bulletin summer 2009
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Alumni magazine of St. George's SchoolTRANSCRIPT
ST. GEORGE’Ssummer Bulletin2009
St. George’s SchoolP.O. Box 1910Newport, RI 02840-0190
Non-ProfitOrganizationU.S. Postage
PAIDSt. George’s School
In this issue:
COVER STORY:
The art collection of Charles K. Williams II ’49BY SUZANNE L. MCGRADY
A dream to succeed BY SUZANNE L. MCGRADY
The man from Podunk Road BY JAY DOOLITTLE ’56
Fund-raisers meet Annual Fund goal with FITNU
Roll over, Aurelius, BY HEAD OF SCHOOL ERIC F. PETERSON
So this guy walks into the chapel and ...BY TIMOTHY STACK P ’09
Geronimo’s ‘turtle man’ BY JOHN LEE
Chapel talks:Silver lining BY MEGAN LEONHARD ’09
The bonds of Boothbay BY ANNA MCCONNELL ’09
Confessions of a nonbeliever BY MAX FOWLER ’09
If you decide to let in God BY THE REV. NED MULLIGAN
Prize Day 2009
New students 2009-10
Class Notes
St.G
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Sch
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Sum
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Bu
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Upcoming Events
Fri., Sept. 11, 2009Philadelphia, Pa.Philadelphia Art Museum, Balcony CaféThurs., Oct. 15, 2009New York, N.Y.Time and Life Building, 2nd floor galleriesHosted by Tad Van Norden ’ 84Weds., Oct. 21, 2009Washington, D.C.At the home of Jessica and Jeff Kimbell ’ 89Tues., May 4, 2010Gladstone, N.J.At the home of Betsy Michel P’ 85, ’ 89*Dates for receptions in Seoul, Korea, and otherlocations to be determined.
You’re invited:Regional Receptions*
For info., contact Ann Weston [email protected] or 401.842.6731
2 0 0 9 -10
Fri., Oct. 30, 3 p.m.Lecture by Lyn Hovey, Stained-Glass ArtistFri., Dec. 11, 7 p.m.A special service of Lessons and CarolsThurs., Feb. 18, 7 p.m.“ Just a note…” , A musical recitalFri., Apr. 23St. George’ s Day Celebration
Founding Friendsof the St. George’s Chapel
For information about the Friends of the St. George’sChapel program, contact Bill Douglas [email protected] or 401.842.6730
2 0 0 9Tues., Sept. 8, 5:30 p.m.Day Student Family PicnicMon., Sept. 14, 8 a.m.Convocation/Classes beginFri., Oct. 9 - Sun., Oct. 11Alumni/ae of Color ConferenceFri., Oct. 30 - Sat., Oct. 31Parents WeekendThurs., Dec. 10, 7:30 p.m.Lessons and CarolsTues., Dec. 15, 7:30 p.m.Christmas Festival
2 010Fri., Feb. 12 - Sat. Feb. 13Fifth-Form Parents WeekendSat., Feb. 13, 12 p.m.Alumni Hockey GameFri., May 14 - Sun., May 16Reunion WeekendMon., May 31Prize Day
St. George’s School admits male and
female students of any religion, race, color,
sexual orientation, and national or ethnic
origin to all the programs and activities gener-
ally accorded or made available to students at
the school. It does not discriminate on the
basis of religion, gender, race, color, sexual
orientation, or national or ethnic origin in the
administration of its educational policies,
scholarship and loan programs, or athletic and
other school-administered programs. In addi-
tion, the school welcomes visits from disabled
applicants.
SStt.. GGeeoorrggee’’ss PPoolliiccyy oonnNNoonn--DDiissccrriimmiinnaattiioonn
In 1896, the Rev. John Byron Diman,
founder of St. George’s School, wrote in his
“Purposes of the School” that “the specific
objectives of St. George’s are to give its stu-
dents the opportunity of developing to the
fullest extent possible the particular gifts that
are theirs and to encourage in them the desire
to do so. Their immediate job after leaving
school is to handle successfully the demands
of college; later it is hoped that their lives will
be ones of constructive service to the world
and to God.”
