Alumni Horae Winter 2021-22

A lumni Horae ST. PAUL’S SCHOOL | ISSUE II 21/22

Nostalgia and pride mark the 150th anniversary of crew at St. Paul's School.

Alumni Horae VOL. 101 | ISSUE II 21/22

RECTOR

Kathleen C. Giles EDITOR

Jana F. Brown DESIGNER

Cindy L. Foote EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS

Ian Aldrich Kristin Duisberg Kate Dunlop Debbie Kane Hannah McBride Michael Matros Sarah Pruitt

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Alumni Association ADVISORY BOARD Chair

Brett A. Forrest ’91 Members

David B. Atkinson ’59 David M. Foxley ’02 Jonathan D. Jackson ’09 Diego H. Nuñez ’08

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Incoming Members

Dana R. Goodyear ’94 Elise Loehnen Fissmer ’98 Malcolm Mackay ’59

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KATE DUNLOP / JANA F. BROWN

MATT DE LA PEÑA ’04

150 YEARS OF CREW AT SPS Published by the Trustees of St. Paul’s School

Part I: Drawn to the Pond Since its founding, the SPSBC has Exploring the beginnings of SPS rowing. provided dancers the opportunity to achieve a high level of dance and Part II: The Davis and Morgan Years academics, while experiencing normal Interscholastic crew is launched at SPS. teenage rites of passage.

ON THE COVER FPO enviro logos here

IN A CLASS OF ITS OWN

Fergus Reid ’51 reminisces about crew tradition at St. Paul’s.

PHOTO: Derek Thomson

NEWS AND NOTES

WE NEED YOUR HELP

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Alumni Horae shares stories of the St. Paul’s School community on and off the grounds, and around the world.

Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts about the magazine through an anonymous 10-minute, online survey.

Scsn the QR code to get started.

We appreciate your time.

Thank you!

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Celebrating 50 years of coeducation at St. Paul’s with profiles of Johanna Neilson Boynton ’84, Annie Jacobsen ’85, and Dominique Dodge ’01.

Entrepreneur Max Baron ’17 and partners aim to make the calendaring and events platform Saturn the “first social calendar.”

HER PURPOSE

SPOTLIGHT

UPDATE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS: ALUMNI@SPS.EDU

Do you receive email communications from SPS? If not, you may need to update your address with us or check your spam filter to make sure SPS is identified as a safe sender.

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FROM THE RECTOR

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SPS TODAY

Remembering faculty member Omar Brown.

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MEMORIES

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REVIEWS

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FACETIME

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FORMNOTES

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PROFILE

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PROFILE

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IN MEMORIAM

Sasha Cunningham Anawalt ’74 on the origins of the SPSBC. Risk Forward: Embrace the Unknown and Unlock Your Hidden Genius Victoria Labalme ’83 The Odyssey Translated by J.C. Douglas Marshall, Faculty Emeritus Melinda Wenner Moyer ’97’s new book gets right to the point: How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes: Science-Based Strategies for Better Parenting — from Tots to Teens.

Theo Maehr ’76 saved his home from a 2016 California wildfire.

Through leadership in financial services and devout volunteerism, Lauren McKenna Surzyn ’03 has found her purpose.

OBITUARY POLICY CHANGE Effective with the publication of the Winter 2022 issue, St. Paul’s School will no longer be generating obituaries for alumni or reaching out to families to obtain them. Instead, we will be accepting obituaries written and submitted by family members of the deceased. Those tributes, which should not exceed 400 words in length, will be edited for style and will appear in the next possible issue of Alumni Horae. We will continue to list the names of all deceased alumni in the magazine. Families of the deceased should submit obituaries to alumni@sps.edu.

Resilience and a Sense of Purpose

A

s I write this welcome letter, morning sunshine streams across the southeast façade of the Chapel.

At -2 degrees outside, the ponds have that crisp crust that reflects dazzling daylight against a bright blue sky. The effect is a clear, bright light that I’m sure many remember from frosty winter days here on the grounds.

It is fiercely, bitingly, eye-wateringly beautiful.

As many know, as the new year began, we lost a wonderful young member of our faculty to a sudden illness. The next day, a beloved colleague tragically lost his young adult son. Soon after, another colleague lost a parent — a grief many employees here have sustained during the past 20 months. Against the larger backdrop of human tragedy from this controversial and deadly pandemic, these losses and others tear at the fabric of our community — a community of faith, hope, and love. A community of individuals who seek to live the values of our School Prayer, to be “thoughtful of those less happy than ourselves, and eager to bear the burdens of others.” So we hold onto these recent losses, and other inevitable ones, with care, with patience, with empathy and sympathy, and with resilience.

I think often of the generations of students and faculty who have walked the paths here since 1856, and of the losses this community has sustained in so many wars over the span of those years. What must it have been like to inscribe those young, beloved names onto monuments and memorials here? On any given morning on my way to Chapel, I remind myself of our relative good fortune. I will not be standing at the Rector’s podium announcing the names of those killed far away, members of our com-

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spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

munity who so very recently in the life of the School had sat in the pews and seats around me. While the pandemic has challenged us all, and will continue to do so, it has not challenged us in the totality that previous generations have faced. There is comfort and motivation in that realization — comfort that this pandemic and these difficult losses will be integrated into our human experience and motivation to make sure we are not the generation or the School that fails in its response to such challenges.

In several recent webinars and Zoom meetings, I have been struck over and over again by what it means to our alumni to belong to the SPS community, the ways in which their time spent as students here can imbue a confidence and camaraderie that extend throughout one’s life and, indeed, motivate one to serve the greater good, as well as build a good life for one’s self. At the beginning of this new year and at a time of considerable social turmoil, now might be an important time to renew those connections and that sense of purpose. As one alum put it, the SPS community is a group of people who share the same training, both intellectual and moral, and build upon that training to serve the greater good. Even in my short time at St. Paul’s School, I have come to know so many graduates who heed that call to service — on the world stage, in state and local capacities, and in their own neighborhoods. As we grapple with the profound in so many ways, now is the time for our confidence, connection, and sense of purpose to show their collective strength. I hope, however, and with whatever means you can muster, you will exercise your strength to push the good around you and to bring your light — perhaps remembering the clear, bright light of a winter morning at the School — to the people and purposes in your life today.

Warmly,

MICHAEL SEAMANS

FROM THE RECTOR

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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SPS TODAY

MICHAEL SEAMANS

Remembering Omar Brown SPS community mourns the loss of beloved humanities teacher.

KRISTIN DUISBERG

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hen Omar Brown was interviewing for a teach ing position at St. Paul’s School in 2019, he

made a request of the Rev. Michael Spencer that the vice rector for faculty had never received from a job applicant. It was the end of the interview, and the two men were speaking by telephone. “He asked if he could pray with me,” Spencer recalls.

It was the first glimpse Spencer would have of Brown’s deep faith, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Brown was hired to teach humanities and, very quickly, Spencer recalls, “his larger-than-life laugh echoed down the halls of the Schoolhouse, where he taught every day. That laughter and that joy were larger than life because they were fed by a deep reservoir of faith. When I needed to pray with someone, I would often go to Omar.”

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spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

During an employee Chapel service held to honor Brown, 31, following his death on Jan. 4 from a sudden illness, Rector Kathy Giles described him as someone who “pursued wisdom and understanding in the context of being a robust intellectual of deep and abiding curiosity and faith.” Recalling the many profound and wide-ranging conversations she and Brown had shared during his time at SPS, she added, “Perhaps so much of his good energy came, in part, from the ways he reconciled curiosity, intellect, and faith. These huge questions, the apparent and tragic flaws in our world, were not irresolvable conflicts for him. Rather, he seemed to me to be willing to regard what today seem truly like mysteries with an unblinking focus, an unwavering courage, and an open, questing, accepting heart.”

MICHAEL SEAMANS

The impact of Brown’s life — and his loss — has been and music at Amherst College in 2013 and his master’s in deeply felt by many at the School. Faculty and staff theological studies at Boston University in 2016. It was at members gathered in the Chapel on the morning of B.U. that SPS Teacher of Humanities and Chaplain Sam Jan. 5 to share reflections and honor Brown’s memory; a Lovett met Brown, who was a year ahead of him in the separate Chapel gathering for students, just returning divinity program. from their winter break, was held later that evening. As “I remember Omar as a serious student who was the Winter Term resumed, trauma counseling and other also seriously lighthearted and caring,” Lovett says. “He supports for students and employees would ask me how I was doing, and continued to be made available.

I would answer with something about “Omar’s presence a course reading or assignment. He Noting that Brown frequently spoke among us is a would ask the same question again: of his desire to work toward making ‘How are you doing?’ It was a gentle SPS a “Beloved Community” — a big reason why invitation to go deeper.” place where diversity of perspectives our community is is honored, affirmed, and included — Lovett says it was “happy serenas strong as it is.

SPS Teacher of Physics and Astronomy dipity” to reunite with Brown at SPS Rick Pacelli observes, “Omar’s presin 2020 as members of the same His influence seeped ence among us is a big reason why our humanities team and describes him into so many aspects community is as strong as it is. His as an amazing teacher who was wellof community life here, influence seeped into so many aspects loved by his students. “He had the of community life here, perhaps more ability to look beyond a syllabus, to perhaps more than than any person I know.” read a room of students, and to care any person I know.” for them as people,” he says.

Brown grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, in a household of educators, adminDuring his time at SPS, Brown istrators, and teachers. He was raised alongside sisters taught Humanities V, a required class for Fifth Form Nicole and Janelle by parents Omar Brown, Sr. and students; Contemporary Black Literature; Religion, Race Claudette Crawford-Brown. After attending Jesuit high and Gender; Contemporary Ethics; and Economic Theory school in Jamaica, Brown completed his B.A. in sociology and Practice. As a teacher and adviser, students say, it’s hard to quantify Brown’s influence. One of his advisees credits Brown with helping him through a rough patch his Fifth Form year. “I could go on for hours saying what Mr. Brown meant to me but, for simplicity’s sake, I can’t describe him as anything other than the embodiment of compassion and empathy.”

In addition to teaching and advising, Brown served on the SPS Faculty Leadership Committee and co-chaired the Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council. He lived in Simpson House with his wife, Jessica.

In tributes to Brown on the SPS website, community members have shared their memories of his warmth and kindness, sense of humor, and ever-present smile.

“He inspired me every single day with his capacity for optimism and love,” Teacher of Biology and Chemistry Sarah Boylan says. “The impact of his loss is tremendous, but I know he has inspired many to dream, including me.”

Omar Brown was a beloved teacher and colleague, who was guided by his deep faith.

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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SPS TODAY

The Great Debater Abbey Xu ’22 is one of 10 members of the USA Debate Team.

KATE DUNLOP

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MICHAEL SEAMANS

hen Abbey Xu ’22 came home one day from The pandemic moved subsequent debates online,

her Shanghai middle school and shared that but the shift hasn’t deterred Xu. In 2021, she represented

she’d gotten in trouble for talking during class USA Debate at the Macau Online WS Debate Champion— again — her parents had an idea: If she had so much to ships, placing 13th overall and third in her division as say, why not start training in speech and debate? an individual speaker. She also was a semifinalist at the Now, Xu is one of 10 members of the USA Debate 2021 NSDA Nationals, the Winter Holiday Open, and the Team for the National Speech and Harvard College WS Invitational and Debate Association (NSDA) and one won in the WS division at Harvard“Debate can be for of only five students who have been Westlake, the Stanford Invitational, anybody. Don’t be three-year members. With the NSDA, and the Greenhill Fall Classic. intimidated. It’s important Xu competes in the World Schools Xu credits debate, its demand for (WS) style of debating, in which quick thinking and speaking, with that we all feel a three-person team has up to an improving her writing, boosting her confident in what we’re hour to prepare three eight-minute confidence, keeping her informed thinking and saying.” speeches and a four-minute concluabout current events, and increasing sion. It’s a format, Xu says, that tests her participation in class discussions. the team’s knowledge, strategy, and instinct. As a Third It helps outside the classroom, too.

Former, she was a finalist at the 2019 NSDA Nationals in “I’m involved with the diversity, equity, and inclusion Dallas, debating inmates’ right to vote before an audience (DEI) work at St Paul’s as chair of the Student DEI Council of 2,000. and head of the Justice and Social Equality for Asians Club,” says Xu, who also serves as co-captain of the SPS Parliamentary Debate team. “I have to speak on behalf of our communities and to the School, and debate has given me the confidence to do that.”

The best thing about debate for Xu, though, is the people.

She enjoys listening to a wide variety of perspectives from those she meets around the world.

“It’s opened me up to so many issues,” she says. “We might debate foreign policy or economics, but often it’s about social issues and niche situations.”

Xu plans to study humanities in college and hopes that her school will have a strong debating society. In the meantime, she’ll keep working to expand access to make debate equitable and inclusive, as she did last summer with the nonprofit Project Dialogue, where she helped to coach students of color.

“Debate can be for anybody,” she says. “Don’t be intimidated. It’s important that we all feel confident in what we’re thinking and saying.”

Abbey Xu ’22 discovered debate when she was in middle school.

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MICHAEL SEAMANS

Five Questions with Scott Reynolds Longtime biology and chemistry teacher is the School’s own bat man.

As a teenager, Scott Reynolds would regularly pass by St. Paul’s School on his way to Concord High School, never imagining the campus would one day be his home of 21 years and counting. The James W. Kinnear and Mary Tullis Kinnear Master of Science Chair says that among the things that keep him here are the students, who are as grounded as they are gifted; a great community of colleagues; and the opportunity to spend his summers pursuing his passion through an active research program focused on the population and conservation biology of bats. Reynolds holds a B.S. from McGill University and a Ph.D. from Boston University. He spoke with Kristin Duisberg.

Why bats?

The short answer is because I couldn’t study sea turtles. Coming out of undergrad, I wanted to study sea turtles, but I couldn’t find a graduate school I was happy with. In organismal biology, it’s really a question of who you study with, not necessarily what organism you study. I looked at B.U., and there was a really well-respected bat biologist there who was also a super nice guy, and if you wanted to work with him, you were going to work with bats.

I got obsessed with them quickly.

Obsessed? What is it about bats that you find so engaging?

Bats live in the extreme. They’re the secondmost abundant mammal — there’s more than a thousand species out there — and these tiny females, 35 or 40 grams, produce their offspring in an environment that’s on the edge of viability. They hibernate for seven

months, they don’t eat, and then they produce one to two offspring in a five-month window.

Nobody does it like they do. The reproductive energetics are fascinating.

Has that been the focus of your research, reproductive energetics?

That’s where I started, working at a long-term site, building relationships with the bats and the landowners. More recently, I’ve studied the impact of wind power development on bat populations, and also white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that’s wiped out huge bat populations.

You’re not just teaching, you’re also coaching advising, and doing dorm duty. How do you balance all that with your research?

All the activity for my first projects took place over the summer, and that’s why it worked. It got more complicated when I started getting

involved in the wind energy industry, because the big issue [wind-turbine-related deaths during migration] takes place in fall and spring. So, I ended up developing systems that were automated. I’d spend my summer installing acoustic equipment, it would collect the data for me all fall and spring, and I’d spend my quiet times — winter and summer breaks — analyzing everything.

Do you ever wonder why you’re not doing this at a university, where balancing teaching and research is the norm?

I love doing it at this level. And I don’t want to do it Monday through Friday. I love the transition, love doing something very different in the summer. I love that it’s physical and hands-on work…. I’m still a blue-collar kid and the first in my family to ever get a college degree. Building stuff, playing with stuff, is what motivates me and stimulates me. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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SPS TODAY

A Friend to All Each year, Donald “Bucky” Lucier sends greetings to SPS staff and faculty members.

KATE DUNLOP

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recognized with the 2002 Toland Award for “exceptional service by a staff member.”

When the School decided to contract its dining services to an outside partner, Lucier transferred to Facilities so he could remain an SPS employee. Now, he is the custodian in Armour House, a boys dorm. He enjoys spending more time with students, hearing their stories, and — upon request — sharing a few of his own about what their parents were like when they attended SPS. “I walk in every day and do the best I can for them,” Lucier says. “We respect each other. I have so much love for the School and everyone in it. This is the only place I’ve ever wanted to be, and I ask God to give me the strength to continue to work for as long as I can.”

While Lucier has no immediate plans to retire, strength is something he seeks as his “other half ” struggles with a serious illness. He finds it in his golden retriever, Lily, and he finds it in the love that’s come back to him in the notes sent by those who respond to his holiday cards. Nothing gives him as much strength, though, as the community to which he’s devoted his working life.

“All I’ve ever known is this school and the good people in it,” he says, “and I’m grateful for everything. All the happiness I ever needed was right in front of me here.”

BEN FLANDERS

n a big box in the bedroom of Donald “Bucky” Lucier’s Concord home is a collection of cards and notes from colleagues that spans five decades — the length of time that he has worked at St. Paul’s School.

As many cards as there are, though, they represent just a fraction of what Lucier himself has written. Each December since he started working at the School in 1976, he has sent holiday cards to every staff and faculty member — about 300 in 2021 alone.

He sends them, and signs them, with heartfelt love and friendship.

In the early days, he knew everyone on campus by name. He even knew the names of the campus dogs. Now, he takes extra care to make sure he doesn’t miss anyone.

“I think of this community as my family and feel it’s an honor to let everyone know how much I appreciate them,” Lucier says. “I want them to know I’m aware they’re part of this community.”

Lucier grew up in Concord. When he was 16 and looking for a job, his father suggested St. Paul’s School. He landed in dining services and stayed there 43 years, a proud SPS employee who cared for and fed students he watched grow up, return for reunions, and, in many cases, introduce their own children as students. His dedication to the School was

Bucky Lucier has been an employee at St. Paul’s School since 1976.

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spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

Entrepreneurial Teen

MICHAEL SEAMANS

EVAN SMITH/ALTRUI FOUNDATION

Before his 18th birthday, Rahul Kavuru ’22 had created two companies with social missions.

SARAH PRUITT

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rowing up in New Jersey, Rahul Kavuru ’22 was fascinated by stories of business owners and innovators generating buzz in the world.

In seventh grade, he and his friend, Sourish Jasti, launched CompanyRoots, a blog dedicated to the world of startups and nonprofits.

