Alumni Updates

Old Boy UPDATES

1959

Vincent Prager ’59 has established his mother’s summer home in St. Andrew’s, New Brunswick as an art gallery to display the paintings and collections of his mother, Eva Prager, a well-known Canadian portrait painter, as well as Vincent’s grandfather, Joseph Oppenheimer (1876-1961), who started the German school of impressionism. Eva Prager had been married to Sir James Dunn and, after his death, to Lord Beaverbrook. Vincent, who is still a law partner in the Montreal office of Denton’s, acquired the large home after the death of his mother in 1994, and maintains a smaller property next door as a vacation residence.

1972

Roswell James ’72 is establishing a website called Enablers.ca, a “one-stop shop for information on living with a wide range of diseases and disabilities.” Roswell, who has lived with epilepsy and associated health conditions all his life, said the focus of his site is on understanding and surmounting disability. “If you understand your disability, you can overcome it,” he says. “We’ve listed almost 500 common disabilities we need to build, from autism to schizophrenia. It's a huge job. I need about five people to get it done and I want them all to be people with disabilities because they’ll have personal understanding of the issues,” James said. “In a year's time, I want this to be a national entity that doctors tell their patients about.”

Derek Bradeen ’91 (left) and Paul Dery-Goldberg ’95 have been playing rugby against each other for years whenever their clubs have been in the same division. Derek plays scrum-half for the Brome Lake Ducks RFC and Paul now plays Fly-Half for the Town of Mont-Royal RFC. They have both been active in their clubs for years, and Paul is currently the President of TMRRFC. As of last September they were undefeated in Division 2 and moving up to Division 1 this year. ”We both started playing rugby at SHS,” Paul says, ”and Derek and I have had great talks over beers at our clubhouse after games, reminiscing about Peter Govan practices and our days at Selwyn.” Photo by Serge Ghattas ’85.

1979

In April 2014, Arnold Lazare ’79 was promoted to the position of Director of Community Protection for the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake. As an instructor with the Ecole Nationale des Pompiers du Quebec, he has been training firefighters, firefighter officers and firefighter instructors for the Cree Nation Government and neighboring departments of the Kahnawake Fire Brigade. His son Ethan graduated this past June in the class of 2014.

1980

Clive Spiegel ’80 just completed and published the second edition of his best-selling textbook Psychiatry Test Preparation And Review Manual. It rapidly became the second-best selling textbook in neuroscience for Elsevier Medical Publishing when it first appeared in 2007.

Old Boy UPDATES

Jonathan Emile (Jonathan Whyte Potter-Mal 2003) and the Franco Proietti Morph-tet tore the roof off the Metropolis for three nights during this year’s Jazz Festival. Jon’s main project is his solo career. Both acts have some very impressive videos online. Check them out.

1983

In 1984, Jon Elkin ’83 started his own goalie school at age 16 as a part-time venture in Montreal. He moved to Toronto 19 years ago to operate the school full-time. Since then the school has grown into one of the largest goalie schools in the world. It operates yearround seven days per week including 10 straight weeks of summer goalie hockey training where students congregate from all over the world to learn modern day hockey goalie tips and techniques. Jon has coached at all levels. He was the Calgary Flames (NHL) goalie coach for three seasons and has been the goalie coach for teams in the AHL, WHL, QMJHL and OHL, all top feeder systems to the NHL. He has coached 21 NHL goalies.

1986

Karen and Tim Anderson ’86, parents of Cameron 2014, Drew 2016 and Matt 2022, received a plaque and flowers from the City of Westmount in December 2013 for showing “the biggest family volunteer commitment” in support of the new Westmount Recreation Centre, said Mayor Peter Trent. Tim was the co-chair of the Special Gifts Committee, and Karen was honoured for her role in the campaign kick-off cocktail, the street hockey tournament and the realtor sponsorship. Karen is also co-chair of the Selwyn House Parent Association.

In our last issue of Veritas, we made not one, but two spelling errors in the name of the business owned by Michael Penner ’86, Richelieu Legwear. Sorry, Michael.