In the 21st century, we continue to teach
young women and men the value of learning
and achievement, service to others, and respect
for the individual. We believe that these goals
can best be accomplished by exposing students
to a wide range of ideas and choices in the
context of a rigorous curriculum and a sup-
portive residential community.
Therefore, we welcome students and
teachers of various talents and backgrounds,
and we encourage their dedication to a multi-
plicity of pursuits —intellectual, spiritual, and
physical—that will enable them to succeed in
and contribute to a complex, changing world.
SStt.. GGeeoorrggee’’ss SScchhoooollMMiissssiioonn SSttaatteemmeenntt Upcoming Events
Fri., Sept. 11, 2009Philadelphia, Pa.Philadelphia Museum of Art, Balcony CaféThurs., Oct. 15, 2009New York, N.Y.Time and Life Building, 2nd floor galleriesHosted by Tad Van Norden ’84Weds., Oct. 21, 2009Washington, D.C.At the home of Jessica and Jeff Kimbell ’89Tues., May 4, 2010Gladstone, N.J.At the home of Betsy Michel P’85, ’89*Dates for receptions in Seoul, Korea, and otherlocations to be determined.
You’re invited:Regional Receptions*
For info., contact Ann Weston [email protected] or 401.842.6731
2 0 0 9 -10
Fri., Oct. 30, 3 p.m.Lecture by Lyn Hovey, Stained-Glass ArtistFri., Dec. 11, 7 p.m.A special service of Lessons and CarolsThurs., Feb. 18, 7 p.m.“Just a note…”, A musical recitalFri., Apr. 23St. George’s Day Celebration
Founding Friendsof the St. George’s Chapel
For information about the Friends of the St. George’sChapel program, contact Bill Douglas [email protected] or 401.842.6730
2 0 0 9Tues., Sept. 8, 5:30 p.m.Day Student Family PicnicMon., Sept. 14, 8 a.m.Convocation/Classes beginFri., Oct. 9 - Sun., Oct. 11Alumni/ae of Color ConferenceFri., Oct. 30 - Sat., Oct. 31Parents WeekendThurs., Dec. 10, 7:30 p.m.Lessons and CarolsTues., Dec. 15, 7:30 p.m.Christmas Festival
2 010Fri., Feb. 12 - Sat. Feb. 13Fifth-Form Parents WeekendSat., Feb. 13, 12 p.m.Alumni Hockey GameFri., May 14 - Sun., May 16Reunion WeekendMon., May 31Prize Day
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 09 SUMMER BULLET IN 1
From the editor’s desk ........................................................................................................................................2A dream to succeed BY SUZANNE L. MCGRADY ....................................................................................................3Art that talks BY SUZANNE L. MCGRADY ..............................................................................................................8The man from Podunk Road BY JAY DOOLITTLE ’56 ........................................................................................15Chapel talks:
Silver lining BY MEGAN LEONHARD ’09 ......................................................................................................18The bonds of Boothbay BY ANNA MCCONNELL ’09 ..................................................................................21Confessions of a nonbeliever BY MAX FOWLER ’09 ................................................................................24If you decide to let in God BY THE REV. NED MULLIGAN ........................................................................27
Around campus ..................................................................................................................................................29Development news: Fund-raisers make Annual Fund goal with FITNU challenge ..........................30Board notes ..........................................................................................................................................................31Geronimo: The turtle man BY JOHN LEE ..........................................................................................................32New students 2009-10 ....................................................................................................................................35Roll over, Aurelius BY HEAD OF SCHOOL ERIC F. PETERSON ................................................................................36So this guy walks into the chapel and... BY TIMOTHY STACK P’09 ..............................................................39Prizes awarded May 25, 2009 ........................................................................................................................42Global outreach ..................................................................................................................................................44Instrumental moves BY ALEX MYERS..................................................................................................................46Campus happenings ..........................................................................................................................................46Classrooms ..........................................................................................................................................................52SG Zone - Athletics ............................................................................................................................................56Highlights: Student achievements ................................................................................................................60Next steps: News from the College Counseling office ............................................................................63Faculty/staff notes ..........................................................................................................................................64Post hilltop ..........................................................................................................................................................67Reunion Weekend 2009 ..................................................................................................................................70Hilltop archives ..................................................................................................................................................72Class Notes ..........................................................................................................................................................73
The St. George’s Bulletin is published bi-annually. Suzanne McGrady, editor; Dianne Reed, communicationsassociate; Toni Ciany, editorial assistant; and members of the Alumni/ae Office, copy editors.
