Bulletin - Spring 2021 - The Frederick Gunn School

BULLETIN Spring 2021

These pages: In the fall and spring, students participated in Community Weekends based on the theme, “Live Like Fred.”

From star lectures on the Quad, led by science teacher Steve Bailey P’09, and firepits on the Koven-Jones Glade, to night hikes at the Steep Rock and Macricostas preserves, fishing and watching the sunset at Beebe Boathouse, and camping at South Street Fields, students spent time together outdoors in the spirit of founder Frederick Gunn.

(See story, page 22.)

The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

BULLETIN

spring 2021

2 Message from the Head of School 4 Celebrating Black History Month 10 2021 Speaker Series 13 Curriculum Expands With Winterim 16 Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset 20 From the Archives 22 Campus LIfe 34 Gunn Athletics 40 Gunn Arts 46 Alumni News 52 Highlander Journeys 63 Trustee News 64 Class Notes 78 Remembering Richard L. Feigen ’47 80 Faculty Profile

On the cover: Alex Diaz ’21 batting for The Frederick Gunn School in the home game against Millbrook on April 17. Gunn won 6-2. See more photos of our new spring uniforms and branding on campus on page 32.

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FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL Dear Frederick Gunn School Community, This has been a roller coaster of a year for our school. Learning has continued amidst the backdrop of millions of deaths globally from COVID-19, a national reckoning with race, justice, politics, and social media culminating in — but not concluding with — the violent attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, and the Derek Chauvin verdict on April 20. Through the resilience of our faculty, students, and families, one of the most disrupted years in the school’s 170-year history has also been a year of progress. It is difficult to reconcile these dynamics. Renaming the school to

An innovative thinker, willing to disrupt the status quo for the sake

embrace our founder clearly and recommitting the school, internally

of a better outcome, flexible, resilient, undeterred by opposition or

and externally, to Frederick Gunn as the embodiment and animating

failure, collaborative, willing to take risks and learn from mistakes

spirit of our mission has catalyzed remarkable progress in a short,

– this is a pretty good definition of an entrepreneur – and we see all

tumultuous period of time. You will read about much of the activity

of these characteristics in Frederick Gunn. Our goal today is both

in the pages to follow, so I want to use this note to articulate how

to be like this as an institution and to develop these habits and skills

Mr. Gunn was an entrepreneur before that became the popular idea

in our students. We are, after all, following the example set by Mr.

it is today.

Gunn when he addressed the teachers convention in Hartford in 1877, saying: “If you aspire to teach and train the young, first set your

Mr. Gunn was an entrepreneurial force for good in his world. While

own heart to school; learn the great lesson of reality; be yourself that

that isn’t a phrase he would have used, it summarizes his life. He was

to which you would train your boys [or students] to be.” We believe

unceasingly active but, as his letters and speeches show, he had both

that equipping our graduates with an entrepreneurial mindset will

a mature interior life and the ability to express it. As anyone who has read “The Master of The Gunnery” knows, his activity had purpose — he wanted to effect change, whether sociopolitical (in the case of slavery, gambling and alcohol); social and communal (as he and Mrs. Gunn actively invited Washingtonians to school arts functions and he organized baseball games on the Green against teams from other

serve them well, not just in a future career, but throughout the course of their education and in their daily lives. We hope to inspire our students to ask: What if? Why not? Is there a better way? If we can accomplish this, we will have lived up to our motto: a good person is always learning.

towns); personal (to the lives of individual students through his novel, formational educational practices); civic (as he participated actively in town debates and organized militia drilling in the lead-up to the Civil War); financial (as he invested in town initiatives as a form of early economic development); and institutional (he started and built a school, after all). Through some combination of all of these traits, he took the school camping in the face of the start of the Civil War. All of this activity was for the good of others and was directed towards his vision of a flourishing, interconnected society — the common good. In all things, Mr. Gunn aimed to equip others to emulate his model, illustrated most clearly by the fact that his earliest alumni carried on the camping tradition in their own contexts such that he is considered the father of camping in America.

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The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

Mr. Gunn was an entrepreneurial force for good in his world. While that isn’t a phrase he would have used, it summarizes his life. He was unceasingly active but, as his letters and speeches show, he had both a mature interior life and the ability to express it.

You will read in these pages how the school seeks today to follow Mr. Gunn’s example in multiple ways. On campus, new and renewed programs are flourishing, including our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives (see page 4), the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy, Outdoor Programming (see page 22), and the transition from a longstanding Entrepreneurship course into a fully fledged Entrepreneurship Center (see page 16). Most importantly, you’ll see how our current faculty and staff, current students, and our alumni are being entrepreneurial forces for good in the world through so many varied initiatives and activities (including those featured on page 26). Entrepreneurship is closely connected to innovation and improvisation. Watching students, colleagues, and alumni practice these, often with real risk involved, is the most gratifying part of leading The Frederick Gunn School. We have witnessed an incredible amount of activity, in the face of local and global challenges, all with purpose. The world needs all of us to be forces for good and I commend you for the ways that you seek to live up to Mr. Gunn’s standards in your own spheres of influence.

I am grateful to all of you for your support of our school and the many ways in which you have expressed that over the course of this remarkable year. I’ll close with three requests. First, stay in touch — let us know what you are up to. Second, come back to visit — and give us a heads up. Third, read “The Master of The Gunnery.” You think I’m kidding, but it’ll change your life to get to know Frederick Gunn and see him as his earliest alumni did.

Go Gunn!

Peter Becker Head of School

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The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

Black History Month is a Celebration of Black Joy in the Arts Students and faculty celebrated Black History Month by learning together through a series of student presentations and facultyled artist interviews based on the theme of “Black Joy.” Programs highlighted the Harlem Renaissance and the contributions and accomplishments of Black artists in the visual arts, literature, film, television, and music. The celebration concluded with a virtual mini-concert, featuring students in The Frederick Gunn School Music Program, directed by Ron Castonguay, Director of the Arts and Music Director.

Over the past several years, students at The Frederick Gunn School have participated in a national Day of Service, and the school has hosted guest speakers and film discussions, all to honor the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This year, rather than limiting programming to a single day, the goal was to offer continuous, interactive programming from Martin Visual artist Imo Imeh, Ph.D., who was interviewed during Black History Month, created the drawing “Breathe” (on facing page) for an exhibition titled “For Freedoms,” at the Luther King, Jr. Day in January through the University Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. end of February.

“We wanted to look at what it would be like for all of us to engage in a more meaningful experience, The possibilities of where we can go rather than just an event for a day,” said LaDarius Drew, Director Drew interviewed Imo Imeh, Ph.D., at his studio in Springfield, of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, who shared with the community Massachusetts. A visual artist and scholar of African Diaspora art, two interviews he conducted, one with visual artist Imo Imeh, Ph.D., Imeh is an associate professor of art and art history at Westfield and the second with Otoja Abit ’04, an actor, writer, producer, and State University and has been using art, music and writing to director. frame what he has experienced during the pandemic and this time

Drew noted that in their lifetime, students have seen the Black of political change.

Lives Matter protests, the criminalization of Black people and non “I’ve been doing art for as long as I can remember. I’ve always white citizens, Black people being hurt, and being treated unjustly. fallen into the rhythm of making something,” he said. “In the last They have talked about oppression and racism. “But we never talk decade, my inspiration has been really the various deficits that I’ve about the good part. We never talk about Blackness outside of the seen in my community as an African man, as a Black man. I am a pro-Panther party and Barack Obama. To start that conversation, we student of history to a degree. I enjoy understanding where we come need to talk about some of the more accessible ways to understand from as a people and maybe imagining the possibilities of where we Black people as creators in fine art, dance and music,” he said. can go.”

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LaDarius Drew, Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, interviewing Otoja Abit ’04 (right) on stage in the Tisch Family Auditorium.

Imeh recently created a piece titled, “Breathe,” inspired by events he witnessed during the pandemic. “I think Black joy sits in the intersection of great striving over pain and trauma, realizing that there’s always something beautiful in the mix,” he said, adding that right now, “There are these moments of hypervisibility that happen for Black folks in the midst of the craziness, where if nobody else sees us, we see us. I think that’s beginning to happen more and more and more.”

the part, and that experience encouraged him to pursue acting as a career. “The Gunnery gave me that type of validation that, ‘You are this leading actor in our world here, in this community.’ From there I felt like this was something I really wanted to do. I had the acting bug. I wanted to do it more,” he recalled.

After graduating, he went on to study and play Division I basketball at St. John’s University. His big break came in 2011 when

Waking up with joy Drew’s second interview, with Otoja Abit ’04, was conducted on stage in the Thomas S. Perakos Arts and Community Center. Abit discussed his trajectory from his post-graduate year at The Frederick Gunn School, which the New York City native described as “the most important thing I’ve done in my life,” to his first role on Broadway, his work as an independent filmmaker and the global debut of his first feature film, “A New York Christmas Wedding,” on Netflix in November 2020.

Abit came to what was then The Gunnery to play basketball and had always wanted Otoja Abit ’04 (first row, left) gets a hug from fellow actor Kiefer Sutherland in this photo the opportunity to act, so he decided to try of the cast of the 2011 Broadway play, “That Championship Season,” which also included out for the lead role in the fall play. He got Jason Patric, Brian Cox, Jim Gaffigan, and Chris Noth.

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The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

That’s the most important part of the programming, that we’re all learning together.”

– Anjavie Thompson ’21 Anjavie Thompson ’21 (above) and Jayla Stack ’21 (below) both took on leadership roles in the Black Student Union this year.

he was cast in the Broadway play “That Championship Season,” where he had the opportunity to act alongside Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric, Brian Cox, Jim Gaffigan, and Chris Noth, and under the direction of Tony Award-winner Gregory Mosher. “This is the world of the arts at a high level. My other comparison to theater in my life was at the EPAC, and then my next theater job was on Broadway. That doesn’t really happen,” he reflected.

Abit went on to roles in film and television and wrote, directed, produced and starred in an award-winning debut short, “Jitters.”

He spoke about that experience during the interview, as well as his debut feature film, “A New York Christmas Wedding,” which he wrote, directed and starred in, before answering the question of what Black joy means to him:

“Black joy to me is just being able to wake up and be fulfilled in

the new Highlander Podcast on Spotify, which is produced by the writers and editors of the student newspaper, The Highlander.

“The programming itself has completely changed. In previous

the idea that the day before, the night before, I went to bed giving it my all,” he said. “I’m an artist, I’m going to keep on growing, I’m going to keep on trying to do what I can do, and I’m going to keep on spreading the word and being an example of, ‘If I can do it, you can do it, too,’” he said, telling students: “I’ve sat in these seats. I walked around here and I had dreams and I’m still trying to do it every single day. I’m still trying to do the work, go to bed and wake up with joy.”

We’re all learning together Students played a central role in this year’s Black History Month celebration. Anjavie Thompson ’21 and Jayla Stack ’21, who are both members of the Black Student Union, gave presentations during all-school meetings and were interviewed about their experience for Spring 2021

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Audrey Richards ’23, Erin Whitney ’24 and Erin-Elizabeth Ryan ’21 were among the students who performed in the virtual mini-concert celebrating Black History Month. years we weren’t doing this at School Meeting. BSU was not getting up and doing presentations about various aspects of Black culture ...

Now we’ve gotten a little bit more engagement in that area. And also I feel like the topics are a little bit more relatable,” Thompson said on the podcast.

Thompson noted that members of BSU have been more willing to “put themselves out there” this year and speak to the entire community. “Just talking during School Meeting can be very hard but we’re all ready to push ourselves and do that just because we want the community to learn, but at the same time for all of us to learn together. I feel like that’s the most important part of the programming, that we’re all learning together,” she said.

Thompson said she did not know about the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and ’70s, a period of artistic and literary development among Black Americans conveying Black pride, until she researched it for her presentation on African American Art in February. She highlighted LeRoi Jones, who founded the Black Arts Repertory Theater/School in Harlem, along with Black artists from other periods and genres, such as photographer Gordon Parks, Broadway actress Ethel Waters, tap dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul.”

Stack gave presentations on the art of hair braiding, a longlasting and important tradition for those of African descent that can

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The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

be traced back 5,000 years to the Himba tribe in Namibia, and on the Harlem Renaissance.

“The Harlem Renaissance encompassed poetry and prose, painting and sculpture, jazz and swing, and opera and dance. What united these diverse art forms was their realistic presentation of what it meant to be Black in America,” Stack said, noting that Alain Locke, a Harvard-educated writer, critic and teacher who became known as the “Dean of the Harlem Renaissance,” described this period as “a spiritual coming of age in which African Americans transformed social disillusionment into race pride.”

“Following the end of slavery in the United States, white supremacy forced many Black Americans into a low social status.

However, in the 1920s, Harlem, New York, became a destination for African Americans of all backgrounds, and they shared common experiences of slavery, emancipation, and racial oppression as well as the determination to forge a new identity as free people,” Stack said. “Most importantly, the Harlem Renaissance instilled in African Americans across the country a new spirit of self-determination and pride, a new social consciousness, and a new commitment to political activism, all of which would provide a foundation for the civil rights movement.”

Embracing the theme of Black joy The school’s monthlong celebration concluded with a concert, featuring select students in String Ensemble, Vocal Ensemble, and Concert Jazz Band performing sacred and secular music interspersed with poetry.

The repertoire included a performance of “Amazing Grace,” featuring violinists Aria Trotta ’23 and Eujin Shin ’21, with Thompson reciting Robert Hayden’s poem, “Frederick Douglas.” Erin Whitney ’24, Audrey Richards ’23, and Erin Ryan ’21 of the Vocal Ensemble performed the hymn, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often called “The Black National Anthem,” and two members of the Advanced Jazz Band, drummer Jonathan Nichele ’21 and bass guitarist

We want to look at what it would be like for all of us to engage in a more meaningful experience, rather than just an event for a day.”

Joe Zhu ’21 were featured in a performance of “The Memphis Blues,” written by W.C. Handy, the father of Blues, with a reading of the Langston Hughes poem, “I, Too,” by Alex Warren ’22.

The finale was an uplifting a cappella performance of the spiritual, “Ain’t-a That Good News,” arranged by Mark Hayes, featuring Maggie Xiang ’21, soprano, Yolanda Wang ’21, alto, Drew Sutherland ’21, tenor, and Dayne Bolding ’23, bass.

Castonguay selected that particular piece for the concert because it celebrates Black joy.

“It’s such an awesome arrangement and the four of them just hit it out of the park,” he said of the vocalists. Listen to the concert at frederickgunn.org/arts

– LaDarius Drew

Anjavie Thompson ’21 recited Robert Hayden’s poem, “Frederick Douglas,” during a virtual performance of “Amazing Grace,” featuring violinists Aria Trotta ’23 (top left) and Eujin Shin ’21, at left.

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2021 Speaker Series Inspires Thoughtful Discussions About Racism, Politics and Social Media

During the Winter Term and into the spring, the 2021 Speaker Series tackled a range of difficult and timely subjects, from racism and anti-Semitism to the role of social media, the American presidency and economic policy. This year’s series took on even greater importance in the context of current events, including the Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of George Floyd, and the 2020 election and its aftermath.

“One of our commitments as a school is to create a place where we all, as adults and students, can learn and inquire about politics and citizenship and policy,” Head of School Peter Becker said at School Meeting on January 7, the day after a violent mob stormed the United States Capitol. “I do think we have to connect — as we think about and ponder these things — our own individual character development to this question of what it means to be a citizen.”

The Speaker Series highlighted that our school is an inclusive place, present where we are, but with a global outlook. Through these presentations, students could see compassion, real viewpoint diversity, respect for everyone’s common humanity, and belonging.

They were encouraged to listen to differing perspectives, and to participate in faculty-led discussions about the issues, setting aside stereotypes.

“Learning to navigate a pluralistic, complex world filled with different people and ideas is vital to what we see as our core mission as a school, preparing students to be active citizens in the world,” Becker said.

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Uprooting anti-Jewish hate On January 14, Eric Ward, a longtime civil rights strategist, spoke about the history of anti-Semitism and its resurgence. The Executive Director of the Western States Center and a Senior Fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center and Race Forward, Ward is a nationally recognized expert on the relationship between authoritarian movements, hate violence, and preserving inclusive democracy.

“What’s unique about anti-Semitism is that it’s not a religious form of anti-Jewish bigotry. It is Eric Ward, civil rights strategist one which makes Jews a racialized other, where they are seen as another race, similar to the racism that African Americans, Latinos, and others experience. I often liken it, too, to

the growing Islamophobia and anti-muslim bigotry in the United States and elsewhere,” said Ward, who sees anti-Semitism as being at the core of the White Nationalist movement. “It is so central to that hate group, that I believe as a racial justice activist that Black people and other communities of color who are often marginalized will never win our equality if we are not also active in the struggle to uproot this form of anti-Jewish hate.”

Focus on the positives On February 4, Laura Tierney, the founder and CEO of The Social Institute (TSI), spoke to the community about how to use social media and technology in positive ways. The school partnered with TSI this year to bring to students its #WinAtSocial program, which includes a gamified social media curriculum, co-created with over 50,000 students at 60 schools nationwide.

During her presentation, Tierney encouraged students to develop healthy habits around social media, and to think about how they can set themselves up for great opportunities in the future, because of the decisions they are making today. “I think it’s time that we flip the script and we focus on the positives, not just the negatives.

Laura Tierney, I think our collective challenge is to The Social Institute think about how we make decisions that actually fuel our health, our happiness, and our future success, thanks to social media and technology,” she said.

The hardest job in the world CBS News Senior Political Analyst and “60 Minutes” Correspondent John Dickerson spoke to students, faculty, parents and alumni about the American presidency on February 11, just two weeks after the inauguration of President Joe Biden. His presentation was based on the research for his third book, The New York Times bestseller, “The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency.”

In their advisory meetings the next day, students were asked to discuss whether they agree that the president has the hardest job in the world, and what standards presidents should be held to by the voters. They were asked what responsibilities we have to help our fellow citizens, and how they feel about politics becoming filled with emotion over reason, as Dickerson described during his presentation.

John Dickerson of CBS News

The attack on the U.S. Capitol in January was “the ultimate representation of this emotion-based politics,” Dickerson said during his talk. “The emotion became such a central part — and continues to be such a central part — of our public life that it not only fuels people’s anger in response to politics, but it has replaced, in some situations, facts and reason as the thing that is at the foundation of our politics.”

The future of the Republican party On February 25, author and businessman Edward Conard spoke about the definitions of conservatism, conservative economic policy, and the future of the Republican Party. A graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Business School, Conard is an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a former partner at Bain Capital. He is also the author of two New York Times 10 best-selling books, including “The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class,” and a contributor to “United States Income, Wealth, Consumption, and Inequality.”

“Notwithstanding former President [Donald] Trump and his followers forming a third party, it’s easy to imagine the conservatives nominating a candidate in 2024 who can energize the Trump blue-collar Republicans without assaulting Edward Conard, the sensibilities of moderate author and businessman voters,” Conard said, asserting that is

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possible from an economic perspective if the U.S. embraces policies supporting high-skilled immigration to speed economic growth.

“To protect capitalism and the extraordinary success that it has afforded the world, we need to quit assuming that free enterprise will grow America’s blue-collar wages like it did in the 1950s,” he said, encouraging students to pursue training and create new jobs.

Help wherever you can On April 1, one week before Holocaust Remembrance Day, Holocaust survivor and Connecticut resident Judith Altmann shared her incredibly moving story. Born in Czechoslovakia, Altmann was 14 when Hitler invaded in 1939. The youngest of six children, she was taken with her parents in April 1944 to Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi concentration camps, where she encountered Dr. Josef Mengele, the “Angel of Death.” From there, she was transferred to labor camps at Gelsenkirchen and Essen, and was saved by an SS woman who valued her ability to translate in six languages. After surviving the “death march,” Altmann ended up in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and was barely alive when she was liberated by the British army in 1945.

Now 97, Altmann has shared her story of survival and resilience with an estimated 100,000 children in hundreds of schools. “My advice to you: learn all you can. The knowledge of languages I spoke saved my life. Because of that I was picked to be saved. So study all you can, and help wherever you can. If you see a person needs help, do that,” said Altmann, who has dedicated her life to reminding others what hate and discrimination can achieve, and helping wherever she can.

Learn from listening

Photo: The Foote School

On January 28, Justin Dunn ’13, a pitcher for the Seattle Mariners, and Jeremy Cohen ’87, Vice President and Group Director of Partnership Activation at Major League Baseball, shared two different perspectives on their MLB careers, and the life skills and lessons they learned from their time at The Frederick Gunn School.

Looking back, Cohen said he has learned to always keep his options open. “You learn that the hard way. You learn to listen to people, you learn to talk to as many people as you can. You can learn a lot more from listening than you can from talking.” he said.

Reflecting on his trajectory to the MLB, Dunn said he put a lot of pressure on himself, which was detrimental to his performance.

At 23, he learned to listen to others, to filter out his doubts, and ultimately figure out what worked best for him, lessons that are as applicable in life as they are in baseball. “As I get older, I’m learning that you’re all you have. When you understand yourself, it doesn’t matter what anyone has to say to you. You’re content with who you are in life in general, and no one can take you off that path.”

Holocaust survivor Judith Altmann

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Jeremy Cohen ’87 and Justin Dunn ’13

The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

Welcome Winterim New Curricular Offerings Open the Door to Big Ideas and Questions IN DECEMBER, THE SCHOOL PUT ITS REGULAR CURRICULUM ON PAUSE TO INTRODUCE WINTERIM. Modeled after shortterm, mid-year programs offered at the college level, Winterim gave students an opportunity to break from the traditional academic schedule and enroll in one class that was intensely focused on one big idea or question. The new model has become a permanent part of the annual academic program.

One of the things that made Winterim unique was that all courses were designed by faculty, who paired up to co-teach in many instances, and were open to students across grade levels. Rather than Kori Rimany ’14 with a book from her new Winterim course, Women & Prison incorporating tests and quizzes, students were challenged to complete a final project and put into practice what they learned over the term.

Morgen Fisher ’03 and Spanish teacher Teresita Magana, had the

For example, Environmental Racism & Justice, a course opportunity to pursue EMR certification through the National taught by science teacher Charles Lovejoy, introduced students Registry. In fact, Hailey Lovallo ’21 was continuing to take classes on to environmental racism issues in their own communities and her own toward her certification this spring. around the world. Their research into topics such as air and water Planting a seed pollution affecting the Crow nation in Montana, the burakumin “In many ways, I think the structure of Winterim, the theory behind in Japan, and communities in Connecticut, included interviews it, is what students will find in college. You’re not getting graded on with key stakeholders and documented how environmental issues presentations or mini assignments, just one big project,” said English have resulted in discrimination and poor living conditions for teacher Kori Rimany ’14, who taught Women & Prison, a course the residents of those communities. Their findings, and proposed influenced by her college internship experience at the Women’s solutions, were recorded in an e-book and individual podcasts that Prison Association in New York City, and her thesis project on served as their final projects. women and the criminal justice system.

In Cryptography, taught by math teacher Austin Arkin,

For each class, students watched one episode of the television students learned about historical and modern ciphers, and used series, “Orange is the New Black,” and then participated in a group those techniques to design an online escape room as their final discussion about what was represented in the show versus the reality. project. Students challenged their peers to crack the code and beat Students considered intersectionality, mental health, the transgender the escape room. Those who enrolled in the Emergency Medical experience, motherhood and sexual violence in the context of Responder course co-taught by Science Department Chair Spring 2021

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incarceration. For their final project, each student was asked to choose one aspect of a prisoner’s identity and explore how that was portrayed in the media, movies, TV and commercials compared to how it is depicted in reality.

