R THE REMARKER
“[The park] is very special and it feels like a part of me,” he said, “and that it’s my responsibility to keep it safe and to keep it clean and just watch it grow so that the community enjoys it more each day.”
ST. MARK'S SCHOOL OF TEXAS DALLAS, TEXAS 75230 FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014 VOLUME 60, ISSUE 5
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Your money’s worth
Down payment You see their names on plaques all over campus. Several key families have elevated this school to the high level at which it currently stands. Their contributions, of both time and money, have put this school in a progressive position; they have invested in the future. Inside, a look into the hows and whys of their giving.
Name of Building: Hoffman Center Opened: 2008 Key Benefactors: the Hersh family Named for: Robert Hoffman ’65 Houses: Foreign language classrooms, publications suite, debate, College Counseling suite
RILEY GRAHAM PHOTO
NAME?
Name of Building: Cecil and Ida Green Library Opened: 1967, rededicated 1981 Key Benefactors: Green Family Named for: Cecil and Ida Green Houses: Upper School Library, computer labs, server room Name of Building: McDermott and Green Science and Math Quadrangle Opened: 1961, math building torn down 2008 Key Benefactors: McDermott and Green families Houses: Science classrooms and offices, Science Lecture Hall, planetarium
RILEY GRAHAM PHOTO
Name of Building: Nearburg Hall Opened: 2002 Key Benefactors: Charles Nearburg ‘68 Named For: Charles Nearburg ‘68 Houses: Alumni and Development offices, Business and Finance, Office of Admission, Industrial Arts Name of Building: Centennial Hall Opened: 2008 Key Benefactors: Crow family, Perot family Houses: Math, English and history classrooms, along with the Headmaster’s office, Upper School office and Middle School office
– Editor-in-chief Dylan Clark
News Silicon Prarie How Dallas is emulating Silicon Valley, CA, and becoming a hub for technology and investing. Page 2 Heartgift One St. Mark’s family is changing the life of an African child by hosting him while he undergoes heart surgery in America. Page 6 Michael Merrill ‘68 Why Merrill, a leader of the Bay Area Alumni Club and noted designer, is working so hard for an endowed chair. Page 7 Life The business of the student store A look into the student store and how Sarah Key stocks its shelves. Page 9 Affordable style Creative Director Sam Khoshbin and Graphics Director Zuyva Sevilla show how a Marksman can look good on a budget. Page 14 Centerspread The price is right How much do things really cost? Students and teachers try their hand at everyday items. Pages 12-13 Commentary Don’t burst the bubble Information so Marksmen can avoid student loans and be financially responsible in college. Page 16 Sports Sports donors Sports editor Matthew Conley looks into the money that made our sports. Page 20 Concessions What costs the most? The least? All the data you can swallow from this year’s concessions stands. Page 24
RILEY GRAHAM PHOTO
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what’s in a
ANDREW GATHERER PHOTO
t’s been written about, sung about, wasted, trivialized and fought over. Money—it’s what everybody needs. What everybody wants but can’t seem to get enough of. Money pervades every segment of our society. It opens doors and tears down barriers. Wealth is the ultimate goal of many and the ultimate accomplishment of few. In short, money’s importance is undeniable. Many will acknowledge that it can be used to corrupt and do evil. But, in the case of St. Mark’s, we’re lucky enough to have just the opposite. The money that helped make St. Mark’s made a diverse, ethical and world-renowned place of learning. A student body that isn’t afraid to be the best it can be and a faculty that challenges us to do just that. o, when the staff of The ReMarker decided that we wanted to do a themed issue — one inspired by ESPN The Magazine featuring an original theme each month — money was foremost on our minds in terms of story possibilities and theme development. Journalism educator Bobby Hawthorne visited the staff for a day in January to help us conceptualize The Money Issue and headmaster Arnie Holtberg readily bought into our plans. Inside, you will find many stories that were born that day and many that were inspired by thoughtful, incisive discussion by all members of the staff throughout the month. Each page with the money issue seal created by graphics director Zuyva Sevilla is a part of The Money Issue. The Money Issue is not about where the money comes from — that question doesn’t need to be answered after the impressive culmination of the decade’s $110 million Centennial Challenge. The Money Issue is about why the money is here — and what that money does.
ANDREW GATHERER PHOTO
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Fifth grader, Klyde Warren, on Klyde Warren Park and the responsiblity he feels to keep it special
• See ‘Building St. Mark’s,’ page 8
Father of the year Reverend Dangelo helps visually impaired daughter sell Girl Scout cookies By Cameron Clark staff writer he sign taped to the front of his office door made him the most popular man on campus for the week. There were three simple words on that
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COME ONE COME ALL Stacks of cookies filled his table last month as Fr. Dangelo sold the popular Girl Scout treats for his daughter Suzannah.
INSIDE
NEWS
plain white piece of paper that caused a hoard of students and even some faculty members to swarm his office like vultures: Girl Scout cookies. In late January, school chaplain, Rev. Michael Dangelo, discovered he would have to help his six-year-old daughter, Suzannah, a Daisy Scout, selling these cookies. “My daughter is visually impaired,” Dangelo said, “so her being a part of a group like this is really important to us because it gets her to socialize more and to live with what’s going on with her disability. And it allows children to see what it’s like for someone with a disability, so she has something to teach them too.” At first, Dangelo believed he would have to sell just nine boxes to help out. “I thought, I’ll write a check for nine boxes of cookies right now. No sweat, we’ve done our quota, we’re done,” he said. What he didn’t realize was that nine
Ever wondered how those new teachers get hired here? p. 4
LIFE
“boxes” didn’t actually mean nine boxes. “We pull up to the school to pick up our ‘nine boxes,’ and it’s nine cases of Girl Scout cookies. That’s something like a hundred boxes of Girl Scout cookies,” he said. Dangelo’s willingness to support his daughter eventually led to his decision to bring the cookies to school. “I thought, ‘There’s no way I’m walking around, I’m not going door to door,’” he said. “And then it came to me: I’m like, ‘This is going to come down to me taking these to school, isn’t it?’ That’s where the idea came from. The only way I could possibly get rid of these is to try to sell them to people at school.” In just a 72-hour span, Dangelo managed to unload almost all of the boxes. The first day, he brought in eight boxes and sold them all before school began. The second day, he brought in a third of the stash and sold them all before lunch.
Sixth grader Klyde Warren helps clean up his namesake p. 5
COMMENTARY
Finally, on the third day, he sold everything except for four boxes of Thank U Berry Munch. “I really enjoyed buying the cookies at school because it provided the ability to both have food and help support Fr. Dangelo’s daughter and her Girl Scout troop,” sophomore Tim O’Meara said. But the customers extended beyond the student body as Girl Scout cookies are clearly popular among the faculty as well. “Oh my goodness, they’re as bad as you guys,” Dangelo said. “I mean, I’ve got teachers [saying], ‘Can you put some of those aside for me?’ and I’m like, ‘I just have… well, okay.’ So I’m sorry to tell the guys that I did give preferential treatment to my colleagues by setting aside some Thin Mints and Samoas for them.” Competition even got to a point where cookie “territories” were established.
We encourage a look into our school’s internet filtering policy p. 5
Continued, page 14
SPORTS
Spring forward with a spring sports preview p. 22
NEWS AROUND CAMPUS
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THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014 | PAGE 2
new sort of electric powered mop in bright yellow. I pulled it off the shelf and told my grandmother that she should buy it. She laughed at me and told me that she couldn’t afford it and didn’t need it. I looked back at her and said “Don’t worry, Nana. I saw an ATM in the front of the store. You can go get some more money there.” Shocked by what I said, she ended up buying the useless cleaning contraption that sat untouched in her garage for years. I’d love to say my knowledge about money has increased greatly since then. But in reality, it hasn’t. I have no idea how much things really cost. Recently, I was blindsided when my father pointed out to me that St. Mark’s tuition was much more than the $26,858 figure from the website. e explained to me that tuition is paid with after-tax income. For someone in the highest tax bracket, it takes nearly $37,000 of pre-tax income to pay for one year at 10600 Preston Road. Of course, his conclusion made sense to me. After all, everything is paid for with after-tax money. But I felt naïve for never having thought about it before. I’m slowly learning more about how money works in the real world. While I’m no longer the four year old kid who shocked my parents by asking where the valet parkers were at a small hotel in upstate New York, I still find myself asking for my parents to put more money in my debit card account when my mental tally of what I’ve spent is nowhere near the balance that arrives in the email from Bank of America that warns my account is close to being overdrawn — again. There are so many items I purchase without even looking at the prices. I can’t remember the last time I got a receipt from a grocery store or restaurant. I know how much a gallon of gas costs but I have no idea how much it takes to fill up my tank. I’m just a few years away from a date my parents have marked on their calendars: Sept. 4, 2018: the first Tuesday after Labor Day after I graduate from college. For the last 18 years, I’ve been continually told that by then, my parents are done paying for me. I’m on my own. As they say, I’m off the payroll.
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SPRING BREAKERS Cancun, Mexico is one of the more popular locations for the upcoming vacation with its sunny beaches.
newsfeed
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Today
Next Week
Later this Month
> National Spanish Exam concludes today. High-scoring students will receive an honorable mention or a bronze, silver or gold medal.
> The SAT will be held on campus Saturday. Don’t forget your No. 2 pencil.
> The Spring Basket drive will begin March 17 and continue on until March 28.
> For Spring Break, which begins this afternoon, many seniors will visit exotic vacation spots during the week-long hiatus from school — including sunny Cancun, Mexico and Harbour Island, Bahamas.
> The chapel will hold the Holy Communion Wed., March 26 from 7:30 to 8 a.m.
> Work by artist Peter Max will be featured at the Milan Gallery in Fort Worth.
> Middle School students will be administered the ERBs March 18-19.
A QUICK LOOK AT NEWS AROUND CAMPUS
• Junior Darwin Yang took first place in both the Decathlon Level 3 competition and the Roman History Level 3 competition, while eight grader Andrew Smith, freshman Killian Green, sophomores Joshua Choe and Kevin Wu and senior Philip Osborn, also took first place in their respective categories. “Those are impressive results — the best since my tenure at St. Mark’s — for a group numbered around 18,” Cox said. In the Advanced Level 2 competition, freshmen Killian Green, Michael Wang and Shailen Parmar took first, second and third place out of 22 competitors. • Senior Victor Zhou and junior Raymond Guo qualified as semifinalists in the US physics “F=ma” exam, the only two to do so out of the group of approximately fifty students who took it a month ago. According to physics instructor Stephen Houpt, the exam is extremely difficult and usually only one or two students qualify to be semifinalists. About 300 to 400 semifinalists are chosen out of all of the students in the nation who take the test. Then, the group is cut down to 25 people and finally to the five finalists who will represent the country in the 2014 International Physics Olympiad Competition in Kazakhstan this July. • The St. Mark’s Aeronautics and Space Administration (SMASA) club aims to qualify for the world’s largest national Team America Rocketry Challenge in Virginia by executing a qualifying rocket launch by March 31. The top 100 qualifying teams in the country are invited to the national competition, where competitors will fight for a trip to the global competition in France. The team’s largest rocket, which streamed about 2,200 feet into the air, was constructed using knowledge of physics and aerodynamics the team acquired since its founding several months ago and performed one of many launches that have put the team closer to the national and even international events. “Well, we are all learning a lot about aerodynamics, Newtonian physics and materials science in order to meet the challenges of the competition, but mainly we’re learning to work as a team to build a winning rocket,” SMASA president senior Andrew Gatherer said. “Everyone has to rely on each other to succeed, and we’ve really come together as a team since we formed a few months ago.” • Alumnus Daniel Hersh’s ’13 piece “ How HGH Made Me a Bigger Person” was published on the Huffington Post’s teen website. The piece covered Hersh’s experience with human growth hormone, which is an important component of human growth but is also a steroid. The piece can be found online under the blog section of the online news coverage site. Accompanying the article is a video of Hersh performing the piece at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary in Dallas April 17, 2012. Hersh served as last year’s ReMarker editor, leading the paper to a Crown Nomination by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, which will announce its winners March 21. Currently a freshman at Northwestern University, Hersh writes sports stories for the university’s magazine, North by Northwestern.
ALDEN JAMES PHOTO
RYAN O’MEARA
THINGS TO DO IN THE WEEKS AHEAD
“Silicon Valley has been the hub for technology entrepreneurship, but I think there’s a lot of reasons pointing to why Dallas could be a contender.”
WINTER WONDERLAND The snow in early February caused classes and sports to be cancelled while Marksmen enjoyed the winter weather.
ALDEN JAMES PHOTO
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s a child, I was obsessed with cleaning products — mops, vacuums, Windex. Anything I could get my hands on. The only souvenir five-year-old Ryan wanted from a trip to Europe was a spray bottle from Paris. I asked my preschool teachers what chemicals they used to clean the classroom tables after lunch. I constantly bugged my mother about when I would be old enough to use the chemicals that were locked under our sink so I couldn’t get to them. One morning, I went to Target with my grandmother to pick up a few groceries. Inevitably, I dragged her over to the cleaning supplies aisle to take a look at the latest offerings. After inspecting both sides of the seemingly endless row of disinfectants and brooms, I found a
CREATIVE COMMONS
Finally going to be off the payroll
upcoming
UPENN VENTURE CAPITAL STUDENT CONNOR THEILMANN '11
VALENTINE’S DAY Fourth grade instructor Sherri Darver and her class celebrate Valentine’s Day with a classroom party and and an exchange of valentines.
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HEART TO HEART Raymond Mulumba, who is being hosted by Ann Holtby, mother of eighth grader Griffin Holtby, recently had heart surgery for a ventricular septal defect. The surgery went well. p. 6
CHESS CLUB Lower School students participate in the chess club, hoping to improve their game, focusing on problem solving techniques, and learning strategy.
— Newsfeed stories reported by Abhi Thummala, Vik Pattabi, Akshay Malhotra, William Caldwell and Roby Mize
overheard
COMMENTS MADE BY FACULTY, STAFF AND STUDENTS AROUND CAMPUS
‘I don’t need ladies. I need old men.’— sophomore Arno Goetz on photography subjects.
‘Do they burn them for being witches? I don’t know much about Amish culture...’—junior Carrington Kyle
‘I literally believe that Dallas drivers are just dumb. One little change in the weather and it all goes bad.’—Green Master Teacher Dr. Stephen Balog.
‘Turn up!’—sophomore Kevin Kim in response to math instructor Paul Mlakar’s question, ‘Which way does this graph turn?’
‘In my opinion, I am right, objectively’ — Editor-in-chief Dylan Clark during a Philosophy Club meeting.
‘Mr. Valesek, why does the filter paper smell like cookies?’—senior Luke Munson in AP chemistry.
NEWS T H E
4 Faculty Recruitment
M O N E Y
I S S U E
N O R T H
5 Sahitya Senapathy
6 HeartGift
7 Michael Merrill
THE REMARKER | 3 FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
T E X A S
Silicon Prairie
A dry city born on the banks of the Trinity River, the Dallas-Fort Worth Area is becoming one of the leading hubs of technological innovation and startup businesses in the world. But how far does Dallas have to go to rival Silicon Valley?
LOCAL POWERHOUSES Already, the Metroplex is home to several major technological companies in diverse fields such as Gearbox Software, AT&T, HP Enterprise Services and Texas Instruments.
Silicon Valley. It’s where some of the brightest and most
innovative young minds converge, where the ideas of tomorrow become the technology of today and where aspiring entrepreneurs can turn into millionaires overnight. For nearly fifty years, people have been trying to figure out what makes Silicon Valley tick. Both the area itself and the countless successful companies that have emerged from it have been studied, analyzed and imitated. But half a century since the the valley first blossomed, it is still the unrivaled national leader in technology startups. Other regions in the country, including North Texas, have also seen growth in the technology industry, to the point that they are called “The Next Silicon Valley.” One of the successful companies to emerge from Dallas recently is J Hilburn, a men’s custom clothing company based in Dallas and co-founded by Veeral Rathod ’97. His nationwide company sells high quality Italian fabrics that are custom-tailored by a personal stylist in the customer’s area for a great value. His direct-to-consumer sales method is a new and innovative spin on an old and established industry. “Nordstrom’s will put something like 500 million bucks into R&D, technology, digital marketing. That’s like ten times what we do in revenue,” Rathod said, “so I have to do it in a very different way that they fundamentally can’t compete with.” Another crucial aspect of startups is getting the funding
necessary to get the company off the ground. Venture capital is one of the major ways technology startups like Facebook and Twitter got their initial funding. Connor Theilmann ’11, a student at the Wharton School at UPenn who will be sourcing investments at Accel Partners, a venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, CA, over the summer, emphasized the importance of young talent to a growing company, especially in the technology sector. Companies, he said, look for personable, “super passionate, super committed” employee candidates. “You have to have a really diverse set and a really strong set of engineers,” Theilmann said. “To get those engineers, you have to have a desirable location, you have to have big companies that are already working in the area and are recruiting engineers or you have to have some fantastic research universities that are willing to work with you.” hile engineering giants such as Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology are attracting much of today’s young, innovative talent, the graduate program in software engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas has recently been ranked second in the state and twenty-fourth in the world. The recent significant strides in higher education and training are making the metroplex an increasingly attractive area for development. “The ability to recruit good talent has become considerably easier in the last two years,” Rathod said. “There’s a
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A tale of two cities Dallas, TX
The Heart of Texas
4,442,600 $267 Billion
Metro Population Gross Metro Product
1,895,000 $137 Billion
much bigger interest in folks wanting to move from West Coast or East Coast to Dallas.” According to Rathod, besides human resources, Dallas needs to be more startup friendly. The city currently favors big companies more, but it cant afford to to remain competitive in a state ripe for business. “No state income taxes, it’s a lot more affordable than being in a coastal city and you can provide a great working environment and lifestyle,” he said. Although Dallas has seen huge economic growth recently, the city still has a long way to go before Dallas can truly become a world-renowned technology and business center. “Changing the way in which a population thinks or changing the way in which a university runs is not easy,” Theilmann said. “It’s something that happens organically and it’s much harder to do mechanically.” Though Dallas may not exactly become the “Silicon Prairie,” it is nonetheless an expanding hub for new companies and businesses. Some of the other fields where Dallas has seen success include the energy, food service and financial industries. “Silicon Valley has been the hub for technology entrepreneurship, but I think there’s a lot of reasons pointing to why Dallas could be a contender,” Theilmann said. “Maybe not in the startup world, but maybe in entrepreneurship. They have a lot going on in other verticals.”
