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Tim O’Neill ’99
Why are you fond of George School? I was the third O’Neill son to graduate. Like my brothers before me, I benefited from all the weekend activities, even though I was a day student. Once in my sophomore year when I was signing in for yet another overnight stay in Orton, my file was dropped in the Deans’ Office. There was a veritable flurry of previous overnight cards, and I realized that I was spending a lot of time at school.
Loyalty Challenge Donor*
When my brother Chuck ’94 died in spring 2001, it was natural for us to have the memorial at the George School Meetinghouse, considering how special the school had been to him and to all of us. Many who attended were moved to give to a fund in his memory, which pays for an annual music assembly. Living nearby, I’m able to attend and even introduce these assemblies, and current students often go out of their way to tell me it is a highlight of their year. How did George School influence your choice of career? My love of languages certainly comes in a large part from French classes with Debbie DiMicco and Claudie Fischer. I took French for all four years, which prepared me well for the French major I went on to pursue. The trip to Alsace junior year also influenced me, and when I studied in Strasbourg for a fall semester in college, I saw my homestay family from the George School trip several times. The second part of the year I studied in Madagascar, and although I was there to study environmental science, I became more interested in the interplay between the colonial French and native Malagasy languages.
“ I take great pride in beating Westtown for the Machemer Cup…I give to the Annual Fund every year because George School was such an important factor in who I am.”
Why do you enjoy taking part in the Loyalty Challenge by giving to the Annual Fund? I take great pride in beating Westtown for the Machemer Cup. For two years, I worked with fellow grads Dave Durant ’99 and Aja Bryant ’00 at an outdoor education center, and one of our coworkers was a Westtown grad. Dave’s spirit of competition drove him to donate for the first time during those years, perhaps so he could tell this coworker that we had beaten his school! I give to the Annual Fund every year because George School was such an important factor in who I am.
A graduate of Bates College, Tim is pursuing a Ph.D. in linguistics at the University of Delaware and working as a linguist/teaching assistant. He married wife KellyAnn in summer 2011 in a croquet-themed wedding, and they are bringing a croquet set with them for five months in Madagascar, where Tim is researching an almost-unstudied dialect of Malagasy, spoken on the east coast of the island. * The Loyalty Challenge is modeled after the annual George School-Westtown athletic rivalry known as the Patterson Cup or “The Moose.” The challenge is an annual-giving participation competition between recent graduating classes of the two schools. This competition was the brainchild of faculty members Paul (GS ’65) and Pam (Westtown ’64) Machemer, and the winning school receives the coveted Machemer Cup for the year.
Susan Crosman Waterhouse and Brian Waterhouse Nathan C. Wright Robert I. Wu Anonymous (1)
1993 Annual Fund Dollars Raised: $3,283.93 Annual Fund Participation: 14% Sticky Bun Society Members: 1 Loyalty Challenge Result: LOSS S o uth L a w n C i rcle
Brian J. Wise § Yo u n g A l u m n i L eadersh i p C i rcle
Kareem O. Afzal Bradd A. Forstein Kenneth C. Andersen Nicole Brown-Williams
Satish V. Desai Jack B. Ford Susanna C. Gilbert Morgan P. Hankins Christine Markow Johnson Hee-Jun Kim Ilio Krumins-Beens Lawrence P. Laybourne and Herran Bekele Shawna Grimm Lyons Melaina Governatore Mirarchi Ada Nelken Elbert K. St. Claire III v Sarah A. Tulman Katherine Price Webster Ina Willers Brian J. Zavodnick Anonymous (1)
1994 Annual Fund Dollars Raised: $1,011.00 Annual Fund Participation: 12% Sticky Bun Society Members: 1 Loyalty Challenge Result: WIN
Douglas K. Mylowe Louis M. Onori Jr Rebecca Schapira Schwarzkopf Anish A. Sheth Abigail Kerlin Tucker Jamie K. Wolszon Jan K. Zeman
Yo u n g A l u m n i L eadersh i p C i rcle
Stafford A. Woodley Jr. Laura Iverson Burg § Anthony B. Cino Catherine Crosby and Daniel J. Holton-Roth Amy G. Hammond Nicholas S. Hanlon Isaac S. Haynes Katherine Farneth Hirsch Bridge C. Joyce Delila R. Leber Mark C. Merwin Tamala T. Montgomery
1995 Annual Fund Dollars Raised: $1,985.00 Annual Fund Participation: 7% Sticky Bun Society Members: 1 Loyalty Challenge Result: LOSS S o u th L a w n C i rcle
Bennett P. and Aisha Lomax
† DECEASED § STICKY BUN SOCIETY v JOHN M. GEORGE SOCIETY