Alumni Horae Winter 2023-24

ST. PAUL’S SCHOOL | ISSUE II 2023-24

A lumni Horae

IN THIS ISSUE:

Lawrence Cheuk ’06 leads a quantum breakthrough

Students participate in grassroots politics

Alums talk rock at SPS

Alumni Horae

RECTOR

Kathleen C. Giles

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Karen Ingraham

EDITOR

Kristin Duisberg

DESIGNER

Cindy L. Foote

SECTION EDITOR

Kate Dunlop

PHOTOGRAPHY

Ben Flanders

Michael Seamans

EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS

Ian Aldrich

Jana F. Brown

Larry Clow

Jacqueline Primo Lemmon

Michael Matros

Jody Record

Ellen Ryan

Will Schwalbe '80

ALUMNI ADVISORY BOARD

Elise Loehnen Fissmer ’98

David M. Foxley ’02

Dana R. Goodyear ’94

Jonathan D. Jackson ’09

Malcolm Mackay ’59

Diego H. Nuñez ’08

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THE STUDENT BODY POLITIC JODY RECORD

Especially in election years, the SPS Humanities curriculum provides students with exceptional opportunities to engage in the political process.

20

SCIENCE ON DEMAND

JANA F. BROWN

A team led by Princeton Physics

Professor Lawrence Cheuk ’06 has made a major breakthrough in quantum mechanics.

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26

ROCK ROOTS

IAN ALDRICH

SPS alums in the music biz include rockers, audio producers and members of a Japanese boy band who credit time at SPS for setting them on their path.

UPDATE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS: ALUMNI@SPS.EDU

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IN THIS ISSUE

2 FROM THE RECTOR

4 THE SCHOOL TODAY

Nicholas White debuts “Songs of Innocence”; the School celebrates Lunar New Year; student playwrights and directors take the stage; the girls wrestling program gains momentum.

32 REVIEWS

“Ilium”

Lea Carpenter ’91

“Scribners: Five Generations in Publishing”

Charles Scribner III ’69

34 SPOTLIGHT

Brigham Snow ’14 traded his desk job for a spot on the Hotshots fireline.

36 ALUMNI CONNECTIONS

38 THE SPS HERITAGE FUND

40 PROFILE

Maxwell King ’62 on life in the boardroom and newsroom.

41 PROFILE

Manager Aleen Keshishian ’86 represents some of Hollywood’s best-known names.

42 PROFILE

Graham Browne ’04 founded Forte Prep to help students succeed.

43 IN MEMORIAM

ALUMNI HORAE DEADLINE

Formnotes for the summer issue are due Friday, May 31. Notes and photos may be sent to alumni@ sps.edu. Please note the minimum allowable photo size for print publication is 1MB. Photos that are smaller than 1MB do not provide the resolution necessary for print and will be included only at the discretion of Alumni Horae.

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The Blessings of Chapel

KATHLEEN C. GILES

What a blessing we have in chapel.

Certainly, the Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul is an extraordinary place. Whether awe is inspired by the grandeur of the architecture and ornate carvings, by the extraordinary music created by organ and voice (and often other instruments, as well), or by the Gothic space that in its height and depth introduces room for the Divine among us, awe is most certainly inspired. Chapel as we know it is, perhaps, something more than the building. Chapel is our morning practice of coming together — in New Chapel, and also in Memorial Hall — to spend a moment on things of this world and not of this world, and to cultivate our spiritual selves. The blessing of chapel is this dynamic, as we take the individual seats expressly saved for each of us, face each other, and listen, learn, and grow. In this time of intense acrimony, division, and turmoil throughout our world, the blessing of chapel has never been more important.

Chapel has evolved throughout the School’s life. Without retracing the entirety of our history, I am finding that through much of it, our School has looked to chapel to center the community in values, spirituality, and traditions. Perhaps Dr. Samuel Smith Drury, our Fourth Rector, sped up this evolution when he changed Sunday chapel from three services to two and allowed students — then “the boys” — to play outside on Sunday afternoons instead of sitting inside for the midday service. Perhaps others continued this evolution by changing Sunday chapel to one service and then to an optional service. During the pandemic, when we could not be in person on the grounds, we held chapel online; when we returned to Millville during the pandemic’s later stages, we experimented with ways to get students, masked and socially distanced, to chapel. Central and immediate to our

thinking was how the health, vibrancy, and essence of our community’s spirit are inextricably entwined with chapel as both experience and place.

Over the past few tumultuous months, so much good has happened within that space. After the devastating October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, our consulting Rabbi Robin Nafshi reminded us that we study history, and specifically religious history, to strengthen our hope in our faith and future, as we see how people who have suffered found ways to persevere. A week later, theologian Dr. Kwok Pui-lan built on this theme, describing the Bible as “chronicling the story of the losers” with the express purpose of proving Divine Love through human faith, strength, and love. In October, Dr. Bruce Duthu of Dartmouth College offered us an incredible way to think about empathy and compassion; he told us, “if your curiosity and care extend no further than yourself, you limit your understanding to yourself. But if you reach out to others with curiosity and compassion, you move yourself beyond your own limits. That space in between yourself and others, that reach and stretch, is the space where understanding, relationships, and learning happen.” More recently, the Rev. Rebecca Copeland spoke to us about “wicked problems”: the problems that we did not create but whose damage on others we can see, and about the way we exercise moral agency when we choose to act, even if it is hard to see how our actions create good given the scale of the wicked problem. And as she drew on the life and works of civil rights leader Howard Thurman, the Rev. Arleigh Prelow encouraged us metaphorically to find our own “water’s edge, that sacred place to seek and encounter the divine,” where we can retreat and spiritually refuel ourselves from some of the endless activity around us. “And when you make that trek to water’s edge,” she told us, “lead others to it.”

Our students’ voices give so much life to chapel. Student lectors offer the Opening Sentence and the Reading. This year on the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., student lectors offered readings from King’s famous talks on “creating a blueprint for life” and “being the most excellent streetsweeper.” On another morning, Darnell ’25 told us about finding his courage and voice by daring to step out onto the New Space stage. Georgia ’24 talked about the joy she found in playing on the JV basketball team and challenged us to re-think priorities that are fixated on credentials and instead reaffirm the values of a team, shared goals, and simple joys. Annabella ’24 reminded everyone of the

many invitations at school to become an independent, principled, disciplined thinker through reading and writing, and the incredible value in doing so. And Bianca ’24 gave the first of the Sixth Form farewells, sharing important family traditions while telling our community that the most important tradition at SPS is “kindness in our core.”

Many, if not most, Thursdays, we hear the kind of music most people only hear in concerts, as students and faculty members perform everything from Broadway songs to classical concertos. We celebrate birthdays at every chapel, praying for students and colleagues with birthdays, “may peace and joy be with them in heart and mind and body.” As Rector, I offer a prayer as well, connected with the day’s program and again drawing us closer to the Love Divine. And of course, we sing. Chapel reports or announcements follow, as we seamlessly integrate our spiritual lives with our day-to-day business.

What a blessing chapel is. While many of our alumni long for those days, the opportunity for chapel is in the present for all of us. A growing body of research shows that developing one’s spiritual sense — the concept of deep connection with another being or with nature, a feeling of transcendence of self, being lifted up by God or at least by a higher power — provides resilience against

some of the most challenging physical and mental health crises facing us and certainly facing our teenagers. As we develop our spiritual lives, child psychologist Dr. Lisa Miller notes in her recent book, “The Awakened Brain”: … we feel more fulfilled and at home in the world, and we build relationships and make decisions from a wider view. We move from loneliness and isolation to connection; from competition and division to compassion and altruism; from an entrenched focus on our wounds, problems, and losses to a fascination with the journey of life. We begin to live beyond a ‘pieces and parts’ model of identity and a splintered, fragmented view of who we are to one another, and to cultivate a way of being built on a core awareness of love, interconnection, and the guidance and surprise of life.

The blessing of chapel is as present as ever in all our lives. With the School Prayer’s mandate to be “eager to bear the burdens of others” in fraught times, that blessing can be revisited at will, wherever we find ourselves. We can find hope in the perseverance and courage of others; we can find the water’s edge and be reborn; we can feel kindness in our core. If we are open to echoes of our voices together in chapel, we can be at home with the Love Divine.

Chapel joy: Students on their feet for the Winter Term-favorite holiday carol singalong in December.

THE VIEW FROM HERE

Following a January warm-up, skating on Library Pond might have been out of the question, but a stunning rainbow over Millville is a mood-lifter in every season.

PHOTO: Joe Bernier

ART THAT RESONATES

Nicholas White Brings William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence” to Life

JACQUELINE PRIMO LEMMON

Members of the SPS Ballet Company danced in the Chapel aisle, their crisp white shirts and gauzy dresses a blur of movement set to the strains of violin, viola, cello, piano and bass. Behind the instrumentalists and framed by the Chapel’s lofty reredos, soloists and the full SPS Chapel Choir, robed in red, sang lines of music that evoked images of the English countryside — fields and woods, spring lambs and joyful children, flowers and stars. In the Chapel pews, audience members sat engrossed as St. Paul’s School Director of Chapel Music and Organist Nicholas White brought to life his original work: a musical interpretation of the Romantic poet William Blake’s 19-poem cycle “Songs of Innocence” that drew on the talent of artists in and beyond the School.

White has been setting other people’s poetry to music his whole life. T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding” quartet was the inspiration for his opera “The Fire and the Rose,” which debuted in the Chapel in January 2022.

His “Songs of Innocence” was composed in 2021 and recorded by an 11-member ensemble that same year; based on the success of “The Fire and the Rose,” in 2023, White turned his attention to assembling a group for a live performance of the Blake piece. That performance came together on the evening of Friday, Jan. 26, for an audience of students, faculty and staff members; trustees in Millville for winter meetings; and guests from the greater Concord community.

The Form of 1954 Henry Crocker Kittredge Chair in the Arts since 2013 and an SPS faculty member since 2011, White says he is drawn to poetry that has stood the test of time. “I am guided by the idea that the work of a composer is to enhance the power of the poet’s words,” he says. “With Blake’s poetry, I kept the themes of joy, youth and innocence in mind and … my hope was to get the audience thinking about how these poems that were published in the late 18th century might resonate in a 21st-century world.”

Dress rehearsal: Members of the SPS Ballet Company and Chapel Choir run through the program with soloists and other musicians for the Jan. 26 production of Nicholas White’s “Songs of Innocence.”

Illustrated versions of Blake’s poems — published in 1789 along with the 26 pieces that comprise his companion work, “Songs of Experience” — were displayed on the Chapel walls during the performance, and further articulated in the dances of the SPSBC, which had been arranged by Cristina Baron ’25. A first-time choreographer, Baron, who has been dancing since she was 7 and attended the American Ballet Theatre Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School in New York City, says she wanted the ballet to look angelic and capture the essence of youth.

“I was inspired by Ancient Greek sculptures, especially the ones of women, as well as Renaissance paintings of heaven. ... The dancing needed to evoke the same profound emotions that Mr. White’s music does,” she says. She notes that choreographing for a space that was not intended for dance presented a unique challenge that required her to think outside the box. “The floor in the Chapel is slippery tile and the aisle space is only about six

YEAR OF THE DRAGON

SPS Welcomes

Lunar New Year

KRISTIN DUISBERG

Ifeet wide, yet longer than most stages,” she explains, so the dancers couldn’t jump or turn the way they could on a stage. As a result, her choreography included “intricate formations and patterns in order to keep the simple steps interesting.”

White says Baron created dance that served Blake’s poems and his own music exceptionally well. “Cristina developed beautiful movement and dance for 10 ballet dancers, which raised the level of impact from mere words and music in a gorgeous way,” he says. White has no less praise for the Chapel Choir and the guest musicians who created the auditory experience of “Songs of Innocence,” and says that cross-disciplinary collaboration is part of the magic at SPS. “When the School’s ballet and choir programs are brought together, along with guest artists from the professional music world … the young singers learn from the experience of performing with the soloists, the dancers create and learn new choreography to new music, and we all try to create something special with each other,” he says.

n Chinese culture, painted couplets hung from a door at Lunar New Year serve a dual purpose: Even as they provide a festive welcome to the new year, they also offer symbolic protection against nián shòu: the mythical, human-eating beast often depicted as a red dragon in Lunar New Year celebrations. In Millville, students in the Chinese language program paint paired lines of poetry on traditional red couplet paper and hang them on the doors of classrooms and faculty houses around the grounds as part of the School’s annual observation of Lunar New Year. As SPS Chinese Language Teacher Paul Murray explains, it’s an opportunity for students to practice calligraphy, build vocabulary and share an aspect of a cultural celebration that’s observed in China, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam and Korea. Following a schoolwide celebration hosted at the Friedman Community Center by student affinity groups on Feb. 10 and a Feb. 13 Lunar New Year chapel program in Memorial Hall, the couplets continued to provide a splash of color to the campus to mark the start of the Year of the Dragon.