San Jose, CA
The Capital of Silicon Valley
Venture Capital Money
$931 Million $60,383 $170,600 Founded: February 2, 1856 County: Dallas Mayor: Mike Rawlings Number of Fortune 500 Companies: 18
5.7% 6.4% 33.5%
$14.1 Billion Median Household Income Median Home Price Cost of Living (% above nat. avg.)
Unemployment College Attainment
$85,927 $636,800 48.1% 6.7%
Founded: November 29, 1777 County: Santa Clara Mayor: Chuck Reed Number of Fortune 500 Companies: 22
45.1%
SILICON PRAIRIE story by Alex Kim, news editor, and Will Clark, staff writer | illustration by Zuyva Sevilla, graphics director | Stats acquired from Forbes and Wikipedia
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THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
NEWS F A C U L T Y
R E C R U I T M E N T
NEXT GEN
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hey’re not just from Dallas. Not just from Texas either. Sometimes not even from the United States. When the search for a new faculty member is initiated, the administration will look far and wide to make sure 10600 Preston Road finds the teacher who will fit in just right. After a vacancy in a department is brought to his attention, Assistant to the Headmaster Byron Lawson initiates a nationwide search. “We generate a position description and I begin to search the country, North America, and sometimes Western Europe for candidates that match our criteria,” Lawson said. After the search is initiated, the department chair and members of the department still play a role in bringing in the new faculty member. “When we know that we have a vacancy, we initiate a conversation with [Assistant to the Headmaster Byron] Lawson,” Thomas B. Walker III ‘73 Mathematics Department Chair Joe Milliet said. “We have the privilege of bringing candidates to his attention, but he also posted on the NAIS [National Association of Independent Schools] website where teachers can post their openings and vacancies.” Thanks to the option for current teachers to bring forward names for the search, several faculty members have found their place at the school. “I can have a teacher that brings a name to me or I may know them,” Milliet said. “Like Mr. Mlakar attended one of my Rice conferences years ago, so I brought his name forward when we had an opening.” Everyone in the department, including Middle School teachers, can contribute to the search. “We [at the department] have a large number of opportunities,” Milliet said. “But we also receive a large number of résumés from the NAIS website.”
After they are submitted through the NAIS website, the applications are put in a folder where all administrative heads who participate in the search can see it, including the headmaster. “Then we narrow that group by having a discussion in terms of do we like the résumé, what do we see on the résumé, what do the references look like and what experience level do they have,” Milliet said. Although they may all be vying for the same position, the applications can vary widely in length and detail. “For the math vacancy that we currently have one gentleman sent us a cover letter that was three pages long, a reference that was about three pages long, and a résumé that was about five pages long,” Milliet said. “And another candidate sent a one-page cover letter and a one-page résumé, so in terms of just looking at it, the time could vary quite a bit.” lthough the administration must narrow all of the applications down to about four candidates before the interviewing process begins, the department chairs still spend a lot of time looking at each application. “We give each candidate a thorough review of information that they sent us,” Milliet said. “I certainly, as department chair, am going to spend at least 30 minutes on each applicant’s résumé reviewing it.” After three to five candidates are chosen to visit, they are flown in to the area and taken to dinner. The next day, the interview process begins. “They come for the whole day − they meet with everybody,” Milliet said. “They meet with the chaplain, [Athletic Director Mark] Sullivan, and they meet with the business office.” Candidates also teach a class to show the administration they are the best for the job.
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SAM KHOSHBIN PHOTO
WITH SEVERAL TEACHING POSITIONS BECOMING VACANT AT THE END OF THIS YEAR, THE REMARKER EXAMINES THE PROCESS BEHIND BRINGING TEACHERS TO THE SCHOOL.
A FRESH FACE Assistant to the Headmaster Byron Lawson and history instructor Johnny Hunter take notes while a candidate has the class text their answers to a quiz.
“We bring people into a room and watch them teach a class,” Milliet said. “After that we think about them or continuing the search if we haven’t found the one we wanted.” In the end, the headmaster is the one who has the final decision on who gets the position. “After all of the meetings, a committee will make a recommendation to the headmaster as to which, if any, candidate is preferred and why,” Lawson said. “The headmaster determines who will receive a job offer.” Throughout the process of reviewing all of the submissions, the administration makes sure to focus on one goal: finding the right fit. “We’re fortunate enough to be at a school where people want to work,” Milliet said. “When a job opening is posted, you get a lot of good applicants because people want to come here. That’s not always true at other schools.”
THE NEXT GEN story by Avery Powell, staff writer, additional reporting by Davis Marsh, staff writer | illustration by Abhi Thummala, staff writer, and Zuyva Sevilla, graphics director
Student Council elections planned for April By Noah Koecher staff writer shift has been made in the Student Council election process that moves elections a week earlier. All students who have held any leadership position at the school are eligible to run for executive office this year. Student Council elections for both class and executive offices will be held from early to mid-April, with deadlines soon after spring break for students to declare their intentions to run. In addition, Student Council sponsor Casey Gendason urges Upper School students to Positions open forget the common misconception that Council president running for executive Council vice president offices — requires a Council secretary current position on the Class officer elections, for council. the offices of president, vice “I feel like the sense president and representative, has been that ‘Anyone will be held after council can run for class office, elections are held. but you have to have been on Student Council to run for a student council executive position,’” Gendason said, “and when you read the constitution it actually does cite ‘or leadership positions at school.’” School leadership positions include experience in organizing school clubs or extracurriculars, which
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includes a far larger number of students than those freshmen, sophomores and juniors who currently sit on Student Council. “I think there’s been very few students that have run for those offices due to that misconception,” Gendason said, “so we’re hoping to see more students run for Student Council executive office because we have many students who are involved in leadership positions throughout campus in different ways.” For students considering entering elections in April, Gendason suggests candidates present more serious messages. “I think [you need] lots of self-evaluation,” Gendason said. “And then putting that into a compelling speech that isn’t about humor, isn’t about getting the most cheap laughs, isn’t about entertainment, but sincerely conveying ‘I care about St. Mark’s, I want to lead the student body.’” Gendason stresses the ultimate takeaway that all Student Council members can achieve. “I think the main skill that a Student Council member or officer takes from the entire Student Council experience is learning how to compromise, get your ideas across in a way that’s persuasive yet also conveys that you’re listening to what others are saying and want to do and how to accept that not every idea that you think will work very well will be executed and will be used and to then go and support whatever the group decides to do.”
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THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
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NEWS S A H I T Y A
S E N A P A T H Y
Applying his skills After meeting with fellow sixth graders, 12-year-old Sahitya Senapathy has helped create an app that aids first responders in coordinating responses to disaster — an app that could save lives.
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he 12-year old flipped open the MacBook Pro and quickly scrolled over to the application, which popped open on the 13-inch screen. An android emulator flashed up and he scanned the final product of his six months of work, displayed like a phone screen. Aiming to improve communication among the local Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs), sixth-grader Sahitya Senapathy helped develop an application that will be implemented by the the Plano CERT in the coming weeks.
Senapathy, along with fellow sixth-graders Rushil Chander and Ashwin Koduri, spent more than 12 hours solely brainstorming ideas for their project, which they would enter into science competitions. Thoughts about everything from an armadillo-skin protective phone case to building a drone were thrown around until the group decided on an app to help local CERTs. “We watched a TED Video on biomimicry, and we did a little research on first-responders, and we contacted our local first responders and they had trouble communicating and keeping track of their tasks,” Senapathy said. “If there was a natural disaster, they need to find out who’s in their area so that they could help each other and send pictures of what the situation is like so they can bring the equipment they need in the situation.” The trio of middle schoolers met by chance through the after-school Daedalus Enrichment program and learned to program through the MIT App Inventor Course offered through the University of Texas at Dallas. Shri Chander, Rushil’s mother and founder of the Academic Center of Science, coached the students, leading them towards their lofty goals. “This is a prototype, which they’ve built, so the first thing about them it they’re willing to learn,” Chander said.
HARD AT WORK The application is still a prototype and is not yet available on the Google Play Store, but the group plans to continue working to improve the application.
“It’s not easy to spend time on Saturdays and Sundays when the weather is nice outside to be sitting inside and doing brainstorming sessions. The big thing I give them credit for is they see an opportunity, they see someone willing to coach them, and they’re willing to work.” After learning to program, the students overcame limitations in the programming system to implement the requirements suggested by the woman CERT team of Denton. The team programmed using the information learned through the course, which is taught during the summer by Jay Veeraswamy. “What our app would let them do is take a picture of what the situation is like and then send it to all the nearby CERTs,” Senapathy said, “so they can find out how many people need to come and how serious it is. But also it can be used from a day-to-day basis. If there was a fallen tree, they could just call a few CERTs and take out the tree from the road.” Although the application is only a prototype and is not yet on the Google Play Store, the Christopher Columbus Competition, which the group entered, offers a $25,000 cash reward that would be used to further develop the app. In addition to the improved communication aspect, which allows CERTs to send other volunteers pictures to pinpoint
the problem, the app features a trivia game that assist the training process. “I’m sure that it’ll work out and it’ll help them,” Senapathy said. “We’ve tested it and it worked so I’m pretty sure there won’t be any breakdowns in the app. I’m pretty fine with the app, how it’s working.” After months of working and coaching Senapathy, Chander got to know Senapathy well as both a student and a person. “[Senapathy] is able to connect dots in the sense that if you’re talking about one topic,” Chander said, “he’s able to relate back to something he’s learned or something he has seen a week ago, two weeks ago, and bring that experience in. I think that’s something unique about him that I see.” Senapathy’s family served as a stable support system for Sahitya, guiding him and leading him towards his aspirations. Sahitya’s father, Yad Senapathy, is the founder and CEO of the Project Management Training Institute. “He learns a lot at school and also at his enrichment programs and church programs that he goes to,” Yad Senapathy said, “but when what you learn is put to practice is really when you get to see the effect of the learning in the real world. But more satisfying is that he’s combining this with the latest technologies in order to solve some problems.”
APPLYING HIS SKILLS story by Abhi Thummala, staff writer | photo by Alden James, staff photographer
Ray W. Gilbert, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist (Ret.)
Private Tutoring and Academic Coaching for Students of all Ages
Polly S. Gilbert, M.Ed, M.L.S.
For over 20 years, TLC has provided academic coaching and tutoring for students from Akiba Academy, Bishop Lynch, Christ the King, The Episcopal School of Dallas,
Library Consultant/Tutor Yavneh Academy and Good Shepherd Episcopal School of Dallas, 2008-Present Director of Libraries St. Mark’s School of Texas, 1985-2008 Coordinator SMU Summer Talented and Gifted Program, Four summers, 1988-1991 English Teacher, Head Librarian J. J. Pearce High School, 1975-1985 National Championship Academic Decathlon Coach, 1984 and 1985
Fairhill, Good Shepherd Episcopal, Greenhill, Highland Park Schools, Hockaday, Jesuit, J.J. Pearce High School, and other Richardson Schools, John Paul II, Levine Academy, Parish Episcopal School, Plano Schools, Prince of Peace, Shelton, SMU, St. Mark’s, Trinity Christian Academy, Urusline Academy, UTD, and Yavneh Academy. Courses and Services • Algebra • Biology • Calculus • Chemistry • Chinese • College Admissions Counseling • College Essay Guidance • Computer Programming • Economics • English • Geometry • German • Government • Hebrew • Grammar • History/Social Studies
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
ISEE, SAT, and ACT Test Preperation Japanese Latin Math Organization Physics Reading Research Paper Strategies Social Skills Spanish Speech Statistics Study Skills Teacher Pleasing Skills Time Management Skills Writing
TLC Faculty:
We have 26 dedicated professionals, including four retired St. Mark’s teachers, who teach with skill and “tender loving care.” They specialize in teaching bright students who have learning differences, ADHD, emotional difficulties, or particular challenges with study skills, organization, or specific subjects. Our teachers also coordinate correspondence courses for credit through the University of Texas and Texas Tech University. They work with students during the day at various schools, and afternoons, evenings, and weekends at the TLC office. The group also offers summer enrichment courses. Call the office for information and available schedules.
Please call 972-680-9279 for more information.
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THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
NEWS
H E A R T G I F T
C H A R I T Y
Heart to heart After Raymond Mulumba was diagnosed with a fatal heart condition, HeartGift has done everything in its power to give him new hope. And now, the school will do the same. GIFT OF LIFE Raymond Mulumba (right) will stay with the Holtby family and Middle School math instructor Marietta Johnson during his six-week trip to the United States. In addition to his surgery, he will spend time touring Dallas.
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ive-year-old Raymond Mulumba was going to die. But he was too young to fully understand the gravity of the situation. Too young to know that his lethal, congenital heart condition had gone untreated for far too long. Too young to know that a large hole torn between the left and right ventricles of his heart had shortened his life-expectancy to five years. The clock was ticking. So with very few options available, Raymond’s father Mathias Mulumba turned to HeartGift, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing free heart surgery to children from developing countries. And to find a community in Dallas for the Mulumbas during the surgery, HeartGift turned to 10600 Preston Road. Raymond Mulumba had been diagnosed with a ventricular septal defect (VSD), a heart condition occurring in one out of every 500 newborns and usually treated before the child is six months old. In America, surgically repairing the problem succeeds more than 95 percent of the time. However, in Raymond’s native Uganda, the success rate is significantly lower, especially in children, due to a lack of proper equipment and medical training. “Children from developing countries often don’t even get diagnosed for long periods of time, let alone treated,” HeartGift Dallas Executive Director Barbara Johnson said. “In developing countries, these sorts of surgeries are extremely expensive and often very dangerous but for our surgeons, they’re considered routine and are definitely much
safer.” Barbara Johnson, mother of junior Walter Johnson, helped establish HeartGift’s Dallas branch August of last year and has since organized surgeries for four children. Through a special partnership with the Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, HeartGift pays a flat $15,000 fee for surgeries which may run up bills as high as $60,000. But in addition to the operation, patients remain in the country for up to six weeks to allow time for follow-up visits in case of complications with their surgery. For the next several weeks, Raymond Mulumba’s new family will be Marksmen — his new community: 10600 Preston Road. MATHIAS MULUMBA
Stepping on American soil, breathing the American air. It is something we will live to remember. It is a big blessing! “Last year, we worked very successfully with ESD, so when it came time for me to figure out where we could host Raymond, St. Mark’s was the obvious choice,” Johnson said. “This is such a great community and I know we could really make Raymond’s weeks here a much brighter time.” Raymond Mulumba’s surgery, which took place on February 27, was a success and now the responsibility of making Dallas, and not the doctor’s office, his home-away-from-
home falls to Marksmen. “We have many things planned, including tickets for the Perot Museum and a visit to the Dallas Zoo,” Community Service Director Jorge Correa said. “What’s important is that we get Raymond involved and we get upper schoolers involved. A great thing about our Community Service program is you can be involved at any level you want, any amount of depth that you want.” Other activities including bringing Raymond Mulumba to campus for lunch and possibly having his dad speak to the Upper School about life in Uganda according Community Service Board representative Travis Nadalini, the student in charge of coordinating with HeartGift. Nadalini learned just how impactful the program is on a personal level after visiting one of HeartGift’s previous patients. “I remember visiting [Johnson’s] house and meeting one of her previous patients just days after the little girl had left the hospital,” Nadalini said. “It was amazing to me just how active and playful she was. I stayed there and played with her and I really could tell how much [they] had helped her. This would not be possible anywhere else really. It touched me and it showed me how important this effort is.” Ann Holtby, mother of sixth grader William Holtby and eight grader Griffin Holtby, volunteered to host Raymond Mulumba for several weeks, after which his dad and he will move to the house of Middle School math instructor Marietta Johnson for the rest of their stay. “Raymond is still afraid of our dog,” Holtby said. “They told us that dogs aren’t
kept as pets in Uganda, only to guard houses, so they cannot get used to the idea that a dog can be your friend.” When the two leave, they will be “goodwill ambassadors for the United States” according to HeartGift’s mission statement, touching lives back in Uganda just as they were helped here. “Stepping on American soil, breathing the American air. It is something we will live to remember. It is a big blessing!” Mathias Mulumba said. And even more of a blessing — the life of his son, a life saved by HeartGift and, in a way, Marksmen.
HeartGift Mission Statement
The mission of HeartGift Foundation is to provide lifesaving heart surgery to disadvantaged children living in developing countries where specialized medical treatment is scarce or nonexistent.
How HeartGift works
Healthcare professionals and physicians donate their services to HeartGift for a flate-rate $15,000 fee per child, a figure usually less than a quarter of the actual medical costs. Patients stay with host families, usually from ethnic communities or communities of faith, for the duration of their stay which can last for up to six weeks. 83 percent of every dollar donated to HeartGift is contributed toward patient care.