“It all ties back to stereotypes and where stereotypes come from, and why they’re important to recognize,” Rimany said, explaining: “Ultimately, going into my internship in college, I had a very specific image of what I thought prisoners looked like: orange jumpsuit, did something wrong, stole something. When I started working with our criminal justice system, I realized we were locking up a lot of women for these ridiculous things. Maybe they couldn’t afford bail for jumping a turnstile because they were running late and needed to get home to their kids. My own perception of what an incarcerated woman looked like really prevented me from looking at incarcerated women as human beings. It wasn’t until I started working at WPA that I realized the injustice embedded in our social justice system.”

“You have to be aware of perception,” she added. “A lot of times, those stereotypes are born from media, social media and TV shows.”

Her goal for the class was to introduce students to the topic and, as she said, “Maybe it would plant a seed and they would want to learn more.”

Sports is a universal language Faculty members Amy Paulekas and Cassie Ruscz combined their expertise to co-teach a course examining the issues of race, identity and gender through the lens of sports. Sixteen students, boys and girls, freshmen to seniors, enrolled. Classes met twice daily, four days per week. Morning sessions were devoted to activities, discussions and student presentations on case studies.

Following a mid-day break, students returned to listen to guest speakers, including Luke Sowa ’15, who played football at UConn

Lenaijah Ferguson ’20 of the University of Hartford Women’s Lacrosse Team, Justin Dunn ’13 of the Seattle Mariners, and fullback Luke Sowa ’15 of the Kansas State University Football Team were among the many alumni who returned as guest speakers during this school year.

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Kori Rimany ’14 talks with Acadia Johnson ’21, who was a student in her Winterim Women & Prison course, on Brinsmade terrace. and Kansas State, Justin Dunn ’13, right-handed pitcher for the Seattle Mariners, and Lenaijah Ferguson ’20, who is playing Division I lacrosse at the University of Hartford. (See Class Notes, page 76.) The class also welcomed former UConn Women’s Basketball player Kathleen Bantley, who is now a professor of criminal justice at Central Connecticut State University; former UConn Men’s Basketball player Christian Foxen; and Laura Brenneman, who was a member of the U.S. team for the first-ever Women’s Baseball World Cup in 2004. (Her jersey is displayed in the Baseball Hall of Fame.)

“Sports is a kind of universal language. You can talk about a lot of things through sports,” said Paulekas, who is the Director of Studies and teaches math. She also was captain of the Women’s Crew team at Colby College in Maine, and has coached Girls Varsity Basketball at The Frederick Gunn School for eight years, including four years as Head Coach.

Ruscz, who is Head Coach of Varsity Softball and Assistant Coach for Girls Varsity Basketball, brought to the course her experience as a standout on the NCAA Division III Softball Team at Tufts, where she was a two-time national champion All-American.

Many of the discussions mirrored newsworthy topics such as investigations into Black Lives Matter in the NBA and WNBA, equal pay for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, and local Connecticut cases regarding transgender high school athletes. These topics are the focus of the book, “Throw Like a Girl, Cheer Like a Boy: The Evolution of Gender, Identity, and Race in Sports,” by Robin Ryle, which served as the course text.

“It hits home for a lot of kids and we’re talking about what’s going on in their own realm,” Ruscz said, noting that one of the goals of the course was to help students become comfortable having conversations around these topics. For their final project, each student conducted video interviews with someone they knew about their experience in sports.

A depth of education The Emergency Responder course provided hands-on experience for students who may be interested in pursuing a medical career.

Students practiced taking their family members’ vital signs using a sphygmomanometer and stethoscope. “It looks easy, but it’s not,” said Magana, who is a licensed medical doctor in Belize and teaches Spanish as well as a popular Pre-Med course as part of the science curriculum.

Students submitted videos demonstrating how to take a patient’s blood pressure, pulse, and listen to lung and heart sounds.

They learned how to record a patient’s medical history, how to splint a broken limb, how to perform a trauma assessment, how to use compression to stop bleeding, and how to perform CPR, including verbalizing the steps for using an automated external defibrillator, or AED.

Fisher, who is an EMT with the Washington Ambulance Association, said she had wanted to bring a course like this to

Morgen Fisher ’03 at work as a volunteer EMT for Washington Ambulance Association The Frederick Gunn School for years, and was able to do so after completing her own certification as an EMR Instructor last year (See story, page 27.) Students had the added benefit of learning from Magana, Fisher said, noting that it’s rare for a medical doctor to teach an EMR/EMT course. “It’s a depth that they wouldn’t necessarily get in a typical class. It’s so valuable.”

Beyond the skills they learned, Fisher said, the course was intended to give students a sense of how they could volunteer in their own communities.

Responsible Citizens MaryAnn Haverstock, Director of IDEAS Lab, and science teacher Steve Bailey P’09, paired up to teach students how to think scientifically — and critically — about what they believe, using analysis of real-world issues related to the global pandemic. The course covered the misleading use of statistics, the different phases of clinical trials, p-hacking (or selective reporting), experimental design, and how conspiracy theories emerge.

Students submitted daily video reflections, published daily blog entries, and created an interactive presentation using Loom on a research article of their choice to demonstrate their understanding of the course material.

“We want our students to walk away from this as responsible citizens in their communities,” Haverstock said. “We want them to do their own work scientifically, bring good data, good observations, and draw good conclusions. There’s a process and a patience required. That’s what we want for them when they are both receiving and understanding scientific information. We want them to go out there and do it the right way.”

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Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset

This spring, students in the Entrepreneurship Seminar developed business plans and

pitched products or services in a bid to win the endorsement of a panel of alumni judges.

This yearlong, elective course, popular among upperclassmen, engages students with its “Shark Tank” vibe and guest speakers that include some of the school’s most successful

alumni, who are themselves entrepreneurs and industry leaders. Looking forward, school

leaders have a vision to expand the course into a new Entrepreneurship Program that will build on the current curriculum, emphasizing the importance of sustainability and social responsibility, and how to embrace Frederick Gunn’s entrepreneurial spirit today.

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Andrea Marron ’04, top left, spoke to students in Entrepreneurship Seminar via Zoom about launching her company Ragtrades, and what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur.

“ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS A MINDSET,” said Sean Brown P’22, Chief Development Officer, who co-taught the class in the Fall Term with Head of School Peter Becker, and in the winter and spring with Teaching Fellow Madison Smith.

“We’re trying to teach them life skills. If they leave this class being better presenters, understanding what it means to pitch a product — whether that product is an actual, tangible thing or you — we’re teaching them how to do it.”

Students come to the class with varying degrees of knowledge.

Some have taken economics, and some have aspirations of launching

a business of their own. Within the first week or two, most have what Brown described as an “aha moment.” Instead of striving to become the next Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, students recognize that being an entrepreneur is the same for anyone who runs any business.

“They understand that ‘entrepreneurial’ is a term that describes lots of people, not just those who are the top of the list of the wealthiest people of the world. The question, ‘What does it mean to

How do you have difficult conversations with people?

How do you lead a team? How do you work with people that have different opinions and bring them to consensus? As you move forward in your career, whether you want to be an entrepreneur or not, those things become really important.”

– Xavier Parkmond ’11

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We try to give people a lot of freedom to build almost their mini-businesses. Some work, some don’t work.

We take the things that work and we really focus on those things, and we don’t worry about failure.

Failures are just learning opportunities.”

– Patrick Dorton ’86

be an entrepreneur?’ is no longer answered with, ‘It means you come talked about his decision to walk away from a successful career as a up with the next incredible piece of technology.’ It means that you’ve consultant for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, where he worked identified a problem that can be fixed with efficiencies. If there’s a with public and private sector clients, including Google. market for that solution, it can become a business. And if there’s no

“I felt like I was at the peak of my career, if you will, and I market for it outside of your task list, you’re still an entrepreneur wanted to gain more skills, build my network, and also learn from and have identified how to solve a problem,” Brown said. people who thought differently than me,” said Parkmond, who is

According to Smith, who is also teaching AP Economics and currently wrapping up his second year as a graduate student at a section of The Declaration (the junior-year course in the school’s Stanford University School of Business. For him, the decision was four-year citizenship curriculum), the seminar provides students not about putting his career on hold. It was about shifting gears. with general business literacy skills. “A lot of the students have “You have two years to focus on yourself and learn some of the become very fixated on how to pay taxes or get a license to do softer skills, which I think is super important if you want to become something. While we can’t answer all their questions about their an entrepreneur and also no matter what you want to do if you’re imaginary business, we can teach them how to find that information in a leadership position. How do you have difficult conversations on their own when the time comes,” Smith said. with people? How do you lead a team? How do you work with

The course provides an overview of basic business principles, people that have different opinions and bring them to consensus? such as marketing and human resources, and through discussions As you move forward in your career, whether you want to be an covers practical considerations such as overhead costs, purchasing entrepreneur or not, those things become really important.” issues, shipping costs, how to rent office space, and the importance

Patrick Dorton ’86, CEO and Managing Partner of Rational of a competitive advantage. When the question of licensing came 360, Inc., a communications and public relations firm in up, Brown introduced the class to Dan Troiano ’77, who sold his Washington, D.C., and Chairman of The Frederick Gunn School electronics company to NASA. Troiano was able to talk about Board of Trustees, advised students to try to learn from everyone licensing, trademarking, strategic partnerships, niche products, and they meet, to ask questions, and to work harder than anyone else. He engineering in the context of his experience. began his career on Capitol Hill, where he worked for senators and

Caleb Elston ’05, who was recruited by an internet startup congressmen for eight years before moving to The White House to while he was still in college, and has worked in Silicon Valley for serve as Special Assistant to then-President Bill Clinton. Following a decade, talked with students about his experiences launching that, Dorton took a job as chief spokesman and Director of Media multiple businesses, about the importance of finding your team, and Relations at Arthur Anderson. He left the firm to start his own and when leave to find another opportunity. company, which now a hascelebration 40 employees.

Itwhywas antoopening night many months in the making,

Xavier Parkmond ’11, who earned a degree in finance at George

“Everyone here is an entrepreneur. That’s what we value. We try of art, music and nature, of the contributions many Washington University and completed a one-year internship at to giveof people a lot of individuals freedom to build almost their mini-businesses. the White House under President Barack Obama’s administration, Some work, some don’t work. We take the things that work and and an entire community ­— a vision brought to life.

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we really focus on those things, and we don’t worry about failure,” Dorton said. “Failures are just learning opportunities,”

Andrea Marron ’04, who launched her first company while in college and became Vice President of Ecommerce and Retail at fashion brand Nicole Miller in New York, talked about how she identified a problem in her industry and solved it. In her case, that involved going to graduate school and finding a business partner to launch another company, Ragtrades, which represents the intersection of fashion and technology.

“Being an entrepreneur is not as glamorous as I thought it was maybe when I was younger,” she told students. “It’s really, really hard because the highs are high and the lows are low. You’re kind of on a roller coaster. It is really challenging. Something that people told me when I was in grad school is, if you want to make a lot of money, don’t be an entrepreneur. Go into finance or something like that. I think that’s for sure true. There are a lot of jobs that are way easier than being an entrepreneur. You really only do it if it’s the only thing that you can do and you’re super passionate about something.”

One of the goals of Entrepreneurship Seminar is to encourage students to use business as a force for good. “With corporate responsibility, we’re looking at how to balance being a profitable company with also being a socially and environmentally responsible company.

We want to teach them that money has power in the society we live in, and they have the potential to use that to give to their communities to make life better for other people,” Smith said.

In those discussions, students are thinking critically about the impact that companies can have in terms of sustainability, climate change and equity, in part by aligning their thinking with the values of Mr. Gunn. Students learned that Certified B Corporations, which meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental

performance, have a Declaration of Interdependence, and in the first line it states, “We envision a global economy that uses business as a force for good.”

“Someone in class actually said, ‘Isn’t that what our school is trying to do?’” Brown said, referring to the school’s belief that Frederick Gunn School students can make a difference, in the same entrepreneurial way that Mr. Gunn did, by becoming active citizens who can Be a Force for Good in the world.

One of the ways the school plans to accomplish this is by using Entrepreneurship Seminar as a springboard to launch a new Entrepreneurship Program. The vision is for entrepreneurship to become a fundamental element of the student experience over the course of four years.

“We’ll have classes in entrepreneurship but we’re also hoping that in the same way that we want citizenship to be a thread, and outdoors to be a thread throughout, we want entrepreneurial thinking to be a thread throughout,” said Brown, who hopes that one course will build on the next, from year to year, similar to the curriculum created by the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy, which is also based on the values and ideals of Mr. Gunn.

By the time students are seniors, they will have had three years rather than a semester or two to think about what product or service they want to pitch, and can make it not only meaningful, but truly marketable. “Our founder was an entrepreneur, so we want our students to have this mindset,” he said.

There are a lot of jobs that are way easier than being an entrepreneur. You really only do it if it’s the only thing that you can do and you’re super passionate about something.”

– Andrea Marron ’04

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

The History of the Science Building In February, Head of School Peter Becker shared with current families and faculty that Sasaki, an interdisciplinary design firm located outside of Boston, had been selected as the architect for a science, math and technology center project on campus. We looked into the Paula and George Krimsky ’60 Archives and Special Collections to learn more about the history of where science has been taught on campus.

According to “Gunnery Stories,” a history of the school compiled by the late Paula Gibson Krimsky, planning for the current Science Building began in 1965, “although the need for one had been apparent much earlier. The first science labs were installed in the schoolhouse in 1893 when the school engaged John Perkins to teach chemistry and physics. There were places for six students in the lab,” Krimsky wrote, noting that Perkins went on to found in 1903 what is now Western Connecticut State University in Danbury.

In her 2019 Gunn Scholar report, The Science Building circa 2015 “How Everything Came to Be,” Joey Lin ’19 cited an article from The Gunnery News, published in May 1966,

Construction began in 1966. A announcing plans for a new Science Building. The school engaged dedication ceremony took place on the architectural firm of Gilbert Switzer of New Haven, and the late May 20, 1967, as part of the 73rd annual Augustus Kellogg ’52 was the associate in charge of the project.

Alumni Day festivities. Tours of the building were offered in the afternoon.

There were 250 guests in attendance, Lin said, noting that Headmaster Ogden D. Miller H’69 P’50 ’54 ’55 GP’84 was credited as a driving force Gus Kellogg ’52 behind the project. Program notes on file in the archives show F. Bruce Bradshaw ’51, President of the Alumni Association, participated in the ribbon cutting along with Ned Swigart P’82, Chairman of the Science Department, Switzer, Kellogg, Edmund Sinnott, Ph.D., Sterling Professor Emeritus of Botany at Yale University, and Lloyd Elston ’44 P’68 ’70 GP’05 ’06 ’10, Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

A computer lab was added to the Science Building in the early 1970s, Gunn Scholar Gwendolyn Brown ’20 noted in her report, The schoolhouse, shown in this photo from the archives, circa 1890s, “The Gunnery’s Adoption of Technology.” Computer programming was designed by Ehrick Rossiter of the Class of 1870, and built in classes were taught there, and by 1974, three students had formed a 1882 under the administration of Headmaster John C. Brinsmade.

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Background: Plans for the new building showed laboratories for basic science, biology, chemistry and physics on the second floor. The first floor would include a supervised study area, faculty work area, and a lecture hall that could be utilized for Glee Club meetings, play rehearsals, movies for biology or French classes, and other school functions, The Gunnery News said. An addition with space for math and history classrooms was never built. It would have been located on the path between the current Science Building and Bourne Hall.

This photo of the Science Building under construction was taken by Ian J. Cohen ’67 P’06 who won prizes for best detail and best night shot in photo contests that were held in conjunction with the dedication.

A physics class in the 1940s Thomas Thornbury ’54 in a photograph from the Red and Gray, which listed him as a Science Fair Exhibitor. His yearbook page included a quote from British geneticist J.B. S. Haldane, “Science is vastly more stimulating to the imagination than the classics.”

Computer Club, which was granted priority access to the lab, Brown said. In 2004, the original lecture hall was converted to a technology center where BJ Daniels, Director of Technology, Anna Kjellson, webmaster, and Bill Stinson conducted advanced computer classes, software and network tutorials, Krimsky said. In 2017, the computer A computer lab was added to the Science Building in the early 1970s. lab was redesigned as today’s IDEAS Lab.

In 2016, Gunn Scholar Evan Johnson ’16, Head Prefect Ata Ugur ’16, Jeremiah Yoon ’16, and Aidan Bond ’16, initiated an Independent Study Project to redesign the Science Building.

Their plans for a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

Mark Alan Lipschutz ’67 won first prize for best exterior for his photograph of the Science Building in the Headmaster’s Contest of 1967.

(STEM) Center proposed adding a third floor with additional classroom and lab space as well as greenhouse and observatory.

As an example of Brutalist architecture, the Science Building has been the subject of debate, Gunn Scholar Tony Zhang ’19 observed.

“It does not make an effort to blend in with the rest of the campus, as it ignores the philosophies of our founders. The concrete stands as an opposing factor to what the founders of The Gunnery stood for — environmentalism and preserving nature,” Zhang said.

“It’s a very much mid-century modern building,” Geoffrey Gaunt, the architect of the Thomas S. Perakos Arts and Community Center, said of the Science Building in Zhang’s report. “It’s great in that sense, but it’s very different from anything else on campus. Many people who aren’t as educated in architectural history might think it’s a bad idea, but to me, it’s actually a very interesting building.”

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CAMPUS LIFE

Living like fred n May 15, science

teacher Steven Bailey P’09 led a group of about 40 students onto the lawn behind Conroy House, the home of Head of School Peter Becker and his family, for a stargazing party. It was a low-key affair, one of several outdoor activities planned as part of the last Community Weekend of the school year based on the theme, “Live Like Fred.”

Starting in October, on the weekend before School Walk, students participated in outdoor activities with their cohorts on designated Friday evenings and Saturdays. The groups rotated through different activities throughout the year. From Bailey’s star lectures and firepits on the KovenJones Glade to night hikes at Steep Rock and the Macricostas Preserve, fishing, canoeing and kayaking from Beebe Boathouse, navigating low ropes and camping at South Street Fields, these weekends fostered a sense of community among boarding and day students while connecting them to our founder and his love of the outdoors.

Peering through a telescope, Bailey said the students he accompanied could see why Mars is called “the red planet,” and were

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intrigued by the craters and mountaintops on the moon. Afterwards, they were treated to hot chocolate and s’mores, and enjoyed a relatively technology-free evening around the firepit with glow sticks. What struck Bailey was the simplicity of the event, and how spending an evening like this, outside in the spring air, could have easily transpired during Frederick Gunn’s time.

“The students really liked doing it. Many of them have never looked through a telescope before.

A lot of them said, ‘Even the moon looks spectacular!’ You can see the mountaintops. You can see where the sun is hitting a mountaintop in a dark area. It was great to see their reactions,” Bailey said, adding that students also played bean bag games and jumped on a trampoline.

“It was pretty homespun. They were having a great time, talking to each other and moving from activity to activity. It was just a really enjoyable evening without screen time, for the most part. Some of them

took pictures on their phones but it was mostly no technology,” he said.

“It was really fun.”

One of the silver linings of this challenging year was the way the community embraced the benefits of spending time outdoors, said Jim Balben, Director of Residential Life, who planned and organized the Live Like Fred weekends with Rebecca Leclerc, Director of Outdoor Programming. From eating meals on the dining hall terrace and the Koven-Jones Glade, to countless firepits, weekend fishing trips at Beebe Boathouse, and multiple hiking and camping trips, Frederick Gunn School students and faculty epitomized the ideals of Living Like Fred. The Dean of Students Office plans for this new tradition to continue in the 2021-22 school year.

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Honoring Peg Small Registrar Retires After 42 Years

“For some reason David Kern liked School Registrar Peg Small, who impacted me,” she recalled of the Head of School at the lives of hundreds of students and faculty the time. “When the job became available in her 42 years at The Frederick Gunn for Registrar, he said, ‘The job is yours, if School, retired on April 1. The Board of you want it.’”

Trustees honored Small in January with a She officially started in the role on citation recognizing her many contributions July 1, 1978. During her tenure, Small as “a strong and consistent presence to worked for four heads of school, nine students, parents, faculty and staff,” and different academic deans, and adapted to presented her with a gift, a chair engraved many changes in technology, including with the school crest, her name and years of the introduction of computers to the service. office. When she first started, most of the

About 70 current and former academic records, including the grades colleagues, including Head of School Peter for every student, were recorded by hand.

Becker, two former Heads of School, Susie “We had Rolodex cards and each card Graham H’12 and Michael Eanes H’90 P’90 was printed. I had to put them in my GP’20 ’23 ’25, current and past parents, typewriter and put the student’s name, alumni and Trustees, attended a virtual the course, the teacher’s name, and sort retirement celebration for Small on March them out by teacher and give them these 25. “Only you can bring all these people little cards.” together,” former Director of Admissions “Everything was done on paper,” said Shannon Baudo told Small that night. “You Russ “Señor” Elgin, who taught Spanish really did touch our lives.”

Ed and Peg Small with their grandson, Aiden and served as Senior Master prior to his

“Peg’s service here has been remarkable retirement in 2014. He remains close to the Smalls and credited Peg on so many levels,” Becker said, noting that she fulfilled her role Small with always making the Academic Office better and more over the years dynamically, with wit and wisdom. You could not be a modern. “She had all the answers all the time and if she didn’t, she student, a teacher or an administrator at the school without passing knew where to get them.” through the Registrar’s Office. “It’s how she’s done it that’s had the

He also remembered the day grades were due, the faculty would biggest impact. She has epitomized the personalization and care query each other: “Did you get the call?” “Luckily, I never got it,” that has been the hallmark of this school since its founding.”

Elgin added.

“For some reason, faculty tiptoe around me during grading Everything was done on paper time,” said Small, who is clearly aware of her reputation for holding Peg and her husband, Ed Small, the Anne S. and Ogden D. Miller faculty accountable. “They say, ‘Don’t get the look. You’re going to get Senior Master, came to what was then The Gunnery in 1977, when the look.’ I’m pretty rigid when something is due that we get it done.” he was hired as a math teacher. “That first year, I wasn’t officially an employee, but I worked more than I didn’t because the registrar at that point was out on medical leave. I covered for her at least through the Fall Term,” Peg Small recalled. “I had to do grades the first marking period, then she came back and I started filling in for Admissions, and anybody who was out. I even worked in the Business Office.”

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A great second mom Early in her tenure, Small also worked in College Counseling. “I’d been collecting all the students’ (college) applications and putting packets together and mailing them out. That was my big, late fallwinter project. That’s when they hired Maggie Bucklin P’10 to take

over the college part,” Small said. Bucklin also retired this year, in

Jeff Trundy, the David N. Hoadley ’51 Baseball Coach, recalled June, after 21 years at the school. traveling with both Smalls to Florida every year for the team’s spring

When computers came to the Academic Office, Small recalled trip, and it was Peg Small’s SUV that the boys flocked to each time using notched database cards, called McBee Keysort cards, for course they had to drive somewhere. “They wanted to ride with Mrs. Small,” registration. They had single-hole punches all along the edges. “You’d he said, smiling. “You’re a special person in my heart, and for so many.” punch out numbers, depending on the course. We’d have to punch the right numbers. You put all the cards in a pile and you have this Putting her handprint on it tool and you shake it, and the ones that fell out got in the course,” Amy Paulekas worked closely with Small in the Academic Office, she said. first as Assistant Academic Dean, and more recently as Director of

“This school in 1978 was a very different place,” Becker Studies. “I would always sit down with a plan. We were going to talk said, noting that as Small helped to navigate each evolution, she about something related to schedule or registration and we ended up epitomized its motto, “A good person is always learning.” talking about one thing or another. Time passes so fast in her office.