SEE LUNAR NEW YEAR AT SPS

Student Talent is Center Stage — and Backstage — for Winter Term One-Act Plays

KRISTIN DUISBERG

In “Love is a Battlefield,” two girls wrestle with the pressure of trying to live up to the expectations of others and pursue a romance that doesn’t fit either one of them. “In the Crowd” takes another angle on relationships, telling the story of two people who get off to a rocky start but find a spark in the common experience of trying to define a different path for themselves than the one their parents set out for them. The comedy/drama “Evil Good” highlights a high school student’s efforts

to balance the competing demands of academics and family. A robbery and an affair take center stage in the darkly comical “Caught in the Act.” And “The All-American Girls” explores themes of gender equality, societal expectations and personal resilience against the historic backdrop of the 1940s All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

These five plays — the first four written by SPS student playwrights — comprise the St. Paul’s School Winter Term

Student-Directed One-Acts, which took place in New Space Theater on Feb. 16 and 17. A showcase of the collaborative talents of student actors, directors, playwrights, stage managers and more, the One-Acts began at the end of Fall Term, when interested Fifth and Sixth Formers applied to direct or write (or both!) a play. During Winter Term, the selected student directors chose their casts, worked with playwrights on their stories, selected staging/ props/costumes and ran rehearsals under the guidance of SPS Director of Theater Kirsten McKinney and a team that included Theater Teaching Fellow Chloe Otterson, Theater Technician Hayden Eric, and Mason Deas ’24, this year’s student production manager.

The final presentations, says McKinney, were outstanding. “It was an extraordinary effort of more than 40 students collaborating to create an evening of art,” she says. “It has been a privilege and honor to have a front seat to watch the work of our young theater artists shift and change while developing their creative vison and direction for each piece.”

In Brief

Chelsea ’26 and Cami ’24 Bell have been skating for as long as they can remember, but it’s only been during their time together at SPS that they’ve skated side by side on the same school hockey team. In November, the sisters punched their ticket to the U19 USA Hockey Nationals, taking place in April, as members of the Massachusetts-based club team Boston Junior Eagles.

Humanities Teacher Josh Duclos brought his expertise in ethics and environmental philosophy to the Concord-based nonprofit New Hampshire Humanities on Jan. 26. As part of the organization’s 50th anniversary series highlighting topics from the past five decades that continue to resonate today, Duclos spoke about tensions that exist between justice and goodness when it comes to our duty to address climate change.

Watching the ponds where he used to fish with his grandfather in his native Shanghai, China, become polluted and close to fishing prompted Fourth Former Anfeng “Wilson” Xie’s interest in environmental activism. In December, Xie took his message about the role individuals — even high schoolers — can play in tackling climate change to the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP28, where he spoke on stage. READ A

TAKING SHAPE

Traditional Beam Signing the Next Step for New Admissions Center

KRISTIN DUISBERG

In February, the outline of the new St. Paul’s School Fleischner Family Admissions Center began to rise in Millville, just beyond the entrance to the School grounds between Alumni House and the Lindsay Center for Mathematics and Science. The steel beams for the building’s infrastructure arrived on Feb. 19 and construction crews began an installation process that will take an estimated three to four weeks to complete.

On Feb. 22 and 23, students, faculty and staff added their imprimatur to the project, stopping by the Friedman Community Center to sign their names to a 10-footlong beam that was flown into place by crane during the following week. Fourteenth Rector Kathy Giles was the last community member to add her name to the special, white-painted beam, an important and exciting piece of the future of St. Paul’s School set to open next winter.

The St. Paul’s School community heard from a variety of speakers during Winter Term chapels. Here’s just a little of what some of them had to say.

GRAHAM

BROWNE ’04 / Dec. 4, 2023

Founder & Executive Director, Forte Preparatory Academy

“Not everyone is going to leave SPS and 20 years later start their own public school where they live. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend it. ... It’s not for the faint of heart. But everyone here has the chance to widen a door of opportunity for the people who follow them or to break down that doorframe completely and create a new, wider door in its midst.”

Read the profile of Browne on page 56.

REV. REBECCA COPELAND / Jan. 12, 2024

Assistant Professor of Theology at Boston University School of Theology

“Each of you has had a conversation with someone — likely in the past month — that that person will remember for years. You may not remember what you said, but it affected them in a way they will never forget. Just talking with one another about what matters most is an act of responsibility. Each of you sets an example for others by the way you act and the choices you make.”

REV. ARLEIGH PRELOW / Jan. 15, 2024 Director, filmmaker and ordained minister; SPS Martin Luther King Jr. Day speaker

“When you question your purpose. … or the isolation you may feel, or the need to belong, or the causes that tire you, or the pushback you receive pursuing what is right and just, or when you feel devalued or just not good enough, trek to water’s edge. Water’s edge does not have to be literally the edge of the water … It’s a place where you can feel the presence of the divine ... restored, renewed, connected, understood and open to hearing the revelation of the next steps.”

READ MORE ABOUT MLK DAY AT SPS

REV. WALTER THORNE / Jan. 26, 2024 St. Paul’s School Chaplain

“We live in a divided world full of people who are confident that they are correct, and we would do well to keep St. Paul in mind. … Paul was not perfect, but Paul is proof that God, or a sign … or a teacher or a friend, might transform who we are and how we think about the world. He reminds us that people can change and that there is no reason for us to fear the moments in life when we realize we are wrong.”

KATHY GILES / Feb. 2, 2024 St. Paul’s School Rector

“If we as a School community create an environment full of invitations, with talented and engaged peers and adults who care, mentor and coach, students learn to spot invitations to grow and accept them or — better yet — go after them, and their growth inspires other to do the same, and so on. It’s an amazing cycle when it gets going.”

ATHLETICS

Girls Wrestling on the Rise

Two years ago, Lily Fitzpatrick ’25 was the only girl on the SPS wrestling team. Today she’s one of five.

JANA F. BROWN

In December, St. Paul’s School hosted a wrestling tournament at the Athletic and Fitness Center that featured 75 wrestlers from 40 schools around New England — all girls. The invitational was the second of what SPS head wrestling coach Alec Engler hopes will become an annual event exclusively for girls participating in wrestling programs at public and private high schools.

“It was awesome to have our own thing,” says wrestler Lily Fitzpatrick ’25, a two-time All-American who hails from Montana. “Back home, the girls program has grown exponentially, whereas here it’s getting to that point now. Seeing that tournament grow over the last couple of years has been amazing.”

The number of girls who participated in

the tournament at SPS is not an anomaly; wrestling is one of the fastest-growing competitive sports among women in the United States. According to data published in 2023 by the National Wrestling Coaches Association, “since 1994, the number of women who wrestle in high school has grown from 804 to more than 50,000, 44 states [including New Hampshire] now sanction an official scholastic state championship for girls and 150-plus colleges now sponsor a varsity [women’s] wrestling program.”

It’s a trend that began to take off when women’s wrestling was added as an Olympic sport in 2004. Over the last two decades, it has continued to grow in the U.S., in part due to the success of American women medaling at the last two Olympics.

“Having women’s wrestling in the Olympics has helped a ton,” confirms Engler, a former college wrestler from Minnesota who’s in his third year coaching at SPS. “It’s why you see more clubs offering girls programs, and then middle schools and high schools continuing it. Girls want to have that same competition experience [as boys], to be able to push themselves.”

As a Third Former, Fitzpatrick was the only girl to represent St. Paul’s on the mat, and she paved the way for future teammates by winning the 2022 National Championship in the girls division of the 138-pound weight class. With Fitzpatrick’s advocacy and recruiting from Engler, the co-ed SPS wrestling program roster this year includes Madelyn “Maddie” Morse ’26, Camila Capdevila ’25,

SPS wrestlers Allyson Duardo ’26, Sooyeon “Danielle” Choi ’26, Lily Fitzpatrick ’25, Camila Capdevila ’25 and Madelyn Morse ’26.

Allyson Duardo ’26 and Sooyeon “Danielle” Choi ’26. During the regular season, the SPS girls compete against boys if the opposing squad has no girl athletes at their weight class, but there is a separate girls division once the teams get to the postseason.

Last year, Morse earned All-American honors after placing second in her weight class at Nationals. The 100-pound competitor says she “wasn’t exactly an athlete before I came to St. Paul’s, so wrestling has taught me that I can do anything if I push through it.” As a team, SPS placed third in New England in the girls division, with both Morse and Fitzpatrick crowned individual New England champions (Fitzpatrick earned the same honor in 2022).

“I never thought I’d love it this much, but it’s really changed me as a person, and I think it would change others, too,” says Fitzpatrick, who was inspired to try wrestling in middle school after watching her brother, Kallen ’27, compete. “I think girls are just becoming more willing to do things that boys think they couldn’t have done before.”

Engler is grateful to the School for its support of the program, including offering to host the December all-girls tournament for a second consecutive year. In addition to the competition at home, Engler says the girls are headed to another tournament at Andover this season, while the SPS Athletic Department is looking to add other girls-only events next year.

In February, St. Paul’s competed in the first-ever Class A Championship for girls wrestling at Northfield Mt. Hermon. In addition to athletes from SPS and NMH, the tournament featured competitors from Choate, Andover, Exeter, Wilbraham Monson, Deerfield and Hyde. It’s yet another step for a sport whose popularity is on the rise.

“We’re at the point where the School is looking at girls wrestling as a separate sport,” says Engler, noting that the program is only a few athletes away from making that a reality. “The goal is to have 20 or more girls in our program, and then our current trailblazers can look back one day and see what they started.”

Star[board] Turn

A historic SPS rowing shell played a small but critical role in a recent Hollywood hit.

KRISTIN DUISBERG AND DEANNA PARSI

If you’ve seen the December 2023 movie “Boys in the Boat,” based on Daniel James Brown’s 2013 book of the same name, you’ve also seen a little piece of St. Paul’s School history play out on the silver screen.

“The Boys in the Boat” tells the true story of the 1936 U.S. Olympic rowing team — an underdog crew made up of collegiate rowers from the University of Washington — and their bid for gold at the summer Games in Berlin. To lend authenticity to the historic account, the movie’s production crew conducted a national search for a 1930s-era boat to serve as a model for the ones that would be put into daily use in filming. They found just the thing in the Crumpacker Boathouse: a 1938 eight-oared shell that had once belonged to the Halcyon Boat Club. Sixty feet long and made of western red cedar and sitka spruce, the boat was in exceptionally good shape, according to SPS boatman Matt Bailey, who made some minor repairs, replaced a

few missing seats and washed it by hand (several times!) before loaning it out to King Boat Works in Putney, Vermont. There, the boat was scanned and its specifications replicated in multiple carbon fiber versions, built in England, that were used in the movie’s many rowing scenes.

As with the 1936 Olympic rowing team’s shell, the SPS boat was built by George Pocock, one of the preeminent boatmen of the 20th century. It also was a twin: one of two Pococks purchased by the SPS Board of Trustees for the School’s boat clubs. While Horae Scholasticae accounts indicate the Halcyon boat suffered a narrow defeat — less than half a second — against its Shattuck counterpart in their 1938 Anniversary race debut, it seems that the Halcyon boat ultimately earned the greater victory. Even as the Shattuck Pocock is long gone, the Halcyon shell is safely returned to the SPS boathouse after its role in one of the year’s biggest films.

The 1938 Halcyon Pocock shell at the SPS boathouse.

ATHLETICS HAS A NEW WEBSITE

Visit athletics.sps.edu for the latest information on Big Red sports — schedules and results, team rosters, photos and more.

Humanities Teacher Chris Carter P’17 (second from left) poses with students and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley at a Manchester rally in January.

The Student Body Politic

At

St. Paul’s

School, student engagement in the political process is more than academic, especially in an election year.

JODY RECORD

Civic discourse isn’t just about addressing political issues in the public sphere. It’s also about learning how to examine your personal beliefs and engage productively with others whose political positions might differ from yours. That’s one of the many upsides of St. Paul’s School students being involved with recent political campaigns, says Humanities Teacher Christine Carter P’17, who has taught SPS’s American Politics elective for more than 15 years. “They learn to talk across the table and still get along,” she says.

During the 2024 New Hampshire primary season, students learned by more than just talking. They attended a Manchester rally for Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley. Worked the phone bank for Democratic candidate Dean Phillips. Heard from campus guests that included Andrew Yang, who ran for president in 2020; 2016 New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate and former New Hampshire Executive Council Member Colin van Ostern; and Jeff Grappone ’98, who has run several political campaigns and serves as executive vice president and chair of public relations practice at bipartisan ROKK Solutions in Washington, D.C.

“To me it’s just that experience of grassroots politics,” says Carter, the Richard F. Davis Chair in Humanities, of the mix of voluntary (phone-banking, hearing from Haley and Yang) and curriculum-based (class visits with van Ostern and Grappone) activities offered to students this winter. “They worked phone banks, they got to talk to people, they got hung up on, they learned what it’s really like to be part of a campaign.”

DAN NICHOLS

If they were old enough, they also went to register to vote — a group of about 50 students that included Emily “Milly” Kirkman ’25 went together to the Concord City Clerk’s office. Kirkman recounts that with each new voter who was registered, a man would ring a bell. After a while, he stopped ringing it because there were so many of them, but “I said I wanted him to ring the bell for me, that it mattered,” she says. “To not ring it made it feel like it didn’t matter. I said I wouldn’t leave until he rang it.”

He rang the bell.

Kirkman, who is from Vermont and Massachusetts, says she thinks it’s important for everyone to have some kind of political understanding. “In class, asking questions about policies, for example, two things stood out: what does that policy do for me, and by supporting it, what does that say about me? If I wasn’t educated, it would have been easy to look at what a particular policy does for me, but taking this class I see how it can impact other people. It has been a great opportunity.”

A great opportunity of a different kind presented itself to Declan Schweizer ’24 while attending the Haley rally. An amateur photographer, Schweizer had his camera with him. As soon as he walked in, a campaign worker shuttled him up to the stage where photographers from The New York Times, Getty Images, The Boston Globe and others were staked out.

“They got me a press pass and I was up there with these big-time, well-established photographers,” says Schweizer, who is in Humanities Teacher Abbey Edwards’ American Politics class. “I got the same access as the official photographers. It was an incredible experience.”