HEART TO HEART story by Vikram Pattabi, news editor | photos used with permission of HeartGift
Marksmen donate 55 pints to Carter BloodCare during annual Blood Drive By Philip Montgomery staff writer arter BloodCare received 55 pints of blood donated by St. Mark’s students and faculty during the annual Blood Drive Feb. 24. The donations will go to hospitals around the Dallas area for patients who lost serious amounts of blood in an accident. Students received three community service hours for donating blood and five for plasma. “So, obviously blood is a really important thing to have,” Community Service Co-Chair Ben Wilson said. “If there’s a major accident, like a huge car crash, they need to have blood that’s been donated to give to people that would die without it.” As high school students in good physical condition, Wilson says, Marksmen are perfect candidates for blood
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donors. “Students have some of the best blood because we take care of ourselves, we’re healthy and most of us play sports and exercise regularly,” Wilson said. “When it comes to giving blood, we’re really good people to do it. It’s a great cause that will benefit so many people. I don’t know any other community service opportunity where you can save someone else’s life. That’s just an incredibly rewarding thing to do.” The Community Service Board was pleased with the turnout of the drive, which is in its fifth year. “There are many ways to help the community, but one of the most impacting ways is to give blood,” Wilson said. “We are more than ideal blood donors, and the men and women of our community who desperately need our help depend on our blood donations.”
— HeartGift.com
THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
T H E
M O N E Y
I S S U E
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NEWS M I C H A E L
M E R R I L L
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‘I was getting more than I was giving’
The school would not thrive were it not for the tireless fund-raising efforts of its alums. One of the most active of these is Michael Merrill ‘72, a San Francisco-based interior designer who has made it his goal to raise more than $1 million to establish an endowed chair in honor of a beloved drama instructor. The ReMarker’s Bradford Beck interviewed Merrill to see why he keeps giving back to his school:
PRESENT DAY Michael Merrill ‘72 in his office (right). One of Merrill’s interior design presentations (below).
Mark’s and designing and building sets for the summer stock theater and the Harlequin Players’ sets, so I had kind of all the pieces come together. When I was a junior at St. Mark’s, one of the girls who was in one of the plays, her mother decided I had sort of a flair for interior design and hired and actually paid me to design their home up on Royal Crest. So that was my very first actual job. So you’re fundraising for the Anthony Vincent Master teaching chair? We’re about $400,000 into it and it’s a $1 million fund. Why did you start to raise money for the Anthony Vintcent fund? He was the person, for me, who most epitomized the St. Mark’s experience. He was my
to be considered and he said, ‘Well tell me what you want for a fee and come over and pick up the check.’ So that’s what I did. That would’ve never happened if we hadn’t been working on the alumni group together and known each through St. Mark’s. I was vetted just because I was another St. Mark’s alum. In many ways I was getting more than I was giving. What advice would you give to students about using school connections? Don’t be as foolish as I was, and use your St. Mark’s connections as early on as you possibly can and as continuously as they present themselves. Don’t wait like I did. I waited for 25 years before I used any of St. Mark’s connections. Use them immediately. You earned them and you paid for them. They are yours, why not use them? In giving to the people in your community, you will always get back, in my experience, as fast as I give. It just comes so quickly it’s hard to even describe. Also, sometimes if you listen carefully, something that appears to be a dead end or a negative can be a positive. I was told not to do a certain activity as a part of the alumni out here and then I held on to that idea, and one day I realized that I could use that idea myself and use that to give to local charities, and it turned out to be one of the main sources of business for us. What real-world advice would you give to students of today? My real world advice is to listen to opportunities. Sometimes they come as a ‘no’ and you have
‘Don’t wait like I did. I waited for 25 years before I used any of St. Mark’s connections. Use them immediately. You earned them, and you paid for them. They are yours, Why not use them?’ — MICHAEL MERRELL ‘72
to kind of readjust things so that they work for you. A ‘no’ does not mean a ‘no’ forever or ‘no’ in every way. It means ‘no’, not right now, not in that way, but maybe there is a way you could modify this to where it becomes a ‘yes’ or where it’s effective. So sometimes what you fear the most you can actually do the best job at. You just don’t know until you try. How did you find people to raise funds for the Anthony Vincent chair? That was the easiest thing I have ever done. I said, ‘Did this man change your life? and they said, ‘Absolutely,’ and I asked if they would give money and they said yes. Frasier Marcus ‘72, who I don’t know very well, said I am giving $50,000 for this chair because I know how hard you worked on this, so I’m giving you $50,000. That’s pretty unbelievable. He taught me that by what you say, which costs you nothing, by a couple of sentences or a turn of phrase you can make something much more powerful. You can make a $50,000 gift much more powerful. That’s how I found people to donate for the Anthony Vincent fund. I went to people whose lives were changed by him. What did you learn at St. Mark’s that helped you financially in the real world? I think that in interior design most of your clients are quite wealthy, not all, but most, and if you don’t know how wealthy people behave or how they think or how they act… So having grown up around a lot of super rich-kids has made it easier for me to deal with that. I think that in a business that depends on a wealthy clientele that having lived among financially productive families is definitely an advantage. Also, I learned not to set limits on myself. I also learned that the only way you’re ever going to make money is to work hard for a very long time.
The founder of the school’s Fine Arts Department and why he was so important to the school THE MAN WHO STARTED IT ALL Tony Vintcent instructs the summerstock-theater group.
COURTESY DEVELOPMENT OFFICE
main teacher there. He took me under his wing, and he inspired me and led me and protected me, and he set high standards and never acted like they were high but just acted like they were normal. Because he had created the Fine Arts Department, I felt that his legacy had been overlooked and I thought it was important that we commemorate it. So I wanted something that could come to fruition while he was alive, so he could witness it. His real legacy was not just in his teaching but in this whole creating of this department of fine arts. He started symphony orchestra, a string ensemble, ceramics, he hired [Founder’s Teaching Chair] Mr. [Bill] Kysor, too. I thought his leadership and his vision needed to be commemorated and encouraged so that the next generation of people would carry that on, and the school should one, honor him and two, continue his tradition. Also, it was half a million dollars less to do a department chair and I felt that the department needed the extra attention, extra money and extra inspiration of his name. I understand you recently benefited greatly from your assocation with another alumnus. With the school’s blessing I created this alumni group out in San Francisco and have been running it ever since. I think it’s called the Bay Area alumni group. So I run it with another guy named Dylan Parker. Dylan works in an architecture office, and one day he calls me up and says, ‘I may have a job for you. I asked him what it was and he said, ‘Well, it’s over in South Korea. Well it’s about 400 hundred homes and they are about 4,000 square feet a piece. So it’s over a million square feet. They need all the interior designed finished and they need all the furniture specialized. If you’d like the job then it’s yours. So your St. Mark’s connection essentially got you the business? Yes, I asked what I had to do
• Harlequin Players was a summer theater group made up of Marksmen and students from other schools. They produced plays from 1965 until 1972. • Six plays in six weeks in the 1965 season, including “The Cave Dwellers,” “The Chairs,” “This Property is Condemned,” “The Happy Time” and “Under Milkwood. • Over 200 alumni participated in Harlequin Players during its seven year tenure. • Forty five performances completed overall. • $400,000 already raised for endowed teaching chair in Tony Vintcent’s name. LIVING LEGEND Tony Vintcent at the 2012 reunion of the Harlequin Players.
COURTESY DEVELOPMENT OFFICE
PHOTOS COURTESY MICHAEL MERRILL
How did you get into interior design? Our mother was fascinated with it. She was always emphasizing the importance of it and how it could elevate your daily experience, that beauty could really inspire you and that sort of thing. My older brother Fred Merrill ‘57 who also went to St. Mark’s, is also an interior designer in Dallas who specializes in restaurants and so I came from a background of it. This was after having been involved in the drama club at St.
Tony Vintcent
‘I WAS GETTING MORE THAN I WAS GIVING’ story by Bradford Beck
Eight members of math team win 43rd place at Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament, have one competition left this year By Matthew Placide staff writer Eight members of the Math Team, chosen through month long tryouts, won 43rd place at the Harvard– MIT Mathematics Tournament in Boston Feb. 22. Captains junior Raymond Guo, senior Victor Zhou and senior Alex Munoz led the team in with strong contributions from members junior Nick Jelsma, sophomore Tim O’Meara, and freshmen Kevin Choi, Kaden Han and Daran Zhao. Despite not achieving their goal of placing in the tournament’s top 35 teams, the squad is grateful for the opportunity to participate in such a prestigious tournament and face off against strong teams, including international students from China and Bulgaria. “This year we had more teams compete, around 110 as opposed to 90 or so from last year,” Guo said. “I personally am still pretty proud of our team because we did our best and we’ll just come back strong next year. Sometime the contests work our way, and sometimes they don’t. There’s a luck factor as well.” The contest, which students from the school began attending in 2012, is one of the most prestigious math competitions in America and the toughest one the team takes on every year. “We first started sending a team to this competition my freshman year,” Guo said. “I felt that that year our team was amazing because we performed
really well and got 41st place out of 100 teams and 600 students. The next year we got 39th, which is even more of an improvement and we were even more excited.” Co-sponsor Clara Norman, who attended the contest and has worked with the math team for the past three years, agreed and expressed her confidence that the boys would represent themselves and the school well. Math Team members had to take a series of individual and group tests graded through a point system to qualify for a spot on the eight-man team and then spent months practicing for the competition. The Friday before the competition, team members reunited with recent alumni in the Boston area including former math team captain James Rowan ’13 and former team member Noah Yonack ’13. “[Jim Bob] Womack helped arrange a dinner for us when he heard when the contest, was which was a great way to meet everyone and spend the day after we flew in,” Guo said. And with only one more contest left until the end of the season, Guo and the other captains are satisfied with the team’s performance this year. “Even though our team was physically smaller, we did a lot better this year,” Guo said. “We have a lot of depth and everyone contributes, not just one or two people. We just keep getting better and better.”
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THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
BUILDING ST. MARK’S
NEWS T H E
M O N E Y
I S S U E
B U I L D I N G
S T.
M A R K ’ S
HOME
Looking upon a campus that has changed radically in the last decade due to generous donations and an ambitious campaign, Eugene McDermott Headmaster Arnie Holtberg is proud of the mark he has helped to leave. His title is in honor of Eugene McDermott, one of the first of many generous donors to the school.
ANDREW GATHERER PHOTO
Building St. Mark’s STUDENTS GO FROM CLASS TO CLASS AND BUILDING TO BUILDING EVERY DAY WITHOUT THINKING TWICE ABOUT HOW THOSE BUILDINGS GOT THERE. BUT IN REALITY, IT TOOK YEARS OF TIME AND EFFORT FROM DEDICATED DONORS, PARENTS AND BOARD MEMBERS TO MAKE THE SCHOOL WHAT IT IS TODAY: A HAVEN FOR LEARNING.
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hings are always more complicated than they seem. In the last issue of The ReMarker, the cover story showed that the school does not simply thrive on its own. That the Development Office does extraordinary things every day to keep our school moving and, more importantly, moving forward. But it’s not just the work on the inside that makes us what we are as a school — it takes help from the outside. The generosity of key benefactors in the school’s history has propelled the St. Mark’s of 1950 to what the school is today.
SPEAKING OUT Alumni themselves, Charles Nearburg ‘68 (top) and Ken Hersh ‘81 (above) have given their time and financial support to the school they love. In addition to helping with the Centennial Challenge, they’ve served as board members and trustees.
IT TAKES A FAMILY Although it took years of effort, key donors like Kathy Crow (left) and her husband Harlan have helped Headmaster Arnie Holtberg (right) build several new buildings, including Centennial Hall and The Hoffman Center.
Ken Hersh ‘81, former president of the Board of Trustees and an alumnus who has given considerable time and financial donations to the school, understands how essential outside donations are to the school’s growth. He understands the benefits of a St. Mark’s education and knows that giving himself to the school now is an investment in the future. “I didn’t appreciate it when I was at school until I saw later on how much of what was there was really donated by people who took it upon themselves to make St. Mark’s part of their charitable giving,” Hersh said. “St. Mark’s wouldn’t be what it is if it didn’t have a good endowment, if it didn’t have generous alums, going way way back in time.” In this regard, Hersh is far from alone. Hersh has made his biggest contributions to the school through his service on the Board of Trustees and his involvement in the most recent and most successful campaign in school history, the Centennial Challenge. Another key contributor to that campaign was Kathy Crow, one of the campaign’s three co-chairs and mother of freshman Rob. For her, giving both time and money was important because it continued on the foundation built by previous school leaders. “I felt compelled to help the school because I felt that there were people that really invested in the school a long time ago and, over a few decades, made the education that my boys were getting really the best there is to have,” she said. “And so I feel that you owe something to a place where other people have invested, and it’s time for you to step up and give what you can to that endeavor. I felt like other people had built the foundation to make the school great, and that now, it was my time to give.” For another donor, Charles Nearburg ’68, inspiration to give back to the school came from a lesson he learned years ago in the classroom at 10600 Preston Road from legendary English instructor Victor White. “All of us were really blessed,” Nearburg said. “He instilled in us the idea of noblesse oblige, that we have an obligation to give back. And it doesn’t matter if you’re giving time or money. Money isn’t necessary. And I think that’s lost on people sometimes. St. Mark’s benefits just as much from those who give their time.” Headmaster Arnie Holtberg’s motivation came from seeing flaws in a system
and wanting to correct them. Because of his efforts and those of key volunteers, students and teachers now are used to having enough resources to go around. However, in the early 90’s, when Holtberg first became headmaster, the school would run out of resources for teachers by the end of the year. “I would be looking around and saying ‘How do we run out of money for professional development during the academic year?’ and that was literally true,” Holtberg said. “Sometime in the early spring I would be sending a note out saying ‘Folks, you’re going to have to wait to take advantage of educational opportunities until the summer, when more money becomes available, because we just exhausted the fund for the year.’” ll of these key players had motivation to help. Although the willingness of the community to donate was there, the logistics of organizing and executing their projects were yet to be laid out. Nearburg, along with Robert Sinclair ’74 and Allen Cullum ’64, were able to help get the Campaign for St. Mark’s off the ground. Nearburg first got involved with the school over 20 years ago, when the school began its first campaign with Holtberg as headmaster. Nearburg had already done fundraising work for his alma mater Dartmouth and volunteered to work with Assistant Headmaster David Dini and Holtberg on the campaign. “It was really satisfying because the development offer was substantial,” Nearburg said. “We had a $50 million dollar goal, so people were nervous, but I looked at the St. Mark’s constituency and based on Dartmouth and a study from David [Dini], I had confidence. This was a very demanding and exciting campaign. The previous largest campaign was $10 million. And they were based on a few large gifts.” The Campaign for St. Mark’s finished successfully and added key new buildings like the Hicks Gymnasium and the Mullen Fitness Center to the skyline. However, the most substantial new facility was a building to welcome visitors to the campus and house several non-academic departments. But the concept for that building, now known as Nearburg Hall, was far from the modern structure now at the north end of the campus. “The initial concept for the building was for a mirror image of the arts building,”
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Nearburg said. But I wanted St. Mark’s to be more open to visitors. And building a mirror image was going in the wrong direction. Having those two buildings would make the campus look like The Citadel. So we decided to go in another direction.” The changes that have taken place as a result of the Centennial Challenge have been well documented. More endowed teacher positions, two new buildings and a significant growth in the school’s endowment are all advancements the school now enjoys. But no matter the campaign or project, the perspective of the major players in seeing the new facilities is hard to imagine. “There’s an emotional tie there,” Holtberg said. “Time and again I have seen that occur, where individuals have named facilities, named endowments, named master teaching chairs, after someone else because they’ve received something so very special here. That has happened over and over and over again. There is clearly a lot of emotion there.” Ultimately, Hersh is proud of the school and the cycle of giving that alumni contributions produce. “It’s a world-class organization, and I’ll take some pride in that,” he said. “When today’s students grow up, they’ll move forward and they’ll be the next generation of donors who will help benefit the school to the next level for their kids,” he said. “That’s the way schools evolve and reach new heights. I think that’s part of the formula. It’s an honor for me to be able to be that involved, and impressive the way the organization of the school has really taken off.” Holtberg knows that as he steps away, the innovations he has championed will eventually become outdated, the new buildings will get run down, and the school will have to adapt and grow even more. But looking back, he is satisfied in the advancement of the school he has overseen and is confident that the school’s way of developing will steer the school in the right direction. “We will always be developing, we will always be evolving, we will always be seeking new ways to do old things and new ways to do new things,” Holtberg said. “So where have we gotten to? We’ve gotten to a much better place, and we’ve ensured the school’s physical and physical planned well-being for quite a considerable period of time, but we’re going to be right at it, before you know it, again. We have to. We have to.” GROUND BREAKING Digging with shovels in front of the new Hoffman Center, key players in the Centennial Challenge mark the opening of the building. The brand new buildings opened in the fall of 2008.
BUILDING ST. MARK’S story by Aidan Dewar, managing editor and Charlie Golden, senior content editor | photos courtesy of Development Office
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PARKS AND RECREATION
Fifth grader Kylde Warren speaks about the park named after him and the responsibility he feels to keep it clean for all of Dallas. p. 14
LIFE AROUND CAMPUS THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014 | PAGE 9
upcoming
Hangin’ out
Max Wolens
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Do you see yourself earn your living as a stockbroker? I don’t know if I want to necessarily become a broker. I definitely want to be involved with stocks when I’m older, but I don’t really want it to be my entire occupation. Describe the typical Investment Club meeting. Generally, we use [investment simulation application] Market Watch and go over the guys’ investments and earnings. We gave each member a $1 million start, so everyone can invest in the companies they deem wise to invest in. In the club, we draw random names from a hat and ask three or four guys to walk up and talk about their portfolios. We also invite various guest speakers to visit the club. Ross Perot Jr. will be visiting in the next month or so. What’s your favorite movie about money? I honestly loved The Wolf of Wall Street, though I think I liked it for reasons other than just money. If not Wolf, I’d say Catch Me If You Can is a great money-movie. How did the club manage to secure actual cash? [Investment Club Co-Head and senior] Riley Graham and I approached Mr. Holtberg and the end of August and asked him if there was actual cash the club could use to invest. The Greenhill Club managed to secure about $100,000 earlier this year, and they’ve actually been investing it the entire year. Riley and I were very excited to get this underway for St. Mark’s as well. We haven’t gotten anything yet, but Joe has told us that we’ll be getting a pretty sizable loan – probably not as much as Greenhill – but the cash will be collected this year, then the members of the club next year will invest.
sketchbook
Weekend
> Kathy Burk’s Theatre of Puppetry Arts’ Beauty and the Beast opens 7:30 tonight at the Dallas Children’s Theatre. > Electric Run Dallas is happening tonight, 7 p.m. So, is it a rave - or a run? Honestly, we don’t know. Apparently it’s some mixture of the two.