Senior Prefect for 2009-10 Stephanie
Johnson, escorted by School Prefect Garrett
Sider ’10 leads the 2009 graduates to the
Front Circle on Prize Day.
PHOTO BY KATHRYN WHITNEY LUCEY
On the cover:
A photo montage of Charles K. Williams
II ’49 and paintings from his collection.
ARTWORK BY RAY WOISHEK ’89
On the back cover:
Molly Boyd ’10 and Jake Riiska ’10
visit with South African Archbishop
Desmond Tutu in July 2009.
PHOTO BY PETER ANDERSON
ST. GEORGE’S SCHOOL
P.O. BOX 1910
NEWPORT, RI 02840-0190
Office of the Bulletin Editor
tel: (401) 842-6792
fax: (401) 842-6745
e-mail: [email protected]
St. George’sB u l l e t i n
C o n t e n t s
The Alumni/ae Magazine ofSt. George’s School
Newport, R.I.
This magazine is printed on paper that is certifiedby SmartWood to meet the Forest StewardshipCouncil standards. FSC sets high standards thatensure forestry is practiced in an environmentallyresponsible, socially beneficial, and economicallyviable way.
30%
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 09 SUMMER BULLET IN2
OK,so the cover’s a little different than our
usual fare, but hopefully the profile of
Charles K.Williams II ’49 (p. 8) will help
you understand why.When news arrived that the
Philadelphia Museum of Art would be staging a special
exhibition this summer featuring the art collection of
our alumnus and trustee, I found the story possibilities
intriguing: How exactly does one go about amassing
an art collection worthy of a museum exhibit? How
does a serious collector make choices
among the plethora of art available?
I knew I had the chance to visit a
world not many of us do—and it was
great fun finding the answers to
these questions as well as many
others. Along the way, however, my
story took on new dimensions. I
became just as intrigued by Mr.
Williams, the man, as I did the art
collecting.What a treat it was to
spend the day with him in New York.
Another profile was just as mem-
orable to write: The story of Vianca
Masucci ’09.As you all know,many
students reach Prize Day having
experienced life from a vastly different
perspective than they get on the
Hilltop.“A dream to succeed” (p. 3)
is just one of those stories, but a reminder that we can’t
underestimate these students’ victories.
“The man from Podunk Road” (p. 15) is a reflec-
tion by Jay Doolittle ’56 on the life of Bill Schenck, an
SG faculty member from 1952-1990, whommany
students remember as one of the most engaging,most
quirky teachers of their tenure here. Schenck had a way
of interacting with students, apparently, that left them
with manymemories. When he retired, he continued
to teach in a continuing education program not far
from his home in upstate NewYork.And, yes, as Mr.
Doolittle tells us, it really was called Podunk Road.
If you’re a fan of our students’ chapel talks, this
edition’s won’t disappoint. Though their opinions and
candor may surprise you, they reveal so much of them-
selves in these talks (p. 18), it’s hard not to appreciate
their thoughtfulness. The Rev. NedMulligan chimes
in with his last formal sermon of his first year here at
St. George’s (p. 27).
“Instrumental Move” is a memoir piece from
English teacher AlexMyers, who while a student at
Philips Exeter first began living as a man. Born Alice in
a small town inMaine,Myers notes in his extraordi-
nary first-person essay (p. 46) that his desire to cross
genders began even earlier.
We’ve added a new feature to this magazine, called
“Hilltop archives,” upon the suggestion of Mr. Tom
Stevenson ’55, a great writer and contributor to our
magazine (see p. 82 for his outstanding column on
some former classmates who worked for the C.I.A). If
at this point in late summer you’re tired of mowing
your lawn, you’ll appreciate the historic photo, p. 72.
And then there’s the biggest financial news story of
the decade, and it doesn’t come fromMSNBC. In late
June, when laughter and cheers erupted from the back
of the development office, I knew something really
good had happened. The staff—more enthusiastic than
ever after their end-of-the-campaign initiative,“Flat is
the NewUp”—hadmet their goal. They raised the
$2,225,000 they said they would in February 2008—
and then some. It was not an easy feat in these chal-
lenging economic times, and not every independent
school was able to meet its goal, but the fund-raisers
here are unstoppable.