The Smalls raised two sons on campus, Tyler, who was born That is probably what I’ll miss. When I sit down with Peg, time flies. in 1978, and Brett, who was born in 1980. “We lived in Emerson It’s a natural conversation, and we get stuff done. I’ve so appreciated for seven years and then once my kids the way that she has helped me to figure got to a certain age, Gunn kids were out what I wanted to do in that office and coming around. So I got real close to the expanded my role and she has always pushed Gunn kids from the time I worked in the for me to take on new tasks.”

College Counseling Office to those kids

Paulekas pointed out that everything in who were friends with mine,” said Small, Small’s office had a home. “It took me years noting that they remain close to several to find where she hides things, what’s on the alumni, including Patrick Baker ’89 and Rolodex cards, how she color codes. She has Suzie Frauenhofer ’88, who is now a kept records like nobody before. She has this Trustee. ancient binder. It’s Peg’s bible. If you take her

“I am still grateful for the over 500 bible out of her office you sure better have peanut butter squares I consumed at permission to do that and it had better be The Smalls on campus, around 1987 your kitchen table,” Baker said at her back in her cabinet in the right spot. It took retirement celebration. “You were just a four or five years for her to allow me to take great second mom at a time when I needed support and love.” that bible out of that office.”

Frauenhofer recalled that she had a rough first year as a student.

As the Registrar, Small played a part in the intake of every “Then Mr. Small became my advisor. When Mr. Small becomes new student, in their time on campus, and their journey out of your advisor, you really get the whole Small family as your advisor. the school, including the preparation of every diploma. After I studied on the second floor of their house for at least a year and a they graduated, she was the person they called with diploma and half,” she said, recalling that even if Mr. Small was not at home, Peg transcript requests, which she fulfilled, even just a few days before was there to keep an eye and made sure she got her work done. “She her retirement. “For her to have done that for over 40 years is so always was my Gunnery mom. If I needed anything, she’d always be incredible,” Paulekas said. “She came in young and put her own there for me.” handprint on it.”

“That feeling that I got at Gunnery is like a life feeling,”

On March 31, current students honored Small at School Frauenhofer continued. “No matter how much time has passed, no Meeting, presenting her with a video tribute and flowers. Though matter how old I am, she just instills so much generosity, kindness the Smalls moved from Morehouse last summer to a new home off and character. Although we don’t talk often, she’s one of those campus, she plans to visit often, and Ed is continuing in his faculty people I know, if I ever needed some help or advice, she would be and coaching roles. there for me no matter what, and hopefully with those peanut butter

“I think I’m going to miss just seeing the kids on campus,” Small squares that Patrick mentioned.” said, “and I think just being part of the hubbub on campus and seeing some of the office people. I’m going to miss that.”

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Leading by Example

What it Means to Be a Force for Good

Members of the Maintenance Department who are also local volunteers (left to right): Wayne Johnson (who is a life member of the Washington Volunteer Fire Department), Patrick Williams, Mark Showalter, Vincent Belanger and Don Lundberg

Frederick Gunn made a difference in the lives of others and in the world around

him. Today, the school continues to follow his model and encourage students to Be a Force for Good. They learn about active citizenship through programs

such as the annual Speaker Series, and through the Center for Citizenship and

Just Democracy’s four-year citizenship

curriculum. Students also learn from adults in the community who lead by example, volunteering their time as firefighters

and EMTs. They believe in the importance of doing good, of looking out beyond

themselves and making a change for the better in the world they live in.

This is what it means to Be a Force for Good.

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Mark Showalter Director of Facilities President, Washington Volunteer Fire Department Volunteer since 1978

RELYING ON EACH OTHER Mark Showalter joined the fire department when he was 18 years old. “I grew up around the firehouse because my dad was a volunteer.

On Sundays, we would go to the firehouse and I just enjoyed being around there. I kind of followed in his footsteps,” Showalter said.

He climbed the ladder, rising to lieutenant, captain, assistant chief, and fire chief, a role he held for eight years. Asked why he chose to be the person running toward a fire, rather than away from it, he said: “I think all of us who do it are well trained in it. I think the training gives you a sense of confidence to understand how safe you are. There’s plenty of practice with training but then, when you do have a large incident, like a house fire, that’s the real game. That’s your moment to sort of put it all together.”

“We’re always very disappointed when we see a house burn down,” and by the same token, “quietly elated” when they are able to extinguish a fire with minimal damage and disruption. “We want to leave ’em standing, of course.”

Over the course of his 43 years with the department, he has responded to many “large incidents,” including the January 2017

fire that destroyed the main building of the former Wykeham Rise School. Most of the building, which was unoccupied at the time, had collapsed by the time firefighters arrived on that cold and windy night.

Showalter was the fire chief at that time, as he was when a gas explosion occurred at the town hall, after a car struck a propane tank. Four firefighters were preparing to enter the building when the build-up of gas inside ignited. “It was kind of a close call. Luckily, the timing was such that we hadn’t entered the building, but we were about to,” Showalter said. “It was going to be on my watch, so those things kind of hang with you. The people you send in are not just firefighters, they’re your friends.”

There is a sense of camaraderie that comes with the role. “You feel like if you don’t participate or you don’t get up in the middle of the night, you’re letting your other members down a little bit. If someone is laid up or sick or something, someone will mow their lawn for them. Those are the kinds of relationships you build up when you are part of this. You kind of rely on each other.”

Morgen Fisher ‘03 Science Department Chair EMT, Washington Ambulance Association Volunteer since 2012

OFTEN THE FIRST TO ARRIVE During School Meeting on April 14, Morgen Fisher ’03 gave a “Fred Talk” to encourage students to find ways to actively engage in their communities. Her decision to volunteer as an EMT was based in part on her belief that she has a responsibility to her town.

“If you want to be in a community, it becomes your

responsibility to actively work to cultivate the friendly, welcoming atmosphere and ensure that it is a place to be proud of,” she said.

“Being a Force for Good and giving back to the community around you is your job. No one is going to make you do it but it still exists as a responsibility.”

About eight years ago, a member of the Washington Ambulance Association, who was the parent of one of her high school friends, encouraged Fisher to join. “I remember being in high school when she and her older daughter were taking the [EMT training] course and becoming certified. Her older daughter passed away tragically in her early adult life in an accident out West, and I am honored to use her responder number as my identifier. I am Washington EMT #38.”

As a mother of three, Fisher also viewed EMT training as a way to be better prepared as a parent. “When my daughter was young, I called the ambulance for her twice, and probably should have called three times. She kept us on our toes, and I wanted to provide the same comfort to other families that the EMS responders provided me,” she said.

As an EMT, she responds to medically-based 911 calls, mostly at night, in Washington and surrounding towns. “When a medical alert bracelet is activated, a medical emergency or traumatic injury occurs, or there is a need to respond in conjunction with the fire department, to ‘standby’ and provide medical attention to the firemen, our ambulance will go to the call,” she explained. “The more EMTs we have in our town that are willing to participate in volunteer service, the faster our response times can be and the more effective our care.”

Sometimes, the ambulance is the first to arrive and the crew must assess the scene and the patient. Fisher is trained to monitor vital signs, stabilize life threats, provide basic medications and, if

Morgen Fisher ’03 at the wheel

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warranted, request and support a paramedic. She teaches CPR classes, can drive the ambulance or ride in the back to manage care. Last year, she became certified as a CPR instructor and in May, she was named Washington Ambulance Association’s EMT Provider of the Year.

The best part of her experience? “The privilege of appearing in someone’s life during their time of need is a huge responsibility, but it really is an honor. I enjoy meeting the people we encounter, and the teamwork I experience with the other EMTs on scene. I have met people from a wide variety of life paths and often come away from a call feeling changed by the encounter. I can easily say that the people I meet amaze me.”

Seth Low Associate Head of School Interior Firefighter, Washington Volunteer Fire Department Volunteer since 2012

A CONNECTION TO THE TOWN As a volunteer firefighter, Seth Low is called to respond to many different situations. On any given day, he might be found manning a hose in a fire, cutting someone out of a car, driving a truck, clearing a road, or searching for someone who is lost. “Usually, the victims are scared, upset and vulnerable. Where possible, we provide some degree of comfort and empathy for those that are in the midst of a harrowing experience,” Low said.

Low made the Seth Low decision to become a volunteer firefighter after realizing how much he enjoyed volunteering with an environmental non-profit organization in town. “I strengthened my connection to the town and was able to spend time with people who cared enough to give generously of their time.

I like learning new things and, when I connected with then-Fire Chief Mark Showalter, it just made sense to try this endeavor. I have great admiration for Mark as a person and a leader, and I was eager to join the department that he led.”

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Lauren Lord

Responding to serious incidents, such as structure fires, the firefighters do their best to protect life and property, but it’s also about being there for someone on what is often a very traumatic day. “We respond to motor vehicle accidents in the town, helping to secure the scene and extract victims who may be trapped in their vehicles. Certainly, we respond to lots of alarms (smoke, fire, carbon monoxide), helping residents to assure the safety of their families.

Within Steep Rock, we respond to lost or injured hikers, helping them find their way home safely,” Low said.

Beyond the technical skills he has gained through his experience, Low said he has learned “a tremendous amount about leadership and humanity” from Showalter and other officers in the department, and has found it’s the people who make the experience so rewarding.

“It’s incredible to work with folks who are eager to give hundreds of hours a year to this cause, to this town. I’ve met people I never would have otherwise and come to trust them with my life,” he said. “Being a part of the fire department has connected me to the town and its residents in meaningful ways that I can’t imagine reproducing in another setting.”

Lauren Lord Assistant Dean of Students EMT, Washington Ambulance Association Volunteer since 2020

BEING A CALM PRESENCE Lauren Lord, Assistant Dean of Students, is the newest faculty member to join the ranks of the town’s emergency services. She started volunteering in February 2020 and became a state-licensed EMT last June.

“I have always had an interest in Emergency Medical Services (EMS). I decided to sign up for a course in town in January of 2020.

There quickly became an apparent need for volunteer EMTs in our

town during this time. It was the perfect time to be able to provide care and comfort to our community,” Lord said.

The best part of her job, she said, “is working to be a bright spot during a situation that may be a really difficult experience for someone.”

“Whether it is a scraped knee from a fall or something more serious, we show up to ease worry and help facilitate appropriate care. Whether it is driving the ambulance or providing patient care and comfort on the way to the hospital, I try to minimize any fear that patients may have by being a calm presence and always showing up with a friendly smile,” Lord said, continuing, “When someone calls 911, they need to know someone kind, knowledgeable, and calm is going to help take care of them.”

Patrick Williams Maintenance Department Interior Firefighter, Washington Volunteer Fire Department Volunteer Since 2008

WE JUST TRY TO HELP PEOPLE Patrick Williams became a volunteer firefighter 13 years ago. “I had a lot of friends and family who were firemen and I just wanted to help out,” he said.

Over time, he has learned valuable skills that he has been able to apply to other aspects of his life, such as speaking in a calm voice.

“When something goes wrong and people get nervous, it’s surprising what a calm voice can do to settle people down. I use it all the time on my family.”

He continues to respond to calls whenever he can. “I think we just try to help and keep people safe.”

Vincent Belanger Maintenance Department Exterior firefighter, pump operator and truck driver, Washington Volunteer Fire Department Volunteer since 2013

TO SEE CHANGE, YOU NEED TO VOLUNTEER Vincent Belanger’s first volunteer role was as an assistant Little League baseball coach. His children were playing youth sports at the time and the president of the league told him, “To see change, you need to volunteer.”

He became a Babe Ruth coach and then coached high school students in the Connie Mack league in Washington over the summer, volunteering alongside other parents. Together, they wanted to build a good youth sports program for all of the

kids in town. From there, Belanger started volunteering for other organizations, including the Washington Volunteer Fire Department. He currently drives the fire truck to calls, a role that requires a CDL driver’s license. “My job is to stay with the truck and have it ready to pump water in case of fire. I also assist our interior firefighters when needed,” he said, adding, “Helping others is very rewarding.”

Don “Radar” Lundberg Maintenance Department Firefighter, Washington Volunteer Fire Department Volunteer since 1980

PEOPLE KNOW WE ARE THERE FOR THEM Don Lundberg became a volunteer for one simple reason: to help his town and its people. It’s something he has continued doing for over 40 years. “I joined the department in January 1980. I have done interior firefighting, exterior firefighting, fire police and even rescued cats out of trees — really. The people really know that we’re there for them.”

The best part of his experience, he said, is knowing he can help someone.

The privilege of appearing in someone’s life during their time of need is a huge responsibility, but it really is an honor. I enjoy meeting the people we encounter, and the teamwork I experience with the other EMTs on scene.

– Morgen Fisher ‘03, Science Department Chair

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Meet the 2020-21 Gunn Scholars During the Spring Term, Gunn Scholars Josie

Misa Giroux. Gum engaged students in a

Hahn ’21, Maggie Xiang ’21 and Karen Zhu ’21

close examination of the early history of the

were putting the finishing touches on their

school and its founder through a study of “The

yearlong research and writing projects. Each

Master of The Gunnery,” a memorial tribute to

focused on a different facet of student life at

Mr. Gunn written by his pupils and edited by

The Frederick Gunn School, from the history of discipline going back to Frederick Gunn, to

Josie Hahn ’21

“We want our scholars to really understand

character education, to what it was like to be on

Frederick Gunn and his story in connection

campus in the late 1950s to mid-1960s during a

with the archives,” Gum said. “We have

time of great social change.

an opportunity not to only think about the

archives as something historic and fixed, but

An endowed program, Gunn Scholar was

established in 2002 by former School Archivist and Director of Communications Paula Gibson Krimsky, with the generous support of the Class

as something you add to over time.”

Maggie Xiang ’21

After finalizing their proposals, students

began the research process, aided by Gum

of 1957, which has assured that each student’s

and Giroux. In the Winter Term, students

illustrated paper is added to the archives,

completed their original, place-based

thereby enriching the school’s history and

research and each began writing a 10,000-

creating opportunities for further study.

word paper, which they finalized this spring

This year’s program was co-taught by Emily

while preparing to present their findings to the

Gum, Assistant Head of School for Teaching and

community. We asked them to share a little bit

Learning, and School Archivist and Librarian

The evolution of character education As part of her research, Karen Zhu ’21 read the correspondence of previous heads of school to help her understand how each approached character education in different eras. “The ideas about character education evolved throughout our history,” Zhu said, noting that the 1980s was the first time the term “character education” was referenced.

“Before that, it was ‘moral education.’ It was religion-based at first.”

She read speeches the headmasters delivered at the opening and closing of the school year, “but some of them are lost,” Zhu said. The best resources proved to be copies of old student handbooks and

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William Hamilton Gibson, Class of 1866.

The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

Karen Zhu ’21

about what they were learning.

articles students wrote for The Stray Shot, which was published starting in 1884 and served as the school newspaper, literary journal and alumni bulletin.

Reading “The Master of The Gunnery,” was also extremely helpful in her examination of the origins of character education at Mr. Gunn’s school. Zhu recounted that Mr. Gunn went to Yale with the intention of becoming a physician, but later had to abandon that plan. “When he started to teach, it wasn’t to cure people’s illness, it was to cure people’s minds,” Zhu said, noting that U.S. Senator Orville H. Platt, who was Mr. Gunn’s student at Washington Academy, wrote of this in “The Master of The Gunnery.”

“To his mind the medical profession opened the largest field of helpfulness to others, and, therefore, beckoned him to his duty. How he clung to this purpose, and how disappointed he was when he found that he could not enter that field, only a few of his nearest friends ever knew,” Platt wrote, explaining that Mr. Gunn began teaching in 1837 to earn money for medical school and came to a realization that led to the founding of his school. “He began to see the opportunity it afforded to mold character, and to think seriously of following it in lieu of the medical professions which he had so reluctantly abandoned.”

The policy of discipline Maggie Xiang ’21 compared the school’s disciplinary policies and practices from Mr. Gunn’s time to today, including the current point system. She also looked at societal influences on the school’s approach to discipline, for example, in terms of its smoking policy.

“Basically, I’m considering discipline as school policy in a broader sense of social policies,” said Xiang, who utilized material from the archives and conducted primary source interviews for her project.

“In my research I found that a lot of the evolution in our school’s policies resonated with the changing educational philosophies in the New England area. We can trace the student handbook to very early times. For Mr. Gunn’s time, I used ‘The Master of The Gunnery’ because a lot of personal accounts were covered in this.”

“Mr. Gunn is really interesting because he has really loose policies. But on certain topics he’s very strict, like with alcohol,” Xiang said, referring to Mr. Gunn’s stance as a staunch member of the temperance movement.

“[T]he fiercest bursts of the master’s anger and his harshest penalties visited any

“The Master of The Gunnery” was written in 1887 in chapters by former students and edited and illustrated by William Hamilton Gibson, Class of 1866 form of intemperance,” Clarence Deming of the Class of 1866 wrote in “The Master of The Gunnery.” “A boy who on a day’s trip to Waramaug Lake or to New Milford even entered a grog shop (Mr. Gunn never used any other term for a place where liquors were sold), lost the master’s confidence completely, and for repeated transgression might expect expulsion.”

With regard to lesser infractions at school (Deming gave examples in the book such as “a bit of paper found on the lawn, or a peanut-shuck on the stairs”), Mr. Gunn allowed students to decide the punishment at family meetings. “I think that’s related to the school size and is not practical now because The Frederick Gunn School is a larger school now,” Xiang said.

She also discovered from student handbooks that in the 1920s, students were required to adhere to a “grouping system” that determined the level of privileges they had on campus. “They had ABCD and divided students into groups. Students in Group A had a lot of privileges whereas those in C or D had a lot of restrictions.

The details are astonishing. It’s almost like students in Group A and Group D were not in the same school because the privileges were so different,” Xiang said.

The Values of Frederick Gunn Josie Hahn ’21 interviewed alumni from the 1950s and 1960s to document their individual student experiences during that period, as well as how they integrated the values of Frederick Gunn into their lives at the school and afterwards.

“Socially there was a lot going on in that period of time. I thought it would be interesting to see how the school was handling the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War. Ogden D. Miller H’69 P’50 ’54 ’55 GP’84 had been Head of School for a long time,” said Hahn, who reviewed editions of the Red and Gray as part of her research and interviewed several alumni including Bill Shure ’57, Don Brush ’64, and Chris King ’64.

Hahn was interested to learn Mr. Gunn was not as much of a focus at the school then compared to today, yet alumni still adopted some of his values as their own.

“I am specifically looking at three values: leadership and what it means to be a leader; passion and the ability to be passionate about something; and service, or how one can give back to individual communities and/or the world,” Hahn said. “I think it’s interesting to see how there’s so many different ways to be a leader. You can also be someone who leads by example.”

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Below: New uniforms for Varsity Baseball, Girls Varsity Lacrosse and Boys Varsity Tennis

New Branding in Action The decision to change the name of our school last July brought with it the opportunity to strengthen our brand and clarify our identity as The Frederick Gunn School in new and exciting ways. Our brand, which includes our school colors and school logo, speaks to our history and identity and embodies the spirit and values of our founder.

Mr. Gunn was a remarkable man — a pioneering educator, renowned outdoorsman and a bold leader in the abolitionist movement. Here are just a few examples of how we are continuing to communicate our brand and express, with power and grace, what it means to be The Frederick Gunn School.

The Frederick Gunn School flag

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The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

Boys lacrosse and football helmets

The scoreboard on Underhill Memorial Field

Two vehicles from The Frederick Gunn School fleet of school buses

Spring2021 2021 Spring

33

Brian Konik, Ph.D., Director of Counseling (left), and Mike Marich P’23 ’24, Athletic Director, came up with the idea for Sports Psychology 101 while sitting around the firepit on the quad.

Sports Psych Helps Students Improve

Performance

One of the most popular co-curriculars during the Winter Term was Sports Psychology 101, a new program developed by Athletic Director Mike Marich P’23 ’24 and Brian Konik, Ph.D., Director of Counseling. As many as 80 to 100 students participated in weekly roundtable discussions, where varsity athletes and Gunn coaches

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The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

discussed how they incorporate skills

of self-talk. The program, which was

and strategies such as concentration,

based on the “Sports Psychology Mental

goal-setting, and energy management

Training Manual,” developed by the U.S.

into their practice to improve their game,

Olympic Committee, was intended to

and their daily lives.

help students to perform at their best —

Each week, student-athletes from

academically, athletically or artistically —

different teams were featured in quick

and attracted athletes and non-athletes

discussions, highlighting what worked

alike.

for them and how students could

implement those techniques in their

transferable to your everyday, whether

own training. Boys Varsity Lacrosse led

it’s in the classroom, or on the field, or on

a session on how to use goal-setting,

the stage,” Marich said.

Girls Varsity Hockey talked about using

mental imagery, and the Boys Varsity

up with the idea for the program while

Tennis and Varsity Ski teams focused

sitting beside a firepit on campus in the

on the positive and negative effects

fall, discussing ways to engage students

“All of these things are so

The two varsity coaches came

All of these things are so transferable to your everyday, whether it’s grades, or on the field, or on the stage.”

– Mike Marich P’23 ’24 Athletic Director

in remote learning environments. Their premise was that the Winter Term would provide time for student-athletes to focus in on the fundamentals and continue their journey in their chosen sport. Based on the response, they definitely hit on a winning formula.

“In the first session, we had over 100

students attend, and they kept coming back — and getting the students to buy in was the key,” Marich said, pointing out that entire teams would come out to a session in support of a coach or teammates who might be presenting.

“You have someone on your team, who

Marich said he and Assistant Coach

“Mike organized a leadership

Seth Low have always taken a very

seminar for seniors, leaders of teams,

holistic approach with members of the

and it was the same topics. Learning to

Boys Varsity Lacrosse Team, and he

be an active community member, or to

took a similar tack with Sports Psych. “I

practice a positive mindset, those are

view myself more as a teacher than a

all life skills, and because we were going

coach. I just use a field as a classroom.

over this in these sessions, it allows us in

I care tremendously about the students

coaching to have a familiar language,

in the dorm, student-athletes doing the

so you don’t have to define the terms

right thing in classes. This program will

in practice. That makes it much more

give me another tool in my toolbox to

effective to build on what students

have discussions about goal-setting. We

already know,” Konik said.

always talk about nutrition and energy

management, self-talk. This brings a

sees opportunities for the sessions to

little more intentionality to what we’ve

help students set goals for college,

been doing, and Brian and I legitimately

or even for the next term. They can

talk and think the same way.”

apply what they learned about energy

management, concentration and self-

“This isn’t the first time we’ve taken

By providing that foundation, Marich

a pass at this,” Konik said, noting that

confidence to finals week. “All of these

some themes or topics were previously

topics are things we can improve on

addressed through advisor meetings,

daily,” he said. “By having the students

such as using the Frederick Gunn Toolkit

be part of it, the coaches, the different

to set goals, or using meditation or

speakers, we created this nice little

breathing techniques to manage stress,

program that will pay dividends in the

which was modeled in this year’s “Hitting

future for our students and coaches.”

Pause” moments at School Meeting.

you know, and they’re talking about their experiences,” he said. “The more we can engage students in these ways the better.”

