Summit Echoes

NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID Winston-Salem, NC Permit No. 89

2015

2100 reyn o l da road wi n sto n-sal e m, n c 27106-5115 ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

Photo by Martin Tucker

John Mann ’09 Reaches for the Moon

Message from the Head of School

The stories in this issue of Echoes reveal the deep roots and far reach of Summit School.

John Mann ’09 describes his quest for the Lunar X Prize with a team of Carnegie Mellon University scientists, noting that the flames of his early interest in computer technology were fanned by Director of Technology and Summit alum Chris Culp ’82. Margaret Norfleet Neff ’72 traces the beginnings of her Beta Verde Farm to her Summit experience in which she “had the luxury to stop and examine all things—to truly appreciate the miraculous wonder of things.” Betsy Davis Tucker ’89 reflects on how the process of developing her 9th Grade speech—“breaking it down into steps”—laid the groundwork for her success in establishing Sugar Creek Farm: “Summit taught me to dream, taught me about people who have accomplished big and often unusual things. . .that you can pretty much do whatever you want...if you think through it, prepare, and work through all the challenges.” Glenna Burress Patton ’79 traces her passion for sports back to athletics at Summit. Author Kelly Bouldin Darmofal ’93 celebrates Summit for developing her over 10 years as “an athlete, friend, scholar, writer, mathematician, and philosopher.”

And children’s novelist Robert Mellete ’77 states simply, “I owe my ability to read and write to Miss Futrell at Summit School.”

contents

These stories are about what endures—the interweaving of past, present, and future—at Summit. As Alumni Council co-chair Sandlin Douglas ’94 puts it, “Even though Summit may seem changed from 20 years ago— the campus or some of the faces may look different— it’s still the same Summit we love.”

During a recent gathering of parents whose families are new to the Summit community, the roots and reach were on full display in their stories: “In the Design Lab these kids use math, they use science, they use design principles—they apply what they study. They talk about what made something work—and they talk about what made something fail.

And they learn from both!”

“I peeked in the library and saw my son snuggled up reading a book. He is flourishing. It doesn’t get better than that.”

“My child feels ownership of his learning at Summit.

He feels a part of athletics, academics, arts, service in the community. All the parts of his life at Summit feel connected. He tells me, ‘This place is for me.

I’m comfortable here.’”

“Big Friends/Little Friends is unique—the little ones love their big friends. And the big friends love their little ones.”

The roots of Summit School are real. The reach of our students—past, present, and future—is obvious. What endures at Summit? Inspiring learning. As one new parent put it, “Summit is a gift we give our children.” Generations of Summit students would agree. Thank you for all that you do to make this gift possible.

Onward and upward,

Photo by Martin Tucker

Summit School’s Echoes is published annually for alums, parents, and friends by Summit School.

2100 Reynolda Road Winston-Salem, NC 27106 336.722.2777 www.summitschool.com

Editors: Sarah Dalrymple

Nancy Tuohy

Writer: Robin Pfefferkorn Design: Capture Public

Relations & Marketing

Summit School admits students of any race, religion, color, and national or ethnic origin.

Michael Ebeling Head of School Photo by Martin Tucker

Cover photo: John R. Mann

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Fertile Learning on Barren Rock: John Mann ’09 Reaches for the Moon

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Margaret Norfleet Neff ’72 and Beta Verde: Rooted in Fertile Learning

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Betsy Davis Tucker ’89 and Husband Jeff Tucker Sugar Creek Farm: Inspiring Lifelong Learning

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Onward and Upward with Alumni Council

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Alums at Summit Summer

9 Reunions 15

Glenna Burress Patton ‘79 Sicksports

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Kelly Bouldin Darmofal ‘93 Brings National Attention to Traumatic Brain Injury

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Robert Mellette ’77 ‘Billy Bobble’ Book Set in Winston-Salem

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Class Notes

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College List

Fertile Learning on Barren Rock

Photo by John R. Mann

John Mann ’09

At the end of my sophomore year, I “cold” e-mailed my resume to him and he replied back and said, “You’re interesting. If you’re ever in Pittsburgh this summer, let’s chat.”

So I flew up there and we talked for 30 minutes. He said he needed some software people. So I shook his hand and said, “Happy to be aboard” and I started work on June 9.

Q. How do you win the Lunar X Prize?

The requirements for the prize are: 1. Land on the moon, 2. Drive 500 meters, and 3. Send back several minutes worth of HD images. But, here’s the thing: there is no GPS on the moon. So there is no easy way for us to prove that we have gone 500 meters. That is the big question: How do you prove that you have indeed gone 500 meters?

REACHES for the

moon Over a burger, fries and soft drink this past December, John Mann’09— a junior at Carnegie Mellon University—shared with me the story of a class project that is quite literally going to the moon. His team’s robotic rover will send data and imagery back to scientists on earth. The project is the Google Lunar X Prize, which, among other things, has a $20 million prize as the final reward.

by Michael Ebeling, Head of School

Q. Tell me about the rover.

We call the rover Andy, named after Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon. Andy has four wheels, each one with a different motor. It’s about the size of a cubic meter, so it’s about a meter wide, a meter long, and a meter tall. Its head is a camera so it actually looks a little bit like Wall-E from the Disney movie.