The final tally on the 2008-09 Annual Fund
campaign: $2,233,339.24.
Have you hugged your fund-raiser today?
We have.
St. George’sF r o m t h e e d i t o r ’ s d e s k
Connor, 2 1⁄2, and I in Florida in March.
Suzanne McGrady
Bulletin Editor
BY SUZANNE L. MCGRADY
WhenViancaMasucci ’09 walked up the
steps of Old School to receive her diploma
on Prize Day, her father, Frederic, admits,
“I cried.”A 23-year veteran of the Newark, N.J., Police
Department whomade a name for himself in the 1980s
getting guns and drugs off the street,Masucci isn’t
prone to public displays of emotion.Yet the story of
Vianca’s journey from inner-city public school to the
Hilltop, like that of many scholarship students, repre-
sents a special brand of success.
�School didn’t start off so easily for Vianca. Enrolled
in the New Jersey public school system for the first time
asMasucci sought to adopt her at the age of 7,Vianca
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 009 SUMMER BULLET IN 3
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A dream to succeedAs a youngster,ViancaMasucci ’09 didn’t have enough foodto eat or a place to call home—but the future sure looks bright
struggled—yet hardly from a lack of intelligence or
work ethic.
Born to a single teenage mother on welfare,Vianca
in the early years sometimes didn’t have enough food
to eat or a proper home to sleep in. Sometimes, she
lived out of a car, her mother navigating the streets of
Newark in a red Honda Civic, trying to find a place to
park where they wouldn’t be noticed. Frederic,Vianca’s
younger brother, whom the family calls “Moochie,”
would be nestled beside her.“We were both still little
enough to fit in the front seat,” she said.“For the most
part [mymother] would try to drive around until we
were sleeping.My brother would fall asleep first, always.
I could never sleep.He liked to sleep next to mymother
and so I would let him.”
�Winters were the hardest. The three would drive
through the night, neon lights flickering through the
windows, and end up somewhere—a McDonald’s
parking lot on the Garden State Parkway, perhaps,
someplace where no one would notice a family
without a home.
Sometimes “home”was even worse.When they did
have money,Vianca’s mother rented apartments, but
the neighbors weren’t always friendly.“People didn’t
like mymother because she was different,”Vianca says
of the flamboyant Puerto Rican beauty Carmencita
Gonzalez, whose romance at age 19 with a handsome
bad-boy Dominican,Vianca’s birth father, didn’t work
out as planned.“They’d turn off the heat and try to get
us to move. Really cruel things.”
When welfare money started running out at the
end of the month, the family wouldn’t have enough
proper food for a meal.“There were times when we
didn’t have food in the refrigerator for a long time,”
Vianca said.“Sometimes we would buy bread, because
it was cheap—and eat it with condiments.”
When Carmen later met the no-nonsense, success-
ful Italian,Masucci, life got better—but Carmen was
stubborn,Vianca says.“She didn’t like to take things
from people,” she said. She wouldn’t always accept
Masucci’s assistance and would leave home withVianca
and Frederic III, one of two boys the couple had
together. Sammy,Vianca’s other brother, is now 12.
�It was on the “Day of Silence” at St. George’s in
April 2007 when people here who didn’t knowVianca
well, and even perhaps some who thought they did,
learned some intimate details about her life.“I’m
adopted.Mymother didn’t have enoughmoney to feed
Vianca on Prize Daywith her father,Frederic Masucci Jr.
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 09 SUMMER BULLET IN4
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me,” she announced from theMadeira Hall stage. She’d
been an organizer of the event, which featured students
revealing secrets about themselves, both light-hearted
and serious, in front of the school community.Vianca
says it was an effort to raise awareness that people have
secrets that affect their feelings that everyone might not
know about, including sexual orientation.Vianca
recalls the day as a milestone, not just for herself, but
for the school.“I just felt that coming out in any small
environment is something that’s hard to do, because
everyone talks and everyone is worried about what
everyone else is thinking,” she said. Throughout her last
two years at SG,Vianca was a vocal leader of the Gay-
Straight Alliance student group.After the event, she
says, no one asked about her life or evenmentioned her
announcement.“Which was good,” she said.“I don’t
like the whole sympathy thing. I don’t do well with it.”