The sessions were interactive, and

Allan Szydlowski ‘22 and Bobby Wells ‘21 celebrate during the April 17 game against Millbrook.

the topics relatable, said Konik. As a moderator, he asked coaches to talk about their experiences as high school athletes. “You have these adults telling these stories of when they were high schoolers. It breaks the ice for kids to be able to tell their stories and relate in different ways. The first part of every week was the kids in the audience hearing the personal stories of the adults when they were players and learning these skills.”

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Corinne Bolding ’20

2020-21 COLLEGE COMMITMENTs In our fall-winter 2020 issue, we highlighted members of the Class of 2020 who had commitments to study and play sports at colleges and universities this year. We regret that our published list was incomplete and extend our warmest congratulations to these Highlanders on their accomplishments. We wish them continued academic and athletic success!

Mark D’AgoofstCoinnno ec’2tic0 ut

The University Ice Hockey NCAA Division I Men’s

Trinity College NCAA Division III Ice Hockey

Girls Varsity Ice Hockey Forward Years at Gunn - 2 Prefect 2020 Head of School’s Prize 2019-20 Captain, Varsity Field Hockey and Girls Varsity Ice Hockey

Clayton Erickson ’20

Southern New Hampshire University NCAA Division II Basketball

Dane Dowiak ’20

The Pennsylvania State University NCAA Division I Ice Hockey

Boys Varsity Basketball Forward Years at Gunn - 1

y Boys Varsity Ice Hocke Forward Years at Gunn - 4 2019-20 Captain

Boys Varsity Ice Hockey Forward Years at Gunn - 1

Grace Genest ’20

Manhattanville College NCAA Division III Ice Hockey and Lacrosse

Noe Enoumedirsity’20

Cedarville Unive tball NCAA Division II Baske

Girls Varsity Ice Hockey and Girls Varsity Lacrosse Defense Years at Gunn - 4 ll Boys Varsity Basketba Forward

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The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

Years at Gunn - 1

2020 MVP Varsity Field Hockey 2020 Vreeland Rogers Athletic Award 2020 Captain Award (2): Varsity Field Hockey, Varsity Ice Hockey

Jeff Kopek ’20

Buckley Huffstetler ’20

Harry Harwood ’20

Utica College NCAA Division III

Ice Hockey

Dickinson College NCAA Division III Tennis

Connecticut College NCAA Division III Cross Country and Track and Field

Boys Varsity Tennis

Boys Varsity Ice Hockey Forward Years at Gunn -2

Years at Gunn - 3

Meg Stacy ’20

Boys Varsity Cross Country Years at Gunn - 4

Sofia Pattillo ’20

Savannah Popick ’20

Saint Anselm College NCAA Division I Ice Hockey

Manhattanville Colleg e NCAA Division III Ice Hockey

Hobart and William Smith Colleges NCAA Division III Field Hockey and Ice Hockey

Girls Varsity Ice Hocke y Forward

Girls Varsity Ice Hockey Defense Girls Varsity Ice Hockey and Varsity Field Hockey Forward Years at Gunn - 4 2019-20 Captain, Varsity Field Hockey & Girls Varsity Ice Hockey 2019 WNEPSSA All-Star Team Cornell Field Hockey Award 2019 MVP, Varsity Field Hockey

Years at Gunn - 4 2019-20 Captain, Girls Varsity Soccer 2019-20 Captain, Girls Varsity Ice Hockey 2020 MVP Girls Varsity Ice Hockey 2020 Athletic Cup Award

Years at Gunn - 2

2020 Tour Guide of the

Year Award

Adam Tedesco ’20

Worcester Polyt echnic Institute NCAA Division III Baseball

Boys Varsity Ba seball Outfield/Right Handed Pitcher Years at Gunn -2

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2021-22 COLLEGE COMMITMENTs

Sean Christiansen ’21 Bates College NCAA Division III, NESCAC

Boys Varsity Rowing Rower Years played at Gunn - 4

Congratulations to these members of the Class of 2021, who as of this spring had commitments to study and play sports at colleges and universities starting next fall. We wish all of our student-athletes the best of luck in their continued academic and athletic endeavors.

Alex Diaz ’21

Cloud County Community College Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference, West Division

Boys Varsity Baseball Shortstop Years played at Gunn - 4

Co-Captain 2020-21

Lou-Victoria Etoundi Ntsama ’21

Cottey College Women’s Golf Team of Intercollegiate National Association Athletics (NAIA)

-2 Years played at Gunn

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The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

Boys Varsity Lacrosse Midfield Years played at Gunn - 2

Danny Infante ’21

Cloud County Community College Kansas Jayhawk Community College Conference West Division

Boys Varsity Baseball Second Baseman Varsity Golf

Riley Edwards ’21

Adrian College NCAA Division III Men’s Lacrosse

Years played at Gunn - 4

Sammy Lassman ’21

Curry College NCAA Division III Women’s Ice Hockey Commonwealth Coast Conference

Girls Varsity Ice Hockey Defense Years played at Gunn - 2

Ava Lee ’21

Kaleigh Laurendeau ’21

Hobart and William Smith Colleges NCAA Division III, Liberty League

University of New England NCAA Division III Women’s Ice Hockey Commonwealth Coast Conference

Boys Varsity Rowing Coxswain

Girls Varsity Ice Hockey Goalie

Years played at Gunn - 4

Years played at Gunn - 3

Co-Captain 2020-21

Samantha Molind ’21

Suffolk University NCAA Division III Women’s Ice Hockey Commonwealth Coast Conference

Girls Varsity Ice Hockey Forward

Jonathan Nichele ’21

University of Connecticut NCAA Division III Men’s Lacrosse

Boys Varsity Lacrosse Midfield Years played at Gunn - 3

Years played at Gunn - 2

Michael Sirota ’21 Northeastern University NCAA Division I Baseball

Boys Varsity Baseball Center Field Years played at Gunn - 4

Daniel Sambuco ’21

Providence College NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey

Boys Varsity Ice Hockey Forward Years played at Gunn - 2 2020 NEPSAC Boys Ice Hockey Tournament, Piatelli/Simmons (Small) Bracket

Bobby Wells ’21

St. Lawrence University NCAA Division III Men’s Lacrosse

Boys Varsity Lacrosse Midfield Years played at Gunn - 3 2019 All-League Honorable Mention Spring 2021

39

GUNN ARTS

Music Program Supports a Well-Rounded Student Experience

Eujin Shin ’21 started playing violin when she was in second grade, but by the time she started middle school in her hometown in Michigan, she realized she would have to give up music if she wanted to concentrate on sports. One of her coaches told her she would have to make a choice, or would not make the cross country team.

All that changed when she arrived at The Frederick Gunn School, where Shin happily resumed playing violin and joined the String Ensemble, and helped to lead the Varsity Cross Country Team to a New England Championship win in 2019. In her senior year, she enrolled in the Advanced Level String Ensemble, was elected prefect, played JV Girls Basketball and Girls Varsity Lacrosse, and excelled academically.

“Ever since I was little, I wanted to have a wide range of hobbies,” Shin said, and being involved in the Music Program at The Frederick Gunn School influenced her habits in other areas, including sports and academics. “By taking music, I learned to be more consistent, because I knew that practicing for 30 minutes once a week is not going to get me anywhere. It’s not that you practice

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The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

one day and then you’re done with it. You have to go back every day and be consistent.”

The schedule at The Frederick Gunn School also allows students to try new things, and develop new skills. “When I joined as a new junior last year, kids were playing hockey, singing, starring in the

In addition to helping students develop individual musicianship and mastery of their instrument, students in our program learn how to work together as part of a group, practice accountability and consistency, and nurture what I hope will be a lifelong love of music and performance.”

– Ron Castonguay, Director of the Arts and Music Director

play. We’re all really lucky to have that opportunity to do different things, and do things that make us happy,” she said. “It really helps students, too. We’re all different people and we’re not supposed to grow up as one specific kind of person. We can be well-rounded, and I grew as a student through that.”

Similarly, Jonathan Nichele ’21 was able to balance playing drums in both the Jazz Band and Advanced Rock Band this year with being a prefect, playing Boys Varsity Lacrosse and excelling as a Dean’s List student. “My parents have always been big proponents of being a well-rounded student,” said Nichele, who grew up playing music and followed in the footsteps of his other brother, Sean, who also played drums and lacrosse.

Nichele, who has a commitment to play lacrosse in the fall at The University of Connecticut, where he plans to major in business and marketing. credited The Frederick Gunn School with helping him to improve as a musician and step outside of his comfort zone. Ron Castonguay, Director of the Arts and Music Director, recommended that he join Jazz Band, which he did. “It’s important to be well-rounded, but it’s important for the school you go to to support that,” Nichele said.

Castonguay said it’s not unusual for Frederick Gunn School music students to excel academically, play a sport, and take on a student leadership role. “In addition to helping students develop individual musicianship and mastery of their instrument, students in

our program learn how to work together as part of a group, practice accountability and consistency, and nurture what I hope will be a lifelong love of music and performance,” Castonguay said. “Many of our music students are among our top scholars, and excel equally on stage, in the classroom, on the playing field, and as student leaders.

I truly believe the skills and habits they learn as musicians are applicable to all facets of their lives.”

The door is really open Ella McKhann ’21, who has been playing clarinet since fourth grade, said Castonguay encouraged her to try out for Advanced Jazz Band, and play a second instrument — the saxophone — which she taught herself to play before coming to The Frederick Gunn School.

“At my old school, I was only a clarinetist,” McKhann said. “But I had a conversation with Mr. C before the school year started and he said, ‘Whatever you want to do, we can make that happen.’” She even recorded a clarinet quintet of “Hallelujah,” arranged by Leonard Cohen, playing all five parts herself this year. “It was so much hard work but it’s such a pretty song, it made me really happy,” she said.

McKhann, who was also a prefect, captain of the Ski Team, and played lacrosse, said the door to the practice room or band room was always open to her if she wanted to practice during a free block or after a late ski practice. “When you have that much on your plate, it can be hard to fit in time for music. It’s very self-driven,” she said.

“If you want to get better, you have to put in the time to get better. So having that space where the door is really open, that was helpful for me.”

Asked why she chose to make music part of her student experience, she said: “I think that it’s really cool to learn an instrument and that people should learn at least the basics of an instrument. Being able to read music is like learning another language. Everyone should learn how to do it at some point in their life.”

Opposite page: Ron Castonguay, Director of the Arts and Music Director, teaching a String Ensemble class in the Thomas S. Perakos Arts and Community Center; At left: Aria Trotta ‘23 (foreground) plays violin at the conservatory level.

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41

Putting the school on the map Over the past two years, Castonguay has bolstered the school’s music program, which now includes String Ensemble, Vocal Ensemble, and Jazz and Wind Ensemble as well as a flurry of new curricular and cocurricular offerings. During Winterim (see story page 13) Castonguay co-taught with math teacher Kelsey Brush a popular “Open Mic Night” class, which culminated in the inaugural Gunn Grammy Awards. Aside from the fun vibe, students learned or improved their vocal skills in sight reading, tone quality, rhythm, and intonation, and each of them recorded an “album” of 12 songs over three weeks.

The Winter Term brought four new co-curriculars in the visual and performing arts. Among them was an eight-part music program that focused on a different wind instrument each week. Castonguay’s decision to introduce students to the French horn, clarinet, flute, saxophone, trombone, trumpet, oboe and tuba was intentional. He hopes to be able to offer private music instruction in brass and wind instruments and percussion starting this fall. It’s all part of his vision to elevate The Frederick Gunn School Music Program “to a standard of excellence that puts our school on the map nationally.”

Castonguay’s goal is for students to perform in national music festivals, and at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, which are just 90 minutes from campus. He and his students are already making progress toward that goal. In 2021, tenor Drew Sutherland ’21 and alto Yolanda Wang ’21 were invited to perform in the National Association for Music Education’s (NafME) All-National Honors Choir, which represents the top vocalists in the country.

The experience was a high point for Wang, who had the opportunity to meet her favorite composer, Eric Whitacre, through her participation in the All-National Choir and conference, which was conducted online due to the pandemic. “The fact that he was just talking to 250 of us online in one room

At right, Dayne Bolding ‘23 was selected to the Northern Regional Music Festival for cello and bass voice this year and performed at the All-State Music Festival.

Opposite page: Eujin Shin ‘21, who played in the Advanced Level String Ensemble this year and was a prefect.

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was just mind blowing to think about. You felt like he was just talking to you,” said Wang, who noted that Whitacre’s message was that it is never too late to start composing or learning about music theory. “He first started when he was 20. That was very inspiring. His music, when I’m listening to it with headphones or good speakers, it’s just an experience of music chills, as Mr. C says.”

Wang, who plans to double major in math and music this fall at Cornell University, or minor in music and learn more about music theory, credited Castonguay with encouraging her to audition for nationals, even though she only started singing two or three years ago. “He helped me choose the repertoire and build up my confidence. We also worked together on my diction and emotional delivery and the most important thing is the video quality,” she said, explaining that due to COVID protocols, all auditions were recorded and submitted digitally.

Wang was also one of five students in The Frederick Gunn School Music Program who were selected to the 2021 Northern Regional Music Festival. The others were cellist Sean Christiansen ’21, Sutherland, soprano Maggie Xiang ’21, and Dayne Bolding ’23, who was selected for cello and bass voice. Xiang, Wang, Sutherland

When you have that much on your plate, it can be hard to fit in time for music. It’s very self-driven. If you want to get better, you have to put in the time to get better.

So having that space where the door is really open, that was helpful for me” – Ella McKhann ’21

and Bolding were chosen to perform in the All-State Mixed Choir at the 2021 Connecticut All-State Music Festival.

Through their experiences, the students in the music program share a tight bond. “It’s like a smaller community inside a bigger community,” Wang said. “I have a connection with everyone in The Frederick Gunn School because we are all classmates, but in the music group, we have this extra, little community. We struggle to learn music together, we sing together, and we laugh together. We can empathize with each other.”

When he arrived at The Frederick Gunn School as a sophomore, he said, “I did all the musical things I could. I joined the Troubadours [now Vocal Ensemble], joined the musical, took private lessons for a bit and continued studying on my own,” he said.

In his time at the school, Sutherland has also served as a Residential Advisor in the dorm, as a club leader for Free Thought Society, performed with the Highlander Ringers handbell choir and in the Winter Musical, joined Model UN, played Ultimate Frisbee, and served as co-editor of the student newspaper this year. He views music as a way to manage the stress that naturally comes with juggling such a busy schedule. “I personally view the arts as a stress reliever, rather than adding something on.”

An energy that cannot be matched Sutherland, who has been singing in church choirs since the age of 4, similarly spoke of the connections students in the music program share, especially when performing together. “I’ve always been a choral singer, so always in a group of people, and that’s my favorite part. Everybody in a room singing the same thing together with an energy that cannot be matched by anything in the world. I love it, being with people and just experiencing music together. I know it sounds kind of corny, but it’s completely true.”

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Photo: Jim Cooper, SharpByCoop Photography

GUNN ARTS

This random pattern damascus knife crafted

by Simon Rhodes ’22 was featured in “Blade” magazine in April.

Bladesmith Simon Rhodes ’22

In April, a 4.5-inch steel “damascus” knife to work at Parkinson’s forge in Wolcott, crafted by Simon Rhodes ’22 was featured Connecticut, as well as his own forge at in “Blade” magazine, a long-running home. Although he has kept all of the first consumer magazine about knife collecting. knives he made, he has sold all of the ones It was quite an accomplishment for the he has crafted in the past two to three years, junior, who outside of school teaches an including the hunting knife featured in introductory blacksmithing course to 12- to “Blade,” which a reader purchased.

16-year-olds in the summer, and has even

“A big part of it is the challenge. taught knife-making classes for adults.

There are a lot of aspects to the forging

Rhodes has been making knives and finishing of knives. It’s very physical,” since the age of 11, when he took his first said Rhodes, who is an avid hiker and rock blacksmithing class at The Good Forge climber (indoor and outdoor) and has at Brookfield Craft Center, which was participated in late fall and mid-winter founded in 1952 and is recognized as one hiking trips in the White Mountains with of the finest schools for creative study in the Outdoor Stewardship co-curricular America. Soon after, program on campus. he began participating “The steel you are The steel you are in “open studio” nights forging and the forge are forging and the forge every Friday at the between 1,800 and 2,000 are between 1,800 center, where he met degrees Fahrenheit. In and 2,000 degrees bladesmith Matthew the summer, when we Parkinson. He began have two forges running Fahrenheit.” an apprenticeship in there, it gets very – Simon Rhodes ‘22 and has continued hot. You definitely 44

The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

have to wear safety glasses. I wear hearing protection,” but due to the nature of the work, no gloves, he said, explaining that he holds the hot metal with tongs in one hand, and a hammer in the other. “It’s two or three times heavier than a claw hammer,” he said.

It took about a week to completely finish the damascus knife, which had a handle made of walnut with brass fittings and a blade made of 1084 carbon and 15N20 nickel-alloy steels. Rhodes made the handle using a band saw and shaped it using an electric grinder, finishing it by hand. “That’s very little of the time of the handle-making.

Most of the time is refinishing it with hand files and sandpaper,” he said.

While he does not plan to make bladesmithing a career, he is intent on continuing to refine his craft. “There are a lot of knifemakers who do sell knives and continue to make knives part time,” said Rhodes, who is thinking about studying engineering or design in college. “I’m pretty open right now.”

Art as Sanctuary Arriving on campus as a sophomore, Ally Gerry ’21 gravitated towards the art studio on campus, even though art classes were not part of her academic day.

“Ally wasn’t in a class when she first came into the studio,” recalled Visual Arts Chair Andrew Richards P’20 ’23, who nonetheless gave Gerry space to work independently during her free time. “I certainly saw that she had a lot of skill and loved to be in the studio working.”

She spent nearly a year working on a single painting. “It started out as a bouquet of flowers. Then figures came into it, and it just kept going and going,” Gerry recalled.

“I’m stubborn. I have to try things out and I have to fail in order to get it.”

She said she learned a lot from Richards, and when she finally enrolled in an art class — as a junior— the only one that fit her schedule was AP Studio Art. For most students, AP Studio Art is the last art class, not the first they take at The Frederick Gunn School. A full-year course, it requires a scope of work equivalent to that of an introductory college course in studio art. Students take this course to prepare their portfolios for submission to art schools and to the College Board AP Studio Art Exam.

Last summer, Gerry took classes in life drawing and photography at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and she enrolled in AP Studio Art again this year.

Ally Gerry ’21

Gerry’s painting, modeled after a Renaissance sculpture of the Virgin Mary, was featured in “Art in the Virtual Park,” a digital exhibit sponsored by the Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens in June 2020.

This fall, she continued one of self-determination working on a portfolio, and discovery. For example, which helped her secure when she painted a version acceptance to Northeastern of “Mona Lisa,” she was University this fall. unhappy with the mouth,

As the art room served and put a piece of duct tape as a sanctuary, angelic over it. The tape became figures found their way into intriguing, as if begging the a series of her paintings. She question: If the Mona Lisa is draws inspiration from the known for her smile and you Renaissance, incorporating “Ouch,” acrylic on canvas, was take it away, what is she? The featured in the Washington Art painting now hangs in her angels, sculptures, and Association’s inaugural High sometimes even skeletons parent’s home in Florida, and School Expo in April. into her paintings. “I love has inspired a series of interhistorical pieces. I love historical fiction. family art thefts, disappearing each time her History is my favorite non-art class. We had grandfather visits, she said. learned about Renaissance art but I love the

Although she has not set her sights colors and contrast, the lights and darks, the on a career as an artist, and said she would beautiful shading,” she said. be happy if she ended up with a collection

Through trial and error, and a bit of of paintings in her attic to show her frustration, she has seen her work turn in grandchildren someday, Gerry is clearly not new and unexpected directions, not unlike done creating yet. “I’m obviously going to her journey as an artist, which has been see how far this takes me,” she said.

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ALUMNI NEWS

Making Big noise in the World of Small Business

Inspired by community-based events such

to support them. In this issue of the Bulletin,

Development Office came up with a plan to

are making big strides in the world of small

as Small Business Saturday, the Alumni &

catalog and promote small businesses owned by Frederick Gunn School alumni. Businesses will be listed on the school website at gogunn.org, and

members of the FGS community are encouraged

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we are pleased to introduce two alumnae who business. If you are interested in having your small business listed, contact Jessica Baker, Director of Engagement & Operations, at bakerj@frederickgunn.org.

Hitting all the Right Levels Bevin Mehrbach ’03

“The Gunnery really set me up to understand business in a lot of ways,” reflected Mehrbach. “I was exposed to culture in a lot of ways and I feel like I Growing up on The Frederick Gunn School got a lot out of having friends from places campus gave Bevin (Titcomb) Mehrbach ’03 a like Russia and Hong Kong. The most unique vantage point on what would become important thing I learned is that people her alma mater. “It blew my mind that I could are people and you always approach go to the dining hall every day,” Mehrbach everyone kindly and congenially.” fondly recalled. “I felt like I had early access to What started as a hobby in their everything that was cool. It was the early 90s apartment is now a business that employs and I remember kids on the Quad having their eight people in a 3,000-square-foot space windows open blasting Dave Matthews Band.” in Illinois and reaches music lovers all

She also had the benefit of interacting over the world. The couple worked with with the students on campus as a faculty child an engineer several years ago and came living in Gunn Dorm. Still holding true today, Bevin Mehrbach ’03 and her ZMF headphones up with their own proprietary parts Mehrbach remembers that students on campus to manufacture their headphones. The would look out for the faculty children, keeping an cups are milled in St. Louis and hand eye on the youngest members of the community. sanded and finished in Illinois, where the

Mehrbach identified as an artsy student electronic components are installed, and and took advantage of every opportunity to the finished product is put through quality be exposed to the arts. She was in the spring assurance to make sure they are hitting musical, “Pippin,” danced with Pilobolus, all the right levels. Mehrbach works on and enrolled in the Opera Appreciation class, daily operations and management for the which took her into New York City to see an company. opera at the Met. “It’s wild to think that we’re these

After graduating from The Frederick Gunn people, doing this thing at this little place in Illinois,” said School, Mehrbach attended Eastern Connecticut State University, Mehrbach. “And there’s someone that knows about what we’re doing where she studied communications. She then moved to Chicago in Latvia! Being connected to people in other countries and having with her now-husband, Zach, and went to graduate school, earning a our product appreciated is very fulfilling.” master’s degree in social work from Loyola University Chicago, and a

Fun Fact: Bevin and Zach were married in Bourne Garden master’s in child development from Erikson Institute. Mehrbach then in 2013. worked as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in various schools in the

Check out ZMF Headphones on Instagram @zmfheadphones Chicagoland area for a few years. and visit their website at zmfheadphones.com.

In 2011, while Mehrbach’s husband was in graduate school at Columbia College Chicago, he started modifying existing headphones out of their apartment. Mehrbach was focused on her day job at the time and wasn’t paying too much attention to what was going on with the headphones. She always gave her husband advice on the business, but about two to three years ago, she came on board to work with her husband full time. ZMF Headphones, their company, has become a respected name in hi-fi headphones.

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customized Kicks Ashley Beach ’05 Ashley Beach ’05 has always been an artist and has been drawn to art her entire life. She comes from a family of artistic talent, including her mother, aunt and cousin, who she says are all “amazing artists.” As a student at The Frederick Gunn School, Beach took art classes and worked on a group painting that was displayed in the library.

“I found my passion for painting at school,” recalled Beach. “I realized I could create some pretty cool pieces. If I had to describe my style I would say I started out pretty abstract and my style of painting now is kind of like tattoo artwork.”