Q. What’s your role in the project?

My first assignment to do over the summer—and what I’m doing today—was to rewrite the user interface, or the software we use to drive the rover. I did the higher level user interface, data storage and organization, and data analysis.

Q. How did you initially get involved in the Google Lunar X Prize project?

Photo by Martin Tucker

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I was looking at current projects on Carnegie Mellon’s robotics institute website and I noticed the Google Lunar X Prize rover led by William “Red” Whittaker.

Red Whittaker is the leader of the field robotics center at Carnegie Mellon. He is considered to be one of the foremost pioneers of robotics. He was featured in a documentary about robotics that I would watch when I did robotics camp at Summit a decade ago.

There are several strategies that you can use. The first is, of course, the circumference of a wheel. One rotation of that is theoretically equal to the distance you drive. So you can count motor turns and get a rough estimate of how far you’ve driven. However, that only works with short distances because there is wheel slippage, friction, slopes. So while that technique might scale to 10-15 meters, it would not scale to 100 meters or 500 meters.

So, we’ve got these cameras on board Andy and it is possible, if you get a series of several images, to look at them. Through a combination of advanced algorithms and magic it is possible to get a rough estimate of the distance in meters between those photos.

There is also the more old fashioned technique of using landmarks or interesting objects in the distance. If you can prove Andy was at this location and then at that location, you can triangulate your position. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. With that straight line or a series of straight lines, we can connect the dots. If the distance between the dots is at least 500 meters, then mathematically speaking you must have travelled at least 500 meters.

Q. Scientifically speaking, what’s to be gained from this project?

Back during the Apollo missions, we thought that the whole goal was to show the Russians who is really in charge. We thought the moon was this dead sphere of rock, without much promise. It turns out that it is still a very dead spherical rock but it’s been dead for less time than we previously thought. We now know that back billions of years ago when it first shot off from the earth, it retained an active geological system before it died down.

So the moon has this network of pits, lava tubes, and caves that we just didn’t know for sure existed during the Apollo missions. Now we do.

We intend to drive the Rover down into the pit to get a good look inside. Why? If you want to have people living

on the moon for an extended period of time, you have to deal with radiation and micro-meteorites, so you need to be underground. A cave or a pit would be the best place for a possible research base or colony decades from now.

Q. So who is funding this?

We’ve got our team, and a company called Astrobotic.

They are building our lander and selling space on it for $1.2 million per kilogram. So if you’ve got a brick you want to send to the moon and 7 digits laying around…

We recently won the mobility prize for $500,000, and the camera imaging prize for $250,000. That means we have satisfied the X Prize requirements for making technological leaps for innovations to be ready for flight. That’s what the milestone prizes are for.

Q. What’s the significance of all of this work?

NASA has officially stated that we are going to send people to Mars by 2035. To go to Mars, you need a lot of fuel and it takes a lot of time. And our planet is actually the second worst planet in our solar system to launch rockets from. Venus is the worst: same gravity but the atmosphere is 100 times thicker. If we can figure out how to build things on the moon, the solar system will pretty much then belong to us. The moon doesn’t have an atmosphere and it has gravity of 0.16 of the earth, so it is a great place to build and launch spacecraft from.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to use the moon in the future as sort of a port of call for our operations in space.

There’s a lot of great science to be done on the moon.

You find that a lot of people ask what’s the point behind strapping people to billion dollar rockets and launching them into space. We have found that the more we invest in space exploration, the more benefits we see here on our planet. For example, I believe that the initial studies of carbon dioxide for Venus helped solidify the greenhouse gas theory.

Q. So what excites you most in this work?

I found that you learn the skills of how to work with people, collaborate well, organize meetings—how to lead.

While it’s still useful to be able to remember certain facts off the top of your head, if everything is just a Google search away, it seems like a giant waste to dedicate yourself to just memorizing facts. This work has you thinking about the big picture: How do things really work? How do things really operate on the level that computers or machines are not able to understand?

I really think that these next few decades are going to be huge for our country and our species in the final frontier.

NASA is looking to build the infrastructure for space.

Future historians will look back and say this is when we really started to get serious about space for its own sake.

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One of Margaret’s many notable features is her wonder.

She sees possibilities everywhere, particularly in the natural world. Summit, she says, helped plant and nourish the seeds of that wonder in her as a child.

Margaret Norfleet Neff ’72

BETA VERDE Rooted in fertile learning

Margaret Norfleet Neff ’72 is an engaged and engaging, delightful and delighted woman who, like many Summit alums, can do or learn to do anything. Owner and creator, with her daughter Salem Norfleet Neff, of food project Beta Verde, Margaret has been an energizing and innovative force within Winston-Salem’s farm-to-table movement for several years. Margaret and Salem moved back to Winston from Chicago, where Margaret revamped the Lincoln Park food co-op (the largest and one of the oldest food co-ops in the country) in 2008. Upon their return, they bought a 16-acre plot of land within the city limits off of Robinhood Road, and began to think about how best to responsibly use the land. They started with a garden and small farm-to-table suppers at their home, where they served fruits and vegetables they had grown on their land. Eventually the pair was producing delicious pesticide-free jams, preserves, chutneys, and pickles, all sourced from their own land and local organic farmers.

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“At Summit, we had the luxury to stop and examine all things— to truly appreciate the miraculous wonder of things. At recess, we used to make these bug habitats, and we were encouraged even then to take the time to marvel at the different bugs and plants,” she says. She sees value in this as both a parent and an entrepreneur. She also places a high value on the habit of mindfulness she learned at Summit.

