The Lawrentian - Winter 2022

WINTER 2022

THE LAWRENTIAN • WINTER 2022

Lawrentian THE

It All Hinges On This Generations of Lawrentians emerged transformed after passing through the many doors of Lawrenceville.

10 WELL BUILT

22 SKELETON KEY

38 ALWAYS COME PREPARED

Leap of Imagination Greg Foster ’22 longjumped himself into a Mercer County indoor record on January 22 at Lavino Field House with a leap of 24’8”.

Greg had set a new standard in December, eclipsing a mark that had stood for 36 years, but his latest jump made him the No. 1-ranked high school long jumper in the nation and the second best in state history, trailing only Olympic champ Carl Lewis.

LEADING FROM OFF THE HEAD OF SCHOOL

On the Cover: Hingeworthy: The doors of Lawrenceville have been portals to new experiences and lifelong friendships for more than 200 years.

(Photo by Michael Branscom)

‘WE CAN DO THIS!’

O

n a damp, cold Sunday evening in early January, I was coming out of my office when I encountered two Second Formers, suitcases in tow, heading for Girls’ Lower. It was the return from winter break, and students had been arriving all day. I called out, “Hey girls, how does it feel to be back on campus?” As if on cue, without skipping a beat, they both replied, “Awesome!” I had to smile. Even on a cold, rainy, winter evening, it felt awesome to be back on campus.

We have been in nonstop planning and problem-solving mode for the past 23 months, but as I said to the faculty and staff recently as we prepared to bring students back in the midst of the omicron surge, on the heels of holiday gatherings, “We’ve gotten pretty good at this!”

I reminded them, “We’ve become far more nimble at pivoting and adjusting to changing circumstances – we know how to do this. We came back this past August amid a considerable spike in the delta variant, and we were able to meet that challenge head on, and we can do this, too.”

And all things considered, we’ve had a remarkably successful first half of the school year … though we’ve all learned to temper our enthusiasm until the final pitch of the ninth inning! We had a full interscholastic athletic program this past fall and in-person dance and Periwig productions. Faculty and students have grown accustomed to masking in the classroom, and with the beautiful weather we had in the fall, we ate a lot of meals outdoors.

We’ve had our moments, of course. We breathed a collective sigh of relief as we made it to the December holiday break just as the omicron variant was coming on in full force, barely squeezing in our traditional Lessons and Carols in the Chapel, House banquets, and our 73rd Lawrenceville Ice Hockey Tournament.

These were especially joyous, in-person events that we appreciated all the more this year and have learned not to take for granted.

My leadership team and I then immediately devoted our attention to planning the January return. As I told parents in late December, “In spite of all the worrisome news and what may feel like a setback, our planning efforts have been focused on maintaining the ‘core elements’ of the campus experience: in-person teaching, interscholastic athletics, performing arts, and a sense of connection and belonging through House affiliation. This is clearly important to the wellbeing of our students, and therefore a priority for us. We have shown we can do this, and we will continue to find a way.”

So we adjust to new circumstances. For the winter term, with the highly transmissible omicron near its peak, we upped our masking expectation to N95s or the equivalent, and we expect all eligible community members to receive the vaccine booster. And, of course, we monitor conditions as we go. In late January, after several weeks of community testing data and with our numbers trending in a reassuring direction, we relaxed the masking requirement in sports, and to say this was welcome news for our athletes is an understatement!

In spite of all the uncertainty, life goes on in a most positive fashion. We had back-to-back girls’ and boys’ varsity basketball games on a recent Saturday afternoon in front of a full house of cheering parents and students; there was a beautiful Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day vespers service last Sunday evening in the Chapel; and just the other night, I stood on the bench with our boys’ varsity hockey team as they brought home a win over Princeton Day School.

When I see our students, masks and all, getting the most out of their Lawrenceville experience, it truly makes it all worthwhile. And on we go!

Sincerely,

Stephen S. Murray H’54 ’55 ’65 ’16 P’16 ’21 The Shelby Cullom Davis ’26 Head of School

The Need for Speed: �

elly Curtis ’08, who competed at the International K Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation championship in December, qualified for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. (Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)

FEATURES 26 It All Hinges On This

Whether passing through ancient portals or modern entries, countless lives have been transformed after walking through the doors of Lawrenceville.

32 A n Order of Magnitude

Through his Bento textmessage ordering platform, Adam Dole ’00 connects people experiencing food insecurity to free, healthy, ready-to-eat meals from popular restaurants.

DEPARTMENTS 4

A Thousand Words

6

In Brief

10

By the Numbers

12

Inside the Gates

14

On the Arts

16

Fall Sports Roundup

18

Go Big Red!

20

Table Talk

22

Take This Job and Love It

24

Ask the Archivist

38

My Favorite Teacher

40

Class Notes

78

Old School

22

FROM THE BASEMENT OF POP HALL

A

ll of us have our own memories of the first time we arrived on the campus of The Lawrenceville School. Our longtime chief financial officer, Wes Brooks ’71 H’59 ’09 P’03 ’05, once told me about being just a boy coming up the road, past the end of Humphreys Drive, and how from the back seat of the car, he saw the woods flanking the roadway open to reveal the sun-lit Fathers Building at the far end of the Bowl. The effect, he said, was permanent. He was hooked.

Then again, perhaps John Stephan ’59, who was driving his younger brother-in-law to see his new school for the first time that day, knew a little something about maximizing the power of a first impression.

Before he embraced the idea, a very skeptical Garry D. Howard ’77 came to visit Lawrenceville from the South Bronx after earning a full scholarship through the A Better Chance Program. Disembarking from his bus, Garry was met at the Main Gate by his host, Ralph Spooner ’75, a resident of Harlem who at the time was one of only about a dozen Black students at the School. The School administration thought their shared background would put young Garry more at ease.

“I got off the bus, walked on the campus, and the first question I asked him was, ‘Where is the school?’” Garry recalled in 2019. “[Ralph] started laughing. He said, ‘This is all the school.’ I said, “No, no, which one of these buildings is the school?’ Because in New York, high schools are just one building. He said, ‘No, all of this is the school.’” By the end of the weekend, Garry didn’t want to go home.

These are the memories of young people entering into a place that would profoundly alter their lives. The idea of a doorway as a threshold of transformation is not a new one. It’s a wellworn metaphor, popular in verse, song, and imagery. It speaks of change, of beginnings and ends, and even opportunity. On what else would opportunity knock, even if it knocks only once?

On this campus, these metaphors are also familiar to you as actual doors – often historic ones at that. Some of our doors have welcomed students for more than two centuries, while others have yet to require a second coat of paint. It’s easy to go about your day here and not think too much about the doorways you pass through, so we invite you to pause for a conscious, purposeful moment to see these doors for what they are – entries, yes, but also passageways to experience the world in a new way, learning not what to think, but how to. As you review the photographs beginning on page 26, think about how you were changed after crossing those thresholds. Did you not emerge transformed?

On the Dexter Gate at the edge of Harvard Yard, its crest is inscribed on one side: “Enter to grow in wisdom.” On the reverse is the challenge, the hope of an institution like this one: “Depart to serve better thy country and thy kind.”

All the best,

L

WINTER 2022 | VOLUME 86 | NUMBER 1

Editor Sean Ramsden

Art Director Phyllis Lerner

News Editor Lisa M. Gillard Hanson

Staff Photographer Paloma Torres

Contributors Andrea Fereshteh Jacqueline Haun Ryan Jahn ’22 Zoha Khan ’22 Jen A. Miller Sarah Mezzino Woody Webb ’64 Alex Xia ’23

Photography by Steve Anderson Michael Branscom Connor King ’22

Illustration by Tiago Galo – Folio Art Vectorvexelart

Class Notes Design Selena Smith

Proofreaders Rob Reinalda ’76 Linda Hlavacek Silver H’57 ’58 ’59 ’61 ’62 ’63 ’64 GP’06 ’08

Head of School Stephen S. Murray H’54 ’55 ’65 ’16 P’16 ’21

Assistant Head of School, DIrector of Advancement Mary Kate Barnes H’59 ’77 P’11 ’13 ’19

Director of Communications and External Relations Jessica Welsh The Lawrentian (USPS #306-700) is published quarterly (winter, spring, summer, and fall) by The Lawrenceville School, P.O. Box 6008, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648, for alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends.

Periodical postage paid at Trenton, NJ, and additional mailing offices.

Sean Ramsden Editor sramsden@lawrenceville.org

The Lawrentian welcomes letters from readers. Please send all correspondence to sramsden@lawrenceville.org or to the above address, care of The Lawrentian Editor.

Letters may be edited for publication.

POSTMASTER Please send address corrections to: The Lawrentian The Lawrenceville School P.O. Box 6008 Lawrenceville, NJ 08648 ©The Lawrenceville School Lawrenceville, New Jersey All rights reserved.

A THOUSAND WORDS

The first phase of construction on Tsai Field House, Lawrenceville’s athletic, dining, and community hub, is moving along, with the complex’s signature curvilinear roofline now visible over sections such as the one seen in the foreground here, which will house the new ice hockey rink. Take a deep numerical dive into the construction project on Page 10.