So far, Kavuru, Jasti, and their team have interviewed close to 75 leaders, ranging from Nobel Prize winners in economics and chemistry to entrepreneurs who’ve competed on Shark Tank. In the interviews, they pick their subjects’ brains about their paths to success, the work they’re doing, and advice they would give to the next generation.

From the start, Kavuru was particularly drawn to social entrepreneurs who balanced their business goals with the desire to make a difference.

“They inspired me to view the problems in our world,” he says, “and figure out how to actually tackle them to make real change.”

During the summer of 2019, Kavuru worked in a pharmacy on New York City’s Lower East Side, where one of his tasks was to discard medications that were nearing their expiration date. “I saw how much med-

ication was being wasted on a daily basis, even as millions of patients struggle without the medications they need,” Kavuru recalls.

That same summer, he got a firsthand look at more real-world problems when he traveled to India to help distribute filters to more than 80 schools in need of clean water. Kavuru returned his attention to the ongoing problem of medication waste the following spring, after the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I realized that if there were some sort of business model that could get medications approaching expiry to patients in need,” he explains, “it could actually help manufacturers, because they don’t have to put those medications in their warehouses and spend money destroying them.”

In April 2020, he co-founded the nonprofit Altrui Foundation with his sister, Shreya Kavuru ’21, and Jasti. Since then, Altrui has partnered with generic pharmaceutical manufacturers and nonprofits to distribute more than 100 million units of medication valued in excess of $42 million through its online medical redistribution platform. The foundation also launched an education initiative, which pairs underserved students with mentors in

their first or second year of college to help them navigate the college application process.

As a Sixth Former, Kavuru balances his entrepreneurial obligations with a full roster of academics and activities. In addition to playing tennis and squash, he helps lead the Indian and Hindu Society, Entrepreneur Society, and Missionary Society, and he mentors a local student through the Friends Program.

This fall, Kavuru enhanced his business knowledge through an Independent Study Project working with ERC Eye Care, which provides accessible, affordable services to patients in rural India. Meanwhile, as Altrui’s CEO, he oversees the marketing, outreach, software development, and other efforts of a 20-person all-student team through virtual monthly meetings and an ongoing Slack chat.

“It’s been hard to do at school, especially with classes and tests and activities outside of the school day,” Kavuru says, “but I’m trying to put in as much time as I can. That we’ve actually created this model, and proven that we’re able to help communities in need — that’s really my motivation to continue.”

spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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FALL SPORTS

FALL SPORTS SUMMARY BOYS Varsity Cross Country Football Soccer

37

14

2

GIRLS Varsity Cross Country Field Hockey Soccer Volleyball

16 6 9 11

6 7 4 7

0 3 4 0

42

24

7

79

38

9

BOYS JV Cross Country Football Soccer

5 4 6

4 2 6

0 0 0

15

12

0

GIRLS JV Cross Country Field Hockey Soccer Volleyball

0 11 10 9

2 2 1 4

0 0 2 0

30

9

2

TOTAL JV

45

21

2

GRAND TOTAL

124

59

11

TOTAL Varsity

10

WON LOST TIED 25 5 0 5 2 0 7 7 2

PHOTOS: Michael Seamans

HER PURPOSE

In the 50 years since St. Paul’s School began enrolling girls, more than 3,000 have graduated and gone on to leave their mark on the world, in ways both large and small.

In recognition of this anniversary of coeducation, we honor the SPS girls and women of today — the trailblazers, thrivers, and rising stars whose personal and professional leadership and commitment to others contribute to a greater good.

In the pages of this magazine, we will spotlight some of those stories — the individual journeys of SPS girls and women of different ages, backgrounds, and interests. Each one seeks to define her sense of purpose in her own way and in the context of her own life. Each contributes to a greater good — within her family, a community, industry, or through other pathways. We celebrate each and every story, those that we can fit on the pages here and the many more that exist beyond this framework.

To help us share the impact and inspiration of SPS women and girls this year, nominate yourself or someone in our SPS community for us to consider featuring.

Visit sps.edu/herpurpose.

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Journeys of Empowerment Alumnae in sports share advice and perspective at “Her Purpose” event.

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Johanna Neilson Boynton ’84 and Alie Rusher ’14 take a moment to catch up during the Her Purpose event featuring women in sports.

told a particularly resonant story from her SPS hockey years about beating a previously undefeated rival team on its home ice, ruining that team’s planned post-game cupcake celebration in the process — so, too, did candid reflections on struggle and disappointment.

Marrinan noted that many at SPS would probably be surprised to know she had a passion for the cello, an instrument she’d given up playing seriously so she could focus on running. Rusher spoke about how her Olympic experience didn’t go as she had hoped, in MICHAEL SEAMANS

ohanna Neilson Boynton ’84 played four years of varsity hockey at Harvard and is now the principal owner and board member of the Toronto Six, an Ontario, Canada-based professional women’s ice hockey team. Alie Rusher ’14 was a two-time PAC All-Academic first team honoree as a four-year member of the varsity rowing team at Stanford and represented the United States in the women’s quadruple sculls at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.

Cecilia Marrinan ’20 holds individual and relay records at St. Paul’s School and is a student-athlete at Brown, where she competes in sprint-distance events.

On Nov. 30, these alumnae brought their perspectives as elite athletes to “Her Purpose: To Compete,” the second event in the School’s yearlong celebration of 50 years of coeducation. Co-hosted by Rector Kathy Giles and student-athlete Abbey Xu ’22, the in-person panel discussion took place in the Gates Lounge of the Athletic and Fitness Center.

Some 150 students came to hear the trio reflect on questions that ranged from the role athletics played in their lives and what had a profound impact on their identities as athletes to favorite sports-related memories.

And while tales of improbable victories and moments of triumph figured in — Boynton

MICHAEL SEAMANS

KRISTIN DUISBERG

Students gathered in the Gates Lounge for the first in-person Her Purpose event.

spite of her physical and mental preparation.

“I think the biggest thing I’ve learned as an Olympian is that it’s not all about winning,” Rusher said. “You can make the journey really great and be proud of yourself, and if the results aren’t what you wanted, you can move on with your life in a great way.”

Boynton provided further inspiration as she spoke about what drove her involvement with the business side of women’s athletics.

“My journey is really mission-driven. It’s about women and empowerment and inclusivity that’s embedded in a sport I love,” she explained, noting that while Toronto Six is “a business proposition, for sure,” it’s also about elevating the profile of women’s athletics.

The hourlong panel concluded with each alumna’s reflection on what advice she might give to her SPS self. Rusher spoke about reassuring herself she was doing the right things.

Boynton said she’d consider more the way she made other people feel. Less than two years removed from her time at the School, Marrinan provided a particularly timely perspective to an audience that included former teammates and friends.

“One of the best pieces of advice I could give myself or anyone at St. Paul’s is that you are your own driver and force in the trajectory of your life,” she said. “You have to check yourself.… You are not in something to please your future self or anyone else but yourself.” spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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HER PURPOSE

HER PURPOSE: Exposing Secrets

Writer Annie Jacobsen ’85 opens doors the U.S. government would rather stay locked.

MICHAEL MATROS

B

COURTESY ANNIE JACOBSEN ’85

orn into a “very verbal” family, Annie Jacobsen ’85

knew from early childhood that her purpose was

to be a writer, and she worked hard at the craft.

But, as an adult, pursuing her gift toward marketable short fiction and novels became an increasingly unsustainable goal.

“By my mid-30s I hadn’t made one penny writing fiction,” she explained in a previous interview with Alumni Horae.

Finally, she turned to a professional adviser, who urged her “to stop making stuff up and write about something true.” Jacobsen soon realized one particular truth was lurking behind the public representation of how federal agencies work.

Now, six non-fiction books later, the SPS alumna is widely admired as a dauntless investigator of nationalsecurity issues — and the unlocking of doors that hide intriguing secrets.

Jacobsen’s first book, published in 2011, created a sensation. Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base “shocked even the most devoted conspiracy theorists,” according to a review in Time.

Although many readers’ attention was devoted unsurprisingly to its investigation of UFO-related mysteries,

Annie Jacobsen ’85 on a ride-along over Los Angeles with the U.S. Army in a Blackhawk helicopter.

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spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

the book reported more comprehensively on the Nevada site of secret weapons development.

Five years later, Jacobsen revisited that theme with The Pentagon’s Brain, a Pulitzer Prize finalist that investigated the work of the top-secret Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

But it was her work for 2014’s Project Paperclip, named for the program that secretly brought Nazi scientists to America that, she says, set her on the path to examining the moral conundrums involved in national-security secrecy. While the rocket specialist Wernher von Braun was celebrated for fathering the U.S. space program and his Nazi past was not widely known until after his death, Jacobsen reported how the wartime atrocities of other ex-Nazis have remained hidden.

Jacobsen’s laborious research for each book has included dozens of interviews, with up to 100 hours of speaking with “main protagonists,” as she calls them. Through these subjects, named and anonymous, she reveals the complexities and moral dilemmas involved in decisions of national security. The subtitle of her 2019 book, Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins, rather adeptly indicates the unnerving nature of such reporting.

And though some of Jacobsen’s revelations about the inner workings of their own government may outrage readers, her role as an investigative writer, she says, must be objective. “As a national-security journalist,” she insists, “I don’t drag politics into it.”

Such objectivity allows Jacobsen to gain the trust of her interview subjects. But it helps, she says, “to have developed a true ability to listen, added to caring about other people.”

If there’s one of her books that Jacobsen hopes President Biden might read, it’s her 2020 title, First Platoon, which is a study of the project by the Defense Department “to build the world’s most powerful biometrics database, with the power to identify, monitor, catalogue, and police people all over the world.” In many ways, Jacobsen says, this book is “my most frightening, a cautionary tale.”

Meanwhile, even as other book projects compel her attention, she takes time with slightly more escapist assignments, including writing and producing for the TV thrillers Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and Clarice (a spinoff of Silence of the Lambs).

Pursuing a purpose, a writer can wander multiple avenues. Jacobsen’s paths are sinuous, it seems, and darkly lit.

HER PURPOSE: Creating Goals

Women’s pro hockey franchise ownership fulfills a dream for Johanna Neilson Boynton ’84.

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f you want to gain an understanding of, and appreciation for, the history of women’s hockey in the United States, the story of Johanna Neilson Boynton ’84 is a good place to start.

As a child of the 1970s — and in a sport that offered no organizational structure for female athletes — the Philadelphia-area native scraped together pond or rink time every chance she could. She skated with the sons of family friends and, at one point, her parents even snuck her onto a boys team.

“For me, it was just such a fun and exciting game,” says Boynton, a mother of four who now lives in Concord, Massachusetts, and is the CEO and cofounder of Boynton Brennan Builders. “I liked that it was a fast game and also being the only girl out there — I took a lot of pride in that.”

Boynton’s continued hockey presence became a product of determination and timing. She arrived at St. Paul’s School in the fall of 1980, just as the School was launching a girls hockey program. On a roster stocked with former figure skaters, sisters of hockey-playing brothers, and a few recreational players, Boynton helped solidify the scrappy new program. She eventually was recruited to play at Harvard, where, as a two-time captain, she led her squad to back-to-back Ivy League titles in 1987 and 1988.

Over the last three decades Boynton’s instrumental presence hasn’t diminished. She’s coached at the high school level, served as co-chair of the Friends of Harvard Hockey, helped coordinate the billets for the 2014 U.S. Women’s Olympic Team, and worked closely with USA Hockey to create the Sochi Family Fund, which enabled families of American players to travel to Russia to see their daughters play in the 2014 Winter Games.

A little over two years ago, she took on what may just be her most important role yet when she became principal owner of the Toronto Six, the newest entrant in the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF), a six team all-women’s league established in 2015. In her role, Boynton is the franchise’s guiding force, overseeing staff, funding operations, and building a team aligned with the greater values of a league she and other owners believe can be for women what the National Hockey League is for men.

“I have forever been interested in the growth of the women’s game,” says Boynton, who represents the Six on the PHF board, “so they can be compensated, respected, and treated as equals. The next logical step [for me] was

COURTESY JOHANNA NEILSON BOYNTON ’84

IAN ALDRICH

to grow the professional game. Women should be able to earn a living playing the sport they love; I want to be a leader in making that happen.”

Would the teenage Boynton have believed in such a possibility? She laughs at the idea. “I would have thought it was impossible,” she says. “Even when I was in college, we didn’t have a national championship. We didn’t go to the Olympics until ’98. So to think we now have professional teams is incredible.”

Within that condensed history lies an advantage that people like Boynton and her contemporaries can bring to their sport. Context, perspective — that kind of lineage carries important currency, Boynton adds.

“I’ve always felt a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the opportunities I had,” she says, “and to share that with younger players means something. As someone who had so much less to dream for and achieve in the arena of women’s hockey, I can [now] make a difference in growing this game. This [league] is mission driven — it’s about empowerment and inclusion. It’s about making it a reality that women can play a sport professionally, and make a living doing it.”

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HER PURPOSE

HER PURPOSE: Harmonious Heritage Dominique Dodge ’01 finds joy in participating in the revival of the language tied to the music she loves.

JANA F. BROWN

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RYAN MACDONALD PHOTOGRAPHY

t’s not often that someone discovers their purpose in live performances. The nine-track album was recorded in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Dodge’s second home and the life prior to adulthood.

“I found the harp when I was about 12,” Dominique place where she fell in love with traditional Scottish and Dodge ’01 says, “and I knew immediately when I sat Irish music. The album was a decade in the making and a down with that instrument that this was what I wanted to perfect confluence of Dodge’s respect for the full context of the music she loves. In addition do for the rest of my life.” to the singing and harp playing of Two decades removed from her “In each person, there’s this Dodge, the album features a pergraduation from St. Paul’s School, idea of being a tradition cussive dancer, two fiddlers, and Dodge has returned to her homea group of local Gaelic singers. town of Jackson, New Hampshire, bearer, somebody who Dodge wrote the album’s sleeve where she lives with her partner, contains in their mind notes in Gaelic and then translatErik Koeppel. He is a landscape and in their practice a ed them back into English, a nod painter and leader in the revival of to the language that inspired her the techniques of the Hudson River large body of music or style work. She also researched archival School, while Dodge makes her livor even stories, who is songs with roots in Cape Breton. ing as a performer, recording artist, capable of transmitting that and teacher, maintaining a vibrant “I actually became fluent in online studio that serves a comGaelic as part of that project and, in to younger generations.” munity of more than 60 students. the process, made something I was Together, the couple keeps a flock extremely proud of,” says Dodge, of chickens and grows many of their own vegetables on who also recently learned to play the concertina, a portheir rural homestead. table hexagonal cousin of the accordion. “It’s really sort Just prior to the pandemic, Dodge released an album of a love story for Cape Breton, and I did a tremendous — Cànan nan Teud (“The Language of the Strings”). amount of scholarship on this album in addition to a lot Before everything changed, she had planned a tour of of musicianship.” festivals, house concerts, and halls to share the music in COVID-19 hit soon after the album was launched at the way it was meant to be shared — through a series of Cape Breton’s Celtic Colours International Festival. As it turns out, the pandemic opened up a new world for Dodge’s other passion — teaching. Rather than devoting her time to guiding a handful of local students who were accessible in person, she started offering private and group lessons online and was soon teaching students from New England, New Zealand, Italy and Japan, time zones be damned.

As a student at St. Paul’s, Dodge felt fully supported by the School as the music program paid her Jackson-based harp teacher, Jane Hively, to travel to Concord weekly to continue lessons. When the two determined that an instructor trained in Scottish or Irish music would help Dodge get to the next level in her development, St. Paul’s hired a teacher named Mary Graham to continue Dodge’s musical education.

“St. Paul’s was incredible in finding me teachers and making sure I could continue the thing I loved most,” Dodge says. “It was really important to have that year with Mary before I came into my work at the Royal Scottish

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RYAN MACDONALD PHOTOGRAPHY

Dominique Dodge ’03 found the harp at 12, and it led her on a journey to being a dedicated student of traditional music.

Academy of Music and Drama. If I didn’t have that support and training, I don’t know that I could have gotten into an incredibly competitive degree where there’s only one spot for my instrument — and that spot usually does not go to an American.”

Since earning her B.A. in Scottish music from what is now known as the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Dodge received a 2012 Fulbright Scholarship to go to Ireland to pursue a master’s in Irish music performance at the University of Limerick. Afterward, she spent a few years living on a farm in Cape Breton, honing her musical talent and studying Scottish Gaelic, which inspired Dodge to pursue an additional B.A. through the medium of Gaelic online at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic College on Scotland’s Isle of Skye. She has a 20-year vision that includes both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in the field.

Dodge finds particular joy in participating in the revival of a language spoken by only about 60,000 people. Scottish Gaelic, she says, is inextricably linked with the music to which she has devoted her life. Living among those who not only speak the language, but carry the traditions throughout their lives, has informed Dodge’s own teaching. In addition to sharing the music, she also makes sure her students understand the culture and context from which it arises.

“When you start getting into traditional music of any kind, it is inseparable from not only the instruments of that culture,” she explains, “but also the songs and the storytelling and the history. In each person, there’s this idea of being a tradition bearer, somebody who contains in their mind and in their practice a large body of music or style or even stories, who is capable of transmitting that to younger generations. It’s very important that it doesn’t exist only on the page, but that it exists in a living, breathing human.”

At 12, Dodge found the harp, the instrument that launched her on the path to being a dedicated student of traditional music, sent her to Europe and Canada to discover the roots of her passion, and has resulted in a lifelong devotion to educating herself and others on the traditions of Scottish and Irish music and culture. What she does today extends far beyond her initial affinity for the harp; her purpose continues to evolve and deepen.

“When I was a child and I sat down at the harp,” she says, “it just made perfect sense to me. Today, I consider myself very much a traditional musician who happens to play the harp, rather than the other way around. My priorities are very strongly wanting to see this music and this language and this culture thrive where it exists. I want to see it passed down to multiple generations of people.”

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A CO M M E M O R AT I O N : 1 5 0 18

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PAINTING: L. TALBOT ADAMSON '40.

Y E A R S O F C R E W AT S P S spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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A COMMEMORATION: PART I

This vintage indoor rowing simulator, which still resides in the Halcyon Boathouse, was built in the early 20th century. PHOTO: Michael Seamans 20

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Drawn to the Pond

Exploring the beginnings of rowing at St. Paul’s School.

