Pegasus Magazine Spring 2015

THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

ISSUE 9 / SPRING 2015

When

Ideas Intersect

MISSION STATEMENT The Pegasus School is dedicated to academic excellence and to the development of lifelong learners who are confident, caring, and courageous.

COMMUNITY VALUES • Responsibility • Kindness • Teamwork • Generosity • Creativity • Curiosity • Courage • Integrity • Perseverance

PEGASUS STUDENTS love to learn, to be challenged, and to work hard; they are bright and motivated; they are joyful; they grow in both intellect and empathy.

PEGASUS TEACHERS love to teach; they are flexible, creative, collaborative, and innovative; they foster each student’s individual gifts and passions; they educate the mind and the heart.

PEGASUS PARENTS value education; they work closely with the school in a partnership based on thoughtful communication and mutual respect.

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PORTRAIT OF A GRADUATE • Academically Confident • Well Balanced • Critical Thinker • Exceptional Communicator • Collaborative Leader • Responsible Citizen • Environmentally Conscious • Technologically Adept • Economically Astute • Versed in the Arts • Globally Aware

Spring 2015 www.thepegasusschool.org EDITORIAL BOARD Nancy Conklin, Director of Admission Rick Davitt, Photographer Sue Harrison, Director of Advancement Karla Joyce, Writer Shalini Mattina, Assoc. Director of Advancement, Communications Nancy Wilder, Middle School English Teacher Jason Lopez, Head of School WRITERS Karla Joyce Benjamin Jenkins, Assoc. Director of Advancement, Alumni Relations Jason Lopez Shalini Mattina CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Matt Aghaian Mark Foster Julie King Marrie Stone CREATIVE DIRECTION AND DESIGN Shalini Mattina PHOTOGRAPHER

Table of Contents FEATURES

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The Simple Intersection of...

PEGASUS NOW

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Head’s Message

6

At the Heart of

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Insight: Rene Cogan

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Faculty Focus: Dustan Bridges

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Student Spotlights: Debate Teams,

Student Film Makers

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Program: Life Inside the Circle

30

Those Who Soar: Kat Zublin,

Melody Hernandez

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Insight: Alumni Parent Book Clubs

35

Alumni Connections

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Mark Your Calendar

Rick Davitt PRINTING Orange County Printing

Pegasus Magazine is published twice yearly by the Office of Advancement at The Pegasus School. It is archived at thepegasusschool.org/about/publications We welcome your feedback! Please address queries and comments to Shalini Mattina smattina@thepegasusschool.org

PEGASUS MAGAZINE SPRING 2015

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HEAD’S MESSAGE

Evolving Networks, Talent and Opportunities “Social Capital – The value of having a contact network that reaches many disconnected people. These ‘entrepreneurial’ networks add value from a position between others.” — Excerpt from “Maximize Your Social Capital: A New Guide to Networking,” by Ron Burt, Professor of Sociology and Strategy, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business

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s educators, our role is to provide connections daily. We help students learn and understand new concepts through the associations with

familiar past learning. We introduce students to the relationships between academic concepts and disciplines. We also establish bonds with and between students, parents and teachers. These connections are examples of how powerful and important networks become, as described by Burt in a class I took a few years ago. Little did I know then, that I would soon be at the helm of an organization with an underpinning of social capital.

As I complete my season of firsts with delight at this amazing school, I reflect upon my unveiling of events, such as: Shakespeare

Week, Declamation Days, Battle of the Books and chit-chats, among others. I contemplate the many experiences that lie ahead.

I look forward to getting to know all faculty and staff better as they continue to build connections with students, parents and teachers in the years ahead. Dustan Bridges, math teacher and Camp Pegasus director, is highlighted in this issue’s Faculty Focus.

(Coincidentally, Dustan’s wife, Christine, was my high school math student.)

In the Student Spotlight article, “Pop Culture, Pegasus-Style,” Julie King, fourth grade teacher, explores and explains the

connections between grades, programs and experiences that sometimes culminate in a student’s experience as a Pegasus debate champion. In the Feature article, “The Simple Intersection of Divergent Lives, Audacious Acts of Kindness, and Ideas,” Karla Joyce, Pegasus Magazine writer and parent, accentuates the many ways two schools across continents have improved each other, one connection after another. “Those Who Soar” highlights the current successful lives of two remarkable young alumnae who used their time at Pegasus to examine their interests cultivated from their seventh grade experiences.

The article, “Experienced Hand at the Helm of the Business Office,” by Mark Foster, Pegasus parent, spotlights Rene Cogan,

new chief financial officer, and her history at Pegasus as long-time parent, successful businesswoman, and remarkable former trustee. During the search process for a CFO, a local head of school introduced me to his school’s finance chair. From that moment, a new thought emerged as I asked myself, “Why consider his board member and not one of ours?” That introduction motivated me to approach Mrs. Cogan to apply for this important post at Pegasus, and now I am thrilled to be working directly with her. Sometimes network contacts create the spark we need to recognize that value within to best meet the needs of the organization.

Each example discussed above reflects Burt’s social capital, and each demonstrates one of the many reasons parents and families

choose Pegasus. Among the obvious reasons include the academic experience, the strength of the faculty, the special events, the nationally recognized Debate Team, and the Tri-Way League Champion Football Team — all create memories for a lifetime. I pose yet another reason for choosing this community—the connections. Pegasus adds value to the educational experience through its connections to people, places and things. Enjoy the stories herein, but also consider the connections you have made and those that will be made at Pegasus. Perhaps one day, we will be reading about you!

Jason Lopez Head of School PEGASUS MAGAZINE SPRING 2015

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At the Heart of Pegasus

by Marrie Stone

The Everyday Stories of Exceptional People Staying On Pointe Students Nicole Weber and Anya Lydon Dance to the Top

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or a lot of little girls, becoming a ballerina is tantamount to being a U.S. president or NASA astronaut. Ballerinas are notoriously glamorous, disciplined, athletic, artistic, strong and beautiful. They embody grace under pressure. The amount of energy required to perform a ballet is roughly equivalent to playing two full football matches or running eighteen miles. And yet their smiles never crack, their makeup never smears as they float and twirl, all with seemingly effortless ease.

Only 2% of the population possesses a ballerina’s body, which must be far more than simply fit and thin. Foot anatomy, neck length, body proportion are all specific necessities. What odds are these, then, that have allowed not one, but two, Pegasus eighth graders to be able to contemplate professional careers in ballet? Infinitesimal.

Nicole Weber and Anya Lydon both began dancing at age three and have never stopped.

They dance roughly 20 hours per week, more when preparing for one of their many performances.

They have danced in Houston, New York, Paris, and this summer, Monaco. Weber will move to Manhattan for five weeks this summer, taking up residence in Lincoln Center and dance for what may turn into a year-round offer from the School of American Ballet, studying in the Balanchine style. Lydon will venture to Paris and Monaco, dancing for the Paris Opera Ballet School and studying the French style.

With an aggressive academic schedule alongside the intensity of ballet, how do they do it? Rigor, apparently, begets more rigor.

Both girls say ballet has given them a “leg up” in time management, discipline, persistence, and remaining calm under pressure. Those are skills that will continue to carry them through the pressures of the critical coming years. Dance on, ladies.

A Coach Who Cares Elizabeth Ortiz

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ome say it takes a village to raise children, but few communities are fortunate enough to have innate nurturers who work not just inside the village, but inside the girls’ locker room. Liz Ortiz is one of those rare women who instantly make students feel safe. She knows when to stand back and

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when to get involved, and she gives students the space to be themselves.

In the spring of 2009, she came to Pegasus after working several years in Los Angeles’s oldest pawnshop, a place her grandfather has worked for decades. “It was an interesting place to work, but an easy place to get stuck,” Ortiz says. After she graduated from California State University, Long Beach, with a degree in kinesiology, Ortiz knew she wanted to work with children. “I’m one of the few people on campus who gets to coach students across all ages. I can see their progress and celebrate their success.” In addition to teaching P.E. during the day, Ortiz coaches girls’ volleyball and basketball, and boys’ soccer. She even coaches a men’s basketball team in the evenings.

But character lies in the details. Coach Charles Tyler notices these details more than anyone. “One afternoon, a player burst through the gym doors, nearly clobbering another student. By the next day, Liz had produced and posted professional warning signs on both doors,” Tyler says. “Talent and initiative!”

Outside Pegasus, Ortiz keeps on nurturing. “It is not unusual to see her at school for functions in the evenings, enjoying shows, plays, and concerts. The students know she cares,” says Tyler. At home, Ortiz focuses on family. She travels annually with her extended clan to Bass Lake, and she loves woodworking. More importantly, she loves Pegasus students. And they all seem to know it.

Mini-Me Buddies Max Roth and Diesel Roman

B

efore Dr. Evil was sent back in time to 1969 in the Austin Powers films, his minions made him a clone. The clone was identical in every way, but he was one-eighth his size.

Upon meeting his clone, Dr. Evil pronounced, “Breathtaking. I shall call him...Mini-Me.”

In an act of life imitating art, eighth grader Max Roth and third grader Diesel Roman were paired together this year as Pegasus buddies. “I call him Mini-Me,” says Roth, who bears a startling resemblance to Diesel. “A responsible, mature mini-me, which doesn’t bode well for his future.”

While Roth is a musician, and Roman an avid golfer, their sense of humor and mischievous streak bonds them together as much as their looks. They both strike me as mostly formed adults trapped in smaller

bodies. Roth and Roman come together once a month for a formalized activity. Roth travels to Roman’s third grade classroom where they have made Valentines for vets, Thanksgiving leaves, and some holiday project neither remembers very well, but they both recall Roth’s jokes.

They also commiserate about living with little sisters — a topic which incites them both.

As their time together wraps up, both boys reach into their backpacks for phones to call their mothers.

Roth pulls out a primitive looking flip-phone.

“Dude, if you have an iPhone, I’m gonna yell at you,” Roth says. A smile slides across Roman’s

face. Finally seeing the opportunity to step outside the shadow of his big buddy, Roman replies, “Not just an iPhone.” “It’s the 6.”

I could nearly detect Dr. Evil’s pinky finger grin.

When Genius Meets Magic Public Speaker, Magician, Innovator and More: Michael Weber

U

ntil this year’s Spring Benefit, Michael Weber may have been the most interesting man on campus you’d never known. At 6’5”, it’s not easy to hide in plain sight, but this is Weber’s power — an expert in illusions, smoke and mirrors, and prestidigitation. Though Weber holds a master’s and a doctorate degree, as well as a law degree, his real expertise is in “Forbidden

Knowledge,” and he’s willing to share it only on a need to know basis.

Weber is magician, public speaker, performer (his audiences include U.S. presidents), innovator, inventor, designer, and more. Or, as Scientific American Magazine calls him, “a walking Swiss Army Knife.”

Along with fellow magician and actor Ricky Jay, Weber founded the consulting company Deceptive Practices and he applies his skills to theater, film, and television. He has consulted on several films including Forest Gump and Ocean’s 13, and he worked with many of Hollywood’s most renowned directors.

He consults with numerous Fortune 500 companies across the globe, and helps everyone from salesmen to executives unlock their potential through attentiveness, all through completely interactive and immersive presentations.

His company, MindLab, unleashed distinctive projects including an online health community, a zero-gravity performance to be displayed on the International Space Station, and the fully interactive candy experience, Sweet!

Perhaps what Weber has mastered most, though, is the fine art of paying attention.

He is a craftsman of heightened observation and applies this skill across all his fields of expertise. “The two, non-obvious, things of which I am constantly mindful are to be aware of ‘What Matters Most’ in both daily and life-long pursuits,” Weber says. “And to remember that what matters most in every situation, there is always something more to see, always something more to know.”