Photograph by Paloma Torres

Gym Dandy

IN BRIEF

REMEMBERING THE DEAD: DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS

SPORTS BUSINESS CLUB WELCOMES LPGA COMMISSIONER

LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan P’22, a former coach and athletics administrator at Lawrenceville, returned in November to address the Sports Business Club. (Michael Reaves/Getty Images Sport)

Ladies Professional Golf Association commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan P’22 spoke to members of Lawrenceville’s Sports Business Club in November, sharing stories about her career and key lessons she has learned from working in the business side of sports.

After graduating from Princeton University, where she was an accomplished athlete, Marcoux Samaan came to Lawrenceville as the assistant athletic director and coach of the girls’ ice hockey and soccer teams. In 1995, she left the School to work for Chelsea Piers Management, where she gained extensive experience in the sports business industry. After spending almost two decades with Chelsea Piers, Marcoux Samaan was appointed athletic director at Princeton University, where she remained until early 2021, when she was named commissioner of the LPGA. — Ryan Jahn ’22

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T H E L AW R E N T I A N

Lawrentians gathered on November 1 to honor departed loved ones in the School’s celebration of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. To mark the event, students and staff screened the documentary film BBC Feasts: Day of the Dead, decorated sugar skulls and skull luminarias, and served Mexican treats on the Bath House Café patio. The event was cosponsored by student clubs Latinos Unidos and the Catholic Students Organization, along with the Religious Life Council and Bunn Library.

Alexis Gonzalez ’22, co-president of Latinos Unidos, was happy to see so many students and adults at the event. “I really appreciate that so many people came and hope that this will become a Lawrenceville tradition,” she said.

Community members were invited to add a photo to a Day of the Dead altar, which was decorated with flowers, candles, and other items representing the traditional Mexican holiday. Salt (to purify the soul), favorite foods and drink (for the soul to enjoy), and marigolds are traditional means of guiding souls to the altars, as are representative items recalling things that the person loved in life.

“Everything is about guiding the soul back home,” said Spanish teacher Josefina AyllónNuñez. “The altar is personal so the soul knows that this is the place for them to come.”

Photos of Lawrentians’ lost loved ones filled the altar during the School’s Día de los Muertos celebration on November 1 in Bunn Library.

ELLIS LEADS AT PEOPLE OF COLOR CONFERENCE Math teacher Summar Ellis led a workshop, “Black Joy and Celebration,” at the 2021 National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) People of Color Conference (PoCC) in December.

“I feel very privileged, honored, and so excited,” Ellis said after she was announced in October.

PoCC is the flagship of NAIS’s commitment to equity and justice in teaching, learning, and organizational development. Its mission is to provide a safe space for leadership and professional development for people of color, and networking for people of color

BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ CROSS COUNTRY RUN TO M.A.P.L. TITLES Both Big Red cross country teams legged out Mid-Atlantic Prep League team championships in October at The Hill School. The girls swept the top four spots, with Nishka Malik ’24 finishing first overall, just ahead of Elizabeth Parnell ’23, Allison Haworth ’22, and Megan Kumar ’24.

The boys were led by Thomas Atkinson ’22, who finished fifth overall. Taksh Gupta ’25 placed sixth, and Yan Tsenter ’23 crossed the finish line in ninth place to complete the strong Lawrenceville showing.

— Zoha Khan ’22 and Alex Xia ’23

“Black Joy and Celebration,” Ellis said, was a workshop centered around happiness in the Black community.

“It will be a space to escape the consistent display of Black tragedies and traumas by dedicating time to illuminate Black joy absent of oppression – an idea that seems impossible.” She also Summar Ellis led a workshop at a National Association of Independent Schools conference in December.

and allies of all backgrounds in independent schools.

looked at what it means to have a space dedicated to Blackness without trauma being the center of every conversation and ask how news outlets portray or purposely avoid this imagery.

STRIKING GOLD AT MARTIAL ARTS CHAMPIONSHIP Three members of Lawrenceville’s karate program participated at the World Tang Soo Do Association U.S. National Championship in October 8-9 in Pocono Manor, Pa. Rebecca Chou ’22 and Deyaan Guha ’22 competed as advanced brown belts, and karate coach Eli Montes was challenged at black belt.

Chou captured two gold medals; Guha won two golds and a silver.

“I am so proud of these students,” said Montes, a first-degree black belt who is aiming to advance to second degree in the spring. “They’ve worked really hard for this, especially since they have had to deal with COVID-modified classes – over Zoom, outside, and inside with masks on – since they started.”

Ain’t That a Kick? Rebecca Chou ’22, Deyaan Guha ’22, and karate coach Eli Montes competed in the World Tang Soo Do Association U.S. National Championship. (photo

by Connor King ’22)

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7

NOT GOING BY THE BOOK Ycreated anhongherZhang own text for Honors Chinese Language students.

“No one knows my students better than me,” said Yanhong Zhang, who spent parts of two summers creating an anthology of Chinese works appropriate for her Lawrenceville students.

Yanhong Zhang couldn’t find a highquality textbook for her students. The Chinese Honors Literature teacher wanted to further their Chinese language and cultural knowledge, but she felt that the content in the available texts wasn’t

quite right.

So, she created her own.

Zhang spent parts of two summers creating an anthology of Chinese poetry, prose, plays, and song lyrics that would contain material appropriate for her Lawrenceville students.

“No one knows my students better than me,” said Zhang, who did the work with the support of a Lawrenceville School Woods Grant, a stipend that supports faculty summer curricular growth that will benefit students in the classroom.

Her anthology, Selected Reading of Modern Chinese Literature, includes 20 literary works by renowned Chinese writers. Each chapter includes the text of the literary work (with simplified and traditional characters), a vocabulary list, grammar highlights, Harkness discussion questions, and essay assignments.

“The selected works in this textbook are concise and easy to understand in terms of language expression,” Zhang said. “I avoided works with too many local slang words, overly colloquial expressions, or too formal of a writing style.”

Zhang’s anthology also gives Lawrentians a chance to revisit excerpts from a classic Chinese novel they read previously – in English – in their Second Form English class. Monkey: A Folk-Tale of China (Journey to the West, written in the 16th century). Her honors students also get a chance to read portions of “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” written in the 14th century, in Mandarin.

Last summer she added Dream of the Red Chamber, another work considered one of China’s great classical novels, written in the 18th century. It’s a book Zhang, who has a doctorate in linguistics, has drawn more from as she’s read it at different times in her life.

“I want my students to start on that journey,” she said.

Zhang works diligently to “honor the writer” in her translations, making meticulous word choices to express the author’s original nuances.

“The challenge for students is to understand the subtleties, especially between synonymous words,” she explained. “If you can master that information, it will help you precisely express yourself.”

After consulting with her peers at other schools, who face the same dilemma in finding appropriate texts for honors students, Zhang has begun submitting her anthology for publication.

“It’s not easy and it takes time,” she said.

“But it’s OK, because my students find it useful.”

Zhang is happy to be back in her classroom this year, surrounded by students, as the School carefully moves closer to “normal” during the ongoing pandemic. On the first day of classes, she said, she felt so much positive energy from her students.

“They motivate me every day,” she said.

“I’m so lucky to be a teacher.”

— Lisa M. Gillard Hanson

GIRLS’ TENNIS SWEEPS M.A.P.L. The girls’ tennis team swept all five flights at the Mid-Atlantic Prep League championship in October at Mercersburg Academy.

“The team played with hustle, guts, and intelligence,” said head coach Dave Cantlay H’89 ’91 ’93 ’94 ’15 P’07 ’09 ’11. “It was all a joy to watch, just as these kids have been a consistent joy to coach all season long.”

Title winners were: Sabrina Yeung ’22, first singles; Tiffany Yeung ’22, second singles; Piper Harrell ’22, third singles; Christabelle Sutter ’23, fourth singles; and the team first doubles tandem of Siri Larsson Regnstrom ’22 and Aarushi Attray ’23.

Girls’ tennis netted wins across the board at the M.A.P.L. championship.

8

T H E L AW R E N T I A N

ALI ELECTED TO ORAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION NATIONAL COUNCIL

Zaheer Ali was tapped to serve on the national council of the Oral History Association.

Zaheer Ali, director of Lawrenceville’s Hutchins Institute for Social Justice, was elected to serve on the national council of the Oral History Association (OHA), the leading national organization of oral history practitioners since its founding in 1966.

Ali has worked as an oral historian for nearly two decades, collecting, preserving, interpreting, and sharing life histories, testimonies, memoirs, and narrations of people from all walks of life. He has interviewed hundreds of people, including public figures, private citizens, activists, artists, educators, students, business leaders, politicians, community organizers, and clergy members, as well as people of different ages, faith traditions, nationalities, sexual orientations, and racial, ethnic, and gender identities. Oral historians “gather, preserve, and interpret memories of people, communities, and participants in past events,” according to the OHA. It is both the oldest type of historical inquiry – predating the written word – and one of the most modern, now using 21st-century digital technology to capture narratives.

Ali came to oral history many years ago as a historian in search of primary sources that could help tell the stories of communities that were marginalized, ignored, and/or silenced in traditional archives.

