kept a life-sized framed photograph of the Herald’s front

page from August 9, 1974, and would reminisce with pride about his role in designing the headline and lay-out of this historic page, which announced President Nixon’s resignation. He also frequently noted the quality and depth of the Herald’s reporting, compared to the sound-bites and superficiality so prevalent today.

In 1976 the Hamilton family moved to San Francisco, where John accepted a job with Standard Oil of California (Chevron). After years of speaking truth to power, he now crafted speeches for Chevron executives. While the transition was not without its challenges, John’s tenacity and hard-earned writing experience ensured success. John’s career in public relations with Chevron lasted 10 years, until, in c. 1987, much to the surprise of his colleagues and family, he left the security of his well compensated public-relations work, and embarked on the final, academic phase of his career, like Tennyson’s Ulysses pursuing “that untravell’ed world whose margin fades for ever and ever when I move.”

of 3,952 meters. He slipped off the icy path, and a young hiker, Hope Hong, found him clinging to a tree limb, and pulled him to safety.

After John’s retirement from teaching, he continued to work as a highly soughtafter editor, but increasingly devoted time to his family, friends, and a vast array of hobbies, including bicycling, photography, music, travel, and reading.

Until his last days, John devoured texts of all kinds. Favorite works included the poetry of Heinrich Heine, Emily Dickinson, and Shakespeare; the diaries of Samuel Pepys and Thoreau; and classic novels by Flaubert, Dostoyevsky, and others. Even when he could no longer read, John was still discovering new authors, and enjoying audio-recordings of their works.

To this end, John enrolled in the Monterey Institute of International Study to learn Mandarin. Having acquired the requisite proficiency, he applied for work as a college-level English instructor in Taiwan, eventually moving there and teaching in three institutions of higher learning: Wenzao College of Languages in Kaohsiung City; Zhonghua University in Hsinchu City; and finally, Dong Wu University in Taipei. John’s dedication to his students was widely remarked: His voluminous comments on student writing often exceeded the length of the work he was grading.

Shortly upon his arrival in Taiwan, John joined in a touristic nocturnal ascent of Mount Yu, also known as Jade Mountain, which rises to an altitude

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From the

Archives For generations there has been only one bell on the Cate Mesa – “Macbeth.” Perched atop the Raymond Commons since its opening, this bell used to signal dinner and moments in the school day. So loud was the bell that a 1926 El Batidor article mentioned, “...our neighbors said they could bear it no longer. Apparently the quiet and defenceless town of Carpinteria was being rudely awakened from its peaceful slumbers punctually at half past six every morning.” More recently it is primarily tolled to indicate the all-clear for a fire drill or the start of the opening of school Sunset Ceremony.

With the opening of the new dining hall, Booth Commons, it seemed unfinished without its own bell. In a feat of extraordinary timing, Cate legendary life trustee Nelson Jones '48 bequeathed a wonderful river bell that perfectly fit the bill. Founded at the G.W. Coffin & Co Buckeye Foundry in Cincinnati in the mid-19th century, the bell likely sat atop a river boat before being acquired by Mr. Jones.

Now installed at the edge of the Kirby Quad next to Booth Commons, the bell has already established a new Cate tradition. Victorious Cate teams now consider it their first obligation to ring the Nelson Jones '48 Victory Bell. When athletic competitions returned in late April, after a yearlong COVID-19 hiatus, ringing the bell delivered a particularly sweet sense of satisfaction.

The bell serves as a lovely reminder of Nelson Jones '48’s love for the School and hopefully its new purpose will inspire future generations of Cate students to give their best both on and off the field.

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2020-21 Cate School Board of Trustees OFFICERS OF THE BOARD

TRUSTEES

Monique F. Parsons '84 Chair, Campaign Co-Chair Glencoe, Ill.

Lauren Craig Albrecht '89 Alumni Council President Pasadena, Calif.

J. Wyatt Gruber '93 Vice Chair, President San Francisco, Calif.

Calgary Avansino '93 San Francisco, Calif.

Henry F. Burroughs '68 Vice President Jackson, Wyo. David Tunnell Treasurer San Francisco, Calif.

Benjamin D. Williams IV Head of School, Secretary Carpinteria, Calif.

LIFE TRUSTEES

Richard D. Baum '64 Kenwood, Calif.

Dan A. Emmett '99 Santa Monica, Calif

Casey McCann '97 Santa Barbara, Calif.

Jay P. Melican III '84 Hillsboro, Ore. Leone Price '02 Los Angeles, Calif.

Daniel J. Cherry III '96 Redondo Beach, Calif.

Ted Simpson '86 Los Angeles, Calif.

Rosalind Emmett-Nieman '89 Pacific Palisades, Calif.

Marianne Sprague Santa Barbara, Calif.

Sheila Marmon Heuer '90 Culver City, Calif.

Lisa B. Stanson '92 Newport Beach, Calif.

Adam S. Horowitz '99 Irvine, Calif.

Thatcher S. Thompson San Francisco, Calif.

Angela Mabon CPO President Los Angeles, Calif.

Brian Tom Hong Kong

Patricia MacFarlane

FACULTY ADVISORY TRUSTEES

Anna Fortner English & Humanities Instructor Carpinteria, Calif.

Karl Weis History Instructor Santa Barbara, Calif.

EX-OFFICIO

Kristen Klingbeil-Weis Advisory Santa Barbara, Calif.

David Wecker Campaign Co-Chair Glencoe, Ill.

Sylvia Torres-Guillén '84 Los Angeles, Calif.

Santa Barbara, Calif.

Greg H. Kubicek '74 Vancouver, Wash.

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CATE SCHOOL 1960 Cate Mesa Road Post Office Box 5005 Carpinteria, CA 93014-5005

PAID

Santa Barbara, CA Permit #1020

u t l a a r t g i ons n o C

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Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage

Class of 2021