KATE DUNLOP

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long hoped to make cricket the School’s top athletic pursuit, agreed to satisfy the students’ intrigue and funded the first rowing shell, the Ariel. The boys called themselves the Shattuck crew in honor of the School’s founder.

A decade-plus of rowing on Long Pond amongst themselves, however, left students eager for more opportunities to compete. Once again, they went to Rector Coit. Though he wanted no public notice of any races, he ordered two four-oared boats, divided the School into the Shattuck and Halcyon Boat Clubs, and built a boathouse on Long Pond, just as it became Concord’s official water supply. In the spring of 1871, the Shattuck Boat Club challenged the Halcyon Boat Club to “row a race against time.” They lost, but the tradition of Race Day between the rival boathouses had begun.

For the next 80 years, the Shattucks and Halcyons trained on Long Pond with the sole goal of Race Day glory. Early on, rowers depended on themselves for improvement and gleaned what they could from alumni who returned to share what they’d learned from college coaches. Then, in 1878, Major League Baseball outfielder-turned-gymnasticsinstructor Lester Carrington Dole became the first rowing coach at SPS; his legacy lives on with the annual bestowing SPS ARCHIVES

n 1956, the world watched Tom Charlton ’52 and his Yale teammates row for gold in the eight at the Sum mer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. Charlton was the first of more than a dozen St. Paul’s School graduates to compete in Olympic rowing, and he remains the School’s only gold medalist in the sport. For the St. Paul’s community, his victory capped a century of finding magic in the waters surrounding the School.

St. Paul’s School is built between and around ponds that feed the Turkey River, which flows to the Merrimack and on to the Atlantic. Follow any path on the grounds and eventually you will end up at the water’s edge, a bridge, or a dock. It’s no wonder that as early as July 4, 1857, students organized a race on the Lower School Pond between two rowboats.

From the beginning, rowing at St. Paul’s has been propelled by students’ curiosity and competitiveness and made possible by supportive — even visionary — School leaders. In 1859, Long Pond, two miles from the School, captured the imaginations of a group of students. The 362-acre “crystal sheet of water” seemed an ideal setting to try the sport of crew, which was finding a foothold in U.S. colleges. First Rector Henry Augustus Coit, who

Halcyon crew rowing by the boathouse on Long Pond prior to the move to Turkey Pond. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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SPS ARCHIVES

of the Dole Cup at the Flagpole Ceremony. In 1891, eightoared shells replaced the four-oared shells. The School further invested in the sport by building new boathouses on Long Pond in 1906. These are the boathouses that former Shattuck captain Fergus Reid III ’51 remembers.

“They were really impressive boathouses, architecturally appealing, on either side of the end of Long Pond, which was a beautiful body of water,” Reid recalls.

“Inside, shelves held the long, thin, graceful works of art that were our boats. We’d train every day for at least two hours, maybe three, with the coaches in their motorboats trying to make us better. It was great fun, great exercise, that always led up to Race Day at the end of the year — that’s what kept everybody going.”

By the time Reid and his roommate, Halcyon captain Steve Reynolds ’51, started their Sixth Form year, they were aware of two things: there was more to rowing than competing once a year against the same boys they saw every day, and the New England Interscholastic Regatta (NEIRA) would be held in Worcester, Massachusetts, in May. When they asked their coach, Percy Preston, about participating, he agreed to take the matter to the trustees.

They resisted, fearing interscholastic competition would end the School’s club rowing tradition. But after several months, they came around — with a caveat.

“They finally let us compete, provided we sent our top Shattuck and Halcyon crews, not a St. Paul’s varsity crew,” Reid says. “So, we went together to Worcester. Kent School beat Steve and his Halcyons by two seconds, the Halcyons beat us Shattucks by two seconds, and all the other boats were way behind. We did pretty well, though we’ve always felt St. Paul’s would’ve won if we’d entered one varsity boat. But it was a great adventure.”

A week later, the 1951 Race Day went off at SPS with as much enthusiasm as ever, and the victorious Halcyons received the Dole Cup from Reid’s own father, Fergus Reid, Jr. of the Form of 1919, himself a former Shattuck captain.

Reid’s brother, Will ’52, would continue the family tradition of captaining the Shattucks, but rowing would never be the same at SPS after the spring of 1951, though not in the way the trustees had feared. While the interscholastic competition window was opening for SPS rowers, the door for rowing on Long Pond was closing as the city detected pollution and some residents protested boaters “play[ing] in our drinking water.”

PHOTOS (FROM THE TOP): 1. Shattuck boathouse, date unknown.

2. 1952 SPS Crew. Back: B.T. Sullivan, N. Platt, B. Hamm, J. Sewall, T. Charlton; front: T. Bidwell, G. Schade, W.S. Reid (C), W. Emery.

3. Halcyon barge carrying race winners to the Flagpole Ceremony at Anniversary 1956.

4. Spectators at the first races conducted after the boathouse relocation, circa 1927.

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SPS ARCHIVES

The city’s water board had briefly closed Long Pond when we got out of the shell, we were wet and had to slosh during World War II, a decision overruled by the city back to the dorms to get dry. It wasn’t ideal, but that’s council, but this time, there would be no reprieve. In what we got dealt, and we just made do.”

With the addition of docks and huts for the boats, St. Paul’s: The Life of a New England School, August Heckscher of the Form of 1932 writes that, though the students made do until 1960, when the first levels of the Board of Trade and the majority of local doctors found Long Pond boathouses were moved to the shores of Little no danger of pollution, the city council voted 16-4 to end Turkey Pond and placed 60 feet apart. They were finally connected in their 100th year, 2006, boating and fishing on Long Pond in by a state-of-the-art structure to form April 1952.

“What I remember best today’s Crumpacker Boathouse.

Thanks to the foresight of Fourth By the time the boathouses were Rector Samuel S. Drury, who in is rowing in the fall, brought to campus, the Shattuck the 1930s had urged the School surrounded by those crew had won the 1955 NEIRA to acquire several hundred acres glorious New England championship; Charlton, Reid, and surrounding the shallow, vegetaBidwell had all gone on to Yale; and tion-clogged Big and Little Turkey colors. I remember Charlton had won his gold medal Ponds, the School had some hope of looking around and (Bidwell was on the Olympic boat continuing its rowing tradition. The thinking, ‘Boy, this is really until just before the crew left for transition from one site to the other, Australia, when, he says, he “got though, was compared by Truman unbelievable,’ and it was.” kicked off by a stronger guy”); the Bidwell ’52 as going from the pentSchool had sent its first crew to England to row at the house to the basement.

“As a rowing site, Long Pond was unbelievable, just a Henley Royal Regatta; and the two Turkey Ponds had gorgeous big pond,” says Bidwell, a Shattuck who rowed been united to form a full-length rowing course.

As Interstate 89 took shape, Heckscher writes, state in the last boat on Long Pond and the first on Turkey Pond. “Getting there on the horse-drawn barges was half authorities had been “persuaded to… build a bridge at the fun, and the boathouses were fabulous. And there was the narrow neck of land between Big and Little Turkey. In nobody there except us. What I remember best is rowing return for the donation of land, the bridge was designed in the fall, surrounded by those glorious New England with spans sufficiently wide to permit crews to pass colors. I remember looking around and thinking, ‘Boy, beneath. The School then [dredged and widened] this is really unbelievable,’ and it was. It was a shame we what had been a marshy stream connecting the two ponds.” The enhancements were completed in 1958, in had to leave it.”

There was no choice, however, and the School cut a time for a Race Day that established the current template road to Turkey Pond so students could row on a short, of the event that began in 1871.

More changes would come for the rowing program debris-strewn course.

“Turkey Pond was a bloody mess, there was nothing at SPS, including — again at students’ insistence — the there,” Bidwell recalls. “We brought the shells over from merging of the boathouses into a unified varsity crew Long Pond and I suppose it was historic, being the first in the late 1960s to strengthen the School’s showings at crew on Turkey, but no one was enthused about it, I can NEIRA, and the addition of girls crew in 1972. Stroke by assure you. We waded that first boat into the water and stroke, year by year, School- and alumni-supported stuclimbed in, and boy, was it cold. It was a pretty miserable dents have pulled the SPS rowing program forward from situation for a long time. We didn’t have a boathouse, so pond to pond, across the Atlantic, and beyond. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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A COMMEMORATION: PART II

In his four-decade career, Chip Morgan led SPS crews to 22 New England championships. PHOTO: SPS Archives 24

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The Davis and Morgan Years Interscholastic crew is launched at SPS. JANA F. BROWN

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National Team from 1977 to 1979, “but the spring of 1970 remains special because a boat with a range of experience and skills came together magically and went from a novice-level eight to challenging the first boat in four to five weeks.”

Stone breaks that season down to three key races.

“Against Andover as the third boat, our excited and novice coxswain crossed his rudder lines and steered us into the shore before the bridge. We backed off, restarted, passed Andover, and won. The Wednesday before Worcester, we rowed out on a calm and mist-enshrouded Turkey Pond to race the first boat for the honor of representing the School as the first boat on Quinsigamond. Despite our surprise at the contest, we pushed them to a tight finish.

Three days later at Worcester, we won [the second boat race] by open water in as easy a championship race as one could wish for.”

SPS ARCHIVES

t’s somewhat ironic that, when he thinks back on his 41 years of coaching crew at St. Paul’s School, longtime faculty member Chip Morgan recalls the oarsmen who exceeded expectations in the spring of 1970.

That season was Morgan’s first at St. Paul’s, and the crews were still partially configured under the Shattuck and Halcyon colors. While legendary coach Rich Davis guided the first and second boats, Morgan coached the third and fourth crews. Competition between Morgan’s third boat and Davis’s second was fierce and, just before the New England Interscholastic Rowing Association (NEIRA) Regatta at Worcester, Massachusetts, the third crew defeated the second (and nearly the first as well) and earned the right to represent SPS on Lake Quinsigamond.

“I have been through quite a few rowing seasons,” recalls Gregg Stone ’71, who went on to row in four undefeated boats at Harvard and represent the U.S.

Rich Davis retired in 2003, after 37 years of building the SPS crew program into an interscholastic success. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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FEATURE

| 150 YEARS OF CREW AT SPS

Crew tradition had been solidified at St. Paul’s long before Davis arrived in 1966. When Davis began coaching, crew was still primarily a club sport. In his initial years at St. Paul’s, Davis coached the third and fourth Halcyon club boats and the seventh Shattuck boat. When varsity rowers saw their club counterparts running to the boathouse daily on Davis’s command, they soon followed suit.

The boys varsity first boat captured its first of many Worcester Regattas in 1974, with a Davis-instilled attitude that they should expect to win. “Once that happened,” Davis recalled at his 2003 retirement, “then the expectation was to win every time at Worcester.”

Personal highlights for the coach included 1974, when the three boys boats swept the Worcester Regatta; the first time the boys crew triumphed at the Henley Royal Regatta (1980); winning the nationals with the boys crew in 1995; and the first girls win at Henley Women’s Regatta in 1996 (they also won in 1998 and 2001).

“We were fast due to a mix of talent, hard work, good coaching, and good coxing,” says 2002 Junior National Team rower Alison Crocker ’02, who stroked the girls first boat from 2000 to 2002, “and we fully trusted each other to push to the limit. Those seasons are amazing memories, and I’m so happy to have been part of those boats. [Chip and Rich] both coached for such a long duration and so successfully that I’m sure their ethos still very positively influences crew at SPS, even as things evolve under new coaches.”

Morgan’s coaching numbers are eye-opening as well.

In his four-decade career, he led SPS crews to 22 New England championships at Worcester, including eight first-boat wins. He also was the coach of the 1994 boys crew, which won at Henley. In the Davis-Morgan years, SPS boys crews combined for 14 first boat, 19 second boat, and 13 third boat victories at Worcester, while the girls earned 10 NEIRA championships for each of their three boats. During those four decades, Morgan and Davis

THE BOYS IN THE VINTAGE SPS BOAT

The School loaned a 1938 Pocock eight-oared shell to the production team of the movie adaptation of the bestselling book The Boys in the Boat. PHOTO: MIchael Seamans

In his 2013 book, author Daniel James Brown captured the underdog story of the 1936 U.S. Olympic crew that defied the odds and captured the gold in Berlin during the reign of Adolf Hitler. His nonfiction account, The Boys in the Boat, is now headed for the big screen.

To prepare for filming, Production Designer Kalina Ivanov reached out to St. Paul’s School to ask if the crew program had any shells from the 1930s in its boathouse. As it turns out, the answer was yes. With the help of crew coach Chip Campbell, SPS loaned an eightoared shell to the production team of The Boys in the Boat.

“The boat is a 1938 Pocock eight-oared shell,” Campbell explains. “They picked it 26

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up in early October, and they returned it in early November.”

During its hiatus from New Hampshire, the vintage boat was taken to the Wintech Racing facility in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where a team surveyed the hull and took pictures of structural details for the purpose of creating a replica for the film.

“The 1936 Olympic crew used a similar shell, also built by George Pocock,” Campbell adds, “so our shell is a useful reference point.”

Now in pre-production, the movie version of The Boys in the Boat is set to be directed by George Clooney. It details the inspiring story of the University of Washington men’s eight with coxswain that was not expected to defeat

crews from the East Coast, let alone compete — and capture gold — at the Olympic Games.

SPS boatman Matt Bailey, who maintains the School’s fleet, cleaned up the classic boat for its voyage to Connecticut.

“It’s extremely rare for a school or university to have a shell of this vintage in rowable condition,” Campbell says. “The University of Washington has the shell from the 1936 Olympics in its boathouse, but it’s set up on permanent display, and it’s not accessible for use. We are one of the very few rowing programs in the country that still maintains any wood shells.”

SPS rowing contributions to the film industry are slated to continue in the coming year.

The School is tentatively scheduled to supply two 1972 Pocock shells to the production staff of The Red Rose Crew, a narrative feature that tells the story of the U.S. Women’s National Team eight in 1975 and 1976. For now, Campbell is pleased that St. Paul’s is able to help tell the story of their 1936 predecessors.

“It’s really nice to be able to contribute in a small way to the filming of the movie,” Campbell says. “It’s a great story; it addresses a moment of achievement for these nine athletes, their coaches, their families, and others involved.

It reflects a sustained period of persistent work by many to reach this point. To be able to contribute to this project is an honor.”

JANA F. BROWN

coached 12 Olympians and 36 National Team rowers.

The duo created a consistency that solidified the program in its fledgling years of interscholastic competition as an SPS crew outside of the club system.

Right before Davis arrived, the 1966 Halcyons, coached

by Austin Higgins, became the last crew to win at Worcester in the club configuration. The next year, the NEIRA told St. Paul’s it could no longer send two first boats to the regatta. “That was really the end of an era because St. Paul’s had to decide, okay, are we going to be interscholastic or is this program going to be just dripping with club tradition?” Morgan says. But being interscholastic meant combining two crews for the New England championships that were meant to be separate entities because of the SPS club crew structure.

“I used little pieces of paper,” Morgan recalls, “about 1/2" x 2" with kids’ names and sides (port/starboard) on them and in red [Halcyon] and blue [Shattuck] ink to figure out each day’s practice lineup and not lose sight of which club they were in.”

It was Morgan and Davis who went to then-Athletic Director Bunny Barker in the early 1970s to ask that the School allow them to put together the best rosters, regardless of club affiliation. It also saved Morgan from the annual ritual of trying to even out the ports and starboards between the clubs so that there were even numbers of Halcyons and Shattucks to form two competitive boats for each club on Race Day at Anniversary.

“Before [that conversation],” Morgan recalls, “we had to maintain even numbers of two Halcyon and two Shattuck coxswains, eight Halcyon and eight Shattuck ports, and eight Halcyon and eight Shattuck starboards in the four interscholastic boats.”

That also spared Morgan the same task for tracking club membership in the girls crews when they were established for the 1972 season. After Davis returned from sabbatical in 1990-91, he and Morgan decided that they would alternate duties so that each would coach the boys and girls every other year. That created a consistency of expectations that has endured beyond their own tenures.

It was Davis who, in addition to initiating the pre-practice ritual of rowers running down the dirt path to the boathouse, gathered students at his SPS residence on Sunday nights for tea and Masterpiece Theater. (“It was the event of the week,” says 1988 Olympian Juliet Thompson Hochman ’85.) Meanwhile, Morgan was known for keeping meticulous records that included earliest and latest on-water dates from year to year and times needed for a crew to achieve a certain level based on the performances of past SPS crews.

(Other secrets to the SPS program success were the Graham King-built wooden boats that, despite appearances, were lighter than their more commonly used fiberglass and carbon fiber counterparts, and a full-time boatman who was skilled enough to maintain the shells.)

“The thing that worked was that Rich and I were different in our own ways, but he agreed on an awful lot and

The girls first boat, stroked by Alison Crocker ’02 (second from right), won at Worcester in 2001.

said a lot of the same things when we were on the water,” Morgan says. “At one point, if you made a videotape of practice, and you couldn’t see who was behind the megaphone, we even sounded alike.”

By alternating their coaching assignments, Morgan and Davis also established a sense of gender equity. They insisted that the boys and girls crews alternate boathouses so that each of them had access to the Shattuck headquarters (where the coaches’ offices were located) in equal share. “I think our switching coaching, and which team came out of which boathouse,” Morgan adds, “did an awful lot to disarm some of the inherent hundred years of male chauvinism.”

Many other coaches contributed during that establishing era, among them Gil Birney, Mike Hirschfeld ’85, and Chip Campbell in his first SPS residency (he returned to SPS and is one of the coaches today).

“Rich and Chip created an unquestioned expectation of excellence, not only for rowing, but for everything in their athletes’ lives,” Hochman adds. “Work hard, do the right thing, eat right, follow the rules, get your homework done, be thoughtful, support your teammates, and always get eight hours of sleep. To this day, I believe there is a simple morality in getting into bed by 10 p.m.”

Rowing is a prime example of the ultimate in teamwork — crew members must work in unison, possess equivalent technical and physical ability, and trust one another unconditionally. Technical skill, explains Morgan, is crucial for balancing the boat. Slight imperfections — whether physical or in trust — can force corrections that will slow down the entire boat.