After graduating from The Frederick Gunn School, Beach attended Ursinus College and received a degree in psychology. She worked in sales for a few years but wasn’t happy. In 2016, she decided to go to cosmetology school to pursue something she really enjoyed.

“For all the proms I would do everyone’s hair and makeup,” said Beach. “I was always interested in it and I was decent at it. It was something creative I was interested in and I thought I would like doing it.”

For the last five years, Beach has been a barber. When she was in cosmetology school, she attended a career fair and met a woman who owned her own barbershop. Beach was drawn to that career path, despite the fact that it was a male-dominated industry, and decided to pursue it. “I love talking to people and meeting new 48

The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

Ashley Beach ’05 with some of her Beachy Cakes designs, including the custom kicks she made for Bevin Mehrback ’03, above. people, which is what I really like about my job,” she said. “I like helping people be better versions of themselves through the way they look.”

When she’s not working as a barber, Beach paints anything she can and she started painting shoes about 10 years ago. “I bought myself a pair of high-top Chuck Taylors in white,” said Beach. “I had no intention of painting them, but I put them on and hated that they were so white. I was inspired to paint them and see what happened.”

People started noticing her shoes and asked her to paint a pair for them. She works on custom commissioned pieces, which people order through her Instagram account @beachycakescustoms, or through her Etsy shop. Beach goes by the name Beachycakes Customs, which is a nickname she got at The Frederick Gunn School from Lisa Zambero ’05.

Beach says that the requests for her commissioned pieces have skyrocketed in the past year with people supporting more local businesses. She has been grateful for that support. She recently made a pair of custom sneakers for Bevin Mehrbach ’03 to promote her business, ZMF Headphones.

If you’re interested in a custom pair of sneakers or other artwork, contact Beach on Instagram at @beachycakescustoms or at etsy.com/shop/beachycakescustoms.

Tips for Mentoring & Networking The Frederick Gunn School’s Alumni Mentoring & Networking program was launched in 2018 and is a platform providing access to Gunn alumni who have volunteered their time to connect with Frederick Gunn School graduates on a professional level.

Our 100-plus mentors are connected in industries ranging from, but not limited to, education, finance, real estate, entrepreneurship and technology ­— and they are available for résumé reviews, cover letter critiques, conducting mock interviews, and discussing potential career paths.

The network was founded by Andrew Powers ’11, Wyatt Clark ’13 and Hilary Benjamin ’08 and through expansion the leadership team has grown to include Connor Dahlman ’16. We asked them to share some of their best networking tips.

Here’s what they had to say:

Andrew Powers ’11

Hilary Benjamin ’08

Wyatt Clark ’13

“When looking into a potential new job, you are better served taking a focused approach. I always suggest finding a company of interest, seeking out people who work there (via LinkedIn or email) to discuss their experience/the role you are looking into, incorporating what you learn into cover letters and interviews. Instead of spreading yourself thin by applying to a ton of places, give yourself a better shot of getting jobs you really have an interest in. Whenever you are looking for people to reach out to at a company of interest, try to find commonalities (education, where they grew up, hobbies, etc.) and call those out in your initial email. People are much more willing to take a call with someone they have some connection to!”

“I have been developing a ‘board of trustees’ in my professional life — which is the collective group of individuals I turn to for career advice. That said, it is important to continue to engage with the board on an ongoing basis — rather than leaning on the network exclusively when guidance is needed.

“If someone has referred you for a career opportunity, it is very important to keep them updated on the status of the job prospect. If they are willing to put you in touch with a contact from their professional network, they are presumably rooting for your success, and they are entitled to knowing the outcome. Don’t go dark on them.”

“Whether you’re looking for a job or networking, people generally want to help, but you have to make it easy for them. If you’re reaching out to connect, suggest meeting times (I try to give three open time windows) and you should be the one sending them the calendar invitation. If you don’t make it easy for them, it’s easy for them to find a reason not to help.”

If you’re interested in becoming a mentor or you’re looking for some guidance, please fill

out the appropriate form at

bit.ly/HighlandersConnect. If you have any questions about the

program or how to get involved, please contact Jess Baker at bakerj@frederickgunn.org.

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Highlander Happy Hours Keep Alumni Connected The past year looked quite different for the typical alumni

Math Department Head and Faculty Ambassador (January

get-togethers hosted by the Alumni & Development Office.

21); Kori Rimany ’14 of the English Department faculty, who led

Throughout the winter, small groups connected via Zoom for

a Highlander Cookie Decorating Hour (February 4); and Kate

Highlander Happy Hours, a series of

DeForge ’03 and Jamie Goldsmith, Head

fun, informal, virtual gatherings. The

Coach, Girls Varsity Ice Hockey (March 11).

first event in the series was hosted

In the spring, Zoom Reunions were held

by beloved faculty members Ed and

for the Classes of ’80 and ’81 (40th reunion),

Peg Small on December 3 and had a

Class of ’61 (60th reunion), Classes of ’00

great turnout. The Alumni Mentoring

and ’01 (20th reunion), Class of ’96 (25th

& Networking Team hosted another

reunion), Class of ’71 (50th reunion) and

successful event on December 17, and

Class of ’91 (30th reunion). Local alumni

more than 20 alumni from the Classes

were also invited to return to campus for

of 2015 and 2016 joined the Happy Hour

Alumni Weekend on June 12. Look for

for those classes on January 7.

photos and additional information in

the fall Bulletin and be sure to check

Additional events in the series were

hosted by Jeff Trundy, Science Department faculty and the

the website for details about upcoming events at

David N. Hoadley ’51 Baseball Coach, and Alisa Croft,

frederickgunn.org/alumni/alumni-events.

Below: Kori Rimany ‘14 in her kitchen during the cookie decorating “happy hour”

Above: Andrew Powers ‘11, Hilary Benjamin ‘08, Wyatt Clark ‘13 and Connor Dahlman ‘16 of the Alumni Mentoring & Networking program hosted Happy Hour on December 17, 2020.

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The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

Above: Peg and Ed Small, top left, hosted the first Highlander Happy Hour on December 3, 2020.

Above: Nearly two dozen Highlanders from the Class of 2015 and Class of 2016 celebrated Happy Hour together in January.

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HIGHLANDER JOURNEYS

Pursuing Passions Millie Huang ’11 on Finding a Career That Was a Natural Fit In 2012, Harvard Business Review declared data scientists as having “the sexiest job of the 21st century,” and in 2019, the position was ranked the number one job in the U.S. by Glassdoor for the fourth year in a row. What’s more, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the demand for data science skills will drive a 27.9 percent rise in employment in the field through 2026. It’s a field for people who have a passion for computers, math, and discovering answers through data analysis. Just ask Millie Huang ’11, whose passion helped her discover a path towards becoming a data scientist with the online personal styling service Stitch Fix.

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The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

Huang decided to come to boarding school in the United States from China to learn the culture and language. She initially enrolled at a school outside of Chicago, but decided to transfer to The Frederick Gunn School in the middle of her sophomore year. At her previous school, she was one of many international students and didn’t feel like she was getting the experience she was seeking. When she came to what was then The Gunnery, she was told that she was the first female student from mainland China, which was appealing to her.

“The Gunnery was a much smaller and intimate feeling school than the one I came from,” said Huang. “There were so few international students at the time and being part of a smaller student body helped me acclimate quickly to being on campus. The dining hall staff and everyone knew me by name, which I really liked.”

Huang fondly remembers her advisor, Rod Theobald P’09 ’14, with whom she ended up taking AP Literature. “That class really opened my eyes to a liberal arts education,” remembers Huang. “It cemented my interest in the social sciences. The social sciences really challenged me and I was interested in taking on that challenge.”

Huang was always interested in mathematics and science as those subjects came naturally to her. In China, she competed in Olympiad Math and had the foundational knowledge to excel in math and science courses. But being exposed to a broader education at The Frederick Gunn School encouraged Huang to continue that in college, which is why she chose to attend Wellesley College.

“My experience at The Gunnery was that everyone always had the best intentions and expected the best from you,” said Huang.

“Faculty members trusted you, treated you with leadership potential and truly believed in you. That expectation of me projected onto my behavior. It was really amazing to me, especially coming from China where we attend big public schools. At that time, there was no encouragement of self-identity in China. At The Gunnery, you were supported in whatever you chose to explore and encouraged to try something different. The faculty trusted you and encouraged you to trust yourself.”

This experience gave Huang the courage to explore different subject areas at Wellesley. She was enjoying taking classes she was interested in, including political science, music and French, and then realized that she wasn’t going to graduate if she didn’t pick a subject area to concentrate on. She declared an economics major the spring of her junior year and a math major the fall of her senior year.

“I took a lot of detours, but at the end of the day, I think they helped me become a well-rounded person, and not just academically,” said Huang. “These diverse experiences helped me to

look at the world differently and it’s been beneficial for me.”

During her junior year, while trying to determine her career path and steps after graduation, companies came to Wellesley’s campus for summer internships. “I went to an info session on banking and was interested in it,” said Huang. “I really liked the idea of working in a fast-paced environment so I thought the trading floor would allow me to utilize my math skills while using my geopolitical event knowledge to predict how these things would impact the market.”

Huang spent the summer working at a self-trading internship with Bank of America on the foreign exchange desk. At the end of the summer, she decided that being a sales and trading analyst wasn’t something she was interested in pursuing further. She wasn’t practicing her mathematical skills as much as she hoped and didn’t see herself as a salesperson, which was what she had spent a lot of time doing. At this point, Huang determined she wanted a more analytical role, and wanted to apply her skills in a productive way.

Because economics is well-known at Wellesley and many companies recruit there, Huang ended up in the very niche world of economic consulting. She worked on economics and financial modeling but in a litigation context. Huang was able to work in a business setting where she was able to evaluate all of these potential options that she was interested in pursuing, including business school, graduate school and law school. After two years in that position, she realized she didn’t want to pursue any of those options.

While Huang was working as an economic consultant, she was also working on a personalized styling business with a friend and they entered their idea into an accelerator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and received funding. Through this experience, Huang realized she wasn’t fully ready to pursue something entrepreneurial but she was interested in furthering her education. She began to take night school classes to sharpen her programming skills, and learn more about what programs she

I took a lot of detours, but at the end of the day, I think they helped me become a wellrounded person, and not just academically.

These diverse experiences helped me to look at the world differently and it’s been beneficial for me.”

– Millie Huang ’11

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HIGHLANDER JOURNEYS

should consider for graduate school. She decided she wanted a technical master’s degree and applied to MIT’s master’s program in data science, analytics and operations research. “It was an intensive one-year program,” said Huang. “It was like drinking from a fire hose — very demanding but really great and vastly different from my Wellesley experience.”

The summer semester at MIT focused on a thesis project and students were matched with companies and essentially operated in an internship capacity. “Companies would come to pitch very broad topics and your task was to pick it up and narrow it down to something that fit your academic interests,” said Huang.

Huang needed a product that she felt connected with. She was always interested in the consumer and retail sector and felt there was a lot she could do with data to make the experience for shoppers better. She ended up matching with Rue Gilt Groupe and was thrilled to work on a project for them. She built a tool to grab the shopper’s attention while they were looking at a product based on their navigational patterns. For example, if you were looking at something summer-themed, the tool would help predict where you would want to go next and serve it up to you. By the end of her thesis project, they were putting her product into production!

“It was a truly amazing experience,” said Huang. “The fact that they adopted something I worked on was surreal.”

After graduating from MIT, Huang was offered a position at Stitch Fix as a data scientist working with client algorithms. Stitch Fix uses recommendation algorithms and data science to personalize clothing items based on a customer’s size, budget and style. As Huang says, the position has been a “natural fit” for her skill set and interest in fashion.

Huang’s position focuses on forecasting client behaviors and that includes everything from metrics to how they behave 54

The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

after they’ve “converted” and have signed up for the service. She communicates with the executive team frequently on what’s happening now and in their strategic planning.

“I have a high sense of satisfaction in my role,” said Huang. “I feel like my work has a big impact on the business and that means a lot to me.”

She also presents fairly often in front of people and credits her presentation skills to her time at The Frederick Gunn School.

“I ran for prefect my junior year and realized that I was capable of being a leader and that people saw me as a leader,” said Huang.

“That kind of encouragement and support from a small community helped me to build the confidence that I have today. It taught me to lead even if I don’t have the leadership title and it changed my perspective on a lot of things.”

When Huang was a prefect, she presented to the Board of Trustees. The prefects that year pitched the idea of what is now South Street fields. She received a letter at home in China saying that the presentation was impressive and the feedback she received helped to shape some of the presentation skills she uses today.

When asked what advice Huang might give students today she said, “I would encourage them to try different things, things that you’re scared of or think you might not be interested in. Now is the time to try these things because you’re starting to form your own world view but you’re capable of absorbing new information and new skills.”

Being encouraged to try new things is something that stuck with Huang from her time at The Frederick Gunn School. Even now, Huang is learning the ukulele in her free time!

“Since we’re all at home so much right now and on our screens, I find myself wanting to take a break,” said Huang. “So I started playing the ukulele and I run outside. Running is something that I started to enjoy when I was at The Gunnery and took with me to Wellesley and now into my adult life.”

Huang stays connected to The Frederick Gunn School through her friendships with fellow alumni. She’s always stayed very close with Chao Liu ’11 and after they all relocated to the Bay Area, she met Shimeng Wang ’11 and Ricky Jiang ’12 at an alumni brunch.

“It’s amazing to see part of how the school has influenced and shaped them into who they are today,” said Huang. “They are all very accomplished professionally and carry a lot of self-assurance, which I don’t see in other international students that I’ve met. I think it can be attributed back to us having a small, supportive community. We had a good foundation and we really understand American culture and society from being here at a younger age instead of coming for college or graduate school.”

Don’t Give Up Your Daydream Ryan Broderick ’05 at work at Reverie Brewing, which is located in Newtown, Connecticut

Ryan Broderick ’05 had a “daydream” of owning his own brewery while he was working full time in finance in Greenwich, Connecticut. While Broderick and his business partner, Frank Lockwood, were still working at their day jobs, they were inspired to name one of their first test beers, “Double Dipper.” The image on the can is a man with four arms — one holding a Post-it® note, one holding a phone, one holding money and the last holding a paperclip — and trying to juggle it all. This is exactly what Broderick and Lockwood were doing while trying to manage their “day job” and their daydream. The word “reverie” means a state of being pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts: a daydream. That’s why they ultimately chose the name Reverie Brewing for their brewery.

Broderick grew up in Woodbury, Connecticut, and came to The Frederick Gunn School as a freshman. He was a three-season athlete and played football, hockey and lacrosse. Although he was most interested in playing hockey (he still plays in a men’s league now), the local public school didn’t offer it. The Frederick Gunn School was on his radar because of its hockey program, and he ended up attending the school as a day student. He was captain of the football and lacrosse teams

during his time at Gunn and he played hockey all but his senior year.

“A lot of what I learned at The Gunnery is what helped me start my own business,” said Broderick. “I learned how to focus on things and be regimented. I had to figure out how to manage my time and school work. Those skills more than any specific course I took helped set me up for where I am now.”

Broderick fondly remembers his time at The Frederick Gunn School and is still in touch with many of his classmates.

One of his close friends, Peter Macary ’05, accidentally found the Stray Shot during their senior year.

Broderick planned to play lacrosse in college and was very interested in attending Providence College. He visited the campus and stayed with Mark Rhoads ’04, but decided at the last minute that his heart wasn’t in it. He ultimately attended Loyola University Maryland, where he studied marketing. Broderick loved the campus and the manageable distance from home, and he joined the university’s club hockey team.

When Broderick graduated from Loyola in 2009, it was a difficult time to find employment, especially in the finance sector, so he took a year off before landing a job at Morgan Stanley in Baltimore as a financial analyst. Shortly afterward, he started

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working towards a Master of Business Administration in finance, which helped him as he started working in this field.

Three years later, Broderick moved to New York City and went to work for JPMorgan Chase. A few years after returning to New England, on a slow summer day, Broderick wrote an entire business plan for his entrepreneurial “daydream” venture. He knew the corporate life wasn’t for him long term and was wrestling with the idea of how he would someday balance a family and long hours in a corporate setting. Would he have to burn through his vacation days just to go to a recital or game?

After working on the business plan, he did a demographic study of Newtown, Connecticut, and started looking for investors to get his idea off the ground. At the time, the craft beer industry was exploding. According to The Brewers Association, in 2011 there were 16 craft breweries in Connecticut, which has expanded to 112 in 2020.

Currently there are about 249,784 barrels of craft beer produced per year in the state. Nationally, the craft brewing industry contributed $82.9 billion to the U.S. economy in 2019 and more than 580,000 jobs.

Broderick always really enjoyed craft beer. Growing up, Broderick’s father, Mark, owned a restaurant in Waterbury, and it was one of the few in the 90s that carried beers produced by smaller, local brewers. Their fridge at home was always stocked with Yuengling, which was a smaller local company, at a time when national brands like Budweiser and Coors were far more ubiquitous.

“It was a bond we had together,” recalled Broderick. “We always were looking for new beers to try.”

While Broderick always loved beer and knew he could run the business-end of the operation, he needed someone to actually brew the beer. “I am by no means a brewer,” says Broderick. “I actually met my partner, Frank, through a friend at Loyola. They grew up together and he introduced us. If I never met Frank I never would’ve had the willingness to go for it. That and the support of our wives is what allowed us to take this leap.”

Reverie Brewing officially opened in February of 2019 and had

Clockwise from above: the logo for Reverie’s Douple Dipper IPA; members of the run club, who meet every other week at the taproom; Broderick with his wife, Ali

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a great first year. The focus of their business plan always has and always will be a community-based taproom. “We have a lot of seating, a stage and no TVs,” says Broderick. “People come here, put their phones away and talk to each other over a beer.”

The taproom hosts a lot of different events, from wreathmaking during the holidays to live performances and ticketed comedy events throughout the year. In the warmer months, they have a run club that meets every other week at the taproom. Its members go for a run and then gather over half-price beers for the night. The taproom has 12 taplines, and while Reverie wants to have a product and brand that is recognizable, they don’t want to be known for a “flagship beer.” They want beer lovers to come to the taproom and try new beers that they haven’t tried before.

They’ve created 110 brews since they started and are somewhere in the mid 50s for actual beers that they’ve produced!

They also have an experimental line — if you’re at the taproom and see “Oo” next to a beer, it’s one that they’re testing out. “The idea for the ‘Oo’ next to the experimental beers came from when you’re in a meeting in an office building and you’re like, ‘Oo’ a distraction,” said Broderick.

“If we really like them or we get good feedback from customers, then we put them into production.”

In 2019, Reverie beat their estimated sales projections, had just started canning their beers, and were planning for major growth in 2020. Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened. “We’re in better shape than a lot of places, but not in as good of a place as we had hoped,” said Broderick. “When COVID first hit in March 2020 we brewed a beer called ‘Small Business Relief’ and were able to give 11 businesses in Newtown around $12,000 to help them out.”

Throughout the pandemic, there has been a push to continue to support local businesses and Reverie has seen that support from the community. When the weather is nice at the taproom, there’s a lot of outdoor seating available. People were able to brave the cooler temperatures much later into the year with the addition of a tent and outdoor heaters.

In December, Reverie Brewing became the first brewery in Connecticut to have a winery and cider permit. Their first experimental cider was a dry cider that went on tap in early January.

“We’re utilizing local ingredients for the cider,” said Broderick.

“We’re using apples from a place in Massachusetts and there’s an old tobacco farm in South Windsor, Connecticut, that now grows malt that we’re using to make the cider.”

It’s so rewarding to find something that you love to do, but it’s a lot of work. It doesn’t go away on the weekends. If something goes wrong or breaks, you’re going to be the one to fix it.”

Over the last year, Broderick has realized there is more that he needs to learn personally, to continue growing alongside Reverie Brewing. “When you own your own business, you wear a lot of different hats and it’s eye opening to realize what you don’t know,” said Broderick, who is continually looking for ways to improve the business as well. “It’s so rewarding to find something that you love to do, but it’s a lot of work. It doesn’t go away on the weekends. If something goes wrong or breaks, you’re going to be the one to fix it.”

Broderick believes his greatest accomplishment so far was taking the first step to make the leap and start Reverie Brewing. “I think I’m most proud of having the courage (and support from my wife) to be able to leave a well-paying, secure job with benefits in a Fortune 500 company, knowing there was no guarantee that we would be successful or even in business.”

His advice to current students or young entrepreneurs who are considering going out on their own is “don’t be afraid to try and fail.

Surround yourself with people that you trust and that are smarter than you,” advised Broderick. “One way to be successful in business is to find someone with a different skill set from you. Some people make the mistake of surrounding themselves with the same types of people to make them feel like they’re right or correct. Find people that think differently than you do. And don’t be afraid to talk about your ideas or what you’re doing. I wouldn’t have found Frank if I wasn’t talking about my plans to anyone that would listen.”

– Ryan Broderick ‘05

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HIGHLANDER JOURNEYS

Fearless Litigator

Photo: San Francisco Daily Journal

David Bancroft ’55 Reflects on His Adventures in the Courtroom and the World Bancroft was photographed at his office by the San Francisco Business Times for an article about former prosecutors founding their own private practice law firms.

David Bancroft ’55 began his long and distinguished law career in Washington, D.C., working in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice when Robert F. Kennedy was Attorney General. He rose through the ranks to become Chief of Special Prosecutions for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco before going into private practice with a colleague there. They were the first former federal prosecutors in Northern California to leave their positions to open their own firm, which over the next 40 years, grew into one of the most well-regarded mid-size law firms in the region.

As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Bancroft prosecuted cases involving a wide range of federal crimes, including organized crime, domestic terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and fraud against the government. He also played a pivotal role in the prosecution in the 1976 trial of newspaper-heiress-turned-bank-robber Patty Hearst.

In April 1974, Hearst, the 19-year-old granddaughter of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, was abducted from her Berkeley, California, apartment by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a domestic terrorist guerilla group. She subsequently joined the SLA in robbing banks, became a fugitive from justice and,

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following a nationwide manhunt, was apprehended by the FBI in San Francisco in 1975. She was charged with bank robbery and using a firearm during the commission of a felony.

At her trial, Hearst’s attorneys argued that she had been coerced and brainwashed into participating in those crimes. But Bancroft successfully rebutted those defenses by carefully cross-examining the defense expert witnesses, including UCLA psychiatrist Louis Jolyon West., M.D., UC Berkeley psychologist Margaret Singer, Ph.D., and two other professors. In addition, Bancroft prepared two government expert psychiatrists as rebuttal witnesses for the prosecution, helping to secure Hearst’s conviction.

Still, Bancroft does not consider the Hearst case to be his most important case and has only spoken about it publicly in recent years when a newly published book rekindled much interest in the then more than 40-year-old case.. “When I look back, it was all of the other domestic terrorism cases I did,” said Bancroft, who prosecuted members of the Black Liberation Army, the Venceremos, a wellarmed, radical Communist group (whose members were found guilty of murdering one unarmed prison guard and wounding

another while helping a Venceremos recruit and prison inmate deal. The Gunnery News was an important part of my life at The escape) and the Weather Underground, among others, when he led Gunnery. I like to think that maybe I did a good job as Editor, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office anti-terrorism unit in San Francisco from if so, that was the reason that when I graduated, I was awarded the 1972 to 1978.

Headmaster’s Prize.”