“I really remember all the field trips. It felt like we were always taking these field trips that focused on how things were made and where and by whom. And we weren’t just passively experiencing things—just walking through museums—we were very purposeful. We discussed at length what we were studying prior to our trip, then went and saw how it was made, and we met and shook hands with the people making it. Then we returned to school and discussed what we had seen and heard.

It was all very meaningful and intentional,” she explains.

This desire to know how things are made and by whom has remained with Margaret and served her well throughout her life. A driving force behind the creation of Beta Verde was her desire not only to know where our food comes from, but how we might learn to be better stewards of the land and, by extension, how we could carry that stewardship into our urban food deserts. With local community gardens, community markets, and farmers markets, people are gaining more and more access to fresh, wholesome foods, which benefits them and local farmers, and stimulates the larger local economy. All of this, as Margaret points out, leads to both good health and fiscal solidity in the community. “We’re seeing a paradigm shift—the most beautiful kind. It’s about life and people, and access,” she says.

In 2012, Margaret and Salem created the Cobblestone Farmers Market in Old Salem. The market has vendors from more than 10 counties under their umbrella, and serves an average of 2,500 customers a week. “In the four years the market has been operational, the involved farms have done nothing but grow. The community wants this,” says Margaret, “and this is just the beginning!”

Cobblestone Farmers Market is one of only a handful of fully sustainable, producer-only markets in the state.

It guarantees to its customers that all vendors are organic and animal products are certified Animal Welfare Approved. In addition, it accepts EBT and WIC, so all community residents can benefit from the fresh offerings.

Perhaps best of all, “Every time you purchase directly from a farmer at a farmers market, 40-70% of your dollar stays in your local community, versus 1% at big box grocery store chains,” she says. The Cobblestone Farmers Market season typically begins in mid-April and is open Saturday morning at Old Salem Museums and Gardens and on Tuesdays in Downtown Winston-Salem. If you’re in the area, stop by the Beta Verde booth and say “Hello!”

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Betsy Davis Tucker ’89 and husband Jeff Tucker

Sugar Creek FARM Inspiring lifelong learning When Betsy Davis Tucker ’89 comes up against challenges that seem insurmountable, she thinks of her time at Summit.

“Summit taught me to dream, taught me about people who have accomplished big and often unusual things, but it didn’t stop there. I think it also taught me to look at the HOW­—how did these people go about doing all these incredible things? Where did they start? What steps did they take?” she says.

Betsy and her husband Jeff are current Summit parents and North Carolina natives. They have always loved the outdoors. Their constant desire for fresh air and activity led them to plant a garden in their backyard. This garden, modest at first, sparked in the two an intense interest in the health and environmental benefits of sustainable agriculture. In 2004, they started Sugar Creek Farm on 45 acres of land in Advance, NC. Initially, the farm produced USDA Certified Organic vegetables, pasture-raised chickens, and heritage breed turkeys for Thanksgiving.

They participated in local farmers markets, made CSA (community supported agriculture) deliveries, and sold to small local grocery stores and larger farms.

With two children and two full-time jobs outside of agriculture, the Tuckers found it hard to keep pace with the demands of running a farm. In the last several years, they have scaled back. Betsy is not discouraged, though.

She is instead thankful to have had the opportunity to do it, saying, “I think the nurturing element of Summit taught me that anything I want to do, especially if done well, is worth pursuing. Maybe having a small organic farm that didn’t make much money isn’t everyone’s idea of ‘success.’ But to me, and to Jeff, it has been very, very rewarding.

We learned so much about farming and food, and also met incredible people and became part of a local food community. It adds a depth to our lives that I’m not sure we would otherwise have found.”

Betsy and Jeff ’s next adventure: cattle. Says Betsy, “Our current idea is to create a small herd of Dexter cattle for breeding stock. Dexter cattle are small and very good for both meat and milk. This makes them ideal for small farms like ours with less acreage than most cattle farms. There really aren’t many breeders in North Carolina that we have found, so we feel like a really good herd could create both supply and demand for small-farm cattle in our area.”

Currently, the Tuckers are preparing their pastures to welcome the first cows in the fall of 2015 or spring of 2016. “Good cattle farmers will tell you that you aren’t actually raising cows, you’re really raising grass,” she adds.

As Betsy says, she and her husband have never raised mammals before, but she is undaunted by the learning curve. She’ll break it down and make it manageable, just like the 9th Grade speech.

She recalls the 9th Grade speech, in particular, “It sounds really ambitious, and at the beginning you don’t really know how you are going to get to the point at the end where you’re standing up in front of the whole assembly giving a speech. But, broken down into steps, it becomes manageable. Over time, this teaches you not only that you can do pretty much whatever you want, but if you think through it, prepare and work through all the challenges, you’ll be a lot more successful in the end.”

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Onward and Upward with the

Alumni Council

Last summer, the Advancement Office began a new initiative aimed at keeping alumni in better touch with Summit. To that end, the Alumni Council was created. Sandlin Douglas ’94 and Kay D. Burress King ’83, current parents and members of the Board of Trustees, have agreed to serve as chairs of the council for its first two years.

