CLASS NOTES team placed third nationally this year. • Naomi Weitz will be staying in D.C. and working for the Georgetown Medical School’s advancement office. • Now graduated, Yvon Biselele has headed home to Lynn, Mass., where he is working with the KIPP public charter schools, which he attended before coming to NMH. • Former NMH roommates Elizabeth Schechter and Joanna Pang are both staying in Atlanta following their graduation from Emory. When I spoke with Elizabeth, she had taken a job with an advertising agency. At one point she paused our conversation to shoo her newly adopted kitten back onto the floor after it tried to make off with her dinner. • Henry Lawrence is finishing his degree in linguistics and German at Queen’s University. Also, he and his band, The Wilderness, are recording their first album and set off on a Canadian tour this summer (last year they toured the U.S.). You can find them on SoundCloud and Facebook. • As for me, I taught the “writing and the outdoors” class at NMH Summer Session 2016 and am back at Middlebury for one more year. This spring will be our five-year reunion at NMH, and I hope many of us can make it back to catch up and have some fun.
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Northfield Mount Hermon Please send news to: nmhnotes@nmhschool.org
Max Adler, now at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass., was named to the USILA/ Nike Division II All-America third team in May as a specialist. Max becomes the men’s lacrosse program’s eighth different player to earn All-America honors.
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Northfield Mount Hermon Please send news to: nmhnotes@nmhschool.org
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Northfield Mount Hermon Please send news to: nmhnotes@nmhschool.org
Laura Rollins earned a spot on the honor roll in May after playing a key role in defense in William Smith College’s lacrosse team during the Liberty League tournament. Congratulations, Laura!
Faculty Joan Pack hpack@nmhschool.org
From Joan Pack: Jim Dunaway, former religious studies teacher and academic dean, and Libby Barlow, former religious studies teacher and student life dean, left NMH in 1999 and relocated to Houston, Texas, where Jim spent 15 years as dean of faculty at the Kincaid School. Libby earned her doctorate in
higher-education administration and worked at the University of Houston as director of institutional research and institutional effectiveness. In 2014 they relocated to Syracuse, N.Y., where Libby assumed her position as assistant vice president for institutional research and assessment at Syracuse University. Jim began his tenure as head of the Manlius Pebble Hill School in DeWitt, N.Y. Jim and Libby have two children, Jordan and Judson. • Dick Peller and Ellen Turner Peller now live in Hudson, Ohio. Dick tutors math students in Hudson while remaining active in fundraising for the Gilder Center (NMH’s new math and science center). Ellen has done some admissions work for both NMH and Kenyon College. Dick writes that they have had a wonderful stream of visitors from NMH during their first year post-NMH. They have been active grandparents to Annie and Jeff Neill’s two young children, Stella and Chase. • Betty Stookey left NMH and returned to Blue Hill, Maine, with husband, Noel. Betty and Noel tour with their multi-faith program, One Light, Many Candles. Betty continues to “minister” at weddings, memorials, and occasionally as a fill-in for a pastor on leave. She and Noel are active and devoted parents and grandparents. • Nicholas Theberge is now entering the chief year of his oral and maxillofacial surgery residency at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J. Nick and wife Amanda have a new young son, Jonathan (Jonah), born on 12/29/15. Nick and family plan to return to NMH for a visit after he completes his surgical training next year. • Jon “Poff” Poffenberger continues in his work as dean of school life at the Sage Hill School in Newport Coast, Calif. Poff and wife Karen adopted a newborn baby girl, Colbie, in November 2015. • Ginny and Ed Brooks live in Harrisville, N.H., not far over the border from Northfield. They’re active in their post-NMH lives, are regular travelers, and familiar visitors to the NMH campus. • Dean Fusto, class parent to the class of ’97, founded the teachlearnlead.org “edu-library,” a globally recognized brand and clearinghouse for K–12 educational research, resources, and curated articles. Dean was appointed president and head of school at Brandon Hall School, a global boarding school in Atlanta, in December 2015. • Jim and Julie Scheidegger will move to a new school in the fall. They will begin teaching (Jim returns to his roots teaching math, Julie will teach English and ESL) at Saint Andrew’s School in Boca Raton, Fla. They have four children: Phoebe, Amelia, Caleb, and Owen. • Hughes and Joan Pack finally found their way off the Mt. Hermon campus after 37 years in residence, and traveled three miles to their new home in the center of the town of Northfield. They live in a net-positive-energy home (producing more energy than used) rebuilt by Peter Talmage ’66. The house is a perfect working lab for Hughes, who is the curriculum designer for the STEM Solar Lab, a solar-energy curriculum designed
for use in high school classrooms. Retirement? Not quite yet. Hughes and Joan have two sons, Noah ’04 and Eli ’07. • From Kristin Kellom ’80: Long in the discussion phase, a reunion of fac brats of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s was finally held on campus in June. After several years of poignant and bittersweet reunions while attending memorial services for our parents or “our many aunts and uncles who helped raise us” (as one of us noted), the desire to meet under happier circumstances was realized. We strolled the campus, shrieked over family photo album pictures, screened a 1963 marketing film that featured many familiar faculty and staff, and pulled out memorabilia such as “Campus Chefs” and Mt. Hermon banners and towels. The most profound moment of the day was “Chapel Time,” when we joined in a circle at Memorial Chapel to re-connect, reflect, and sing. Representing childhoods that spanned the 1940s through the 1970s at Northfield and Mt. Hermon, we shared where we had lived on campus, the circumstances that had brought our parents to the school, and those particular memories that were mutually understood simply for having grown up on campus. We acknowledged our joy, sorrow, and gratitude. We wrapped up our day with a fabulous feast fully prepared by Joe Elliott and his wife Jenny. Those in attendance: Deborah Allenby Albert, Stuart Allenby, Ellen McVeigh Crawford, Joe McVeigh, Peter Weis, David Jones, John Burnham, Louise Burnham Packard with son Daniel Packard and cousin Lyric, Paul Burnham, Joe Elliott, Stuart Elliott, Will Torrey, David Torrey, Kathy Torrey, Kathryn Piscuskas, Martha Piscuskas, Richard Anthony Piscuskas, David Piscuskas, Bob Compton, Chuck Alexander, Nancy Alexander Randall, Kathy Williams Hoffer, Peter Iris-Williams, Meg Greene, Chris Cartwright, Dottie Bauer, Jim Bauer, Kristin Whyte, Robin Whyte Reisman, Robert Wood, Doug Wood, Norm Wood, Susan Moyle Lynch, Karen Forslund Falb, Jessamyn (formerly Susan) Stinchfield, Mike LaChance, and Kristin Kellom. Deemed honorary fac brats: Rachel Balaban, Becky Torrey, Marie Alexander, Michael Lynch, and Lydia Perry Schodel. Supportive advocates for the reunion and unable to attend as circumstances dictated otherwise were Harlan Baxter, Tom Baxter, Jennifer Pitney Schimmel, Gwyneth Jones Radloff, Richard Compton, and Betsy Compton. • And swinging through as the sun emerged at afternoon’s end was Mac McCollester, who had known so many of us “kids” during his family’s 30+ years at the school. • This event will undoubtedly grow and more decades will roll in as we build our network of those who grew up at Northfield, Mt. Hermon, and NMH. • To receive an unedited version of this column, email nmhnotes@nmhschool.org.
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