“If you want to find some metaphors for the way Rich and I worked,” Morgan says, “it would be in the trust that we had in each other and each other’s efforts on behalf of the whole program — and in the fun we had doing that.”

Look for PART III: SPS Crew Today in the spring issue. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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In a Class of its Own Since its founding, the SPS dance program has provided talented dancers the opportunity to have it all — to achieve a high level of dance and academics, while experiencing normal teenage rites of passage.

MATT DE LA PEÑA ’04

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MIKE MUNHALL PHOTOGRAPHY

A

young Philip Neal ’86 said “Yes to SPS,” which came as a surprise to his teachers at the School of American Ballet.

Neal, then a teenage standout talent at one of the most prestigious summer training programs in the world, was on his way to achieving his dream of becoming a professional dancer. The history of SAB — the affiliate school of the renowned New York City Ballet, founded in 1934 by choreography pioneer George Balanchine — was long and unmatched. With expectations rising, Neal was about to do the unthinkable.

Philip Neal ’86 chose St. Paul’s School so he could find balance between his pursuit of dance and academics.

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| CLASS OF ITS OWN

“Living in New York was a very different thing than it is now,” Neal recalls. Back then, he says, options were slim for a 15-year-old trying to navigate the Big Apple. “I was at School of American Ballet for the summer, and they asked me to stay. Logistically, my dad was like, ‘You’re not living in a tiny studio apartment with three other people.’

That was a large portion of what it was. [The teachers at SAB] were really surprised I made the choice to leave.”

Neal entered St. Paul’s as a new Fifth Former, and he struggled at first. The fish-out-of-water-existence was a far cry from the daily technique classes that had dominated his life as a student at his hometown studio in Richmond, Virginia, and on the Upper West Side at SAB. He was soon trading hours of ballet for humanities, physics, and mathematics, paired with a less demanding but rigorous training regimen with the St. Paul’s School Ballet Company.

By the time Sixth Form year arrived, Neal found a way to combine the best of both worlds by finishing his senior credits early and taking part in a four-month visiting fellowship program, which allowed him to continue his intensive training at SAB. Neal graduated from St. Paul’s magna cum laude and as a Presidential Scholar of the Arts, a designation bestowed by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. One year later, he signed a contract to dance with New York City Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet. An illustrious 23-year performance career with one of the world’s most renowned dance companies followed, including 17 years as a principal dancer — ballet’s most prestigious rank.

After retiring, he earned the coveted status as repetiteur for both the George Balanchine Trust and the Jerome Robbins Rights Trust, stamps of approval to stage and recreate some of the most famous classical works of the 20th century for ballet companies around the world.

“I’ve applied for many different jobs since I retired from dancing,” Neal says, adding that it’s always nice to throw out that he’s a magna cum laude graduate of St. Paul’s School during an interview. At the same time, he’s also happy to point out that no amount of schooling can prepare you quite like “23 years in New York City Ballet and surviving Jerome Robbins.”

Jokes aside, Neal describes his experience at SPS — something he pursued in tandem with his love of dance — as an anomaly back then. While many of his NYCB peers spent their high school years focused on tendus and pliés, Neal was happily filling his daily schedule with conventional academic credits, without losing sight of the profession that would eventually give him so much, with significant thanks to St. Paul’s and the SPSBC. Speaking with Neal and other members of the SPSBC, past and present, “balance” emerges as a prized theme of the program over the last 50 years.

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MICHAEL SEAMANS

FEATURE

Kate Lydon has been directing the SPSBC since 2018.

FILLING A NICHE

The establishment of the St. Paul’s School Ballet Company dates to the 1970s and the integration of women to the School’s all-male student body in 1971. With the adoption of coeducation, School officials turned their attention to the curriculum. At the time, SPS was shifting its focus from the religious traditions of its founding to a bigger emphasis on the humanities and the arts.

Then-Rector William Oates worked closely with faculty members to expand the School’s offerings. Departments and buildings dedicated to art, music, and dance sprung to life. As the years went on, a growing reputation emerged among prospective students, many of them interested in

alternatives to the conservatory model that emphasizes they also have an intense curiosity [for] and commitment to their academics,” says Courtney Peix-Barros, instructor intensive, specialized training in the arts.

“The dance program and ballet company at St. Paul’s of dance and assistant artistic director of the SPSBC. were a niche that met kids at a higher level, especially those Peix-Barros joined the SPS faculty in 2012, under the who grew up dancing and who really had to make a choice direction of then-director Jennifer Howard ’92. She points about going to high school or joining a company,” says out that the identity of the SPSBC has always been rooted Colin Callahan, head of the Arts Department and director in a type of equilibrium. of Crumpacker Gallery at SPS. “St. Paul’s allowed them to “We aren’t a conservatory,” Peix-Barros continues. “We keep going so they didn’t have to make that decision until don’t have the hours in the studio and we never will. That’s they got to college.” okay. It’s part of what makes us unique — the dancers Callahan, who joined the SPS faculty in 1983, describes work at a high level in the studio while also benefiting the beginnings of the SPSBC. The situation was so unusual, from a rigorous academic experience.” in fact, that the School once hired an adviser to assess the dance program’s academic block schedule. Up to that THE HERE AND NOW point, the School had allocated an ostensibly dispropor- If you look at the list of SPSBC alums, you’ll find many tionate number of hours to the dance studio than the prominent names, including Neal — those who have classroom. Ultimately, the School settled on a compromise; reached the pinnacle of the profession. Even more present the members of the SPSBC would participate in technique are the ones finding ways to do it all, in large part thanks classes as part of their academic block schedule, then to their experience at St. Paul’s. Moeka Ogawa Xu ’20 regroup during the athletics block to is one of those people. A B.A. canfulfill their varsity sport requirement, didate in financial economics and “We aren’t a conservatory. thus putting the modern-day iteradance at Columbia University, Xu We don’t have the tion of the SPSBC into clearer focus. grew up and studied ballet in Shanghai, China. She endured a demanding And there’s no mistaking its effect. hours in the studio and training schedule from morning to Today, under the direction of Artiswe never will. That’s okay. night, often stretching to the wee tic Director and Director of Dance It’s part of what makes us hours of the morning, which left just Kate Lydon, the SPSBC requires an enough time to cram in her math annual audition and is composed of unique — the dancers homework. It verged on crippling. a varied group of 19 members (16 work at a high level Her arrival at St. Paul’s School as a girls and three boys), with size flucin the studio while also new Fifth Former in the fall of 2018 tuating depending on the academic changed everything. year and the number of graduating benefiting from a rigorous Sixth Formers. A typical weekly class “Growing up in China and being academic experience.” schedule mixes with the usual susunder the Chinese/Russian style of pects, from humanities to science to teaching, it was very strict,” Xu says. languages, with company members returning to the dance “I knew all the rules, and I knew how to follow them, building each afternoon for an average of 18 hours per week. but I didn’t know how to express myself, which is what That time consists of just about anything dance-related, St. Paul’s encouraged me to do. I was sacrificing health whether it’s rehearsing the new work of a guest choreo- to balance academics and dance. My mom started grapher or participating in student-led choreography. The researching boarding schools. I wanted to continue dancSPSBC performs four times during the academic year, ing, and St. Paul’s was the one with the best dance program. including an annual presentation of Act II of The Nutcracker. Thankfully, I was accepted.”

The hard work pays off. Graduates of the SPSBC have Like Xu, Audrey Biles ’22 says her “entire life was gone on to The Juilliard School, Columbia University, ballet” from the time she was four years old, up until Harvard University, and the University of Michigan, joining SPS and the Ballet Company as a new Fourth among many other prestigious institutions. Some have Former. Originally from California, Biles moved to Texas gone on to dance professionally for companies such as during her first year of high school to attend the Dallas Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, the Is- Conservatory, the largest private performing arts school raeli company Batsheva, Smuin Contemporary Ballet, in the area. She credits the conservatory for improving and American Repertory Ballet. But whether dancing her technique and giving her a chance to excel during professionally or otherwise, the defining quality of the competitions, but, as she tells it, the normalcy of a tradiSPSBC continues to be a nuanced outlook on the lifestyle tional high school experience was missing. When it came time to make a choice between staying in Dallas for both a high school student and an aspiring dancer.

“Continuing to dance and to pursue high-quality or returning to her home studio to pursue dance, Biles training is very important to the dancers in the BC, and was at a loss. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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“I thought it was the end of my dance career,” she says.

“I didn’t want to come back home and dance at my same studio. I realized that if I went to St. Paul’s, I could dance and still do all the things I wanted to do — be on the newspaper, go to football games, just be a normal person,” says Biles. “I don’t think there’s anywhere else that I could be involved in extracurricular activities because a typical conservatory schedule takes up so much of your time. At St. Paul’s, somehow everything seems to fit.”

SPSBC member Andrew Fleischner ’22 aspires to dance professionally, albeit with the knowledge that it doesn’t have to be a linear journey. Fleischner loves languages, a skill he continues to hone at SPS. In a perfect world, Fleischner, who spent the summer of 2021 at San Francisco Ballet’s summer intensive program, envisions a year or two of college before finding his way to a professional dance company, perhaps overseas, a luxury of possibilities.

“At the same time, it’s also made it difficult because I’m pursuing two things so passionately,” Fleischner says. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my next step. Maybe it’s taking college classes online while I dance. I love learning and school. If I listen to my heart, it’s like, ‘Go for dance, you can always learn later in life.’ It’s a good problem to have.”

“A SCHOOL IN NEW HAMPSHIRE”

It was the spring of 2020, and the text messages came one after the next for Carlos Lopez. The former American Ballet 32

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Theatre dancer and current director of repertoire had recently concluded an interview with the New York Times, written by Chief Dance Critic Gia Kourlas. Lopez figured prominently in the article, an overview of how the dancers at American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet were keeping fit and social during the initial peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lopez happened to be one of the few people providing classes to the company members at ABT while the pandemic raged on.

As the story progressed, a notable line found its way into the narrative: “Mr. Lopez isn’t completely new to the technology,” Kourlas wrote. “He taught a class using Zoom for a school in New Hampshire last year.”

“I mentioned [Kate Lydon], I mentioned St. Paul’s, they just didn’t write the name,” Lopez laments. “You teach on Zoom, and, afterwards, the dancers all post something on Instagram. People I know from San Francisco Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, they’re calling me and asking, ‘What did you use? Can you put the class online?’

I wasn’t going to keep it a secret. When the New York Times called, I told them the first class I used Zoom for was [SPS] and Kate [Lydon].”

Lopez came to SPS by way of his relationship with Lydon and the Visiting Artists Program, established and developed during the tenure of former SPSPC Director Howard and expanded since Lydon took over the job in 2018 (thanks to the generosity of donors). The list of artists reads like a who’s who of modern and contemporary

MELISSA BLACKALL

professionals in the field, among them Lopez; Neal; Deborah Wingert Arkin, former New York City Ballet dancer and current teacher and repetiteur with the George Balanchine Trust; Rosalynde LeBlanc, company artist of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company; and Duncan Cooper, former principal dancer with Dance Theatre of Harlem, among many others.

Lydon was downright prophetic when she invited Lopez to teach for the SPSBC virtually early in the 2019-20 academic year, months before the COVID-19 pandemic turned Zoom into a household name. And it was perhaps a glimpse at the future of dance more broadly, something of which Lydon has been keenly aware before and since her arrival at St. Paul’s.

“With Zoom, we can bring in lecturers and visiting artists who may not be able to travel here otherwise,” says Lydon, who, if you read the Times, was at the forefront of the Zoom phenomenon. “It’s extraordinary to be able to bring in a teacher from Paris, let’s say, who could never fly over here just to do a class with the students.”

Cultivating those relationships has been a key for Lydon, along with the department’s commitment to diversifying the program. She’s also tapping into the feeling so predominant among a younger generation of dancers, the ones harnessing the power of Instagram and TikTok to spur their careers. Stars such as American Ballet Theatre’s Misty Copeland (1.8 million Instagram followers and counting), Isabella Boylston (552,000 Instagram followers),

and James Whiteside (359,000 followers) have reached genuine influencer status, replete with book deals and clothing sponsorships. The Russian-born dancer Daniil Simkin is dipping his toes into an online venture called Dance Masterclass, a paid online learning tool that teaches aspiring dancers how to — among other tips — perfect pirouettes and turns. The list goes on. For its own part, the SPSBC has its own dedicated Instagram account and Facebook page.

None of those things are lost on Lydon or the SPSBC, even if there’s a fine line between the power of tech and cultivating a healthy lifestyle among the student body. As the program becomes more visible, so does interest. The magic of the SPSBC, however, lies in the fundamental principles that forged the basis of the group in its beginnings.

“The beauty of doing ballet at St. Paul’s,” Lydon says, “is the sense of community among the dancers and the level at which they practice and perform. They’re pushing themselves and learning so much every day, but they’re really good at ballet so their daily practice can be like a meditation. I want the dancers to take all that with them beyond SPS, knowing they have accomplished so much and loved their time here. That is what I hope the most.”

Matt de la Peña ’04 is the director of communications at The Joffrey Ballet in Chicago. His mother, Rebecca Wright, a former dancer with American Ballet Theatre and the Joffrey, served as director of the SPSBC from 2001 to 2004. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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MEMORIES

From the Archives The following article by Sasha Cunningham Anawalt ’74 appeared in the Spring 1997 issue of Alumni Horae. It has been edited for length.

SPS ARCHIVES

Francis (Dick) Cunningham, Jr., my father, was a memIn the year since his conversation with Mr. Clark, my ber of the Form of 1949. So was Alexander Ewing ’49. father had concluded that dance was the “natural link They were instrumental in the creation of the now- between athletics and arts.” He addressed the SPS parlegendary ballet program at St. Paul’s School. ents, proposing that the School start teaching ballet to It is not a history that I had ever heard spelled out the all-boy student body. Ballet would be the first step in factual terms or recalled with anecdotal detail by in cultivating a more vital, relevant, and accessible arts my father until Alumni Horae asked me to write this curriculum, he said. piece about how I came to write my book, The Joffrey Rector Matthew M. Warren, eager to help my father Ballet: Robert Joffrey and the Making test his dance theory, sent him to of an American Dance Company. meet with alumnus Alex Ewing, the In the words of In some respects, the two tales are general director of the City Center The Pelican critic: intertwined.

Joffrey Ballet. In October 1968, Ewing brought four Joffrey Ballet memThe one about St. Paul’s begins “Something happened bers, accompanied by choreographer in 1966, when math teacher Ronald when the Joffrey Gerald Arpino, to the School as part Clark approached my father about arrived . . . a change of of the Conroy Lecture series. The helping the School’s art program.

School attended a performance and “Art hasn’t much place at St. Paul’s,” mood had come with it. two lecture demonstrations, during my father responded. Mr. Clark The whole atmosphere which some SPS students were chocountered, arguing that the point of the School sen to dance in Arpino’s parable of was not to produce professional nuclear holocaust, The Clowns. painters out of the student body, but was more honest to expose the students to the process.

The climax of the Joffrey visit, and intelligent.”

In Mr. Clark’s words, “To make them however, took place on a Friday aware that the subject exists.” evening when the four dancers, led “I re-thought the question, and I realized I was on the by Maximiliano Zomosa, performed a program that wrong side,” said my father, who agreed to speak on the included Kurt Jooss’s harrowing satire on war, The Green Table. Their performance so transfixed the students and subject the next year at Parents Day. By 1967, my parents were going to the ballet at least faculty that the Rector canceled all Saturday classes. three times a week. They became audience fixtures during The Joffrey worked magic on men and women who the dance boom and, to some extent, participants. My never thought in their wildest dreams they would ever mother wrote about dance and my father started painting find themselves watching ballet, much less liking it. And, life-sized figures. I was taking ballet several times a week if it had to come down to one specific ballet, which more and entertaining serious career thoughts. than any other produced converts, it would have to be The Green Table. The SPS audience not only saw excerpts from this 1932 masterpiece, but it witnessed Zomosa — human bones marked on his body, feet inexorably stomping, and hand mowing down victims with an invisible scythe — in the part of Death.

“Zomosa’s so cool, man, I mean so cool!” a student told Margo Miller, dance critic for the Boston Globe.

With the Vietnam War raging, Zomosa’s solos may have struck the deepest chord, but the student body also seemed ushered to heaven by the two Joffrey women, Erika Goodman and Rebecca Wright (Editor’s note: Rebecca Wright returned to St. Paul’s and directed the SPS Ballet Company from 2001 to 2004). When one student asked, “Could we form a ballet company within the School?” and Wright 34

Former Joffrey Ballet dancer Rebecca Wright (front left) returned to St. Paul’s to direct the SPSBC. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

answered, “Yes, but you’d have to import girls,” the cheers and applause that rang out did not go unnoticed.

“After this glorious splash, what should we do to follow it up?” asked the Rector.

Thanks to Mr. Ewing, things at the School changed forever. In the words of The Pelican critic: “Something happened when the Joffrey arrived . . . a change of mood had come with it. The whole atmosphere of the School was more honest and intelligent.”

My father, by this time, was putting together the “Primitive to Picasso: St. Paul’s Alumni Collects” benefit art exhibition and was in constant touch with Mr. Oates, vice rector. He reminded Mr. Oates that there was precedent in this country for male dancers. Ted Shawn and his all-male company had traversed America in the late 1930s, performing with the express purpose of destroying public prejudice against men dancing.

When Barton Mumaw, Shawn’s former leading dancer, wrote Rev. Warren saying something to the effect that, “It is our human heritage to breathe and walk and run and fall. It should be taught,” both Rev. Warren and Mr. Oates were convinced. They hired Billy Wilson, an accomplished dancer and choreographer, to teach.

By the time I arrived in 1971, Rochelle Zide was newly installed as the sole teacher. Her métier was classical ballet; she had been with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Robert Joffrey Ballet in the early years. Girls had arrived at SPS. There may have been one boy in our ballet class.

The vision for dance at the School had, in some respects, radically changed. But, significantly, the original concept of offering dance to expose students to the arts, to make them aware — as opposed to producing professionals — was still at the center.

By 1993, SPS had an official ballet company. It can boast — and should boast about — the many professional dancers that have come out of the School, an incredible feat begun by Zide’s successor, beginning in 1974.