The primary goals of the council are to get alumni involved, and to share with them the inspiring things happening at Summit today. Says Kay D., “Everyone remembers college and high school, but Summit holds a special place in your heart. This is where it all began, this is where we have the most treasured memories. Summit is where we learned to build friendships.” The council exists to bring alumni from all over the country together to remember the old days and be a part of the new. “We want alumni to stay informed about what’s happening at Summit today, and to insure that it remains that special place. Even though Summit may seem changed from 20 years ago—the campus or some of the faces may look different—it’s still the same Summit we love,” says Sandlin.

alums at Summit summer

Without hesitation, several other alums, listed below, have also agreed to serve on the council. In doing so, they have accepted the following roles and responsibilities: represent their class years/decade; engage local alums; help Summit reach out-of-town alums; keep Summit informed about their classmates; brainstorm about how to best engage alums; leverage their specific skills in service to Summit; and support students and staff.

Summit is grateful to the following who have agreed to serve as the inaugural Alumni Council members: Chairs, Kay D. Burress King ’83 and Sandlin Douglas ’94 Aurelia Gray Eller ’47 Mary Lee Walker Douglas ’53 Kay Dalton Snavely ’53 Lynn Brenner Eisenberg ’61 Lynda King Morris ’63 Leesa Lybrook Goodson ’71 Ridgely Medlin Phillips ’76 Jimbo Galloway ’80 Carolyn Sherrill Fuller ’85 Matt Spear ’86 Drew Cannon ’91 Rachel Neely Johnson ’99 Mimi Driscoll ’04 Blitz Hoppe ’07

To get involved, please reach out to any of the Alumni Council members. Or, contact Sarah Dalrymple, Director of Alumni and Parent Engagement, at sarahd@summitmail.org or 336-722-2777.

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REUNION EVENTS

Classes of 2001-2008 Winston-Salem, NC November 2014

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REUNION EVENTS

Classes of 2009-2014

REUNION EVENTS

Charlotte, NC September 2014

Winston-Salem, NC December 2014

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REUNION EVENTS

REUNION EVENTS

Classes of 1971-1977 Winston-Salem, NC September 2014

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Glenna Burress Patton ’79

SICKSPORTS

A Social Network for Sports, Targeting Youth

You would never guess it speaking to her now, but Glenna Burress Patton ’79 was painfully shy as a child. She was so shy, in fact, that she let older sister, Alice Burress Sarlls ’76, and her friend, Kathryn Snavely White ’79, do all of the talking for her. “Becoming part of a sports team drew me out of my shell, though, and gave me the confidence to speak for myself,” she recalls. Being involved in sports at Summit and going to a myriad of Carolina basketball and football games with her dad made her a self-described sports nut. “Dad took us to the Carolina games, and I found that several stats I was interested in weren’t covered in the newspaper. So, I had my own notebook and tracked them myself, and taught my sister Kay D. Burress King ’83 to cover them,” she says. It was around this time that Glenna decided she wanted to become a sports journalist. “There weren’t many female sports journalists then, but the Winston-Salem Journal had Mary Garber, a pioneering sports writer who inspired me and later interviewed me about sports I was playing,” she recalls.

In 9th Grade, Glenna had her mom drive her to WXII, Winston-Salem’s local NBC affiliate. “When we got there, I walked right in and said ‘I want to be an intern,’” she says.

The station let her work for free, and she began her first stint in the world of sports journalism. After nights of carrying around cable and doing anything necessary for the sports department, “Mom or Dad would pick me up, pajamas on, at the station at 11:30 pm after the newscast. Needless to say, when I turned 16, I was one of the first of my friends to get a car, so Mom and Dad didn’t have to make those late night pajama pickups anymore.”

As a Morehead-Cain Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she got a job with Jefferson Pilot Teleproductions (now Raycom Sports). There, she acted as stage manager for the announcers of the Atlantic Coast 15

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Conference basketball telecasts. In this role, she always had courtside seats. “It was a dream! I was on the floor for all those really big Carolina-Duke games,” she says. She graduated with a BA in Journalism.

After college, Glenna moved to New York City, where she continued to pursue her dreams of sports journalism.

“In New York, I got on as a freelancer with CBS Sports and ESPN. I was so fortunate to actually achieve my childhood dream! It was amazing, but, the hours were rough and I needed more money to survive in New York City,” she says. So she moved into marketing. With her media experience, it wasn’t hard to find work as a media planner at an advertising agency where the hours were more manageable and the salary more lucrative. Several years later, she and her husband moved to post-communist Prague, Czech Republic. There she had the good fortune to fall in with a Czech company that was launching the first private rock music radio station. She became the first marketing director and 11th employee of private media and entertainment company Bonton, where she made a whopping $68 per month to start. “I learned so much as a foreigner in a non-English-speaking emerging market,” she recalls.

From Prague, Glenna travelled to London, where she parlayed her experience in entertainment into a job in TV as Vice President of Marketing for Europe at the newly emerging SciFi channel. She went on to head all of marketing and communications as a Senior Vice President at MTV Networks International. During her tenure, the company launched more than 100 TV channels and digital media services around the world—in Asia, Europe, Latin America.

“It was an exciting time full of amazing challenges. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to take global brands and make them locally relevant in new markets,” she says.