In an article about the 1970s as an era of radical domestic

Elizabeth Kempton taught him mechanical drawing. Classmate terrorism violence in the Bay Area, Bancroft told reporter Michael Andy Masterbone ’55 taught him photography, and art has remained Taylor of the San Francisco Chronicle: “We’d get cases where (the a passion throughout his life. One of his jobs at the school was to BLA) would have significant amounts of help with maintenance. “I took care of the art guns, ammunition, explosives, passports, shack. I had to sweep it out and sweep the Bancroft received this award from the birth certificates and false identity material.” Attorney General of the United States for porch,” Bancroft said, recalling that on his 50th

Times were turbulent, and it was reunion, he returned to the porch of what we his work in the Hearst case. difficult for law enforcement to predict know today as Kempton for a warm reflection. when and where domestic terrorists would

After graduation, Bancroft attended strike. As Bancroft told the newspaper, a boarding school in England for a PG year “There was that awful sinking feeling of the as an English Speaking Union schoolboy indeterminacy of it all, and so much of the before enrolling at Swarthmore College as a [violence] was a way for people to rationalize freshman. He chose Swarthmore after hearing their own criminal instincts. These were it was coed from another Gunn student, killers, robbers and arsonists.”

William Boone ’54, who was going there. “He

said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you this, they have girls.’ I An important part of his life said, ‘Well then, I’m in,’” Bancroft joked.

He graduated in 1960 from Swarthmore Born in West Hartford, Connecticut, with Honors, and a degree in art history, and Bancroft moved with his family to Stamford in 1963 from the University of Chicago Law before coming to what was then The School, where he also met his wife, Cheryl, I was fortunate to Gunnery as a boarding student in 1951. He who was a graduate student in English. “I played soccer and some baseball for the get that appointment tried to get a seat next to her in the library,” school, but his passion was working for the and to be assigned he recalled, but it was always too crowded. newspaper, which was then the main vehicle to Bobby Kennedy’s “We finally met on a bus that was going back for the school communicating with parents from O’Hare to the University of Chicago. I ‘red garnet’ Organized and alumni. got on the bus and who was there but Cheryl Crime Section. I had a

“At that time, one of the big things and nobody else on the bus. I went up to her was to be the editor of The Gunnery News. wonderful experience and said, impishly, ‘Is this seat taken?’ She I had worked on the school newspaper, there. He would invite looked like she just didn’t know what to say, and was lucky enough to be named editorus to his office on but said the obvious, ‘No, it’s not taken.’ I sat in-chief,” he said. Fearless even then, he down, and the rest is history.”

Saturday mornings.” approached then-Head of School Ogden D. Miller H’69 P’50 ’54 ’55 GP’84 and asked – David Bancroft ‘55 A young pollywog prosecutor him if he could interview one of the school’s greatest benefactors, Adrian Van Sinderen In law school, Bancroft was one of only two of the Class of 1906, who was very formal and “old-school,” and who or maybe three students in his class who had any career interest regularly stayed at The Mayflower Inn. in criminal law. When he graduated, he interviewed at the same

“The Headmaster said, ‘Well, just one moment, young man, Wall Street firms as his peers, but he also applied for a job in the we’ll have to see about that,’” Bancroft said. But Miller arranged Criminal Division of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C. “I the interview and Bancroft wrote the story. “That was kind of a big was fortunate to get that appointment and to be assigned to Bobby

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Kennedy’s ‘red garnet’ Organized Crime Section. I had a wonderful experience there,” he reflected. During that time, he had the opportunity to meet with Kennedy. “He would invite us to his office on Saturday mornings. It was very heady stuff, really.”

Bancroft was part of a squad of attorneys pursuing Jimmy Hoffa, who was head of the Teamsters Union and involved in organized crime. His assignment involved assisting in the prosecution of a union official from New York, who was accused of attempting to bribe the jury in the Hoffa case in Nashville, Tennessee. “I was just a young pollywog prosecutor and the senior trial counsel had a stroke just as the final argument was about to begin. He just passed the yellow pad to me and said, ‘You do it, kid.’

So I had to speak for the first time in my life in a courtroom in the most important part of the case and bring it to conclusion,” Bancroft said, adding, “ And fortunately, they convicted the defendant.”

What would you think of San Francisco?

Bancroft and his wife were living in Washington, D.C., while he continued working for the Justice Department, traveling to Pennsylvania and Ohio to prosecute organized crime cases. “I was away from home a third of the year,” he said, recalling they decided it would be better for him to get a job as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in one city, which would require him to travel much less.

That decision seemed even more appropriate after Cheryl became pregnant with their first child, Bancroft said. So he went to his boss, Henry Peterson (who later played an influential role in the Watergate investigation), telling Peterson that he “needed to find a place to roost.” The result was that he was offered a post in Las Vegas, Nevada, where his focus would be prosecuting organized crime cases.

“I nearly died at the prospect of having to move to Las Vegas,” Bancroft recalled. But he knew if he turned the job down, his career would be “dead in the water.” Cheryl encouraged him to take it, believing it would only be for a few years, but when he went back to accept the offer, Peterson looked very unhappy. “He felt terrible. He explained to me that he hadn’t known that that job had been offered by his boss to someone else.”

Two weeks later, Peterson called him into his office and said, “What would you think of San Francisco?” Standing there, I asked myself, “How lucky can you get?”

The core team prosecuting the Hearst case included Bancroft, who was then an Assistant U.S. Attorney, the lead FBI agent (standing, left), and his boss (seated).

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The Bancrofts moved there in 1966 and over the course of the next almost 12 years in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he tried all kinds of criminal cases and became Chief of Special Prosecutions. In 1975, he became a senior member of the legal team that tried the Hearst case, going up against famed criminal defense attorney F. Lee Bailey, who would later defend O.J. Simpson at his murder trial.

“About a year ago, the federal court local historical society put on a program about the Hearst case and asked me to present what it was like to have actually been involved in it,” he said. Thinking back to the trial, he recalled that it took place in a grand, two-story, ceremonial courtroom in order to accommodate the public and media throngs. There were two jury boxes there, one on either side of the room. The press were seated in one, staring directly at the jury in the other. A special sound amplification system was brought in, along with a “jumbotron” movie screen, to show the bank security camera footage of Hearst, fully armed, assisting in the bank robbery.

“I’d never seen a trial like that, before or since,” he said, noting that demand for attendance was so high, it was an undertaking to get his wife a one-day seat in the courtroom.

Asked how he had found the experts who testified for the prosecution, Bancroft said he enlisted the aid of a brilliant attorney, who was also a librarian. “I called her up and I said, ‘Here’s what I need: I need you to research for me in professional journals and the general literature everything you can about brainwashing. Who

Celebrating their 50th anniversary at the Sea Ranch in Sonoma County, California, with all eight grandchildren!

Toobin replied, “That’s the whole point. A lot of people don’t know about it, and it’s a helluva tale.’”

In the book, Toobin wrote that the outcome in her case — her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter, and she was ultimately pardoned by President Bill Clinton — is not afforded to many who have been convicted and imprisoned for committing much lesser crimes. “Rarely have the benefits of wealth, power, and renown been as clear as they were in the aftermath of Patricia’s conviction.”

To this day, Bancroft has no doubt about what really happened in the case.

“There never was any brainwashing as such.

She was an active participant in the bank robbery … then ran around the country with these people after having shot up a sporting goods store in order to free them when they were caught shoplifting. The jury, the trial judge, and the court of appeals determined that’s exactly the way it was, and the Supreme Court declined to disturb their determinations.”

are the experts? And I want a bibliography that’s 20-yards long. I want every book, every Participate in things. monograph, every article, everything that has Try to excel at ever been written about brainwashing. I want things. Be honest, be you to get these things and we are going to considerate. I said this create our own library.’” at the 50th reunion.

The case inspired movies, songs and books, including “Anyone’s Daughter: The These were profound Times and Trials of Patty Hearst,” published things for a kid who in 1979 by author and journalist Shana was searching for a Alexander, who worked for Newsweek and behavior model and Life magazines and “60 Minutes” on CBS. A life of adventure how to determine

“There is something serpentlike about Bancroft was rock climbing when his Bancroft’s manner. The high forehead, hornwhat’s important.” colleague, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard rimmed spectacles, and cool intelligence – David Bancroft ‘55 Sideman, asked him to leave the U.S. recall John Dean,” Alexander wrote, noting Attorney’s Office and join him in starting a that Bancroft had pored over thousands of new firm. To him, the answer was obvious. “You hang by a rope held pages of psychiatric literature in preparation for the trial. “But the by someone … you learn to trust their judgement. So we decided that month paid off. Bancroft is superbly prepared and near-sizzling with we were going to just jump off the cliff and do it.” prosecutorial zeal.”

Sideman was a tax litigator who had experience prosecuting

When Jeffrey Toobin, the former chief legal analyst for CNN, criminal and civil tax cases, and Bancroft decided the firm would asked to interview Bancroft for his 2017 book, “American Heiress: focus on defending people accused of white collar crimes. It became The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst,” successful, growing to include 35 lawyers before the pandemic. the former Assistant U.S. Attorney told him, “‘Who knows about Bancroft retired six years ago and his principal protege is now the the case? Who cares about it now? You’re crazy.’” Bancroft said that

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managing partner. “We have allowed the firm to continue to use our names so in that sense the old firm continues on, and I don’t have to go to work, which is great.”

He and Cheryl still live in San Francisco, in a home with “modestly nice views” of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, and Alcatraz. Cheryl is a former Trustee and former chief docent of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Together they enjoy collecting early 20th-century American color woodblock art prints, traveling, and trying to keep up with their three children, Jennifer, James and Jessica, and their eight grandchildren.

Bancroft and his wife have traveled a good deal abroad, most recently to Europe, Australia and Russia, and he promised to share stories about his adventures in Yemen, India, China, the Marquesas, Africa, the High Arctic, and Pitcairn Island with anyone who attends the next reunion. Pitcairn was the refuge for 1790 mutineers on the ship, HMS Bounty. “Pitcairn sent Captain Bligh afloat on a rowboat and the mutinous crew sailed around until they saw this island ... which was mismarked on the map and is just a craggy rock with trees in the middle of the South Pacific. Today, it’s a tiny one-and-half-mile sized British territory and you have to get special permission to go. I stayed there with Steve Christian, direct descendant of the leader of the mutiny on the Bounty, Fletcher Christian.”

The trip to Pitcairn involved a flight to Tahiti, a second plane to Mangereva, the westernmost French Polynesian island, and then three days aboard a New Zealand freighter, and a wave ride onto Pitcairn on a whale boat. “Only 110 or so souls live on the island.

It’s extremely isolated,” said Bancroft, who traveled with a very

The Bancrofts in South Africa (after a safari in Botswana), “about as far south as one can get on that continent after being almost as far north as one can get on the North American.”

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In April 1989, Bancroft and his longtime friend and fellow adventurer completed a seven-day photo expedition by dog sled from Canada’s Northwest Territories out onto the polar icecap. The route took them within 800 miles or so north of the Arctic Circle. They were accompanied by 12 dogs and their guide, Matusi Akumalik, and observed polar bears, narwhales, icebergs, and seals busting up through the icecap in temperatures that dipped to 45 degrees below zero.

close friend who had retired early and started an adventure travel company. Their fathers had known each other. “The stuff we’ve done together, maybe someday it will be a book.”

Now 83, Bancroft has climbed every mountain in the U.S. over 14,000 feet and has traveled to 45 countries. When he traveled to China, his personal guide was his roommate from Swarthmore, Michael Oksenberg, Ph.D., who was President Carter’s assistant National Security Advisor, and accompanied Zbigniew Brzezinski to Beijing in 1978, on a trip that helped to stabilize U.S.-China relations at the time.

Bancroft credits The Frederick Gunn School with instilling in him certain values: “Participate in things. Try to excel at things. Be honest, be considerate. I said this at the 50th reunion. These were profound things for a kid who was searching for a behavior model and how to determine what’s important,” he said.

He has kept in touch with Dwight Miller ’55, Harvey Chess ’55, Bob Levine ’55, Alan Bain ’55, Fred Fields ’57 P’85, the late Andy Masterbone ’55, and Bruce Porter ’55, who was his roommate senior year (and who began his illustrious writing career as Sports Editor of The Gunnery News). And his memories of campus remain strong.

“I would look out from my room onto this snowscape. I mean, it was just so gorgeous. What’s the expression in ‘The Night Before Christmas?’ ‘The moon on the breast of the newfallen snow…’ It was a picture-postcard setting. I can remember being a teenager and just stopping in wonderment, pausing, and looking. I can still see it in my mind’s eye so clearly.”

TRUSTEE NEWS

Warm Welcome The Frederick Gunn School Board of Trustees is pleased to announce the appointment of a new board member.

Paul McManus ’87 P’21 ’23 was appointed to the Board in January.

McManus is currently with Royal Bank of Canada and its whollyowned subsidiary, City National Bank, N.A., where he is in charge of National Sales and Business Development for the alliance trust platform. He started his career in

and responsible for $2 billion in tailored portfolios. McManus subsequently joined Morgan Stanley Private Portfolio Group and helped to develop the open architecture trust platform until June 2018. A graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University, McManus holds a bachelor’s degree in history, political science and Spanish and earned his MBA in finance and international business from the John F. Welch School of Business at Sacred Heart University. He obtained his Certified Trust Financial Advisor (CTFA) designation in 2016. McManus has stayed

institutional asset management and trading in 1994 with one of the first firms The Family Office created, Flavin, Blake & Company. In 1997, McManus was named head of Citigroup Asset Management’s off-shore equity, derivative and mutual fund trading division, working exclusively for Citi Private Bank’s global client base. From 2005 to 2008, he served as a portfolio manager at Legg Mason, where he was in charge of Alliance Fiduciary asset management

connected to The Frederick Gunn School as a Class Agent, Reunion Committee member and a member of our H. Willets and Samuel Jackson Underhill Bequest Society. He and his wife, Adrienne, have one daughter who graduated in May and another who currently attends The Frederick Gunn School.

In his free time, McManus enjoys spending time with his family in Vero Beach, Florida, Charleston, South Carolina, and Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.

Rossiter’s Riverside Retreat If you remember hiking at Steep Rock as a student, especially during School Walk, be sure to watch “Rossiter’s Riverside Retreat,” presented by Carol Santoleri, author of the new book, “The History of Steep Rock Association: The Jewel in the Crown.” This fascinating program, co-hosted by the Gunn Historical Museum and Steep Rock Association, tells the story of Steep Rock and its founder, Ehrick Rossiter of the Class of 1870, who designed many of the buildings on and around our campus. Steep Rock’s history is intertwined with that of our school and the town of Washington. The Gunn museum’s collection includes some 100 black-and-white photographs taken by another alumnus, Joseph West, Class of 1893, featured alongside current views of the preserve. Although the

“Shepaug River in Steep Rock,” a photo by Joseph West, courtesy of Gunn Historical Museum

program originally aired on March 15, you can watch it anytime at https://youtu.be/v5wpc-b0irw

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What have you been up to since you last were in touch with us?

Drop us a line and tell us your news!

Submit class notes to clementj@

frederickgunn.org or fill out the form at GoGunn.org/classnotes.

Class Notes

= Celebrated reunion in June 2021

1950

1952

the pandemic to say, “Like many, I am a virtual prisoner in my D.C. apartment. My nine grandchildren live in California, Texas, Tennessee and Canada. My two greatgrandchildren live in Chattanooga.

(Always reminds me of a WWII song.)”

1953

Ogden D. Miller, Jr. P’84 wrote during

1951

Alan D. Frese was “Looking forward to

June 11-13, 2021 (for Alumni Weekend)!

Stay well!”

Crane Kirkbride’s wife, Fiona, wrote to us to

let us know that Crane has had Parkinson’s for 14 years. He is doing amazingly well, but it affects his voice and leaves him unable to communicate verbally for more than a few sentences. Ogden D. Miller, Jr.’s ’50 P’84 father was the headmaster at the time Crane attended the school. “Mr. Miller was a very warm and giving person who took Crane under his wing and at graduation awarded him the Headmaster’s Prize, which meant a great deal to Crane. Another memory from the school is a French teacher who heard him vocalizing and remarked, ‘You have a remarkable voice. You should be a singer.’ This was part of what led him to join the Yale Glee Club a few years later.” Fiona also shared that Crane has been involved in music for most of his life and was particularly active in the Glee Club and the J.E. Jesters Octet during his years at Yale.

He has continued to sing throughout the years and is currently working on a CD that will be a compilation of his Irish, Italian, and sacred songs.

Retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Peter Lash sends his regards to his classmates, “Hang in there guys! See you at the next reunion!”

Anthony Delude said, “Wonderful article on

David Hoadley ’51, my brother-in-law!” (See

Bulletin, fall-winter 2020, page 60).

1955

G. Bruce Porter wrote, “Since I retired from

the Columbia Journalism School, my wife, Sara, a painter, and I have been living on an old farm outside Hudson, New York, and this is a special year for us. The most important thing we ever did together was to adopt our daughter, Hana, from China back in 1992. She was in the first wave to come to America. She had been

found at age two weeks beneath a pile of rags in a department store stairwell in Wuhan. The guessing is she’d been left there by her mother, hoping she’d be found and given a new lease on life, as it were. This May, Hana will graduate with a master’s from the Columbia School of Social Work, hoping to work in the field of international refugees. She’s married to Gabriel Gavidia, a project manager for a Manhattan construction company, and a political refugee from Venezuela. They’re expecting soon to begin raising children — one or two, and Hana sometimes says three. Sara and I are so thankful to be part of the new population amalgamation, prospective grandparents of ‘citizens of the world.’”

1956

Jerry LeVasseur’s daughter, Linda

LeVasseur, wrote a book about her father that came out in August 2020 called “Fitness, Fun and Friends: Stories from a Remarkable Life.”

Hana Porter, daughter of G. Bruce Porter ’55, with her husband Gabriel Gavidia

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coastal area, very remote (50 miles to the nearest stoplight) and we’re very happy here.

Here’s our day: Swim, read, drink, eat, sleep, repeat. Some bad golf every couple of weeks.

We go down to San Francisco every three to four weeks to pick up mail, etc. This is more than you wanted to know, but there it is.”

1959

Steve Bent wrote to say he renamed his boat Tom Braman ’57 sent us this 1926 photo of John Chapin and Mary Brinsmade’s 50th wedding anniversary. Back row: Tom’s grandfather, Hunnewell Braman (Class of 1911), who was known as “Chi” and married Frederick and Abigail’s granddaughter, Eleanor Brinsmade; Josephine Stephen Brinsmade (wife of Fred); Chapin Brinsmade; Helen Carter Brinsmade (wife of Chapin); and Alfred Bellinger (who married Frederick and Abigail’s granddaughter, Charlotte). Front row: Mar Brinsmade (Class of 1905), Nana (Eleanor, Class of 1903), Fred Brinsmade (Class of 1898), Mary (Class of 1853) and John Chapin Brinsmade (Class of 1862), and Charlotte Brinsmade Bellinger (Class of 1911).

According to the description on Amazon, “Fitness, fun and friends is a motto Jerry LeVasseur has lived by for more than 80 years. Despite incurring what could have been debilitating injuries at age 6 in the historic Hartford Circus Fire, Jerry has not allowed that horrific experience to overshadow his life or his injuries to hold him back. Determined to prove that he was just as capable as other kids, he pursued sports in school and as an adult has devoted his leisure time to two passions, dogsled racing and competitive running.”

those days there was a train from Washington to New York. They were very close.”

Fred Fields P’85 wrote, “Roxanne and I have

been riding out the pandemic at our house at The Sea Ranch, a community 100 miles up the coast, north of San Francisco. It’s a beautiful

“Queen of Da Nile” to “Owl Woman.” Owl Woman was the daughter of White Thunder, the keeper of the sacred arrows for the Cheyenne tribe, and the wife of Charles Bent who, with his brother William, built Bent’s Fort in Southern Colorado in 1830. It is now a National Historic Site.

1960

Randy Richmond loves to travel: “I traveled

to the Galapagos four years ago and Antarctica two years ago. Mostly I am trying to get to all the national parks and monuments. I’ve done all west of the Mississippi, except for about a dozen.”

1957

Tom Braman commented on the photograph

of his grandmother, Eleanor Brinsmade (granddaughter of Frederick and Abigail Gunn), that appeared in “The History of The Abbey.” (See Bulletin, fall-winter 2020, page 19.) “She was a very interesting person. My cousin has her diaries from around the turn of the century. She was teaching in Maryland and would take the train every once in a while to go to New York to meet her father, (second Head of School) John Brinsmade (Class of 1862), at Delmonico’s Steak House in Manhattan. In

Steve Bent’s ’59 boat, “Owl Woman,” in the water just before Christmas, when family was visiting

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CLASS NOTES

who live in Philadelphia, Austin, and Portland Maine. I spend my time fishing, woodworking, and sailing. Tim Gaillard and Steve Davol put in a lot of hours to plan our 60th reunion, but unfortunately their efforts will likely not come to fruition because of the pandemic. I am committed to any effort to organize a reunion at another time and hope you will support their efforts to bring us together, including a Zoom session. My best to you all.”

1964

George Cookman sent us this update in Jonathan von Ranson ’60 with his wife, Susan, celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in Vermont

Jonathan von Ranson sent an update in

October to share that he and Susan “celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary (and 40 years together) by breaking out of our small COVID zone and driving to Southern Vermont for a great evening meal along with an overnight at a real B&B, one that actually serves breakfast!

Both places were historic — a candlelit Revolutionary War tavern and, one town south, the homeplace of Ira Allen, an organizer of the Green Mountain Boys and brother of Ethan Allen. We hoped to visit Bennington Potters, but found their quarters, this weather-worn former coal, grain, lumberyard and hardware store, closed. Congratulations to Peter Becker and my friends the Krimskys for bringing Frederick Gunn back to life, in a sense, and for the inspiring motivation and clearer direction that is obviously giving the school.”

Gerrit Vreeland said: “I retired from Alex

Brown after 42 years and retired as Chairman of The Gunnery after seven great years. I will be the last to serve in that position as those that follow me will Chair the Board of The Frederick Gunn School. Toni and I divide our time between Bridgehampton, New York, in the summertime and The Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo in the wintertime. We have three sons

February: “In 2020, we had no less than three great visits by our daughter, Suzanne, and her family. Liam, five years old, is wonderful, and ‘my sista’ Audrey,’ age two, is a handful. We had many rides on the boat, lobster dinners and lobster rolls, and family time in Harpswell. I put together a little prayer book for Liam that his parents — at his request — are reading to him at bedtime each night.

Among the surprises of 2021 was the arrival of daughter Maggie’s first child, August Morris Schaffer, seven weeks early! He was healthy from the start at 3 lbs. 9 oz., and is now over 6 lbs.

1961

Ted Seibert wrote in October: “I have been

retired for 12 years now and find myself busier than ever. Very active in my church and our senior center. Before the pandemic I taught pickleball, a great game, especially for us old folks. Hoping to see classmates at our 60th reunion next year.”

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We misidentified one of the alumni in this photo, taken at Alumni Weekend in 2015 and published in the fall-winter 2020 issue of the Bulletin (page 47), and we’d like to correct that. Back row: George Haines ’60 and Hank Platt ’60. Front row: Gus Koven ’60, Jeff Farrington ’60, Jim Hughes ’60, John Crawford ’60, Tom King ’60, George Krimsky ’60 and Randy Richmond ’60.

the room and asks us some Big Questions. How can we live together in community, even when we don’t agree on some of our core ‘Truths?’

