SHERYL CUMINE ’07 by Aaron Gillespie, Sports Information Director
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oss is one of life’s most difficult struggles in any capacity. The loss of a young, talented, and infectious personality is nearly impossible to comprehend. Such is the case in the recent passing of a treasured member of the Menlo College family, student-athlete and 2007 alumnus Sheryl Cumine, who recently passed away following a battle with cancer. Cumine was a stellar performer on the women’s soccer team in 2005 and 2006, earning first team all conference honors and playing a major role in the Lady Oaks first ever trip to the NAIA National Championships in 2005. In that season, Menlo was 13-5-1 and a perfect 7-0 in California Pacific Conference play. The Lady Oaks also won the Cal Pac title in both her junior and senior seasons. She joined the Lady Oaks as a junior transfer from Cabrillo College in Aptos, CA, and made an immediate impact as a two-year starter, totaling four goals and a pair of assists as a center midfielder and team captain. Then Menlo women’s soccer head coach Owen Flannery distinctly remembers following the career of Cumine and eventually recruiting her to join the Lady Oaks squad. “Sheryl was a wonderful person and I was very lucky to have coached her,” said Flannery. Former teammate Maryn Craig said, “Sheryl was my first friend at Menlo. She was so welcoming and always included me. She always welcomed new people, was extremely friendly, kind, outgoing, and always had a smile on her face. I have many memories of Sheryl and I wish I had a lot more. She was truly an amazing person.”
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s a junior transfer recruited to the Menlo wrestling team, Al Kinslow was a member of the community for just two years, but the time he spent on campus was meaningful. Al’s recent passing following a valiant battle with Ewing Sarcoma, a rare form of cancer, leaves a hole in the community. In wrestling, Al was a national qualifier in 2009 and served as a team captain in his senior season in 2009-10. “He was highly engaged on campus and represented the wrestling program at the highest level in all aspects of his life,” said Athletic Director Keith Spataro.
Menlo head wrestling coach Joey Martinez, echoed a AL KINSLOW ’11 similar sentiment. “He was a guy that you had to have on the team because he brought a lot of intangibles: great leader, good student, carried himself well, hard worker,” said Martinez. “He was someone you could have on your team forever because he brought so much to the table. ” Residential Life Coordinator and close friend Adam Montez, noted that as a campus Resident Assistant, he was loved and respected by the RA staff and his students. “Al had a giant heart and personality,” said Montez. “He was always willing to lend a helping hand.” He recalls a Halloween when Kinslow and wrestling teammate Sean Weeks ’13 made the trip to the epicenter of the campus social scene – the cafeteria. In front of a crowd, Weeks and Kinslow dressed as Chippendale dancers, began an impromptu performance by dancing throughout the building. Lighthearted moments like this—where laughs were plentiful and spirits were lifted—are the ones that stuck out most to Montez. “He was a leader on and off the mat,” said Weeks. “He was friends with everyone and not one person ever said anything bad about him. It’s heartbreaking to lose such a young man and great friend.” by Aaron Gillespie, Sports Information Director
RAFAEL (JOSIAH) LUEVANO ’11 transferred from a state school to Menlo because he wanted to be in a learning community rather than merely an institution of higher education. Nor was he just talking when he said that. Soon he was elected to a leadership position in student government where his speciality was organizing fundraising projects that brought the community together. One of them was support for veterans returning from Iraq. His professors and peers recognized his writing ability, especially as it manifested itself in Memoir Writing class where his professor marveled at his ability to write and tell wonderful stories. His mother said she enrolled in Menlo’s Professional Studies Program when she saw how he was thriving. They graduated together two years ago. He went on to study in China where he immersed himself in a culture that gave him a new appreciation of his homeland as well as a better understanding of a foreign land. Like Henry David Thoreau, he went off “to Walden Pond,” actually to learn how to manage an olive grove business north of the Bay Area where he was learning yet another way of life. Sadly, that life was cut short by a pulmonary embolism. He was only 25, but as a Chinese proverb says, birds don’t sing because they have answers. They sing because they have a song. We have our own song: Josiah and our joyous memories of him. by Marilyn Thomas, Dean of Arts and Sciences