> It starts tomorrow; the fun of summer, all filled within a one week period. Yes, it’s Spring Break. Time to show off the half-decent biceps you’ve earned yourself from doing curl sets in between homework assignments. > Beauty and the Beast continues with its first weekend performance at 7:30 p.m. March 8.
Next Week > Dallas Arboretum’s major floral festival “Birds in Paradise” continues through April 6. > Six Flags Over Texas, Arlington opens for the entire week of spring break March 10-14. > Simple Saturday Project will feature “Get Your Garden Started” March 15 at Bob Jones Center & Preserve.
A ROUNDUP OF STUDENTS’ ARTISTIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• In 2009, Head of Lower School Barbara York started a project called the Leadership Wall. Now in its fourth year of existence, the wall gives Lower Schoolers an opportunity to appreciate the people that best embody leadership. “Every year the kids of each grade select a famous leader for the wall,” York said. “[They] then present the people in a special chapel, and then all vote to decide who will make it on the wall.” This year, the grades have nominated their candidates for the decision chapel which was held Wednesday. The nominees for grades 1 through 4 are: (in order) Benjamin Franklin, Neil Armstrong, Walt Disney and Nelson Mandela. York says that through this project, she hopes to teach them about the most important qualities a leader should have. “I hope that this project helps them decide the important leadership qualities, and then know what to look for when picking class officers later on in Middle School and Upper School.” York said. • Advisories will make their annual spring baskets to give kids in the Dallas area some necessary items as well as candy and gifts this spring. The baskets will be assigned to advisories March 17 and are due March 28. “The baskets are a great way for advisories to come together and help the community,” Community Service Co-Chair Ben Wilson said. “The people that are getting these baskets really need the help. Hopefully, we can make some families happy this Easter season.” • Juniors Weston Blair, Matthew Co, Raymond Guo and Wyatt Martin were all chosen for the 160 member All-State choir following a four-month preparation process, which included recording the two hardest passages from the two hardest pieces. The choir performed Jan. 25 and 26 in San Marcos, Texas with conductor Jo–Michael Scheibe, who also conducts the USC Chamber Singers. • Winning five Scholastic Art Awards for his ceramics, junior Wesley Cha received two Gold and three Silver Key Awards, the two highest awards given. Cha, the only student in ceramics to submit his work for the Scholastic Award, submitted only five pots, thus earning an award for each one. The five pots, Blue Tuna, Sanguine Glass, Chenonian, Smog, and Peacock, all won different awards: Blue Tuna and Chenonian won the Gold Key while the rest won the Silver Key.
ANDREW GATHERER PHOTO
What stimulated your interest in money? My dad has really been involved with the financial side of the law, and so he’s always brought his lawsuits home with him. He talks a ton about them, specifically about their economic components, and so I just got interested in those fields at a young age. When I joined the Investment Club freshman year, I was hooked. [Investment Club Sponsor] Joe [Milliet] is so bright; he knows exactly how the economy works. Kevin Bass [‘13] was also a giant influence on me, as well as Connor Theilmann ’11. So right when I entered the club, I fell in love with it.
THE THRILL Normally only open on weekends during March, the amusement park in Arlington will be open for eight consecutive days.
Today
SERVE’S UP Cafeteria staff worker Howard Stewart positions himself to return a shot by the opposing team in an impromptu cafeteria staff vs. maintenance staff volleyball game Feb. 26.
ALDEN JAMES PHOTO
e’s the funny senior, the photographer and the tech-wiz. What does any of that have to do with money? Max Wolens is also the co-head of the Investment Club, sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm of the economy with other members. Life editor Cyrus Ganji finds out how Wolens’s interest first started, as well as what role investing will have in his future.
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We’re really excited for people everywhere to know about this epic part of World War II history that many don’t know about. Page 11
GOOD OL’ JAZZ The Celebration Jazz Band visited the school Feb. 27. The Walker Visiting Scholars, accompanied by Band Instructor Tim Hicks, treated the Upper School to a special performance assembly, demonstrating their musical enthusiasm and talent.
CYRUS GANJI PHOTO
TIM O’MEARA PHOTO
H
PHOTO FOUND USING CREATIVE COMMONS
with
THINGS TO DO IN THE WEEKS AHEAD
ROBERT EDSEL '75 ON GEORGE CLOONEY'S NEW FILM BASED ON HIS BOOK
– Sketchbook stories by Matthew Placide, Kevin He, P.J. Voorheis and Phillip Montgomerey.
artist IN action
FINE TUNING Fourth graders pay close attention to Orchestra Director David Fray during their concert Feb. 25; Fray has taught the fourth graders basic orchestral skills over the course of the year.
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON ONE OF ST. MARK’S MANY FINE ART STUDENTS
THE ARTIST Miguel Plascencia THE ART Painting WHAT A collage of faces expressing all sorts of emotion, as drawn in Plascencia’s sketchbook (left). A detailed picture of a skull, standing alone in a red plane (right).
HIS WORDS “I usually do art that really isn’t traditional; that really shows in my art piece of faces, ‘Headaches.’ The skull I drew, contrary to its common association, is more a manifestation of life and purpose, not death.”
LIFE T H E
M O N E Y
I S S U E
S T U D E N T
THE REMARKER | 10 FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
15 Fashion
S T O R E
$pirit
elling
I
14 Klyde Warren
11 Robert Edsel
It’s the place where so many spend the first week of school buying supplies for a year at school. The place where hungry middle schoolers and athletes alike buy snacks before practice, where students buy blue and gold attire to demonstrate school pride and where Sarah Key and Susan Wise serve the community by running a store that is integral to it.
RUSH HOUR Students – from both the Middle and Upper Schools – crowd the Student Store during their off-periods, buying needed school supplies and snacks. Store manager Sarah Key and assistant store manager Susan Wise provide shoppers with all sorts of materials, ranging from snacks to pencils to sweatshirts. The Student Store is the center for both spirit and supplies.
“Other than the beginning of the year,” Key said, “you can go to Target and compare the price of our spiral notebooks, for example, or pens, to the price of theirs, and we’re either right about the same or a little less. It could be Target, Walmart, certainly Office Depot or Staples.” Though there is sometimes a price difference between products at the Student Store and other external retailers, the use of the spent money is very different. “The money that you spend in our store stays here,” Key said. “Any money that we make is returned to St. Mark’s, whereas if you buy the same thing at Target, Target is making the money. The choice is if you want to shop here, and it’s almost like making a donation because you benefit the school.” Key and assistant manager Susan Wise acknowledge that custom school items, such as sweatshirts and souvenirs, tend to be more costly than other items. “A lot of times we have things that are custom done for St. Mark’s, so they have the St. Mark’s logo on them, and that costs more,” Wise said. “Whereas, if you were to go and buy the same Under Armour sweatshirt that was plain, it would be less.” he main time that the Student Store purchases sweatshirts is during a national collegiate trade show, where about 700 vendors display their products. “We talk to their sales representatives,” Key said. “We look through what they offer. We tell them what we want. We pick the logos and designs and how we want it to look, and they produce it for us.” The custom apparel is just one of the many types of items the store offers. In order to maintain and manage the entire store, the two coordinators receive volunteer help from parents. “We have a lot of volunteers here at the store,” Wise said. “We
T
have three shifts a day, two moms each shift. So six new moms everyday.” However, the parent volunteers only help with the Student Store. They do not help in textbook distribution; a common misconception is that the Student Store is under the same department as textbooks. “Textbooks are their own separate entity,” Key said. “Textbooks don’t really flow through the store. Here, textbooks are separate from the student store, even though the same person does them.” The store receives a budget, primarily for the beginning of the year, and then mostly runs on the money generated by selling items. “We operate on a budget just like everybody else,” Key said. “We stick to our budget, and we’re pretty good about it.” Items in the store and expenditures stay fairly constant year after year, but the management would like to receive feedback and suggestions from students. “If the students really had something they thought was really great, something that we just had to have, we’d certainly be happy to look into that,” Key said. “We love input. It would be interesting to get suggestions on what boys would like to see added to the store.” Key and Wise both agree that one of their favorite parts of running the store is interacting with other members of the community. “[I enjoy] watching the boys grow,” Wise said. “Sometimes they just come in to talk, which is so nice.” However, as much as they enjoy the personable aspect of the store, Key and Wise both agree on what the main mission of the Student Store is. “We’re here to provide a service,” Key said, “and want to be equipped and ready to serve the community best. We want to be a resource for everybody.”
SELLING SPIRIT story by Cyrus Ganji, life editor and Akshay Malhotra, staff writer | photos by Tim O’Meara, staff photographer
Student Store at a glance The items sold so far this year
Top Three FOOD ITEMS
Fruit Snacks Goldfish Chex Mix
1989 1473 1469
MOST EXPENSIVE ITEM: Cutter & Buck jackets for $130
FRUIT SNACKS ARE THE number
1
best selling item LEAST EXPENSIVE ITEM: Sheet protector for 15 cents DAILY REVENUE: $800 - $1000
Top Three NON-FOOD ITEMS
School pencil 363 Masterlock 258 BIC’s Round Stic 253
PROFITS: About 20 percent excluding other expenses PEAK TIMES IN DAY: Before school, 10:30 period, lunch periods, after school BUSIEST TIME IN SCHOOL YEAR: August
ool sch sold 363ncils pe
t all began in an empty office in Davis Hall, when a group of students boldly decided to juggle life as both students and store owners. Their primary interest was to provide the community with a constant base for supplies, textbooks and uniforms, while recycling income right back to the school. Naturally, they named it the “Student Store.” Fast-forward 53 years and the store has transformed into its own mini-corporation, complete with all sorts of utensils, snacks and Lion paraphernalia. At 10600 Preston Road, it has become a business within a business. “The store was established in 1961, so it goes way back,” manager Sarah Key said. “I came in 1994, not as a school employee but as a parent and a volunteer at the store. It had been managed and owned by the school. It’s an institutionally owned store. That’s what it’s known as in the collegiate or high school retail-marketing world. It’s always been owned by the school, managed by school employees, but run by parent volunteers – for the most part.” Key oversaw the transformation of the store from a simplistic, student-run counter service into the expansive supply and clothing market it is today. However, the size and breadth of the Student Store makes many students curious of its inner mechanics. “We try really hard to keep our prices competitive,” Key said. “It is a convenience. On some things, we can’t compete because we just don’t have the volume.” Whereas major retailers purchase items in huge quantities during back to school sales, the Student Store cannot – primarily because of the small amount of customers it draws in comparison. This makes prices, comparably, slightly higher at the beginning of the year.
147 3
Goldfish packs sold this year
THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
Page 11
LIFE K L Y D E
W A R R E N
NAMESAKE Klyde Warren (left), a father playing with his son (above, left), kids frolicking on a playground (above, middle), and beautiful landscaping and outdoor architecture (above, right) are all images seen at Klyde Warren Park. The park, named after fifth grader Klyde Warren features everything from street festivals and food trucks to concerts and a new upscale restaurant.
Parks and recreation He wasn’t expecting it. So when fifth grader Klyde Warren found out that Dallas’s own “Central Park” would bear his name, he wasn’t sure how to react. Two years later, the park is Warren’s number one responsibility.
H
is name rings a bell. There’s more to him than meets the eye— freckles, red hair and that cheery smile. But the young Marksman lives for something bigger than himself. Amid the concrete of downtown Dallas, hundreds of visitors enjoy the lush grass and trees in the park that bears his name. Klyde Warren Park, which opened two years ago in downtown Dallas, is named after fifth grader Klyde Warren. “I was really shocked because me and my mom were already really excited about the park, and I didn’t even know it was named after me,” Warren said. “So it was really kind of strange when my dad told me one day. He surprised me—I was so shocked.” But the shock immediately transformed into gratitude, and now the park’s namesake does his part to take care of his prized possession, spending summer days cleaning and picking up trash for eight hours on some days. “If there’s any events that day, I just help set up chairs,” he said, “and if there is any trash on the
ground I pick it up and put it in the trash bin to try and keep the park clean and everything.” One of Dallas’s newest hangout spots boasts everything from Ping-Pong to putting greens and petanque, a French version of bocce ball. And constructed over a three year span, the park’s stateof-the-art facilities allow for the hosting of concerts, festivals and other events. Food trucks, which include hot dog, ice cream and sushi vendors, line up every day to feed hungry customers. There’s even a dog park. Warren’s favorite spot, however, is the children’s park. “I like the spiderweb thing where you can climb up to the very top and just sit there and look at the city,” he said. “It’s very cool.” An urban green space built atop Woodall Rodgers Freeway, the park attracts visitors of all kinds daily. Chess, book signings, concerts, yoga — the doit-all park has outlets for everyone, Warren included. “[The park] is very special and it feels like a part of me,” he said, “and that it’s my responsibility to keep it safe and to keep it clean and just watch it grow so that the community enjoys it more each day.”
THINGS TO DO AT THE PARK • • • • • •
Food trucks Yoga Zumba classes Perot Museum activities Board games, including oversized chess Putting green
PARKS AND RECREATION story by Shourya Kumar, deputy opinion editor | photos by Arno Goetz and Corbin Walp, staff photographers, map courtesy Klyde Warren
By Avery Powell staff writer unior Kunal Dixit and sophomore Harrison Chen have been chosen to exhibit their stop motion films at this year’s South By Southwest film festival in the Texas High School Short Film category. The students created the films as assignments for their film studies class. “It took me about two weeks to make,” Chen said. “I had to work at home and at school to get it done.” Chen’s film was created as a stop motion music video for the song “Cages” by Deas Vail. “I signed up to about five different websites to email them about using the band’s music,” Chen said. “I had to wait a week for them to get back to me on Facebook.” With paper and marker in hand, Chen had to draw and arrange each frame of the one-minute short film.
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“The hardest part was definitely having the patience to draw and re-draw each scene,” Chen said. While Chen sketched out each frame, Dixit built each scene of his short film with paper sculptures for his short film. “I had made several live action films before,” Dixit said, “so I decided to give [stop-motion] a try and came up with Spark.” After completing their films for their film studies class, both students were prompted to submit their shorts by film studies instructor Jennifer Gilbert. “There were two or three other films we submitted that I thought had a better chance of being selected,” Dixit said. “But it seems like South by Southwest enjoyed the stop motion shorts more.” Chen and Dixit will screen their short films and answer questions at the Marchesa Hall & Theater tomorrow alongside other high school filmmakers.
PHOTOS COURTESY KUNAL DIXIT, HARRISON CHEN
SXSW
Junior Kunal Dixit, sophomore Harrison Chen to be featured in annual South By Southwest film festival in “Short Film” category for successful stop motion films; prestigious festival to be held in Austin, March 7-16.
ROLL THE FILM Spark by Kunal Dixit (top) and Cages by Harrison Chen (above) will be featured as short films at this year’s South by Southwest film festival.
THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
T H E
M O N E Y
I S S U E
CONSUM C O N S U M E R I S M
the price is...right? How much does that cost? You don’t hear that very much here. With student store charges, debit cards and a lack of working students it’s kind of understandable that we don’t have much awareness of the cost of things. To find out how much students really do know about the cost of basic items that Marksmen frequently purchase, we borrowed from the popular television quiz show and asked 13 members of our community to try their luck at guessing prices. The result? For some, the price was right. For others, well...
the products SHOES
Item: Sperry Top Siders Actual price: $85 Best guess: $89, senior Harrison Lin Highest guess: $89, senior Harrison Lin Lowest guess: $15, thirdgrader Luke Stallings
CINEMATIC Several people correctly guessed the price of a large popcorn, large drink and a movie ticket—$22. While the results for other items varied wildly, most guesses for these three things were on target.
the participants
MILK
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“
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“
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Math instructor Amy Reck
Seventh-grader Lyle Ochs
I just pay attention when my mom goes to the store. I just look at what she buys and remember it.
Sixth-grader Rosser Newton
The sunglasses surprised me because they don’t look that expensive.
Freshman Gopal Raman
I was surprised at how cheap the student store was because usually their prices are a lot higher.
Fourth-grader James Fults
You need to observe how you spend your money.
“
Eighth-grader Arjun Singh
Senior Harrison Lin
Wow, the steak’s eight bucks? I didn’t know that. I’m a vegetarian. I have no idea how much meat costs.
“
Item: One gallon of milk Actual price: $3.19 Best guess: $3, sixth-grader Rosser Newton Highest guess: $5.45, firstgrader Jack Baker Lowest guess: $1.50, junior Darwin Yang
I was most surprised on the pizza. That seems cheap for something that can feed so many kids.
There’s some random things that I won’t really know. I would say I have a good estimate.
“
Third-grader Luke Stallings
The shoes and the sunglasses are a lot more than I would have thought. I’ve never seen sunglasses like that.
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Sophomore Ashton Hashemipour
I don’t think we grow bananas in Texas. I mean we’re getting them from legit out-of-state places, so $0.89 for bananas seems cheap.
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Junior Darwin Yang
I don’t necessarily d the shopping myse just stay home and chess, so I guess I’m little out of touch w these prices.
THE PRICE IS RIGHT? story by Ryan O’Meara, issues editor, and William Caldwell, staff writer | photos by Mason Smith, sta
Money, money, money... managing is the key By Dylan Clark editor-in-chief
S
ooner or later, everyone is going to have to deal with money — whether it’s learning to balance a
checkbook as a pizza-eating college student, learning investment strategies and saving for a child’s future as a first-time dad or setting up a retirement plan to take you well into the golden years. We checked with two recent grads to get their take on how well-prepared they feel they are to be money-managers.