As was introducing Andrew Yang to a standingroom-only crowd of students and teachers in the Lindsay Center for Mathematics and Science when the former presidential candidate came to the School to speak.

“I got to introduce him and talk to him,” Schweizer

says. “He’s a very, very informed guy. ... He’s got all the numbers. I’ve been interested in politics since before taking Ms. Edwards’ class. These opportunities offer a rich experience no matter which side of the aisle you are on.”

Carter says that’s one of the most important lessons she hopes students take away from their engagement with the political process: becoming informed, and learning to appreciate perspectives that might or might not line up with their own. Fact-checking, she adds — including oneself — is an important part of the learning process, particularly for a generation of learners who rely on social media for their news.

“People talk about [the power of] social media, but is it fact-checked?” she asks. “You have to look at how it plays into your own bias; you have to read more than the headlines. Where you get your information is important. How you use that information is important to becoming an informed individual.”

Testing ideas in the real world is important too. “I tell my students, ‘if you want to defend your beliefs, if you want to really be involved in whatever those beliefs are, you have to talk to as many people as you can,’” she says. Class discussions and boots-on-the ground experiences with as many campaign opportunities as possible are aimed at helping students clarify their beliefs — among other things.

“That’s the thing about New Hampshire, you see candidates everywhere,” Carter says. “The School is very supportive about us grabbing the opportunity at the moment and going.”

Susan “Nel” Peter ’25 is among the students who deeply appreciate those opportunities and the manner in which they extend classroom learning.

“Ms. Carter wants to expose us to as much as possible. She does a great job of encouraging people to try new things, but not pushing anyone to do something they aren’t comfortable with. It’s awesome to be able to experience

Students hear from political strategist Jeff Grappone ’98 and New Hampshire Executive Council Member Colin van Ostern in February.

national politics at the local level in a way that I would never get to in Connecticut,” Peter says of her home state. “Just to be able to participate in and better understand grassroots politics by experiencing it is super valuable. It’s also very valuable to go out into the world and have political conversations with a demographic I otherwise wouldn’t be able to — and a group of strangers, especially.”

Peter attended the Haley rally and was also one of several students who phone banked for Dean Phillips. Cold calling, she says, was an interesting experience. While the majority of people hung up on her, there were those who were respectful.

“I think a cold call is very different than a conversation about politics,” she says. “I did have one conversation with a former high school teacher who very respectfully declined voting for Phillips but commended me on getting involved and staying informed at a young age, which made me feel good. The Nikki Haley rally was interesting because we got to see national politics at such a local level — it was in a small room, and there was a lot of press there who wanted to talk to us. We met Haley afterward. It was interesting to see the [voter] demographic pulling from New Hampshire.”

Nathaniel Dienes ’24 didn’t attend the Haley rally, but he did make phone calls for Phillips.

“It was nice to be able to participate,” he says. “We talked to a wide range of people. Most of them were receptive, some were excited because we were high school students. I don’t know that we changed anyone’s mind, but it was an interesting experience.”

Dienes says he sees a value in learning to talk across the table. To express one’s thoughts and be open to the ideas of others. Like Kirkman, the Sixth Former is in Carter’s American Politics class “I wanted to take the course because I didn’t think I knew very much,” he explains. “I wanted to talk to people whose opinions differed from mine. A lot of people don’t agree. It’s important to listen.”

Carter and students also talk about talking.

“We’ve discussed a lot about civil discourse and how to foster that inside and outside the classroom,” she says, “talking and disagreeing about what we are learning. I think the classroom is where we start understanding how to do that.”

Even as Carter recaps everything students have had the opportunity to experience, she also highlights what’s still to come. Both her American Politics class and Edwards’ will present a chapel talk about an upcoming primary, and there will be deeper classroom dives on how to pick a president and how politics function in a political year.

“This year they saw big things,” she says of her students. “That’s New Hampshire government right here.

I think the takeaway for students is understanding in their own brains what they are reacting to. Sometimes that reaction is based on other factors. These feelings of anger, negativity, that’s not always how it’s been as a nation. I think we negate that by talking to each other.”

A LONGSTANDING TRADITION

The idea of political exposure for St. Paul’s School students is anything but a recent development: An October 1877 issue of the Horae Scholasticae details a visit to the School grounds by then-sitting President Rutherford B. Hayes. Richard Nixon visited in 1968, months before he was elected president; Bill Clinton was on campus in 1992 as he campaigned for his first presidential term. During the last half century, visitors in a wide array of roles and representing every point along the U.S. political spectrum have made their way to Millville to deliver remarks in chapel, visit with classes and more. Below is just a sampling of the many alumni and outside guests who have been on School grounds in the last 50-plus years:

• Pat Buchanan, special consultant to U.S. presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan

• Jerry Brown, two-time governor of California

• John Delaney, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate

• Bob Dole, Senate majority leader and 1996 Republican presidential nominee

• Michael Dukakis, Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee

• Lenora Fulani, presidential nominee for the New Alliance Party, 1988

• Rufus Gifford ’92, former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark and U.S. Chief of Protocol

• Brett M. Holmgren, U.S. Assistant secretary of State for Intelligence and Research

• Vernon Jordan, political adviser to President Bill Clinton

• John F. Kerry ’62, 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Secretary of State for the Obama administration and the first U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate

• Dennis Kucinich, Democratic presidential candidate, 2004 and 2008

• Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief of National Review

• John McCain, U.S. Senator from Arizona and 2008 Republican presidential nominee

• Eugene McCarthy, five-time Democratic presidential candidate

• Robert Mueller ’62, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

• Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer for the George W. Bush administration

• Claire Parker, former spokeswoman for George Bush and George W. Bush administrations

• Tony Parker ’64, former treasurer of the Republican National Convention

• Dana Remus ’93, former White House counsel for the Biden administration

• George Romney, Michigan governor and secretary of Housing and Urban Development

• Christine Todd Whitman, New Jersey governor

SCIENCE ON DEMAND

A professor of physics at Princeton, Lawrence Cheuk ’06 led the team behind a recent breakthrough in quantum mechanics. The work is molecular. The implications are much larger.

JANA F. BROWN

For the average student in the average physics class, “simplicity, elegance and beauty” might not be the first descriptors that come to mind when talking about the discipline. They are, however, the adjectives Lawrence Cheuk ’06 uses when he explains what drew him to the field.

“Physics provides an understanding of how nature behaves,” Cheuk explains. “We try to describe things using only a few simple principles, and it’s remarkable to me that a lot of physics can be reduced down to a few fundamental rules. It’s this special way of describing nature and predicting what should happen.”

Of course, as a physicist and assistant professor of physics at Princeton University, Cheuk is about the furthest thing possible from an average physics student. Indeed, his work is anything but simple even to those working in the field of quantum mechanics, the discipline widely associated with Albert Einstein, who helped develop quantum theory only to later reject its further development with the famous observation, “God does not play dice with the Universe.” In December 2023, Cheuk, along with co-authors Connor Holland and Yukai Lu, published “On-Demand Entanglement of Molecules in a Reconfigurable Optical Tweezer Array” in the peerreviewed journal “Science.” The research revealed in the paper is considered a major breakthrough in quantum science and involves demonstrating for the first time the

What we did ... was demonstrate that we can grab onto single molecules and position them at will, and also make them interact coherently with each other on demand.

“quantum entanglement” of molecules: a state in which two separated particles can be shown to predictably interact with each other without being in direct contact.

As Cheuk explains, quantum mechanics is a theory that describes nature in a way that’s “all around us.” On a practical level, scientists have discovered theoretically that one can use quantum mechanics to enhance realworld applications, such as secure communications and computing. And at the heart of the “quantum advantage” in these applications is entanglement. Yet entanglement is fragile and difficult to create in the lab. Over the years, scientists have tried to create and control entanglement in a variety of different physical platforms.

“They have used photons, which [are] the smallest unit of light,” Cheuk says. “They have used trapped ions, which are charged atoms. They have used neutral atoms. In all these platforms, scientists have shown that they have the control capability to produce entanglement on demand.”

What’s novel in the work of Cheuk, Holland and Lu is that the three Princeton scientists looked at entanglement using a new platform: molecules. The significance may require a quick physics refresher to fully appreciate. Photons are subatomic particles that physicists believe are not further divisible into any other form of matter. Atoms are the smallest units of matter that define discrete elements, based on their makeup of protons, neutrons and electrons. Molecules are groups of atoms held together by chemical bonds and represent the smallest unit of a substance that retains all of the substance’s defining properties (think water, nitrogen, table salt) and possess what Cheuk describes as many more internal degrees of freedom than atoms. “Molecules can rotate about themselves, and the atoms within a molecule can vibrate in many ways. These are useful in quantum applications because it allows new ways to encode quantum information, and new ways to process it, since molecules can interact in many more ways compared to photons and atoms.”

It is this complexity of the way molecules interact that Cheuk and his co-authors have leveraged to make an advancement in the field. “What we did,” Cheuk says, “was demonstrate that we can grab onto single molecules and position them at will, and also make them interact coherently with each other on demand. Even more importantly, we can actually — by controlling how long they interact — provably make them entangled. This is a big step forward because entanglement is the fundamental ingredient in many proposed quantum applications. It’s also the crucial building block needed to explore many areas of quantum science using molecules.”

Originally from Hong Kong, Cheuk arrived at St. Paul’s School in the fall of 2002, alongside his brother, Eddie

’05. He brought with him a curiosity and penchant for science and says his interest in math and physics was developed at the School under the direction of former faculty members Larry Braden, Michelle Harth and Tom McCarthy. During Cheuk’s first year at SPS, it became evident to Harth that the Third Former was capable of much more than he was learning in his Physics First class, so she enlisted McCarthy, an Advanced Placement Physics teacher at the time, to serve as the adviser to Cheuk for an experimental project in classical mechanics.

For that research, the two studied the motion of a large spool with a string attached to it to determine the mechanics of its weight-driven oscillations. In what was then a relatively innovative approach, they used a video camera to track the motion and then Cheuk converted the results into data. The experiments were conducted in the SPS Hockey Center.

“Lawrence did all the math and plotted all the graphs,” recalls McCarthy, now a retired professor who most recently taught physics at Grand Canyon University. “And they’re not a trivial kind of graphs. … He definitely dug in to gather the math he needed. He also did a proof for me

one time that used directional cosines. Most students at that level wouldn’t be familiar with that, but his mind was always solving problems that were well out of the reach of most people that age.”

By the time he graduated from SPS, Cheuk had distinguished himself as a talented all-around student and community member. That included becoming a Fifth Form Ferguson Scholar, being named the recipient of the Hargate Mathematics Prize in 2005 and the Vanderpoel Science Prize in 2006 — and coxing the boys varsity first boat for the SPS crew program. Though Cheuk had not taken the prerequisite class, McCarthy recommended him for Advanced Astronomy in his Sixth Form year. His devotion to the field and impressive self-motivation, says McCarthy, led to Cheuk collecting significant data and becoming a prolific producer of digital images. One of his shots of the Pleiades star cluster was published as the photo of the day by “Astronomy Magazine” in the fall of 2005.

As an undergraduate at Princeton, Cheuk earned his A.B. in physics and continued his athletic career as a coxswain for the men’s heavyweight rowing team. He gained

Cheuk (l.) with co-authors Yukai Lee and Connor Holland.

his first true research experience during his sophomore summer working in an atomic physics lab and trying to discover evidence of new fundamental laws in the field. Cheuk’s senior thesis, for which he received Princeton’s Sigma Xi Book Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Research in Physics, focused on a device called a comagnetometer, a sensitive instrument that can be used as a gyroscope or for “searches of new fundamental forces in physics.”

After Princeton, Cheuk earned his PhD in physics at MIT, focusing on advances in atomic phenomena that perhaps require a doctorate just to understand: using cold samples of atoms to “examine quantum many-body systems”; helping to develop a quantum gas microscope capable of “looking at arrays of single fermionic atoms trapped in standing waves of light.” He received the Martin Deutsch Award for Excellence in Experimental Physics at MIT in 2013.

It was during a research post at Harvard (as a Harvard/ Max-Planck Quantum Optics Postdoctoral Fellow) that Cheuk was part of a team that succeeded in trapping and detecting single molecules in optical “tweezers,” or tightly focused laser beams. That discovery formed the technical basis for his current work at Princeton.

“I would say a unifying theme of my research,” Cheuk says, “is controlling these atomic — and now molecular — systems at an unprecedented level and thereby exploring quantum physics with them.”

To put Cheuk’s newest work in context, McCarthy references a 1935 paper by Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen titled “Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?” While Einstein did not call the research on particles “entanglement” at the time (that term eventually came from physicist Erwin Schrödinger), in last summer’s box-office smash “Oppenheimer,” the perplexing paradox is the subject of a theoretical conversation between Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer. In 2022, a team of scientists (Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for “experiments with entangled photons.” What Cheuk and his fellow researchers have done, McCarthy explains, is apply the previous research to their work in a new way, because “nobody had done molecules, and molecules offer more variety of entanglement, and they’re easier to push around and hold still with the optical tweezers.”

When discussing their breakthrough, Connor Holland, one of Cheuk’s first doctoral students and a co-author on the “Science” paper, calls the Princeton team’s discovery the “tip of the iceberg” in terms of the role molecules could play in quantum mechanics.

“The fact that we were able to demonstrate on-demand entanglement lends weight toward molecules in optical tweezer arrays being a new and viable platform for quantum science,” Holland explains. “Many more improvements to the system will be needed as we scale to larger

system sizes and as we look to explore more subtle phenomena. But the demonstration is a metaphorical ‘flag in the ground,’ showing all the necessary ingredients for these exciting next steps.”