�Vianca was 7 and her mother was in ill health
when her teachers at Abington Ave. Elementary School
suggested she repeat the first grade. She’d have time to
catch up, they said, since she’d arrived so late in the year.
Vianca said she used school to escape.“I would just
go to school and I would work and then I didn’t have to
think about anything else,” she said. By October her
mother, just 26, had died.Vianca was 7; Frederic Jr.,
whom the family calls Moochie, was 5; and Sammy was
just eight months old.
The story of Carmen’s last visit with her children is
a testament to her deep love. Gravely ill in the hospital,
she one day checked herself out to go to her sister’s
house, whereMasucci had dropped off the children.
Masucci was seeking full custody at the time,Vianca
said, and the children hadn’t seen their mother for
some time. By the time Carmen got medical attention
again a week later, a lung had collapsed, and she was
untreatable.“The doctors told her that if she hadn’t left,
she would’ve lived,”Vianca said.
�After her mother’s death,Vianca’s sadness some-
how continued to fuel her studies.
By the end of the year she repeated first grade,
Vianca was enrolled in the Gifted and Talented Pro-
gram at Abington. She remembers getting in by being
able to correctly spell the word, “chair.”“And she
hasn’t missed a beat since,” her father said. She began
earning all As.
“I had this idea in mymind when I was young that
the way I saw the world had to be different than the way
everyone else saw the world,” she said. She wanted to
know why.
“My father told me that I was one of the most
obnoxious kids to grow up with because I never
stopped asking questions.”
In sixth grade a representative from theWight
Foundation, a New Jersey-based organization that
provides scholarship grants, gave a presentation about
their program to students at Abington. If accepted to
the program, students would be required to work extra
long hours—through two summers and vacations—
but the reward would be assistance in obtaining
admission to one of the elite boarding schools in the
Northeast.Vianca went through the program and
applied to several schools. But on a visit to St. George’s,
she said, she just got a feeling.“I thought, ‘This is some-
thing I could do for a while,’” she said.
�What landedVianca in the gifted and talented
program at Abington—and later on the Head of
School’s Commendation list (for receiving no grade
lower than an A-) in her freshmen year at St.
George’s—was a mixture of a naturally gifted mind,
insatiable curiosity, but not much coddling.
“I didn’t baby her or her brother. I didn’t feel there
was time,” saidMasucci, who was working seven days a
week patrolling some of the city’s rougher neighbor-
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 009 SUMMER BULLET IN 5
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Vianca as a baby,in the arms
of her mother,Carmencita Gonzalez.
Some of Vianca’spoetry waspublished thisspring in the school’sliterary magazine,The Dragon.
hoods.“Maybe that’s
why she’s so rugged.”
Vianca’s mother
used to teach her multi-
plication while she gave
her a bath.“I was just five
or so,”Vianca said,“and she
used to drill me on numbers,
andmakeme tell her what
time it was.” She also instilled
in her a deep sense of family
obligation, telling her to always
take care of Moochie, a Type A
hemophiliac who as a baby was
often in the hospital for weeks with
internal bleeding after a bump or
simple fall.
Masucci made sure Vianca
worked hard. “He’s definitely made
me who I am,”Vianca says of her dad.
“I think a lot of my personality comes
directly from his.”
For the 2008-09 school year, St.
George’s awarded nearly $2.7 million in
financial aid to 88 students, with grants
ranging from $5,000 to $41,000, which cov-
ered a full boarding tuition.Vianca was a
recipient of the C.V. Starr Scholarship—estab-
lished in 2004 with a gift fromMr. Edward
Matthews, president and director of C.V. Starr
& Co. Inc., and his wife,Mrs.Marie Matthews—to
assist a deserving St. George’s student. TheMatthewses
are the parents of Russell Matthews ’87.Mrs.Matthews
andVianca corresponded regularly throughout her
career here and the two developed a special bond. The
Matthewses metVianca on campus last spring.