ReMarker: Did you take economics at St. Mark’s? If not, was there any financial education or experience during your time at the school? Montgomery: I never took econ at St. Mark’s. I wouldn’t say I had any financial education through a class at St. Mark’s, but my parents were very good at teaching me about topics like that. Also, through Boy Scouts and completing the Personal Finance merit badge, I was able to learn more than most students about personal finance topics. McNutt: I already played stock market pick -em games for fun. So I got together with a few friends [to found the Investment Club] and tried to make it look official enough to impress college admissions. I took econ with [history instructor Bill] Marmion my senior year. It was an outstanding class. I didn’t appreciate how much of a college-level course I was getting at the time, but looking back I am very glad I took it.
Microeconomics opens your mind to how the world really works. ReMarker: Can you give some perspective from your college or postgrad days about personal finance? Montgomery: After taking accounting courses in college, it is fairly easy to see how broader accounting topics apply to personal finance in terms Peter Montgomery ’12 of balancing Student Council president checkbooks, Attends Vanderbilt spending on a budget and understanding your own financial assets. McNutt: It is sad how many guys will graduate college with a $200,000 degree and still not know about basic finances. Of course I’m not sure that balancing a checkbook is that
relevant today, but learning how to run your own life like a business is a great advantage during and after college. You really should write down Will McNutt your income Investment Cl and predictable Texas A&M law expenses to determine how much money yo each week. Remember, the quic double your money is to just fol keep it in your pocket. ReMarker: Did your experience and founder of the Investmen way shape what you chose to s lege? Have you continued you investment? If so, what have y McNutt: My interest in finance several business and econ cours
Page 12, 13
MERISM
Item: One gallon of regular gas Actual price: $3.17 Best guess: $3.15, senior Harrison Lin, first-grader Jack Baker, math instructor Amy Reck Highest guess: $30, secondgrader Jimmy Francis Lowest guess: $1.30, eighthgrader Arjun Singh
Item: Bunch of five Dole bananas Actual price: $.89 Best guess: $1.50, math instructor Amy Reck, junior Darwin Yang Highest guess: $17, secondgrader Jimmy Francis Lowest guess: $1.50, math instructor Amy Reck, junior Darwin Yang
SPORTING EVENT
MEAT
Item: One average-priced Mavericks ticket Actual price: $51.80 Best guess: $50, eighthgrader Arjun Singh, junior Darwin Yang, first-grader Jack Baker Highest guess: $150, second-grader Jimmy Francis Lowest guess: $15, thirdgrader Luke Stallings
Item: T-Bone steak Actual price: $8.09 Best guess: $7, third-grader Luke Stallings Highest guess: $25, fourthgrader James Fults Lowest guess: $2, senior vegetarian Harrison Lin
SHORTS
BREAD
Item: Merona khaki shorts Actual price: $18 Best guess: $20, first-grader Jack Baker Highest guess: $50, fifthgrader Beto Beveridge, sixth-grader Rosser Newton, second-grader Jimmy Francis Lowest guess: $10, thirdgrader Luke Stallings, eighth-grader Arjun Singh
Item: One loaf of Mrs. Baird’s white bread Actual price: $2.99 Best guess: $3, math instructor Amy Reck, seventh-grader Lyle Ochs Highest guess: $10, firstgrader Jack Baker, thirdgrader Luke Stallings Lowest guess: $1, junior Darwin Yang
MOVIE ITEMS
SUNGLASSES
Item: One movie ticket with a large drink and popcorn Actual price: $22 Best guess: $22, senior Harrison Lin, math instructor Amy Reck, freshman Gopal Raman, seventh-grader Lyle Ochs Highest guess: $74, secondgrader Jimmy Francis Lowest guess: $4, firstgrader Jack Baker
Item: Ray Ban Wayfarers Actual price: $130 Best guess: $130, math instructor Amy Reck Highest guess: $150, senior Harrison Lin Lowest guess: $2, secondgrader Jimmy Francis
STUDENT STORE ITEMS
PIZZA
Item: Gatorade, Chex Mix and Goldfish from the student store Actual price: $2.67 Best guess: $2.50, firstgrader Jack Baker Highest guess: $34, secondgrader Jimmy Francis Lowest guess: $2.50, firstgrader Jack Baker
Item: Large cheese pizza from My Family’s Pizza Actual price: $10.40 Best guess: $10, fifthgrader Beto Beveridge, fourth-grader James Fults, seventh-grader Lyle Ochs Highest guess: $18, math instructor Amy Reck Lowest guess: $7, sixthgrader Rosser Newton
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Fifth-grader Beto Beveridge
The sunglasses because I just had no idea that they would cost that much. They don’t look like they would really.
“
Second-grader Jimmy Francis
It would be a lot more than I expected because a movie ticket would usually be a lot more money. Same with [Mavericks] tickets.
“
First-grader Jack Baker
There’s this big sign at gas stations that says around three dollars. Like $3.15 is one of them.
aff photographer, and Ryan O’Meara
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ou can spend ckest way to ld it over and
e as president nt Club in any study in colur interest in you learned? led to me take ses in college.
Those classes will give you a big leg up in the job market over guys who majored in Creative Writing, Communications or Women’s Gender Studies. Not only that, but learning finance helps you become better at reading the news and analyzing current events. ReMarker: How important in your experience has it been to save money and spend wisely? Montgomery: When I first started receiving my allowance, my dad said to me and my brother that for every dollar we saved, he would pay us one nickel. This philosophy took root in me pretty quickly. I realized that if I could save $20 that I would earn an extra dollar in allowance. By learning the value of saving, I also learned to watch what I spent my money on. I’ll never forget that I bought a single lemon Starburst from my brother for a dollar. It was, unquestionably, the worst dollar I have ever spent. From then on, I pledged to be more careful with my spending.
McNutt: The concept of spending less than you make, and saving little by little, will give you great peace of mind no matter how wealthy you are. When you get to college, there will be pressure to spend money to impress new people. Just stick to your budget and you’ll be fine. Do you wish that you had learned more of these skills during Upper School? Montgomery: I do really wish St. Mark’s had taught some basic finance courses. I think it would have given me and my peers a huge head start when coming to college on helping us to stay very aware of the money we spent. Had St. Mark’s offered a class in personal finance, I would have been first to sign up because no matter what career path you take, personal finance will always be relevant. McNutt: I understand why high schools don’t teach this concept because it’s difficult to test on paper. Self-restraint and sticking to your goals are lessons you learn in life, not the classroom.
HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW?
Test your money IQ We want this issue to encourage discussion about the impact of money in our lives.Take this quiz to test your financial IQ. Are you ready to start trading stocks on Wall Street or should you keep saving up your allowance to buy baseball cards?
1. What’s a 401(k)? A. $401,000 B. Retirement savings benefits funded by the government C. Something in ads on TV about retirement D. A tax-qualified, defined contribution pension account used for saving for retirement 2. If you deposit $1,000 in a bank at 5% interest compounded daily, how much would you have after 30 years? A. PeRT? I think that’s what Joe called it B. $2,500 C. $4,481.23 D. $3,713.19 3. What caused the ‘Great Recession’? A. The Gulf War B. Sub-prime mortgages and the bursting of the housing bubble C. The bursting of the college loans bubble D. High levels of inflation coupled with anti-intervention government policies 4. What is the main source of funding for Social Security? A. Payroll taxes B. Obamacare C. State income taxes D. Corporate profit margin taxes 5. Which of the following is an American stock exchange? A. NASDAQ B. MXDS C. NYSE D. Both A and C 6. What is the Dow Jones Industrial Average? A. A scientific measure of the overall health of the world economy B. The average profit of an industrial company in the United States C. A stock market index used to measure the value of a section of the stock market D. A direct investment with the lowest known risk and highest possible returns 7. What’s a credit score? A. A numerical analysis of a person’s creditworthiness calculated by several major credit bureaus B. A points-based rewards system for the most frequent users of a particular credit card C. A seven-year snapshot of a person’s borrowing history D. A number used to approximate recent spending versus expected income
8. What’s the current Texas minimum wage? A. A value annually recalculated by the invisible hand of the market B. $7.75 C. $10.10 D. $7.25 9. What is the FAFSA form? A. Federal Application For Safe Alleyways B. A college admission application accepted by a majority of private schools C. A federal student aid application form D. A tax return form filled out by recent college graduates 10. What does high inflation do to the value of currency? A. It increases the value greatly B. The value remains the same C. It forces the government to shutdown D. It lowers the value of money Correct answers:
1. D 2. C 3. B 4. A 5. D 6.C 7. A 8. D 9. C 10. D
do elf. I d play ma with
GASOLINE
BANANAS
10 You’re ready for the real world. You know the effect of money on your life and are prepared to handle the financial challenges of adulthood. 7-9 Almost there. You have a handle on the basic financial system, but still need to learn some of the finer points before you become financially independent. 4-6 Needs some work. You probably use your parents’ credit card for the majority of your purchases without looking at the cost. Money isn’t a big motivating factor in your life. 1-3 If your main source of income is anything other than a $5 a week allowance deposited straight into your piggy bank, you should be worried. —Test written by Ryan O’Meara, issues editor
Page 14
THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
LIFE
Man the
onuments
With three books on the subject to his name, it’s no stretch to say Robert Edsel ‘75 is passionate about the Monuments Men. This little known group of World War II soldiers helped reclaim European art stolen by Nazi forces. Thanks to Edsel’s books and foundation the men are finally getting their due.
R
obert Edsel ’75 is no mere author. He’s a messenger. Just as the men described in his three books, Rescuing Da Vinci, Saving Italy and the best-selling The Monuments Men, toiled tirelessly to preserve historic paintings and sculptures across a war-torn Europe, reclaiming them from Nazi hands during World War II, Edsel has worked to preserve the soldiers’ and conservationists’ story. “I really see my role as less of a writer or historian and more of a messenger,” he said. “The whole objective here, and the investment of all the years of my life, has been to
HEROES OF HISTORY: Robert Edsel ‘75 (far right) has made it his life’s goal to share the story of the Monuments Men (middle). Pictured above, another relic from days gone by.
make sure the story’s known.” Edsel says his goal with the books, as well as with the Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, which he created in 2007, is to highlight the heroic acts of the “Monuments Men” and bring their tale to as large an audience as possible. Luckily, a man named George Clooney gave Edsel a big hand. “Let’s face it: no matter how good a book somebody writes, there’s no way to reach a worldwide audience more effectively than a feature film,” Edsel said. “I wrote the book trying to have this happen.”
The film adaptation of The Monuments Men, in theaters now, not only stars Clooney as one of the conservationists tasked with rescuing the art but was produced, directed and adapted for the screen by him as well. Edsel worked closely with Clooney and his writing and producing partner, Grant Heslov, to ensure that the story on the screen would be true to the story that took place in the bunkers and battlefields. “I went out and spent a week with them in January 2012, going over so much of the history, trying to share with them what I could,” Edsel said. “And in the course of
time, I consulted with them on the script and was on location on three separate occasions. So it’s been a very collaborative effort and a wonderful relationship.” At press time, the film has grossed more than $60 million, making it Clooney’s most successful film as a director to date, meaning millions of people have been exposed to the Men’s story. Edsel couldn’t be happier. “A lot of times things don’t work out this way,” he said, “but in this case it has, and we’re really excited for people everywhere to know about this epic part of World War II history that many don’t know about.”
Clooney’s art history lesson is almost there THE MONUMENTS MEN IS A MOVIE THAT has everything going for it. Based on a terrific book, featuring a terrific cast and telling a terrific story, the movie has the potential to be a classic. That said, The Monuments Men is not a perfect movie, though many aspects of it resemble perfection. Edsel’s books are captivating and provide a wonderful starting place for the movie. The plot highlights the significance of a once-forgotten regiment of the Allied forces tasked with recovering Europe’s great works of art from the Nazis. Gripping every art lover and World War II junkie by the heartstrings, the movie sheds light into the significance of the operation in preserving an essential cornerstone of the human experience from extinction. Secondly, with a cast featuring George Clooney, Bill Murray, Matt Damon and Cate Blanchett, the acting consumes much of the
movie’s appeal, while at the same time not detracting from the story’s significance. While the characters may lack depth and while some of their stories may seem over the top, they remain lovable and captivating. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to love this movie, I found many elements of the plot and the screenplay to be overly dry and lacking in human interest. In contrast to the book, which sparked interest in the lives of the people involved in the mission, the movie essentially skips over their lives and humanity. The movie lacks a central character, but, more importantly, it lacks a human element that ties the movie to its audience. OUR GRADE Still, if you commit yourself to the film, you will find how enjoyable and important the story of the The Monuments Men is.
B+
THE MONUMENTS MAN by Cole Gerthoffer, life editor | review by Davis Marsh, staff writer | photos used with permission, Robert Edsel
Eighth grader Griffin Holtby starts band Seven45
By PJ Voorheis staff writer The curtains open at the House of Blues in downtown Dallas. Eighth grader Griffin Holtby steps on stage followed by his band and the crowd roars. Seven45, a band formed around Holtby, was started during the summer of 2012. The band plays all original music written by Holtby. Although the band has not yet released an album, most of the music that they play is original and written by him. “The music we play is primarily Rock,” Holtby said. “Our music is a mix of The Who, The Clash and Green Day, with a sprinkle of Jack Johnson.” The band has four members: 12-year-old drummer Anton Cariffe, 15-year-old guitarist Jus-
tus Winkler, 14-year-old guitarist Carter Elliot and 14-year-old bassist, lead vocalist, and songwriter Griffin Holtby. They each respectively attend St. Patricks, Booker T. Washington, St. Johns Episcopal School and St. Mark’s. The band has recently played at many large venues in Dallas. “We have played at Trees, Lee Harvey’s, House of Blues, Hard Rock Café, The Curtain Club and other various clubs in Deep Ellum,” Holtby said. Currently, the band is working on getting more gigs and working on releasing an album. Eventually, Seven45 hopes to open for bigger bands at concerts. “It would be awesome if we could open for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club or some other big bands,” Holtby said.
Confessions of a cookie dealer Continued from page one “Apparently there were cookie territories where there were multiple faculty [members] who were selling cookies for their daughters,” Dangelo said, “and we never crossed each other’s territory. So, [Technology and Network Specialist John Endres] was over at Nearburg, and I never went into his territory and he never came into mine, but we’d see each other across the parking lot bringing cookies in the
morning, and it was kind of funny.” After three days, Dangelo had helped his daughter raise more than $400. “It was great,” he said. “I’m really thankful to all of the boys for taking part and helping us, and Suzannah is in school, and I wanted to get her up here to set up a little table outside, but [she couldn’t make it]. Maybe next year. If the new headmaster lets me, we’ll see.”
THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
T H E
M O N E Y
I S S U E
Take the ol’ ball and chain out to see a dinner and a movie. You don’t have to impress her, but you did it anyway.
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LIFE Breathe in that fresh pine scent. Head over to Mineral Wells Park or the trails in Grapevine for an invigorating hike.
FA S H I O N
What’s your kind of date?
By the book
Land
By land or by sea?
Date night Top: Izod $29.99 Macy’s Bottom: Tommy Hilfiger $29.99 Macy’s Belt: $2.33 St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shoes: H&M $34.95 H&M
Go on a more traditional date
The outdoorsman Top: American Rag $10.99+$6.99 Macy’s Bottom: H&M L.O.G.G. $29.99 Macy’s Belt: $2.33 St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shoes: Coleman $12.86 St. Vincent de Paul Thrift
During the week we may be restricted in what we can wear, but once the weekend rolls around, it’s up to you, only you, to decide the style of the apparel. And to show that the chains of money can’t hold down your taste, we went out and found six outfits, each for less than $100.
Call me Ishmael
Total: $63.12
Total: $97.26
Wakeboard or just relax on the boat. A day on the lake might be just what you need.
Go out and about, see what Dallas has to offer
Do you want to...
LET’S TALK
See some indie band you’ve never hear of That special someone
Keep it classy, Casanova. Dress to kill—one splash of cologne won’t kill you and have some fun.
fashion Yes
START HERE The city is your playground
The sailor Top: American Rag $9.99 Macy’s Bottom: American Eagle $7.02 Macy’s Belt: $2.33 St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shoes: Merona $24.99 Target
You’re feeling adventurous
Do you want to get active?
Who’s coming?
Total: $44.33
The bros
Ladies man Top: Tasso Elba $29.98 Macy’s Bottom: H&M $19.95 H&M Belt: H&M $12.95 H&M Shoes: Merona $34.95 Target
Total: $95.87
Embrace your inner hipster. Go to an outdoor concert or see a modern art exhibit. Look at it enough and it makes sense!
in need of Vitamin D
No
Would you rather...