Cheuk agrees that demonstrating the entanglement of molecule pairs is only the beginning of what’s possible. The next phase, he says, is scaling that process and extending the work toward larger systems, such as chains of molecules.

“By using the building block of entanglement we have [already] demonstrated,” Cheuk says, “we’re excited to perform new experiments in the area of quantum simulation. In quantum simulation, the idea is that it’s a bit like an analog quantum computer geared toward solving particular quantum physics problems. These problems are fundamentally important because they can, in many instances, describe the behavior of certain kinds of materials, including magnets and superconductors.”

Holland credits Cheuk, who serves as his faculty adviser at Princeton, for his active role in the research process, for sharing his experience and knowledge in the realms of ultracold molecules and quantum simulation, and for the technical expertise he brought to building the infrastructure for the lab where the breakthrough took place.

As a physics professor who teaches both undergraduate and graduate students, Cheuk thrives on the open-ended nature of research and the unexpected surprises that can come along with targeted research goals.

“We’re always pushing the frontier in controlling nature,” he says. “In our case, we’re trying to control molecules to a level that no one has done before. Oftentimes, while we are along this path of exploration, the picture of what’s going on is unclear. But as you progress, things start clearing up, and every now and then we make a new discovery. This process is quite fun because the rules themselves are not set by anyone but nature, and we often have to figure out how to use these rules to reveal the essential physics at work.”

Illustration of quantum entanglement: two particles that share spatial proximity.

JOIN US MAY 3–4

Rock Roots

Eighties hair bands and 2000s Japanese pop might not be what comes to mind when you think of music at St. Paul’s School. But artists in both genres — and others in the industry — credit their time in Millville with jumpstarting their careers.

IAN ALDRICH

Drummer Jamie Douglass ’94. PHOTO: YouTube @drumsetartist

On a Monday morning in early January, Jamie Douglass ’94 made the short drive from his Los Angeles home to the historic El Capitan Theatre in downtown Hollywood. A drummer and percussionist, Douglass has made his living as a working musician for nearly three decades, recording and performing with headlining musicians from the blues-based Samantha Fish to country-leaning Vincent Neil Emerson to rocker Shooter Jennings. On this day, Douglass had arrived at the studios of the late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to play with one of his favorites: Duff McKagan, the longtime bassist for the ’80s hard-rock band Guns N’ Roses. The two have worked together on and off since 2017, and October had marked the release of McKagan’s third solo album, “Lighthouse.” For the Kimmel appearance, McKagan had assembled a four-man backing band with Douglass at the drums to perform the record’s latest single, “Longfeather.”

“That was a song I’d recorded with him back in 2019,” says Douglass, whose past TV work has included playing with backing bands on “The View” and TBS’s “Conan,” among others. “So I was super excited to bring it to life and get to play it live. It was awesome.”

Indeed, it is a heart-thumping performance. As the lanky McKagan centers the stage, Douglass commands the beat with a steady, confident hand. There’s nothing precious or understated about the song. It’s unadulterated rock ’n’ roll and the live audience that the band is performing in front of loves it.

“It can be a real trip playing those shows,” says Douglass. “I’ve done them enough where I don’t get too psyched up anymore but there is a real energy to them, especially with all the cameras flying around.”

Douglass’ familiarity with the scene speaks to what he’s accomplished. But carving out a career as a musician was by no means guaranteed when he arrived in Los Angeles in 2000, armed with a psychology degree from Indiana University, a scant few contacts in the local music scene and a focused ambition.

“Only recently have I begun to take stock of what I’ve done and recorded over the years,” he says. “The first 10 years I was in the business barely anything I worked on got released but now it’s all started to come out. Which means I can now get on Spotify and pull up these artists I played with and hear my own timeline. It’s amazing. I’m just a drummer. I’m not really in charge of all this music at all, so to hear this stuff now makes me grateful for what has happened.”

Douglass’ musical journey didn’t begin at St. Paul’s School, but it certainly accelerated there. He was 14 years old and close to 900 miles from his family in South Bend, Indiana, when he arrived as a Third Former in the fall of 1990. He had grown up playing music, and his interests gave him an important entry point to his new school. He played wherever he could, including in the concert and jazz bands as well as the percussion ensemble; there were occasional morning chapel performances.

But it was in a basement space in Memorial Hall, next door to the now-defunct radio station WSPS, where Douglass found his footing. The Rock Band Room, as it was known, was a large, informal space, its cinderblock walls decorated in murals and the scribbled signatures of SPS musicians. Rows of shelves and cubbies overflowed with gear and cords. Communal recording equipment and instruments had permanent residence. It was here where Douglass was introduced to the School’s rock scene and the vibe it inspired.

Early on Douglass played with a cadre of older students, immersing himself in the sounds of classic rock music. He formed different bands, and with his friends wrote and rehearsed original music to play at different spots around campus. Those experiences not only enhanced the broader artistic culture he was able to tap into at SPS, but also laid down an important foundation for what he built for himself as a working musician.

“The St. Paul’s experience was huge for me because I was given a lot of opportunities that collectively are now fundamental to what I’ve done,” he says. “Just the way I was able to play in all those different types of ensembles within the music program, then to go … play with these older cats, to learn from these really good drummers, was huge. I learned what it’s like to be versatile. And I learned that it’s cool not only when you’re in demand and people want to use you, but it’s also cool when you’re like, ‘No, I can’t do that. I have to go to rehearsal right now.’”

The lineup of SPS graduates who’ve built careers in the music and recording industries is not a short one. Beyond session and performance players like Douglass, the names include those who’ve gone on to become producers, sound engineers and studio owners. And they represent a cross section of generations.

The St. Paul’s experience was huge for me because I was given a lot of opportunities that collectively are now fundamental to what I’ve done.

— Jamie Douglass ’94

AN ARTISTIC CULTURE

A little less than a decade before Douglass landed at SPS, Andrew Bush ’86 was navigating the School’s rock scene. Now an audio engineer/producer and studio owner living in Los Angeles, Bush latched on to music as a creative outlet at an early age. Piano lessons began when he was 4 (“I was very serious about them,” he says), and at St. Paul’s he picked up the guitar and learned to play the bass.

“I didn’t actually join the official St. Paul’s rock band,” he says. “A few of us formed something else. All these other kids were obsessed with the Grateful Dead and we were just horrified by that. So, we started something on our own and gave the band this funny name: The Uncalled Four.”

Bush’s group harnessed their obsessions with punk rock and new wave music. The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and early Police all were a part of their repertoire. “Everybody else was into this older stuff and we wanted to play what was current or at least recent. Why did it have to be the Grateful Dead all the time?” He laughs. “We were thumbing our nose at ‘the establishment’ of all those Fifth and Sixth Formers.”

The freedom to do that, however, says Bush, came from the broader artistic culture developed and fostered at SPS. “It was amazing,” he says. “St. Paul’s really was a powerhouse on all kinds of levels. It sent a lot of kids to fancy schools, and their admissions rates were really exceptional. But the other thing they did was they had very well-funded and very serious arts programs. There was a serious ballet program, a serious music program; there was a great visual arts program. The arts were definitely well-supported and encouraged. It wasn’t a situation where, ‘oh my gosh, there’s nowhere for me to be artistic and musical and creative.’ That wasn’t it at all. A lot of us benefited from it.”

Three decades later, Chance Emerson ’18 found something similar. The son of a Taiwanese mom and an American dad, Emerson drew on an array of different cultural references as he formed his own musical identity at SPS. He felt the rush and freedom to explore and meld different genres. “Here I was at this new school, putting myself out there, and it really clicked with people,” he says.

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say having a captive audience was very helpful,” he continues. “It was a very supportive culture for artists of all kinds. People would come listen, and people would come watch. While I was there, one of the big things a buddy and I did was put together a Saturday night coffee house. There were people who’d show up when I was doing my first talent shows. These were formative performances for me and to have people to play in front of felt important.”

And it wasn’t just student connections that helped spur Emerson’s musical growth at SPS; faculty relationships also were key. Emerson says that teachers like Nicholas White, the School’s director of chapel music and organist, and William Fletcher, who taught voice, composition and music theory in addition to directing the wind ensemble during his 37 years tenure at SPS, were instrumental — literally — in helping him grow as an artist.

“The first time I learned how to record music was because of Mr. Fletcher,” says Emerson, who has returned to Hong Kong after studying computer science and archeology at Brown University. “I took his music composition class where he taught me how to use the software that I still use to record. He was super involved.”

Andrew Bush ’86

Chance Emerson ’18

And willing to share and collaborate. One of Emerson’s seminal memories of his time at SPS is getting to sing backup vocals in the faculty band that Fletcher helmed along with Science Teachers Terry Wardrop ’73 and Joe Holland and as well as SPS Medical Director John Bassi, MD, P’17’19’21. The group took its musical identity seriously and at the same time never shied away from sharing their passion with the SPS students they interacted — and even played — with on occasion.

It was a very supportive culture for artists of all kinds. People would come listen, and people would come watch. “

“It was a way to connect with students who had the same interests as we had in ways you couldn’t do if you were in, say, the orchestra,” Bassi says.

For Johnny Nicholson ’06 the cross-generational collaborations truly laid the groundwork for much of his later career. Now an audio producer for podcast and television programs, Nicholson toured for six years with his band Echorev after graduating from the Berklee College of Music.

The vitality of the music culture at SPS, and the passion that students and faculty committed to it, says Nicholson, helped fuel his own drive to build a life around playing and performing. And the reverberations of Nicholson’s SPS artistic experience can still be seen today. As a student, he developed close bonds with Fletcher and Wardrop, undertaking an Independent Study Project (ISP) under their guidance in which he created his own record label, Monkey Rock Records, to release an album of original songs. Nicholson still uses the moniker as his business name today.

“At a school like St. Paul’s there’s a lot of room to thrive and there are amazing resources,” he says. “But to have [opportunities] that felt slightly removed from the relative regular structured happenings of everyday life was important.”

Wardrop emphasizes that ISPs like Nicholson’s figured prominently among those opportunities. In addition to Nicholson’s project, the longtime robotics and engineering teacher worked with Douglass, Bush and others on music-recording ISPs that helped jumpstart

The SPS faculty band The Fletchtones, circa 2011: Terry Wardrop ’73, P’97,’99, John Bassi P’17,’19,’21, Jere Williams, Bill Fletcher P’07,’19 and Joe Holland P’12.

— Chance Emerson ’18

their post-SPS music careers — academically rigorous undertakings that students quickly discovered were more than just sitting down for a few hours to record some songs. “They would record their first tune and they would just be so proud and in awe of what they’d done,” he recalls. “And then invariably, after five or six tunes, they would say, ‘Oh, I want to do the first one over again. Now I see all the stuff that I missed.’

“I loved every single one of those projects,” Wardrop adds. “I still have [Bush’s].” Recorded in 1986, that ISP lives on with Wardrop on cassette.

A J-POP MOMENT

For Kai-Yuan Neo ’08, coming to SPS from Hong Kong as a Third Former meant an education that included learning about American culture — especially classic rock. Along with friend Terrence Ma ’08, with whom he’d attended middle school, Neo soaked up everything the older students played for him. “It was the kind of stuff you’d expect,” says Neo, who now lives in Singapore, where he runs a computer code bootcamp that helps people secure jobs in the software industry. “The Allman Brothers and of course the Grateful Dead — but for us it was all brand new.”

Back in Hong Kong on summer break following their Third Form year, Neo and Ma connected with another middle school friend, Chris Edwards ’08, who would join them at SPS as a Fourth Former that fall. The three of them — Neo on drums, Ma on bass and vocals and Edwards on guitar and vocals — frequently jammed together and had even recorded a mix tape of songs that Edwards and Ma had written. Their songs impressed Neo’s older sister, an avid fan of Japanese pop, who told her brother that Sony Music’s Japanese division had launched an artist search competition as a way to find new bands. She encouraged Neo to apply.

Edwards applied on behalf of the band, and from there things moved quickly. A call with record label executives led to a visit with Neo, Ma and Edwards in Hong Kong. By the end of the summer, the trio, known as Amplified, had met with Sony officials in Japan and signed a record deal. Over the next two years, life became a whirlwind for the teens. They wrote and recorded their first album, “Turn It Up!,” which debuted in August 2006. SPS holiday breaks saw the group shuttling off to Japan for shows and PR events. “Sesh the Sweet Sounds,” Amplified’s second album, was released in July 2007. There were magazine covers, radio interviews and music videos — including one the boys filmed on School grounds that shows them playfully careening around campus as they push and sometimes ride an amplifier.

“We’re … not Japanese,” says Neo. “But I think [Sony] felt like it was going to be a good business opportunity. That we would have some appeal to 13-year-old Japanese girls. But we weren’t thinking about any of that. We were just like, ‘Oh my god, a record contract!’”

Because St. Paul’s School formed the center of their lives, the life of the band was anchored there as well. Neo, Ma and Edwards played together constantly, working out new song ideas and experimenting with different arrangements. Even today, Neo marvels at what Amplified represented. The very songs that young Japanese fans flocked to originated and were hashed out in a remote campus in Concord, New Hampshire.

“SPS introduced us to classic rock, which inspired much of our music,” says Neo. “[And] the fellow musicians, opportunity to live together and culture at SPS also helped us develop as musicians. It was a culture that encouraged us to follow our passions and not just focus purely on grades. And because the campus is full of open space, beautiful architecture and nature, it meant we had the literal and figurative space and inspiration to create our music.”

Johnny Nicholson ’06

Amplified, circa 2007: Chris Edwards ’08, Kai-Yuan Neo ’08 and Terrence Ma ’08.