�The academic road at SG, however, wasn’t always
smooth for Vianca. She admits she suffered a bit of a
“sophomore slump,” saying distractions from home
contributed to her loss of focus on her studies. “My
sophomore year was really hard for me because I had
come to a point when I realized that my life was drasti-
cally different than that of my brothers—and it would
be that way for a really long time,” she said. During
that year, she said, a student at her brothers’ school
was stabbed in the hallway at 10 a.m.“And he was
there to witness it,”Vianca said. “And that person
was on the floor bleeding for hours before someone
came to get them.”
One time,Moochie himself “got attacked and he
was pretty badly hurt,”Vianca said.
“I was very scared for him. Stuff like that I don’t
have to deal with here at St. George’s.”
Vianca says she lost sight of her goals.“I didn’t
want to study for a really long time. I gave up a lot of
the things I really liked,” she said.“But slowly I got out
of it. It took a lot of support frommy teachers.”
She also found other students who shared similar
experiences, in particular Danielle Pieratos ’07. Pieratos,
who grew up on the Bois Forte Indian Reservation in
Minnesota, is now at Stanford University.
“Dani and I had both come from similar situa-
tions,” Vianca said.“We’d both seen a great amount of
poverty, lack of education.”Both, she said, were trying
“to change the course”of their families.
“That’s the way that I think about it,” she added.
“I know if I have children, they’ll go to college because
I went to college.
“Dani and I both felt the stress of that respon-
sibility.”
Still,Vianca and Dani both eventually excelled in
their studies here. Both were involved in community
service.
“You do a great deal of your maturing here,”
Vianca said.“You find a great part of yourself here.You
discover yourself. So a great part of who I am, I found
at St. George’s.”
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 09 SUMMER BULLET IN6
A Lesson in Submissionby Vianca Masucci ’09
In the backseat,forward, knitted lights,I don’t know where we’re going,
I don’t care.Passivity is difficult—
A demanding mistress that rejects anxiety.
Charlie Fleming ’09
“I’m changing the course of my
family. That’s the way that I think about it.
I know if I have children, they’ll go
to college because I went to college.”
Science and Latin are some of her favorite subjects,
though she’s also a prolific poet.
“I just wrote a paper about how I have a religious
experience with Latin. I know it sounds really nerdy,
but I really do.When you can sit down and just deci-
pher different grammar, translations, it’s such a beauti-
ful thing. I find that with my studies a lot,” she said,“if I
like what I’m studying.”
Biology was definitely one of those subjects.
“Being able to sit down and weave everything
together, the cycles of life and all the other human
anatomy, it’s just peaceful,” she said. “I think study is
a very peaceful thing.”
She says she joined the choir in her junior year to
“de-stress.”
�Vianca will attend Swarthmore College in Penn-
sylvania this fall. She wants to be a genetic anthro-
pologist and study medical conditions like
hemophilia that have impacted her family. “But I
don’t want to be some academic stuck in an institu-
tion,” she said. “I don’t want that for myself. I want
to take everything I’ve learned and use it to help
people,” she said.“I think that if you’re in a position
where you can help that you should.”
It’s an ethic she learned from her mother and
father.
“When we did have food,mymother would have
people over,” she said.“She always told me, ‘If it’s not
your last one, you should share it.’”
She calls Masucci “the biggest inspiration” in her
life.“He adopted me even though I wasn’t his biological
daughter. He was always pushing me, through every-
thing,” she said.“He was always serving up ‘tough love.’
He definitely mademe who I am.”
It was 12 years ago whenMasucci learned he’d
gained full custody of Vianca. She wrote about the
moment he signed the adoption papers in her admis-
sion essay to St. George’s.“Scratch, scratch, scratch,” she
began.“The penmoves across the paper—andmy life
was changed.”
Author’s note: VViiaannccaa MMaassuuccccii ’09 can be reached at
Vianca on Prize Daywith her cousin
Robert, her father,Frederic Jr., hercousin Victor, hercousin Isabel, herbrother Sammy, her aunt Maria, and Grandpa (Frederic Sr.)
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 7
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ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN8
Trustee Charles K. Williams II ’49 has amassed a collection of paintings and sculpture
worthy of a museum exhibit this summer
IMAGECOURTESY
OFW
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OWN
Hearing people talk about paintings as if they
were room decorations gets under Charles K.