In 2008, after nine years with MTV Networks, Glenna was approached by Hewlett-Packard (HP). “I knew that if I was going to stay in youth media, I needed to learn as much as I could about technology. I had experienced so much at MTV, and it was time for a new challenge,” she says. And a challenge it was. As one would imagine, going from an albeit large international media company to an enormous (at the time Hewlett-Packard had $125 billion in revenues and over 320,000 employees) technology giant involved quite a learning curve. While there, Glenna was Vice President of Global Brand Strategy and Design. During her tenure, she led a brand repositioning that drove an increase of $4.4 billion in HP’s brand value and landed HP in the top 10 of Interbrand’s annual global brand ranking for the first time in HP history. “I was thrown into the deep end with HP, but I thrive in that kind of challenge,” she adds.

Today, Glenna has united her youth-centered media expertise and branding savvy with her lifelong love of sports to produce San Francisco-based SICKSPORTS, a youth-targeted social network for 13-22 year-old sports lovers.

The SICKSPORTS mission, according to its media materials, is to “champion, nurture and inspire young women and men in their personal journeys through positive role models and character-revealing stories.” SICKSPORTS, itself, “is where athletes post about their sports, fans debate hot topics, and teams communicate privately or publicly. To fuel their

aspirations and personal development, SICKSPORTS also features content tailored to this group–including tips on nutrition and training, profiles on role models, and insights directly from athletes and experts.” Users can upload their own sports commentary, videos, photos, URLs, and stories.

Along the way, they can pick up followers and follow others from all over the world. The platform launched as a mobile app in early November, and is focused on scaling its user base. SICKSPORTS has been gaining traction, and in the past 30 days, it’s had 25,000 unique visitors and 240% growth.

North Carolina was among SICKSPORTS’s early test markets. “We engaged with a couple hundred kids in North Carolina, and, now that we’re up and running, we plan to visit again this spring,” says Glenna. “We are trying to create a network of young sports writers and reporters for original content. You can find winners and losers and final scores anywhere—we’re looking to tell the human stories around sports. We want teenage reporters to interview role model athletes and coaches at the college, pro and Olympic levels. I’d like to reach out and create opportunities for other young sports nuts like I was.”

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Kelly Bouldin Darmofal ’93

moon

brings national attention to Traumatic Brain

Injury

Kelly started at Summit in Junior Kindergarten. “I went to Summit in four-year-old kindergarten and continued through the 8th Grade. Summit was a wondrous adventure, an opportunity to follow my older sister, Tyler Bouldin Battaglia ’88, into seemingly immense playgrounds, a chance to learn to read my favorite dog stories,” she recalls.

In 1992, five days after her 15th birthday, a freshman at R.J. Reynolds High School, Kelly was in a car accident that was nearly fatal. Though she miraculously survived her injuries, the degree to which she would recover was uncertain, and her prognosis grim. Doctors predicted that her ability to acquire knowledge beyond what she already had would be difficult, if not impossible.

After the accident, Dr. Sandra Adams, Head of School, contacted Kelly’s family and offered to accept Kelly back at Summit and provide her with any special help or additional services. As thankful as Kelly’s family was to Dr. Adams, they sent Kelly back to Reynolds: her doctors believed being in her most recent familiar environment would better trigger her memory and cognitive skills.

Though Kelly did not return to Summit, she stayed connected to her Summit family. “Nancy Bearden [now Chapman] continued to tutor me in Spanish (thank heavens). And my most supportive friends during a long recovery from TBI were my former classmates from Summit,” she says.

Kelly Bouldin Darmofal, ’93 and former Summit School Second Grade assistant to Jan Standerfer, suffered a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) as a result of a car accident in 1992, her freshman year in high school. In her new book, Lost in My Mind: Recovering from Traumatic Brain Injury, published by Modern History Press, Kelly hopes to shine a light on our educational system’s lack of preparedness in dealing with students who have suffered TBI. She hopes to raise awareness of the system’s shortfalls by detailing her own struggles in an academic setting that did not understand or support her specific challenges. Kelly’s memoir is dedicated to her family and to fellow Summit alums the late Matthew Gfeller ’08 and the late Britt Armfield ’92.

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Upon her return to Reynolds from what was an extended and painful convalescence, Kelly and her family were devastated to find that schools were not properly equipped to deal with students who suffer from TBI. Kelly found that people in general are unaware of the challenges a TBI survivor faces, and educators and educational institutions, specifically, lack the necessary training for understanding and teaching students with TBI. The result for Kelly was frustration, discouragement, and inhibited academic and social progress in the years following her accident.

Kelly persevered, however, and went on to graduate from Salem College in 2000 with a degree in Communications.

After working for the American Red Cross, she returned to Salem to complete a Masters in Special Education.

She then began teaching full time in the Johnson Academic Center at Forsyth Country Day School and became a certified Wilson Reading Specialist. She eventually made her way back to Summit, where she became Mrs. Jan Standerfer’s assistant, a position she held until her son Alex was born.

Today, she divides her time between tutoring, writing for the magazine Lost Treasure, and speaking around the country on TBI as it relates to education. Her life-goal is to train teachers in liberal arts colleges to work with TBI survivors. “Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, TBI is a category, yet teachers remain untrained after more than two decades. TBI is the leading cause of child death and youth disability in America. It doesn’t only affect athletes and soldiers. Millions of students are symptomatic of TBI—an invisible illness,” she says.