Dangerous Games

For novelist and screenwriter Lea Carpenter ’91, women

become central in “classically male” stories.

In “Ilium,” Lea Carpenter’s latest espionage thriller, a dreamy, naïve, young Londoner finds herself on the French coast, assigned to a perilous CIA operation in a luxurious private compound.

Readers of Carpenter’s two previous novels — “Eleven Days,” published in 2013, and 2018’s “Red, White, Blue” — won’t be surprised by Carpenter’s female-centric take on the traditionally male-focused international spy story.

“I wanted to get inside how women might move differently through those worlds,” Carpenter says. As the unnamed narrator in “Ilium” navigates her perilous assignment, the novel balances mounting suspense with her interior drama, an approach distinct in Carpenter’s fiction.

The daughter and wife of decorated American veterans (her father earned a Bronze Star for his service in World War II; her husband is a former U.S. Marine and CIA paramilitary officer who served

five tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and was awarded the Silver Star), Carpenter says she wants “to look at classically male stories from a woman’s point of view: the view of a young single mother, in ‘Eleven Days.’ Or a daughter, in ‘Red, White, Blue.’ An unwitting intelligence asset, in ‘Ilium.’”

But Carpenter’s female characters are not passive observers, and her novels are not domestic dramas.

“I think that you can write a beautiful novel about a marriage breaking down in Brooklyn, and I want to read that book,” Carpenter says, “but I thought that’s not the kind of book I myself am going to write.”

For her, she says, war and espionage offer the most compelling stories.

“I wanted to learn about something I couldn’t believe I’d never studied: the American military,” Carpenter has written. “I read, and I reached out to guys I knew who had served or were serving in these wars. I asked them for their stories. Then, on a dare from

a literary agent, I started writing. He simply said, ‘Give me ten thousand words.’ And he gave me a deadline: May 3, 2011.”

That date turned out to be two days after the May 1 launch of Operation Neptune Spear, the raid that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, and that dare developed into Carpenter’s first novel, “Eleven Days.” In the book, Sara’s son Jason has been missing in action. A Naval Special Warfare operator, aka Navy SEAL, Jason has disappeared during an otherwise successful raid in Afghanistan, much like the SEALs’ operation that found bin Laden. “Eleven Days” is Sara’s story more than Jason’s, as she manages fear for her son amid the crowd of reporters camped out before her rural Pennsylvania home.

Among the many “special operations” alumni to whom Carpenter turned while researching “Eleven Days” was a close friend named Justin, who read a draft of the novel that never actually showed the operation in which the son was captured.

ILIUM

Lea Carpenter ’91

Alfred A. Knopf, 2024 BEOWULF SHEEHAN

“He said, ‘your writing is fine,’” Carpenter recalls, ‘but if you’re going to write about a young warrior who likes poetry and loves his mother and you’re not going to show him doing what he does, you failed.’”

Based on that feedback, Carpenter incorporated a suspenseful and detailed account of the raid in Afghanistan by the son’s SEAL team. “‘Eleven Days’ was written not long after my father’s death, and I was feeling the romance of that line of work,” she says. “And when I came to write ‘Red, White, Blue,’ which is a much darker, stranger book, I was more inclined to question people involved in making morally ambiguous choices.”

In “Ilium,” Carpenter locates her female protagonist deep within the dangerous but addictive milieu of espionage. Posing as an art dealer for a clandestine operation, the protagonist allows herself to be integrated

into a Russian oligarch’s family compound for a purpose not yet explained by her handlers, but which becomes clearer to her day by day. She finds the adventure both frightening and romantic.

“Espionage is like seduction,” she realizes. “Your first experience of espionage can feel a lot like falling in love.”

As with Carpenter’s two previous novels, “Ilium” reveals influences by some of her favorite writers in the genre, Graham Greene and John le Carré and even Joan Didion, whose novel “Democracy” may be her favorite story of international espionage. But Carpenter’s stories and her characters are very much her own.

As her craft has evolved from book to book, Carpenter credits her editor, Shelley Wanger, who also collaborated for years with Didion and who recently retired from Knopf.

SCRIBNERS: FIVE GENERATIONS IN PUBLISHING

Charles Scribner III ’69

Rowman & Littlefield Publishing, 2023

It would be impossible to tell the story of American publishing — or American literary life in general — without writing about Charles Scribner’s Sons, now known simply as Scribner. And there is no one better suited to do so than Charles Scribner III (the greatgreat-grandson of the company’s founder),

who held a wide variety of jobs at the firm, including overseeing the publication of its literary classics.

Over the past 178 years, Scribner has published authors ranging from Henry James and Edith Wharton to the Jazz Age greats to PD James, Barry Lopez and Stephen King. In this marvelously entertaining book, there are fresh and surprising stories about dozens of writers from the earliest days to the present, with special attention to those edited by the brilliant Maxwell Perkins: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and James Jones, to name a few.

One of the many things that sets “Scribners” apart is the author’s deep understanding that publishing is a team sport. This is the rare book about a family enterprise that gives proper credit to everyone involved, including typesetters and salesclerks. Especially unusual and welcome is the fact that every book featured is credited by name to the editor responsible.

“Scribners” also chronicles the author’s own coming of age, first as a St. Paul’s School student and then as a young art historian at a crossroads who forges a career combining art and publishing. So it’s not surprising that some of the finest material in the book

Carpenter is pleased that “Ilium” has been optioned by Alfonso Cuarón for Apple TV, and is happy to let the Oscar-winning director be out front on the project. Having struggled with adapting “Red, White, Blue” for the screen, she observes, “maybe novelists are not the finest choices to adapt their own stories.

“I look forward to being a producer on the ‘Ilium’ project and to allowing someone else to take the joy, and also the licks, you take as a writer in film and television — which is an exercise in humility and patience.”

Whether in fiction or film, Carpenter returns to advice from Wanger: “Above all, she taught me, and kept reminding me, that fiction at its best makes you feel as well as think.

“I want to tell stories that capture the strangeness of war and espionage,” Carpenter says. “How intense emotions are in those lines of work, and how people mitigate that.”

— Reviewed by Michael Matros

concerns book jackets and illustrations, including the remarkable story of Francis Cugat’s iconic image for the original edition of “The Great Gatsby” — now (thanks to the author) the cover once again.

St. Paul’s, like Chicago voters, appears early and often. The author’s grandfather, a member of the Form of 1909, was the first in his family to attend. Other familiar names include Ernest Flagg, brother-in-law of Charles Scribner II and designer of Sheldon Library; Perry King ’66, and August Heckscher II ’32, whose 1980 history of SPS was published by Scribner.

There is also a touching mention of Ann Locke, the beloved SPS librarian who was “den mother” to generations of Paulies, myself included.

“Scribners” provides a showcase for the author’s delight in odd facts and coincidences. But it’s also an important work of history, charting the dramatic changes in the book business. The penultimate chapter details how a series of mergers and sales would rock the house, although the book ends on a note of justifiable admiration for the current publishing team.

Do read with a notebook at hand. “Scribners” will add countless books to your “to read” list, as it did to mine.

— Reviewed by Will Schwalbe ’80

ON THE FIRELINE

Brigham Snow ’14 traded his desk job to fight wildfires with the Hotshots

ELLEN RYAN

Light smoke was rising from a row of spruce and subalpine firs threatening to ignite as Brigham Snow ’14 and his fellow Snake River Hotshots ascended a ridge in Idaho’s Salmon-Challis National Forest. It was July 2023, and even the mountains were under a heat advisory.

The crew’s mission: fell the trees before they became dangerous, scramble up rough terrain to a high point and establish a fireline by doing a controlled burn that would deprive the wildfire of fuel when it arrived.

The Hayden Fire chased up the Lemhi Range for a week, then another week. The Hotshots chased ahead, mostly at night, with helicopters and planes, water, fire retardant, ignition devices, chainsaws, axes and hand tools. Felling trees, removing brush, digging trenches — as Snow and his “hand crew” accumulated layers of grime and soot day by day that settled into their skin and hair and lungs.

Snow would lie in his sleeping bag, thinking about the night he’d awakened at 4 a.m. to see flames rising over their ridge; the crew had to pack up quickly and head to

safety. He mulled the times the Hotshots lost their fireline and had to hike to the next best area, carrying gear, and start over.

Ten days in, the main fire hit another tinder pocket, and Snow’s crew had to back off for a time “to watch it chew up a mountainside.” At the end, the exhausted but successful crew’s shift stretched to a bone-aching sunup-to-sunup.

All this for $16 an hour, with only partial hazard and overtime pay and no off-season benefits.

Snow has spent nearly three years with the Snake River Hotshots, one of 115 elite federal interagency teams of wildland firefighters that respond to large, high-priority fires across the country and abroad. It’s a long way from playing varsity lacrosse and JV hockey, singing with the T-Tones and heading up the SPS Investment Club — or from studying at Amherst, where he pursued similar interests and spent a summer at the London School of Economics before three years in strategy and research at Liberty Mutual Insurance.

Why run off to fight wildfires? Snow admits that the dichotomy was “an otherworldly experience.” There had always been a leaning toward public service, though, toward commitment and challenge and doing for the community. That old idea of purposeful lives in service to the greater good. “What else out there embodies those values?” Snow mused. Search and rescue, maybe — and then he read about wildfires.

The journey from his desk at Liberty Mutual to the Snake River frontlines took two years and hundreds of phone calls, followed by firefighting courses, a certification and fitness tests before training. Snow is the first to allow that his path was hardly typical. “First, [there was] my lack of knowledge around how the complicated hiring process worked, but second (and much more importantly), because I had no prior firefighting experience, I had to find a Hotshot crew that would take a chance on such an individual, particularly one who worked in an office,” he says. “That confused a lot of crew bosses and raised a lot of doubts.”

Snow says he appreciates the “kind, thoughtful, amazingly diverse” crew he works alongside. On deployment to Alberta, he’s worked with firefighters from Canada and Australia, and he cites among the upsides of his work the opportunity to experience a variety of natural wonders: “desert, swamps, alpine forest, mountain lakes. ... You live outdoors for the job, so you see spectacular monsoons, stars and sunsets.”

The physical demands of the work require the Hotshots to be in great shape — but those demands break them down, too. “The long-term health risks are real,” says Snow, who has watched the stress of firefighting take a toll on necks, backs and knees — not to mention elevated cancer and heart disease risk. All of that, on top of the very real risk of devastating injury and even death he and his fellow Hotshots face in the line of duty. In a few years, he sees a transition to a more sustainable lifestyle.

In the meantime, Congress is contemplating the proposed Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act, which could raise entry-level federal firefighters’ base pay by 42 percent. The reform would make a difference, and Snow supports its passage. He’s written to legislators, advocates in his network and has done media interviews. “In my experience, wildland firefighters embody silent professionalism to an almost detrimental degree,” he says, “and the public’s increasing awareness about these issues has benefited from stories directly from the fireline.”

Speaking up for his colleagues is an immediate goal. Longer term, any new work would have to have a purpose and a physical challenge, he says. Maybe something fighting climate change — “on the forefront of these efforts rather than mitigation and recovery,” he says.

The particulars are unclear at this point. Says Snow with a laugh, “The desk will always be there.”

A wildfire hand crew hikes through burned ground on last year’s Moose Fire near Salmon, Idaho.

““I’M NOT GOING TO CHANGE EVERY SINGLE STUDENT. [BUT] IF IN 10 YEARS OR SO ONE OF MY STUDENTS STILL REMEMBERS ME AS A GOOD TEACHER, I’LL BE VERY HAPPY.”

— BRONWEN CALLAHAN ’08 History teacher at the Harker Upper School in San Jose, California, speaking during an SPS alumni panel on Jan. 10.

DID YOU MISS . . .

The Excellence in Character and Scholarship panel featuring Callahan; Dr. Tiffany Gill ’92, associate professor of history at New Jersey’s Rutgers University; and Dr. Stephen Post ’69, professor of family, population and preventive medicine at Stony Brook University in New York; in conversation with Rector Kathy Giles and SPS Science Teacher Theresa Gerardo-Gettens P’07,’11? Scan the QR code to read about it and watch the full recording.

Recent Events

Sardi’s Luncheon

On Jan. 31, 46 alumni from the Forms of 1940 through 1965 gathered for a luncheon at Sardi’s Restaurant in NYC, a long-running tradition established by Ed Harding ’54 and continued by Harald Paumgarten ’56. They were joined by special guests Archie Cox ’58, former president of the Board of Trustees, and Caroline La Voie ’88, P’20,’21, president of the Alumni Association.

Hong Kong Gathering

In January, Andy Yung ’01 hosted an alumni get-together for the Hong Kong community.

ABOVE (l. to r.): Bobby Clark, Jim Hatch and Peter Pell represent the Form of 1961.

RIGHT: The most senior alum attending was the recently retired Lou Pemberton ’47, who came with his wife, Suzanne.

Dinners and Receptions in Asia

In November, Rector Kathy Giles, Chief Advancement Officer Scott Bohan ’94, P’24,’25 and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Dana Anselmi ’98 traveled to Asia for a number of Admissions and community events. An enormous thank you to all who so graciously hosted the SPS community: SPS Trustees Julian Cheng ’92, P’27 and Noelle Kwok ’98, P’27 in Hong Kong; SPS Trustee Julian Cheng ’92, P’27 again in Shanghai; Janie Chang Hou ’82, P’18 and SPS Trustee Henry Ho ’90, P’21,’22 in Taipei; and Hyun Joon Cho ’87 in Seoul.