All this knowledge and expertise add up to one extraordinary wizard, often making Weber the most interesting man in the room.

Marrie Stone is the Director of Public Affairs and Co-Host of “Writers On Writing” at KUCI, 88.9 and the mother of Haley Rovner (’15). Contact: marriestone@gmail.com PEGASUS MAGAZINE SPRING 2015

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INSIGHT

by Mark Foster

T

8

his past fall, Jason Lopez, the newly hired Head

consensus building and budgetary constraints are the

of School, conducted a comprehensive search

norm). She and Gary, her husband, are the parents of

for a new Chief Financial Officer who could take

three Pegasus students — seventh grader Garret, fifth

the helm of the business office after a tumultuous twelve

grader Blake, and third grader Gracie.

months. Not only would the ideal candidate have strong

finance and accounting skills, but this critical role would

earned a bachelor of science in accounting from

require something more: experience building consensus

Loyola Marymount University. After seven years as a

among contending stakeholders, achieving superior

senior manager at KPMG, LLC, she served as the CFO

results on a limited budget, and, most importantly, an

of Newmarket Entertainment and then took on the

appreciation for the values that form the foundation of

dual role of CFO and Chief Operating Officer of Wrekin

The Pegasus School. Lopez found the ideal candidate

Hill Entertainment, LLC, where she oversaw all business

among its own ranks in the form of the quick-witted,

and operation functions of feature film production and

detail-oriented, mother of three, Rene Cogan.

distribution.

Cogan is not only a certified public accountant;

Born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, Cogan

I recently sat down with Cogan to ask her a few

she spent the last 19 years working as a CFO in feature

questions about her plans as the new CFO of The

film production and distribution (another sector where

Pegasus School.

THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

You have worked in the entertainment industry for quite

through third grade…three times now. In Kindergarten, I

some time. What skills from this experience do you hope

remember the race to get book report stickers with the

to bring to your new role at Pegasus?

goal of reading to the Head of School. In first grade,

My extensive years as a CFO will help me prioritize

I recall the nerves of Garret’s first videotaped class

and identify where to immediately focus my efforts at

presentation, and in second grade I remember Heritage

Pegasus. Like my past jobs, my role at Pegasus will put

Day, and Gracie teaching me a lot about our culture.

me at the crossroads of art and commerce. In the past

I loved signing the “hands off” contract in third grade,

I have worked hard to establish many core business

and in fourth grade I was impressed listening to the

disciplines along with the ability to be flexible and

poetry that Blake recited on Declamation Day. In fifth

creative when solving problems and structuring plans

grade, I remember the fun learning experience with

and programs. I believe this experience will be essential

famous people and the fifty states, and the creative

to improving the business office policies and procedures

writing projects around that. Then we made it to middle

and financial controls. My focus on the business office

school and in sixth grade I remember my tears as Garret

will allow Jason to continue his amazing work with the

jumped on the bus for AstroCamp for the week, then

faculty and students.

seventh grade as the year to see the

How do you believe your experience

maturity and growth from the previous

as a parent and a member of the

eight years!

Board of Trustees has helped you

If you could meet one person past or

prepare for your role as CFO?

present, who would you choose and

I served on the Pegasus Finance

why?

Committee for four years and the

Cyndi Lauper. Just kidding. The person

Board of Trustee for three years prior

who I would like to meet would be

to this new role. These experiences

Winston Churchill. I think it would be

gave me in-depth knowledge of

fascinating to meet him in order to

the school’s key issues. This “tribal

hear his perspective on the events

knowledge” was very helpful in

leading up to World War II and the

preparing me for my Pegasus responsibilities. Over

efforts and actions that led to victory in the war. Churchill

time, I have developed a deep respect for the core

had an unusual ability to bring people together for the

philosophies and mission of Pegasus.

common good.

In light of the past financial challenges at Pegasus, what

What is an interesting fact about you that most people

specific measures do you plan to take to continue to

don’t know?

rebuild the trust of the Pegasus community?

I am a huge Star Wars fan. As a teenager, I sat in a

I think it’s really important to rebuild the confidence of

theatre and watched Empire Strikes Back 17 times in

the parent body and faculty. As a top priority, I continue

one summer. Flash forward, and I was fortunate to have

to strengthen the policies and procedures of the school

Lucas Films Studio as a client and got a private tour of

in order to make sure that all significant issues and

the sub-terrain vault of the original costume and props.

matters are efficiently and fairly handled. I’m fortunate to

More recently, I was able to meet Natalie Portman

work under and for Jason Lopez, who has brought a new

in person at the Comic Con Film Festival. I recently

energy to the school. We are working closely together on

rewatched the double trilogy with my children, and,

many of these efforts to bring a new level of efficiency

of course, we watched Episode IV first, just like I did

and transparency to the operations of the school.

years ago.

What is your fondest memory of The Pegasus School to date?

Gosh, this is a super hard question as there are so many.

Keep in mind that I have experienced Kindergarten

Mark Foster is Vice President and General Counsel at Sabal Financial Group, L.P., a member of the Pegasus Facilities Committee, and the father of Arabella Foster (’17) and Ireland Foster (’19). Contact: mark.foster@sabalfin.com.

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FACULTY FOCUS

Northern Exposure Meets Dr. Laura

by Karla Joyce

15 years ago, Dustan Bridges came to Pegasus to teach math.

That was the premise, anyway...

D

uring the nineties, CBS produced an award-winning television series called Northern Exposure. In the show, a newly minted New York City doctor is sent to practice in a rural Alaskan town and clashes, riotously, with its quirky and sundry residents. Among them: the fiery female bush pilot, an ex-convict disc jockey slash nondenominational pastor, resident millionaire, local shaman riddled with allergies, and a fur-trapping retired

stockbroker, among others. All of them hail from elsewhere.

Dustan Bridges could have easily been among the cast. Bridges was born in Alabama to a marine biologist (dad) and

accountant (mom) and sweet-as-pie granny with a knack for sudden, unsolicited honesty. A job transfer relocated the young family to a suburb of Anchorage called Eagle River. It is hard to pin it on a place, but the range of snapshots and attributes provided by Bridge’s colleagues suggests, at least in part, some regionally-inspired idiosyncrasies: extremely easy-going, could live off fried pickles and wonder bread, his memorable turn as a bearded Shakespearean Juliet and a thick southern accent, milked at will, his go-to breakfast of biscuits and gravy that he makes for his girls, and a legendary list of pranks. According to James Swiger, seventh grade social studies teacher, “He even performed surgery on himself once.”

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of That Pegasus Show, a weekly series about a group of gifted kids growing up in an ordinary beach town and the teachers who grew up with them: they courted, they married, they had Riley (now a Pegasus third grader) and Cameron Jo (now a Pegasus kindergartner), and they got a dog.

Sure, there have been countless episodes of pranks and

tomfoolery — the time he and Crabtree hid Swiger’s prized motorcycle under fiesta-wear backstage, or the time Michelle Carr, reading specialist, tricked him with a fake lottery ticket and he ran screaming through school, celebrating — but his “funny guy” personality is, according to Vicki Schmitz, art teacher, camouflage to a truly remarkable character. “He is one of the most genuine people I know. Somehow a compliment from

Dr. Laura Hathaway, founder at The Pegasus School, hired

him feels equivalent to ten from anyone else.”

Bridges straight out of college to be a teaching assistant in

sixth grade math. It can only be posthumously assumed that

classroom as well. Dan Rosenberg, middle school director,

Hathaway saw a hint of what she had cultivated as the Pegasus

says Bridges manages to make the most difficult math concept

character in her young hire, because within two months, when

seem accessible, presented like it’s “just Uncle Dusty, telling

an eighth grade math teacher departed unexpectedly, Bridges

a story.” It works. Bridges, along with his middle school math

became a full-time faculty member. Shortly thereafter, Hathaway

team of Devin Seifer and Remy Carl, consistently delivers record

tapped him to speak at an all-school community gathering.

numbers of Pegasus graduates into high school honors math

Bridges can’t remember what he said at the podium but admits

programs and grooms new students, every year, for top honors at

the unscripted address was so packed with granny-candor that

the Sage Hill School Math Invitational. He is self-deprecating on

Hathaway gave him a stern look he can skillfully imitate. “Like

this front: “Seifer and Carl are amazing teachers. You can’t touch

that,” he says. “Like a mother does, when she’s not happy.” To this

that.”

day, when he walks by the mosaic likeness of Hathaway in the

Activities Center, he is certain “her eyes are watching me.”

almost, shrug, ordinary. “This is Pegasus,” says Rosenberg, as

if to clarify. And, in a way, Bridges agrees. In a forty-minute

After the incident, Hathaway instituted a school-wide

Humor, it turns out, contributes to his success in the

The strength of the middle school math department seems

rule that no teacher shall speak in public without the speech

interview the subject itself comes up twice, each time couched

in writing. Bridges tried. But the limits imposed by those

in a conversation about humor and its power to engage or

typewritten words were so stifling he floundered. He devised

the gratifying prevalence of teacher-student relationships at

a system of scribbling gobbledygook on a page and waving it

Pegasus. Maybe a relationship is, in fact, the key to engagement.

at Hathaway for her nod of approval as he ascended the stage.

Earning a technical foul on the sidelines of a boys’ basketball

Today, a quick campus survey yields unanimous raves; Bridges’

game means, to a teenager, that Coach Bridges cares. Sitting

speeches are classic.

beside Bridges in either of his Wood Shop or CO2 Dragster Cars

middle school electives is like sitting by Dad, learning how-we-

If Hathaway was in ways a mother figure for Bridges, his

colleagues became family. Literally. Almost as soon as Bridges

do. (According to his wife, “Dusty and his dad fix something

started teaching math at Pegasus, he started coaching its sports

together every summer.”) Now, Bridges adds Camp Pegasus co-

teams. As a former collegiate baseball player, it was fitting.

chair to his Pegasus quilt. “Chrissy wanted me to ‘do something’

His first courtside gig found him co-coaching girls’ volleyball

during the summer,” he says with a grin.

with Christine Bridges (née Jareb). B.J. Crabtree, lower school

Funny guy.

technology teacher, and barely-older brother figure “teased us relentlessly about signing up for the same outdoor education field trips,” says Bridges. The storyline unfolded like a sub-plot

Karla Joyce is a Pegasus parent and contributing writer for the Pegasus Magazine.

Contact: karlajoyce@cox.net

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THE POWER OF I WILL On March 20, The Pegasus School welcomed Shaun Tomson, world champion surfer and best-selling author, to address its student body. His powerful message was summarized in two words: I WILL. According to Tomson, this simple code is the ideal strategy for confronting everyday challenges and making positive, life-changing decisions. Pegasus students embraced it.

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STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

PEGASUS STYLE The Victories of the Pegasus Debate Team Have Triggered Cult-Like Participation. It Should Come as No Surprise. Success is Cool.

by Julie King Despite her oversized bow and three-foot stature, four-year old Ashley Arey spoke in an authoritative voice and informed my class of fourth graders that a pesky green fellow had ransacked her pre-K classroom and needed to be held accountable. She had done her research and had facts to support her claims. We assured her that we were aware of a leprechaun on the loose, and we were on the lookout. Later, I discussed the uniqueness of this child’s confident demeanor with my students. But, they thought her behavior was normal to Pegasus. When I predicted we’d be seeing little Arey on the Pegasus Debate Team eventually, one of my students replied, “Well, of course. Everybody wants to be in Middle School Debate!”