In regard to her time at Summit and what her life might have been like had she not recovered from her injuries, she says, “I was already an athlete, friend, scholar, writer, mathematician, and philosopher. I could have made a good life with the skills given to me by Summit. Gratefully, if belatedly, I thank all those who taught me at Summit, who befriended me then and today. I could have survived pretty well without those treacherous graduate courses, relying instead on the ten years of my Summit School education.”

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Robert Mellette ’77

Mellette’s mother took him to Summit School for testing when he started having difficulties in First Grade.

‘Billy Bobble’ book set in Winston-Salem

by Kathy Norcross Watts/Special Correspondent Reprinted with permission from the Winston-Salem Journal.

When Robert Mellette was forming the idea for his debut novel, Billy Bobble Makes a Magic Wand, he looked back at his old yearbooks from Summit School, where he was tutored for his dyslexia

by Louise Futrell, Summit’s founder.

“Nearly everyone who signed talked about all of my ‘scientific theories,’” Mellette, 52, said in an e-mail.

“That touched my inner 12-year-old, and it all popped from there. I think we never really let go of that kid inside of us.”

In Mellette’s novel, 12-year-old Billy Bobble, a quantum physics prodigy, and his best friend, Suzy Quinofski, make Billy a working magic wand and open a door to the Quantum World where thoughts create reality, according to Mellette’s website.

“I’m not surprised,” said Tom Seaver, who was Mellette’s science teacher in 8th and 9th Grades. “He was a real free thinker and … his sense of humor stands out. He would always come up with an answer to any question. More times than not, it was something entertaining. I imagine it’s probably got a number of theories he has thought up. In his yearbook he said I said he would be a science-fiction writer.”

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Overcoming Dyslexia

“I’m a dyslexic kid,” Mellette said. “In First Grade, I was starting to become a bad kid. School was very frustrating. I owe my ability to read and write to Mrs. Futrell at Summit School.

“Dyslexics are very creative. It’s almost a symptom. It’s kind of natural to get into writing or to create an entire world. You just have to learn how get your thoughts in sync with your fingers.

“When you’re dyslexic, your brain is working so fast, words are coming so slowly. When you read, it’s very frustrating. I never thought of myself as a writer. I wanted to be an astrophysicist.”

As youngsters, Mellette and his classmate Charlie Lovett, a New York Times best-selling novelist, would do impressions of various characters on “Welcome Back Kotter.” The pair reconnected several years ago at a screen-writers’ conference.

Billy Bobble’s world Mellette, who lives in Sherman Oaks, California, now, set his novel in the fictitious town of Winston.

“I used the name because in California when I tell people I’m from Winston-Salem, they say, ‘That’s where they burned the witches, right?’” he said. “So in my mind, having a town named Winston hints at Salem, which brings up witches and magic.”

Mellette played Little League baseball with the Ardmore Wildcats and learned “new” math as he counted change at Baskin Robbins on Peters Creek Parkway. After Summit, he attended Paisley Middle School and graduated from R.J. Reynolds High School.“Winston High in the book is patterned after both R.J.R. and Paisley,” he said.

“The outside courtyard where the kids have lunch is based on Paisley. The entrance to the school is based on the bridge at Reynolds. What writer could forget having to run that gauntlet every morning to get to class?” Mellette included a guide for teachers and students about how to use his book to meet the Common Core objectives.

“On the literary side of Common Core, teachers can use any book they want to reach the kids—even Billy Bobble Makes A Magic Wand,” Mellette said. “The Common Core guidelines don’t dictate to teachers what to teach.

They simply lay out the skills each student should master at their grade level. How the teacher gets them to those skills is up to them.” Mellette mixed magic and science on purpose.“When you really know your science, it can take you to some wonderfully magical places,” he said. “There is a level of science that gets to spirituality. By having Billy and Suzy make magic, I can take the reader to that level.”

“When I knew him, he was a funny guy to hang out with,” Lovett said. “It was great to get to see him as an adult and connect in the same way.”

Lovett said that Summit was “ahead of the curve” for teaching dyslexic children. He recalled sitting in his First Grade classroom and school officials said, “‘Now we’re going to pick some students for this special program.’”

“I remember being so disappointed (at not being chosen). There was never any sort of ‘us’ and ‘them’ sort of thing. We understood that people learned in different ways.”

A Literary Life An award-winning independent film writer and director, Mellette said it wasn’t hard for him to take on the point-of-view of his 12-year-old protagonist.

“I think people who know me well are more curious how I capture the point-of-view of an adult,” he said.

He attended UNC Charlotte, UNC School of the Arts and graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a bachelor’s degree of fine arts degree in theater. He wrote and directed the movie, “Jacks Or Better,” which won multiple awards at the Riverrun Film Festival when it was in Brevard, and premiered in 2000 at the Dances With Films festival.

He’s worked with Dances With Films ever since and is now associate director. He wrote “The Xena Scrolls” for Universal Studio’s Xena: Warrior Princess. He was script coordinator on Blue Crush and Nutty Professor II and acted in Looney Tunes: Back In Action, Star Trek: Enterprise, Days of Our Lives, Too Young the Hero, and many other stage productions across the country. He’s a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America and a regional board member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and he’s had short stories published in several anthologies.

“He has gotten to pursue his passion, which a lot of people don’t get to do,” his mother Bonnie Poindexter said. “He’s just worked his craft all these years. Robert has done what Robert had to do.”

