Honoring Ari & Nancy Preuss By Bim Schauffler ‘74
This year is the final year in the careers of Nancy and Ari Preuss at Sandy Spring Friends School. Their work at SSFS represents a combined 78 years of service, and to many of us, it is difficult to imagine Sandy Spring Friends School without them. For me,
this is a time for us to celebrate the monumental contributions that the two of them have made to our school community, especially to those of us who have been privileged to be their students, colleagues, and friends over the years that they have been here. It has been my fortune to get to know Ari and Nancy in a variety of capacities: as their student, as my mentors and colleagues, as friends, and lastly as a parent of Moyra who is one of Ari’s students in this year’s Morocco class. In the time I have known Ari and Nancy, I have had many different experiences with them and could, perhaps, write a book of anecdotes about their hair-raising adventures both here and afar. But that would not capture the true essence of Ari and Nancy’s life here and their contribution to Sandy Spring Friends School. Their legacy is one of constantly seeking more
captivating, effective, and fun ways in which students can learn. It is a legacy of passion for education that has spawned such institutions and traditions as Intersession, the Myth, the Sophomore Olympics, a dance called “Pata Pata,” and a class that took a succession of students to Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Brazil, Costa Rica, Italy, and Morocco. Theirs is a legacy of guiding the school through changing times and helping it to grow into the uniquely nurturing, respectful, vigorous and rigorous Friends School community that it is today. Though they leave us this year, their legacy is forever present in this place. I will always cherish the wild, exotic, and profound experiences that I have had with Ari and Nancy, but most of all I cherish and will forever hold dear the dance that has illuminated their lives and this place called Sandy Spring Friends School.
Memories and Stories about Ari and Nancy... We received an overwhelming response to our calls for all the memories and stories about Ari and Nancy from alumni and past faculty. Thanks to all who wrote in, and apologies that we were unable to include all of your submissions. Feel free to continue to post your thoughts and memories on the Alumni Facebook Group page! “I was only at SSFS for two years, but I remember Ari and Nancy well. Nancy and I would often pass one another quickly, as we moved throughout the school – both of us working hard and moving fast. On a number of occasions, we realized that neither of slowed down long enough to stop and use the bathroom. We got to the point that when we saw one another we’d say ‘Stop. Right now - and GO!’” ~ Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, former faculty “I was captain of the lacrosse team for the 1994 and 1995 seasons and remember so many things about Ari it is hard to begin. But most interesting are memories from the intersession trip to Turkey in 1994. Nancy and Ari were leading the trip and they were so fearless! We danced Turkish dances on ancient ruins of Ephesus and near the playground of Alexander the Great near the calcium hot spring-covered hills of Pamukkale.” ~ Adam Lane-Basler ‘95 “My funniest Ari memory: Every morning Ari would check the boys dorm for guys trying to skip out of morning Meeting. He always found some slacker. One morning he came into Meeting with a squirming laundry bag over his shoulder, just like a Prussian Santa, and deposited it in the middle of the Meeting floor. Out popped my roommate’s head (Jim Russell) who had decided to crawl into his laundry bag in the closet of our dorm room rather than get up and over to Meeting. It didn’t work!” ~ Dennis Mohatt ‘73 12
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