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T

he Pegasus Debate elective began in 2009-10 under the

The success of our debate team is a culture that permeates our school starting in the youngest grades.

leadership of Jim Conti, Eighth Grade Social Studies teacher. “We didn’t win a thing our first year,” admits

Conti. “There was a huge learning curve for all of us.” But, it didn’t take long. Since 2011, Pegasus has won the coveted Golden Gavel Award eleven times in Orange County Debate League (OCDL) competitions. “And by different debaters,” stresses Conti, noting the depth of the program. Pegasus Debate teams have repeatedly placed first in the Orange County Championships and have produced nationally competitive debaters, with Olivia Jaber ’12 and Amanda Miskell ’14 winning Golden Gavels at the Middle School Public Debate Program (MSPDP) National Championships.

But the success of our debate team is not attributable to a

single class, program, or handful of exceptional students; rather, it is a culture that permeates our school starting in the youngest grades. The debate program simply augments an educational philosophy that teaches the same skills and nurtures those qualities that, according to Conti, make great debaters: “effort, self-confidence, public speaking, and global awareness.”

Nancy Larimer, Kindergarten teacher and debate-alumni

parent, recognizes the inherent demands of competitive debate.

“Given only 25 minutes to prepare, students must rely on prior knowledge, be able to work effectively under pressure and in collaborative groups, and employ critical thinking skills.” This can’t be taught overnight. In fact, cultural awareness is infused into the Pegasus curriculum early and public speaking

proficiency matures steadily from grade to grade. “Last week (in Kindergarten), we studied Israel,” Larimer says. “The students watched a movie about the day-in-the-life of an Israeli child, then reflected on and discussed our similarities and differences.”

Discussion is the norm, and oral presentations dot every grade.

It is a tradition steeped in the school’s mission. It is also great groundwork for debate.

But success in debate requires layers of expertise. Being able

to access this academic foundation easily and under pressure requires flexibility and reflexive collaboration. For that, we need consistent exposure to the arts. Cheryl Wilson and Janice Coyle, music and theater teachers, respectively, so wholeheartedly agree that they almost speak in unison: “The best way to understand people is through the arts, and expression.” Coyle explains: “There is rarely one right answer. In fact, there are endless ways to express an idea. Our students are afforded this opportunity to explore.”

Commitment is Cool.

According to Conti, “Success is a factor of effort and effective use of time. The success on the current debate team is due to the dedication of 25-30 students who come to after-school practices, share arguments with me at night, and study websites and ideas with each other. There is a culture of purpose, collaboration, and excellence in the debate program that has taken time to establish.” Noticeably absent from that list is Conti’s personal commitment to the program, the commitment of a growing number of Middle School teachers and administrators who work tirelessly to match and advance the debaters’ dedication.

PEGASUS MAGAZINE SPRING 2015

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STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

And that kind of commitment is inspiring. Eighth grade

OCDL Golden Gavel winner, David Pritchard spends countless hours outside of class preparing arguments, in addition to his nightly homework and sometimes back-to-back soccer practices.

“We have a certain commitment and discipline and a lot traces back to Mr. Conti,” Pritchard says. “He leads us by example.”

Karen Cho, recognized as the top seventh grade speaker at

two OCDL tournaments, came to Pegasus in seventh grade. She addressed her new-kid nerves by joining the debate team, and quickly made friends. “Sure,” she says, “the award is important to me. But it’s really just a symbol of my success and a milestone of how much I’ve grown this year.”

Sahir Patel joined debate in his first year at Pegasus, as

well. Now, an eighth grader, he easily recognizes the value of it. His public speaking and researching skills have improved considerably, and he has been able to identify a unique strength in himself as Third Speaker. (Third Speaker is a challenging position that requires the debater to “think quickly on the fly.”)

Speaking Up Is Cool.

“Since 2007,” says Conti, “There have only been two seventh-grade OCDL Golden Gavel winners.” They are both Pegasus students.

Kareena Bhakta and Ishika Sachveda fully acknowledge the Pegasus culture that delivered them here.

“There are so many opportunities to practice public

speaking at Pegasus,” says Bhakta. “We are taught to speak up for what we believe in and to express ourselves even when we take an opposing view.” Bhakta has attended Pegasus since

Fun Facts

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Golden Gavel Winners (Best Speakers) Middle School Public Debate Program (MSPDP) National Championships: Olivia Jaber 4/21/12 Amanda Miskell 4/26/14 Runner Ups (by 1-point): Josh Cheadle 2015 Henry Lavacude-Cola 2014 2015 Pacific Northwest Middle School Debate League (NWMSDL) Championship Kareena Bhakta 1/31/15 OCDL Championships: David Pritchard David Pritchard (North) Ishika Sachdeva (South) Ryan Ha (North) Henry Lavacude-Cola (North) Darius Lam Matthew Aghaian Ann Garth

5/9/15 2/7/15 12/13/14 10/25/14 3/23/14, 12/8/13 3/24/13 5/5/12 3/25/12, 2/4/12, 12/11/11

Top 2015 OCDL Debater of the Season: Maya Jaffe Top 2015 OCDL Championship Team: First Place: Karen Cho, Sahir Patel, David Pritchard MSPDP Top Team Winners 2015 MSPDP Western US Championship First Place – Pegasus OCDL North Team: Tyler Wong, Michael Sherlock, Jenna Dyer *The Pegasus North team will compete in the Eastern Regional Champion in New York for the National Championship.

2012 MSPDP National Championship Team with the Most Individual Speaker Points: Olivia Jaber Matin Eshaghi Leah Phillips

pre-K. Sachveda, who entered Pegasus in fifth grade, adds with a laugh, “My last school didn’t have speaking opportunities like this, and I love to talk...a lot.” Sachveda attended a Camp Pegasus debate session the summer after her fourth grade year. She was hooked.

Whether it’s a pre-K student tirelessly hunting a leprechaun,

soliciting and gathering research and help along the way—or a middle school student driven to research, explore, and present an opinion—Pegasus students are gaining skills that are advancing them beyond the classroom. And, with those skills, they’re winning debates. There is little doubt that Ashley the leprechaun hunter and scores of her current classmates will be adding cups to that mantle.

16 THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

2015 MSDP Western US Champions: (L-R) Tyler Wong, Jenna Dyer, Michael Sherlock

Julie King has been a fourth grade teacher at Pegasus for the past 11 years and a teacher for 16 years. Prior to becoming a teacher, Julie was a writer, producer, and director for corporate marketing and training video productions with companies including McDonnell Douglas and Home Savings of America. Contact: jking@pegasuseducation.org

FINDING THEIR Student Film Winners Share What “Inspire” Means to Them

by Shalini Mattina

In education, the sweet spot has been referenced to that feeling of excitement that students reach from a fusion of inquisitiveness and experiences. As a result of that feeling, they become more engaged to learn. According to Daniel Willingham, a cognitive scientist, it is what “fuels curiosity.” At Pegasus, students are provided with a variety of opportunities to explore their passions in depth in order to find their sweet spot in the learning cycle. This article highlights one of those inspirations…through the combination of collaboration and technology.

................................................................................................

Ryyan Siddiqi and Sacha Baniassad

Celeste Taylor

Koby Twist

Linda Cullen and Maya Jaffe

PEGASUS MAGAZINE SPRING 2015

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STUDENT SPOTLIGHT Last November, students in grades four through eight were given the opportunity to share their vision through an authentic student filmmaking competition. One video from each grade level would be showcased both at the 2015 Spring Benefit Film Fest, Celebrating our Stars event and at the school’s annual talent show.

The challenge: To direct and produce a film depicting what the word INSPIRE means to each student.

Six young filmmakers — fourth graders Ryyan Siddiqi and Sacha Baniassad, fifth grader Celeste Taylor, sixth grader Koby Twist, eighth graders Linda Cullen and Maya Jaffe — won their spot in the limelight. Between homework, sports, family time, and other activities, these motivated artists spent hours collaborating, researching, testing, and refining to create four very unique, yet inspirational, masterpieces. They had to learn to manage their time, which to many, is no easy task. They encountered many obstacles during the process, but in the end, their persistence to complete their product attained well-deserved success.

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Fourth Grade Winners: Ryyan Siddiqi and Sacha Baniassad

Fifth Grade Winner: Celeste Taylor

Ryyan Siddiqi and Sacha Baniassad are best friends with

Celeste Taylor enjoys diving with her sister. She has been in

a common devotion—basketball (both boys want to be

the sport only two years, although her impressive skills shown

professional athletes). They both joined the Pegasus DSL

in her film “My Sister Inspires Me” suggest that she is a genuine

basketball team, coached by Shannon Vermeeren, fifth grade

pro. Taylor and her younger sister, Kate, have a close bond. They

teacher, and the spark for their film began. With a little help

both train and dive competitively, and enjoy plenty of friendly

from their parents, “Basketball and Pegasus Inspire Me” depicts

competition. When she’s not practicing, Taylor is making videos

these talented athletes in action: on the court, scoring points

on her iPhone, using Video Star and iMovie apps. During the

for their team; and on campus, seeking information from their

production of her Pegasus film, she notes, “One of the challenges

mentors, including Jason Lopez (head of school), Dan Rosenberg

encountered (and learned from) was that deleting video clips

(lower school director), Charles Tyler (P.E. teacher and soccer

from my iPhone 4’s Camera Roll deletes movie clips in iMovie.

coach), and Vermeeren. Both Siddiqi and Baniassad attest to

I had to re-create everything again and do it manually.” Taylor

their belief that “by setting a goal in basketball, or anything you

hopes to attend Orange County School of the Arts after Pegasus.

love to do, helps you work hard and to keep trying to reach that

Her dream job — to direct movies adapted from books like,

goal.” Nice observation from these two 10-year

The Princess Bride (which happens to be her all-time favorite).

old boys.

Taylor’s words of advice for other children pursuing their dream: “Don’t procrastinate!”

18 THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

Sixth Grade Winner: Koby Twist

Eighth Grade Winners: Maya Jaffe and Linda Cullen

During the creation of his film “Inspiration,” Koby Twist

I N S P I R E – Integrity, Nurture, Self-Esteem, Positivity,

boldly delved into the study of experimental film techniques,

Imagination, Respect, Empower. From these seven letters and

instrumental music, and voice-over narration to create a feeling

words, evolved a volume of meaning to friends Linda Cullen

of connection with Mother Earth. Twist uses his voice to lead the

and Maya Jaffe. Aside from academics, these young ladies excel

viewer into a series of breath-taking scenes of his adventures.

as athletes, performing artists, and musicians. Both have been

He explored and mirrored a style similar to that of Devin

on Pegasus sports’ teams and have performed in Pegasus theater

Graham, a videographer known for his adventure and extreme

arts productions, and talent shows. It is no surprise that Cullen

sport videos on YouTube (aka, devinsupertramp). “The idea I had

and Jaffe wanted to tap further into their talents and make a

was to have no people in the video, only nature and voice-over.

film. Both agree that initially coming up with the concept for

I used my Go Pro to shoot the footage and Final Cut Pro to

their film was a little challenging, but after brainstorming about

edit.” (He challenged himself by learning Apple’s Final Cut Pro

what moved them about Pegasus, they reached a solution. “We

sophisticated video editing software — within the free

wanted to include all aspects of Pegasus that are special to us

30-day trial period!) This ambitious videographer has a knack

— the arts, sports, buddies, robotics, student ambassadors, the

for technology. Since fifth grade, Twist studied the Adobe

Crossover Academy partnership, and our teachers. Everything

Creative Suite programs, including Photoshop and After Effects.

we put into the video is important to us. We have become

With poise and composure, Twist continues, “You don’t need to

better people because of our experiences here,” says Cullen,

start with a lot of skill to create something cool, just have the

who has attended Pegasus since Kindergarten. “We’ve gained

interest and the drive to make it happen. Compromise along the

not only inspiration, but all the character traits that make up

way, too.”

the inspiration,” adds Jaffe. She continues with assurance, “It’s important to be persistent and have a good attitude in whatever you pursue...that’s how you get through life.”