Stay comfy as you scour the area for a hole-in-the-wall diner or sit back and play some video games.
make new friends
play Ping-Pong I am... The hipster Top: Club Room $21.99 Macy’s Bottom: Levi’s $29.99 Macy’s Belt: $2.33 St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shoes: Stacy Adams $35.00 Macy’s
Total: $84.31
hungry Road trip Top: Club Room $12.25 Macy’s Bottom: Izod $9.99 Macy’s Belt: $2.33 St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shoes: Sperry $38.00 Macy’s
Total: $62.57
LET’S TALK FASHION story by Sam Khoshbin, creative director and Zuyva Sevilla, graphics director | photos by Sam Khoshbin, graphics by Zuyva Sevilla
OPINION
M O N E Y
I S S U E
S T U D E N T
17 Squaring off
17 Cartoon
18 Target practice
THE REMARKER | 16 FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
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T H E
17 Word on the street
Playing the right cards As cost of attending college rises, students resort to loans and scholarships
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s the seniors near the finish line of their academic careers, a new phase in their lives looms–college. Unfortunately, in today’s America, the cost of attending college is rising annually at a much faster rate than that of the average family income. This dichotomy leads to students working, taking out loans and otherwise burdening themselves to pay for school. Certainly, there is value to be had in working hard outside of school in an effort to make ends meet. Still, the current student loan bubble is an ominous byproduct of the current costs of education. According to a study by CNBC, $1 trillion in student loans occupy the minds of students and burden the families sending their kids to college. And year after year, as more loans are taken and the less they are paid, a bubble is formed, as someone has to pay the money. But given that students will always attend college, affordability is becoming more of an issue as each year passes. In fact, with the cost of attending college rises year after year, scholarships are becoming a more effective means by which one can reduce his college costs. There are two types of scholarships — needbased and merit-based. In order to apply for a need-based scholarship, a family must complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). This allows colleges to review the family’s financial profile and then potentially provide the family a package based on grants,
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scholarships. That number rose to 30 percent for the class of 2013. And as the cost continues to rise, this number should probably only grow. This is why it is important for current Marksmen to be educated on the issue and take advantage of the opportunities for financial aid presented before them. Given the dangers of taking large student loans, it is also important to assess the value in attending one college over another. Gendason says the benefits of a degree from one prestigious college, when combined with several hundred thousand dollars in loans, may not actually yield a significantly different result in going to a lesser-known college which also offers scholarship money or costs less. Marksmen should work to truly understand the benefits, short and long term, of choosing one college over another, and take into account all of the factors present when deciding—including cost— so as not to burden themselves financially in the future. It seems that the cost of college will only continue to rise in the near future, and Marksmen are unfortunately powerless to change that. Luckily, the school has provided outstanding resources in the difficult college-planning process in the college counseling office. Students should avail of these resources and utilize them to secure a safe financial future and graduate college without an inordinate amount of debt.
INTERNET Filtering too strict, impeding academic efficiency
hile Internet filters theoretically increase students’ efficiency by blocking distracting websites that do not relate to academic work, we feel current filters are too strict and often block academic sites. We also feel modifying the filters to allow social media access before and after the school day would allow students to contact classmates and club members with maximum efficiency. While filtering at the school is certainly necessary and understandable, students trying to perform research sometimes encounter blocked websites because the filters deem their research topics inappropriate for school use. For example, biology students researching the reproductive system can have trouble accessing websites on the topic. In addition, we feel allowing social media access before 8 a.m. and after ninth period would allow students at school during those times to perform
school-related tasks, such as organizing events with classmates more easily. For example, students often create Facebook groups for their classes and clubs, allowing them to contact every classmate or club member at once. Students use social media to ask for help on concepts or assignments and to quickly spread the word about changes in meeting plans. Since the current settings often do not distinguish academic research sites from inappropriate sites, we hope Chief Technology Officer Paul DiVincenzo can program the filters to better accommodate students’ research needs. We understand that it is an ongoing process to program the filters to distinguish between academic and nonacademic sites and encourage continued work in the process while hoping that if the school were to decide to invest in a new authentication system in the future, it considers one more advanced and easier to
DYLAN CLARK PHOTO
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loans and work study. The college counseling office can provide help with this process. In addition, students also have the opportunity to pursue merit-based scholarships. While some colleges consider all applicants for merit scholarships, others require students to write an additional essay or seek nominations from the high school. For merit-based scholarships, colleges will review the student’s profile, considering his grades, the difficulty of his classes, teacher recommendations, standardized test scores, commitment to extracurricular activities, impact on the school, leadership and potential. With all of these factors taken into account, they make their decision. Large companies and corporations also often offer a variety of merit scholarships to cater to all varieties of students. Students can receive scholarships in the artistic, academic and athletic disciplines. hile much information regarding the specifics of these scholarships can be found online, college counselors Veronica Pulido and Casey Gendason are also resourceful sources who can provide input, useful information and guidance in applying for the variety of scholarship opportunities. According to the College Counseling office, 25 percent of Marksmen who graduated in 2012 were granted either need-based or merit-based
program. We also hope that the administration considers allowing before and after school social media access at a time when students won’t be in class and might be trying to coordinate with fellow Marksmen on social media. We believe that these changes will facilitate research on academic sites and allow students to better contact classmates without sacrificing the necessary blocking of non-academic, distracting sites, allowing students to carry out their schoolwork with the greatest possible ease.
THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
word on the street F
rom Lower Schoolers to faculty and staff, every person on campus has had to manage money in some way, no matter what the amount. With technology making changes to how we manage our money, many different members of the community have unique ways of handling their money, so we asked them: “How do you manage your finances?”
SEVENTH GRADER COLE DUFFY ‘I make money through allowance and lawn mowing. I also own stocks, mostly in IBM. I spend my money on video games and sports equipment.’
EIGHTH GRADER NAFTAL MAUTIA ‘My parents pay me at the end of the year if I make high honors. I spend some if it on electronics but I save most if it.’
SHOURYA KUMAR
Seventy dollars well spent
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eventy dollars bought me four things that summer of 2013. They bought me a ride to work. I rode the notorious DART — Dallas Area Rapid Transit — train to intern at the UT Southwestern Medical Center each morning and back home for thirty days that summer. Notorious? My friends would always give me an “oh-wow” response whenever I would tell them of my travels. People just didn’t ride the DART; it was outside my world. But for a 16-year-old without a car, public transportation was the next best thing. Starting out in the suburbs, I would put ten quarters into the ticketing machine at Bush Turnpike Station and claim my ticket. But it was the next 44 minutes and 17 stops that were worth paying for. They bought me a show. It was maybe my third time ever riding the DART train. But what was once an experience became a routine, as I took my spot, one of many sardines in the train. I plugged in my headphones, blasting Frank Ocean and Justin Timberlake and trying to drown out any and every part of my surroundings. I was scared. For the first time in my life, I was alone in the world. Seeming bigger than I, everybody on the train was full of personality and individualism. I struggled to find my place — sometimes literally squeezed between the window and the big butt of a fellow passenger. At times, I didn’t know what to do with my-
SENIOR RICHARD EISEMAN ‘I work at a camera shop part-time but I spend most of my money on food. I check the amount of money in my bank account and try to limit the amount I spend.’
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JUNIOR SHOURYA KUMAR
The whole seeing-is-believing sentiment took on a completely new meaning as my sheltering bubble popped. I no longer felt like such a stranger. outside smoking. What I first saw as irony morphed into reality. I saw a teen mom walk out the hospital doors at least once a week. This was the other part of Dallas people spoke of. And the whole seeing-is-believing sentiment took on a completely new meaning as my sheltering bubble popped. I no longer felt like such a stranger. Every day it was the same ride, the same show and the same perspective. The realities of the world were predicated on the essence of individualism. So on my 23rd day of work, I decided to get off one stop early and walk the extra mile. I was part of the city, part of Dallas, and I would let myself be free. With Timberlake blasting in my ears, I would shuffle and spin and dance my way to work, one mile a day—just so Dallas could get a little bit of me. Seventy dollars bought me a bit of myself.
Well sure Dyl, but you’re gonna have to pay me for it!
Hey, Nabeel! We need a comic idea. And it needs to be about money!
Get out.
...
squaringoff
Bartering
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itcoin, botcoin, batcoin. All I hear about these days is: Ooohh universal, electronic currency! Oooh, no regulation! Oooh, I have no friends – I have to use a computer all the time! That’s you, Aidan. Does anyone even understand why we use any sort of money in the first place? A bunch of pieces of paper with no inherent value so that everyone has to have a bunch of it? Thanks, but no thanks, George Washington. Why don’t you keep brushing your wooden teeth and not lying about that cherry tree. Freakin’ nerd. What happened to the good old days? What happened to “I’ll give you 10 sacks of grain for your finest goat?” Society used bartering for literally thousands of years. And you know what? Those dudes did just fine. Was there ever a stock market crash before currencies were invented? Was there ever a Ponzi scheme? Were there ever hurricanes or earthquakes? Probably not. In the end, exchange systems are like the Black-Eyed Peas. The dollar is Fergie — not that great but gets all the attention. The euro is Will.i.am — talented but gets into a lot of trouble. Bitcoin is Taboo — that one works just because of wordplay. And bartering is apl.d.ap — the unsung hero of the whole group. So Aidan, feel free to collect your imaginary currency. And I’ll continue to stockpile natural resources. And when people come to their senses and decide to return to pre-money days, we’ll see who has the most goats.
Charlie Golden
Editorial Board members Charlie Golden and Aidan Dewar square off on curren¢ies.
ANDREW GATHERER PHOTO
SENIOR PHILLIP OSBORN ‘I have a lifeguarding business with few expenses. I spend my income on sports tickets and meals.’
self except hide — hide myself from the world. These other guys on the train were fearless. Only after I stopped sleeping and tried watching the train like a television show did my eyes actually open. One guy sporting dreadlocks had hopped on the train shirtless; he was promptly escorted off. Other guys would share cigarettes with each other almost every day. Another started breakdancing. And this guy was in his own world. Even with hundreds of eyes staring directly at him, he wasn’t shy. Then I realized that I would probably never see him again anyway. He would never see any of us again either. So he embraced himself and his personality. These personalities were addictive and I couldn’t stop watching the show. I wanted to be like that. hat $70 bought me a journey out of the bubble. The personalities on the train changed as each minute passed. It was like the train was playing roulette with people. As people hopped on and off, sports jackets would replace blazers, tank-tops would replace blouses, and ripped jeans would replace dress pants. The longer I sat on the train, the further into Dallas I went, and the more people changed. Shady characters would follow me as I changed seats to escape. They’d ask me for money or my expired train ticket from the day before. As we passed by Parkland Hospital, Dallas’s public facility, nurses were always sitting on the steps
The money issue | Cartoon Nabeel Muscatwalla and Zuyva Sevilla
ENGLISH INSTRUCTOR VICTOR F. WHITE MASTER TEACHER DAVID BROWN ‘I still balance my checkbook at the end of each month, but I’ve switched to technology for everything else. It’s much more efficient.’
CHEMISTRY INSTRUCTOR NELSON MASTER TEACHER JON VALASEK ‘My wife and I have a financial advisor who manages our finances, and he has done an excellent job over the years. We give a major portion of our earnings to support orphans and school children in Uganda.’
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OPINION
Bartering or Bitcoin?
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Bitcoin
quaring off IS BACK! They clipped our metaphorical wings for a month, but ReMarker sales dipped 95 percent and there were Ukraine-style riots by the Path to Manhood statue, so they were forced to bring us back. In honor of our one-month hiatus, and since this is the money issue, you KNOW we’re gonna do Bitcoin vs. Bartering. Oh, Bitcoin. Where to start? People say it’s confusing, but it could not be simpler to understand. You know what’s confusing? Bartering. How many camels for how many scimitars? Welcome to the 2014th century, Charlie. We no longer need goats because we have these things called computers. What did you type your bartering response on? I bet it was a computer, not a goat. Plus, goats are so loud. My bitcoin never has the nerve to say, “Bahhhhhhhhh.” At least not in public. Also, the Pyramids and Great Wall were built with thousands of hours of free slave labor, not bartering. Those slaves would have loved a little Bitcoin for their effort. So you keep trudging along with your caravan and your wagon full of loud goats. I have all of my money on this here computer. How many goats would you trade for that? In conclusion, we’ll go live on field with Erin Andrews and bitcoin himself. Bitcoin? “I’m the best exchange system in the game! When you try me with a sorry system like bartering that’s the result you’re gonna get! Don’t you ever talk about me. Don’t you open your mouth about the best or imma shut it for ya real quick.”
Aidan Dewar
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THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
OPINION
Many roads diverged in a yellow wood
SAM KHOSHBIN
I
t was large. It was vast. It was the high school course guide. A book that showed me all the things I could have tried: from woodwork to films to drama and plays, to painting and drawing or making pots out of clay. But I made my choice as we all must do; journalism was the class that I was going to pursue. I gave it my all: my heart, soul and time. I kept honing my craft to really try and make it mine. Through the years, I’ve learned more than I have time to explain, being on the paper has worked every part of my brain. But as my senior year came, I needed a credit for art, and I didn’t think much about which course I should start. I didn’t think much because I knew it wouldn’t change my fate. I thought my interests were set and my mind was a full plate. I quickly chose ceramics because one of my friends said it was fun. For me,
it was just an art credit, all I needed was one. For weeks I tried to make pots but only created disasters. I don’t know why, but I thought I’d be throwing pots like a master. Truth be told, at first, I didn’t like ceramics that much. It was frustrating to me, a young man with no artist’s touch. So I sat down at my wheel, and I just went through the motions. Despite trying for art, I used no emotion. It was only last week, a rough time filled with stress, I looked at my clay, and I took a deep breath. I sat down at my wheel and thought, “Sam, loosen up.” I centered my work with my hands shaped like a cup. The earth ran through my hands. I let the clay flow. In the back of my head, I felt passion grow. By the end of the class, I had finally made art, but what made me happiest was thinking, “This is just the start.”
Then I thought back to the thick high school course guide, and the plethora of things that I could have tried. But I can only wish for more hours in a day, despite all of the paths, I could only choose one way. What There is more than if I tried one way to fill up being a your platter. As long painter or as I gave something actor? Took each bit of my being, different I would end each of classes? my days with results There were worth seeing. so many factors. I followed each of my thoughts to each of their ends. I thought of all the long paths with all of their bends. Funny enough, I still don’t think my choice would have changed my fate. After all, there is more than one way
to fill up your plate. As long as I gave something each bit of my being, I would end each of my days with results worth seeing. As long as I did something I truly enjoyed, I would find something valuable to fill up my void. With journalism, I put myself into each of my pages. The act has nothing to do with laurels or wages. I’m not paid by the hour, but I work hours after school; the same way swimmers may practice extra in the pool. Like practicing cello deep into the night or a fencer perfecting his parry to before the fight. The same way Tianming voraciously practices Ping Pong or a math student does problems until he can’t get them wrong. There are many paths you can choose, and we all wear different shoes and socks, but it doesn’t matter which path you choose, what matters is how you walk.
target
p r a c t i c e Lunch Time Anarchy | Terrifying but Entertaining
Spring Break | Bulls-eye pring Break is finally upon us boys. It’s time for seniors to grace the beaches of Mexico and the Bahamas. It’s time for skiers to ski and snowboarders to be obnoxious on the slope. Enjoy the week off. If you’re stuck in Dallas, start a new novel, play 30 hours of a new video game or learn how to invest and become a day trader. Just don’t think about the fact that after this we have the long push until May.
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NABEEL MUSCATWALLA PHOTO
NABEEL MUSCATWALLA PHOTO
unch is a sacred time of day when we fill our stomachs and our souls. But the lunch line and cafeteria doors are sheer anarchy. Watching kids come out of chapel or assembly and build up at the doors to the cafeteria is like watching a prison riot, Vikings invade a village, or Normandy on D-Day. Screams of terror and sadistic jubilation fill the air along with the smell of samosas and tikka masala. No one is dying of hunger, but we act like a rabid horde of sea gulls. It’s a great way to get that boost of adrenaline every teenage boy needs.
Science Building Doors Create Wind Tunnel | Outside he science building’s main doors are over damped and do not close all the way when the air conditioning or heat is on. Instead, after the herd of students go through the doors during a passing period these days, the doors sit one-third open and blast cold (or hot) air outside. This is an expensive and inefficient issue whose only benefit is to make us nostalgic about the winter’s record cold when we step in front of the arctic wind tunnel formed by the doors.
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Lion’s Pause | Pret-ty good
he joint Hockaday-St. Mark’s Lion’s Pause served as a monotony breaker for seniors, complete with an ice cream truck, a piñata, a game of limbo, beach-side decorations, and bucket loads of candy bars. We thank the moms for their time and commitment to the event and for the great tank tops. We only wish the Daisies would have shown up with more than fifteen girls.
REMARKER STUDENT NEWSPAPER
editor-in-chief creative director issues editor managing editor senior content editor business manager opinion editor graphics director head photographer special projects editor
Dylan Clark Sam Khoshbin Ryan O’Meara Aidan Dewar Charlie Golden John Caldwell Vishal Gokani Zuyva Sevilla Andrew Gatherer Alexander Munoz
deputy opinion editor Shourya Kumar news editors Alex Kim Vikram Pattabi life editors Cyrus Ganji Cole Gerthoffer sports editors Matthew Conley Teddy Edwards
campus coordinator Ford Robinson reviews specialist Nabeel Muscatwalla copy editor William Sydney staff artists Purujit Chatterjee, Joon Park staff photographers Halbert Bai, Harrison Chen, Arno Goetz, Riley
Graham, Alden James, Graham Kirstein, Cameron Lam, Adam Merchant, Tim O’Meara, Connor Olson, Nico Sanchez, Mason Smith, Corbin Walp staff writers Nick Buckenham, Jacob Chernick, Tabish Dayani, Will Forbes, Richard Jiang, Bradford Beck, William
Caldwell, Cameron Clark, Will Clark, Andrew Hatfield, Kevin He, Noah Koecher, Akshay Malhotra, Davis Marsh, Roby Mize, Philip Montgomery, Zachary Naidu, Matthew Placide, Avery Powell, Anvit Reddy, Philip Smart, Abhi Thummala, P.J. Voorheis staff assistants
Rish Basu, Aiden Blinn, Daniel Cope, John Crawford, Corday Cruz, James Hancock, Easton Honaker, Nolan Jenevein, Shaheer Khan, Case Lowry, Aidan Maurstad, Crawford McCrary, Rohil Rai, Gopal Raman, Ethan Shah. adviser Ray Westbrook
student newspaper of st. mark’s school of texas • dallas, texas 75230 • 214.346.8000 • www.smtexas.org/remarker Coverage. The ReMarker covers
topics, issues, events and opinions of relevance and interest to the St. Mark’s School of Texas community. Letters. Send submissions to the editor at 10600 Preston Road, Dallas, 75230 or via email at remarker@ smtexas.org. Letters should be brief and signed, although the writer may request anonymity. Letters may be rejected if libelous or obscene material
is contained therein.