Might we share our perspectives and discover some empathy for those who hold such sharply opposing views?” I’ve been asked to design a multi-level program for a university as well as the ones I’ve done for schools.”

1967

Eli Dokson is living in Crestone, Colorado,

“Under the Oak Tree” by Chris King ‘64

So, now, hopefully, we face the daunting task of traveling during the pandemic to LA. The good news is that Sally and I have received both shots, and will be at full immunity. 2021 is slowly shaping up to be a great family year with the kids coming for visits, boating, and a mostly outdoor restaurant activity. I hope to teach Liam fishing this summer. My neighbor has offered assistance.

She fishes year-round, and she lands seasonal striped bass routinely.

I recently heard a story about a young pianist who is well recognized for her talent. She said she stopped almost all practicing when the pandemic hit. Months later she realized somehow ‘things had changed.’ So she sat down and recorded a difficult piece that she said was her best performance ever. Perhaps this is a light at the end of the tunnel to who-knows-where.

May we all experience a similar epiphany as we re-emerge into the new normal, and strive to give our best performance ever.”

Chris King said that he is “fortunate to be

waiting out the pandemic in the beautiful Ojai Valley between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. My late-in-life ‘career’ as a fine artist got off the ground with a Ventura gallery show in fall of 2020!”

1965

Bill Atherton wrote: “Still farming … ’til it’s

gone, I guess. But it keeps me moving even if it is difficult. Exciting prospects for creating a conservation camp, having finally put together an exciting team. My run amok hobby of restoring a run of endangered steelhead trout is having success! And fun for local students excited to watch two and three-foot fish spawning in a stream they helped protect.

What is not so much fun is my wife being stuck in New Hampshire on family matters, does not feel well and goes to the doctor, two days later in Mass General Hospital for emergency surgery. Mass General people saved her life.

Thank you Massachusetts General Hospital! I talk with Andy Leonard and Mike Sicher on a somewhat regular basis, which helps me greatly. But if you like to fly cast for really big trout, come on out. Shepaug River is scenic and fun, but they ain’t sissy fish here. (Might be asked to pull a few weeds however.)”

“in the beautiful San Luis Valley of Southern Colorado. Very close to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Stop on by!”

1968

Alex Bellinger received a Finalist Fellowship

from Mass Cultural Council in 2020 for his work in Traditional Arts.

Bob Savarese retired in May 2020 at age 70

after 43 years in banking! He hopes to be able to visit the school or attend the New York alumni reception when we’re able to get together again.

“Looking forward to wearing the alumni hat and gathering with other alumni.”

1966

Ralph Singh writes, “Our theme ‘Changing

the Story from Intolerance to Inclusion’ is getting major attention as a way to build an inclusive community whether in school or community. It was also featured on The Fetzer Institute’s LinkedIn page. To quote them, “In this article, Ralph addresses the elephant in

Bob Savarese ’68 is enjoying retirement.

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CLASS NOTES

1970

Bill Rose wrote in February to say he had

escaped NYC for Florida. “Have spent lots of time with kids and grandkids (6) in Charlotte.

A big blessing during COVID. Reconnected with Craig Yarde, retired U.S. Navy Commander Charlie Miletich and Otis Anderson, who I played baseball with.”

1971

Peter Cree wrote to say, “My old buddy, Jay Freeman, contacted me when he saw my art

instruments. (See Bulletin fall-winter 2020, page 70.) He and I had an electric band in ’71 and ’72. Always the precise and incredibly fast lead guitarist, Jay has retired and now records and has a band. Reconnecting is great.”

Charles Mead retired from American

Airlines Flight Dispatch three years ago. His husband, Tom, is also retired. They continue to live in Dallas. “I have developed a passion for gardening, and I continue to ride my bicycle.”

1973

David Emery was saddened to hear of the

passing of his friend and former teammate, Jerry Bennett, Jr., on April 30, 2020.

Bennett was a retired Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy and lived in Naples, Florida.

“Jerry and I were teammates on the football and basketball teams long ago,” Emery said. “He was a pleasure to be around, always displaying such a positive attitude. He was a born leader and had his sights set on the Naval Academy while only 17 years old. A great athlete, starting quarterback for our football team and starting forward on our basketball team, he leaves me vivid memories (exactly 50 years later) that I will always cherish. My condolences go out to his family at such a difficult time.”

Bill Rose ’70 with his wife, Vicki, and their children and grandchildren

1974

Duke Webb told us: “In early 2019, I moved

back to Lexington, Kentucky, after 15 years in South Florida. I had moved there to be close to my aging parents, but after they both passed, I had to escape the heat and humidity down there! In October of 2019, I became critically ill, and spent three full months in the hospital’s ICU, seven weeks of which were spent in a medically induced coma. Just over a year later, I am still ‘recovering,’ and am still receiving both

1975

Joe Colombatto wrote in February to

Joe Colombatto ’75 and his wife, Victoria, celebrated 17 years togetherl

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physical and occupational therapy. Regardless, I’m alive and improving daily! In retrospect, my docs think that it might have been COVID-19, but it was several months before they believe the coronavirus arrived in the states. The course and progress of the illness was exactly the same as the most severe cases of COVID. Still, I’ll soon be thriving again!

Over the past several years, I have become deeply impressed with the changes and progress of The Frederick Gunn School, and I love the school’s name change! Hopefully, I will get a chance to visit again before too long. To the members of the Class of ’74, I recently learned that our classmate, Steve Sachs, passed in 2016. I had stayed in touch with him over the years; he was one extraordinarily funny guy, and I’ll miss him.”

share several videos he recently produced, including a 30-second ad for a Connecticut K-9 unit awareness campaign for the Hometown Foundation, another for skiing at Windham Mountain, and a third for the Farmington

Polo Club’s 2021 season. He and his wife, Victoria, celebrated their 17th year together.

“And it’s been four years since Mike O’Neil died. I miss him. My three dogs are all doing well!”

those who are in a career transition research and explore business ownership, owning a franchise, or franchising an existing business.

Looking forward to seeing some old friends this summer.”.

Craig Cooper moved to Sarasota, Florida,

1979

in March 2020, after 30 years in Washington, Connecticut, as a private wealth/mortgage banker with U.S. Bank. He noted he has “two lovely daughters, ages 28 and 23.”

1976

Roger Frank wrote: “I have retired, and prior

to the pandemic we were traveling at will. Thus far, my wife, Sharon, who is also retired, and myself have gone to Greece, and thankfully returned from Puerto Rico just before COVID-19 closed down our borders. We were scheduled to go to Spain, Southern France, and Italy in October. That has been moved to 2021.

Although I have been to most of the National Parks in the Western United States, my wife has not. Hopefully barring any other delays, remedying that will occur in 2022. While I stay in touch with many of my classmates, there are many who unfortunately are M.I.A. I would love to hear from anyone from my time at The Gunnery (now The Frederick Gunn School), as well as Wykeham Rise! If you find yourself in upstate New York, look me up.”

1977

Lawrence Griffith retired from The Colonial

Williamsburg Foundation as Curator of Plants and lives with his partner of 38 years.

1978

Scott Milas sent this update in February: “My

wife and I are excited to welcome a few new grandkids into the world in 2021. My business has grown, helping new entrepreneurs and

Norma Davis reported:, “I am working

for Disability Rights Maryland as the Pro Bono Program Managing Attorney and am telecommuting from New Jersey in this COVID era. I am in the process of waiving into the Maryland bar. Not taking the bar exam again.

New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts bar exams, well let me just say it’s enough for a lifetime. My daughter is 25 years old and working as an economist at the Federal Reserve and my son is 17 years old and a senior in high school. I hope that my husband and I can celebrate our 27th anniversary in Hawaii. That is, if we are both vaccinated.”

George Fryer reported: “The family is well

and moving forward. My son, Chris, who interned at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory two summers ago, is all excited to see the helicopter Ingenuity fly off the Mars rover. He worked on the design team — probably just fetching their coffee — but still pretty cool.

He now works at Raytheon, designing flying things. My son, Jonas, is in his final semester at University of Richmond, wondering if there are any jobs for economics and film production dual majors.”

Sean Peoples wrote, “My daughter, Emily,

graduated from the University of Denver last spring and currently works as a data analyst in Denver. My son, Matt, graduated from Salisbury School and attends Union College in New York, where he plays lacrosse and is majoring in economics; and my youngest son, Mark, rows crew and plans to attend The George Washington University in the fall. I am serving my second four-year term as Probate Court Judge for my district in Central Connecticut and continue practicing law in

Victor Petroni and his fiancé, Maura Masotti

Hartford and coaching crew. My wife and I spend time during the summers at Cape Cod and at the Connecticut shoreline in Niantic Bay.” Victor Petroni said: “After losing my wife

five years ago to pancreatic cancer, I am so fortunate to have found love again and am engaged to be married! Despite COVID and the loss of my father, 2020 has been a great year for me. I fell in love, became a grandfather, lived on a beautiful 100-acre ranch in Santa Ynez, California, and got to celebrate my 60th in New Orleans with all my immediate family!”

Heidi Rowe wrote: “Retired to beautiful, quiet

Sandwich, New Hampshire in 2019. Pandemic hit about eight months later, but we’ve been fortunate because we live in a very rural area and the outdoors (mountains and lakes) is available for play. It has been a blessing. My parents (both in their late 80s) decided to move to a retirement community in Southern New Hampshire in October. They are loving their new, easier life and making many new friends with school connections. I’m about to become a grandmother. Yikes! Finally, turning 60 was hard! How did we get to this age? Hope you are all well, staying healthy (and sane) and, by the time of this publication, vaccinated.”

Ann Watson Lipham P’10 reported: “I

was furloughed in March 2020 and the hotel has been closed ever since. But I am grateful to have had the time to spend on the south coast of Massachusetts, where I mostly have been living since quarantine. There are worse places to be ‘stuck!’ My son is expecting my first grandchild in May — can’t wait! I was born for

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CLASS NOTES

this. I visited him in early March — long drive to South Carolina, but well worth it. We had been planning this for a year, so it is a long time in the works. My daughter, Lexie Lipham ’10, is still in research at Vanderbilt Medical Center and will be beginning a master’s or Ph.D. program in public health in the fall.”

1980

Hilary Fairburn Sullivan was looking

forward to seeing many at reunion in June. She wrote in February: “While Scott and I missed traveling to celebrate our 25th, we did enjoy hosting our grown children for several months .... What a gift! My college counseling business continues to grow. I pivoted quickly to virtual and expanded my business from a local South Florida focus to serve clients throughout the U.S. Please be in touch if you’re in the area: hfs@virginiabush.com.”

1983

Alix Longfellow recently moved to Newtown

Square, Pennsylvania. She is self-employed as a daily money and life affairs manager, working with individuals and families and helping them to manage the important details of their lives.

For the past seven years (excluding 2020 due to travel restrictions) she has spent the winter months living in New Zealand.

Alix Longfellow ’83 in New Zealand

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1987

Ray Whitney P’24 wrote in February: “It’s

been a wild, whirlwind year with my youngest, Erin ’24, attending FGS (aka Gunnery, Gunn) during COVID! We’ve had adventures and misadventures; I’ve shared memories, and we’ve shared discoveries. I’ve learned a lot, seeing Gunn through her eyes. She’s already an admissions tour guide and a passionate champion for the school.

Inspired, and appreciative of so many things The Gunnery community has done for me over the years, I’m embracing a few FGS roles. I’m helping Paul McManus P’21 ’23 and Carey Bodenheimer as Class Agents. I’m also connecting with my fellow freshman parents as a parent agent. Something old … something new … I’m enjoying the conversations and connections.

We could not manage the Maryland/ Connecticut logistics without support from Beth ‘86 and Peter Barhydt. Their Greenwich home has become many things for my family. It’s our safe house where we ride out quarantines; it’s a meeting place for parents and alumni; and it’s a learning workspace — they’re mentoring Erin, putting her to work on The Greenwich Sentinel, their newspaper.

I travel between Maryland and Connecticut, with frequent stops in Delaware (where my eldest is a freshman nursing student at University of Delaware). Let’s find a way to connect!”

The cover of Havy Haveliwala’s ’88 newest book, his 18th

1988

Hozefa “Havy” Haveliwala (who writes

under the pseudonym, Harvey Havel) has published his 18th book, “The Odd and The Strange: A Collection of Very Short Fiction.”

It is available everywhere. He gives his fond regards to his Gunnery friends and misses them very much.

From Doug Lee we heard: “The house feels so empty with both kids away to college.

My daughter will be graduating from UC Santa Barbara this spring with a degree in psychology.”

1989

Whit Bingham Crosby wrote in October:

“Hey, Class of ’89. Really bummed we weren’t able to get it together for our 30th reunion.

Maybe after we survive this worldwide

Whit Bingham Crosby ’89 with her family in Montana last fall

pandemic we can plan for our 35th! I’m still out in Montana and would love a visit, assuming you test negative first. :)” Peter Herrick lives in South Portland, Maine,

with his wife and their 16-year-old son. He wrote: “I am working at a local university and continuing to make art on the side (and masks, still the masks; currently working on a design for cycling that can be easily pulled up when approaching or passing people). I am a partner in my wife’s jewelry business, Illuminated Me (illuminatedme.com) and we have started a new business at Living-United.com, producing stitched-in-the-U.S., reusable, fashionable, antimicrobial gloves. Up until the pandemic, I saw my parents pretty frequently as they live several blocks from us. If you make it to Maine, once you can do so safely, reach out at climbupit@gmail.com.”

Peter Smith wrote in February: “Still living

with my wife and black Lab in Las Vegas.

Recently took over box office and ticketing operations for all of Boyd Gaming (20-plus venues across 10 states). No real trips during COVID. Staying home and staying safe.”

1990

Proud Gunn parent Carolyn Klemm P’90 shared this update about her son, Peter Klemm: “He loved The Gunnery, went to American University, then a hedge fund, then returned to Washington, Connecticut, and is now the number-one broker in Litchfield County. He is married to Christina and they have three daughters. All attend Rumsey Hall, where Peter went.”

Steep Rock was a popular spot for running, biking and hiking throughout the pandemic, as locals and those new to the area enjoyed spending time socially distanced in nature.

In November, Laura Martin P’20 ’23 ’25 organized a race at Steep Rock. Morgen (Goepel) Fisher ’03, Cass (Goepel)

Marang ’08, Tal Fagin P’24 and Heidi

Diedrich P’24 were among the race participants while Richard Martin P’20 ’23 ’25, and Susan H’91 P’90 GP’20 ’23 ’25 and Michael Eanes H’90 P’90 GP’20 ’23 ’25 cheered them on!

1991

Tello Pescatello said: “Doing well, folks.

Family and I are in California.”

From proud Gunn parent Stephen Tillman P’91 we heard that Aaron Tillman had his short story, “Soiling the Tree of Knowledge” accepted by the journal, Tin Can Literary Review.

1992

1997

Matthew Greene started a new role as an

experienced hire recruiter with Deloitte.

Due to an editing error, the Class Note for Yasmin (Zaman) Lawrence in the Bulletin fall-winter 2020 issue included some incorrect information. She was born in Berkeley, California.

In February, Mike Messina said: “Hope everyone is well. Lauren, Jackson and I are living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and will be welcoming a daughter in mid-May.” Sean Stellato was back on the road this

1993

Ben Sherman is living in Danbury,

Mike Messina ’97 with his wife, Lauren, and son, Jackson, in Pennsylvania

Connecticut, with his wife, Tanisha. He is working from home for The Hartford insurance company as a computer specialist.

spring for the first time in 11 months. Stellato represents Ifeatu Melifonwu, one of the top cornerbacks in the 2021 NFL draft, who appeared in the Senior Bowl. He also got to rewind the clock and play in the 21st Celebrity

1995

Danielle Sass Byrnett was

recently elected to the Board of Directors for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) in Washington, D.C. Danielle lives in Alexandria, Virginia, with her husband and two boys (ages 4 and 6), and works as Director of the Center for Partnerships & Innovation at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.

(L to r): Obi Melifonwu with the 49ers, Doug Flutie, Sean Stellato ’97 and Ifeatu Melifonwu

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CLASS NOTES

B.J. Utter’s ‘99 children, twins Genevieve and James, and Hazlin

Mark Zambero ’99 and Jamie Albro on their wedding day

Sweat Flag Football Challenge on Clearwater Beach, which was televised on ESPN as part of Super Bowl Weekend. To put the icing on the cake, he caught 2TD’s from boyhood idol Doug Flutie.

in Bethlehem, Connecticut, at the home of his parents, Jody and Jamie Zambero P’99 ’05.

The wedding party included his daughter, Hailie, who was a junior bridesmaid, his sister, Lisa (Zambero) Daly ’05, and cousin, Ryan Dayton ’00. The couple is living in Connecticut.

1998

Whit Matthews wrote, “We brought a new

addition into the family over the summer.

Meet Gunner!”

1999

Mark Zambero and Jamie Albro, the

Admissions Receptionist at The Frederick Gunn School, were married August 16, 2020,

B.J. Utter is living in Connecticut, in the

Windsor area, and working for Travelers Insurance. He and his wife, Claire, have a oneyear-old and welcomed twins, Genevieve and James, in early 2021.

2004

Mark Lauretano wrote to us in late

October: “Greetings 2005! So, ever since I got out of college I have been working on different types of cargo ships. Four years ago I transitioned from traditional cargo ships over to replenishment ships, which are designed to meet U.S. Navy and other public vessels in the middle of the ocean to give them supplies (food, fuel, mail, repair parts etc.) so that they can operate in the ocean for extended periods of time. I’m writing you all because this fall, I just had the honor of resupplying our own classmate, Joe Leahy, in the middle of the Philippine Sea. Joe is currently assigned to U.S. Navy Cruiser USS Antietam, which had been on a mission in the Asia-Pacific region for months. By coincidence, Joe and I were

Joe Solosky was excited to announce that

he was taking a new position starting March 1 as a managing director within NASCAR. “With the position, a move will be required to Charlotte, North Carolina. My wife, Erica, and I are excited to be moving down south and hopefully connecting with old friends and new connections based in Charlotte. Please feel free to reach out and I am looking forward to moving down south!

2005 Whit Matthews’ ’98 newest addition, Gunner!

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Proud Gunn parent and new grandparent Emily H. Taylor P’05 shared that Wells Mueller and his wife, Jill, welcomed a baby boy, Evans Osgood Mueller, born June 9, 2020.

Wells Mueller ’05 with his son, Evans Osgood Mueller

Mark Lauretano ’05 gives a thumbs-up from his replenishment ship as it delivered a full tank of fuel to the USS Antietam.

Among the U.S. Naval Officers on board the cruiser was Joe Leahy ’05.

also roommates senior year in Gibson dorm.

It’s crazy how two people can go to school in small town Connecticut and then run into each other 15 years later in the middle of the ocean on the other side of the planet. It’s always an honor to bring the Navy what they need and this occasion was extra special. Take care, 2005!”

Drop Joe a postcard and show him some love.

LCDR Joseph Leahy USS Antietam (CG-54) Unit 100130 Box 1 FPO, AP 96660-1174

Heather Lincoln ’06 recently moved to Milan to pursue a master’s in fashion business and entrepreneurship.

Mike O’Brien ’07 with his bride, Sheila Kelleher

2007

2008

Friday, October 9, 2020.

Frederick Gunn School. I am very proud to be working for my alma mater. The Alumni & Development Office is great! I am married to my high school sweetheart, Kate Murphy, and have three kids: Cole, Charlie and Ellie.”

Mike O’Brien married Sheila Kelleher on

Ryan Meade, a physical education teacher

and boys lacrosse coach at Chariho Regional High School in Wood River Junction, Rhode Island, was named the National Federation of State High School Associations state coach of the year for lacrosse in 2019-20, The Westerly Sun reported in December. “During Meade’s four years at Chariho, the Chargers have won Division III championships in 2017 and 2018 and reached the semifinals in 2016. Meade’s teams have a record of 51-18 (.739) in his four seasons,” the newspaper said.

2006

Having lived in the Dominican Republic for several years and most recently in L.A., Heather Lincoln has moved to Milan to pursue a master’s in fashion business and entrepreneurship at Istituto Marangoni.

Despite fluctuating restrictions, she and her partner, Matteo Spadafora, were able to settle in nicely and explore nearby areas, including Lake Como. She looks forward to traveling more in the months ahead and graduating from her program.

Christian Bianchi wrote: “I work at The

John Vazzano and his wife, Brianne, just The Bianchi family: Kate, Ellie, Cole, Christian ’08 and Charlie

celebrated their second wedding anniversary.

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CLASS NOTES

prize and bragging rights in the first season, which debuted May 12 on Discovery Plus and HGTV. To see his cool garden designs, follow him on Instagram @gardencowboy.

2010

In October, Alex Vazzano and his wife, Brianna, had just had their second son, Roman, who joins big brother, AJ.

2012 Kyle Ward ’08 was promoted to the rank of Hospital Corpsman First Class in the U.S. Navy.

Kyle Ward was meritoriously promoted

to the rank of Hospital Corpsman First Class, United States Navy, and was recently admitted to the Physician Assistant Program at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. He intends to take a 24-month break in service to attend the program and upon graduation, will commission in the Medical Service Corps as a Navy Physician Assistant.

He recently received the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal for administering lifesaving intervention before first responders arrived at the scene of a horrific motor vehicle accident he witnessed in Willow Springs, Illinois. He currently resides in Chicago and began his master’s in physician assistant studies in June 2021.

2009

Via Instagram, we heard that Ed Pequignot Jr. was competing in a new, six-episode television series, “Clipped,” with celebrity judge Martha Stewart. Pequignot took on six other “top topiary artists” in a bid to win a $50,000

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The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

Jeff Trundy, the David N. Hoadley ’51 Baseball Coach, was excited to share that another alumnus of The Frederick Gunn School has made it to the big leagues. Catcher P.J. Higgins was called up to play for the Chicago Cubs this season from Triple-A Iowa.

“Higgins made an impression this spring on manager David Ross, who on Wednesday cited the catcher’s game-calling behind the plate, preparation and how he handled the Cubs’ pitching staff,” NBC News reported May 19.

“He’s a phenomenal third baseman,” Ross told NBC. “They rave about his defense in the infield. I think he’s a really good catcher.”

2014

Brandon Garzione wrote: “Following

obtaining my MBA at the University of Alabama, I joined the New York Yankees sales team in late 2019. The pandemic changed a lot of things and I relocated to New Orleans, working in sales for the Saints and Pelicans. I hope everyone at Gunn is well.”

Kayla Meneghin completed her third season

in the National Women’s Hockey League this winter. She joined the Buffalo Beauts after two seasons with the Connecticut Whale, according to the Plattsburgh Press-Republican.

Virginia Dodenhoff’s ’15 new pup, Mignon, rocking her new Gunn gear!

2015

Virginia Dodenhoff welcomed home her

new Bernedoodle puppy, Mignon, earlier this year! “She’s growing fast, is queen of the head tilt, and can’t wait to come visit the Gunn campus.” This spring, Virginia and Mignon are relocating to New York City from Denver, so if you’re in the area, give them a shout!

2016

Miranda Levin received her bachelor’s degree in

public relations and strategic communications from American University in May 2020.

Congratulations to U.S. Army goaltender Trevin Kozlowski for being named to the 2021 Mike Richter Award Watch List. This award is given to the nation’s top Goaltender in NCAA Division 1 hockey. He was also named to the 2020-21 NCAA Second All-American Team and just completed his senior year at the United States Military Academy at West Point, according to the Iowa Wild, which signed him in May to an amateur tryout agreement.