................................................................................................

These six students are just a small fraction of Pegasus students who tapped into their sweet spots. There will be hundreds of new skills and abilities that students will master during their educational years. Given the right amount of difficulty, they will become motivated to learn and will make connections to the world around them. They may use these talents, perhaps to become successful leaders. Someday, we may find Siddiqi and Baniassad dribbling down the court at the Staples Center; Taylor directing her next Disney film; Twist designing marketing material for Apple products; Cullen solving a crime case; or, Jaffe curing diseases.

Shalini Mattina is the Associate Director of Advancement, Communications, and the mother of Kai Kasserman (’16). Contact: smattina@thepegasusschool.org PEGASUS MAGAZINE SPRING 2015

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FEATURE

The Simple Intersection of Divergent Lives, Audacious Acts of Kindness, and Ideas

by Karla Joyce

In 2011, The Pegasus School and Crossover International Academy joined forces to provide greater global perspective to their students.

It worked. Since then, the association has bred a network of connections throughout Orange County, with people of all ages, determined to support safe access to education, under any condition, anywhere. It is a big vision brought within reach by the kids of Crossover, plugged-in Pegasus students and alumni, and our Pegasus-for-life parent community.

The intersection of divergent lives, acts of kindness, and ideas: some call that teaching. Academe dubs this intersection a meaningful education or making a difference or creating leaders. Fortunately, there are still those who call it — sans italics — the unexceptional fact of everyday life.

Jim Conti, Pegasus middle school social studies teacher and debate coach, first toyed with the idea of an international alliance to enhance his Social Studies curriculum in the fall of 2011. It wasn’t unprecedented, and he found scores of established options for online student-interface. But most lacked his requisite it-factor

for real learning: engagement. So, he persisted.

At the same time, thanks to a provisional ISP alongside Lake Volta in Ghana, Dave Yayravi entered the conversation in an online global education conference, with similar ambitions. Yayravi, head of the K-8 Crossover International Academy, three hours north of Accra, was tapping his only (temporarily) available educational resource: the Internet.

Despite noble intentions, the teachers in both settings faced cultural interference. The students at Crossover have a rich

The students at Crossover have a rich connection to the realities of the world.

20 THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

connection to the realities of the world. Though tragic — most are orphaned, former slaves — their experiences and first-hand perspectives fuel a deep dedication to learning and a clearcut end to their efforts, one that involves survival. They could graduate with honors like their American counterparts. But the simplest things hold them back; they have nothing.

The students at Pegasus, while economically diverse, have everything. From fourth grade through eighth, the laptop/iPadto-student ratio is 1:1. Educational materials are copious and varied but, by their nature, conceptual. And with web streaming and warm beds and hot lunch selections daily, learning is less urgent and, because of that, often less reflective.

So there were Conti and Yayravi, on an insignificant Sunday, simultaneously seeking exposure to the other’s world in order to reach his students more deeply, compelled by a simple idea and compassion… when their text bubbles intersected. crossover, n. a point or place of crossing from one side to the other.

All Children Can Learn “Education is emancipation, nothing greater.”

So said Atawa, a 15-year-old orphan and former slave, who now lives and studies at the Crossover International Academy in Ghana.

Even today, while billions worldwide thrive, millions of children remain exploited through the cruel and chronically

overlooked practice of modern slavery. In one region alone — the fishing villages alongside Lake Volta in Ghana — an estimated 21,000 very young children are held hostage to hazardous labor, violent abuse, and little food, stolen from their homes or sold by poverty-stricken parents into servitude for local fishermen.

Many die on the lake, robbed of childhood, denied an education and the human right to freedom.

Atawa escaped this fate and blossoms today in no small measure because of one man. Yayravi founded the Crossover Academy in 2008 on the shore of Lake Volta to address a serious need. Despite a relentless wave of obstacles (life-threatening floods, negligible shelter, endemic shortages, a steady surplus of refugees, and unchecked corruption), he has never lost sight of his mission: to educate these children, to free them.

[See Sidebar: “Atawa”]

Youth in Common While the students of Crossover “study like Greek monks,” according to Atawa, to claim an independent future, half a world away students at The Pegasus School study, too, with diligence and nurtured interest along a well-equipped path, destined toward higher education. Pegasus was founded in 1984 specifically for gifted learners, but its founding vision was analogous to Yayravi’s on many levels: it would be a safe place, an intellectually challenging environment, and it characterized PEGASUS MAGAZINE SPRING 2015

21

education as the process of “building wings so bright minds charities,” he explained. “But this was different.” In December could soar,” a tagline to the idea of education as conduit to of 2012, he was on vacation with his family, filling downtime discovery, impact, and freedom. catching up on less-pressing news, when he stumbled on the Pegasus Magazine documented the first interactions (e-mail article in Pegasus Magazine. Sadly, stories abound of children debates) between the two student bodies in its Fall 2012 edition. who are trapped by scarcity and misfortune and even powerful Educators everywhere tackle subjects of global significance compassion can fizzle, outmatched by degree. But this article through the thin prism of perspective, doing their best with didn’t tackle deprivation-at-large; instead, it profiled eager textbooks and rampant online imagery to enlighten their students with spunk and ambition and that preadolescent lump students. But when Conti’s students challenged the Ghanaians of raw emotion, all tendered candidly in class emails with our on the economic and environmental impact of hydroelectric Pegasus students. Their words hit him hard. power, buoyed by printed evidence, something exciting Cooper called Conti to introduce himself; Jacob, his son, happened. The Crossover students, living within sight of the hadn’t yet reached middle school. For several months they Akosombo Dam, added to every argument a very personal brainstormed ways to help that transcended token goods. experience with the human cost of They agreed that Crossover needed a damming: destruction, slavery, and systemic solution to feed its students death. Even on paper, Pegasus lost the and provide sturdier shelter, and the debate. income to maintain it indefinitely.

The next prompt, “How does In May of 2012, Cooper funded a technology affect the Third World,” burst do-diligence trip to Ghana to better onto Pegasus computer screens with a gauge the conditions and establish a .jpeg attached and became the tipping reasonable blueprint for sustainable point for Conti-brand engagement. For change. His findings lacked subtlety. the first time, the Pegasus students The first days greeted them with saw their Ghanaian counterparts stifling heat. On the third day, Cooper queued up behind a battered Toshiba, recalled, dark clouds rolled in with waiting to write, with dirt the a pelting rain and dialed down the only decor and a mood of delight. temperature. It was a relief, of sorts.

Jim Conti, co-founder of Wings for Crossover, and Dave Yayravi, Founder of Impulsively, Conti’s students clipped But as Cooper and Conti drove in Crossover International Academy selfies to their responses giving face comfort to a local hotel, the 253 and feeling and vitality right back and, like kids colliding at children of Crossover curled up for warmth on concrete benches recess, friendships began. “I stare at your disarming smile for a — or mats on mud — to sleep. “What if that were Cooper’s long time,” said a 10-year-old, Amewugah, “until tears flow from children?” my eyes.”

Upon his return, they established Wings for Crossover, a 501(c) That first class of students rallied to collect and retrofit (3) non-profit corporation dedicated to improving the living discarded devices and raise the funds to ship them, along conditions for the students currently at Crossover, and those with soccer balls and extra school supplies, to Crossover. to come. Shelter was critical, he thought, but a monumental Each successive class of Pegasus eighth graders has picked up undertaking. Establishing a consistent food supply was equally the mantle, rapt in research and debate about micro-lending important, insisted Conti, but a fickle climate and hostile in developing countries, drought implications and water fishing industry made solutions equally enigmatic. And the management, and sustainable solutions to hunger, to name a few. laptops that had been shipped from Pegasus had been rendered These are no longer global issues to a Pegasus student, or topics on useless a month earlier when the local cell tower had dropped the next test; they are the daily obstacles facing fellow students.

Internet service from the area, citing its rural classification as

Do As I Do Chad Cooper, a former Pegasus parent and investment banker living in Corona del Mar, better exemplifies the flash of chance that often triggers involvement. “I had always been involved in 22 THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

justification. By comparison, the signal issue was clear-cut; so, Cooper started there.

He convinced SkyVision, a global telecommunications service provider, to donate and install the $30K apparatus needed to conduct cellular communication and Skype-strength

data streaming and to provide free service to Crossover Academy. (SkyVision was repaid for its largess in karma and recognition; it was nominated for the “Technology-ChangingLives” prize at the 7th Annual AfricanCom Awards in 2014.)

Conti’s new group of eighth graders embraced the greater access; eight more retrofitted computers and three iPads were shipped to Ghana. The debates resumed in real time via Skype.

And, with communication, solutions to the bigger needs were one step closer.

Feeding Souls While Cooper strategized steps to a new schoolhouse and dorms, Conti took on hunger. Systemic inadequacies in food

production so crippled the Crossover community that food security needed to be addressed. Given the school’s proximity to Lake Volta, Conti and his students studied three options: aquaculture, or the farming of tilapia in a dedicated “plot” on the lake; hydroponics, the practice of growing plants in water with fertilizer; and aquaponics.

Aquaponic farming is the process by which plants and fish propagate symbiotically in a water environment. Fish breed and mature in tanks. The water from these tanks is pumped into hydroponic beds where vegetables absorb the nutrients and, in turn, purify the water to return to the fish tanks. This kind of system can produce food in the most difficult weather conditions and in bulk, meaning excess can be sold at market.

Wings for Crossover Co-Founders (L-R): Chad Cooper, Claude Yacoel, Jeff Goffman, Tom Ferry

PEGASUS MAGAZINE SPRING 2015

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In less than a year, Crossover has become a leader in food production in Ghana.

24 THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

Political instability and intimidation practices inherent to the Volta fishing industry took aquaculture off the table. And hydroponics would require the perpetual purchase of fertilizer, which costs money. “I kept circling back to aquaponics,” said Conti. But before going gangbusters a half a world away, Conti tested the waters on a meager budget in his own backyard.

“It was surprisingly easy,” he said. Within a month, his DIY aquaponics pond was generating profuse quantities of organic produce and fish.

In the fall of 2013, Wings for Crossover purchased an intact aquaponic system from the Ghanaian branch of Solve International, an “agriculture research and development firm that creates market-driven solutions for urban centers.” The system installed at Crossover, said Conti, “is massive. It contains 27,000 gallons of water, can accommodate up to 4,000 tilapia divided by age, and has a grow-bed capacity of 3,000 plants.”

From January to March 2014, data from the ponds in Ghana was sent to the students at The Pegasus School for analysis. Together, the children determined that lettuce and cabbage couldn’t mature fully but tomatoes, French beans, and peppers would flourish, so Crossover replanted. Nine months into the growth cycle the first fish were harvested and salted. They collected ripe produce and traded at the local market in Dzemeni for bulk rice and other necessities.

In less than a year, Crossover has become a leader in food production in Ghana, garnering the attention of the Ghanaian Ministry of Agriculture and local universities. With nary a flicker of pride, Conti acknowledged: “We’re currently discussing options for collaboration and replication.” But he doesn’t stop there.

“The final piece of the sustainable puzzle,” insists Conti, “is an investment in cows.” The nonprofit’s next campaign seeks to fund the final level diversification for self-sufficiency: an initial gift of livestock and the training in animal husbandry to support it.