Editorials. The newspaper’s opinion
will be presented in each issue in the form of editorials, which are clearly labeled and appear on the Opinion pages. Columns. Personal opinion is expressed through by-lined columns, which appear throughout the publication. Advertising. Contact the business staff
at 214.346.8145. We reserve the right to refuse any advertisement. Inclusion of an advertisement in these pages is not an indication of an endorsement by The ReMarker, any of its staff members or St. Mark’s School of Texas. Distribution. Press run is 3,800 copies. Copies are provided free of charge to students, faculty and staff at various distribution sites on campus and at our sister school, The Hockaday
School. More than 2,600 copies are mailed out to alumni courtesy of the school’s offices of External Affairs, Development and Alumni divisions. Membership. The ReMarker maintains membership in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, New York City, NY; National Scholastic Press Association, Minneapolis, MN; and Interscholastic League Press Conference, Austin.
Online Viewing. Each issue of The
ReMarker, along with archival copies, can be viewed online at the school’s website, www.smtexas.org/remarker. Reader Involvement. The ReMarker encourages reader input through letters, guest columns and story ideas. Contact the appropriate editor for submissions. Suggestions will be given due consideration for future publication.
Sophomore baseball pitcher William Caldwell throws his signature circle change, a pitch that often leaves batters walking back to the dugout. p. 22
THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014 | PAGE 19
upcoming
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Today
Weekend
Next Week
> Middle school tennis faces off against ESD at 4 p.m. after arriving on their campus for the second tournament of the season.
> Varsity lacrosse will compete against the Hill Academy for the second day of their Spring Break trip up north. The game will be played at Archbishop Spalding High School in Severn, MD.
> The varsity lacrosse team returns from a three-day tournament in Maryland on Tuesday.
> Varsity baseball heads back to Trinity Valley for the second day of a three day tournament, which began yesterday and will finish tomorrow.
> Varsity track and field begins competing in the Skyline Classic Invitational at the Jesse Owens Complex at 8:30 a.m.
> Lions athletes continue practices and scrimmages over Spring Break while others head out of state or country for vacations.
A ROUNDUP OF THE LATEST IN ATHLETICS ON AND OFF CAMPUS
• At The Colony Jan. 25, the Middle School swim team won the Metroplex Middle School Championship. Eighth graders Alan Jiang, Ethan Pittson, Benjamin Hurst and Edward Ro broke records in the 200-yard medley relay (1:50.06) and the 200-yard freestyle relay (1:40.10). Their final meet took place Jan. 30 as the swim season wrapped up and the water polo season began. • The JV soccer team finished the season with 12 wins, one loss and four ties while the JV basketball team also finished with a winning record. Despite having many of their games postponed or canceled, the JV teams proved that future varsity programs will continue to perform well. JV soccer’s only loss came to Trinity Christian, who they managed to tie in a previous match up. An older then usual JV basketball team used some of their extra experience to beat several opponents by a wide margin and to stay close in all their games. Both teams will look forward to strong freshman classes moving up and a strong sophomore class that will strengthen both Varsity and JV teams next year. • Fellow Emmett Gilles is serving as an assistant coach for the crew team this year. Gilles, who rowed at the University of North Carolina, is very optimistic about the experience. “I’m looking forward for the chance to share some lessons that I learned as a rower with young rowers and hope they can take advantage of some of those lessons in their own development as athletes and young men,” Gilles said. The new assistant coach has been very helpful for many members of the team and brought a new type of coaching style while serving as a positive example for the rowers. “He’s an insane athlete,” sophomore Drew Taylor said. “He can relate to us and also knows the college workouts on that level and incorporates some of those workouts.” • For the first time in three years, a junior varsity lacrosse team will accompany the varsity team due to the number of athletes trying out for the varsity team that often had too few players. Kurt Tholking, who is also instructor of Middle School computer science, will coach the freshmen, sophomores and juniors, who played their first game against Allen March 4. Their last game took place at home March 6 at 5:30 p.m. “[My goal for the season] is to help players improve and learn the system,” Tholking said, “learn the program that coach [Francis] Donald is going to implement and to improve to become varsity players.” — Tip-off stories reported by Cameron Clark, Andrew Hatfield, Zach Naidu and Abhi Thummala
march gurus
IN THE CLEAR Freshman Jake Vaughn readies the ball for a shot against the goalie during a practice at Hunt Family Stadium.
WINDING UP Freshman Frank Thomas prepares for a backhanded return, hoping to finish one of many volleys the varsity tennis team runs during practice.
DRIVING IT HOME From the right, junior Christopher Carter, freshman Daniel Cope, sophomore J.T. Graass and junior Nick Buckenham turn into the final sprint during a varsity track and field practice.
10600 PRESTON ROAD’S BEST AND BRIGHTEST ON MARCH MADNESS
Sam Perkins
Carson Pate
University of Texas
Duke University
Favorite team:
Most Likely to win: Syracuse because their zone defense is very hard to play against and forces a lot of contested threes.
Underdog:
Wichita State Shockers. They are a really underestimated team and haven’t lost.
Favorite team: Most likely to win: Syracuse because of their combination of length under the basket and skilled point guards.
Underdog:
Michigan State. They’re better than their ranking shows and they have Adreian Payne’s leadership.
TEDDY EDWARDS PHOTO
I thought about this quote a lot. Yes, my parents had brought me into the world and given me the life I have, but should paying them back really be my only goal in life? Shouldn’t I live the way I wanted to and base my actions off of what would be best for my parents? nd how am I supposed to pay them back? Is it purely fiscal responsibility? If I make enough money to pay them back for all they have spent on me, am I free of the debt I owe them? — no, that would devalue all the family experiences and priceless memories I have made with my parents. To me, paying my parents back is more then giving them money or presents in return for feeding me and providing me with a roof over my head. Paying my parents back means taking advantage of the situations they have worked all their lives to put me in. My parents have taken me to countries all over the world and given me the opportunity to learn about different cultures. I remember when I lived in London, Dad’s biggest fear was not that I would do poorly at a new school or wouldn’t transition well, but that I wouldn’t take advantage of my time in London while I had the chance. I would not be here in Dallas, or go to college, without the help of my parents, and I intend to make the most out the opportunities they have given me. To not give my all at college next year would be wasting the money my parents had worked so hard for to be able to pay for not only my college education, but for the past 12 years of private schools. It would be wrong to forget what they have done to help me go to college, to forget my debt to them. I must continue to take advantage of the opportunities that I have been given, make the most of the gifts my parents have given me. Hopefully by taking advantage of the life my parents have provided me, my children will be able to have the incredible life that I have had.
tip-off
SPORTING EVENTS IN THE DAYS AHEAD
ARNO GOETZ PHOTO
TEDDY EDWARDS
BROTHER ON BROTHER Treading water during water polo practice, freshman Andrew Lin shoots on his brother, junior George Lin.
MATTHEW CONLEY PHOTO
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eddy, this baseball camp isn’t a gift; it’s a loan, I expect you to pay me back, my father told me right before I boarded the plane to a two-week, all-inclusive baseball camp in Florida. It was expensive to say the least, but in my thirteen-year-old mind, I told myself I would be able to pay my dad back once I made it to the big leagues. Of course, my father never actually expected me to pay him back. He understood how hard it was to make a career in baseball and knew how exceptional a player had to be to make it past high school. He knew I would never pay him back, yet he paid for me to go to Florida just so I could be happy. I hadn’t thought about Florida or paying my dad back till recently, when I was in the workout room and I overheard a coach telling an athlete, “Your only goal in life should be to pay back your parents.”
MATT MAHOWALD PHOTO
Owing everything to our parents
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I’m completely convinced our guys will rise as high as their talents indicate. We will go as far as our talent will take us, and we’ll go a little further based on how good our heart is. Page 22
CORBIN WALP PHOTO
SPORTS AROUND CAMPUS
ARNO GOETZ PHOTO
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CHANGE UP
VARSITY GOLF COACH DAVID BAKER
SPORTS
21 IBSC Conference
22 Spring Sports
24 Concessions
23 Winter Sports T H E
M O N E Y
I S S U E
THE REMARKER | 20 FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
S P O R T S
D O N O R S
THE MEN WHO SHAPED
OUR
SPORTS High school sports are nothing without facilities. And here, the facilities come from alumni and parents who felt the need to give back to the school that shaped them and their sons — Mike Mullen ‘68, Mike Ruff ‘93 and Dr. Roby Mize Sr. are just some of the men who helped to build the sports program.
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BACK AT HOME Retuning to the fitness center that bears his name, Mike Mullen ‘68 comes back to make sure the equipment in the weight room is in good shape and to talk to each team’s coach in order to make sure they do not need anything.
he impact the school’s had on my life — the great memories, the relationships the friends — just the affiliation with the school. People look at a résumé and see St. Mark’s School of Texas and it says something that goes way beyond other schools. When I came back, I wanted to put my stamp on the school Mike Mullen ’68 was never the best student. He maintained a C average in high school, but he always had sports. They formed an incredibly important part of his life. More than 30 years after his graduation, he stood alongside Charles Nearburg ’68 and Tom Hicks to donate new sports facilities — including the fitness center that now bears his name. “I looked out there and I said ‘I have a very different history than a lot of you. I struggled to make a C average, and I know there are some of you that are just like I was. But let me tell you this, there is a life after St. Mark’s — and it’s not all about academics.” The gym, the training room, the football stadium, the baseball field — they all have a story. Mullen is one of the many alumni who simply felt the need to give back to support the young men that are in the same place they once were. For Mullen, it all started in high school. “All throughout my career at St. Mark’s, I was an athlete,” Mullen said. “I wanted to work out, and when I got to the Upper School we had to leave campus to work out. We didn’t have any weight facilities at all. They ended up bringing in a universal gym, which was a very Spartan, worn out piece of equipment.” When he came back 30 years later, the same universal machine sat in the back of the locker room. Mullen decided to build a small, portable, metal building behind the locker rooms to serve as a weight room until a new facility was built. “I didn’t want to wait, I wanted to do it then,” Mullen said. “It went like wildfire. Once we had that, all the sports teams started going in and working out as a team, which was really cool. They worked together, they played together, they trained together. There was a lot of camaraderie in the weight room.” And today, when Mullen comes back to the school, he enjoys seeing young men work out who wouldn’t have had the opportunity
in the past. “You’ve got guys in there that would never ever have even known what a weight is,” Mullen said. “It’s something that everyone can be introduced to that can really have an impact on their lives.” ••• r. Roby Mize Sr., however, never attended St. Mark’s. But that didn’t stop him from giving back, and ensuring the safety of future Marksmen by donating the Roby Mize Training Room. In his 37th year as the team doctor, Mize looks back on why he chose to donate. “It was the school itself [that made me want to give],” Mize said. “By 1999, I had already been working with the team for 22 years, and I had developed a passion for St. Mark’s and the athletic program. I simply wanted them to have state of the art training equipment and facilities to work with.” Mize got his start as the school doctor when he volunteered to help then athletic trainer Sandy Donaldson during a football
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TRAINING LEGACY Roby Mize Sr. stands in front of the Mize Training Room, the place hundreds of athletes stream into and out of to heal each day.
game in 1977. A Marksman went down with an injury, and Mize felt the urge to act. After Donaldson gladly brought Mize onto the medical team, Mize developed a passion for the school. “They jumped at this because I was a board certified orthopedic surgeon,” Mize said. “I just fell in love with the job. I had a great relationship with Sandy Donaldson, I had a great relationship with the headmaster, and, of course, I fell in love with St. Mark’s. I would’ve given anything if I could’ve gone to St. Mark’s.” Even after his son, Roby Mize Jr. ’83, graduated, Mize continued his work as team
doctor without monetary compensation. Eventually, former Director of Development Jay McAuley approached Mize about donating. “He [McAuley] got me so enthused over what was happening at the school and the Athletic Department,” Mize said. “I told Jay that if I contributed anything, I wanted to earmark it for the athletic program. I said that we have this great athletic trainer, Doc Browning, and we need to give him a firstclass state of the art facility for him to do his work and me to do my work. So we started talking about a training room. I told him that I wanted it to be state of the art, one of the school’s best.” Eventually, Mize’s enthusiastic passion and hard work for the school culminated in the Roby Mize Training Room built in 1999. Mize wanted to replace the old training room for current athletic trainer Doc Browning and the rest of the medical staff. “We had a training room, but it was just a little hole in the wall,” Mize said. “Doc got to design his own training room. We gave him considerable leeway, so it really has been a good training room. I think that facilitated and allowed him and me to give better care for the athletes. It’s just the spirit of wanting to have the best for the team.” Almost twenty years ago Mize recruited another board certified orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Douglas Turgeon, to join the St. Mark’s medical team. Student athletes and their parents now have a sense of security, knowing they will be taken care of in the event of an emergency. Many parents thank the two team doctors after every game for their presence on the sidelines. Mize gives credit to the rest of the medical team and the athletic program for its success. “We have two board certified orthopedic surgeons, two of the best athletic trainers, in my opinion, in the Metroplex, probably in the state, and that’s Matt [Hjertstedt] and Doc Browning. Plus we have an incredible headmaster who is so supportive of the athletic programs, and we have an outstanding athletic director in Mark Sullivan. We have all that support which makes the job so much easier.” Being one of the team doctors and donating the training room is only one part of the legacy that Dr. Roby Mize Sr. has left. But
his legacy goes even farther than the training room, and he has three grandsons attending St. Mark’s. “I take a tremendous amount of pride in the fact that my grandsons go to St. Mark’s because I know what they’re getting at St. Mark’s. They’re getting the best education available, and I feel very fortunate that they’re able to go to St. Mark’s. It’s a privilege to go to St. Mark’s. I would have given anything if I could’ve gone to St. Mark’s.” ••• or Mike Ruff ‘93, donating the Arthur P. Ruff Baseball Field was about his family’s love for sports. His grandfather played in the industrial baseball leagues of the early 1900s, his father played football at Army and he played sports here and at Rice University.
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HOME PLATE Sitting behind the batters is the sign symbolizing the dedication of Ruff Field.
“In each instance, the athletics often shaped the man just as much as any other aspect of life,” Ruff said. “Teamwork, respect, training, discipline, and faith are all integral to success on the field, and they also translate well to life off the field.” Ruff found baseball to be the best way to bond with his father, Arthur, growing up. “My dad would tell me about how no matter what was going on in their relationship, he could always talk to his dad about baseball,” Ruff said. “That formed a bond that lasted for both of their lives. Thus far, my son has also shown interest in baseball, and I have really enjoyed coaching him, and the other third grade boys on the St. Mark’s third grade baseball team.” And as his son steps out on to the field to play with the rest of his third grade classmates, ruff knows the legacy will live on. “It is a great feeling to carry on a legacy that was a passion of your father and grandfather,” Ruff said, “and so it is a blessing that St. Mark’s has allowed me to extend that on Ruff Field with my own son.”
THE MEN WHO BUILT OUR SPORTS story by Matthew Conley, sports editor, Philip Smart, staff writer, additional reporting by Teddy Edwards, sports editor | photos by Mason Smith, staff photographer, and Matthew Conley, sports editor
THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
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SPORTS I B S C
C O N F E R E N C E
The International Boy’s Schools Coalition conference at the school April 2-4 will present four experts speaking on the place athletics has in secondary schools.
Changing the games Ken Locker
E.M. Swift
Dr. James Sterling
Brodie Merrill
Board certified in sports medicine, Locker is a specialist in concussion and spine-related injuries.
The noted sports author will speak on the values athletes learn by participating in athletics.
The head physician for the 2006 U.S. Olympic Team, Sterling has plenty of experience with sports injuries.
The professional lacrosse player will speak about his experiences with contact sports and concussions.
COMING HERE These four experts in scholastic athletics will be panelists when the International Boys School Coalition presents its conference, “Why we play: Examaming the changing face of sports and boys’ schools in the 21st century” here April 2-4. An opening welcome, student panel and reception will highlight first day activities for the 30-40 schools expected to send representatives.
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riving past the school, there are always kids running on the front field practicing lacrosse, baseball or soccer with their friends. It does not matter if it is early in the morning or late in the afternoon; boys will be out there, trying to improve at their sport. Yet with the stress placed on academics, what role do sports play in boys’ lives? This is one of the many questions to be answered during the International Boy’s Schools Coalition (IBSC) sports conference taking place here April 2-4. The first IBSC meeting based only on sports, the conference is entitled “Why We Play: Examining the Changing Face of Sports at Boys’ Schools in the 21st Century.” The main points of the function
are to discuss the “specialization” that is happening in sports, the health of students who play impact sports and the role sports play in education development. “I talked with some of the guys at IBSC,” Athletic Director Mark Sullivan said, “and with their help, we narrowed it down to two main topics we wanted to establish for this conference: one being how are schools like ours dealing with an increase of pressure on kids to specialize in a sport instead of playing multiple sports throughout the year. Also, you can’t ignore the safety issue particularly with concussions.” The conference will host four speaker — E.M. Swift, Dr. James Sterling, Ken Locker and Brodie Merrill — and a student panel in order to show guests how students
balance their sports with their academics. Sullivan expects that the conference will bring in members from 30 to 40 different schools. “We hope to have 30, maybe even 40 athletic directors, Upper School heads, headmasters and others who are interested in getting together and discussing these specific topics,” Sullivan said. ullivan’s main goal for the conference is to talk to and get ideas from as many different schools as possible. “What I hope for is that we have just good, open, honest, direct dialogue,” Sullivan said. “We are proud of how we do things, and I think other schools are proud of how they do things, but you never really know what you don’t know until you’re sitting
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with other good, thoughtful people and discussing topics just like these.” In addition, Sullivan is looking forward to the student panel. “My experience with the students here is that they are very intelligent and have great ideas,” Sullivan said. “Often times as adults we tend to think we have the answers and we don’t listen to the kids and the kids will blow us away and come up with some way of addressing something or a new perspective that wouldn’t cross our mind as middle aged adults. I also just relish any opportunity to put St. Mark’s kids in front of our peers because I never come away from those experiences without my peers raving about the kinds of kids I get to work with every day.”