Editor’s NOTE: Robert is a member of the Summit Class of ’77, and mother Bonnie Poindexter is a former staff member. Charlie Lovett is also a member of the Summit Class of ’77.

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CLASS NOTES

class notes IN MEMORIAM Alumni/ae 1973 Nilla Dudley Childs

December 25, 2014 1967 Don Gibbs

September 17, 2014 1966 Randy Gray

December 30, 2014 1952 Sally Pullen Kelly

December 29, 2014 Former Staff

Judi Carter February 24, 2015

Julia Sneden October 4, 2014

Jack Tally June 25, 2014

primarily on false advertising litigation and complex consumer class actions in both federal and state courts. In addition, he represents clients in advertising substantiation investigations and inquiries from the Federal Trade Commission and state Attorneys General, and provides counseling on advertising and telemarketing-related matters.

1960 Redge Hanes says his debut novel, Billy Bowater, which tells the story of a young man growing up with the burden of expectation based on his heritage, is based on some of his own experiences, both physical and emotional. Learn more about the book here: echanes.com

1983 Gwyn Armfield was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the US Air Force at Hurlburt Field, Florida on May 9, 2014. He is currently serving as a Deputy Commanding General in Afghanistan.

Doug Perez appeared on Jeopardy! with Alex Trebek on November 24. He was a 1-day Champion with total winnings of $18,000. Doug says,“Jeopardy! was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and it was a thrill.”

1966 Mitch Rouzie writes, “I work for Family Court Services and I also have a private practice in psychotherapy in Staten Island. I treasure my years at Summit for the strong classical education I received there.”

1973 Ellen Nordstrom is the director of the Voice Department at the Concord Community Music School in Concord, NH. She also enjoys being a vocal coach and speech therapist for stroke recovery candidates. She writes that she has “had the pleasure of coaching recent contestants on American Idol, The Voice and America’s Got Talent and has worked with students who performed for Presidents Obama and Clinton.” One of her students made his debut at the Met! Ellen says, “I believe I have Dr. Sandra Adams to thank for my success and creativity in all of my teaching endeavors—I will never forget how fun she made Latin class!”

1974 Whit James writes, “I remain an active board member of the TN chapter of The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. I am also a member of the Wake Forest Medical Alumni Board and look forward to the board meetings in Winston-Salem. I am a gastroenterologist in Nashville, TN and enjoy traveling and participating in various fundraising sponsored road bicycle rides.”

1986 Dack Stackhouse gathers with classmates, alums, their spouses and children (some are now current students at Summit) at Hathaway Park in WinstonSalem. This annual reunion is held in memory of Greg Garcia ‘86.

1988 Joe Parrish owns the Winston-Salem ad agency, The Variable. With his business partner, they figured out a brand story that is authentic, maker-focused, homegrown “born in Winston-Salem,” and came up with a flavor and packaging: Sunshine Beverages LLC. Nearly a year after their product first hit shelves, more than 80,000 cans of Sunshine have been sold at 350 retailers across the Carolinas.

1993 Dan Blynn, an attorney in Kelley Drye & Warren LLP’s Advertising and Marketing Law and Litigation practice groups, has been honored by Thomson Reuters as one of just six Consumer Law “Super Lawyers” in Washington, DC in 2014. Dan’s practice concentrates

1999 Wes Hsu shared highlights of a video from a recent basketball tournament in Hualien Taiwan (east coast of Taiwan): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJDjjqTlrQo

2000 Walter Wiggins writes, “Sarah and I are delighted to embark on our next journey with our one-year-old son, Ian, and dog, Deacon. Having recently graduated from Wake Forest School of Medicine, I will be starting my internship in Internal Medicine at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, NC, on July 1, 2014.

After a year in Charlotte, we will move to Boston where I will serve as a Resident Physician in Diagnostic Radiology at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Thanks to the wonderful teachers and staff at Summit for providing me with the foundation for success in my education! We’ll miss Winston-Salem, but are excited about our next adventure!”

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CLASS NOTES

2003 Elizabeth Krewson is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University.

Her dissertation work includes defining the role of proton-sensor GPR4 in relation to endothelial metabolism and angiogenesis within endothelial and cancer-cell models.

2005 Kimani Griffin competed Oct. 24-26, 2014 in Salt Lake City at the Long Track Speedskating World Cup Qualifier Races at the Olympic Ice Oval.

He earned a spot on the 2014-15 World Cup LT Team, which is scheduled to compete at the World Cup races in Germany and The Netherlands in December 2015. Currently, Kimani is a Category 1 Athlete ranking among the top five Sprinters in the USA Long Track Ice Speedskating Program. Kimani works on speed and conditioning in Utah with his longtime WinstonSalem Coach Derrick Speas. His ice coaches are Tucker Fredericks and Matt Kooreman of US Speedskating. Learn more here: https://usspeedskating.rallyme.com/rallies/1110/ kimanigriffin.

2006 Emily Krewson is a Kindergarten Teaching Assistant at Sherwood Forest Elementary School in Winston-Salem. She is pursuing a graduate degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling online through N.C. State University. Emily has enjoyed working with several Summit summer programs and teaching gymnastics classes in the evenings at Summit. She really likes being able to give back to Summit!

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CLASS NOTES

Gordon Middleton graduated from Cornell University.