Earlier this spring, The Pegasus School installed a gleaming 700-gallon aquaponics system on its own grounds, squarely in a hub of kid-traffic. It can potentially support 296 tilapia and 66 plants, with maximum production at 33 pounds of produce and 30 fish per month. According to Pam Conti, Pegasus Director of Environmental Sustainability, the system will deliver myriad educational opportunities at all grade levels. Middle School students

will tend to it, maintaining an optimal bacteria cycle and harvesting its crops. Seventh grader Hana Stauss is leading the charge to bring cooking classes to campus to utilize the bounty and to organize regular donations of extra produce and fish to Someone Cares Soup Kitchen in Costa Mesa.

Digging In Though strikingly diverse, the parent population at Pegasus has one rock-solid commonality: Pegasus itself. Adult friendships blossom with or without kid-connections and last, like college ties. These people vacation together.

As a Pegasus parent, Cooper may have expected the level of educational engagement that a Crossover-interaction provided.

But he didn’t anticipate his own personal fixation, “to sustainably transform the lives of children who had been disregarded, discarded even,” as Conti put it. Cooper was determined to build a schoolhouse, dormitories, and lavatories as a basic prerequisite for life and learning. He needed his friends to make it happen.

Claude Yacoel was the first to rally.

Yacoel, a former Pegasus parent and steadfast friend, is the managing partner of Yacoel Properties LLC, a real estate investment company specializing in the acquisition and development of shopping centers in Southern California. With Conti analyzing farming alternatives and Cooper negotiating wireless deals, Yacoel did what he does best: look for land, render site plans, hire architects. “It was natural for me,” he shrugged.

At the time, Crossover was comprised of two thatched huts serving as both classroom and sleeping quarters; a small, enclosed administrative building; and a water tank replenished regularly with water from Lake Volta. The facility was situated on rented land, a quarter of a mile from the lake. At night, the students slept three or four to a mat. By day, they worked there, studied hard, kept the grounds, stocked the tank and fished to eat. Children dropped too often from rampant water-born diseases like guinea worm and cholera; one child died lakeside, collecting water.

It was easy to rally the rest of them. Dave Harvey, father of Katelyn (’12), Mitch (’15) and Nicole (‘16), took up the torch from home, hosting a fundraising dinner for his Pegasus friends and their friends and easily, they launched a movement. Jeff Goffman, father of Gabriele (’13), Max (’15), Isabella (’18) and Francesca (’23), jumped onboard immediately. As Chairman and CEO of PEGASUS MAGAZINE SPRING 2015

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Integrated Oncology Network, Goffman’s expertise in physician Students Can, Too practice management and cancer center development would The Crossover experience, from those first student interactions prove invaluable. Tom Ferry, father of Michael (’14) and Steven to the feeding and sheltering of a student body, has been a (’15), was there too. Ferry is a recognized real estate coach, dramatic example of educational immersion and inspired, inspirational speaker and best-selling author of Life! By Design: 6 effective action. Children are programmed from their earliest Steps to an Extraordinary You. He took the Crossover story to his days through popular culture to be a leader or change the world, but next highly populated real estate conference and simply rarely encounter first-hand opportunities to connect the dots. stood back.

Crossover has exposed Pegasus students to critical global issues Crossover Academy, with the help of Wings for Crossover, that, they have learned, are solvable. acquired two acres of land within walking distance of its Scores of Pegasus students have taken this lesson to heart current location, ideally elevated on a plateau overlooking and to high school. Gabby Goffman (’13) and Shane Larimer (’13) the lake. Architectural renderings were finalized for a new started students clubs at Mater Dei and Sage Hill, respectively. facility that would ultimately include two classroom blocks “Our clubs are limited in terms of fundraising,” explained to accommodate nine classes of students from Kindergarten Larimer. “So we are learning how to write grants.” Both groups through eighth grade, boys’ and girls’ dormitories, a library, are brainstorming energy options that are compatible with the and vocational and administrative Lake Volta landscape. buildings, all laid-out logically across

And Crossover is just a slice three acres of land. In January 2014, of Conti’s Global Issues curriculum. the Ghanaian Ministry of Health Last October 11, the class embraced threatened closure because of the a United Nations movement called school’s merciless living conditions.

International Day of the Girl. Students Money was diverted from the planning prepared essays about the importance process to build temporary shelter. “The of educating girls globally, in both setback was a blessing,” according to developed and developing countries, Conti; the local builder assigned to the while their Ghanaian counterparts task delivered an exceptional product delivered unwelcome speeches like Alumnus Kevin Kassel ’09, founder of Club H2O, makes it his mission to deliver water filters to developing countries. under budget and was hired to replace town criers at local crossroads. the original builder. By April, Crossover secured a third acre of Everything was shared, via Skype. adjacent land and, with surveyors satisfied and site plans and For some Pegasus graduates, eighth-grade Global Issues definitive renderings in place, the local planning commission may have launched a career. Joy Iwamoto (’14), Steven Kokotsky gave its blessing. (‘14) and Nick Crabtree (’14) have all earned recognition for their Nine months later, the two classroom blocks were efforts in the Model U.N. programs at their current schools. completed. These structures were immediately utilized for And, Pegasus Class of 2009 graduate Kevin Kassel’s USC Club educational purposes and, provisionally, as dormitories as H20: Water for the World was recently selected as a finalist in the well. “That means no more sleeping in mud,” says Conti. It is USC Changemakers Social Innovation competition. (Club H20 a large leap forward, to be sure, but they are still mid-air. The sends lifesaving Hurley water filters with travelers going to construction of dormitories and bathroom stalls will require destinations in need, avoiding costs and shipping.) further funding, but the level of engagement and commitment If the lingering impact of the Pegasus-Crossover connection from the founding friends of Wings for Crossover and a is alumni who are more aware, more engaged, and in possession widening circle of supporters virtually guarantees completion. of the knowledge that the littlest act can ripple well beyond the It had long been recognized that contaminated water would threaten the confines of our safe circle, we all win. Imagine knowing, then, security of Crossover students no matter how thick the walls, and a rash of that a ripple can hit land as a tidal wave. While we have been water-born diseases plagued the school that summer as if to prove it. Pegasus shaping curriculum and opening minds at home, we have also students sent a shipment of Hurley water filters for drinking as a stopgap, transferred our legacy of academic excellence to 300 former but fundraising resumed to build a well. By late 2014, construction of a slave children in a turbulent corner of the Africa continent. The Bore Hole delivering clean drinking water to the Crossover community transformation of Crossover has been phenomenal. was completed.

26 THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

Crossover is one of 175 schools in the South Dayi District of the Volta Region. Each year, the Ghanaian government administers tests in seven subjects. In the three years since connecting with Pegasus, every Crossover student has passed all seven subjects, and their aggregate scores rank them highest in the region. “They’re academic giants!” says Yayravi. Nine students graduated from Crossover last year. Five of those students got full scholarships to Bishop Herman, the highestrated high school in Volta; the other four received partial scholarships.

“Pegasus has totally transformed us,” Yayravi continues.

“With educational materials and computers and satellite communications and everything else, they have lifted these children out of the shackles of poverty. Just reading about Pegasus students motivates us.”

Feeding the Soul We parents have expectations in a school. We want teachers who inspire our kids and lessons that make learning habitual.

We want a community that nurtures aptitude, embraces when times are tough, and vigorously launches its graduates to larger things. We want our sons and daughters to remember with fondness and appreciation a childhood that included extraordinary opportunities, rooted in the soil of Pegasus.

Paradoxically, partnering with a school in Africa makes those roots stronger.

Conti identified the gift of perspective and complexity that the Crossover connection could provide his students.

He witnessed first-hand the natural tapping of altruism that occurred through this association, and the surge of studentmaturity that followed each episode of problem solving. The essence of a Pegasus education is often conveyed emotionally, with the school’s series of intentionally crafted curricular traditions and milestones leading, in the end, to a Pegasus graduate. Or reverentially, citing 31 years of thriving alumni as proof of purchase. Or, obscurely: it simply gets in your bloodstream.

Crossover has given us a glimpse of that Pegasus essence from yet another angle. Now, the soul of a Pegasus education can also be distilled in a connection.

MEET ATAWA Atawa, 15, is a true extrovert, a self-proclaimed Harry Potter addict, and a budding “news reader” (a.k.a broadcast journalist). She was rescued from a fishing hamlet on the “wild west bank of the lake, across from Crossover” at the age of eight, according to Yayravi. Her story, while startlingly unique, is typical.

Atawa’s father divorced her mother when she

was three months old. When anxiety and depression drove the mother into mental illness beyond rescue, a paternal aunt reluctantly took Atawa home. Shortly after her fourth birthday, the elderly aunt explained to Atawa that she had a sister in Accra who wanted to send her to school, “to become a great lady one day.”

So, Atawa happily accompanied the unfamiliar

woman — in fact, a fishmonger who came to town weekly to push salted tilapia — toward a brighter future. Her hopes were dashed within days when she was sold again to a 45-year-old, pot-bellied fisherman. For years, Atawa lived with the stout man and his lanky partner-in-business and played the role of fishmonger, cook, wife at night and housemaid, always. By age eight, she had started her menses, conceived repeatedly, and suffered three abortions.

“I suddenly feel,” she realized, still a child, “like a mature woman.”

“I met her by sheer coincidence,” recalled

Yayravi. (By necessity, Dave Yayravi and his oldest Crossover students fished the lake for food.) “We were out fishing one day and broke an oar. We needed to dock, cut some wood and make a replacement.” As they went about their task, Atawa approached the lake to draw water. Her candor still intact, she openly answered their questions.

“There and then, without much ado,” Yayravi

said, “I took her straight to Crossover. After making a new oar.”

Her longtime captors made several attempts

to abduct her from the school, to no avail. Today, Atawa is one of Yayravi’s most brilliant pupils. She views education as a means to freedom and the ticket to becoming “a great and powerful lady.”

Despite her experiences, she still believes in the

promises of her aunt.

For more information about ongoing Pegasus-Crossover activity, please visit: www.wingsforcrossover.com.

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PROGRAM

Life Inside

The Circle

The Pegasus Theater Arts Program Does More Than Stage Plays.

It Offers Kids a Script Applicable to Any Setting: How to be Present, How to be Engaged, How to Be Connected.

by Matt Aghaian ’12

It is a ritual in theater. Minutes before a curtain ascends the actors gather backstage in a circle holding hands.

Sometimes there is quiet reflection. Other times the director will speak to his cast to motivate them. It is designed to comfort, to strip away nerves to be able to summon that deepest place, and to step out there – onto the stage or into the world – strong. Circles represent unity. Everyone in that circle has worked together to make the performance possible. Everyone in that circle affects the outcome. Everyone in that circle is one.

28 THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

I

experienced my first cast circle at Pegasus. I was uncomfortable with the idea. But standing in the circle I realized the power of those quiet moments as the group breathed together, thought about the performance at hand, and relaxed. It definitely worked for me. I felt the full effect of that first cast circle and it remains one of my favorite parts of performing today.

I am a very proud graduate of The Pegasus School, and I am grateful. I have public speaking skills and a strong presence in front of a crowd because of Pegasus. I can confidently debate ideas, deliver a speech, and make a stirring announcement because of a Pegasus culture that made it natural. And I have a true love for dramatic acting because of hours and hours spent playing in the Pegasus Theater.