ELEVEN SIGN NCAA NATIONAL LETTERS OF INTENT Eleven Lawrenceville student-athletes signed NCAA National Letters of Intent on November 11, committing them to study at and compete for some of the nation’s finest colleges and universities. All members of the Class of 2022, they are:

Hanaway Croddick –

Charlotte Bednar – track

Mimi Brown – rowing,

rowing, Lehigh University

and field, University of Notre Dame

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Brooks English – lacrosse, Johns Hopkins University

Annie Brown – rowing,

Piper Harrell – lacrosse, Davidson College

Kyley Toye – ice hockey, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Mel Josephson – lacrosse,

Bella Koch – lacrosse,

Chris Begier – lacrosse, Bucknell University

Bucknell University

University of Virginia

University of California, Berkeley

Astrid Gruber – rowing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

BOYS’ WATER POLO WINS GARDEN STATE TOURNAMENT The boys’ varsity water polo team captured the 2021 Garden State Tournament in October at Lawrenceville. The title is the team’s fourth in a row and its eighth since the tourney’s 2010 inaugural.

Big Red entered the tournament with high expectations but received a harsh greeting from a strong Pingry School squad, which handed them a loss in the first game.

Boys’ water polo won its fourth “The beauty of it was that that loss gave our kids consecutive Garden State the necessary fuel to fire them up, and we dominated Tournament. all the other games,” head coach Julio Alcantara Martin said. And dominate they did. In the next rounds, Big Red dominated St. Benedict’s Prep and St. Peter’s Prep before downing Pingry in the final, 11-7.

Goalie Bradley Barrett ’23 shone brightly, as did Akeil Smith ’23, who led the team with 11 goals, followed by Max Blecher ’23, with ten. Barrett made 25 saves over the four matches.

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9

BY THE NUMBERS

An Athletic Build

Since work on Tsai Field House began in summer

247,850 SQUARE FEET OF GROSS CONSTRUCTION AREA

a sustainable

1,371

TONS OF STRUCTURAL STEEL IN THE COMPLETED TSAI FIELD HOUSE

2020, the site — nestled between Irwin Dining Hall, the eastern end of the Crescent, and the current

114

athletics complex — has been a hive of construction activity executed by the Albert M. Higley Co. Phase One of the project, which includes a dining hall, swimming pool, hockey rink, fitness center, basketball gym, outdoor track, and softball field, will be completed for the start of the 2022-23 academic year, with Phase Two scheduled to begin then. The project, which aims to earn LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver Certification

327

TONS OF REINFORCING STEEL IN THE CONCRETE FOUNDATION

WELLS IN THE GEOTHERMAL WELL FIELD, WHICH USES THE GROUND AS A SOURCE TO COOL OR HEAT A BUILDING. EACH WELL IS 5 INCHES WIDE AND 505 FEET DEEP.

from the U.S. Green Building Council, will also feature a geothermal well field, a sustainable method of heating and cooling the buildings that will provide a fun and welcoming new community hub for Lawrenceville students. Tsai Field House is named to

500,000 DRYWALL SCREWS

honor the project’s lead benefactors, Clara Wu Tsai and Joe Tsai ’82.

Information supplied by Albert M. Higley Co., which is constructing Tsai Field House.

44,000

SQUARE FEET OF WHITE ASH USED IN MILLWORK WALLS AND TRIM 10

T H E L AW R E N T I A N

303,260

60,000

GALLONS OF WATER TO BE HELD IN THE NEW SWIMMING POOL

CINDERBLOCKS USED IN INTERIOR WALLS

50,000 SQUARE FEET OF CERAMIC TILE

method of heating and cooling the buildings…

2

51

MILES OF UNDER-ICE REFRIGERANT TUBING BENEATH THE HOCKEY RINK

MILES OF ELECTRICAL CONDUIT

211 36,000 LINEAL FEET OF MECHANICAL PIPING

6,000

GALLONS OF DRYWALL SPACKLE COMPOUND

a hive of construction activity…

60,000

CINDERBLOCKS USED IN INTERIOR WALLS

3,000

80

SHEETS OF 4-BY-8-FOOT DRYWALL

CUBIC YARDS OF EXCAVATED EARTH

5,000

MILES OF ELECTRICAL WIRE AND CABLE RUNNING THROUGH TSAI FIELD HOUSE.

CUBIC YARDS OF CONCRETE FOUNDATION

12,500

31,000

HEIGHT, IN FEET, OF THE FOUR LIGHT TOWERS THAT WILL ILLUMINATE THE OUTDOOR STADIUM

LIGHT FIXTURES WITH L.E.D. BULBS

450,000 BRICKS IN THE MASONRY FAÇADE

140

PEOPLE AT WORK ON THE TSAI FIELD HOUSE PROJECT

INSIDE THE GATES

ONE TO WATCH A Vlog Cabin Home

5Q4

Kelsie Choi ’22

 Kelsie’s original short film, “An Unusual Vlog in a Pandemic,”

5

questions for science teacher Michael Hickey P’21 ’25, whose ancestor got one over on a Yankees great, and who explains how he can be moved by music from folk rock to ’80s hip-hop.

If you could select any person – living or dead – to address the student body, who would you choose?

Harry Chapin is a hero of mine.

While most young people today may be unfamiliar with his work, I am confident they would appreciate his message in these times. He was a musician, storyteller, and world activist.

As someone who spun yarns on everyday life, love, and inclusiveness, his care and action in his philanthropic pursuits still ring loud and clear.

His song “Flowers are Red” is at the root of why I chose to become an educator.

What is one book everyone should read?

There are so many. I am an avid reader, so my point of view might be a bit much. The book that resonated with me the most recently was Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari. An excellent read and very thought-provoking.

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T H E L AW R E N T I A N

I recommend it to anyone interested in thinking about the near horizon based on a foundational perspective of our collective past.

was selected as the best vlog – a portmanteau of “video blog” – at the 2021 All-American High School Film Festival in October.

 The event is the largest such festival for talented high school filmmakers and media arts enthusiasts in the world.

 Her five-minute vlog covered three months of Kelsie’s home life in Seoul, South Korea, during the COVID-19 pandemic, explaining what she was missing about Lawrenceville, but also what she was experiencing for the first time in years at home.

 “It was essentially few of my ‘true times’ with my family, since I was a boarding school student since sixth grade,” Kelsie said. “Ironically, when most people were living through an unfortunate and depressing moments of their lives, I found so much fun that can originate from spending family time.”

What song will always get you out on the dance floor?

Funny you should ask. I was at a function a few months back, and let’s just say my dancing days are as gray as my beard. Yet when Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock’s “I Wanna Rock Right Now” blared, I was back on the floor.

What never fails to make you laugh?

When one of my children laughs. It’s spontaneous.

If you could travel back in time, when and where would you go?

I’d travel back to New York in the late 1920s to watch my greatgrandfather strike out Babe Ruth. That would have been incredible to see.

OFTEN OVERLOOKED In 1928, sections of campus fencing were installed along Main Street, but gaps remained. The graduating Class of 1941 remedied this in part with a wroughtiron gate in front of Kinnan House.

“Lawrenceville’s portals have always been open to boys of all sorts from all over the country,” the dedication proclaimed in June of that year. “In presenting this gate, we do not wish to keep boys out, for it is true that well-oiled hinges swing both ways – open and shut.” Alas, the Kinnan House gate was temporarily bolted in 1991 after a student was critically injured crossing Main Street; it was locked for good in 1998 on orders from the state Department of Transportation.

THEY SAID IT “In addition to uniting the current generation of Lawrentians, Hill Day closes generational gaps between current and previous students. […]

As students, we graduate with the expectation to congregate and meet once again through the School’s alumni network, which is the webbing that holds together the broader network of Lawrentians.

That being said, generational differences are hard to overlook, and they make it hard to feel connected to the extended Lawrenceville community. For this reason, tradition is an essential glue between generations of Lawrentians. Impervious to time, Hill Day is an iconic Lawrenceville tradition.”

— Adeline Zhou ’23 in “Hill Day: Toxic or Tactful? Examining the Benefits of Healthy Rivalry,” which appeared the in November 12, 2021, issue of The Lawrence.

3

CLUB HOPPING

Things we learned producing this issue of The Lawrentian

1. Kelly Curtis ’08, who

is competing in this year’s Winter Olympics, comes from athletic genes: Her father, John Curtis P’08, was drafted by the New York Jets and played parts of five seasons in the NFL.

Grilling Club Founded: 2020 Current Membership: Up to 40 or 50 Purpose: To provide a way for students to experience the beauty of grilling while connecting the community.

Jack Weinberg ’22 and Giancarlo Beritela ’22 used to casually cook up some of their backyard favorites outside Cleve House, and they noticed it was becoming a fun social event for others. Their affinity for flame-broiling became the Grilling Club. They meat … er, meet weekly, typically to grill hot dogs, “but we have done skirt and strip steaks, lamb burgers, and sausages,” says Beritela, who was looking forward to upping the ante with some pheasant, provided by Weinberg, in mid-December. The club also hosted a large event with Cleve and McClellan Houses, which drew some 80 hungry Lawrentians. The Grilling Club would like to lend itself to the School’s community service program, but for now, Beritela says they “try to offer a fun, delicious way for our students to engage socially with each other, and deeper in our society.”

