Alumni News

This year marked the 26th annual Pons Dinner, which celebrates the bridge between middle and high school. It is also a time to recognize the Lower Campus graduates, now in their senior year, as they prepare to transition from high school to college.

This year, alumni guest speaker and OVS Trustee Sally McClenahan Dyer (L87, U91) talked about the friends, teachers and experiences that made her years at OVS memorable. It was at the Upper Campus where she met her husband, Patrick Dyer (U91). The couple still maintain close ties with many of their classmates.

“The single most important element that sticks with me today are the OVS friendships that I have in my life,” she told the students. “That is not to say that your education is not the critical element of going to school. I don’t want to upset all your amazing teachers and parents by omitting the fact that OVS is, in fact, a place of learning.”

But, she said, part of the OVS journey is about facing challenges, working through them, and having meaningful shared experiences with friends. “It is,” she

Caleb Carver (L19), Eric Schmidt (L20), Tigran Nahabedian (L19), Sully Rothwell, (L20), Ben Manning (L20) and Gavin Gonzalez (L19) catch up at Pons Dinner.

said, “the uniquely OVS environment that is created by all the people sitting behind you.”

Senior Ryan Farrell (L18, U22) delivered a speech written by classmate CatieJo Larkin (L18, U22), who was unable to attend. In her speech, CatieJo reflected on the skills she learned at Lower Campus and the teachers who helped prepare her for life beyond middle school. Those teachers don’t disappear once you graduate, she wrote, concluding: “For many graduates, including myself, some of our most influential mentors, even to this day, are people from our times at the Lower Campus.”

McIntosh shares grad wisdom at Senior to Alumni Dinner

Before graduation, members of the Class of 2022 took a break from final exams and gathered for a casual pizza dinner at Boccali’s restaurant in Ojai to celebrate their transition from seniors to alumni.

Guest speaker Jenna McIntosh (L11, U15), a graduate of College of Charleston who is now headed to law school, encouraged the seniors to open themselves up to new opportunities once they arrive at their college campuses. Jenna said she felt well-prepared academically when she left OVS, but struggled to make connections on a campus of 12,000 people. “I was really glad those first few months of college to still have my friends and community at OVS,” she said. “And in all reality, it only took me two months to hit my stride in college.”

Among her words of advice: “Talk to your OVS friends once a week: It’s really easy to get wrapped up in college and what is happening right in front of you, but the people you know at OVS will be the people you have for the rest of your life … they helped lay the foundation to become the person I am today. Those are the type of people you want to keep close.”

Class of 2022 with Mr. Hall-Mounsey, Mr. Floyd, Mr. Alvarez and Jenna McIntosh.

Sedona group reunites at Alumni Weekend

By Liza Cass White (L61)

Thirty years ago, Frances/Fanny/ Casey Case (L61) had an epiphany. She was running a children’s chorus in Tucson, Arizona, and encountered a previous member who said that his time in chorus was a wonderful part of his young life and that even as an adult, he still loved the chorus. Fanny thought about that and zeroed in on the problem: “You live close to us; so why don’t you participate with us now?” The comment kept resonating in her mind regarding her own 7th-9th grade “wonderful” OVS experience. So, in 1992, Fanny decided to reinvolve herself with OVS and the valuable friendships she’d made there; hence, the birth of the Sedona/ OVS gatherings, solidifying the OVS affinity of yesteryear. That affinity was a loosely constructed idea including people from four classes (L59 thru L62) and promotion of what made OVS life fun. The school provided ancient contact information and Fanny found the quintessential OVS-oid gathering spot near Sedona, Arizona, called Living Springs Camp: cot-tent/grass camping; bathrooms with showers, large group kitchen, nearby, hikeable swimming hole, grass field for egg toss/volleyball/soccer, and big sky magnificence for evening songs, for ridiculous awards (Fickle Finger of Fate) for even more ridiculous contests (macho arm wrestling), and for long chats under the stars. Families, friends and teachers were welcome. We met every four years, careful not to coincide with the summer Olympics because there wasn’t TV to watch and then truly poor WiFi to connect to. We met on Friday and left on Sunday and shared an immutable menu of tacos and steak/chicken BBQ for 2 dinners and breakfast/lunch food supplied, but without organization. Needless to say, it was BYOB.

From left to right: Birgitta Smith, O.J. Beaudette, Liza White, Jim Churchill, Casey (Fanny) Case, Bob Anthony, Selby Smith, and Rick Paige. sky, nor climb over the boulders to get to the swimming hole, nor be anything but crippled by cot/grass camping, nor guarantee that the rattlesnake of 10 years ago wouldn’t appear again. So, this year we gathered after the OVS Alumni Weekend (Sunday dinner of tacos, Monday evening BBQ, and Tuesday departure) and were housed in the new Upper Campus girls dorm and common room. What a generous and timely opportunity. We hiked to the Sespe without finding the 10’ Hole so we returned to swim in the heated pool. We played ping pong instead of egg toss and sat underneath the magnificent Ojai sky each night and talked, and talked, and talked. What is humor? Is spirituality hard wired into humans? Who was it that broke his finger in Sedona, rope swinging out over the swimming hole? Who was there when Wick sang Gaudeamus Igitur a capella? We are people who were blessed with OVS to help raise us — and a friend who knew to keep what is precious to each of us alive. Sedona attendees in 1996. For a full list of attendees in this picture (too many to list here), see www.ovs.org/alumni.

Everyone who joined, even once, was captured by the mood of joy and by Fanny’s tenacious vow to connect with OVS-ers. No one was or is beyond her reach nor her capacity to implement for the group.

We have shortened our gathering times from 4 to 3 to 2 to 1 year as we’ve grown older. This year, 2022, we knew we couldn’t get up and down those 23 steps to the kitchen/bathrooms under that star-filled but black