From Elephant to French Revolutionary I can remember how it started, like it was yesterday. In fourth grade, I was cast as Horton in Seussical Jr., a full-length musical play directed by Sharon Goldhamer, second grade teacher and extracurricular theater enthusiast. It was a meaty role for my first theater experience, and it felt like a stretch. Everyday during rehearsal I would switch, not so effortlessly, between student and a singing elephant that chases down a speck on a flower with gusto. Despite my personal challenges, the show was a huge hit, and the opportunity to perform in a lead role ignited in me a passion for acting that remains red-hot today.

Goldhamer had an inspiring level of knowledge and experience when it came to theatre. But, looking back, it was her endless support and compelling energy that drew me head first into the circle.

Cheryl Wilson and Janice Coyle, music and theater teachers, picked up the mantle and set out to hone my acting skills as if on a mission. (I still refer to them, in private, as the dynamic duo.)

The Pegasus middle school electives program gave me the chance to spend more time acting, to do what I wanted to do more. It was a gift. And with more volume came more variety. I was involved in so many more performances that the range of genre, and therefore the range of roles, was quite significant. I bounced gleefully between a singing lead in “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” to hosting and acting in the all-school Winter Concert.

By the time I graduated from Pegasus, my acting-fate was sealed.

I transitioned to Sage Hill High School with a confidence that can only be attributed to Pegasus and, more specifically, the lessons learned one production at a time. That cast circle, so essential to a single performance, is now a knee-jerk mental exercise to prepare me for any new situation. The circle has

Matt Aghaian ’12 and Julia Blatz perform as Gomez Addams and Wednesday Addams in Sage Hill School’s The Addams Family production.

many benefits outside theater. I connect to new people in a powerful way and feel more deeply a part of any community.

Engagement is natural. As a junior, I am the vice president of the Sage student body and preparing my bid for president. I am a student ambassador, a committed debater, and an active member of the Persian dance team. And, as if time were infinite, I act.

The productions in high school have been, not surprisingly, more complex. My first opportunity to audition found me staring down the words of Victor Hugo’s classic tragedy, Les Misérables. I was awarded the role of Enjolras. In the story, Enjolras is the charismatic leader of the masses, a revolutionary who fights against a monarchy that has brutally suppressed the poor and oppressed. He ultimately dies for his beliefs. Both the story and the language were challenging, made more so in verse. And yet that musical ended up being one of the mostattended events of the Sage Hill Studio and is still talked about, respectfully, to this day.

A more recent role to test my mettle was that of Gomez in The Addams Family. It was difficult for different reasons but definitely humorous, crowd-pleasing and, ultimately, rewarding.

Learning a Spanish accent was hard, but keeping a pencil-thin mustache at school for a week was even harder. (I’d like to give a shout out to Antonio Banderas and Ricky Ricardo.)

I know there will be more productions, more challenging roles, and more challenges period. But as I ready myself to step onstage, I will simply grab the hands of those people standing next me, in the same pursuit or simply the same community, and take a breath. What comes next will surely be...interesting.

Matt Aghaian ’12 is the current vice-president of Sage Hill School student body and will be president in the 2015-2016 school year. Contact: matthewaghaian@gmail.com

PEGASUS MAGAZINE SPRING 2015

29

THOSE WHO SOAR

Get Inspired: Two Pegasus Graduates Sure, most middle school students zip from locker to lunch to English and back, barely thinking beyond today. skill, fleeting snapshots of tenacity and passion and a possible future appear over and over until one day, strung

A MEMORABLE MELODY MELODY NOEL HERNANDEZ (’06) calls Pegasus her “boot camp.”

Ironically, the rigorous training she remembers didn’t entail reading, writing, and arithmetic. (Though she swears she got academics in spades.) “Even back then,” she says, “Pegasus had the most thriving musical theater department around.”

Hernandez happens to be the daughter of Grammy-nominated Jose Hernandez, the go-to mariachi for nearly every Disney score in existence. Hernandez, herself, grew up happily cast in her Mexican heritage and embraced her role in her family’s 150-year Mariachi history. Her contribution, as a child: the violin.

Call it a prepubescent need for autonomy, but by middle school Hernandez had taken the leap from fiddle to vocals and, eventually, musical theater. She remembers her Camp Pegasus experience with fresh admiration and claims it jumpstarted her calling. “We performed a new musical every three weeks,” she says. “The theater director, Kim Freeman, brought in choreographers and singing and acting coaches for rehearsals. Real professionals. It was awesome.”

Hernandez followed her infatuation for musicals to St. Margaret’s, where she thrived, and to UCLA’s musical theater summer camp. One of her campmates was the daughter of a music producer who needed a Spanishspeaking singer for a demo track; Hernandez conveniently fit the bill. She was sixteen. The sound was pop. The producer invited her to join a new girl group called Runway MMC. The band hovered near stardom for over

30 THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

a year, with a television pilot and teen-clothing line and copious gigs that forced her to drive to L.A. three or four times a week after school. “I honestly thought I would drop out,” she admits. But the band’s manager went bankrupt and, abruptly, “everything was gone.”

It was a lot to process as a teen, but a glass-half-full disposition allows Hernandez to interpret the experience positively. “It gave me my love for pop music,” she explains. “And, I was around people writing pop and turning it into a business.” Determined, Hernandez matriculated to the NYU Tisch School’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, a unique undergraduate program designed to prepare students for the music industry. It was a rigorous program that forbade industry internships during a student’s first year. Hernandez broke the rules; she promptly scored a job at Imagem Music Publishing, a company that matches artists with potential songs written by their clients. “I thought that if I didn’t make it as a writer or artist, I might be good at song-plugging.”

Not surprisingly, she hated it. “I’m the artist,” she says with conviction. She stayed for a year and a half then handed her boss a demo tape; he signed her immediately. She has written and recorded 110 songs since signing and anxiously awaits one to hit with an American artist. (She’s had songs recorded in France and India.) Her song-writing philosophy: “Throw as many as you can out there, and pray.”

Prayer may be integral to her strategy, but clearly talent, tenacity, and pure joy have joined forces to put Hernandez firmly on her way to massive success. Visit her website: www. melodynoelmusic.com.

Found Their Calling In Seventh Grade (Seriously) Hardly pondering tomorrow. But when allowed to linger on a task or encouraged to persist and hone a single together and viewed in retrospect, they become the “Making Of” movie of a successful adult. by Karla Joyce

HOW TO INTERPRET SUCCESS It’s the kind of thing that happens in the movies: a bubbly twelveyear-old starts seventh grade at a new school and hides her nerves with bravado. “I’d always been the smartest in my class,” she swears, but after just one day at Pegasus she is “suddenly, noticeably, not.”

On day two, September 11, 2001, school starts late. All eyes are glued to news reports of four commercial airliners, hijacked and hurtling toward dense, big-city targets.

A child to her right cries for a cousin who is on one of the planes. She is swept up in mutual emotion and collective speculation and the analysis of international affairs that unites the class and the world for months. In this swirl of circumstances, her future begins.

Fourteen years later, KAT ZUBLIN (’03), on leave from the internationally renowned Institut Supérieur d’Interprétation et de Traduction (ISIT) in Paris, remembers her Pegasus initiation as sobering and loaded with significance. She also readily credits two middle school teachers for unveiling her two-fold fascination with languages and history, for training her how to think and make connections, and for introducing her to an inner voice that mysteriously repeats the phrase: “Yes, keep doing it!” to this day.

“Everybody had taken Spanish since Kindergarten,” Zublin says, evoking the angst of a rookie. “So they put me in a special group of new kids to catch up in two weeks.

“I just took to it,” admits Zublin. “My teacher, Señora Clark, recognized my love for it and encouraged me; it was a huge confidence boost.” From there, Zublin rode the

wings of good-teacher-karma into eighth grade social studies with Mr. Fleming, and sparks flew again.

“He was the first person who taught me to truly focus,” Zublin gushes.

Most importantly, she sees now: at Pegasus, she identified what she loved.

What-she-loved led her to transfer from Mater Dei High School after two years to a secondary school in Madrid, graduate with first-class honors in French, Spanish and Italian from the University of Salford in England (chosen for its language lab and conference interpreting booths), complete a first master’s degree split between schools in three countries and, ultimately, to merit acceptance to the prized ISIT. For the layperson, the difference between translation and interpretation of a language lies in the medium.

Translators change written words from one language to another; high-level interpreters convert the spoken word in real time, sitting for 30-minute stints in soundproof booths with ears covered, simultaneously listening, speaking, deciphering nuance and ambiguity, cultural idiom and sarcasm for clarity, and mimicking the personality of the person who is speaking. Interpretation is considered an art form and something of a human miracle.

Understandably, in addition to language skills, the interpreter must own geopolitical events, like a textbook.

Zublin is determined to master context at ISIT. “Without understanding the situation behind what is being said,” Zublin notes, “it’s impossible to translate accurately. I have a map of the world in my head at all times.” And curiously, she admits, that mental map is frayed exactly like the one on the wall of her social studies classroom, at Pegasus.

PEGASUS MAGAZINE SPRING 2015

31

INSIGHT

a

egacy

in

iterature

Pegasus Parent Book Clubs Still Soaring High

by Marrie Stone

“You can take the mom out of Pegasus, but you can’t take Pegasus out of the mom.” Lisa Kassel will testify to this adage. Kassel, along with seventeen other alumni mothers, has been part of the Hathawayers’ Book Club, which has been going strong for over a decade.

While most of their children are grown and graduated, the mothers remain — steadfast and bonded — by books, as well as a value system and a commonly shared important decision — sending their children to Pegasus.

32 THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

Toni Rios says it was Laura Hathaway’s vision, and her

“We all came to Pegasus looking for something similar, “

educational philosophy, that inspired the group and its name.

says Kassel. “A shared philosophy about education, of course. But

Dr. Hathaway had a policy of assigning summer reading not

also to participate in a meaningful way in the world, to better

only for students, but for teachers and trustees, as well. A group

ourselves, and to be good citizens. That value system, what we

of mothers decided to take Hathaway’s reading challenge to

want for our kids, is also what we want for ourselves.”

the next level.

make this point clear. “Years ago, we read Night by Elie Wiesel,

The Hathawayers aren’t the only mothers’ book club born of

Women from both groups share several experiences that

this era. Rios says her son participated in the Pegasus Boy Scout

and invited Marta Leightner, a Holocaust survivor, to speak,”

troop which was started by parents of the classes of 2004

says Rios. “Author Judy Bernstein came to speak about They

and 2005. Nancy Ringman’s son was also part of that troop. “As

Poured Fire on Us From The Sky: The True Story of Three Lost Boys

8th grade graduation neared for the class of 2004, I realized I

from Sudan. I invited Pam and Jim Conti, and that discussion

was going to soon lose touch with some of the greatest women

translated into programs at both Pegasus and Sage Hill. Their

I’d ever known. Life would get in the way, the boys would go to

story wove into the curriculum, and several of us did private

different high schools, half of us had careers which took up a

philanthropic work for them on our own. This is what it

lot of our time, and I knew we would likely drift apart without

means to be part of Pegasus—engaged in a quest for deeper

some built-in reason to get together. I reached out to eleven

understanding and a willingness to take action.”

women and suggested we stay in touch by forming a book club. That was more than a decade ago,” says Ringman. “And rarely does anyone ever miss a meeting.” They loosely call themselves “Book Club 8/04”, named after the date of their first meeting, August 2004.

“We all came to Pegasus looking for something similar.

A shared philosophy about education, of course.

Ringman mirrors the same

themes on both books and cuisine.

She remembers a magical evening of Middle Eastern epicurean delights along with an enlightening discussion of Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia by Carmen Bin Laden.