2. Built in 1893

across Main Street, The Lodge earned its simple name through offering convenient accommodations for visitors to the School.

3. Tsai Field House will

be heated and cooled by energy provided by the earth via geothermal wells that run an astounding 505 feet below ground level.

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ON THE ARTS

Periwig ‘Lurches’ Toward Normal

October’s performance of “The Addams Family, The Musical” marked a return to live, in-person, unmasked musical theatre.

Luke Trowbridge ’22 (Lurch), Naa Kwama Ankrah ’23 (Grandma), and Eric Frankel ’23 (Uncle Fester) were creepy and kooky in Periwig’s production of The Addams Family, The Musical.

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Parents’ Weekend in October brought with it a chance for students to reunite with their families. It also provided an opportunity for another family – as creepy as they were kooky – to take the stage of the Kirby Arts Center in a triumphant return for theatre as it was meant to be.

Based on ghoulish characters created by cartoonist Charles Addams, The Addams Family, The Musical saw its macabre members transported to the present day, with young Wednesday Addams falling in love and imploring her freaky family to act “normal.”

Lawrenceville’s overwhelmingly successful measures to stifle the spread of COVID-19 during the fall term permitted the cast to perform on stage without the transparent face masks that marked last spring’s main-stage show. It also allowed for the return of musical theatre after an idle season. Once the students received the green light, the clock began ticking down to the curtain’s rise for cast, crew, and orchestra, according to Matt Campbell, director of theatre.

“So much stuff comes together in such a short time!” said Campbell, who also designed The Addams Family set.

“Everyone has been so resilient and understanding, and passionate about everything. I’m so proud of them all.”

Delaney Musgrave ’22 and Bobby Cloninger ’22 played the roles of Morticia Addams and Gomez Addams, while the Addams children, Pugsley and Wednesday, were portrayed by Eddie Newsom ’23 and Kelsie Choi ’22. Eric Frankel ’23 as Uncle Fester, Naa Kwama Ankrah ’23 as Grandma, Roddy Atwood ’22 (Lucas Beinecke), Russell Clark ’22 (Mal Beinecke), Kajal Dongre ’22 (Alice Beinecke) and Luke Trowbridge ’22 as Lurch rounded out the creepy cast.

A A work by Stuart Robertson ’11 H’18 will be exhibited in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery as one of just 42 finalists in the prestigious Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition.

Artist-inResidence’s Work Chosen for National Portrait Gallery A portrait by Stuart Robertson ’11 H’18, Lawrenceville’s Artist-in-Residence, was selected as one of 42 finalists in the sixth triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, which invites artists to submit work that challenges the traditional definitions of portraiture.

Robertson’s work will be presented in “The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today,” a major exhibition premiering at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., from April 30, 2022, through February 26, 2023, before traveling to other cities in the United States.

Reaching the finals of this prestigious competition is “awesome; it’s validating,” Robertson said. “Knowing that I was able to produce something that is this successful feels great, but it just means more work. I’m excited.”

For the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, artists living and working in the United States are invited every three years to submit one of their recent portraits to a panel of experts chosen by the museum. The finalists in this year’s edition were selected from more than 2,600 entries. The first-prize winner, to be announced in the spring, will receive a cash award of $25,000 and a commission to create a portrait of a living person for the museum’s permanent collection.

Robertson is Lawrenceville’s first Artistin-Residence, a position that requires him to produce his own work, maintain outside art world connections, teach, and develop co-curricular programming for students.

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FALL SPORTS ROUNDUP Compiled by NICOLE STOCK

Boys’ Cross Country

M.A.P.L. Champions • N.J.I.S.A.A. Runner-up • Second Place – Shore Invitational • First Team All-M.A.P.L.: Thomas Atkinson ’22, Taksh Gupta ’25 • Coach: Stephen Wallis • Captains: Thomas Atkinson ’22, Bryan Fan ’22

girls’ Cross Country

M.A.P.L. Champions • N.J.I.S.A.A. Runner-up Second Place – Mercer County • First Place – Shore Invitational • First Team All-M.A.P.L.: Nishka Malik ’24, Elizabeth Parnell ’23, Allison Haworth ’22, Megan Kumar ’24 • Coach: Jessica Pine Captains: Allison Haworth ’22, Kate McCann ’22, Alexis Gonzalez ’22

Field Hockey

Record: 12-7 • First Team All-M.A.P.L.: Anna Gill ’23, Caitlin Hoover ’23, Coco Hunt ’23 • First Team N.J.I.S.A.A.: Anna Gill ’23, Caitlin Hoover ’23 • Coach: Lisa Ewanchyna P’23 • Captains: Kiera Duffy ’22, Hanaway Croddick ’22

Football

Record: 3-5 • Coach: Napoleon Sykes • Captains: Rotated by game

Boys’ Soccer

Record: 9-10-1 First Team All-M.A.P.L.: Liam Flynn ’23, Rayce Welborne ’24 • Coach: Blake Eldridge ’96 H’12 P’25 • Captains: Ryan Walker ’22, Harrison Berger ’22, Liam Flynn ’23

Girls’ Soccer

Record: 3-13 First Team All-M.A.P.L.: Julia Chiang ’23, Kingsley Hughes ’23 • Coach: Jessica Magnuson • Captains: Annie Katz ’22, Mandy Vogel ’22

Girls’ Tennis

Record: 13-0 • M.A.P.L. Champions • N.J.I.S.A.A. Runner-up • Piper Harrell ’22, Sabrina Yeung ’22, Tiffany Yeung ’22 First Team All M.A.P.L. Doubles: Siri Larsson Rengstrom ’22, Aasrushi Attray ’23 Coach: Dave Cantlay H’89 ’91 ’93 ’94 ’15 P’07 ’09 ’11 • Captains: Tiffany Yeung ’22, Sabrina Yeung ’22, Federica Sagebien ’22, Piper Harrell ’22

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Girls’ Volleyball

Record: 13-7 • Coaches: Katey O’Malley H’07 • Captains: Sara Xu ’22, Nyla Mucius ’22

Boys’ Water Polo

Record: 12-8 • Garden State Tournament Champions • AllEasterns Tournament Team: Max Blecher ’22 Coach: Julio Alcantara-Martin, Program Director: Misha Klochkov • Captains: Rafa Giangrande ’22, Andrew Lenkowsky ’22

Girls’ Water Polo

Record: 9-7 Coach: Stefanie Harrison, • Program Director: Misha Klochkov • Captains: Juliette Peel ’22, Arya Sangha ’22

For the most current athletic news visit

lawrenceville.org/athletics.

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GO BIG RED

By LISA M. GILLARD HANSON

GOOD CHEMISTRY

M

Girls’ coach Grey Simpson P’20 ’22 and his daughter, Taylor ’22, are bonded by basketball.

any coaches will tell you that their team’s success is often fueled by good chemistry.

Grey Simpson P’20 ’22, who happens to teach chemistry at Lawrenceville, is also the School’s head girls’ basketball coach.

On the court as in his classroom, Simpson is concerned with bonds and reactions, but in this case, the “matter” is his players, the most experienced of whom this winter is his daughter, Taylor Simpson ’22. And when it comes to basketball, they are both in their element.

The Simpsons have been a father/coach and daughter/player duo since Taylor began playing at age 6. Grey has coached girls’ hoops for over two decades, including seven years at The Hill School.

“I basically grew up on the [Hill] basketball court, just going to his practices and shooting around when there was a water break, or watching them play,” Taylor says.

Grey’s leadership of the girls’ team was “the number one reason” Taylor decided to attend Lawrenceville, where she’s been a four-year varsity player for Big Red.

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Big Red played no football games in 2020 due to the pandemic, but head coach Harry Flaherty and his staff still had more than two months to focus on football fundamentals and skills development.

Four-year varsity player Taylor Simpson ’22 says one of the many reasons she attended Lawrenceville was the chance to play basketball for her father, coach Grey Simpson P’20 ’22.

“WE BOTH REALLY WANT TO WIN, AND WE’LL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO TRY TO BE THE WINNERS,” SHE SAYS. “SOMETIMES [MY FATHER] GETS A LITTLE TOO EXCITED, BUT SO DO I. I WOULDN’T CHANGE THAT.” That excitement can occasionally lead to some butting of heads. “We have some interesting postgame dinner conversations,” Taylor says.

The duo works diligently to keep the line between father/coach and daughter/player from blurring, but it can be complicated.

“I think I’ve gotten a lot better at that, but it is definitely something that I struggle with,” Taylor says. “Sometimes, in the game or in practice, it might seem like he’s being too tough. But [as I’ve matured], I’ve realized that he’s only trying to help me, and only really wants me to succeed.”

Those postgame conversations with his daughter provide Grey “an opportunity to reflect more on what’s happening on the court, and have more patience and a better understanding of what the players are seeing and dealing with.”

“I try, as a coach, to never assume anything about a player. I don’t hold any player accountable for knowing something when I know for certain that I myself have not taught them or gone over with them, even if they’re an extremely experienced player,” he says.