I’d like to think these are the consequences of aiming for excellence. I know the essential value of dance at the School for most of us was it kept body, soul, and mind in balance. It taught physics. It made us aware of the tremendous discipline it takes to be an artist. On the best days, it gave meaning to the familiar words of Saint Paul, who said, “Look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.”

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REVIEWS

The translation of a 3,000-year-old epic poem of nearly 135,000 words takes more than professional dedication.

I never presumed The Odyssey needed another translation. After all, there are as many as 60 translations into the English language alone.

But it was my friend Alan Scribner who suggested it to me, and when I asked him why, he said, ‘Well, it can be your translation.’ I launched into it in 2019 and it took me the better part of two years to complete. It also took a muse, and my muse was the idea of engaging in a conversation with my grandson, William, now 7, when he is in midlife and I won’t be around. That’s what inspired me.

THE ODYSSEY Translated by J.C. Douglas Marshall, Faculty Emeritus Kindle Direct Publishing, 347 pages

J.C. Douglas Marshall taught classics at St. Paul’s School from 1975 to 2002.

He began his own translation of The Odyssey more than two years ago, inspired by his young grandson. Marshall is also the author of Things Temporal and Things Eternal: The Life of George Cheyne Shattuck, Jr. He spoke with David Atkinson ’59 about his latest work.

And why The Odyssey?

I’m an ‘Odyssey man.’ The Odyssey speaks to me in so many fundamental ways.

Literal translations rarely work, if ever.

To quote Emily Wilson in the New York Times about her own translation of The Odyssey, she says, ‘The fact that it’s possible to translate the same lines a hundred different times and all of them are defensible in entirely different ways? That tells you something.’ How did you face that issue in your own translation?

Well, the language is the clay. The clay is the given, you can’t change its composition — it’s how you shape the clay that’s the challenge and it’s what is so humbling about this work.

To take just one example, Alexander Pope’s 1726 translation of The Odyssey was pure genius, what Samuel Johnson called ‘a performance no age or nation could hope to equal.’

Wilson’s reflection means there’s plenty of room for other translations, including yours.

As I say, it’s a daunting challenge. And remember that translations are always aimed at a certain type of literacy, and that literacy continues to change over time.

J. C. Douglas Marshall 36

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Was there a section of the book where the translation was particularly challenging?

I found the description of the palace of King Alcinous and its gardens very tough. The vocabulary is obscure and it was hard to imagine things in relation to each other. Why is yarn ‘like leaves of a tall black poplar?’

Where are those two springs in relation to each other?

What was your process in selecting your words and phrasing?

Any translation will necessarily be locked into the idioms of its time. How I wish I could sit in the smoky hall of an Iron Age grandee and listen to a bard sing the tale! I tried to avoid being colloquial and keep in mind that I was dealing with a majestic yet very simple story.

Is there a passage that you are particularly proud of? Why? It would be hubristic of me to say that I’m proud of any one passage, but the Cyclops episode with its violence, gore, and ingenious escape was probably the most fun.

RISK FORWARD: EMBRACE THE UNKNOWN AND UNLOCK YOUR HIDDEN GENIUS Victoria Labalme ’83 Hay House Business, 176 pages Reviewed by Hannah MacBride Risk Forward is not the standard self-help book for professionals. Victoria Labalme ’83 approaches her career guidebook in a different way, offering a “circle of content” instead of a table of contents, with section titles such as “Embrace the Fog” and “Try New Angles” that can be revisited as desired. Labalme’s goal in taking on this project was to write a guidebook for all of us who don’t yet know what we want to achieve, for those who might be lost or uninspired by the path we are on.

ON THE BOOKSHELF

Victoria Labalme ’83

The author is a successful businesswoman and speaker from New York City. In a universal approach, she shares case studies from her own life to test her theories. She prompts the reader through a series of questions: What interests you now? What lights you up? What stops time for you? Follow that curiosity and excitement, Labalme instructs, regardless of what others might think. If you are following your “Crimson Star,” you are on the right path.

Through that series of questions and accompanying activities, Labalme sets out to help her readers cast aside society’s expectations and embrace their inner guiding light. She begins by asking her readers to imagine their best deathbed advice for a young person.

There’s a twist, though — the advice we would give should act as our own guiding principle.

Next, Labalme poses four questions about the reader’s interests, passions, and aversions. The answers to these questions should lead to a series of ideas, and Labalme walks her readers through the development and evolution of these thoughts, offering advice on dealing with self-doubt and vulnerability. She identifies five destructive myths — purpose, goals, focus, followers, and speed — that can derail the train, and offers tips for focusing on the individual journey.

Labalme’s work feels fresh and exciting because the message veers from the advice we hear from society. We are constantly told we need to know what we want, set our goals, and plow forward, avoiding all distraction until we achieve our aims. Labalme confronts the assumption that we must know our path before we walk it. Start in the fog, she advises.

Be patient and openminded, allow surprising and seemingly contradictory ideas to marinate. In other words, sit with the discomfort of not knowing. In this state, you are open to the spark of creativity and purpose. The spark — that “Crimson Star” — should act as your guide because it comes from within, unfettered by the outside world.

TOGO Being Human Philip Heckscher ’62 Seapoint Books, 2021 The author and his friend set off from tiny Togo to cross West Africa. Here is their account of the kaleidoscopic, neon-lit streets of Lagos, the timeless serenity of Togolese village, consultations with fetish priests, attendance at the mammoth Soul-to-Soul concert in Accra, and at a different kind of up-country show by a traditional minstrel. To see the mighty mosque of Djenné, they cross the Sahel, where Tuaregs offer tea and the travelers glimpse the awesome spiritual world of the Dogon. They experience hard seats and short rations on overland trucks, trains, and a dugout canoe, beds under roofs of adobe, thatch, or the night sky itself, and everywhere along the way, eye-opening encounters with remarkable people. The travelers discover their African roots in the intense communality of pre-industrial culture, and return home with a new regard for what it means to be human.

The Door-Man Peter Wheelwright ’67 Fomite, 2022 In 1917, during the construction of a large reservoir in the Catskill hamlet of Gilboa, New York, a young paleontologist named Winifred Goldring identified fossils from an ancient forest flooded millions of years ago when the earth’s botanical explosion of oxygen opened a path for the evolution of humankind. However, the reservoir water was needed for New York City, and the fossils were buried once again during the flooding of the doomed town. Mixing fact and fiction, The Door-Man follows three generations of interwoven families who share a deep wound from Gilboa’s last days. Told from the point of view of Winifred’s grandson, a disaffected doorman working near the Central Park Reservoir during its decommissioning in 1993, the story explores the tangled roots and fragile bonds of family.

The Soul of an Addict: Unlocking the Complex Nature of Addiction D.J. Mitchell ’78 Alma James Publishing, 2020 Addiction is more complex than it may seem.

Written for the non-addict who seeks to understand substance addiction, The Soul of an Addict shows that addiction is not just a disease or a choice. Using statistics, anecdotes from the lives of addicts, and the author’s personal experience with addiction and recovery, the book argues that addiction affects all aspects of human existence, including identity, purpose, life structure, and morality. With one in seven Americans struggling with substance abuse, this book brings a timely analysis for anyone concerned about addiction.

Artists of Wyeth Country: Howard Pyle, N. C. Wyeth, and Andrew Wyeth W. Barksdale Maynard ’84 Temple University Press, 2021 Few artists have ever been so beloved — or so controversial among art critics — as Andrew Wyeth. This groundbreaking book presents an unauthorized and unbiased biographical portrait of Wyeth, based on interviews with family, friends, and neighbors. Journalist W. Barksdale Maynard ’84 shines new light on the reclusive artist, emphasizing Wyeth’s artistic debt to Howard Pyle as well as his surprising interest in surrealism. The book is filled with brand-new information and fresh interpretations. Artists of Wyeth Country also comprises the first-ever guidebook to the artistic world of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, center of the Brandywine Tradition begun by Howard Pyle. Six in-depth tours for walking or driving allow the reader to stand exactly where N. C. and Andrew Wyeth stood, as has never before been fully possible.

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Better Children through Science

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GABRIELLE GERARD

FACETIME

Melinda Wenner Moyer ’97 gave her first book a title that gets right to the point: How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes: Science-Based Strategies for Better Parenting — from Tots to Teens. Moyer is a contributing editor at Scientific American and a regular contributor to the New York Times and the Washington Post, among other publications. She is also a faculty member in the Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting program at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

Among her many honors is the 2019 Bricker Award for Science Writing in Medicine. She spoke with Alumni Horae contributor Michael Matros.

In the book, you offer help for well-meaning parents to prevent unconscious racism in their kids.

Looking at the research, I found that white parents in particular are often really hesitant to have conversations about race, and often that’s really well meaning. But the research suggests that if we don’t talk about race and skin color, our kids still notice patterns in society, notice that white people tend to have more power and more privilege and more wealth. And if we don’t explain the role that racism plays in why culture looks this way, then kids will sometimes come to racist conclusions. Like maybe white people are just smarter or better.

Almost every page of How to Raise Kids describes research you’ve conducted. As the subtitle promises, you offer a lot of science-based strategies.

Since I became a journalist, my focus has been on science and medicine, so it seemed natural for me to look to science when asking how we can raise good humans. What do researchers who’ve actually worked with children, or who’ve worked with parents, and who’ve tried different interventions — what does their data say is the most constructive way to foster good kids?

I love that your book is free of guilt trips for parents.

Was it hard to maintain such a positive note?

That was really important to me. I tried to do that in part by sharing my own vulnerability as a parent and pointing out all the times I’ve handled things in maybe not the most constructive way.

You point out how parenting styles seem to change from one generation to the next.

A lot of parents today have more conversations about difficult topics than parents of earlier generations. I will talk to my kids about all sorts of things that a lot of parents used to shy away from, like racism and sexism and gender, pornography, sex. If kids aren’t getting good information from us, then they’re going to get it from the media or from their friends, and they might not get the balanced and nuanced perspective we want them to get.

Was the title of the book a marketing suggestion from the publisher?

No. I’d been wanting to write a book for a long time, but I just couldn’t settle on the right idea. I was thinking about the state of the world and concerned about what messages my kids were getting right now. I thought, ‘Are my kids absorbing this? What can I do to make sure I’m raising good human beings?’ So, I was sitting with my husband at our anniversary dinner, and I just blurted it out: ‘I should write a book called How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes.’ And that was it. I looked at my husband and he was like, ‘I think that’s your book.’

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FORMNOTES These formnotes reflect information received through Jan. 12, 2022. Please send news/photos of yourself or other alumni for these pages to: Formnotes Editor, Alumni Horae, St. Paul’s School, 325 Pleasant Street, Concord, N.H. 03301 or alumni@sps.edu.

For reunion information, please visit sps.edu/anniversary.

1952/70th

David Sinkler ddsinkler@comcast.net

Truman Bidwell writes: “I have taken several runs down the slopes of Bromley Mountain in Vermont this winter; we spent a good portion of last year in our house near there in Manchester. The offices of my firm have essentially remained closed. If you had told me a year ago that we could shut our offices and remain a viable entity, I would not have believed it. As for those of us who did not grow up in a paperless world, I can say that I miss the camaraderie of the office and I desperately miss my assistant to guide me through the day’s paperwork. While I still love practicing law, the virtual world is not my natural home. On a happy note, I celebrated my 88th birthday in Boston with my sister and her daughter, my youngest daughter, Elysabeth Ray ’88, and her husband, and five grandchildren at a lovely lunch hosted by my wonderful wife, Ludmila, to whom I have now been married a bit short of a decade and who is the best birthday present a man could have been given. We also had Ludmila’s young Austrian cousin with us — he is spending a term in a Maine prep school.”

1953

Jim Hammond hamjam123@hotmail.com

Jim Hammond and Peter Swords, together with their wives, Didette and Brenda, met for lunch in NYC shortly before Christmas at La Monde, a sidewalk restaurant built to evade the pandemic.

Rucky Barclay and Stu Patterson explored an important acquisition of the Santa Fe Conservation Trust, of which Rucky’s wife, Leslie, was one of the founders. The property abuts the 8,000 acres of the Galisteo Basin Preserve.

Together, they are a small but critical part of a planned north-south wildlife migratory route across New Mexico. Rucky and Stu hadn’t met since graduating SPS. Rucky and Leslie keep 40

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Jim Hammond ’53 and Peter Swords ’53 in New York City.

Locke McLean ’55 (l.) and Steve McPherson ’55 at the memorial service for formmate Ted Hamm.

busy with their perky Jack Russell terriers.

Derick Nicholas is wintering in San Miguel Allende in Mexico with family plus various friends. This hill town attracts a cadre of Paulies every year. Small wonder he’s very happy there.

wife, Christine, followed with an unconventional version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” We shall have occasion to see one another again in June to celebrate our postponed 60th anniversary.

1957/65th

Bill de Haven bill_dehaven316@hotmail.com

1960

Dimitri Sevastopoulo dsevastopoulo@gmail.com

1962/60th 1966

Tom Roberts tarbigred@yahoo.com Hugh Clark hclark@ursinus.edu

On Dec. 8, 2021, 17 members of the form, plus their spouses, gathered for drinks and dinner at the Harvard Club in New York City. Rector Kathy Giles, who was in the city for meetings, dropped by during the cocktail hour and chatted with some of our classmates.

Kathy has a strong following in our form, but this occasion provided an opportunity for some of us to meet her for the first time. As we had not been together in such a large group since 2018, we were particularly happy to do so and catch up after the long COVID-induced separation. Win Rutherfurd, our inimitable basso, sang “C’est Moi” from Camelot after dinner, while we sipped champagne. Barry Stott’s

Martin Oppenheimer writes: “My wife, Annilee, son, William, and I have moved to our house in Fearrington Village, North Carolina (about eight miles south of Chapel Hill). I continue to work remotely with Morgan Stanley and maintain an office in the King Farm branch in Maryland. Our daughter, son-in-law, grandson, and grand-dog settled on a house 15 minutes from us. So, as our grandson said, ‘we are all together.’ North Carolina touched my heart when I was the photographer for the early stages of the Muskie campaign in 1971 and we toured the state. My daughter graduated from Chapel Hill and met her husband there on her first day. It is wonderful here. The light is uplifting. It is quiet, usually under 40 decibels, but

Rucky Barclay ’53 and Stu Patterson ’53 exploring an acquisition of the Santa Fe Conservation Trust in September.

Celebrating their 21st Christmas gathering are 1958 formmates Patrick Rulon-Miller, Gordon Chaplin, Mike de Havenon, and Henry Chalfant.

Jim Phillips ’66 (l.) and Rick Carrick ’66 hiked the golf course in Stowe, Vermont, in December.

who is counting? There is a lot going on in biotech and other tech in the Chapel Hill/ Durham/Raleigh area. I am trying to figure out my next act after I leave Morgan Stanley in the first half of 2023. Win Brown and John Brown kindly hosted me at a farewell brunch back in Maryland. We had gotten together several times a year for the past few years. I thought it was significant that virtually all of us gave money to SPS. Most of the reason, for very sure, was because our form officers keep us up to date and gently nudged us. I am deeply grateful for them and their efforts. They keep us connected and that connection is important to me and many others.

I’m interested in hearing from others. Not just news but thoughts about their lives, their purpose, and any wisdom obtained. I find very few people are interested in what old men have to say, but I am interested, and here is your chance to speak to a rapt audience.”

The classic cars of Nick Mouravieff-Apostol continue to garner awards. He writes, “At the Palm Beach Concours d’elegance in 2019, my 1974 Alfa Romeo Montreal won Excellence in Class and at the Palm Event the following year it won Best in Class. [In December], my 1973 Lamborghini Espada 400GT won Best in Class

Charlie Hickox ’69 and Peter Flynn ’69 flank a plaque commemorating Charlie’s father, Charles R. Hickox ’39, and his contributions to the Order of St. John and its Jerusalem Eye Hospital.

Form of 1966 mini-reunion in October: (Back, l. to r.): Bill Jackson, Bill Moorhead, Jim Phillips, Lisa Evans, Linn Jackson, Copey Coppedge, Dimitri Sevestopoulo ’60, Rector Kathy Giles, and Marta Phillips, Gordie Grand, and John Evans; Jack Mechem ’60 at the Harvard Club in December. (front) Faith Vincenanza and Cecily Grand.

at the 2021 Palm Beach Concours d’elegance.”

Copey Coppedge shares: “I had my left knee replaced last month and am in the midst of rehab. Lost 20 pounds in the process, which was a silver lining. Knee replacement surgery wiped me out, rather unexpectedly — 73 isn’t 37! I remain single and live in Delray, Florida, for the winter and Cape Cod in the summer.

The youngest of my four sons, Peter ’17, graduated from Dartmouth in June and is working in Manhattan with Spencer Stuart, a large executive search firm. Six grandchildren spread across the country; my loyal and protective Jack Russell terrier, Pandit; and the fading hopes of finding a partner to share and enjoy our later years take up much of my time. I read much more than I ever did, do Pilates regularly, and swim every day.”

Peter Meyer enjoyed a wonderful December evening at the new Jimmy’s Jazz and Blues Club in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

The venue is spectacular and perfect for up-close listening. The featured performers were the Brubeck Brothers Quartet with sons Chris (fretless bass guitar) and Dan (drums). They shared many stories and anecdotes about growing up. The whole evening brought back memories of seeing Dave Brubeck at the 1962 Newport Jazz Festival while attending summer school (algebra and Latin) at St. George’s and then again at SPS in ’65 or ’66 when he performed as a Conroy Fellow.

“My dimming memory vaguely recalls him playing at the Chapel. The sons put out an album called ‘Time Outtakes,’ which contains many of Dave’s classic arrangements with many twists and turns.”

John Chapin is proud to report that his daughter, Dana Chapin Anselmi ’98, has been selected as the next dean of admission and financial aid at SPS. Selfishly delighted to have her significantly closer to their home in Orford, New Hampshire.

1967/55th

John Landes jlandes1948@yahoo.com

Dickerman Hollister writes that, after more than 40 years as a medical oncologist, it was time for a change: “I turned out the lights in Greenwich and moved to southwest Georgia to my wife Frankie’s family’s farm.

But because that’s just a bit too rural, I also enrolled at Yale Divinity School (yes, I am the oldest student). Despite the geographic challenge, it’s great to be back in class in a whole new discipline. Actually, not entirely new — brushing aside my frontal lobe cobwebs, I found there remained not a little of SPS ancient history, Greek and Latin, and Chapel liturgy. Life’s a great circle. Stay on the circumference.”