Overall, Sullivan is excited for the opportunity to host the conference, and show off the school to his colleagues. “We are looking forward to it,” Sullivan said. “We are excited that IBSC asked us to host it and it will be a great conference.” Title of Conference
Why We Play: Examining the Changing Face of Sports at Boys’ Schools in the 21st Century
Dates
April 2-4
Sponsor
International Boys’ School Coalition
Participants Athletic directors, coaches, trainers, assistant heads of school, deans of faculty
CHANGING THE GAMES story by Teddy Edwards, sports editor | photos used with permission, IBSC.org
New assistant baseball coach Mike Boughton receives rave reviews for the game of baseball. After a shift in the baseball coaching staff left former assistant varsity coach Dennis Kelly in charge of the JV baseball team, head varsity coach Johnny Hunter was in need of an assistant coach. “I was hired back in September,” Boughton said. “I was asking [assistant varsity coach] Sam Carpenter if there were any coaching jobs he knew about that were open and he suggested St. Mark’s. I have
known about St. Mark’s for 20 years and so I was excited.” Hunter is impressed with the impact that Boughton has had on the players in his short time on campus. “He is one of the most positive, upbeat people I’ve ever met,” Hunter said. “So having someone like that on the staff, who generally is in a good mood and is very motivating, is extremely helpful. He has a lot of knowledge about infield skills, his hitting instruction is terrific and I just think he’s a great fit here. And the kids have already really migrated toward him. He’s an excellent, excellent coach.” Boughton has high expectations for the team’s performance in the SPC conference this season. “I think with every player they need repetition,” Boughton said, “a lot of practice over and over because baseball is a game of repetition. But, our pitching is strong so we should be okay.” Beyond the team’s athletic capabilities, Boughton has also thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the school community. “It’s been great,” Boughton said. “We have well-mannered kids, kids that like to work hard and it’s been great so far.” Hunter admires the professional and positive way Boughton approaches the team. “He was welcomed very quickly and I think he gained a lot of respect and trust, especially with our players, just from the first day that we were working out,” Hunter
said. Boughton is also busy earning his teaching certification, adding on to the degree he received in business from Northwood University. He also coaches for the Lewisville-based Premier Prospects, gives private instruction and coaches the Dallas Mustangs club baseball team. While he is a busy man, he appreciates being a part of the school community and looks forward to making an impact. “I love teaching and I think baseball can teach a lot of life lessons,” Boughton said, “and [I hope] to teach them to love the game of baseball. But your education’s always first and you have to balance out both education and athletics as you move forward.”
CORBIN WALP PHOTO
By Davis Marsh staff writer Mike Boughton is all about the love of baseball. From Marcus High School in nearby Flower Mound to the MLB with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Boughton’s life has revolved around his passion for the sport. And now, though his playing career is behind him, Boughton energizes the Lions baseball team with his charisma and zest
COACHING MASTER Despite just taking over as the assistant baseball coach, Boughton has already made a large impact on the team, with a new, aggressive hitting and base-running policy and a positive, player-first attitude.
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THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
SPORTS S P R I N G
Junior Tim Simenc
S P O R T S
Spring forward
Sophomore William Caldwell
Sophomore Will Hardage
Junior Jack O’Neill
Sophomore Cameron Clark
Senior Richard McCants
Junior Luke Hudspeth
Highlighting one aspect from each spring sports team as they work to win SPC
Water Polo Seniors trying to win state in last year
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s a freshman, senior Matt Mahowald did not have any influence over the final score of the game. He watched from the bench as his team lost a very close state championship seven goals to six to Tomball High School. This loss has fueled his desire to win a state championship. With an experienced squad of juniors and seniors, Mahowald believes the water polo team can take the championship if they remain
Baseball Looking to improve last year’s finish
disciplined. “We are going to have to be the most disciplined team in the state and be five or six goals better than any other team,” Mahowald said. “In the past few years we’ve really believed we were the better team in the games we lost but had some bad luck. If we can improve our swimming shape and work on eliminating little mistakes and rely on our training, we think we can achieve that goal.”
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ith the start of the new season the varsity baseball team has many of the same goals as it has had in years past: win games, defeat rivals and qualify for Division I at the SPC tournament in May, with one thing on the mind of about every team member: beating All Saints. After the Saints handed the Lions their worst defeat, an 18-0 rout, head coach Johnny Hunter and his team were left with a bitter taste
in their mouths. “They were one of the top teams in the conference last year, and we didn’t really play well anytime we played against them,” Hunter said. “They pretty much clobbered us.” However, Hunter and senior captain John Caldwell feel the squad is improving. “We’re returning most guys,” Caldwell said. “We should have a good chance to run the tables in the [SPC] North.”
Tennis Underclassmen poised to make team strong
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fter losing both their number two and number three singles players, the tennis team looks to emphasize strong underclassmen performances. “We have three seniors on the team,” head coach Scott Palmer ‘01 said. “I don’t know exactly how the roster is going to shake out, but we’ll probably just have one junior. So it’s a very young team. There were three freshmen who started for us last year who are
now sophomores, and we’re going to count on them this year.” Palmer sees both advantages and disadvantages to having a young team. “Youth is a double-edged sword,” Palmer said. “On the one hand, being a freshman or a sophomore and being asked to contribute to a varsity team, there’s a lot of excitement there, and guys have the chance to rise to the occasion.”
Lacrosse New coach, same expectations
Golf Young guns look to make up for lost seniors
Track Numbers down, athletes working harder
Crew New assistant coach keeps rowers working
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tarting off the season with a 12-3 win at St. Stephens Feb. 21, the Lions look to continue the success they had in recent years including last year’s State Championship. Head Coach Francis Donald ’03, after coaching college lacrosse at Nazareth College in New York, is bringing his college tips to the program. “To be successful, we have to play at a higher pace, a faster pace,” Donald said. “What I need to do as a coach at this level, bring the college pace to our program. If we do that, we will surpass the teams ahead of us.” Captain Kellam Hall and the team have enjoyed being coached by someone who understands the school’s burdens. “Coach Donald is great,” Hall said. “He’s doing a really great job of instilling a hard working attitude in our team and maintaining our integrity in all aspects of life on and off the field.”
ast year’s team had difficulty finding five strong players to make up the varsity team. This year,the team is facing the opposite situation. “I would say the strength of this team is depth, and that is something I haven’t been able to say in a long time,” varsity coach David Baker said. “In fact, I think we will have very strong players at all five spots all throughout the year.” Along with several freshmen, the team returns two players from last year’s team, sophomore Cameron Clark and captain junior Weston Blair. Blair will also be key to helping the freshmen get used to the notion of team golf, as their exposure is very low. “Team golf is different from individual golf,” Blair said. “I need to be a really good leader for the incoming freshman and help them understand team golf more quickly.”
or the upcoming track season, head coach John Turek is focused more on what the sport means to his players rather than the season’s results. This year, the team is down to 40 members from 52 last year. “The spirit of competing and being a part of something bigger than themselves has changed,” Turek said. “In the past, we have found the guys who are willing to balance everything and be a part of something bigger than themselves.” While the numbers are down, senior captain Matthew Brown has never thought about giving up. “Being a part of the team means a lot of responsibility,” Brown said. “All eyes are on us when we’re competing against other SPC schools and that’s what makes the sport so amazing. It’s an honor to be on one of the greatest track teams SPC has seen.”
ed by returning seniors, the crew team hopes to succeed in the new season. Fellow Emmett Gilles is serving his first year as an assistant coach. “It’s been great,” Gilles said. “We’ve got a committed core of guys who want to push forward and make something of their spring season.” Gilles hopes he can add a new dimension to what is already a very strong group of coaches. “We all love him,” senior Cameron Baxley said. “He’s the man. He helps with the team spirit too. He kicks your butt on the erg.” While the off-season workouts helped the team bond, they also significantly improved the team’s overall fitness. “We’ve gotten a lot stronger and in better aerobic shape,” Baxley said. “We’ve done hundreds of thousands of meters on the erg.”
SPRING FORWARD stories by Ford Robinson, campus coordinator and Zachary Naidu, Anvit Reddy and Bradford Beck, staff writers | photos by Matt Mahowald, Marksmen editor, Arno Goetz, Tim O’Meara and Corbin Walp, staff photographers
THE REMARKER | FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2014
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SPORTS
Finishing the job Winter sports teams end SPC weekend with one first and one second place finish
Soccer finishes the season with two straight wins
ALDEN JAMES PHOTO
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RIVALRY Crossing over an ESD basketball player, senior Aidan Dewar prepares to drive to the hoop.
Basketball finishes SPC tournament in sixth place By Richard Jiang staff writer laying with one of its youngest teams yet, the varsity basketball team finished the season with a sixth place finish at the Houston Christian Gymnasium. “It’s kind of rough that we got sixth for the second year in a row,” captain Luke Williams said, “but because we gave it our all, I’m satisfied.” The team played many close games in Houston, including a narrow win over St. Andrew’s by three points and a loss to Episcopal High School by two points. However, Williams believes the team’s weakness all comes down to consistency. “Consistency is what we can most improve on.” Williams said. “We would have a really good game then break down on another and play horribly. If we improved consistency, it would have helped a lot.” However, Williams also saw many positive aspects of the SPC championships,
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including an impressive performance by the underclassmen. “The younger guys played really well, especially for their first SPC tournament.” Williams said. “I remember my first SPC tournament when I was really nervous, but they were very calm and very collected.” Williams also notes that the team focused and achieved many of the goals set in the middle of the season. “I haven’t seen the stats for SPC,” Williams said, “but I definitely think we met many of those goals, especially against St. Andrew’s.” Even though the team did not win an SPC title, Williams is still appreciative of the season and is pleased with the team’s composure in the presence of tough losses. “All the guys on the team played with really good sportsmanship,” Williams said. “They really handled our losses well. You hate to lose but it’s more important to represent the school and be a Marksman.”
scored only 40 goals this year, but I’ve had teams that have scored up to 80 goals a season.” And like any sports coach, Martin knows the team will have to spend more time with the ball if they want another title. “We don’t have the technical ability.” Martin said. “We have the right attitude; we just need more time spent with the soccer ball, more touches.” On the bright side, the Lions had a very formidable defense that consistently pressured other teams. “We were very quick to defend and pressure other teams,” Martin said. “We were helped out by excellent defenders and goalkeeping.” All in all, Martin is very satisfied with the team’s performance throughout the year, especially since the team qualified for division one for the tenth year in a row. “I’m very pleased that our team qualified for division one for the tenth consecutive year,” Martin said. “We have the longest running tenure of any SPC team.”
ALDEN JAMES PHOTO
By Richard Jiang staff writer ith extreme amounts of pressure and a disappointing first game at the SPC tournament, varsity soccer head coach Cory Martin’s team finished fifth at the SPC championships, the best finish a team that lost its first game could have placed. “If you win the first game, the worst you can do is fourth.” Martin said. “If you lose, the best you can do is fifth.” But even though the initial outcome brought disappointment after two straight SPC titles, Martin noticed a significant change in attitude among the younger players. “An hour after the match, there was a lot of relief,” Martin said. “It really took the pressure off the younger players so they could just go out and play.” And play they did. With a new mindset, the team recovered from the initial loss to win the next two games, something that both junior Jack Dayton and Martin attribute to the teams strong mindset. “We did very well as a team even though we lost the first,” Dayton said. “We came out and played hard the next two games.” “We won the final game, which was for fifth place, in the second overtime,” Martin said. “That says a lot about our boys. They battled to the very end. They accounted for themselves really well.” While the team did bounce back from their 1-0 loss to Episcopal High School, Martin sees a few things the team could have improved on. “Our biggest problem is that we couldn’t generate enough goals,” Martin said, “and that responsibility falls on the team to generate the chances to score. We
QUICK THINKING Looking ahead, sophomore Graham Gillespie dribbles the ball upfield.
Swimming breaks school records, wins sixth straight SPC championship crown By Anvit Reddy staff writer hey were exhausted. The four swimmers were completely worn out from the previous events. With an insurmountable point margin, the team had clinched its sixth consecutive SPC title. These swimmers could lighten up and race the last event with ease. But they didn’t. Varsity swimming head coach Mihai Oprea had other plans. “I told them that they had a chance to break the school relay record that has been standing since 1987,” Oprea said. “I told them that they are the guys to do it. Why not finish
BACKSTROKE Swimming backstroke against Ft. Worth Country Day, freshman Jacob Hum breaks through the water.
“I knew that they could do it. I believed it pretty much all season. It was amazing for the coaches to watch them succeed and enjoy the sweet taste of victory and being on the podium.” With a successful environment to help several new swimmers, strong returning swimmers and a record-breaking championship, Oprea is optimistic of their future. “We will have a young and strong team,” Oprea said. “We have great sophomores and a tremendously strong junior class. We also have very good Middle School swimmers who are coming in. The future is great. We have plenty of depth that will help us do our best.”
Wrestling ends season in second place despite lack of numbers By Roby Mize staff writer he Lions wrestling squad took a close second place at SPC, losing to St. John’s with a final score of 158-152.5 in Houston. The team won in the majority of the weight classes they competed in, but did not have the numbers to fill every class, and had to forfeit weight classes they didn’t fill. “We won five of the six matches in the finals,” assistant coach Andrew Farrar said. “We had finalists from 126 through 160. So that’s 126, 132, 138, 145, 152, 160. We just didn’t have the numbers to get it done, but we certainly out-wrestled the rest of the conference. We were missing four weight classes.” St. John’s winning team had a full lineup and was able to compete in every weight class, giving them a huge advantage over the Lions. “Not being able to fill every weight class means we’re losing points by just as much as a pin, which is six points each,” junior Justin Jones said. “When you’re not able to fill every weight class, you can’t really compete for a higher spot, which would give you more points.” Despite their disadvantage, Farrar said that the team did well through contributions from the whole team. “We finished second,” Farrar said, “but we did everything in our power to win. We had freshman Crawford [McCrary] step up. We had Winston [Brewer] come back from a knee surgery and a meniscus surgery
in January to compete at the end of his senior year and record three falls through the tournament. We had a lot of contributions from some of those guys that aren’t always getting headlines.” Although the team will be losing five seniors, junior Jake Holder is confident the team will do well next year. “We will be losing some really great seniors,” Holder said. “Zach [Papin], Winston [Brewer] and Nick Brodsky have put a lot of time and effort into our program, but I think we are going to do great next year. We have solid wrestlers in every grade, and I plan on us taking it all the way next year. We just need to get the job done.”
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a great season and a great meet with a swim that breaks the record?” Oprea’s speech motivated captain Jack Pigott, who was one of the four participants of the 400 freestyle relay. “For Jack, it was his last chance,” Oprea said. “So I told him to stay motivated and hungry and go out in style.” Pigott did just that. In his last swim as a Marksman, Pigott swam one of the fastest times in his career and helped break the SPC record for the 400 freestyle relay. The team also broke the 200 freestyle relay record and the record for most points at SPC. “I was very proud of them,” Oprea said.
IN STANCE Getting ready to take down his opponent, freshman Eli Ware participates in a meet in Spencer Gym.
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HIGHPERFORMANCE
St. Mark’s School of Texas 10600 Preston Road Dallas, Texas, 75230
THE REMARKER
Senior Captain Mac Labhart
PAGE 24
THE BACK SPORTS PAGE THE REMARKER | FRIDAY MARCH 7, 2014
ZUYVA SEVILLA ILLUSTRATION
T H E
M O N E Y
I S S U E
C O N C E S S I O N
S TA N D
feeding
FRENZY
At every home football game they have been there for food when hunger strikes, drinks when thirst strikes and candy when cravings strike. Stocked to the brim, ready for the halftime frenzy, the concession stand and its volunteers will do what it can to help, while making some money for the school on the side. Here’s a breakdown of the money side of the concession stand. After hitting a grand slam in his second game of the year, senior MAC LABHART is poised to help lead the Lions to offensive dominance across the SPC. As team captain and starting first baseman, he commands respect from his teammates as well as his opponents.
THEMENU
Need a quick drink or haven’t eaten all day? Here is a quick view of what the stand has to offer
GATORADE
Running around the field as a photographer can get tiring. So stock up on a couple of Gatorades for your camera bag.
$2.00
ASSORTED CHIPS
Because a good burger is nothing without a good bag of crisps.
$1.00
POPCORN
If watching the Lions tackle their opponents is like a movie to you, some popcorn might catch your eye.
$2.00
SOFT DRINKS
The late Texas summer months can get hot. Actually, most Texas months are hot, so cool down with Dr. P.
THE MAIN COURSE
$1.00
The hot dogs and the burgers are grilled by hands behind the concession stand, just for you. All the food is wrapped in foil to keep it warm until it reaches your hands. Everything is made at home with tender, loving care. Everything. Except the pizza. That’s from Papa John’s.
CANDY
CANDY, CANDY, CANDY. There’s nothing a secondgrader wants more than crazy sugar straws, M&M’s and fruit snacks.
Hot dog: $2.00 Hamburger: $3.00 Pizza slice: $3.00
$1.00
EVERY NIGHT the average nightly the stand
OPENS, GAIN
it starts off with
$2,000 cash, used to give change to customers and serve a base money amount.
for the 2013 fall season:
$3,260.15 All profits go to the Student Council fund for use in their activities.
HIGHEST PROFIT in one night:
$5,667
Collected on Oct. 10, Lower School Spirit Night
LOWEST PROFIT in one night:
$1,007
30 About
volunteers work at the stand in one night
Volunteers include Upper School Student Council members, parents and faculty members.
Collected on Nov. 2, a Saturday evening game FEEDING FRENZY story by Zuyva Sevilla, graphics director | photo by Zuyva Sevilla, graphics director, and Alex Kim, news editor