Coaching his daughter, Grey believes, has taught him to be more patient with all of his players.

“Before I had the opportunity to coach my kids, I would quickly get frustrated with players’ mistakes, and think to myself, They know better than that. Why are they making

those mistakes? Having conversations [with Taylor] after a game has made me realize that as a coach, I’m also a teacher.

“The interesting thing about coaching your own kid is it eliminates the ‘car-ridehome’ coaching,” Grey continues. “When you’re [actually] coaching them, you’re there on the spot. So you can [address what you see during the game] right there like you would any other player and then move on and keep coaching.”

Taylor, her coach says, has a “really high” basketball IQ. “She knows the game inside and out, and she is fiercely competitive,” Grey says.

“When we’re playing against the best teams with the best players, she’s going to go out there and compete.”

The elder Simpson’s advice for other parent/coaches is to remember to temper their expectations.

“You have to be able to take a step back and realize that [your child] is still developing their understanding of the game and their skills,” he says. “While you’ll know more about them than some of your other players and their history as a player, you still have to remember where they are in their development as an athlete.”

Taylor has committed to attend Virginia Wesleyan University next year, where she’ll compete for the women’s basketball team and study marine biology.

“I would not be anywhere without growing up with my dad as my basketball coach,” says Taylor, an all-Mid-Atlantic Prep League selection two years ago as a Third Former. “I grew up playing for him and with him. He knows my goals.”

Taylor been “a really important piece of the puzzle” as Grey works to sharpen what he wants to be a “fiercely competitive” girls’ basketball program.”

“We don’t want to be intimidated by any team before the ball is even thrown up to start the game,” he says. “We want to go out there and give them our best shot, and at the end of the game, look up at the scoreboard, and see how it went for us.”

A Diamond Gem Lawrenceville mailroom clerk Keila Santiago was inducted into the Vega Baja City Hall of Fame in Puerto Rico in December, the celebration of a softball career that nearly carried her to the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Santiago played on the Puerto Rico National Softball Team from 1992-2003, during which time she earned a degree in physical education from the University of Puerto Rico. At the time, athletes on the national team were required to live in their homeland, so Santiago turned down college scholarships elsewhere in the United States to advance her softball career.

She competed in the Central American and Caribbean Games, earning a gold medal to qualify for the 1994 Pre-Pan American Games in Guatemala, where her team nabbed the bronze. Santiago earned a silver medal in the 1995 Pan American Games in Argentina, catapulting her to the Pre-Olympic Games in Puerto Rico, where she earned a gold medal and qualified for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

One of the youngest players on the team, Santiago was one of three late cuts from the final roster, which allowed only 15 players. Undaunted, she continued playing through the 2003 Pan American Games.

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TABLE TALK

SETTING

THE

STAGE

As the director of theatre in the Performing Arts Department, Matthew Campbell knows as well as anyone about the collaborative nature of the stage and the process of bringing works to it. Perhaps that’s why he’s a natural fit as Lawrenceville’s Robert S. and Christina Seix Dow Distinguished Teaching Chair in Harkness Learning. Current in so many ways, Campbell told The Lawrentian about how he used a nearly obsolete channel of information to find his job at the School.

We’re always curious to learn what brought faculty members to Lawrenceville. Tell us about your route.

Oh, this is a complex story, but I will try to keep it succinct. My background is in music.

I studied music in my undergrad, did a lot of touring.

This was just up the road in Princeton at Westminster Choir College, correct?

Yes, but even before then, I went to Gordon College. Music was always my go-to, and I loved to perform, and I did quite a bit of that. Then when I transferred into Westminster, it was another world, because you had just so many more performance opportunities and you were traveling a lot and all over the place and really getting that experience.

That’s one of the most notable things about the student experience there.

But it was around that time that I also began getting into theatre. I started a musical theatre major with my good friend, 20

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Nathan Brewer, who’s now faculty at The College of New Jersey. We were so gungho about making musical theatre a thing at Westminster.

How did that go?

Well, he began his own acting company and I began doing more hands-on stuff. Music was great, but I wanted to work with my hands, and so I started to get into scenery, and through opera and music, I got into stage management, because I could read music. If you were managing a show and you read music, that’s a key thing. All of that came to a head when I began doing educational theater in the early 2000s in this area.

Are you from New Jersey?

No, I’m from Massachusetts originally. I went all over the place, though a lot of it was concentrated, I would say, from Mississippi all the way up to Maine. It’s a circuit and you can kind of get onto that, but

sometimes you need more stable footing.

That’s what got me into educational theater, and I started doing more of that here in New Jersey. I jumped into a full-time position in the McCarter Theater as an assistant props master over in the production department.

That brings you pretty close to Lawrenceville…

I saw an advertisement in, yes, the newspaper for a part-time position here at Lawrenceville. They needed somebody to run a few concerts in the music program, but then they were looking for somebody to build and come and work with the theater department. I thought, Oh, that’s wild; those are very separate things but I can do both. So I applied, and got the job.

A newspaper? When was this?

I’ve been here fourteen years full-time, after being part-time those prior four years, and I became full-time faculty in 2008. There was a position opening up here specifically

to teach, and my career at that time was all theatre, but my background was music.

Lawrenceville was looking for a one-third music teacher and a two-thirds theater teacher, and that’s really a strange mix – you don’t find it. But I fit the bill.

The School celebrates the 20th anniversary of WinterFest this year. It’s so popular because of how it empowers our students to take ownership of their own productions, but in terms of experiential learning, it also aligns very closely with what we’re trying to do as a school, right?

Absolutely. For our program, WinterFest is the sandbox that you want the kids to play in.

YOU WANT TO WELCOME ANY NUMBER OF STUDENTS, AND WHAT’S THE TIME THAT YOU WANT TO GET INVOLVED IN THEATRE? IN HIGH SCHOOL. SO YEAH, YOU WANT TO HAVE THOSE OPPORTUNITIES FOR THEM, AND WINTERFEST CERTAINLY IS THAT. There are probably any number of students for whom it is their entrée into the more glamorized center-stage productions that we do here.

That’s exactly it. And it’s a stepping stone that is exactly the right temperature. It’s the right kind of porridge. It’s perfect for the students, meeting them at their level of interest without making it too demanding – one-act plays are like that. Here’s a thought, or here’s a complete idea, a journey that makes sense in 15 minutes.

What classes do you currently teach?

I’ve taught a lot of classes here, and a lot of them seem to be very all over the place. Currently, I teach Design for Social Change, which is an interdisciplinary class between engineering and arts. I teach Acting and Directing, Foundations of Theatre, Mythological Theater, and I teach a course called Dramaturgy.

We’re always hearing about fantastic interdisciplinary combinations here, but Design for Social Change, blending theatre and the engineering … what is that all about?

It wouldn’t necessarily seem to be in a theatre teacher’s wheelhouse, but it’s an engineering course that is my technical side – that construction and engineering side of me – and arts put together. One of the things I stress in that class is how observations lead to better results, especially when you’re working in the lives of people.

That’s an easy idea to accept, but can you give us an example of how that works in the class?

One thing I observed several years ago is that there was always one or two, maybe three voices that didn’t seem to have a

Matt Campbell, the School's director of theatre and chair of Harkness learning, says his discipline is intrinsically linked to the ethos of collaborative learning that takes place around Lawrenceville's oaken classroom tables.

space or venue or platform to do that kind of work, but they said, “I really want to write something.” So, I’d find small ways to prop them up or get them through.

In this space, we always ask teachers about how they integrate Harkness into their learning experience of their discipline.

What can you tell us?

It’s baked in naturally. By the way, I’m also the Harkness Learning chair.

Ah yes, so there’s no getting out of this one!

I know! So, with theatre, the art form itself is collaborative, so the work is fairly grounded in what we would call Harkness. A lot of the idea-offering, feedback, and shaping what it is that you’re working toward as a common goal comes through the group.

Now, of course, there are areas where there’s individual stuff. A director needs to have a plan, and that is typically one- or twoperson group, but it’s really focused. They have to know what they’re doing. But all of the work that we do relies on everybody’s contributions in order to get you there.

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TAKE THIS JOB AND LOVE IT

SLIDE SHOW

Kelly Curtis ’08 is one of just two U.S. women competing in the skeleton at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

N

ot every assignment in the United States Air Force involves piloting a jet, but Airman 1st Class Kelly Curtis ’08, who only completed basic training in 2020, is already flying.

Downhill, that is.

Curtis was named in January to the U.S. Olympic skeleton racing team to compete in the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. One of the two top-ranked U.S. women in the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) standings, Curtis also races as a representative of the Air Force’s World Class Athlete Program, or WCAP. Curtis is believed to be the first Lawrenceville alumna to compete in the Olympic Games.

Skeleton is aptly named. Solitary sliders speed down an ice track face-first on a sled notable for its sparse structure. Races begin with the sliders taking a running start before diving onto their sleds, with sliders at the world-championship level reaching speeds in excess of 80 miles per hour. It’s intense, but Curtis says any fear leaves her once she starts a run.