1969

Eliot Larson ewlarson@comcast.net

Charles R. Hickox ’39, the father of Charlie Hickox, was honored at a long-overdue memorial service in Dallas. Charlie gave the eulogy and the choir sang “O Pray for the Peace.” Among many other accomplishments are Charles’s contributions to the Order of St. John and its Jerusalem Eye Hospital. He

Nick Mouravieff-Apostol ’66 (c.) receives the 2021 Palm Beach Concours d’elegance Best in Class award for his 1973 Lamborghini Espada 400GT. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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FORMNOTES The inclusion of wives (and one daughter) proved a brilliant addition that I’m confident will be repeated in future get-togethers. I think we were so relieved to feel normal again (if even for a little while) that what resulted was an abundance of warmth and good cheer. We had lots of laughs, some provocative conversations, and some really good wine (courtesy of Eldridge). A lot of people deserve a ton of credit for pulling this off. The bar has been set high but, with luck, we’ll try for something even better in a few years.

Steve Crandall ’70 shares this preview of the fun content in the SPS ’70 reunion book that is nearing completion.

recruited local doctors and nurses to travel to the Middle East to volunteer at the hospital and raised money for a mobile clinic to serve Gaza and the West Bank. Charles frequently attended our form’s reunion events and considered himself an honorary member.

1970

Mory Houghton ahoughton3@aol.com

Over a few sunny and unseasonably warm October days, 31 members of the Form of 1970 (plus 15 spouses) shared renewed fellowship, athletic rejuvenation, questionably accurate recollections of the 1960s, and a happy, festive celebration of our 51st-and-a-half reunion. Through the tireless efforts of Steve Crandall and George Host, we traveled from all parts of the country to The Inn at Mill Falls in Meredith, New Hampshire.

Concern over those particularly vulnerable to COVID exposure unfortunately resulted in 14 members of the form having to cancel at the last minute. Still, the accommodations were terrific. We relaxed, we ate, we had curated

At the reunion for the Form of 1971 in September (l. to r): Fred Stillman, Terry Gruber, Woody Pier, Chris Denison, Gregg Stone, Peter Oliver, and Byam Stevens.

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discussions, engaged in ferocious tennis and golf matches, hiked two gorgeous trails, were dazzled by an amazing mentalist our final night, and somehow survived a spirited game of stickball with only two minor injuries. Attendees were: George Host, Steve Crandall, Don Lippincott, Sandy Stewart, Stephen Moorhead, Tres Davidson, Nat Wheelwright, Jamie Hogg, Charlie Wagner, John Eldridge, John Martin, Doug Bateson, Clem Wood, Lorne Johnson, Scott Johnson, Chris Bartle, Mory Houghton, Miles Herter, Fritz Newman, Nat Niles, Lex Breckinridge, Chip Gowen, Bert Honea, Frank Kenison, Peter Culver, Charlie Read, David Shiang, Lee Stanton, John Warner ’71, Craig Macrae, and Bernie Crawford. One of the most enjoyable activities was a sunset cruise around the state’s largest lake aboard Winnipesaukee Spirit, a new member of the Mount Washington Cruises fleet. Probably the most challenging moment was trying to get everyone to stand still for the photograph immediately prior to the cruise. With help, we somehow managed. Some of us stopped

by SPS on the way north, another half dozen on our way home. Physically, it looks very similar (except for the science building), but it’s a different world with swipe cards — an inevitable byproduct of the world we live in.

It was nostalgic to see the grounds but far more important for us simply to be together again. My primary takeaway from the three days was how instantly comfortable everyone seemed to be. Expectations were high about seeing each other after years (or decades), and I doubt anyone came away disappointed.

We were delighted to be with the ones who were there and missed those who weren’t.

1971

Dennis Dixon dennis.c.dixon@gmail.com

Ted Bohlen has retired after 42 years as an attorney. He worked as an assistant attorney general in Massachusetts on environmental protection with Bill Pardee ’64 and Jim Mikey ’74 before moving to Hawaii in 2005 to represent consumers and environmental agencies. Ted is now pursuing a second career in Hawaii as an advocate for climate change and coral reef protection laws.

1972/60th

Charlie Bronson chasbronson@gmail.com

Bob Stockman stockman@groupoutcome.com

Charlie Bronson writes that he, Doug Chan, Pres Stone, Halstead Wheeler, and Mark Wainwright met at the Beach Chalet for crab and ahi in December. All five are going to Anniversary (June 10-12) in Concord (Friday dinner at the School) and Henniker (dinner Saturday at the Colby Hill Inn). Plus, there’s a bonus day June 9 with Bob Shepley, Mike Sweeney, and Oliver Wolcott on the

Jeff Randall ’74 better watch out. Here, his granddaughter, Georgia, is getting ready to take down her Pops.

Mallory Clarke ’76 and Alexis Johnson ’76 in Ridgway, Colorado.

Shawn Hawk, Caryn Cross Hawk ’76, and Shawn Cross Hawk ’09 with his Goldendoodle, Pluto.

waters of Ipswich Bay and dinner at the Myopia Hunt Club (Shep’s stomping grounds).

I am expecting an 83% turnout, including long-lost brothers Tom Hagerty, Dan de Roulet, and Nick Parker. SPS has, as you would expect, pulled out all the stops to book hotel blocks in Concord, manage the dates and facilities, and consider safety concerns, COVID not withstanding.

1976

1973

Alden Stevens ahs472@optonline.net

Jim Brooke shares: “About half a century ago, I left my native Lenox, Massachusetts, to go to SPS. That led to School Year Abroad in Rennes, then a Sixth Form ISP in Bogota, and on to 100 countries. In September, I came home to Lenox, where I have bought out my siblings for a family house with four acres of field and woods. My five-year-old, George, goes to the local elementary school, complete with a presidential seal of approval on the front door. Wife Pen is luxuriating in country living, plotting to grow vegetables and raise chickens. Connected to Kyiv online, I do the Ukraine Financial News — 1,000 words every weeknight. Professionally, the wheel has turned. I write a fortnightly foreign affairs column for The Berkshire Eagle — back to my start in journalism “clerking” for a New York Times Washington columnist. In addition to hiking, sailing, and (this winter) skiing, I love the amazing cultural offerings here: Tanglewood, the Clark Art Museum, and last night, Shakespeare & Co. When formmates come to this part of New England, make a detour to Lenox and let’s have lunch.”

Tony Bullock tony.bullock@ogilvygr.com Alison Zetterquist zettera.az@gmail.com

Caryn Cross Hawk writes: “I retired from the American Bar Association in mid-December, concluding 13 years of service, where I most recently served as director of the Section of Science and Technology Law for nine years. Prior to that, I was associate director in the Public Education Division for four years.

I am looking forward to life as a retiree and am planning to include a lot of traveling and address many items on my bucket list. To celebrate my retirement, my husband, Shawn, and I went on a cruise in the Western Caribbean (Honduras, Belize, and Cozumel) and then spent the 2021 Christmas holidays with our son, Shawn ’09, in San Francisco. In October 2020, we purchased a second home in Georgetown, Texas, 30 miles north of Austin, and we are planning to spend our falls and winters there and springs and summers in Chicago. Life is good!”

Penelope Place Gleason has been “living the dream” for 23 years in the mountains of Colorado after 18 years of video and filmmaking in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Now, she

Alexis Johnson ’76 and Penelope Place Gleason ’76 in Telluride, Colorado.

Members of the Form of 1972 (l. to r.) Doug Chan, Charlie Bronson, Pres Stone, Halsted Wheeler, and Mark Wainwright met at the Beach Chalet.

is mostly retired from 20 years of successful family outdoor retail business with husband Bob and two stepdaughters. She is staying healthy in body with skiing, rafting, biking and exercising her brain as the board president/strategist for Telluride Arts and active grandparent of two boys. Her 2022 goal is to be a climate change activist. She loves meeting up with SPS alumni.

Katy Melody reports that she’s had the great pleasure of visiting with Alexis Johnson for lengthy conversation over cups of tea: “It was wonderful to connect face-to-face, as Zoom and the phone just can’t replace the pleasure and ‘anchoring’ of meeting in person. Have stayed close to home these past two years and am so looking forward to traveling again to see friends and family. In the meantime, I’m learning about neuroplasticity and rewiring the brain, enjoying time with my five-year-old grand-nephew, being wowed by my husband Andy’s growing repertoire of magic tricks, and feeling life in balance with every walk on the beach and dip in the Pacific. Much thanks to Alison Zetterquest and Tony Bullock for their efforts to bring class members together.”

The start of the new year found Charles Altekruse and his boys (Benjamin, 20, a

2021 New Hampshire Legends of Hockey induction ceremony (l. to r.): Bill Matthews ’61, Tom Painchaud ’74, Carl Lovejoy ’75, Ben Lovejoy, and John Marchand ’75. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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COURTESY THEO MAEHR ’76

STEWARDING THE LAND, SELF, AND COMMUNITY An unconventional lifestyle helped THEO MAEHR ’76 save his home from a 2016 California wildfire.

SARAH PRUITT When the fire came, Theo Maehr ’76 was ready. At least, as ready as one can be when staring down a massive wildfire advancing through the parched landscape near Big Sur, California.

Maehr has lived on a 41-acre property in the Santa Lucia Mountains for the past 16 years.

He built his home with his own hands, using fire-resistant materials and creating a rain-catch system with 60,000 gallons of water storage — enough for himself and a tenant, horses, and the gardens and orchards where he grows most of his own food.

“I feel like I operate in a way that’s different from most people, in that I take time to listen to and connect with the land,” Maehr says.

“From the beginning, it was clear the biggest threat living up here was going to be fire. So, I began preparing for that and working with the landscape in a way that nourished rather than took away from it.”

Sparked by an illegal campfire on July 22, 2016, the Soberanes Fire arrived on Maehr’s property 48 hours after it started. While his neighbors and tenant evacuated, Maehr stayed 44

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on. Thanks to an underground cold room that doubled as a fire shelter, he knew he could survive; now he had to protect his home.

“When the fire came onto my property, it was almost like meeting someone — like I was going to be working with the fire rather than against it,” Maehr recalls.

Drawing on his experience as a volunteer firefighter, he created a 150-yard fire line using only a shovel. All through that night, he cleared brush and put out smaller blazes to halt the fire’s advance. When morning came, at least 80% of Maehr’s property had burned to some degree, but his house, orchard, gardens, and horses were safe. The fire burned 132,000 acres of land and destroyed nearly 60 homes, but not his.

Maehr’s connection with the natural world began during his childhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, when he first yearned to communicate with animals. He came to St. Paul’s School as a Second Former in 1971, joining the Outing Club and discovering a favorite loop trail up Mount Lafayette. Years later, he would return to that trail for a hike that inspired him to

write a children’s book, Wild Whispers.

After matriculating at Stanford, Maehr left college early — but he kept learning. Over the next 20 years, he worked as a commercial diver, boat builder, organic farmer, home builder, and rafting guide. Underlying all these pursuits was a desire to live as sustainably as possible. After returning to Stanford, he earned a B.S. in geologic and environmental studies and an M.A. in education and taught for years at the Waldorf-inspired Monterey Bay Charter School.

While working to revive the burned forest on his property, Maehr is also writing a book about his experience in the Soberanes Fire, his philosophy of stewardship, and the need for humans to align with nature rather than work against it.

“Stewardship starts with taking care of ourselves and discovering the unique dream or contribution we hold inside,” Maehr says.

“Then we need to understand our connectedness, not just to the human community but the community of life that we find ourselves immersed in.”

The Banks-Altekruse Family in Morocco (l. to r.): Charlie ’76, Benjamin, Barbara Banks, and Jeremy.

sophomore at Lehigh, and Jeremy, an eighth grader) in beautiful Barcelona. Jeremy is attending a session at the TOVO Soccer Academy. Ben is with his girlfriend, enjoying the sights and nightlife of one of the great cities of the world. After a couple of weeks, they all returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, their home for the past 20 to 30 years. Charles writes: “Traveling, even in these difficult COVID times, is a central component of my desire to share four important ideas with my sons after the loss of their mother, my wife Barbara (who designed adventure travel trips around the world for Wilderness Travel), from cancer in 2020: 1) That profound, enduring love comes to us from many sources beyond just our immediate family, including a network of friends and extended family; 2) That the world, despite COVID and loss, remains a place of great beauty, magic, and mystery worth exploring with an open mind and heart; 3) That those we have loved and who loved us in life (especially their mother) lives on in them, literally and spiritually; and; 4) That each of us is a beautiful, loved, powerful being who will create our own magical way through life. Yes, death is loss, but it also illuminates and transforms life, and serves as a guide for the living. So, what has this

David Ritchie ’77, James Rose ’77, and Arthur Zeckendorf ’77 at the Central Park Boathouse for the Christodora Foundation benefit.

to do with SPS? Everything. I could imagine exploring all of these ideas with each of you, too, my friends and family from SPS — love, loss, beauty, energy and remembrance, inspiration and imagination. These are the things that make life special. The invitation stands: whether online or in person, feel free to connect (caltekruse@caconsult.org). In the interim, Happy New Year! May 2022 be a year of good health, friends and family, and prosperity in all the ways that truly matter.”

Severo Nieves, Jr. would like to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of his mom, Isabel Nieves, who fully believed in and trusted and supported him and his sister, Isabel “Izzy” Salaman ’78, in their journeys from the South Bronx to SPS.

1977/45th 1978

Jim Tung jcptung@gmail.com Nora Tracy Phillips noratphil@aol.com Jon Sweet Jsweet10002gmail.com

Bryan Bell offers this reflection: “What sport are you doing this spring, Bryan? You are rowing.” Those words, gruffly uttered in the hall of Brewster’s first floor, changed my life.

I was a Third Former and Rich Davis was my dorm master. There’s so much more I could write, but suffice it to say that with excellent, caring mentors such as Mr. Davis, I learned that training and competing in athletics provides lessons for life. I don’t row anymore — except occasionally with Princeton teammates at the Head of the Charles — but the lessons crew taught me have been transferable. One important lesson is that it’s worth it to tolerate pain in order to reach a goal. I will always be grateful to Mr. Davis. I give him credit for the many times I’ve applied those lessons he and

Els Collins ’78 (l.), in NYC over the Christmas holidays, had dinner at the home of former SPS drama teacher Bob Edgar and his wife, Sally.

Curtis Starr ’78, Amy Nobu ’78, Calla Starr, Kelly Binder, and Shigeru Konishi ’10 in matching Nike jackets at Shigeru’s home in Portland, Oregon.

rowing taught me long after St. Paul’s.”

Courtney Stimpson Day predicts that 2022 will likely to be a big year of change for her and her family: “In November 2021, I retired from full-time work after 39 years. But what goes around, comes around. My husband and I are seriously considering picking up from our roots in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, and moving to New Hampshire. My oldest son, Peter Day, and his wife, Rebecca, now live most of the time in Concord, where their 4.5-year-old daughter attends preschool at Concord Christian Academy. They are expecting a baby boy in March. The rest of the time, they live in Waterville Valley, a place where we have been spending a lot of time enjoying family and the great outdoors. I would love to hear from any Paulies familiar with the state (cday100@sbcglobal.net) for suggestions about where we should move!

Merrimack County is currently the focus.”

Isabel Nieves Salaman shares: “With great exaltation, Ricardo and I were blessed with not one but two grandsons this year!

Our middle daughter, Melinda, and her husband, Phil, bestowed upon us our first grandson, Javier Benoit, in June. Three months later, our eldest daughter, Emilia, and her husband, Joshua, gave us grandson Marcelo Ricardo. There’s one more male addition — our youngest, Marisol, rescued a husky mix, George. I am also so grateful that my mom was in the midst of all this love and cuddles before her passing in the beginning of 2022.

Mom truly loved St. Paul’s and always spoke so highly of this institution.”

Linda Richards writes: “Since 2018, I have been living happily in a restored 1822 colonial on 50 acres in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. NYC and the film industry chewed me up and spit me out, so I have been recharging my soul in my childhood spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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FORMNOTES happy place and loving it. I keep busy with a remote bookkeeping service. After having been involved in a 24/7/365 business for 30+ years, this is the perfect pace for me now. Both the move and the career switch have proven unexpectedly strategic in these pandemic years.”

Amy Nobu tells us that COVID-related travel restrictions meant she and Curtis Starr were unable to bring all their family together over the Christmas holidays, but they had tandem family celebrations. One took place in Japan, where Amy’s eldest son, Masaru Nobu ’07, lives with his family. The other took place in Portland, Oregon, where Amy’s younger son, Shigeru Konishi ’10, lives and works as a strategy manager for Nike (hence the matching Nike jackets worn for both occasions you’ll see in the photos she sent). Amy and Curtis, and Curtis’s daughter, Calla, celebrated Christmas in Portland with Shigeru and his girlfriend, then took a holiday trip together to Bend, Oregon (dogs in tow). Except for Masaru and his family being unable to join them, it was a wonderful time.

Katie Thayer McCammond has news: “In August, I closed on my beautiful home in Evanston, Illinois, and returned to my beloved New England. I now live in the passive solar home my mother built some 40 years ago in Kennebunkport, Maine. I haven’t begun rehabbing it yet, but I will. I work at the Atria senior living facility in Kennebunk. In Nov ember, I got together with Mar Bodine ’76, Victoria Wilson Charles ’76, and Wizzy Deans at Linda Richards’s house in New Hampshire.”

Cloyd Laporte shares: “Over Christmas break, my wife and I moved the family to our new home in Hunter’s Creek, Orlando, Florida. Living here is a big change from the

Lisa Hughes ’78 and Electra Lang ’78 in Cotopaxi National Park, south of Quito, Ecuador.

Northeast climate in Putnam County, New York. This year, we spent New Year’s Day in the pool. The kids of my second marriage (Eliza, 15; Cloyd, 12; and Stark, 11) have started in the local schools. Cloyd is in seventh grade and looking forward to applying to some prep schools next fall (SPS, for example). My three older boys are thriving, too. The eldest, George, is a preschool teacher at the National Child Research Center in Washington, D.C.; Michael is a graduate student in music at Rutgers, and Chris is a junior at Dickinson.”