He received a National Geographic Young Explorer’s grant and spent 10 days paddle boarding in Bermuda raising awareness about plastic pollution. Read more: http://www.plastictides.org/ and http://www.establishedcalifornia.com/estca/est-spotlight-plastic-tides-1.

Dylan Rollins made a short film for his senior portfolio at Appalachian State and it was selected for the 2015 Lookout Wild Film Festival. You can find the film at www.dylanrollinsstillmotion.

2007 Ryanne Probst has started a job at Penguin Books in New York City. She works in publicity for their romance line of books helping authors get their words heard.

2008 George Cleland was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

He is an English and environmental studies major at UNC-Chapel Hill.

2011 Claire Hess graduated with honors from West Forsyth High School and is attending the University of Georgia.

Chie Mushayamunda was featured in SportsXtra (Winston-Salem Journal, February 2014). The article highlights her success as a year-round swimmer­— a direct result of being ”scared of the water” as a young child. As a senior at Salem Academy, she completed an internship at Airtype. She was tasked with conceptualizing a one-off shirt idea, learned the process of how ideas are transformed into designs, and then printed onto a garment. The company described her as young and bright with a ”super bright future ahead of her.”

2012

2013

Noah Feldman, currently enrolled at Atkins High School, was recently named a National Merit Semifinalist. The National Merit Scholarship Program is an academic competition for recognition and scholarships that began in 1955. High school students enter the National Merit Program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, a test which serves as an initial screen of approximately 1.5 million entrants each year, and by meeting published program entry/participation requirements.

Jonah da Luz, a Mt. Tabor High School student, was named to the Central Piedmont 4-A All-Conference Soccer team.

Joshua Golden received the Boy Scout Medal of Merit award for heroism at Troop 934’s Court of Honor ceremony. The medal is awarded on a national basis for outstanding acts of service or exceptional character that reflects an uncommon degree of concern for others. Joshua assisted scouts on three separate occasions who were in life-threatening situations.

Mayor Allen Joines and Scoutmaster David Helms made the presentation. Joshua is an Eagle Scout in Troop 934 at Mt. Tabor Methodist Church in Winston-Salem.

John Haynie was featured in SportsXtra (WinstonSalem Journal, October 2014). According to Coach Adam Gal, Haynie, a soccer forward and outside midfielder at Reynolds High School has made more of an impact on the field this year with his improved play. He said Haynie has been referred to by his teammates as “the hype guy” and has always made an impact with his unfailingly positive attitude.

Jana Klages-Miller, a Reynolds High School student, was named to the Central Piedmont 4-A All-Conference Tennis Team.

Maggy Terry was featured in SportsXtra (WinstonSalem Journal, October 2014). Maggy is a member of the Reynolds High School tennis team. Coach Johnny Highsmith says, “she has a beaming smile and larger-than-life personality; she is a better tennis player than she gives herself credit for.” Maggy comes by her tennis talent naturally. Her father, Peter, coaches at Summit and her siblings, Molly ‘10 and Madison ‘14 have picked up the sport, too. She says, “I’m going to play throughout my life....I’m going to play because I enjoy it.”

Laney Orr has verbally committed to UNC-Chapel Hill to play baseball. A student at Reynolds High School, he will officially sign November 1, 2015.

Graham Spieler was featured in SportsXtra (WinstonSalem Journal, December 2014). Spieler, a member of the Reagan High School swim team, swam the 200 freestyle relay, finished fifth in the NCHSAA 4-A championship and set a new school record (1:28:09).

His times are fast enough to attract interest from college recruiters.

Janie Thomas was featured in SportsXtra (WinstonSalem Journal, October 2014). She has made a name for herself on the golf team at Reynolds High School.

Coach Mike McCulloch said, “she has a very good chance of being player of the year in the Central Piedmont 4-A conference.” McCulloch’s prediction proved true­—she was named Golfer of the Year. Janie started playing golf with her dad, Phil Thomas ‘71, when she was 9. Janie says, “now I am starting to beat him more often.”

2014 Annecy Daggett, a Reynolds High School student, was named to the Central Piedmont 4-A All-Conference Cross Country team.

Darron Hayes says that his transition to Reynolds High School has been smooth; Summit prepared him well. In the fall, he juggled rehearsal for the play, The Diary of Anne Frank, a capella rehearsals and competitions, soccer, and homework/studying.

He said, “It can be a bit stressful at times, but I’m making it!”

Sam Stopyra, a Reynolds High School student was awarded the silver key (37th Annual Eastern/Central North Carolina Scholastic Art Awards) for his work, titled Silence on Water’s Edge.

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CLASS of

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Summit has launched a new mobile

alumni app

Connect with classmates, network towards a new job, and get Summit news, all on your Apple or Android smartphone.

Search for “Summit School Alumni Connect” in the Apple App Store or Google Play or go to http://bit.ly/1itnpp8.ly/1it

Download it today!

Did you know that 70% of jobs are found through networking?

The EverTrue app can help you connect with other Summit people in your area.

Once you have downloaded the app, you will be prompted to authenticate yourself upon your first login, because the app is only available to Summit alumni. The authentication process requires that Summit School have a current email address on file.

If you are unable to complete the authentication process, we’re happy to help. Contact Sarah Dalrymple, Director of Alumni and Parent Engagement, sarahd@summitmail.org.

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