Joan Scharfenberg Anderson has maintained her position as 6th grade team leader at Coleman Middle School in addition to other duties. This year she was named Coleman Middle School’s Teacher of the Year. She writes, “To be recognized by your peers is the ultimate compliment.”
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Peirce “PC” ’75 ’76MBA and Katherine “Kit” Ivey Ward report that their son, Colton, was named Washington and Lee Athlete of the Week in October after leading the football team to a 4114 win over Guilford. Their daughter, Whitney, attended Rollins, but transferred to Mary Baldwin to live in the same town as her brother and her longtime boyfriend, Andrew Dana ’03, who is in his second year of law school at Washington and Lee. Whitney made her debut in November and was joined by Christie Jones ’05, Adam Gray ’02 ’03MBA, Henry Fasoldt ’02, and Jessica Klekamp ’04. Scott and Susan Meade Sindelar still find the Southwest “the place to be.” Susan is thrilled to be working with Apt/Home Solutions in Phoenix, AZ, where apartment complexes are more like resorts. She writes, “If you’re planning a visit or relocation, give me a call.”
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After four years in the private sector, Gregory Morris returned to the State Department in January 2003. He is currently posted to the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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Bill MacLean has retired as managing director of Fixed Income for U.S. Bank/Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis and is pursuing a master’s degree in divinity. His goal is to be ordained in the Presbyterian Church. Laurence Hickey ’77MBA has been elected corporate secretary for the Eastman Kodak Company, according to TMCnet.com. He also has been named an assistant general counsel and vice president of Kodak’s legal department and remains the company’s chief governance officer.
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GIGI KEEFFE SCHWARTZMAN ’75 ■ A LIFE IN HARMONY Big-time opera stars rarely aspire to make their audiences giggle. They usually do not encourage dancing in the aisles, the wearing of silly hats, or shouting at the loud parts. But Gigi Keeffe Schwartzman ’75 is no ordinary big-time opera star. Sure, at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center she’s mezzo soprano Virginia Keeffe. But at the zoo or the local family festival, little kids in New York state know her as Gigi, the lead singer of the Lend Me a Hand Band, one of the most popular kids musical groups in the area. At Lend Me a Hand gigs, it’s all hip-wiggling, sing-along fun. “The kids want to be a part of the music, dancing, singing, moving,” Schwartzman said. Produced by her company Broken Ankle Productions, the Lend Me a Hand Band combines Schwartzman’s three passions in life: music, kids, and her own family. The band features her husband of 20 years, Larry (a former blues musician who is now a pension manager—and bass player); Granny Franny, Schwartzman’s mom Fran Keeffe, who was a country western singer in her younger days; and extended family members, who perform original music written by Schwartzman. They do everything from swing to calypso to doo-wop. A music major and member of the Phi Mu sorority at Rollins, Schwartzman has always put her “big voice” to good use, making a name for herself in operas and choral groups at some of the most prestigious music halls in the country. But it was a stint as a student teacher for her elementary education minor at Rollins that eventually led Schwartzman to use that big voice for little people. “When they assigned me to student teach at Lake Sybelia Elementary School, the school had been streamlining deaf children into classes with hearing children and my teaching had to incorporate both,” she said. At that time, integrated classes were unusual. Using music as a connection between hearing and deaf kids was unusual. But Schwartzman saw her job as an unusual opportunity. “I learned to sign so I could communicate with the kids. It was life-changing for me. The deaf children would put their bodies up against the piano as I played and they could feel the beats and pulses. We all learned that we’re not so different from each other. I’ve been using sign language in my music and doing the interactive thing ever since.” That interactive thing involves her band, as well as singing with about 400 kids every week in various schools in the Scarsdale, New York area, where Schwartzman grew up and still lives. She is director of children’s music at Irvington Presbyterian Church, teaches music at three nursery schools, runs music for summer camps, and frequently presents workshops at teacher training conferences. For 15 years after graduating from Rollins,
Schwartzman and the Lend Me a Hand Band
Schwartzman pursued her dream of being a worldclass singer. She has performed with the Connecticut Grand Opera, the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players, the Lake George Opera, the Aspen Music Festival, and the San Francisco Opera Center Competition. And she still loves to perform. “But the heart does lead you,” she said. In 1985, Schwartzman, along with six friends, became gravely ill with what doctors were calling vasculitis, but which Schwartzman believes might have been an early case of Lyme disease. She was hospitalized for a month and had to learn to walk and talk again. “I’m fine now,” she said. “But it gave me time to think. What do I really love? I made a big decision then that my heart wasn’t in the opera and the traveling any more. So I started writing children’s music and here I am.” To date, Schwartzman has written more than 200 songs for children, including educational music for the New York Aquarium and the “O is for Opera” program presented in Scarsdale’s public schools each year. Life is quite a show for this singer, songwriter, educator, and mother to 9-year-old Evan. “It’s a balancing act. I have learned to be a woman for the age we’re living in. I’m writing songs as I’m doing the dishes. I’m Midnight Mom on the computer, jotting down music in the studio I have set up here in the house. But my most important job is being a mom.” Learning to balance multiple interests was one of the many benefits of a Rollins education, Schwartzman said, not just because it led her to that music program at Lake Sybelia. “If I had been stuck in a conservatory, I never would have followed the path I’m on now. Rollins teaches you not to box yourself in, in your life or in your thinking. I changed my mind several times while I was there and since then about I what I wanted to do with my life. It’s wonderful to have the freedom to go off on tangents.” Schwartzman remembers her time at Rollins as her era of personal growth. “I was in a Noel Coward musical my junior year and I thought I knew it all. I mean, I could sing—how hard could it be? I quickly learned I was out of my league. What a humbling experience. I found as a performer I had a lot to learn. And I‘ve set myself up to keep learning, to keep evolving, as a performer and as a person.” —Leigh Brown Perkins
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