Alumni Association in NYC

On Nov. 29, the Alumni Association’s affinity groups co-hosted SPS Alumni Intersections in NYC, an evening of networking and community for members of the XIX Society, the BIPOC Alumni Advisory Council and SPS Queer Alumni.

ST. PAUL’S SCHOOL HOSTED A NUMBER OF COMMUNITY RECEPTIONS AND COLLEGE DINNERS THIS WINTER — SCAN TO SEE MORE PHOTOGRAPHS OF RECENT EVENTS.

IN MILLVILLE AND BEYOND

APRIL

9 Alumni Association Annual Meeting and Celebration of Alumni Association Awards with Rector Kathy Giles New York City

MAY

3-4 Anniversary Weekend

4 Excellence in Character and Scholarship Panel

JUNE 2 Graduation

15 SPS Sparks Alumni and Parent Community Service Projects Various cities

30 The SPS Fund closes with the end of the School’s fiscal year

Visit sps.edu/events often as more opportunities to connect are added.

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Stewarding Our Millville Home

The heritage buildings, grounds and waterways intertwined with the history of St. Paul’s School also are essential to its future.

KAREN INGRAHAM

On a crisp January day in 1859, the original Chapel of St. Paul was consecrated.

The first significant building project for the three-year-old school, it was also “an act of faith,” mused August Heckscher II ’32 in his book, “St. Paul’s: The Life of a New England School”; “visible affirmation that the little school intended to endure and to grow.” And grow it did.

During his 25th anniversary sermon in 1881, First Rector Dr. Henry Augustus Coit reflected on the School’s future, asking, “Will

the work still live? Will the flame of this sanctuary still be kept up?” The Rector’s questions encompassed the entirety of the scholastic and spiritual endeavor begun by founder George Shattuck, and Dr. Coit followed up with a profound answer a year later when he tasked a committee of alumni to raise funds for a new chapel, the School having already outgrown the first. Six years later, Coit sat in the new Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul, surrounded for its dedication by “a crowd of alumni … the most numerous that had ever

returned to the school at one time,” according to Heckscher, including many who had helped fund its construction — new stewards of the First Rector’s “flame.”

Forty years later, Fourth Rector Dr. Samuel Smith Drury asked the SPS community to build upon that flame by raising funds to undertake another extraordinary mission: expanding New Chapel by cutting it at the cross to accommodate a growing student body. In 1929, when construction was completed — the altar moved eastward, two bays added,

In the 1980s and as recently as 2019, black ice on Lower School Pond provided an outdoor arena for SPS students.

the body rejoined brick by brick — the Chapel’s place as the School’s spiritual center was assured for future generations.

And thus it remains in 2024. The size of the SPS student body reached equilibrium some years ago, yet the “New” and “Old” Chapels, and the buildings that grew up alongside them during the School’s first century — as well as the very grounds on which those buildings sit — require considerable care and conservation in their second century, including substantial reinvestment in outmoded systems and technologies, proactive adaptation to current and predicted impacts of climate change, and strategic anticipation of the evolving programmatic needs of students and faculty.

“Like many great, aging institutions whose physical plants are inextricably intertwined with history, identity and experience, we are

beginning to understand the needs of our beautiful, antique home,” Fourteenth Rector Kathy Giles says. “We are already experiencing changes in the landscape as warmer temperatures affect the way water works on the grounds — and we have a lot of water. Many of our most beautiful heritage facilities — the Old Chapel, the New Chapel, Sheldon Library, Coit — are made of wood and bricks that will require substantial conservation and revitalization, in addition to their years of maintenance.”

From the specialized care needed to preserve ornate woodwork and masonry to strategies for improving energy efficiency in older buildings to reduce energy consumption and create pathways toward decarbonization, the work ahead is no less significant than that which was undertaken during the School’s earliest years.

HOW CAN YOU HELP WITH THIS IMPORTANT WORK?

Whether you graduated five years ago or 50, we know St. Paul’s School is one of your homes in the world, its beautiful buildings and expansive grounds bound to your memories of one of the most formative times in your life.

Unrestricted gifts made to the SPS Heritage Fund, a new philanthropic designation of The SPS Fund, are reinvestments in Millville’s beauty and grace and directly fund the ongoing care of the buildings and grounds that defined your SPS experience. Please consider making a gift today to join a centuriesold tradition of stewarding the historic facilities and beautiful grounds of St. Paul’s School for generations to come.

To make your gift, go to sps.edu/give.

“When one looks around at St. Paul’s School, the power of place and the energy of youth combine to remind us, every day, that the best work we can do here is to educate young people to build lives of purpose, ultimately in service to the welfare of the world,” Giles adds. “The spaces from which we draw inspiration, seek spiritual renewal, and form lifelong connections must continue to best serve our students and maintain the spirit of place so meaningful to generations of alumni.”

The School’s heritage buildings — Old Chapel, New Chapel, Coit, Sheldon and Schoolhouse — and the grounds and waterways intertwined with SPS history also are key to its future. Careful, sustained care of these family heirlooms is an important stewardship responsibility for the current generation of St. Paul’s people, and the ones who are still to come.

BEYOND THE BOARDROOM

Maxwell King ’62 wants to be remembered as a good listener

KATE DUNLOP

The world at large knows Maxwell King ’62 for his impressive titles and accomplishments. He has been a reporter and a top editor (of The Philadelphia Inquirer); he’s run “a couple of philanthropies” (The Heinz Endowments and The Pittsburgh Foundation); and he’s written books (biographies that so far include the New York Times best-selling “The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers” and “American Workman: The Life and Art of John Kane,” as well as a volume of poetry). There’s more, of course.

More than anything, however, he’d like to be known as having been thoughtful and kind, and a good listener. That’s because King knows in his soul that listening leads to understanding and is the foundation of service.

The Ohio native still marvels at how his parents listened when he shared his plan to drop out of Harvard after his first year because he wanted adventure, not the life of a lawyer.

“When I quit Harvard, I thought I was quitting for good,” King says. “I thought, ‘I’m not going to go to college and be a lawyer. I’m going to go into the Merchant Marine and be a writer.’ That was the idea.”

He finagled a seaman’s card and signed on to the ore boats of the Great Lakes and then, after his father had to bail him out after one too many fights, to cargo ships out of New York that carried him to Europe, Africa and on to Asia.

“In some ways it was exotic, but as a lifestyle, its allure diminished, mostly because I

wasn’t good at the fights,” King says. “After a year, I went back to Harvard and majored in English. But what a great example of being willing to listen to, and understand, another person — my parents didn’t leap to the judgment that I was messed up. I probably was, and they weren’t happy about what was going on, but their main signal to me was, ‘We trust you. Get through it. We think you’ll be okay.’ They listened to me.”

King credits St. Paul’s School and his time around the Harkness table as vital in shaping his own ability to listen to others.

“Every class we had involved these really good discussions, and no matter how little or much you participated, they changed your understanding of what you were reading in a significant way,” King says. “That listening aspect serves one well in journalism. When you have the opportunity to dig in and ask questions and understand, you forget about yourself. That’s a key to good journalism. And it’s important to know that journalists consider their work to be in service to the community.”

From the newsroom to the boardroom, that skillset of listening to people and translating what he hears to the business at hand has served King well. When he left the Inquirer in 1999 after 25 years to take the helm of the Heinz Endowments in Pittsburgh, one of the nation’s largest philanthropic organizations, he immersed himself in getting to know his new city, understanding its issues, and telling its stories to those who

could help make the difference the organization hoped to achieve by placing grants in the right hands. King spent nine years advocating for the Endowment’s work on environmental issues, fostering greater diversity in the Pittsburgh community, and promoting literacy, art, civic design, early childhood education and academic reform.

In 2019, soon after his biography of Fred Rogers was published and after serving five years as the president and CEO of The Pittsburgh Foundation, for which he raised $270 million, he was named Pittsburgher of the Year. Now, King is starting a three-year term of service on the board of The Heinz Endowments. Careful to keep in mind he’s no longer running the place, he’s hopeful that he can help the Endowments refocus on early childhood education and rededicate itself to revitalizing downtown through the arts, as it did in the 1990s.

As King reengages in the mission of a community foundation, his thoughts harken back to what he learned listening to his peers and teachers in Millville, and what he has put into action ever since.

“A key aspect of St. Paul’s is the commitment not just to the community of the School but to subsequent communities,” says King. “What got under my skin at St. Paul’s, and I think thrives today, is a commitment to something larger than individual success. That individual is terribly important, but only in service to community.”

THE ACTORS’ ADVOCATE

Aleen Keshishian ’86 manages some of Hollywood’s top talent

LARRY CLOW

In the spring of 1986, Aleen Keshishian ’86 needed to transform a stage into a drive-in movie.

Keshishian was directing the SPS spring musical, “Grease,” and was struggling with how to stage the production’s famous scene of characters Danny and Sandy at a drive-in. With only a $300 budget, her options were limited. How could she make it look like the two leads were together in a car?

She turned to her brother, Alek Keshishian ’82, for advice, and inspiration struck: the theater itself would be the drive-in, and the two actors would sit in the middle of the audience, as if they were sitting side by side in a car. “The audience was there and could see Danny put his arm around Sandy,” Keshishian says. “It was really memorable and original, and an example of a challenge that became an opportunity.”

It was a little bit of entertainment magic that presaged Keshishian’s career as one of Hollywood’s top talent representatives. Her company, Lighthouse Management + Media, counts stars like Jennifer Aniston, Selena

Gomez, Paul Rudd and Olivia Rodrigo among its clients. On a given day, Keshishian may be reviewing stage lighting designs for Rodrigo’s latest tour, traveling to New York to see one of her clients perform on Broadway, editing a movie trailer or convincing a director to pick up one of her client’s projects.

“I have about 30 clients, and my company has more than 100, so there’s always someone I’m trying to do something for or do something with. Every day is different,” she says.

Keshishian got her start as an assistant to legendary casting director Juliet Taylor. “I went from being her intern to her assistant, and I started casting small films of my own,” she says. “I realized I felt more excited about advocating for the actors rather than figuring out who’s right for a part. I wanted to be an agent.”

As an agent, she had an uncanny knack for spotting talent early and nurturing her clients. Her first client was 11-year-old Natalie Portman, and years later, Keshishian encouraged Portman to collaborate with director Darren Aronofsky on “Black Swan,” which earned

Portman an Academy Award. She’s also represented Paul Rudd for almost 30 years.

After more than two decades at some of Hollywood’s top agencies, Keshishian set out on her own and launched Lighthouse in 2016. The company name, she says, represents how she approaches her work — she guides her artists not just in building their careers but also encouraging them to do good in the world.

“I want to provide direction to artists and also bring some light into this industry that, at times, is somewhat dark,” she says. “I really feel this incredible love for my clients.”

She credits her success in part to being honest and direct. In an industry where money and egos can make trusting someone difficult, Keshishian aims to be a constant for her clients. “I tell younger people at my company that people should pay us not because we’re they’re friends, but because we’re providing a service to them — getting them a better deal, expanding their creative horizons, or bringing them ideas they never dreamed of. … I’m not transactional. I may tell people to pass on a lot of things that would make them a ton of money … believing it’s not best for my client.”

Keshishian points to her work with Selena Gomez as an example. Gomez was nervous about releasing “Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me,” a documentary about her struggles with mental health. Keshishian and her brother, who directed the film, encouraged Gomez to move forward. “It was this movie about a reluctant popstar who wants to be a humanitarian, about giving back and being part of a community, and she was terrified about releasing this. It’s very personal,” Keshishian says. “But my colleagues and I encouraged her and explained why it was so important.”

Keshishian’s parents, and her years at St. Paul’s School, helped instill her commitment to social change. With Gomez, Keshishian co-founded The Rare Impact Fund, an initiative committed to raising $100 million for mental health care in underserved communities. “That’s one of the things that makes me most proud,” she says. “If I can help instill those values in young people, it’s very fulfilling.”

That passion — to make the world better, to bring creative people together in pursuit of great art — continues to drive Keshishian. She traces it back to early experiences directing productions at SPS and at Harvard. “I view the world as an artist,” she says.

Keshishian with Selena Gomez in her office at Lighthouse Management & Media in Los Angeles.

CHANGING TRAJECTORIES

Graham Browne’s Forte Prep welcomes its first class of high schoolers

KRISTIN DUISBERG

Ask Graham Browne ’04 to describe the type of student who thrives at Forte Preparatory Academy, the fifth through eighth grade charter school he founded six years ago in Queens, New York, and his eyes will light up as he talks about Gaby, the president of Forte’s first graduating class and now a junior at a Massachusetts prep school. While visiting the school last fall, Browne got into a conversation with Gaby’s adviser, who spoke about how well Gaby was doing, noted that she’d won a schoolwide citizenship award … and mentioned that she had joined the volleyball team.

“But this isn’t one of those ‘wow, she never played volleyball before and now she’s gone up all the ranks and is a varsity star’ stories,” Browne says. “She’s not very good at volleyball. But her adviser was telling me about how she saw Gaby in the gym all by herself one Saturday practicing sets and bumps against a wall, not because anybody told her to but because she was like, ‘I want to get better at this, and I don’t need a structured practice or any other motivation. I just want to do it.’ That’s the kind of commitment we see in so many of our young people — that intrinsic motivation — and the fact that Gaby has left our environment and is still exhibiting those behaviors and characteristics, it just says to me, ‘yes, it’s working.’”