“Every single time I slide here, I still get a lot of nerves right before I go,” she said

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during a break from a November practice in Innsbruck, Austria, just days before a World Cup race. “But then once you get going, your senses take over and you don’t really think about how crazy it looks. You’re just trying to get down as best as possible.”

As swiftly as Curtis zooms downhill on her sled, her ascent in the sport has been just as rapid. In the United States, skeleton lacks natural entry points for young people, unlike more mainstream activities such as figure skating, which begins drawing competitors once they are old enough to stand on their blades. By the time Curtis was introduced to sliding, she was already in her mid-twenties.

“I didn’t find it until I was in grad school,” she says of her time at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York, “so I had a late start, especially compared to the European competitors, who usually start between about 12 and 16.”

The athletic Curtis, who came to Lawrenceville after graduating from Princeton High School, left in possession of the Big Red record in the triple jump, one she still holds. A versatile track-and-field performer, Curtis also competed in the long jump, high jump, hurdles, and javelin. Three years later, she won the heptathlon at the 2011 Penn Relays, competing for Springfield College in Massachusetts after transferring from Tulane. At Springfield, track coach Jim

Pennington and strength and conditioning coach Dan Jaffe observed that Curtis’ strength as a heptathlete was in her physical power more than her ability to run distances.

To them, she was reminiscent of Erin Pac, a former Springfield athlete who transitioned successfully to the bobsled and won a bronze medal at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

“So, [Jaffe] said, ‘you should probably think about doing this bobsled combine when you’re done competing in track and field,’” Curtis says. “At first I was like, absolutely not. It looks crazy.”

Curtis admits she knew almost nothing about bobsled – “I’ve never been exposed to it, and it looks really intense,” she thought – but decided to try out for a combine, almost on a lark, when she was at St. Lawrence. She performed well enough as a brakeman on a four-woman team to be invited to a driving school.

“From there, I just fell down the rabbit hole and kept on getting invited back,” she recalls.

Although she found driving a bobsled exhilarating, the training also offered Curtis her first exposure to skeleton.

“Everyone else in the camp who was sliding skeleton looked like they were having a blast, so I thought, I want to try that at least once,” she says. “On the very last day,

I was able to try it and instantly fell in love.

Then I was like, how do I come back to this?”

Curtis began sliding and found immediate success, posting competitive times, but her breakthrough came once she acquired a high-quality skeleton sled near the end of the 2017-18 season.

“The equipment made all the difference in the world,” says Curtis, who as a member of Team USA would capture the North American Cup circuit two times as well as the IBSF Intercontinental Cup. Curtis says her Olympic skeleton spark ignited watching Katie Uhlaender on television during the 2014 Sochi games, when Uhlaender missed the bronze medal by just hundredths of a second. Now, eight years later, Uhlaender and Curtis will be the only two women sliders to compete for the United States in Beijing.

“It’s just crazy that I’m here with her now,”

Curtis says. “I think, I was just watching you on TV a couple years ago, and now here we are as teammates!”

Uhlaender was also influential in Curtis’ decision to pursue the support of the Air Force through the World Class Athlete Program, which requires athletes to be nationally ranked for consideration.

Although Curtis enlisted in the service for the standard four-year commitment, her participation in WCAP essentially freed her to train for a chance at Beijing once she completed basic training.

“You’re pretty much set free to do whatever you need to do to compete and represent the Air Force at the highest level,” says Curtis, who moved in September with her husband, Jeffery Milliron, a 2016 Olympic hopeful in the discus, to Aviano Air Base in northeastern Italy. Located at the foot of the Southern Carnic Alps, its

proximity to the tracks Curtis needed to train paid off in her Olympic nomination. Had she missed the January 15 cut for the games, Curtis’ time in WCAP would have ended until February 2023, when the program starts up for the 2026 Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy. As it is, she will return to her base for active duty, where she intends to pursue the office route, at the conclusion of the Winter Games in February.

“Once I’m out of WCAP, then I’ll just be like any other enlisted airman, showing up to my job every day,” Curtis says. “But as of right now, it’s been a dream come true being able to represent the U.S. in more than just one uniform.”

Zoom Meeting: Kelly Curtis ’08 competed in the IBSF World Cup Bobsleigh & Skeleton on December 10 in Winterberg, Germany. (Photo

by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)

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ASK THE ARCHIVIST

By JACQUELINE HAUN

R�MS with a View For 130 years, the Lodge has lived multiple lives on the other side of Main Street, a home to students, faculty, alumni, guests, and sundry celebrations.

A

lthough not many 21st-century Lawrentians are familiar with its name or history, they all likely recognize the Lodge – the large Queen Anne-style Victorian house located across Main Street from the School’s Class of 1891 Gate, notable for its expansive covered porch.

The building was first built in the spring and summer of 1893 by Charles Ewing Green, one of the four founders of the John Cleve Green Foundation and the first chair of the Lawrenceville School Board of Trustees. A nephew of John Cleve Green, Charles E. Green was primarily responsible for overseeing the distribution of his uncle’s fortune through the Foundation, and he took an active role in running the expanded Lawrenceville School after the Foundation purchased the institution in 1883 from the previous owner and principal, the Rev. Samuel McClintock Hamill. The younger

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Seen about 1898, the Lodge stands in its original form. Note that the adjacent Craven Avenue does not yet run to Main Street.

Green’s vision for his adjacent new property was convenient accommodations for School visitors, earning it the simple moniker of “the Lodge.”

Unfortunately for Green’s entrepreneurial hopes, the new inn did not prove financially successful in its first year. The School, however, was booming – to the point that enrollment soon exceeded its ability to house students on campus. Green saw the opportunity to solve both dilemmas in one step: For a cost of $700 per year, he rented the building to the School for the 189495 school year as a residence for thirteen students and a housemaster.

As the School continued to grow in the late 19th century, the Lodge was not the only off-campus building pressed into service to house students. Numerous homes up and down Main Street, such as Wayside, Maple House, Belknap, Wagener, Green, and Rosehill, housed small groups of boys, all of whom had their own housemasters and elected their own house officers just as oncampus houses did. Disadvantaged by their small sizes, the so-called “junior houses” banded together to form consolidated sports teams to compete in House athletics, and competed among themselves for a Junior House Trophy, points for which were calculated by House members’ good scholarship; having no “marks,” or disciplinary demerits; and membership on School teams, publications, and musical clubs.

The presence of student residents in the Lodge did not entirely preclude the exercise of business, however. The School continued to use and promote the building as a guest house for campus visitors until World War II, and between 1924 and 1936, operated it strictly in that capacity. An 1899 article promoting the Lodge touted the building’s in-house restaurant and proximity to the Johnson Trolley system, whose “electric cars” ran every 24 minutes to and from the Trenton train station.

In 1915, a large dining room with room for one hundred guests was added to the porch on the Craven Avenue side of the building. Not only did many of the students from the various off-campus houses dine in the Lodge, but the expansive dining room also became the go-to location for

larger School functions, including alumni dinners, faculty celebrations, and seated dinners for prom. It would continue to play this important role until the opening of the Abbott Dining Hall in December 1962.

Over the years, which students resided in the Lodge depended on the School’s needs at the time. In 1900, the house was declared to be for Fifth Form only, but by the early 1920s it became the domain of the youngest First and Second Form students, ten of whom lived on the third floor. When the Alumni War Memorial Building – better known as “Old Lower” – was built in 1924, the first phase of student use of the Lodge came to a close. The Lodge was converted once again into a restaurant and inn, functioning as such until 1936, when it was again rented to house Fifth Formers.

Declining student enrollment during World War II made student use of the house unnecessary, but Lawrenceville remained interested in convenient lodging for guests, so the School finally purchased the building from Henry W. Green, the heir of Charles Ewing Green and himself a previous chair of the Lawrenceville School Board of Trustees. The purchase was timely: The Lodge was the perfect solution to house nearly twenty returning veterans wishing to complete their Lawrenceville studies, which

had been interrupted by the global conflict.

After the last veterans graduated in the late 1940s, the Lodge once again became a Fifth Form House, remaining so until 1976.

Concerned about the safety of students living off-campus and being forced to cross the increasingly busy Route 206, the School gradually moved all students to Houses within the gates, until only the Fifth Formers in the Lodge remained. The students who lived in the Lodge in the 1975-76 school year organized to protest the pending closure of their residence, but the tragic death of faculty member Ross A. “Doc” Harrison that February, killed as he was crossing 206 from his own Main Street home, underscored the School’s concerns.

The following year, all students returned to on-campus housing.

The Lodge functions today as faculty housing, with four apartments in the former inn – two on the spacious first floor, and one each on the second and third floors. While the days of the Lodge as a social and residential hub for students, staff, alumni, and guests have ended – at least for now – the venerable home continues to stand in silent testament to the evolution of the School it still serves.

Jacqueline Haun is the senior archives librarian of the Stephan Archives in Bunn Library.

During the 1894-95 school year, these nattily dressed boys became the first students to reside in the Lodge.