Paul Eddy recently graduated with an M.A. in clinical mental health counseling from Northern Vermont University. He is enjoying living right next to Bolton Valley. His apartment is “almost ski-in/ski-out” and he is surrounded by beautiful views and endless hiking, backcountry, and mountain biking trails, including some spectacular lift-served downhill mountain biking trails. When he’s been able to make himself come indoors this past year, Paul has been specializing in counseling young and adolescent boys. He will probably try to expand his practice to include more young adults and adults.

Electra McDowell Lang feels so lucky to

Lisa Kent Nitze ’78 at the wedding of her youngest son, Will, to Jess Greenwood at the Harvard Club. Back row (l. to r.): Jenn Hull; Lisa’s son, Jamie; Lisa; son, Will; husband, Peter; son, Max Nitze ’03; Jenna Nitze; daughter, Esther. Front row (l.to r.): Max and Jenna’s sons, William, 8, and Henry, 6.

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Lisa Hughes ’78 (r.) and Lisa Kent Nitze ’78 celebrate Lisa (Nitze’s) son’s wedding in Boston.

Katie Thayer McCammond ’78 is excited to report that she has a new duo, Cover Stories, that has already begun gigging and booking for 2022.

have been able to escape COVID conditions at home in California and do some serious traveling in November, just before the omicron variant made doing such things unwise again.

She spent a week on an “amazing” boat trip in the Galapagos, then traveled on to Ecuador, where she met up with Lisa Henriques Hughes in Quito. Together, they spent a week on horseback in the wilds, north and south of the capital. “It was really so beautiful at the high altitudes in the south,” she says. “We rode up to almost 14,000 feet and had what is known as the Highest Canter in the World on the incredible grassy paramo. We spent five days riding from hacienda to hacienda all around the area. We got to spend just three days in the north, which was green and mountainous — Ecuador’s Switzerland — complete with grazing cattle and cobbled roads.”

1979

Andy Schlosser aeschlosser83@gmail.com

Notes for 1979 were gathered by form scribe Lili Cassels-Brown.

As the new year began, Amy M. Feins was entering her final semester at Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin and was to be ordained to the Diaconate in January. God willing, she will be ordained to the priesthood this coming summer. “It has been interesting living and learning with seminarians who are (mostly) close in age to my own children,” she says. “In my head, I am still 25 — proof positive that we are never too old to hear a new call in life (although I would argue that at our age it is really hard to learn Greek and Hebrew).”

Seth Ward reports: “It’s the start of a new year and it’s the end of a work day in an actual office building in Boston — whoa! I learned quickly during COVID that I’m not too keen

on spending the rest of my working life at home, and I’ve been commuting into an office (was an hour, now 30 minutes if not distracted by Starbucks along the way) at least a couple of days a week pretty much since April 2020. I flew again for the first time in May 2020 and have been flying for work and pleasure since. The longer this pandemic goes on, the more I find myself in the camp of ‘you’ve got to live your life.’ I am trying to do that while respecting others who see things differently. Turning 60 (how did that happen?) has me beginning to double down on trying to make the very best of whatever comes my way. It’s also possible that the passing of George Schwab and Sarah Bankson Newton, both of whom I had been connected with at SPS and as college classmates for all the years that followed, has me thinking that there is no time now for a bad day or frustration or stress or negativity. There really is only time for positivity and peace and love and helping and friendships — old and new. It’s been great to be in touch with some other ’79ers over the last few years. Dave Ross, Jamie Barrett, David Scully, Judy Jordan, D’Arcy Carroll, Jim Jordan (another Boston office warrior), and Liz Robbins (the baby of the class), to name a few, have all been great listeners over the years. As each year passes, it becomes more meaningful to keep up with 1979. Now for the mundane. Penny and I will be 30 years married in May 2023. Our three children are or will be 27, 25, and 22. Charlotte ’13, Owen ’16, and Sophie ’19 are out and about doing what they do, but they will have SPS in common for the rest of their lives.

We live about 75 minutes from Concord, so boarding school was a great option for introducing independence while still being able to see them for games, home or away. We had a

John Pleasants ’83 rang in the New Year with his children on Oahu.

Dave Stevenson ’79 (r.) and Bill Martin ’79, P’22 in Concord, New Hampshire, in October.

Anne Benning ’79, Alison Zetterquist ’76, and Liz Robbins ’79 celebrating the New Year with Geodesy wine from Judy Jordan ’79.

10-year run of being SPS parents. Charlotte made the leap across the country to Stanford and made the most of it before coming east to work in NYC. Owen went to Wesleyan and has also landed in NYC. Sophie is at Cornell, learning that the world can get 15,000 students big even in bucolic Ithaca, New York. All three played lacrosse (or are playing it) in college, which has been a lot of road-trip fun for the parents. In late 2019, pre-COVID America, we bought a house in Charlottesville and plan to move there in early 2023. I can actually do my work and not be in an office. What a concept. Penny went to UVA and her mom lives there. It’s a beautiful college town with a more temperate winter. Starting in 2023, please reach out if you are coming through town.

There are worse places to get lost for a few days. Until then, be healthy and let’s all try out a little bit of the School Prayer.”

Bill Martin P’22 was in Concord for SPS Family Weekend this fall and came to the New Hampshire National Guard base to observe the Change of Command ceremony in which Dave Stevenson relinquished command of the Medical Detachment just prior to his retirement ceremony after 32 years of

military service. Dave says it was super introducing Bill to the senior officers on hand.

1982/40th

Lou Adreani laadreani@comcast.net

Anne (Dickinson) Barber doesn’t have much to report from Northern New Hampshire, though she says her oldest, Ilida, is launched with employment, an apartment in D.C., and health insurance of her own. She adds: “The twins just started college. I was so proud when Lily successfully traveled from Garden City, New York, to Penn Station to D.C. all by herself. Not bad for an 18-yearold country girl from rural New Hampshire.

Graham and I are officially empty nesters, so I went and got a puppy, Alice, an adorable dog of mixed parentage.”

1983

Icy Frantz icy@icyfrantz.com

John Pleasants is thinking 2022 will be a breakout year for democracy, the environment, and societal happiness and adds, “We got this, ’83!”

Campbell Gibson, Dave Demers, Bart Quillen ’85, Warren Frazier, Charlie Shaffer ’85, Todd Pietri, and Stephen Vehslage ’85. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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FORMNOTES

Jamie Young ’85, Calista Washburn, Amanda Washburn ’85 and her husband, Mark Weills, and Vicky Dulai.

Jessica Mellon ’89 enjoyed spending time with Gretchen Kelly Giumarro ’89, Vanya Desai ’89, and their families.

Austin Meyer ’88 is part of an aviation startup building electric vertical aircraft (EVAs), which can take off like a helicopter and fly like a plane.

1985

Nate Emerson says: “After 30 years in Asia, I have decided it is time to explore other foreign countries, like the United States, which feels pretty foreign these days. Leaving Hong Kong after 17 years is tough, but it, too, seems to be going on a very different path than the one I want to be on, so my wife and family have collectively agreed to execute our Plan B. Plan B involves re-establishing a U.S. residence for four to six years as our three kids wend their way through U.S. boarding schools and colleges. In December, we purchased an old mill space in downtown Providence, Rhode Island, and will be moving there once we put in some rather important amenities like a kitchen and bathrooms. Target date of occupancy is something like January 2023. Still in the process of figuring out what I want to do when I grow up. Following 25 years of stockbroking in Mandarin, I have jumped headlong into fashion and dressmaking. For the last two years, I have been studying with a retired tailor in Hong Kong and have specialized in making Chinese Cheongsam dresses mostly worn in Hong Kong and Shanghai between 1920 and 1970.

Hoping to continue my design exploration in Providence and feel like it’s a great place to do

that. Looking forward to meeting all SPS folk in Rhode Island.”

Murray Buttner was nationally recognized for his work bringing emergency training to rural Alaska communities. A family medicine doctor and co-medical director of the Iliuliuk Family and Health Services clinic in Unalaska, he was named a 2021 Community Star by the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health. The award went to one healthcare provider in each U.S. state.

Formmates from 1995 Aly Jones, Alessia Carega, Lisa Day, Courtney Evans, and Morgan Stewart reunited for a long weekend this fall.

Formmates from 1998 Will Dick, Chris Eastland, Will O’Boyle, and Rich Thieriot met this winter at a Brooklyn Nets game courtesy of O’Boyle and Thieriot.

Ward Atterbury wardatterbury@gmail.com

Amanda Washburn writes: “I had the distinctly bittersweet privilege of seeing some of my wonderful formmates at a memorial gathering for Bart Quillen’s mother, Jacqueline, in East Hampton, New York, last September. We did our very best to honor Jacqueline, who had passed a year earlier. In attendance from the Form of ’85 were Emmy Starr, Stephen Vehslage, Karen and Charlie Shaffer, Jamie Young, Kim Donaldson, and Jarvis Slade, Jr. ’81, plus a host of other magnificent characters from Quillen World. Bart, Jamie, Kim, and I went to day camp together in the Stone Age, so the memories are long and deep.”

Juliet (Thompson) Hochman writes that, despite pandemic challenges, she managed to grow her triathlon coaching business in 2021 as races returned and there was a brief respite on travel restrictions over the summer. She also competed in — and won — the 70.3 (halfIronman) World Championships for her age group on a tough course in St. George, Utah.

She is super happy to be living in Hood River, Oregon, during all the craziness, where she can ride, run, hike, taste wine, and explore every day of the week.

(L. to r.): Dan Thorne ’69, Schuyler Joerger ’19, Pauline Wamsler ’91, Sophia Joerger ’21, and Susanne Wamsler ’79 at Pauline’s August wedding.

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1987/35th

LaMar Bunts lamar_bunts@post.harvard.edu

1989

Jessica Mellon jessicarmellon@gmail.com

Andrea Greer writes that, by the time you get this, she’ll be in the third of four semesters at the University of Houston, where she is earning an LL.M. in tax law. She’s been thinking about it since she got her J.D., which was, as she periodically tells professors when they say things like, “As you’ll recall from your suchand-such class,” in the last century. For anyone considering going back to school, though, she says to do it — she’s having a blast.

COURTESY LAUREN MCKENNA SURZYN ’03

Raising Aspirations Through her leadership in the financial services industry to her devout volunteerism, Lauren McKenna Surzyn ’03 has found her purpose.

JANA F. BROWN Lauren McKenna Surzyn ’03 still recalls building toothpick bridges in her first-grade math class, and her initial fascination with STEM as a little girl.

“I remember we were creating designs to try to uncover how weight-bearing impacted the strength of a bridge,” she says. “And then I remember doing lots of math times tables, competing with my classmates on the chalkboards. I loved problem-solving. I liked logical thinking, having an issue in front of me and coming up with the steps needed to get me from A to Z.” That interest eventually translated into Surzyn majoring in operations research and financial engineering at Princeton and to her current role as chief operating officer at Kirkoswald Asset Management. Surzyn spent the first 12 years of her career at UBS, where she rose to the role of executive director in global financing services. During that time, she also earned an MBA from Columbia Business School and met her husband, Tim, while stationed at the London office of UBS. “Thinking strategically is ingrained in my DNA,” she says.

“I use this every day in my current job, where I am always thinking about the big picture for the firm, solving small challenges, and figuring out how to leverage my network and knowledge in the industry.”

After spending two years at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, near her hometown of Pacific Palisades, Surzyn joined her brother, Ryan McKenna ’01, at St. Paul’s School in the fall of 1999. It was there that she began to expand her interest in math, science, and engineering, and she found mentors in math teacher Parker Chase and science teacher Peter Tuttle. Having exhausted the math offerings at SPS by her Sixth Form year, Surzyn was asked by Chase to co-teach a precalculus class. That same year, she also completed an Independent Study Project on game theory and number theory with Lori Bohan, the School’s current dean of studies.

“I still say that those four years at St. Paul’s were the most instrumental years in my development,” she says.

Surzyn has remained involved with the School in many capacities, including past service as a member of the Alumni Association Executive Committee, form director, and form agent. In 2018, she and Hilary Bedford Parkhurst ’80 co-founded the XIX Society, a women’s affinity group dedicated to engaging, connecting, and enriching the lives of SPS alumnae.

Outside SPS, Surzyn recently joined the board of the nonprofit Inspiring Girls International as a country chair for the organization’s programming in the United States. Founded by Miriam Gonzalez, the mission of Inspiring Girls is to “raise the aspirations of young girls around the world by connecting them with female role models.” In her role, Surzyn helps to coordinate events so girls can hear from women in a variety of careers and create a platform for role models in the U.S. to share their stories and experiences.

“Our mission,” Surzyn says, “is to help introduce young girls to the full variety of careers and options so they can realize that there are no barriers to what they want to do, no gender stereotypes holding them back from aspiring to do more, be more, aim high, be bold. I really believe in the mission.”

As a leader for Inspiring Girls, Surzyn is also helping to forge strategic partnerships with schools and organizations to help pair female role models with girls interested in hearing what they have to say. One of the first schools to partner with the U.S. chapter of Inspiring Girls was Forte Prep in Queens, New York, founded by Graham Browne ’04. Ultimately, the goal is to form more partnerships to facilitate coordinated programming that identifies specific interests of girls at individual schools.

“I’m leaning into Inspiring Girls now because I think there’s a real need [for it] in the U.S.,” Surzyn says. “Being able to hear from women who have passed through academia and are now established in their careers and understanding the risks they’ve taken, the mistakes they made, how they’ve become successful, when they decided to make a pivot, or what they did when they wanted to start a family is important.

Hearing real-life stories about what women have experienced helps paint a picture that can be inspiring to the girls who have come after me who also want to build bridges and reach for the stars.” spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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FORMNOTES

1992/30th

2011

Trevor Patzer trevor@littlesistersfund.org

Olivia (Dickey) Foroughi married Cirrus Foroughi on Nov. 6, 2021. Formmates by her side were Katharine Harper Fine (maid of honor) Harvey Hinman and Fuller Henriques (chief Party Czars).

1997/25th

Brad Aston bradfordaston@gmail.com David Walton antiship100@gmail.com

1999

Cybil Roehrenbeck cybil.roehrenbeck@gmail.com

Brooke Lloyd has moved from Seattle to San Francisco, where he has been able to see formmates Mark DeVito and Ben Bleiman.

2002/20th

Virginia Russell virginia.w.russell@gmail.com

2004

Benji Nwachukwu benji.nwachukwu@gmail.com

Mae Karwowski ’04 and her husband, Ryan, welcomed son Jack Maverick Wesely on Nov. 29.

2007/15th

Peter Harrison peter.harrison.g@gmail.com

2008

Dorothy MacAusland dmacausland@gmail.com

Samantha Kerr is moving back to NYC from San Francisco and looks forward to connecting with the SPS network when she gets there.

Paul Plaisir paul.plaisir@culver.org

2012/10th Jeff Grappone ’98 and his wife, Amy, welcomed Graham Young Grappone on Feb. 22, 2021.

Graham is grateful to Meghan Sullivan Belica ’98 for this sharp SPS onesie.

In September, Emily Blackmer married her partner of seven years, Spencer Eusden, in Randolph, New Hampshire, with a spectacular view of the Northern Presidentials.

She says: “Miraculously, it was our first and only wedding date. In typical New England fashion, the set-up the day before included torrential rain, but the wedding day itself was perfect. My BFF since Third Form, Steph (Crocker) Ross ’08, was in the wedding party and gave a toast with three-month-old Arthur in tow (thanks to super dad Eric Ross for making that happen). As we have for many years, Spencer and I live in the Tahoe area of California, where I recently began a new job working for a state conservation agency on forest and wildfire policy in the Sierra Nevada region. Yes, the wildfires were really bad last summer and, yes, there’s something we can do about it.”

Browning Platt platt.browning@gmail.com

2017/5th

Doug Robbins dougrobbins011@gmail.com

2021

Blair Bedford bqs3dp@virginia.edu

Rishi Basu says that the months after graduation have been surprisingly eventful: “I spent the summer in a sales position on Mirak Hyundai’s showroom floor, a productive application of my passion for cars. Luckily, I was there before the global chip shortage depleted our new car inventory. I left the dealership and the East Coast in September for Silicon Valley to begin a software engineering internship at Nobias Therapeutics, a pharma startup using machine learning to optimize drug development. It will be hard to say farewell to Bay Area weather, but I look forward to beginning my studies at UChicago in the fall.”

Kathryn Bostwick ’08 married Thad Walker (not pictured) on Sept. 11, 2021, in Prouts Neck, Maine. Attendees included (l. to r.): Whit Wagner ’74, Hilary Bedford Parkhurst ’80, Catherine Parkhurst Gardiner ’07, Laura Bostwick ’07 (front), Lucy Bostwick ’14 (above Laura), Annie Burleigh ’77, Pete Bostwick ’74, Kathryn Bostwick ’08, Kate Aviza ’09, Erin (Carroll) Kelly ’09, Jamie Wilson ’08, and Cackie (Bostwick) Wilson ’75.

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Masaru Nobu ’07, son of Amy Nobu ’78, and his family, Miaomiao Liu and Kazuma Nobu, celebrated Christmas in Japan wearing the same Nike jackets as their family in Portland, Oregon (see p.45).

Katharine Harper ’11 married Jack Fines on Aug. 28, 2021. Olivia (Dickey) Foroughi ’11 was maid of honor. Harvey Hinman ’11, Alvan Mbongo ’11, Fuller Henriques ’11, and Parker Grayson ’11 also attended.

Mae Karwowski ’04 and her husband, Ryan, welcomed son Jack Maverick Wesely on Nov. 29.

Ellie (Roberts) Aluise ’08 and husband Dylan welcomed Luca Roberts Aluise on Dec. 6, 2021.

Nick Pike ’00, Werner Kratovil ’00, Nick Oates ’03, and Clay Nichol ’00 met this fall in New Hampshire to escape responsibility and hunt grouse.

L. to r.: Steph (Crocker) Ross ’08, Gray Kelsey ’08, Emily Blackmer ’08, Spencer Eusden, Jill Blackmer (former SPS humanities faculty) at Emily’s September wedding in Randolph, New Hampshire.