It’s perhaps a similar sort of motivation that compelled Browne to establish Forte, which prepares academically talented Queens youngsters to succeed in college preparatory

high schools and beyond. A New Jersey native raised by immigrants from Jamaica and St. Vincent who were “constantly on the lookout for the best opportunities” for him, Browne came to St. Paul’s School by way of the Wight Foundation, a program that provides financial support to promising students from the greater Newark area. He earned his undergraduate degree in urban education at Brown University and began his MBA at Yale with the intent to build an afterschool program or series of programs that would connect high-quality arts instruction to public schools in New York City. “But as I started to work on the pieces of the program and what the intended impact and long-term goals of it were, I realized we’d only be spending a couple hours of the school day with these students,” he recalls. “And while it might be really valuable to them for that time … the bigger leverage point to make a difference was the school itself and how to put students on a different trajectory.”

Browne earned his MBA in 2015 and began the process of starting Forte Prep the same year, writing his charter application and recruiting members of his board as part of a fellowship with Building Excellent Schools. Forte opened in September 2017 with 89 fifth graders, adding a new grade with each successive year of operations. Today, Forte Prep is home to approximately 360 students, 80% of whom are Latino, 20% of whom have special needs and 20% of whom are native speakers of a language other than English.

In September, Browne opened Forte Prep High School with approximately 100 ninth graders, roughly 40% of whom are graduates of the middle school program. As with the middle school, Browne’s plan is to grow the high school one grade at a time, graduating his first class in 2027.

Browne describes the decision to open the high school as arising from a new need that he and others observed. “Through our high school success department and the people who work to help connect students to opportunities at independent schools, [we’ve realized] there just aren’t enough seats for our students to gain access to,” he says. “We knew that there will always be students for whom the independent school path would be a great option, but it’s our responsibility as a school to create the same kind of trajectoryaltering opportunities for the students who can’t get access to those programs.”

The data speak to the success of the Forte approach. For the 2022-23 school year, nearly 90% of the school’s eighth graders tested at or above grade level for math — well above citywide and district results — and more than 70% tested at or above grade-level for language arts. Forte has sent graduates to Middlesex, Choate, Berkshire, Taft and California’s Thacher School.

While Forte Prep has yet to send its first graduate to SPS, Browne is hopeful that will happen soon — for another student like Gaby, or like Browne himself.

IN MEMORIAM

This section was updated Dec. 20, 2023. Please note that deaths are reported as we receive notice of them. Therefore, alumni dates of death are not always reported chronologically.

1943 – Randolph Catlin Jr.

Nov. 9, 2023

1943 – Lawrence Hughes

Nov. 14, 2023

1943 – Alexander M. Laughlin

Oct. 4, 2023

1945 – Dudley F. Rochester

Nov. 29, 2023

1946 – D. Trowbridge Elliman

June 15, 2023

1949 – Robert Sprague Boit

Oct. 24, 2023

1950 – Peter deF. Millard

Nov. 6, 2023

1954 – James W. Bowers

Nov. 30, 2023

1958 – Campbell L. Graham

Oct. 16, 2023

1959 – Ridgway M. Hall Jr.

Oct. 20, 2023

1962 – G. M. Dallas Peltz IV

Nov. 1, 2023

1962 – Michael de R. Strong

May 17, 2018

1963 – John H. Chamberlain

Dec. 10, 2023

1965 – Robert D. Lievens

Nov. 19, 2023

1966 – Samuel W. Off Jr.

April 17, 2023

1977 – David Holbrook

Jan. 31, 2022

1982 – Ernest A. Scalamandre

Oct. 29, 2023

1943

Lawrence Hughes

died peacefully on Nov. 14, 2023, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, at the age of 98. He was born March 13, 1925, in New York City to John Chambers and Margaret (Kelly) Hughes. He was educated at the Buckley School, St. Paul’s School and Yale. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1943 to 1945 and as a reserve in 1951. Mr. Hughes married the love of his life, Rose M. Pitman, in London in 1947. The couple was utterly devoted to each other during their 71-plus years of marriage until her passing in 2019. Among friends, family and colleagues, Mr. Hughes will forever be remembered for his sense of humor, generosity, storytelling and his love of golf.

Mr. Hughes’ career in publishing began in the mailroom of Pocketbooks; over a 10-year period, he became a senior editor. In 1960, he was hired by William Morrow to become their vice president; from 1965 to 1985, he was Morrow’s president and CEO. Under his leadership, Morrow was able to attract many best-selling authors to its roster: Sidney Sheldon, Morris West, Joseph Wambaugh, John Irving, Ken Follet, Saul Bellow and Margaret Truman. From 1985 to 1988, Mr. Hughes served as the president and CEO of the Hearst Trade Book Group, after which he stepped down to become an editor-at-large and group advisor.

From 1957 until his death, Mr. Hughes was a very civic-minded resident of Fairfield County. He served as a trustee at the Unquowa School, the Southport School, North Country School and St. Paul’s School. He was a trustee at the Pequot Library, and he served 37 years as trustee and lifetime trustee at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. He served on the Yale University Press board of governors as well as on the board of directors of the National Book Foundation. Mr. Hughes was a fierce advocate for the freedom to publish.

He was a member of the Helsinki Watch Committee, worked closely with PEN America and donated thousands of books to schools, libraries and other institutions.

He is survived by a daughter, Alexandra Ormond Hughes, and her husband, Neal Fiertag, and stepchildren Stephanie and Eve Fiertag; and by three sons and six grandchildren: Timothy Kelly Hughes, married to Annie Thomas, parents of Wesley and Emma; Christopher Pitman Hughes, married to Kate, and father of Tyler and Kelsey; Ian Hugo Hughes ’76 married to Holly (Johanna Hood Hughes ’75); parents of Johanna and Henry.

1943

Alexander Mellon Laughlin died peacefully at home overlooking Hook Pond in East Hampton, New York, on Oct. 4, 2023, surrounded by loved ones. At the time of his death, he was 98 and the School’s third-oldest alumnus. He was an active outdoorsman well into his 90s, enjoying hunting and fishing in Canada as well as golf in East Hampton and at Lyford Cay in Nassau, Bahamas, where he had a home. He will be remembered for his commitment to community, calm demeanor, dapper dress and for being a true gentleman.

Mr. Laughlin was an active collector of fine art and, for 17 years, he served in various roles at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., retiring as that institution’s chairman in 2000. He and his wife gave a number of works to the Gallery and he cited his relationship with the Gallery as being “filled with travel and learning.” In addition, he was a founding partner of the Coe Kerr Gallery, which handled the works of such artists as Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent, as well as having a close association with the Wyeth family. His love and expertise in fine art was all the more remarkable as he was partially color blind.

Mr. Laughlin was active in the communities where he lived. He served as a member of the board of trustees of the Boys’ Club of New York for many years, as chairman of the Laughlin Memorial Library in Pennsylvania, as treasurer and trustee of the Laughlin Children’s Center outside Pittsburgh, as treasurer of the Helen Keller Foundation and as a member of the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving. On a private basis, he sponsored a number of Bahamian citizens through medical school.

He was born in Pittsburgh on April 7, 1925, the son of Alexander Laughlin Jr. and the former Margaret Mellon Hitchcock. His stepfather was Thomas Hitchcock Jr., a member of the Form of 1917. He attended the Buckley School, Aiken Preparatory School, St. Paul’s School, Yale University and Harvard Business School. During World War II, he served in the European Theater with the Army Air Forces from August 1943 to February 1946. He married his wife, Judith Walker Laughlin, on June 20, 1947.

Mr. Laughlin entered St. Paul’s School in September 1939 as a Third Former: DelphianHalcyon, he played football, hockey and varsity tennis and ran track. He was involved in a number of clubs, including the Concordian, Le Cerçle Francais and the Missionary Society. He also served as a counselor at the School’s camp and as a dorm supervisor.

Following Harvard Business School, Mr. Laughlin started his professional career with the Gulf Oil Corporation. He began his Wall Street career as an owner and chairman of Jesup & Lamont, an international brokerage firm based in New York. Later, he joined the firms of Tucker Anthony and Deltec Asset Management.

Mr. Laughlin’s love of the Bahamas began at an early age, while fishing there with his grandfather in the 1930s. He built a house on Hog Island and was an active member of the Porcupine Club there. In the 1970s, he moved to Lyford Cay, where he became a founding member, and later a chairman, of the Lyford Cay Club. In East Hampton, he was a member of the Maidstone Club, where he served as president and where his family enjoyed the feeling of community and the changing seasons throughout the year.

He is survived by his children, Nina Laughlin Bottomley of North Hampton, New Hampshire, and her husband, John; David Walker Laughlin of Palm Beach, Florida, and his wife, Brooke; and daughter-in-law, Mary Laughlin. He also is survived by his grandchildren Lisa Bottomley, Tim Bottomley, Alixe Peek, Alexander Laughlin III, Serena Laughlin and Julia Laughlin as well as two great-grandchildren, Wyatt Bottomley and Lyle Bottomley. Three half-siblings also survive: Louise Stephaich, Peggy Hitchcock and William M. Hitchcock ’57. In addition to being predeceased by his wife of 73 years, Judy, who died in 2020, he was predeceased by his son, Alexander Mellon Laughlin Jr., and a half brother, Thomas Hitchcock III ’57. In addition to his immediate family, numerous members of his extended family are graduates of the School, including Waltons, Mellons, Wainwrights and Whetzels.

1945

Dudley Fortescue Rochester died Nov. 29, 2023, at Westminster-Canterbury of the Blue Ridge in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was 95.

He was born May 21, 1928, in Bennington, Vermont, the son of Edward Fortescue Rochester and Gwendolen Wolfe Rochester. He grew up at West Mountain Farm in Arlington, Vermont, and Jobs Peak Ranch in Minden, Nevada, and he attended Los Alamos Ranch School, St. Paul’s School (where he rowed crew for Shattuck), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia College.

He was a member of St. Anthony Hall Fraternity. He married Lois Boochever of Albany, New York, on June 24, 1950, and received his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in 1955.

Dr. Rochester did his internship and residency training at Presbyterian Hospital in New York, followed by a research fellowship in cardiopulmonary physiology in Dr. Andre Cournand’s laboratory at Bellevue Hospital. He served on active duty in the U.S. Army Medical Corps near Orleans, France. He was on the faculty of Columbia University at Bellevue Hospital (1962-68) and at Harlem Hospital (1968-76).

In 1976, Dr. Rochester became the E. Cato Drash Professor of Medicine and Head of the Pulmonary Division at the University of Virginia. From 1978 to 1984, he was also medical director, tuberculosis service, at Blue Ridge Hospital. He conducted research on the strength and endurance of muscles used for breathing in health and in disease, and he authored numerous scientific papers, chapters and review articles. He was elected to membership in the distinguished American Clinical and Climatological Association.

After retiring in 1994, Dr. Rochester became a volunteer for the American Lung Association. The American Thoracic Society presented him an award for scientific excellence in 1996. He was chairman of the American Lung Association of Virginia 2000-02, receiving the Douglas Southall Freeman Award. In 2005, he received the Ross Medal for distinguished volunteer service from the American Lung Association.

Dr. Rochester lectured about the health and economic impacts of air pollution, and about the availability and quality of fresh water, in Virginia and elsewhere. He was a member of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality Air Advisory Board and the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia Committee on Stewardship of Creation.

Dr. Rochester served on the Vestry of St. Paul’s Memorial Church in Charlottesville and was active in other church activities. He was a member of the Charlottesville Camera Club and the Piedmont Division of the Antique Automobile Club of America. At Westminster-Canterbury of the Blue Ridge (WCBR), he served on several committees, with special attention to advocating for frail elderly residents and for end-of-life care planning. He served as lay preacher at WCBR Vespers services for 10 years and enjoyed oil painting classes at WCBR.

Dr. Rochester was predeceased by his wife of 73 years, Lois, early in 2023; he is survived by daughter Carolyn Rochester Ramsey and her husband, William H. Ramsey, of Cheshire, Connecticut; son-in-law Bruce H. Leighty of Arlington, Virginia; grandchildren Carl and Alison Leighty, Anna Ramsey Spetta and Nick Ramsey; niece Alisone Kopita; nephew Grafton Rochester; and his siblings Jill Glover, Jacque Rochester, Edward Rochester and Tom Rochester.

He was predeceased by his daughter Gwendolen Rochester Leighty, who died of breast cancer in 2005, and by his siblings Paul Rochester ’49 and Nancy Caird, who died in 2015 and 2019, respectively.

1949

Robert Sprague Boit of Penobscot, Maine, former president of Union Trust Company, passed away peacefully on Oct. 24, 2023, at the age of 92. He was born in Boston on April 4, 1931, the son of John Edward and Marion Sprague Boit of Brookline, Massachusetts.

At St. Paul’s School, he was active with the choir and Library Association, and he played football and ice hockey. He graduated from Harvard University in 1953 but felt academics were not his strong suit, often joking that he graduated “summa good luck.” He made it through one year of Harvard Business School before deciding to enlist in the Army, where he was trained in counterintelligence and stationed in Germany.

After returning to Boston, Mr. Boit began a career in international banking, eventually running the Paris office of the Bank of Boston. In the early 1970s, he and his wife, Bundy, decided to leave the city behind and purchased a saltwater farm in Penobscot, Maine. Mr. Boit became executive vice president, and later president, of Union Trust, which was acquired by Camden National Bank

after he retired. Community banking was his passion, and Mr. Boit was immensely proud of the bank’s success and of the people with whom he worked.