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It All Hinges On This • Photography by Michael Branscom Lawrenceville is much more than its buildings. Ultimately, it is about the people who live, teach, learn, play, eat, reflect, and grow inside those structures. But it’s not too poetic to suggest that the doorways that have silently beckoned generations of students also symbolize portals of opportunity and transformation. A recent poem by Jasleen Kaur Gumber says, “That door had a lot to say; people entered and people left but never the same!” It is true for Lawrenceville and its portals, through which for two centuries we have entered and emerged transformed.

‘‘

THERE IS ALWAYS ONE MOMENT IN CHILDHOOD WHEN THE DOOR OPENS AND LETS THE FUTURE IN.

”

GRAHAM GREENE, THE POWER AND THE GLORY 28

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Alumni Weekend Registration is Open!

Weekend Highlights include a new spin on favorite traditions!

Red & Black Soiree ■ Service of Remembrance ■ State of the School with Head of School Steve Murray ■ Taste of Lawrenceville Food Truck Lunch ■ Big Red Beer Garden ■ Back to Class ■ Athletics Games ■ Class Dinners ■ And More...

REUNION 2022 A L U M N I

MAY 6-8

W E E K E N D

Register now at lawrenceville.org/alumni/alumni-weekend or scan the QR code.

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An Order of Magnitude Through his Bento textmessage ordering platform, Adam Dole ’00 connects people experiencing food insecurity to free, healthy, ready-to-eat meals from popular restaurants with a discreet pick-up process that preserves their pride.

by JEN A. MILLER Photography by STEVE ANDERSON

Adam Dole ’00 isn’t shy about wanting to change the world.

“We incubate technology for the sake of humanity,” he says of his role as managing director of Not Impossible Labs, a technology incubator and content studio. One of those technologies is Bento, spun off from Not Impossible Labs into its own company as a text-messaging platform that aims to reduce food insecurity.

Not Impossible Labs’ goal is to identify and address what Dole terms “human absurdities,” and with Bento, they’re tackling hunger. “We live in the wealthiest country in the world, but fifty million people in America don’t know where they’ll get their next meal,” he says.

“It’s not for a lack of food, either.”

Bento bridges the gap to connect food-insecure Americans with that nourishment – healthy, ready-to-eat meals they can order from some of the country’s most popular casual eateries – with a discreet pick-up process that also shields their dignity.

So far, it’s working: Since launching in March 2020, Bento has provided more than 200,000 fresh and healthy meals to Americans experiencing food insecurity.

TIME magazine named Bento one of its 100 best inventions of 2021. And Bento is just getting started.

D

ole’s path to tackling “human absurdities” started in lacrosse – or, when he decided to come off the field. He went to Syracuse University

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to play the sport, a childhood dream, after starring in “lax” for Big Red. But after two years, Dole realized there was more to life than just sports.

“I started thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, which I hadn’t thought about before,” he says. Dole went to the college career counseling center, and they asked him what he wanted to do.

“I gave the answer that any kid probably would have given: I wanted to be an astronaut,” he says, even though his academic career at that point wouldn’t have pointed to a job in engineering or the sciences. “They looked at my transcript and looked back at me and said ‘we might need to look at some alternative pathways here.’”

He found one, switching his focus to a degree in communications and rhetorical studies with a concentration in psychology,

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which is where he was introduced to the concept of team dynamics and “the human factor element of performance on highimpact teams,” Dole says. A year after his post-lax epiphany, NASA came to campus to recruit soon-to-be graduates. Although Dole couldn’t claim to be an expert in thermodynamics or systems engineering, he could talk about human factors of the astronaut core – the strength required for the rigors of space travel. It worked, with Dole linking up with NASA as a research associate.

“I had a front-row seat into what it looks like to put your target market – the astronaut core – at the center of human-centered design,” he said, which meant identifying their unmet needs and addressing them.

After his time at NASA, Dole went into work in design research in the health-care space, including a stint as an entrepreneur-

in-residence at the Mayo Clinic, earned an M.B.A. in design strategy from the California College of the Arts, and served as a Presidential Innovation Fellow at the White House from 2013 to 2014. The program, which was started by President Barack Obama and continues today, “injected private sector horsepower into high-impact government initiatives,” Dole says.

There, Dole worked on ways the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services could empower people by offering them access to their own health information. “It’s still a challenge, but we made inroads into creating public/private partnership with health care systems and pharmacies to be able to share information” without violating HIPAA, which protects a patient’s private information. Their operating system was eventually adopted by Apple.

Dole called it one of the most intriguing experiences of his career. “You’ve got the ‘air cover’ of the president, and we managed to do something in a year as a fellow that might not have happened otherwise.”

He also had a front-row seat to the rocky deployment of Healthcare.gov. Though the initial rollout was viewed as clumsy, Dole believes the experience has fundamentally altered the citizen/government digital experience.

“It changed the way the U.S. government thinks about digital services and what role it plays into delivering great consumer experiences to the American people,” he says, adding that the experience led to “new programs and mechanisms to bring more private sector minded people into government to make the daily lives of citizens better.”

After working in D.C., Dole moved to Los Angeles, where his wife, Kyoko Dole, was launching her acting career. After working as a designer at Apple, Kyoko caught the performing bug and was cast on the longrunning television series Grey’s Anatomy out of an acting class. She has since worked on shows like High Maintenance, Shameless, and the Hulu miniseries Pam & Tommy.

Meanwhile, Adam was working as an L.A.based consultant in 2018 when a recruiter contacted him about a job at Not Impossible Labs. At first Dole suspected the email was spam, but the videos about their work left him in tears. The morning of his first interview, the Doles evacuated Western Malibu due to the Woolsey Fire, which burned nearly 100,000 acres. It took them seven hours to drive twenty miles.

“I showed up four hours later, all disheveled,” Dole says – his shirt wasn’t even buttoned right. “They told me to stay as long as I want. The joke is I never left.” He was hired as managing director, a role that he still holds today, in addition to serving as co-founder (along with Not Impossible Labs CEO Mick Ebeling) and COO of Bento, which started as an idea at Not Impossible Labs. y first impression of Adam is that he was unassuming and laidback but listens very attentively, very carefully, and doesn’t miss a word,”

“M

says Rabbi Lauren Levy H’97 ’01 P’01 ’02

’09, who teaches in Lawrenceville’s Religion and Philosophy Department. She knew Dole as a student and has maintained a casual friendship with him in the two decades since he graduated, even flying to Kauai, Hawai’i, to officiate Adam and Kyoko’s wedding. Though she affectionately recalls him projecting a casual “lax bro” confidence during his Lawrenceville days, Levy is not surprised at the path Dole has blazed.

“Adam’s spent a great deal of his life listening and absorbing and wants to find ways to help people in creative and interesting and meaningful and ‘access-ful’ ways,” she says, pointing to the innovative benevolence Dole has animated through Bento.

Bento came out of what Dole calls his obsession with the problem of food insecurity – the lack of consistent access to enough healthy food. “It gnaws at you because you know it’s a preventable problem,” he says. To understand the problem, the Bento principals got out of their office and started talking to people who are experiencing food insecurity. One thing they realized: Most Americans in this category are not homeless.

“They’re working multiple jobs. They’re going to school. They might be couch surfing. One flat tire that week might mean not putting food on the table for their family,” Dole says. Government assistance often isn’t enough, and food banks usually have narrow windows of operations, which might mean someone has to leave their job to go at that particular time.

“A lot of people talked about not having the time to receive a mystery box of food and prepare it,” he says. They found that these Americans also wanted to be treated with respect and dignity, without feeling stigmatized for reaching out for help.

The Bento team also realized that most people in this category have cellphones even if they don’t have robust data plans, or data plans at all. What if Bento could harness the power of text messaging to connect hungry Americans to healthy, ready-made meals?

That’s what Bento sets out to do, from a supply chain approach: America has enough food, and Bento bridges the gap, connecting food-insecure Americans with that available food, fresh and ready to eat. Right now,

Bento is partnering with community groups like the local Boys & Girls Club of America and YMCAs to identify their community members who could benefit from the program, and through Bento’s text-messaging platform, allow them to order meals from a curated menu of items at restaurants such as Subway, Panera Bread, and Chipotle.

“When they walk into that restaurant, they are not identified as someone who’s part of a food program," Dole explains. “They’re just Adam or Jen here to pick up order 402 at Subway.”

Bento launched in March 2020, which turned out to be well-timed as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated food insecurity, Dole says. With venture capital funding, they’ve built out their team and started to “dig deeper in what needs to be true for this thing to really scale.”

With one in eight people affected by food insecurity, opportunities exist to help people well beyond the 200,000 who have eaten so far through the text-ordering service.

Bento launched in Houston and is currently working in a dozen cities, including Dallas, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Detroit. Right now, community groups provide funding for the meals, which Dole knows is limited.

Their eventual goal is to partner with large third-party health-care payers and federal agencies that support high-risk or vulnerable communities. That can lead to better health outreach, as they’ve learned via a partnership with an HIV/AIDS clinic in Memphis.

“Our fundamental belief is that if food is not consistent in somebody’s life, everything else becomes much harder,” Dole says.

“We’re using this program to not just connect people to those meals, but it also allows us to coordinate some of their care. Once you establish trust with a participant via text message, you can really guide them to the right services at the right time that are going to benefit them and their health.”