An 8/04 Book Club guest, a parent from Sage Hill who had lived in Persia

While these book clubs operate

like many others, the uniqueness of these groups lie in so many

and worked for Pan Am Airlines, painted a picture about the

women coming together for so long, in such a profound way.

culture of Tehran while she was a girl, how vastly it changed

Together, the Hathawayers have read well over one hundred

her life when the Shah was ousted and the Ayatollah took over,

books, including contemporary fiction, classics, nonfiction, and

and how people who had money were trying their best to hold

memoirs. “We’ve tried everything except sci-fi and westerns,”

onto it by buying airline tickets to redeem for U.S. currency.

laughs founder and president Soogie Kang.

“Her experiences where so far removed from anything I had gone

Because cuisine is almost as important as literature, the

through it was amazing. I’ve read so many books I wouldn’t have

Hathawayers share a meal centered on the book’s theme. They’ve

otherwise chosen on my own, and learned so many things from

enjoyed Indian feasts, Middle Eastern menus, and, once, an out-

both the books and our discussions,” says Ringman. “It’s like

of-season Seder. “Sometimes a book will embrace a particular

a Pegasus classroom in our own homes.” Another night, Pierre

family tradition,” says Melanie Fitch, “And women will share

Hathaway joined the 8/04 group for a lively discussion on a book

their own recipes. It deepens our friendship and makes the

he recommended to them, Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea by

literature more memorable.”

Gary Kinder.

PEGASUS MAGAZINE SPRING 2015

33

Beth Hallett, a member of the Hathawayers’, recalls similar

For the 8/04 group, Ringman also credits the value structure

evenings. Hallett brought former Broadcom CFO Bill Ruehle

underlying both Pegasus and the Boy Scouts. “Pegasus values

to discuss his memoir, Mr. Ruehle, You are A Free Man. Another

mirror Boy Scout values,” she says. “And those mirror our family

evening, Barbara Vorwerck came to speak about The Boys in the

values. Respect, loyalty, honesty, leadership skills, citizenship

Boat. “Barbara’s father was the main character,” says Hallett. “She

skills—whatever our superficial differences, at our core as

brought interesting insights and memorabilia.”

mothers and women, we all attach importance to the same

things and there is a comfort here to be who we really are. Our

“The favored books are always the ones that educate while

they entertain,” says Kyle Team, a member of the Hathawayers.

kids all know that any member of this group would be there

“As well as the books that spur ethical conversations, like The Son

for them in the middle of the night if they were needed. We’re

of Hamas.”

that close.”

But, for both groups, the bonds burrow deeper than the

Superficially, the clubs are diverse—ethnically, religiously,

books. Through the years, these women have raised children,

and otherwise. There are stay-at-home moms, CEOs, business

grown older themselves, and lived rich and varied lives. They

owners, women who left lucrative careers, and women who

have divorced, lost parents, suffered illness, become empty-

re-entered the workforce after their children left home. The

nesters, changed careers, entered retirement, endured losses

children themselves have gone on to public schools, private

and celebrated gains. All this they’ve done together, under the

schools, careers in the arts and pursuits in the sciences. “There’s

protective wings of Pegasus.

never a sense of competition,” says Kassel. “We are as supportive

“One afternoon, one of the women

from the group called me,” says Ringman. “A much older daughter was finally graduating from college and, through a series of events, my friend

“The favored books are the ones that educate while they entertain.”

of a woman’s decision to start a business as we are of another’s choice to wine taste and travel.”

They’re politically diverse, as

well. Rios recalls one evening years ago when the Hathawayers gathered

wasn’t able to attend. She was looking for an exceptional way to celebrate the moment and make

during a presidential debate. “We span the political spectrum,”

her daughter feel special. So Book Club decided to throw her

says Rios, “But we committed ourselves to watching the debate

daughter a graduation tea—just the book club members and

and sharing our views. Our women don’t hold back, and they

their daughters. This started a tradition. Now all the daughters

certainly don’t all agree, but we all respect each other’s opinion.”

receive a college graduation party thrown by the mothers

which will likely evolve to wedding showers someday. Because

Forman, a member of the 8/04 Club, moved to Texas a few years

our ties were originally through our sons, this has given us an

ago, but she never misses a meeting. Every other month she flies

opportunity to strengthen our relationships with the daughters

in to be with the group. “We are committed,” says Ringman.

as well. We’ve already discussed wedding showers for our future

“This bond is strong.”

daughters-in-law!”

into words, but into action. What better modeling for our

“I don’t know what kind of woman I would be without

They’re also somewhat geographically diverse. Lambert

Parenting forces adults to put their value system not just

this group,” says Kang. “Books allow us to discover who we

students than to see their parents actively engaged in books?

are and what moves us. I hope this will inspire future Pegasus

Dr. Hathaway’s hope to build generations of wings has been

parents. Although our families have all taken different paths, the

realized. What she may not have anticipated is how it would

Hathawayers remain close.”

impact the parents. She left a legacy of love for literature, not just

to her students, but their mothers as well.

34 THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS

by Benjamin Jenkins

Lindsay Cumming ’03, Katherine Moosman ’03 and Anika Sutty ’03 on a trip to Japan visiting Tokyo’s bamboo forest.

Lauren E. Kolczynski ’05 was awarded two degrees from Oregon State University in June 2014, a B.S. in Environmental Science and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering.

1993

2003

Chris Rakunas spoke with Pegasus eighth graders two years ago to talk about a book that he wrote called Tears for the Mountain, describing the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Since then, he has been quite busy. He and his wife, Darcey, moved to Tacoma, WA, and welcomed their first child, Juliet. Rakunas is now the chief operating officer of a large specialty veterinary hospital in Tacoma. Rakunas also published two additonal books, The 8th Doll and Eye of Siam.

Harry Koulos graduated cum laude and with distinction in history from Yale in 2011, where he played on the varsity baseball team, and cum laude from Georgetown Law in 2014. Read more about his achievements in the sidebar on page 39.

1999 Michelle Shepard is now Michelle Kiger, married to David Kiger, and they just had their first child: Asher David Kiger, born February 27. Shepard graduated from Stanford, went to Vanderbilt for medical school, and is now a practicing pediatrician, serving as an Air Force officer, and living in Beavercreek, Ohio.

2002 Max Moosmann recently spoke to Vicki Olivadoti’s third grade class about marketing.

Max works for Chiat Day as an account executive on the Nissan account. He and Stuart Paley ’03, a renowned photographer, recently collaborated on a photo shoot together for Nissan.

2005 Lauren E. Kolczynski was awarded two degrees from Oregon State University in June 2014, a B.S. in Environmental Science and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering (five years, 300 credit hours).

Kolczynski is currently working as an Oakridge Institute of Science & Education (ORISE) Scholar, on a one year postbaccalaureate Internship at the Dept. of Energy’s National Technology Laboratory (NETL), Albany Oregon. She is performing federally funded laboratory energy research being mentored by a team of PhDs, with whom she recently published at an energy conference. She was recently accepted for direct entry into the Energy Chemical Engineering PhD programs at three research universities. All three offered her full funding for five years to get her PhD.

Kolczynski chose the Fuels and Energy Chemical Engineering program at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. She has received a five-year written guarantee of tuition and fee forgiveness, subsidized health insurance and an annual stipend to cover standard living expenses. Kolczynski was also awarded The Department of Chemical Engineering Graduate Fellowship and The School of Engineering’s Schlumberger Energy Fellowship.

(L-R) Sally Mace, Hanalynn Hunt ’06, Jordan Team ’06, Hayley Votolato ’06, Walker Moore ’06 and Collete Byer ’06 enjoying a mother daughter get-together.

Kolczynski is finishing her one year ORISE Internship at NETL in Albany, Oregon, this summer. She starts her PhD work in August. Her goal is to help develop an Oxy-Fuel Combustion process, using 100% Oxygen to generate industrial power from existing fossil fuel resources. Ox-combustion will reduce carbon emissions by over 75%.

While Kolczynski is interested in developing renewable energy, her internship at the National Energy Technology Laboratory taught her that clean combustion with carbon capture, may be the most direct path to mitigating global warming and atmospheric pollution.

As part of its outreach program to encourage young women to pursue STEM fields, Kolczynski’s high school recently published her motivational article: “Pursuing Engineering, A St. Mary’s Alumna Perspective.”

2006 Hanalynn Hunt graduated from Occidental College in May 2014 with a major in Urban and Environmental Policy and a minor is Kinesiology. She had a wonderful experience at Occidental as a student-athlete. She competed on the volleyball team all four years and earned the coach’s award her senior year.

Hunt also spent a semester during her junior year in Amsterdam. She loved the city and really enjoyed riding her bike everywhere.

She decided during her college career that she wanted to be an occupational therapist. She started her Master of Occupational Therapy (MOT) program at Cal State Dominguez Hills this year.

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Faculty members Chrissy and Dustan Bridges supported Stanford senior Morgan Boukather ’07 at a Stanford volleyball game against USC.

2007 Victoria Davidson received a Watson Fellowship at Whitman College this spring.

The Watson Fellowship is a one-year grant for purposeful, independent study outside the United States, awarded to graduating seniors nominated by one of the 40 partner colleges. Davidson is traveling to Italy, Jordan, Burma, and Australia to “explore storytelling through theatrical forms seen both in refugee camps and in countries which refugees have been relocated. “(She) will observe, study, and create theatre with theatre companies that work with these populations and possess missions of healing, remembrance, peacebuilding, and joy.”

2008 Adin Dobkin moved to Washington D.C. His work has been centered on government and politics, particularly in regards to national security. In addition, the non-profit he founded a few years ago, The Kant Institute, which was featured in Pegasus Magazine, has been effective in stirring up issues regarding public engagement and national learning.

Christopher Goul ’11 presented his project, “Programing Models for Metapopulation Persistence,” during a Sage Hill science lecture this spring.

Parthiv Worah ’11 is looking forward to his freshman year at Princeton University.

together to apply for the award and wants to combine her interests in computer science and activism to help businesses use technology to become more socially responsible.

ambassador for three years and as the student ambassador co-chair the past year. He took taken ten AP courses while also playing on the football team all four years. Feffer is also a National Merit Commended Student and AP Scholar with Distinction. He is part of the Newport Beach Police Department Teen Academy, Newport Beach Mayor’s Youth Council and Sage Entrepreneurship Education-Investing in Tomorrow.

2011 Tristan Bridge graduated from the Orange Country School of the Arts (OCSA) and will be attending University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts in the fall. Bridge will be involved in all aspects of cinema, working collaboratively across many disciplines of film study. He continues to work as a freelance writer for a video game that he is creating.

Rafe Feffer graduated from Sage Hill School and will be attending the University of Pennsylvania in the fall. He plans to major in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. While attending Sage, Feffer served as a student

Christopher Goul is doing research at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of California, Los Angeles. His project is studying “Programing Models for Metapopulation Persistence.” The goal of his project is to generate a framework for a computer program designed model through R. Goul is attending MIT in the fall where he will join his siblings, Edward and Claire.

2009 Molly Wang, a student and a campus director at The University of Pennsylvania in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is studying Computer Science and minoring in Mathematics and Engineering Entrepreneurship. Wang was the founder and the first campus director managing the university’s team competing for the Hult Prize which is a micro economic prize awarded to the school that can create the most effective solution to help low income families across the world thrive. She put the team group

36 THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

(L-R) 2011 alumni, Rafe Feffer, Gordon Strelow, Edward Goul and Claire Goul were four of the five Sage Hill School honorees at the Newport Beach Chamber of Commerce Scholarship Awards on April 30. They are pictured with Gordon McNeill, President of Sage Hill School and Patricia Merz, Head of School.