1998

After being featured in the last issue of Veritas for his successes as a producer of hit Broadway musicals Adam Blanshay ’98 was the subject of a full-page spread in the January 25 issue of the Globe and Mail.

1999

The Miami HEAT announced January 16 that they have traded center Joel Anthony ’99, the only Selwyn House Old Boy ever to play in the National Basketball Association, to the Boston Celtics. Read the full story on NBA.com

2002

Kate, daughter of Torrey Mitchell 2002 was born the second week of February 2014 in Minneapolis. Three weeks later, Torrey was traded to Buffalo with a contract for the 2014-2015 season.

2003

Jeff Barkun 2003 is currently in Switzerland doing his Masters in a program that was created by the International Olympic Committee and several other Swiss institutions. It is called the International Academy of Sports Science and Technology (AISTS.org). The program is about training people for work in international sports organizations, leagues, teams, events and other related fields like medicine, law, athlete management, media etc. Many grads now work in places like the NFL, IOC, Olympic organizing committees, Nike, and many other sports-related organizations. ”I am in a group with three recent Olympians, including a gold medalist who I sit next to every day,” Jeff writes. 2004

Bryce Durafourt 2004 completed his B.Sc. in microbiology and immunology at McGill in 2009 and then his M.Sc.

Old Boy UPDATES

Back row from left:Michael Cohen 2009,Kevin Boyle ’97,Brendan Munzar 2005 and Oliver Maurovich 2009.Front row:Abibou Ngom 2003,Masaud Kakkar ’93,Philip Clark 2005 and Connor O’Brien 2010

Masaud Kakkar ’93 sent us the above photo of the Old Boys’ team that competed in this year’s Hoopfest at LCC. “We lost our first game 54-42 against the Dawson Dream Team that won the tournament,” Massaud writes. “While we did lose to them, we were by far the best team to give them a good challenge as compared to the final score of other teams they played. Also, as we found out several of the players currently play on the Dawson AAA basketball team, so we were up against a very young and talented team. Our second game was against the Davies law firm team, which we crushed 64-20. We didn’t have a third game this year, because if you lost your first game you went to the consolation division afterwards. It was unfortunate we played the tournament winner our first game, otherwise we would have met them for sure in the final.

in neuroscience in 2011. He is now in his third year of medical school, also at McGill. He is also heavily involved in the Canadian Federation of Medical Students, where he sits as the vice-president of the executive committee. All this keeps him very busy and really enjoying it.

2009

St. Francis Xavier University X-Men linebacker James Menzies ’09 was named the StFX Football Special Teams Player of the Week for the week ending Oct. 6, 2013. James, a third-year business student from Montreal, played well on special teams coverage in the XMen’s recent 30-9 victory over Mount Allison. His hustle resulted in several touchdown-saving tackles, as he had four solo tackles on the afternoon.

2010

St. Lawrence University sophomore Connor O’Brien 2010 (see photo at left) was honored by the Liberty League Oct. 9 for his efforts in the Saints football team’s 30-20 victory over Union the previous Saturday in Schenectady, NY. O’Brien was named the conference’s Special Teams Player of the Week. With the Saints trailing 2013 in the third quarter, Union had a chance to take a double-digit lead on a short field goal try. However, the kick was blocked and O’Brien would spark the Saints’ rally, as the Westmount native scooped up the ball and took it 84 yards for the tying score. The visitors would reel off 17 unanswered points to secure the victory.

2011

Cairn TseLalonde 2011 has now completed his second year of study at Berklee College of Music in Boston. Cairn completed two years of credits during his first year, was named to the Dean’s List for Academic Achievement and was offered an increased scholarship to remain at Berklee. Cairn was selected to enter the prestigious Music Production and Engineering program for 2013-14, where he achieved straight A’s and was again named to the Dean’s List. “I don’t play music as much as I used to,” Cairn admits, “but I get to record artists in real studios with professional equipment, and learn skills that will help me write and develop my own music. Sometimes I have to go into the studios at 2 a.m. for the whole night, but that doesn’t bother me because the experience I get will only help me learn more and do better down the road.” ■