 Based in Audubon, New Jersey, Jen A. Miller is the author of Running: A Love Story.

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LAWRENCEVILLE LEGACY LEAVE A

John Hover ’61 P’91, a former private banker, and his wife, Jacqueline, are

knowledgeable world travelers. Through the years, they have witnessed first-

“I“Icame cameto toLawrenceville Lawrenceville in in 1957 1957 as a young boy and graduated as a young boy and graduated

hand the ongoing timelines of civilization and of nature. Recently, following a trek to the Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska, John observed that the glacier, like The Lawrenceville School, is always carving new paths. This sense of time

in in1961 1961as asan anaspiring aspiring young young man. man.

Lawrenceville Lawrenceville and and its its amazing amazing

and progress has led John and Jaqui to create charitable remainder trusts

masters teachersmade madethat thathappen. happen. My wife’s wife'sand andmy my goal, goal, with with every gift

provided the Hovers with current tax benefits and an income stream for their

wemake maketo toLawrenceville, Lawrenceville, is to we

institutions the Hover family holds dear, enabling them, like the glacier, to

helpsustain sustainits its legendary legendary faculty help forcurrent currentand and future future generations for

continue carving new paths.

at both John’s college alma mater and at Lawrenceville. These gifts have lives. When they are both gone, the remainders of the trusts will pass to the

ofstudents.” students.” of — John Hover ’61’61 P’91 – John Hover P’91

For more information leavingaabequest bequest to to Lawrenceville Lawrenceville ororforfor other planned giving opportunities, or if you For more information onon leaving other planned giving opportunities, or have if youincluded have included Lawrenceville in your will but have not yet informed the School, please contact Jerry Muntz at the Lawrenceville Office of Planned Giving Giving Lawrenceville in your will but have not yet informed the School, please contact Jerry Muntz at the Lawrenceville Office of Planned at 609-620-6064 or jmuntz@lawrenceville.org, or go to www.lawrenceville.planyourlegacy.org. at 609-620-6064 or jmuntz@lawrenceville.org, or go to lawrenceville.giftplans.org.

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MY FAVORITE TEACHER

BY WOODY WEBB ’64

‘ALWAYS COME PREPARED’: JACK HUMASON H’48

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I

left Lawrenceville in June of 1964 but Lawrenceville never really left me, primarily because of teachers like John D. “Jack” Humason H’48. Employing Strunk and White’s Elements of Style methodology, which Jack subscribed to, I will attempt to make this tribute as short and succinct as possible.

In his earlier career Jack had worked at the National Broadcasting Company, or NBC, handling program guests, which gave him the type of private-sector work experience and the connections to celebrities that distinguished him from other teachers and impressed those of us fortunate enough to be in his English classes.

I recall him casually mentioning one day how the Broadway production of Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life had given his friend Gene Kelly his start in show business – yes, that Gene Kelly, the famous dancer and showman. Jack had also served as an aide to the celebrated conductor Arturo Toscanini when he presided over the NBC Symphony, and, of course, we were regaled with stories of the various quirks of the maestro during a lecture on how artists, writers, and musicians were different from the rest of us and how that transitioned into their work.

Did you know that The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” is in iambic pentameter? Well, this out-of-the-blue comment

from Jack certainly got our attention during our poetry studies. On one occasion when we were charged with comparing and contrasting some drama in which Katherine Hepburn had starred on the screen or on Broadway, Jack “let it slip” that he was a family friend of Ms. Hepburn and her sister in Farmington, Conn. Not that it mattered, but it sure impressed us.

So, was Jack an inveterate name dropper? You bet he was. Look up the words “suave” and “debonair” and there you will see a photograph of Dean Martin.

No, I’m just kidding; you will actually see Jack Humason in his houndstooth jacket – no doubt with a cocktail in his hand. Throw in the fact that he could play almost any show tune on the piano and … you get the idea. It was not going to be easy to distinguish yourself in the eyes of this worldly, cultured teacher who was so well connected.

But I sure gave it my best shot when I wrote a term paper laughably positing the case that one of Shakespeare’s plays was really nothing more than a sex story. This must have brought a smile to Jack’s face, and so we became friends.

To say that Jack went out of his way to improve my communication skills, written and verbal, would be a gross understatement. In my mind his greatest contribution to my communication skills was encapsulated in his tireless efforts to ensure that my speech at the end of my Fourth Form year, accepting the mantle of

leadership as president of the student body during – the Mantle Speech – would be delivered as effectively and fluidly as possible. He made me listen to President Roosevelt’s speeches over and over to demonstrate how tempo works. We studied Churchill’s articulation methods. Although we actually rehearsed together, he encouraged me to practice on my own.

By the time of the speech I could have done it without notes – just like Jack would have done. “Always come prepared,” was his mantra, and over the years I have spoken often to large and small audiences – mostly judges – with that in mind.

My advice to younger attorneys and individuals in leadership positions is to anticipate being asked to speak, so always be ready.

You may not have to speak, but if you are prepared, if you are ready, you will be able to “pull it off,” as Jack would say.

And, in these days, it is my view that communication skills will distinguish you.

Jack would be appalled at the shorthand version of verbal interaction today. That may not place me in good stead with young people, but believe me that in the long run, if you can communicate with style, with humor, and with effectiveness, that will pay dividends.

Thank you, Jack Humason.

***

A former special deputy attorney general in North Carolina, Woody Webb ’64 has been in private law since 1982 with the Edmiston & Webb Law Firm in Chapel Hill.

WHO WAS YOUR FAVORITE TEACHER? It seems that for every Lawrenceville alum, there is a Lawrenceville story. So many tales of transformation began on our campus, whether around the Harkness table, on the playing field, in the lab, or maybe with an inspiring chat in your House.

The teachers, coaches, and heads of house play such vital roles in the development of our students at Lawrenceville, and it’s been that way for longer than any of us remember. It’s simple enough for this magazine to report what’s happening at Lawrenceville today, but there is a world of Lawrentians among you who were transformed in some way by those who taught you, coached you, and looked after you during your days on the Bowl, the Circle, or the Crescent. And very often, those experiences have affected so many other lives in wonderful ways. Maybe you’ve witnessed this. Maybe it’s been you.

Maybe you should tell that story.

Reach out to us at The Lawrentian by emailing editor Sean Ramsden at sramsden@lawrenceville.org.

Don’t be shy!

Follow

@LvilleAlumni on Instagram!

#LIFELONGLAWRENTIAN WINTER

2022

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OLD SCHOOL

85 years ago in

The Lawrentian

JANUARY 1937

‘WELCOME TO THE STEAM-SHOVEL, HARBINGER OF PROGRESS!’ "When I want to find anyone, I just go out to the excavation and the steam-shovel,” said Mr. Heely a few days after the work on the new Administration Building had begun. It was but a slight exaggeration.

Excited Lower School boys, inquisitive upperformers, approving faculty, the office force, the proctors – everyone was there. For a steam-shovel has almost as much lure as a fire, and when the steam-shovel is turning a dream into a reality, the crowd grows larger. It is a half-dozen years since we last watched the dirt fly and the walls of a long-awaited building take form.”

— From “News and Views,” on the construction of what would become the Administration Building, reported in the very first issue of The Lawrentian.

The Fathers Building stood in silent witness to the movement of earth on the site of today’s Mackenzie Administration Building.

70 years ago in

The Lawrentian

WINTER 1952

OWEN JOHNSON, 1878-1952

Owen Johnson’s “Lawrenceville Stories” characters, such as Dink Stover and The Old Roman, were immortalized on film in 1951’s The Happy Years. Dean Stockwell, who portrayed Dink, died this past November.

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With the death of Owen Johnson ’95, the immortal characters of The Varmint and Stover at Yale lost their creator. To Lawrenceville this death has a special meaning, as did the life that preceded it, for Mr. Johnson had veritably reproduced the school life of the ’90s for those who came later when so much was different. In his books live both the surface fun and foolishness of the time and the deeper values of boy development and master understanding. […] The appearance in 1951 of the movie The Happy Years, made from stories taken from The Varmint and other Lawrenceville books, found their author too ill to enjoy this animated version of his tales. His long sickness came to an end with his death on January 27.

Perhaps only at Lawrenceville would you see a skateboard adorned not with the usual stickers, but painted with an image of artist Frida Kahlo and several white cats, a twist on her 1943 self-portrait with monkeys. This board, belonging to Eddie Newsom ’23, was spotted outside Pop Hall.

Photograph by Sean Ramsden

Board of Education

Lawrentian THE

usps no. 306-700 the Lawrenceville School Lawrenceville, New Jersey 08648 Parents of alumni: If this magazine is addressed to a son or daughter who no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please email us at kzsenak@lawrenceville.org with his or her new address. Thank you!

We invite you to join us on our journey as we travel in exciting new directions, renew our commitment to our most essential beliefs, and true to our mission, inspire the best in each to seek the best for all.

Join us in helping the School achieve its $425 million Campaign goal by June 30, 2023. To learn more, meet the Campaign Committee, tell your story, and help us power Lawrenceville’s future, visit giving.lawrenceville.org.