In his spare time, Mr. Boit worked tirelessly at his home on the Bagaduce River, which he and Bundy named Northern Bay Farm. He raised sheep, chickens, ducks, rabbits and even two ponies, despite being severely allergic to horses. In his younger days, he was an avid duck hunter, often rising early to sit in a duck blind before heading to the bank. He later gave up hunting and renewed his childhood interest in flyfishing, which he taught to his three sons. They and Mr. Boit, and later his grandchildren, had many memorable trips to the western mountains of Maine to fish for native brook trout. His all-time favorite pastime, though, was mowing his fields; an amateur landscape painter, he called his fields his most loved canvas.

Mr. Boit is survived by his wife of 55 years, Bundy (Harding) Boit; son Nick and his wife, Belinda, of Ocean Ridge, Florida; daughter Peggy, of Waltham, Massachusetts; son Sam ’87, of Vernon, Connecticut; and son John ’88 and his wife, Kate, of Penobscot, Maine. He is also survived by seven grandchildren: Nathaniel, Jason, Henry, Kathryn, Pearce, Oliver and Zoe.

1955

Edward Robert Kinnebrew III of Memphis, Tennessee, son of Edward Robert and Emeline Boyer Kinnebrew, died July 27, 2023, at the age of 85. He was predeceased by his parents and his sister, Sarah Kinnebrew Dale. His remaining sister, Sloan Kinnebrew Sable, lives in Boston. He will also be greatly missed by his niece, Sarah Hilton Sable of Sleepy Hollow, New York, and his nephew, Alan Kinnebrew Sable of Montevideo, Uruguay. Sorrowed as well is his dear friend throughout his life, Jane Battle.

Mr. Kinnebrew, known as Butch, received many scholastic honors beginning in grade school when he graduated top in his class and delivered his valedictorian address in Latin. He received a scholarship to St. Paul’s School, where he was a supervisor; played Isthmian football and SPS basketball and tennis; and graduated cum laude. At Princeton, he was a Classics major; he graduated cum laude in 1959.

Mr. Kinnebrew had a long career in the insurance industry, specifically in the aviation field (a highlight was insuring Elvis’s “Lisa Marie”). He spent a great deal of his business life in London with Lloyd’s brokers and underwriters, many of whom had gone to England’s public schools. When one of them endeavored to explain what a “public school” was, he took great delight in assuring them that he not only knew what a public school was but that he had gone to the public school in the United States, SPS. He loved being a Paulie.

After his stint with Lloyd’s, Mr. Kinnebrew started Crump Aviation Underwriters on behalf of E.H. Crump, and, after the sale of E.H. Crump, he founded and was president of Continental Aviation Underwriters. He also founded and was first president of the Aviation Insurance Association, which grew to be the largest aviation trade association in the country. In 1996, he received the AIA Pinnacle Award for exemplary standards in his career and going beyond the call of duty.

Mr. Kinnebrew was a sports enthusiast and rooted for the Philadelphia Eagles and Phillies. One of his favorite stories was telling how his mother took him to see Jackie Robinson play. He also was a supporter of Opera Memphis, thanks in part to his mother’s career as an opera singer. He had a great sense of humor and would get a twinkle in his eye when kidding around. He was extremely loyal to his friends and kept up with prep school, college and business associates, sending them custom-designed Christmas cards. Lastly, he loved his succession of shih tzu dogs.

1956

Huntington Barclay painter, inventor, entrepreneur, poet, outdoorsman and spiritual seeker, passed away Sept. 6, 2023, at his home at Silver Lake, New Hampshire, at 84. Born in New York City and having spent his early boyhood in San Francisco, Hunt, as he was known, arrived at St. Paul’s School as a Third Former, whereupon he embarked on a transformation of self that earned him the nickname “Rock,” which stuck for his lifetime. He was a Delphian and Shattuck and competed on the cross country and wrestling teams, and he was active with the Glee Club.

Painting was a lifetime passion for which Hunt gained early recognition. As a Sixth Former, he created the first illustrated cover of the venerable Horae Scholasticae, the school’s literary journal founded in 1860 and considered the oldest continuing school publication in America. For almost 100 years, the cover consisted of just the table of contents. Today, “Sailing Home,” a stunning example of Hunt’s later work, depicting a large sailing vessel thrashing homeward through stormy seas, hangs on the first floor of the Lindsay Mathematics and Science Center, a gift to the School made possible by formmates Dick Wood, Mike Hershey and Rennie Atterbury.

Upon graduation, Hunt was awarded the Ellsworth Greenley Art Prize and went on to the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts and later The Art Students League in NYC, where he was an apprentice for several years for the artist Frank H. Mason, who taught him to paint in the style of the Old Masters. For many years, he painted portraits in NYC, including one of Secretary of the Interior Cornelius Bliss that hung in Lincoln Center. He also taught art at the Famous Artist’s School in Westport, Connecticut. Hunt’s yearning for spirituality led him to study

many mystics and eventually to his guru, Paramahansa Yogananda, and to Amma the hugging saint. Spiritual practice was central to his life.

Hunt moved to Silver Lake in 1977 and started Jogalite, producing high visibility reflective gear for outdoor safety. He also developed a bicycle shipping business, Crateworks. Perhaps his crowning creation was a pirate ship complete with gangplank. Built when his son, Ansel, was drawn to the adventures of brigands of old, the little red and yellow ship sailed the waters of Silver Lake and Lake Winnipesaukee. His formmates Harald Paumgarten, Dick Wood and Bob Ingersoll enjoyed several multi-day voyages.

Thrice married and divorced, Hunt was the father of Ansel Barclay ASP ’21, Amelia Barclay Holl and Anoosh Barclay Aghavian and the grandfather of Mason, Oliver, Taylor, Zovinar, Shushan and Tsoline. This Thoreau quote hanging in his house might best describe his world outlook: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.”

1958

Campbell L. Graham of Georgetown, South Carolina, died Oct.16, 2023, at Georgetown Hospital following a short illness. He was 82.

Mr. Graham, who went by Sandy, was born May 18, 1941, to John C. “Jack” Graham and Mary Luke “Polly” Graham, the second of three children and one of 23 Luke cousins. He was raised in Bedford, New York, where he attended the Harvey School in Katonah.

He played baseball at St. Paul’s School for Old Hundred and, after a post-grad year at the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, he earned a degree in Spanish at Williams College.

After graduating from Williams in 1963, Mr. Graham joined the Army and served as a specialist in the military police. The highlight of his service was helping to ensure the peace during Martin Luther King Jr.’s march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, during which MPs dressed as National Guardsmen so as not to incite the crowds.

In 1968, he met Christie Krementz at the Coral Beach Club in Paget, Bermuda. They married in 1970 and had three children: daughter Paget and twin sons Ian and Eric.

In his work life, Mr. Graham found a passion for gemstones and could recount the history, lore and origin of many from around the world. He was vice president of both Krementz & Co. and Krementz Gemstones, in Newark, New Jersey, where he worked for 40 years. Krementz & Co., founded in 1866, was one of the oldest and largest manufacturers of men’s and women’s jewelry in the United States, specializing in rare and precious colored gemstones.

Mr. Graham shared his passion for colored gemstones with colleagues and friends and was just as passionate about the friends he made along the way. Universally loved and respected as a true gentleman, he loved playing bridge and was an accomplished and avid golfer, playing at DeBordieu in Georgetown, South Carolina; Somerset Hills Country Club in Bernardsville, New Jersey; and Bedford Golf and Tennis Club in Bedford, New York. At Somerset Hills, he won the President’s Cup Golf tournament in 1974 and 1986; he and Christie won the Jane Goss Memorial Tournament there in 1995. He and his father played in the Garden City (New York) father-son tournament for a number of years.

Mr. Graham loved traveling and making friends wherever he went. From Utah to England and Scotland to Paris and South Africa and beyond, he had a gift for connecting and sharing stories and commonalities, building friendships wherever he went. He and Christie recently enjoyed cruises on the Danube from Budapest to Prague, on the Seine from Paris to Normandy, and on the Rhine from Basil to Amsterdam. On each, their fellow travelers became true friends.

Mr. Graham was the beloved husband of Christie for 53 years. He is survived by her and their children: Paget of Georgetown, South Carolina; Ian and his wife, Priscilla, of Nantucket, Massachusetts; Eric and his wife,

Kris, of Park City, Utah. He also is survived by his brother, John C. Graham Jr. ’56, and his wife, Sharon Kleckner, of St. Paul, Minnesota. He was predeceased by his sister, Margot Graham Lord Moncure, of Bedford, New York. He was a fabulous and loving granddad to Priscilla, Virginia, Charlotte, Luke and Nicholas Graham, and step-granddad to Fisher Dougherty.

Christie may be contacted at 1484 Wallace Pate Drive, Gerogetown, SC 29440.

1962

George Mifflin Dallas Peltz IV passed away at 79 on Nov. 1, 2023, at Hackensack University Hospital in New Jersey after a short battle with cancer. He was born in Tuxedo, New York, to the late Emily Winslow Peltz (Sully) and George Mifflin Dallas Peltz III on Nov. 24, 1943.

Mr. Peltz, who went by Dallas, graduated from The Fay School in Southborough, Massachusetts, and St. Paul’s School. He also attended Franklin University in Switzerland and enjoyed traveling throughout the world. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968, where he was a member of the Tau Chapter of Psi Upsilon.

To commence his professional career, Mr. Peltz began working at and overseeing his family’s real estate holdings, which included Table Rock Farms in Tuxedo. He was president of the board of trustees of St. Elizabeth’s Memorial Chapel in Tuxedo for more than 50 years, ensuring the physical and financial viability of the church that was founded by his family nearly a century ago. In the early 1970s, he shifted gears and embarked on a real estate career in New York City. In a short period of time, he excelled in the residential aspects of the business — management, conversions and sales. His advice was widely sought and adhered to. He was recognized by his peers as a true professional and leader in the industry.

Mr. Peltz will long be remembered for his unique sense of humor and ability to find positive outcomes to difficult issues. He was a giving person who served as a mentor as well as a true and loyal friend both personally and professionally.

Mr. Peltz is survived by his devoted wife, Dorothy Vermeer Peltz and his daughters, Alexandra Peltz of Washington, D.C.; Maria Kennedy and husband Thomas of Westport, Connecticut; and Nancy Marshall Shanfelt and husband Brad of Greenville, South Carolina. He leaves his grandchildren Grace, Hugh and Sorel Kennedy; his brother, A. Winslow Sully and his wife, Barbara, of Pasadena, Maryland; his sister-in-law Cheryl Sully of Las Vegas; his brother-in-law Richard Vermeer and his wife Grace of Montgomery, Texas. A dear cousin, Ann Harris, also survives him, as do many nieces and nephews. Mr. Peltz was predeceased by his brother William Leslie Sully Jr. as well as his uncle and aunt, Alexander and Elizabeth Hamilton.

1986

Lent Duncan Howard died Aug. 15, 2023, at the age of 55.

Born in San Francisco, Lent arrived at SPS as a Third Former. He was in the Isthmian Club and played football and lacrosse. He made lifetime friends of his teammates and loved to quote Coach Gillespie. Lent was typically the center of raucous common room life in his dorm, and his closest friends remained largely Paulies from both his form and beyond. The worldwide reach of his network allowed him to travel, visit, find business and employment, and keep a broad personal social media presence to which he loved posting.

Following St. Paul’s School, Lent returned to California and graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in political science. He played on the Cal lacrosse team. He worked at bars

and restaurants during and after college, taught the afterschool program at Cathedral School for Boys in San Francisco, and worked as a mortgage broker. Later, he landed in commercial real estate as a salesman. Wanting a change and complete independence, he eventually shifted between jobs while aspiring to the entertainment business through comedy writing. His great sense of humor could have been appreciated by thousands had he broken through in that field.

Lent was known for making time to help people when they needed a boost or a course correction. He could offer tough love, encouragement and a helping hand. He also was a magnet for pets, and he loved watching dogs for friends and neighbors. He appreciated good music, movies, the Giants, Cal sports and the 49ers. He was a really great cook. Additionally, Lent donated his time and talents to the Marine Mammal Center in Marin County and Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area.

Perhaps Lent found a mission to assist others because he himself had struggles, despite all he had going for him. He battled clinical depression, something he did not hide but may not have advertised. Eventually, and sadly, this condition caught up to him. In addition to his multitude of friends, he is survived by his father, Duncan L. Howard; his brother, Lyman Howard ’88; and his sister-in-law, Alison Howard. His family would like you to know that he experienced a maximum amount of living in his 55 years, never denying himself opportunities for fun and to be in great company. They feel truly consoled by that.

OBITUARY SUBMISSIONS

The Alumni Horae is happy to reprint obituaries that have been previously published elsewhere or written in traditional obituary format and submitted directly to us. We encourage you to reach out to alumni@sps.edu to submit an obituary but may contact you if we do not hear from you first. Obituaries may be edited for length and style and will appear in the next possible issue of Alumni Horae.

The SPS Fund WINTER GAMES 2024

THANK YOU TO OUR CHAMPIONS OF SPS!

Here's to the 691 donors and dozens of volunteers who went for the gold and made The SPS Fund Winter Games Giving Challenge for alumni such a success!

After 48 hours of friendly competition between forms, the combined efforts exceeded the goal of 650 donors and generated $387,904 for The SPS Fund in support of our incredible students as they pursue excellence in character and scholarship.

Participation

Form of 1997

Form of 1999

Form of 1966

Form of 1993

Form of 1987

Dollars Raised

Form of 1979

Form of 1999

Form of 1997

Form of 1966

Form of 1992

The SPS Fund is how today happens and helps to support the full student experience. If you missed out on the giving challenge, you can still make today happen with a gift to The SPS Fund. Consider designating your gift to support academics, arts, athletics, DEIJ or sustainability initiatives, faculty, financial aid, the Heritage Fund or student life.

Alumni Horae

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