Tessa Schrupp ’16 shares this photo of a mini reunion in October (l to r.): Hanna Chan ’15, Tessa, Max Abram ’15, Elena Tomlinson ’15, Harry Abram ’17, and Paul Kigawa ’15. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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COMMUNITY

Madeline Wang ’93, P’21

Rudy Scarito ’82

Judy Jordan ’79, P’12

Alumnni Association Networking

Virtual Events Keep Formmates in Touch with SPS and Each Other XIX SOCIETY ENTREPRENEUR EVENT

In an event organized by the SPS XIX Society, three dynamic entrepreneurs led an evening of conversation via Zoom on Jan. 12. Judy Jordan ’79, P’12, founder of Geodesy Wine; Rudy Scarito ’82, founder and managing director of RS Finance and Consulting; and Madeline Wang ’93, P’21, founder of 7Cs Leadership Workshop, shared the drive, challenges, victories, and SPS influences behind their successful businesses. The discussion was moderated by Page Sargisson ’93, a member of the Alumni Association Executive Committee and XIX Society Steering Committee.

Jordan is an accomplished businesswoman with more than 35 years in the wine industry. In 1986, she founded J Vineyards & Winery and successfully sold it in 2015.

Most recently, she has focused on making social change through connecting young women from the agricultural

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community with a multi-generational village of mentors and internship sponsors to guide and support them.

Scarito is an investment banker focused on selling family-owned and owner-operated companies. She has found her niche working with sub-$100 million companies. In addition to helping owners realize full value for their companies, Scarito helps owners and families work through the emotional issues relating to succession, leadership transition, and legacy.

Through the founding of 7Cs Leadership Workshop, Wang is helping adolescents build essential skills and inner strengths. She also serves on the Advisory Board of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, the Steering Committee at Browning the Green Space, and the Steering Committee of the XIX Society at SPS.

vance of five decades of coeducation, the women reflected on their time as some of the first African American Alma Howard Graham ’74, Addie Burns Redd ’75, and and Latinx girls at the School and shared how SPS shaped their path and purpose.

Hilda Cupeles-Nieves ’75 shared their Nearly 50 years removed from experiences in a virtual Alumnae of “If you’re fortunate their SPS experience, all three panelColor event held via Zoom on Nov. 9.

Hosted by the SPS Alumni Assoc- enough to be in a position ists as well as moderator Robbins emphasized that it’s vital for girls and iation’s Alumni of Color Advisory where you can help women to lift one another up. Robbins Council and XIX Society — and other girls or women closed the discussion by noting that moderated by XIX Society Chair and the XIX Society was established to Trustee Liz Robbins ’79, P’17, “An get a leg up, encourage SPS alumnae to support Evening with Early Alumnae of Color” reach out your hand.” one another. “If you’re fortunate eatured lively storytelling and comenough to be in a position where you pelling insights for current students, several dozen of whom gathered in Sheldon for a watch can help other girls or women get a leg up,” Robbins said, party. As St. Paul’s School continues its yearlong obser- “reach out your hand.”

AN EVENING WITH EARLY ALUMNAE OF COLOR

Follow us on social media for information on SPS gatherings

Visit www.sps.edu/alumnievents for upcoming event information and to register for future alumni gatherings.

StPaulsSchoolNH spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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PLANNED GIVING

Where the magic happens.

Legacy gifts change lives and transform institutions. Legacy gifts impact the student experience for generations. Legacy gifts allow you to share your values with the world.

Legacy gifts protect the best of the past and nurture hope for the future. Simply put, legacy gifts make magic happen. Donors can use charitable remainder trusts, charitable gift annuities, life estates, qualified charitable distributions, life insurance, and more to strengthen SPS both now and in the future.

Please consider allowing us to help you develop a planned giving strategy that meets your philanthropic goals, minimizes your tax obligations, and protects your heirs.

To learn more, please contact: Phillip Blackman, director of planned giving, at 603-229-4781, pblackman@sps.edu.

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IN MEMORIAM The section was updated January 18, 2022. Please note that deaths are reported as we receive notice of them. Therefore, alumni dates of death are not always reported chronologically.

1941 — Thomas Dolan IV Dec. 28, 2021

1955 — Ogden White, Jr. Sept. 30, 2021

1944 — Lawrence Waterman Ward Jan. 11, 2022

1956 — John T. von Stade Nov. 25, 2021

1945 — Augustus Lowell Putnam Nov. 29, 2021

1958 — Thomas Ryan Jay Oct. 13, 2021

1945 — Richard P. Ryerson, Sr. Oct. 21, 2021

1958 — Seth Kellogg Oct. 13, 2021

1946 — Sidney Lovett, Jr. Oct. 4, 2021

1959 — Wilfred Collison Files, Jr. July 27, 2021

1946 — Kaighn Smith Sept. 18, 2021

1962 — David Mabon Knott Oct. 23. 2021

1948 — William Alexander “Sandy” McLanahan Dec. 24, 2021

1963 — M. Donald Maura Feb. 4, 2021

1949 — Robert H. S. French Nov. 2, 2021 1949 — James Mellon Walton Jan. 2, 2022 1950 — Montague H. Hackett, Jr. Jan. 1, 2022 1950 — Richard H. “Dick” Miller Sept. 18, 2021 1950 — Richard Parmele “Dick” Paine Nov. 16, 2021 1951 — Maurice Jerome “Jerry” Picard May 11, 2021

1964 — Eugene Hildreth Bayard Oct. 30, 2021 1965 — Richard Frederick Kauders Nov. 17, 2021 1971 — Waldemar Leopoldo Römer Sept. 28, 2021 1974 — Jari J. Tiilikainen May 20, 2020 1986 — Otis Reidat Damslet Aug. 1, 2021 1991 — Peter Victor Sulkowski Aug. 1, 2021

1951 — Laurence Jackson “Tadger” Webster II Sept. 28, 2021

FACULTY Omar Brown, Jr. Jan. 4, 2022

1952 — Paul H. Bartlett Dec. 21, 2021

FORMER FACULTY Charles A. Lemeland Oct. 19, 2021

1952 — George Sidney Ross Oct. 29. 2021 1953 — Philander Cooke Derby Nov. 21, 2021 1953 — William A. “Gordon” Gordon Sept. 19, 2021

Robert Mitchell Schmid Sept. 24, 2021 Karen Burgess Smith Nov. 7, 2021

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IN MEMORIAM

1949 James Mellon Walton a man of intelligent heart and mind, who listened carefully to others and responded with deep understanding, died peacefully at home on Jan. 2, 2022. He was 91.

Born in Pittsburgh on Dec. 18, 1930, to John Fawcett Walton, Jr. of the Form of 1912 and Rachel Mellon Walton, he attended Shadyside Academy, before enrolling at St. Paul’s School as a Second Former in the fall of 1949. He was a member of the Acolyte’s Guild, the Dramatic Club, and the Missionary Society, served as a supervisor and a chapel warden, and competed with Delphian and Shattuck.

He received a B.A. in English literature from Yale and served in the U.S. Army as a First Lieutenant, first in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and then in Frankfurt, Germany. Following his service, Mr. Walton earned his MBA from Harvard Business School, before joining Gulf Oil Corporation, founded by his grandfather, William Larimer Mellon.

Mr. Walton and his family traveled extensively, including posts in Philadelphia, Houston, Tokyo, and Rome.

In 1968, he was appointed president of the Carnegie Museums and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. During his 16-year tenure, the organization expanded significantly, including the addition of a new building for the Museum of Art. He was known for forming personal connections with all the employees of the museums.

Upon his retirement, he remained a life trustee and was elected president emeritus.

In 1985, Mr. Walton co-founded the Maverick Fund, a Pennsylvania limited partnership that invested in leveraged buyouts of moderate-sized businesses.

A longtime resident of Pittsburgh, Mr. Walton was a senior corporate executive, philanthropic leader, and volunteer. He served with humility and compassion, always welcoming and respectful. He did his work with a ready wit and good humor. He was one of Pittsburgh’s great men. Mr. Walton was a trustee and chairman of the Vira Heinz Endowment and then vice chairman and vice chairman emeritus of the Heinz Endowments. He was a trustee of Carnegie Mellon University, the Allegheny Foundation, Penn’s Southwest Association, Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh, and Make a Wish Foundation, among others. In 56

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recognition of his contributions to Pittsburgh, Mr. Walton was awarded honorary doctorates from Carnegie Mellon University and Allegheny College.

After moving to Florida later in life, he continued to give by getting involved with the Stephen’s Ministry at St. Paul’s Church and as a volunteer at Bethesda Hospital.

He remained active in the SPS community, too, serving as a form agent from 1949 to 1956; as a regional representative from 1970 to 1973; and as a trustee from 1975 to 1977.

He spent almost every summer of his life in Beaumaris, Ontario, with his family and friends. There, he was a board member of the Beaumaris Yacht Club and a past president of the Beaumaris Fishing Club. Wherever their family moved, Mr. Walton and his wife, Ellen, got involved with the local Episcopal church. In 1966, as the senior warden of St. Paul’s Church in Rome, he was asked to be present in the Sistine Chapel for the first-ever meeting between the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Family was the most important thing in his life, and he treasured time with his close relatives.

Mr. Walton is survived by his wife of 68 years, Ellen; his children, Joe, Rachel, Jimmy, and Mary and their spouses; seven grandchildren; his sister, Mary Walton Curley; and his dog, Zeus. He was predeceased by his sister, Farley Whetzel; his brother, John Fawcett Walton III ’45; and his son-in-law, Franny Wymard.

1950 Richard Parmele “Dick” Paine formerly of Dover, Massachusetts, and Nashua, New Hampshire, died on Nov. 16, 2021. He was 88 and surrounded by his family.

Mr. Paine was born in Boston on Dec. 4, 1932, to Robert G. Paine and Elaine Wemple. His father and mother were descendants of old Boston and Hudson River families.

Mr. Paine was educated at Dexter School before enrolling at St. Paul’s School, where he played football and hockey for Isthmian and developed many lifelong friendships.

His years at SPS were among the happiest of his life.

After graduating from Harvard in 1954, Mr. Paine served for several years in the U.S. Air Force, where he flew alert missions in an F-94C fighter interceptor for the Air Defense Command. He was honorably discharged as a

captain and attended Columbia Business School, where he received an MBA in 1959. Mr. Paine had a threedecade career in the computer industry, initially at IBM and later at Software International Corporation and Commercial Union Assurance.

He spent summers at his home on MacMahan Island in Maine, where he was a passionate sailor. His love of boats was forged during early childhood summers spent in South Dartmouth and through a college summer spent in Dark Harbor. He enjoyed cruising the harbors and inlets of the Maine Coast with his family. He captained his sloop Faster numerous times in the Monhegan Race, the Edgartown Regatta, the Buzzards Bay Regatta, and the annual MacMahan Island ’Round the Island Race.

He excelled at tennis, competing in club tournaments for many years and later organizing an annual youth tennis tournament at his island home in Maine. He was an accomplished skier, sailor, tennis, and ice hockey player well into his eighties.

Mr. Paine was a member of the Society of Colonial Wars, the Harvard Club of Boston, and the Dublin Lake Club for many years. He also was a devoted alumnus of St. Paul’s School, serving for nearly three decades as form agent and form director for the Form of 1950.

Known affectionately by his grandchildren as “Gumpy,” he never missed one of their athletic or milestone events.

Mr. Paine leaves his wife, Martha Parsons Paine; his children, Richard Paine, Jr. and his, wife Cathy, Heather Giles and her husband, Mike, and David Paine and his wife, Kaoru; his stepchildren, Sara Dickison Taylor and her husband, Jim, and Matthew Dickison and his wife, Tammy; seven grandchildren; and three step-grandchildren. He was predeceased in 1984 by his first wife of 24 years, Carol Frost Paine, and by his siblings, Robert Paine and Barbara Ann Laughlin.

Lemeland. He grew up in Normandy, France, during WWII, was displaced from his home in La Haye du Puits during the war, and eventually came to New York City as a young man in 1952 to pursue his education. There, he met his future wife, Jane Margery Beardsley, whom he married in San Marino, California, in 1961.

He attended Columbia University and the University of New Hampshire, graduating with a master’s in French literature and history. Mr. Lemeland was a lifelong French teacher who held posts at Cornell University, Wells College, Boston College, and Wheaton College, before ultimately retiring from his teaching position at St. Paul’s School in 1997.

In his 23 years on the faculty at St. Paul’s, Mr. Lemeland met many friends, colleagues, and former students who loved him dearly. His friends at SPS characterized him as brilliant, quietly observant, charming, kind, generous, and a truly beloved teacher. He was described as a mentor who could pull his students into the depths of literature.

He loved to be around young people, listening to their views, ideas, and aspirations.

Mr. Lemeland was above all a devoted husband and father, an old-fashioned family man who always put his wife and children first. He was creative and enjoyed working with wood, refinishing furniture, and fixing anything in need of repair. In his younger days, he loved painting and photography. He also enjoyed hunting, and his hunting dogs were all beloved companions, whom he valued as family members.

He was an avid reader, who loved French literature, history, and philosophy — passions he passed on to his students every year. Mr. Lemeland was a great appreciator of nature, loved to walk in the woods with his dogs, loved to travel to France with his family, and also enjoyed spending time on Martha’s Vineyard in the summers.

Mr. Lemeland was predeceased by his younger brother, Aubert Lemeland, and his parents. He is survived by his wife, Jane Beardsley Lemeland; his daughter, Laure Lemeland Nawrocki, son-in-law, Peter Nawrocki, and their two children, Cole and Britt; and his daughter, Lise Marie Lemeland, and her three children, Mateo, Santiago, and Elis.

He will be laid to rest in a private ceremony at the St. Paul’s School cemetery.

OBITUARY POLICY CHANGE

Former Faculty Charles Aubert Lemeland a former longtime faculty member, died of natural causes at his home in Concord, New Hampshire, on Oct. 19, 2021. He was 89.

Mr. Lemeland was born on Jan. 19, 1932, in La Haye du Puits, France, the son of Paul and Berthe Le Brun

Effective with the publication of the Winter 2022 issue, St. Paul’s School will no longer be generating obituaries for alumni or reaching out to families to obtain them. Instead, we will be accepting obituaries written and submitted by family members of the deceased. Those tributes, which should not exceed 400 words in length, will be edited for style and will appear in the next possible issue of Alumni Horae. We will continue to list the names of all deceased alumni in the magazine. spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

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PHOTO: SATURN

SPOTLIGHT

On Schedule Entrepreneur Max Baron ’17 and partners aim to make the calendaring and events platform Saturn the “first social calendar.”

DEBBIE KANE

It’s a familiar story. College classmates introduce a social networking platform that enables students to connect with one another. The program’s popularity explodes, catches the attention of the press and venture capitalists, and the duo leaves college to run the new business.

Except this story isn’t about Facebook. It’s about Saturn, a calendar-based social platform developed from an app Dylan Diamond created for students at his Connecticut high school to share their schedules. Later, as a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania, Diamond demonstrated the app for classmate Max Baron ’17. Baron says he was “blown away by the engagement and potential to extend the product’s core utility.” In 2019, he and Diamond left Wharton to build Saturn. By April 2021, the startup had raised more than $44 million in financing from technology investors, ranging from venture firms General Catalyst, Insight Partners, and Coatue to Jeff Bezos.

“If we’re successful, we’ll be the world’s first

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spshorae.com Alumni Horae | Issue II 21/22

social calendar,” says Baron, now Saturn’s COO and CSO. Named for the Roman god of time, Saturn enables high school students to manage and share their schedules, including class, club, and athletic commitments, as well as host events and chat with friends. By January 2019, the pair had launched unique apps for 17 high schools in the Northeast, and by April, they had consolidated to a single app and expanded to support more than 50 schools.

By the time the Saturn co-founders were named to the 2021 Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Education list, 60,000 students at 100 schools were using the app. Today, Saturn supports more than 1,000 high schools across the U.S. Baron’s influencer marketing experience has helped drive growth as student ambassadors at each high school introduce the app to peers. Saturn’s calendars are communityspecific to each participating high school and presently can’t be viewed by students

outside of a user’s school (or by teachers and administrators).

Baron displayed his entrepreneurial chops before he was in high school. When he was 11, the New York City native launched a subscription-based fresh cookie business to cover the cost of a MacBook. As a Fifth Former at St. Paul’s, he started PrepReps, an influencer marketing company connecting high school and college students with clothing and tech brands — from his dorm room. Participating on the School’s debate team beginning as a Third Former and later captaining the team as a Sixth Former refined his critical thinking and reasoning skills.

“Both at Wharton and in my work at Saturn, I realized I leaned on those skills,” Baron says.

“The ability to quickly analyze a problem and effectively communicate are skills I still rely on daily.”

As a Sixth Former, Baron turned from PrepReps to a full-time social media consultancy, working with brands such as T-Mobile and Beats by Dr. Dre, where he advised their C-Suite executives. After his freshman year at Wharton, he was hired as a managing director at Havas, one of the largest integrated marketing agencies in the U.S., to helm their youth marketing offerings. After meeting Diamond in September 2018, the two began working on what would become Saturn, moved into an apartment together, set up four computers, and — fueled by their vision and lots of Red Bull — got to work.

“We’re the real-time status and events platform in U.S. high schools,” Baron says. “Our retention and engagement metrics are incredibly strong, comparable to many of the preeminent social apps, and driven by the profound utility we’re able to provide users on a daily basis.”

The company’s future looks bright. Based in Manhattan, Saturn has more than 40 employees, many of whom have joined from some of the world’s largest tech companies, and is growing quickly. Baron’s goal is to make Saturn the first calendar built around the friends who matter most — and to eclipse legacy giants like Outlook and Google as the calendar of choice.

“We’re presently focused on bringing Saturn to every high school student in the United States,” Baron says, “then we’ll pursue opportunities to expand into new verticals and geographies from there.”

JOIN US June 10-12, 2022, will mark the first in-person Anniversary Weekend in Millville since 2019.

Members of forms ending in 1, 2, 6, and 7, as well as the Form of 2020, are invited to share this special opportunity to celebrate the traditions, connections, and community that define our school.

Registration officially opens March 21. Watch your mail for your formal invitation.

Scan the code below for more information and to get a sneak peek at who has already said they’re coming back.

sps.edu/anniversary

We can’t wait to welcome you back.

ADVANCEMENT OFFICE | 603-229-5624

Alumni Horae

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