Claire Goul presented her impressive mitochondrial research she is doing at UCI in October 2014. She is attending MIT in the fall. While at Sage Hill, Goul completed eleven AP classes and served on “Publications Staff,” a group at the school that is in charge of producing the school’s yearbook, newspaper, and their online news. While on the Publications Staff, she served as the staff writer, academic editor, and a member of the editorial board. Goul was also a National Merit Commended Student, a National AP Scholar, and received second place in TEDx teen challenge. She was a semifinalist for Intel Science Talent Search. Since her first year at Sage Hill, Goul started on the varsity basketball team and was also a varsity cross country runner.

Natalie Lowenstein ’11 (center) and a group of her classmates will be pursuing their sport in college.

They were recognized at a recent Sage Hill School Town Hall meeting. Patricia Merz (L), Head of School, and Megan Cid (R), Director of Athletics, honored the athletes.

member of the Sage Sailing team. She plans on spending a lot of time with her family this summer.

(L-R) Edward ’11, Claire ’11 and Chris ’11 Goul will be attending MIT in the fall 2015.

Edward Goul is doing research at UCI at the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science. His research project is studying “Entanglement of 1-dimensional Quantum Lattice Systems with Jordan Wigner Transform.” Goul will join his siblings, Claire and Christopher, at MIT in the fall. He completed eleven AP courses at Sage Hill School across an array of subjects.

He was a founding member of Sage’s Student Led Investment Committee. Goul is also a National Merit Scholar Finalist and placed first in both the Chemistry Olympiad and School Poetry Competitions.

Jodi Horowitz graduated from Sage Hill School and will be attending Scripps College the fall to study theater and human biology.

She enjoyed her four years at Sage Hill with all her Pegasus alumni friends. Horowitz was involved in Sage’s Multi-Cultural Leadership Group, the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) and theater department. She also enjoyed being a

Natalie Lowenstein graduated from Sage Hill School and will be attending Tufts University in the fall, where she will be pursuing rowing.

She was honored at Sage for her rowing talent in April. Lowenstein also participated in volleyball, soccer and lacrosse for Sage Hill, but spent her senior year focusing on her number one sport, rowing. In addition to rowing, Lowenstein is excited about majoring in neuro psychology at Tufts.

Helena Youhana is collaborating with fellow classmates and alumni, Reema Al Saud ’11 and Haley Bolen ’11 on an independent service-learning project at Sage Hill. Their purpose is to provide humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees. They are in direct contact with a refugee camp in Turkey. One of their primary goals with this project is to spread awareness about the Syrian crisis throughout the community, both local and international.

Pegasus had the pleasure of seeing them back on campus to teach Pegasus students about the Syrian crisis, specifically concerning the less spotlighted refugee crisis.

Parthiv Worah spent this past school year drumming with his band The Torches and representing Sage Hill as a three-sport varsity athlete. This quarter he was on the track team where he participated in the 400m and the pole vault. Worah is an avid scuba diver & downhill skier. He spent the last two summers in the Indian Himalayas helping to establish an eco-conservation park. For the

last year he has been working with a professor at UCI writing computer code to help analyze the impact of stem cell processes on mice with spinal cord injuries. He is a National Merit Scholar. Worah has committed to Princeton for next fall where he is planning to major in computer science.

Joanna Yuan graduated from Edison High School and will be attending the University of Washington in the fall. Most recently, Yuan travelled with Sam ’11 and Nicole ’11 Apodaca through a Model U.N. program to the U.N. headquarters in Geneva. She spoke in front of 200 ambassadors and diplomats on the education systems in developing nations.

One of Yuan’s passions is in the medical field working with premature infants in developing countries. This mission is something she plans to pursue as she enters college. Yuan is no stranger to volunteer work abroad. As a freshman, she went on a mission trip to Mexico, which helped her realize that this was the field for her. She also spent last summer on a mission trip to Haiti helping the victims of the terrible tragedies that took place there.

2012 Ann Garth wrapped up her junior year at Orange Country School of the Arts. She applied for and earned a highly sought after Senate Page position. Thousands of students apply for this opportunity every year and approximately only 20 are chosen. Garth worked on the Senate floor this past semester, rubbing elbows and delivering notes to the senators.

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Joanna Yuan ’11 on a mission helping the people of Haiti.

Jessica Harris ’12 playing volleyball for Corona del Mar High School’s varsity team.

Catharine ’13 and Victor Malzahn April 2015 visiting Boston College after a hockey tournament where Victor was a California State Champion

Jessie Harris finished her junior year at Corona del Mar High School with a 4.3 GPA and recently committed to Princeton University for volleyball. She’s played on the CDM varsity volleyball team for three years.

Her team won three league championships and made two CIF semifinal appearances and one quarterfinal appearance. Harris also plays for Laguna Beach Volleyball Club, which medaled at three tournaments.

Lauren Kochis finished her second year attending the Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts.

This past January, Kochis attended the 33rd Annual Loomis Chaffee Debate of the Debating Association of New England Independent Schools (DANEIS) and won second place speaker in the novice division out of 64 competitors (with 264 speaker points in 3 rounds). Thirty schools are participating members of DANEIS including Deerfield Academy, Milton Academy, Phillips Academy at Andover and Exeter, and St. Paul’s School.

In addition to her classes, Kochis found time to ride horses, row on the crew team during the spring term, and sing in the school’s female acapella group, the Grotones.

Malzahn joined Publications Staff at Sage Hill as a staff writer and online sports editor.

Next year, her role in this publishing group will change to be an assignments editor. She will be in charge of assigning articles to other Sage students. Malzahn has also been on the equestrian team at Sage for two years.

Cooper Hendrix will be represent Newport Harbor High School at California Boys State hosted by the American Legion in June.

American Legion Boys State is among the most respected and selective educational programs of government instruction for U.S. high school students. Cameron Lydon at Sage Hill was selected as a delegate, as well.

2013 Ethan Bridge completed his sophomore year at Newport Harbor High School. Bridge participated on the cross country team, after spending two seasons on the Novice and Varsity Crew teams. He is very interested in anesthesiology and will be shadowing a doctor in the field at Hoag hospital this summer. Bridge looks forward to a pre-med summer internship at UC Irvine. He will also be sailing this summer with his family in British Columbia, Canada.

Katie Hendrix made the Orange County National Lacrosse team and competed in Pennsylvania over the recent Memorial Day weekend. This accomplishment was featured in an article in the Daily Pilot.

Darius Lam attends Phillips Andover and will be a junior in the fall. He was recently elected to the Philomathean Society Associate Board. The Philomathean Society is a greatly respected debate society and it is highly competitive to earn a spot on the board.

Lam joins Alisa Bhakta ’12, who was elected to the Philomathean Society Associate Board at Phillips Andover in 2014.

Note: Debate continues to soar at Pegasus. Read “Pop Culture, Pegasus-Style” on page 14 for an inspiring story on our current debaters.

Catharine Malzahn completed her sophomore year at Sage Hill School. This past spring, she travelled to France with classmates from Sage. They toured through Paris, Aix-en-Provence, Nice, and Monaco studying the culture of France and gaining a true hands-on experience of the country.

38 THE PEGASUS SCHOOL

Charles Toney, soon to be a junior at St. Margaret’s Episcopal School, earned the tournament’s Most Valuable Wrestler to go along with his first place finish in the Frank Alvarado Classic F/S Wrestling Tournament at Segerstrom High School. To add to his accomplishments this past season, Toney wrestled in the league dual championships and won every match. He then wrestled in a big tournament, and won the 170 division, as well as receiving the MVP for the upper weight divisions. In Pegasus fashion, Toney demonstrated true sportsmanship when his opponent in the finals blew out his knee during the match. Toney wanted to forfeit to make up for his opponent not being able to finish. The ref did not allow it. However, an act like this showed his character, and that while competing is important, there are more important things.

2014 Patrick Aimone spent his first year of high school at Servite High School. As a freshman, he became a high school varsity national circuit debater. He was also appointed to the Board of the Orange County Debate League.

Rachel Bryant will be a sophomore at Sage Hill School this fall. She is looking forward to attending a month long intensive training program at Alonzo King Lines Ballet this summer.

Cameron Weiss ’14 with fellow Pegasus graduate Julia Qualls ’14 at a Mater Dei High School football game.

Gabby Lowenstein performing a rhythmic gymnastics floor routine in Lujbliana Slovenia for the United States senior national team.

Harry Koulos

Michael McDermott enjoyed his first year at Sage Hill School. He was accepted into concert choir as a freshman, allowing him to pursue one of his passions.

Raquel Makler, who attended Pegasus for seven years, graduated from Orange County School of the Arts in June. She was granted acceptance to the most renowned contemporary music school in the country, Berklee College of Music, as she will be attending this fall in Boston, MA. Makler hopes to continue her music career with a degree in Music Business or Music Engineering.

Harry Koulos graduated cum laude and with distinction in history from Yale in 2011, where he played on the varsity baseball team, and cum laude from Georgetown Law in 2014. At Yale, Koulos received the Francis Brown Prize, which is “awarded to the member of the Yale Junior Class who most approaches standards of intellectual ability, strong character, capacity for leadership, and service.”

Of his law school experiences, Koulos is most proud of his work in the Appellate Litigation Clinic, where he helped secure a reversal in Schnitzler v. United States—a case about a prisoner’s right to renounce U.S. citizenship—before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Harry has interned with the FBI’s National Security Law Branch, the Air Force JAG Corps, and the Department of Justice Torts Branch. In addition, the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy has published two of Koulos’ pieces: Congress, the President, and the Power to Initiate War: Is a Culture Change on the Horizon? (2014), and Attacked

By Our Own Government: Does the War Powers Resolution or the Law of Armed Conflict Limit Cyber Strikes Against Social Media Companies (2013).

Still proud of his heritage, Koulos is an avid Greek folk dancer and director. He was also fortunate to be selected to play on the Greek National Baseball Team in the 2012 European Championships. Koulos started in the outfield, and with seven hits in sixteen at bats, he led the team in average and runs batted in.

After graduation from law school, Koulos moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, to clerk for the Honorable Thomas A. Varlan, Chief Judge of the Eastern District of Tennessee. In September 2015, he will join the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, & Flom in Washington, D.C.

Cameron Weiss completed his freshman year at Mater Dei High School. He played on the freshman football team and on the freshman golf team. He was involved in many lunchtime clubs such as Pre-Med, Financial Investment, and Family and Autism Awareness. Weiss took many honors classes including English, Spanish, and Biology. He is also involved in Boy Scouts and achieved Life rank. Weiss plans to pursue his Eagle Scout this year.

He also volunteers his time helping with his younger brother’s sports’ teams. Weiss attends any practice his schedule allows for and helps coach first base for baseball games.

Past Pegasus Students Janelle Dinsmore graduated from Fountain Valley High School, where she served as the president of the school’s ASB program and Friday Night Light Club. She will be attending Northeastern University in Boston, MA, this fall. Dinsmore will be studying international business and Spanish, with hopefully a minor in French.

Gabby Lowenstein will be entering her junior year at Sage Hill School in the fall. She has been competing on the United States Rhythmic Gymnastics Senior National Team, a small eight-person team that competes internationally. Most recently, Lowenstein competed in Sylvania and Puerto Rico, where she placed eighth and second overall against teams from all over the world. Her next competitions will be in Israel and Romania.

(L-R) Janelle Dinsmore, Raquel Makler and Jodie Horowitz enjoyed spending some time together during a Bar Mitzvah celebration.

PEGASUS MAGAZINE SPRING 2015

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June 22 – July 31 Camp Pegasus August 17 – 21 Pegasus Prep August 27 Passport to Middle School September 2 First Day of School