Hamilton College announced in April that

2017

Calista Connors graduated from Elon

University in May with a bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting. In June, she was moving to Wilmington, North Carolina, and starting her position as a financial analyst at Live Oak Bank, the nation’s largest SBA lender.

Cédrick Andrée ’18 tending goal for the Ottawa 67’s.

2020

From proud Gunn parent Carol Kachur P’17 ’19 we heard that Ben Kachur was a senior mathematics major at Emmanuel College. He graduated this spring in the Class of 2021 and lives in Boston.

University, was named the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year, the New Haven Register reported in April.

“Donnery started all seven games for the Bobcats, finishing with a team-high 13 goals along with two assists,” the paper said. The team finished the season with a record of 4-3 (4-2 MAAC) and was named MAAC regular season co-champions.

Photo: Quinnipiac University Athletics

Cédrick Andrée wrapped up his final season

From Jeff Trundy, the David N. Hoadley ’51 Baseball Coach, we heard that left-handed pitcher Mike Esposito was pitching this spring at Chipola Junior College in Florida, “always one of the top junior college programs in the country.” Former Texas Rangers manager Buck Showalter and former Toronto Blue Jay José Bautista are among the baseball program’s notable alumni.

freshman year at Bucknell, where she was one of four members of the women’s rowing team to win All-Patriot League Honors. “Gaggini was thrown right into the fire as a first-year coxswain in the Varsity Eight. She was one of only three freshmen to earn All-Patriot League honors this year, joining Colgate’s Genna Lamphier and Navy’s Lauren Day,” the school said in May. Prior to that, Gaggini guided her Bison crew to an 11.5-second victory over Delaware, a performance that earned them

Dylan Donnery, a freshman at Quinnipiac

2018

as a goaltender with the Ottawa 67’s junior ice hockey team and is expected to move on to “bigger and better things,” according to The Hockey Writers’ Frankie Benvenuti. After joining the 67’s in the 2017 offseason, he quickly became a fan favorite and signed with the Bellevile Senators (AHL) for the 2020-21 season.

“He works extremely hard on the ice and won’t ever get outworked by anybody,” former 67’s associate coach Mike Eastwood told Benvenuti.

“He’s a very quick goaltender with a lot of upside and gets better every time he steps on the ice.”

Juliette Gaggini had an outstanding

Photo: Nathalie Gaggini P’17 ’20

was among 71 student-athletes who earned a spot on the 2021 NESCAC Winter AllAcademic Team. The all-academic recognition honors sophomores, juniors and seniors who have maintained a cumulative grade point average of 3.50 or better.

Photo: Terry Wilson/OHL Images

Chad Varney of the Men’s Ice Hockey Team

Dylan Donnery ’20 was named MAAP Conference Rookie of the Year.

Juliette Gaggini ’20 competed in the first Varsity Eight in the Patriot League Championship in May, placing second behind Navy.

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CLASS NOTES

Lenaijah Ferguson was featured in The

Baltimore Sun in March for seeking to set an example for future Black lacrosse players.

Ferguson, who just completed her first year at the University of Hartford, and her childhood

at the Division I level, the newspaper said. In the article, Ferguson drew praise from Hawks coach Meg Decker for talking to her UHart team about what it is like to be a Black woman playing a predominantly white sport, and what it’s like playing on a Division I lacrosse team as a Black student. “With what’s happening right now with Harlem Lacrosse’s first graduating class and organizations like Harlem Lacrosse popping up all over the country and the differences they are making in the lacrosse community, this is a history moment,” Decker told The Sun. “This is about something bigger than a game and changing it so that the game of lacrosse looks like the world, not just like a team of white girls on the field.”

Photo: Jenny Moe, Executive Director, Harlem Lacrosse - Baltimore

Patriot League Boat of the Week honors. “The final was a great race with Navy, BU, and Bucknell neck and neck through the first 500 meters, well ahead of Lehigh, Colgate, Holy Cross and Loyola Maryland. At that point, Navy gained the lead and BU was up by a few seats on Bucknell. At about 1,000 meters, Bucknell made a move to overtake BU and gained on Navy to the finish. Unfortunately, Bucknell ran out of racecourse and came across 2.75 seconds behind Navy in 6:37.386,” Gunn Head Rowing Coach Lincoln Turner said. He further reported that Gaggini was nominated for a research grant by her English professor this year, and won. “It’s the emerging scholar’s program,” she told him. “I created my own literature research project with my English teacher, centered around 20th-century female authors and their relation to the natural environment while looking at gender, race, and class.”

Lenaijah Ferguson ’20 and her childhood friend, Dymin Gerow, are the first two women from Harlem Lacrosse to play Division I lacrosse.

friend, Dymin Gerow, a freshman at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County this year, were recruited as members of the Harlem Lacrosse Baltimore chapter’s first middle school graduating class. They are the first two women from the national organization to play lacrosse

Harry Harwood, Buckley Huffstetler

and Nathaniel Ince were among several members of their class who took a gap year due to the pandemic. They had an exciting fall. They traveled out West starting in August, trained a dogsled team in Montana; tended livestock on an organic farm in Colorado, and then took a road trip to several National Parks. Their last stop was Hawaii, where they met up with Travis Powell, Trevor Hoivik and Harry Sutton, and worked as landscapers. Harwood also completed an internship with Litchfield magazine this year.

From proud Gunn parent Charlotte Maxwell P’16 ’20 we heard that Libby Maxwell and Sofia Pattillo were among 12 members of the Hobart and William Smith Colleges field hockey team to earn a spot on the 2020 NFHCA Division III National Academic Squad in March. Maxwell was a first-year defender on the team last fall and Pattillo, a first-year forward. The Division III National Academic Squad program honors student-athletes who have achieved a cumulative grade point average of 3.3 or higher through the first semester of the 2020-21 academic year.

Harry Harwood ’20, Buckley Huffstetler ’20 and Nathaniel Ince ’20 were back on campus for the Class of 2020 Celebration in June.

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IN MEMORIAM The Frederick Gunn School Community is saddened by the loss of many cherished sons and daughters and sends its condolences to their

Michael Vogtland, who spent his

sophomore year at The Frederick Gunn School, reached out to Lauren Lord in the Dean of Students Office last spring. He was graduating from his high school in Germany and was planning to visit campus in May 2020 to spend time with the graduating class. He was disappointed that his travel plans were disrupted by the pandemic, but passed along his greetings: “I hope to come and visit in the future when things are normal again. Until then, I will keep my fingers crossed. Say hi to all the teachers still on campus!”

Faculty News

On March 5, two faculty families welcomed new additions on the same day!

Congratulations to Jim Balben, Director of Residential Life, and his wife, Stephanie, who welcomed a son, Weston. He joins big sister, Cecelia.

friends and families:

Bart and Kate McMann’s ’05 daughter, Lucy

Kate McMann ’05, Co-Director of College

Counseling, and her husband, Bart, Director of the Center for Citizenship and Just Democracy, welcomed a daughter, Lucy Campbell, who joins big brother, Benjamin.

The Frederick Gunn School baby boomlet continued June 2, when Assistant Head of School for Teaching and Learning Emily Gum, her husband, Wheeler, and big brother, Hezze, welcomed George Evelyn Wit.

Mr. Frederick S. Fish, Jr. ’40

5/12/2010

Mr. James M. Baker ’41

11/18/2017

Mr. Jervis Van Vleck Heimbach ’41

12/6/2020

Mr. Richard G. Hattauer ’43

8/25/2020

Mr. Warren B. Mitchell ’45

8/25/2016

Mr. Richard L. Feigen ’47

1/29/2021

Mr. Francis Story Talbot II ’47

7/22/2018

Mr. C. Clayton Parks, Jr. ’50 P’85

1/27/2021

Mr. Colin R. Doane ’51

10/9/2017

Mr. E. S. Auchincloss IV ’52

7/7/2020

Mr. Augustus G. Kellogg III ’52

5/19/2021

Mr. George M. Auchincloss ’53 P’83 11/30/2020 Mr. Michio Nakano ’53

9/16/2019

Mr. Hugh F. Fitzpatrick ’54

11/19/2019

Mr. Brent Malcolm ’54

10/25/2020

Mr. Christian de Guigné IV ’56

10/20/2019

Mr. William D. Stoessel ’57

12/23/2020

Mr. Julian A. Spiro ’58 Mr. George W. Haines ’60 Mr. Hoagland Keep ’60

4/5/2021 11/2/2020 3/8/2012

Mr. Richard O. Drivdahl ’61

1/20/2021

Mr. Stephen G. Gessner III ’61

5/4/2014

Mr. William R. Paton ’61

5/5/2021

Dr. Henry V. Soper ’62

11/10/2020

Mr. William G. Wrightson III ’62

11/18/2020

Mr. Christopher G. Avery ’64

12/4/2020

Mr. J. Nowell Delevett ’66

6/11/2017

Mr. Donald S. Akin ’68

6/22/2017

Mr. John B. Faas ’68

8/10/2020

Mr. James L. Buttenwieser ’70

3/17/2021

Mr. Peter B. McInerney ’70 Mr. Norman Riley ’71

2/2018 5/2/2021

Lieutenant Jerry F. Bennett, Jr., USN ’73 4/30/2020 Mr. Stephen C. Sachs ’74 Jim and Stephanie Balben’s son, Weston

George is the son of Emily and Wheeler Gum

Ms. Susan B. Kroll ’91

2/19/2021

Mr. Michael Ridolfi ’92

8/22/2020

Mr. Brett Sanelli ’95

Follow The Frederick Gunn School online at FrederickGunn.org

10/24/2016

Mr. Matthew Z. Zomick ’97

9/2/2019 7/13/2020

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In Memoriam: Richard L. Feigen ’47 Richard L. Feigen ’47, whom Sotheby’s hailed as “a pivotal figure on the international art scene for the last 63 years,” passed away on January 29, 2021. He was 90 years old.

Feigen was inducted into the school’s Arts and Letters Hall of Fame in 2012. According to the citation honoring him, he came to what was then The Gunnery from Chicago in the fall of 1946 to complete his senior year before heading to Yale University, where he earned his undergraduate degree, and then to Harvard, for his MBA. “After that, Dick launched a career in the world of fine art representation, becoming the most noteworthy Gunnery alumnus in this realm. Dick inaugurated his first art gallery in Chicago in 1957, where he exhibited 20th century masters, concentrating on German Expressionism and Surrealism. In 1963, he opened a second gallery in New York City, showing work by such classic 19th and 20th century artists as Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso, Brâncuşi, and Mondrian. By 1965, and until 1973, Dick was also operating what was the first gallery in SoHo, which showed cutting-edge Contemporary art.”

He sold works of art covering seven centuries to some 121 museums worldwide and counted among his clients the Louvre, the Metropolitan, the National Galleries of Washington and London, the Getty, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Boston, Stockholm and Berlin.

“He knew and represented contemporary artists such as Jasper Johns, Jean Dubuffet, Joseph Cornell and James Rosenquist,” Sotheby’s said, noting that Feigen was a generous donor and lender to museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Yale University Art Gallery, where parts of his personal collection can be seen today.

“The legendary art dealer and collector, Richard Feigen, was remarkable for the breadth of his taste. He once described himself as a ‘collector in dealer’s clothes.’ Richard always bought in advance of taste and prospered when the world followed him,” recalled Petter Sutton ’68, a friend who has also dedicated his life and career to art. He served for 17 years as Executive Director of the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, and prior to that, was head of the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, senior director of Christie’s Old Master paintings department, and a senior art adviser at Citicorp.

Of Feigen, Sutton said: “He dealt and collected everything from early Italian Renaissance gold grounds to Contemporary art. He sold works to more than 100 museums and gave Joseph Beuys and Francis Bacon their first shows in the U.S. He dealt

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and personally collected French and British Romantic art. (A magnificent Turner hung beside a dozen works by the rare and short-lived Richard Parkes Bonington in his living room). Richard was also a generous man, donating a Carlo Saraceni to the Met, and exhibiting his extraordinarily large early Italian paintings collection in the Yale Art Gallery in 2010. Italian Baroque was also well represented in his collection, with a superb Annibale Carracci and Orazio Gentileschi’s masterful Danae, now in the Getty Museum. His German Expressionist collection was no less distinguished, indeed he had at one point so many works

by Max Beckman that you wondered if the artist was still alive and painting in the back room. Richard could also be blunt and outspoken, rarely suffering fools gladly, as his memoirs, ‘Tales from the Art Crypt,’ attest. He abhorred the diminished role of connoisseurship in art history and was contemptuous of the corporate mentality of many museums.

“And yet he had a good heart, was loyal to his friends, and was a rare liberal progressive in the art trade. I will certainly miss him,” Sutton said.

In 2019, Sarah Crompton interviewed Feigen at his home in New York for Christie’s, noting that he “had studied art history briefly at Yale, but was otherwise self-taught. Yet his instinct often proved sound. His book and his life are full of tales of finding an undiscovered or misattributed masterpiece tucked away in an auction catalogue or antique shop, consulting scholars on its provenance and finally selling it, often to a museum or gallery.

Regularly, he didn’t quite know what he had bought until after he had bought it — an extraordinary talent he cannot explain.”

Crompton wrote that his most favored paintings, including three Fra Angelicos, ended up at Yale University Art Gallery,

The legendary art dealer and collector, Richard Feigen, was remarkable for the breadth of his taste. He once described himself as a ‘collector in dealer’s clothes.’

Richard always bought in advance of taste and prospered when the world followed him.”

– Petter Sutton ’68

Feigen possessed a lifelong desire “to acquire the good and the beautiful,” Crompton observed, quoting him as saying, “I cannot imagine life without art.”

According to a statement from his gallery, Richard L. Feigen & Co., Feigen remained active in his work until the end of his life. “At his last location on 77th Street, Richard continued his daily work schedule and enjoyed seeing colleagues and clients who came by to pay tribute to the legendary elder statesman. He was passionate, he was brilliant, and he was never shy of giving his opinion to the high and mighty, be that about a particular painting, the policy of a museum or how a collection should grow. We admired his vision, grit and stamina until the end.

“Collectors and museums all over the world have benefited from his vision and he was generous with the institutions that he loved. He started out by collecting modern works and later, the dialogue with art historians such as Sidney Freedberg and Laurence Kanter resulted in one of the finest private collections of Italian pictures in the country. To his alma mater Yale (B.A.’52) he gifted many of his renowned works of the early Italian Renaissance,” the statement said, continuing, “In 2019 Richard donated Carlo Saraceni’s magnificent altarpiece, ‘The Dormition of the Virgin,’ to the Met in honor of Max Hollein and in celebration of the Museum’s 150th anniversary. Keith Christiansen calls it, ‘a major gift that transforms the Museum’s representation of baroque painting.’

“Above all, Richard was a passionate collector. A giant of the art world, he will be fondly remembered for his larger-than-life personality and for all the lives he touched,” his gallery said.

Photo: Daniel Dorsa

where two are still on view, including “Saint Joseph,” from 1418-20, and “The Vision of Saint Lucy,” from 1427–29.

“They’ve got my whole dining room,” Feigen said in the Christie’s article. “All the Italian paintings from the 14th century on. I’ve sent them off on loan, because the apartment above this one was sold and the man who bought it is going to completely remodel it, and I felt the dust and everything else would be hazardous for the paintings. It will be a lot of disruption, a lot of dirt.”

Richard Feigen ‘47, photographed at his home in New York in 2019 for Christie’s.

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FACULTY PROFILE

Ten Minutes With Amy Paulekas As Director of Studies, Amy Paulekas spends much of her time working one-on-one with students to help them stay on point academically. “So much of her day is devoted to helping students, teachers, and families find the most academic success and growth possible,” said colleague and friend Cassie Ruscz, who noted that Paulekas takes pride in and values those interactions.

In the Academic Office, Paulekas helps manage course registration, grades and comments, and parent-teacher-student conferences. She also educates students about the school’s Academic Honor Code — ensuring they are adhering to it — and helps them to navigate the course selection process for the coming academic year. She approaches her role much like she does coaching basketball: with confidence, a strong knowledge of what needs to get done, and a healthy dose of good humor.

Originally from Glastonbury, Connecticut, Paulekas graduated in 2011 from Colby College in Maine, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in economics with a minor in mathematics. She rowed for Colby’s women’s crew team and was named team captain her senior year. Every summer since 2007, she has worked at Camp Eagle Wing, a 150-acre overnight camp on Gardner Lake in Marion Township.

She teaches waterfront lifeguarding and is the waterfront head for some 75 campers, who range in age from 8 to 16.

Since joining The Frederick Gunn School in September 2011, Paulekas has taught Algebra I and II, PreCalculus and Calculus (including AP). She has coached boys crew, JV Field Hockey, Girls Varsity Lacrosse and Girls Varsity Basketball, including five years as Head Coach. She previously served as Assistant Academic Dean, Junior and Senior Class Deans, Head Dorm Parent in Bourne and is currently a dorm parent in Graham House, where she lives with her dog, Matrix.

Q: What is your favorite Frederick Gunn School tradition?

A: “I’m a big fan of School Walk day. I think it’s a very Freddy thing.

It’s unique that we take the kids on an all-day walk. Who does that?

That being said, the Christmas concert is a great event. I’m a big fan of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas.’ I can usually be seen yelling ‘three French hens,’ even if that’s not the number that I’ve pulled. And the years I do, I yell extra.”

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The Frederick Gunn School Bulletin

Q: What advice do you have for new students?

A: “First and foremost, get out of your room, particularly for new boarding students. The first week, the easiest thing to do is stay in your room, because it’s the comfy place. Be OK taking risks. High school is a time and a place to figure out who you are, to be yourself, and part of that is learning from things. If you play it safe, you’re not going to learn as much. Go out, take a risk, try a sport you’ve never played, speak up in class even if you’re not sure. All those moments, little or big, are things you will remember. You took the risk to go do it.”

Q: What is your favorite lesson or day of the year?

A: “I’m pretty sure my classes will tell you that I tell them it’s my favorite lesson six times a year. Probably my favorite day of the year is the first day of school. I love the moment when you’ve got all the returning kids coming back and being able to see each other and this whole new set of kids. You watch them start to have conversations with people; just the whole ambiance is great.”

Q: Who has influenced you the most?

A: “Alisa Croft has kind of been there for me since Day One but has been there as a mentor, my department chair. She has always been there to look out for me but also to kick me to the wolves. She was a great role model when I started here.”

Q: What would you say to Frederick Gunn if he were here?

A: “After so many years, I hate to break it to you, but Brian Konik has the best beard on campus.”

Education B.A. in Economics, Colby College Honors and Accolades Tisch Chair for Excellence in Teaching 2015-2018 The Class of ’55 Distinguished Teaching Award, 2017 Current Responsibilities Director of Studies Mathematics Teacher Head Coach, Girls Varsity Basketball Assistant Coach, Girls Varsity Lacrosse Curriculum Committee Student Success Team Dorm Parent, Graham House

THE FREDERICK GUNN SCHOOL BULLETIN SPRING 2021 Peter Becker Head of School BOARD OF TRUSTEES 2020-21

DESIGN John Johnson Art Direction, Riverton, Conn. PRINTING David Emery ’73, GHP, West Haven, Conn.

OFFICERS 2020-21 Patrick M. Dorton ’86 Board Chair Neil Townsend P’18 ’20 Vice Chair Wanji Walcott P’19 Vice Chair Beth W. Glynn Secretary William T. Tolley P’08 ’14 Treasurer

Stephen W. Baird ‘68 William G. Bardel Peter Becker, Head of School Robert Bellinger ’73 Sarah Scheel Cook ’82 Jon C. Deveaux Gretchen H. Farmer P’05 Ashleigh Fernandez Susan Frauenhofer ‘88 Adam C. Gerry P’21 Sherm Hotchkiss ’63 Peter R. Houldin ’92 Thomas R. King ’60 Jonathan S. Linen ’62 Paul McManus ’87 P’21 ’23 Len Novick P’18 ’21 Krystalynn Schlegel ’96 Omar Slowe ’97 Richard N. Tager ’56 Robert M. Tirschwell ’86 Dan Troiano ’77 Rebecca Weisberg ’90

MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS

Doug Day Director of Marketing & Communications dayd@frederickgunn.org Jennifer Clement P’22 ’25 Bulletin Editor clementj@frederickgunn.org ALUMNI & DEVELOPMENT

Sean Brown P’22 Chief Development Officer browns@frederickgunn.org

TRUSTEES EMERITI Stephen P. Bent ’59 Leo D. Bretter ’52 P’88 Jonathan Estreich P’06 Edsel B. Ford II ’68 David N. Hoadley ’51 Joan Noto P’97 Jonathan Tisch ’72 Gerrit Vreeland ’61 ALUMNI ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Laura Eanes Martin ’90 P’20 ’23 ’25 President Omar Slowe ’97 Vice President Scott A. Schwind ’89 Krystalynn M. Schlegel ’96 PARENTS FUND COMMITTEE CHAIR Keith Gleason P’19 ’21 ’23 Committee Chair

The Bulletin is produced biannually (spring and fall) by The Frederick Gunn School Marketing &

Communications Department.

ADMISSIONS

Suzanne Day Interim Director of Admissions days@frederickgunn.org

The 1850 Fund

FUELING THE FREDERICK GUNN SCHOOL EXPERIENCE

From experiential learning opportunities and faculty development to student life activities, athletics, and financial aid, your annual gift to The 1850 Fund enhances the experience of every student at The Frederick Gunn School.

Gifts of all sizes from alumni, parents, and friends, collectively help ensure that our programs, our campus, and our faculty are the very best for our students.

Make Your Gift Today

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Jess Baker, Peter Becker, Jennifer Clement P’22 ’25 PHOTOGRAPHERS

Jim Cooper, Daniel Dorsa, Phil Dutton ’81 P’23, Shane Gorman ’10, Jen Hart, Heidi Johnson/ Washington Ambulance Association, Rebecca Leclerc, Mark Liflander, Becky McGuire, Chip Riegel, John Senecal, Tony Spinelli, Lincoln Turner, Ben VanHouten/Seattle Mariners

Venmo: @GoGunn1850 Online: GoGunn.org/MakeAGift By phone: 860-350-0184 By mail: using the enclosed envelope

Spring 2021

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Non-Profit Org. U.S. POSTAGE PAID Milford, CT Permit No. 80

99 Green Hill Road, Washington, CT 06793

GoGunn.org

Recipe for Success at The PO In October, after a brief hiatus, The PO reopened to rave reviews through a new partnership between the school and local business owners Frank and Maggie Colangelo. A New Milford native and graduate of Newbury College, Maggie Colangelo previously attracted loyal followings as the chefproprietor of 9 Main Cafe in New Preston and baker-owner of Food for Thought in New Milford.

At The PO, she has combined her talent for creating delicious baked treats such as homemade “pop tarts,” “cruffins,” and decadent layer cakes with entrees that showcase seasonal, local ingredients, some of which come from her own Flirtation Farms.

Business has been brisk from Day One, when students streamed down Kirby Road, eager to place their first orders. Community support has also been strong. Local residents brought the Colangelos old photographs of The PO, and a colorful painting now featured on PO coffee mugs. They also helped The PO to secure Reader’s Choice Awards from Litchfield Magazine in six categories as well as “Best Lunch” and “Best New Restaurant” awards from the Editors’ Picks at Connecticut magazine.

The doors remained open throughout the pandemic with online ordering, curbside pickup, and outdoor seating at heated Kotatsu tables. With the community’s encouragement, Colangelo is planning to restore the original soda fountain. See what’s new at

meetyouatthepo.com.