Williams’ skin. Especially at parties. “Art
should have a contemporary conscience,” he says. “You
shouldn’t sit around a pool and think, ‘Oh, art is
beauty.’ You should think, ‘What impact does art have
on my life?’ ”
It’s a philosophy that’s been guiding Williams’ art
collecting for the last 20 years—with the Philadelphia
Museum of Art taking note all along. Now, after con-
sulting with Williams on numerous purchases, Innis
Howe Shoemaker, the museum’s Audrey and William
H. Helfand senior curator of prints, drawings and
photographs, has put together a show of 100 or so of
Williams’ works. The exhibition, entitled “Adventures
in Modern Art,” began July 12 and runs through
Sept. 13, 2009.
Williams ’49, holder of the gold medal of the
Archaeological Institute of America and an excavator
of seven sites around the Mediterranean, began
collecting in earnest in the 1980s. At first his eye was
on etchings, but has since concentrated his focus on
American paintings. Bold artists like Joseph Stella
(1877–1946), Oscar Bluemner (1867–1938), Charles
Demuth (1883–1935), and Arthur Dove (1880–
1946) are favorites. Williams likes color, and he
seems most at home amid the eccentric, provocative
art of the modernists.
It’s yet another seemingly incongruous part of Mr.
Williams’ personality: a Princeton-trained architect
and ancient architecture buff who spends half his year
amid the ruins of Ancient Corinth in Greece and the
other half in search of edgy Modernist paintings in
New York; the dignified aesthete who jokes around
with the waiter at lunch; a patrician with a devilish
sense of mischief.
Williams, who celebrated his 78th birthday the
week before we met recently in New York and who
joined the St. George’s Board of Trustees in 2000, is as
spry as an active 40-year-old. He fondly recalls the art
classes he took at St. George’s with Mr. Drury, who
taught etching, and English with Mr. Ford and Mr.
PAINTING (OPPOSITE):George Tooker
(American, born 1920),
VVooiiccee II, 1963. Egg tempera on gessoed panel, 20 x 18 inches.
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 9
“If art won’t help people
be more interested in
seeing what their life is
about, why waste the
wall space?”
—Charles K. Williams II ’49
ARTthat talks
BY SUZANNE L. MCGRADY
PHOTO
BYJO
HNW. C
ORBETT
Hoyt, but Williams isn’t a man of the past. You get the
feeling he wouldn’t be completely averse to dropping in
to see a punk rock band at Irving Plaza, or teaming up
on a good practical joke. To him, art, too, is edgy, alive,
of-the-moment.
“I feel painting is not a window to the world out-
side but rather a dialogue with the specific painter
whose work you at that specific moment are looking
at,” he wrote in a letter prior to our meeting.
He guesses that’s the reason he has only one 19th-
century painting on his walls and why the paintings he
now has hanging are “so varied in spirit.”
Williams is rough on the 19th century.
“You can throw up and that’s it, that’s the 19th
century,” he says, then quickly puts his disgust into
perspective.
“The 19th century, however, is intriguing,” he adds.
“You know when you like something and you don’t
think you should, you can get very rabidly hateful
about it. So when you look at some art that is terribly
realistic and pretty … you like it, but you know it may
be what some people call ‘schmaltz.’ Art should be
cutting edge, so schmaltz is out.”
The Modernist paintings in his Rittenhouse Square
apartment, he says, “speak” to him.
One of his favorite paintings is a Hugh Henry
Breckenridge (1870-1937) called “Abstraction with
Bouquet,” c. 1930. Before it was taken down last
spring for the Philly exhibition, it hung over his
mantelpiece. The other star spot, over his couch,
was reserved for “Palm Tree and Bird,” c. 1927-28
by Stella.
Indeed, anything that passes muster with Williams
has pretty much got to twist his gut—and meet his
standards.
It’s a tendency he makes no apologies for. When he
examines the art burgeoning from the walls of his
home, he says, “I feel very judgmental.” To those works
of art that he tires of, he says, “I feel as though I’m
saying, ‘You better shape up and get better aesthetic in
your face—or you’re out of here.’”
In fact, Williams talks about the dozens of paint-
ings and sculptures in his Philadelphia apartment as if
they were his roommates.
A collection that’s constantly in flux, some paint-
ings stay for the long haul; others are in and out like
transients.
And oh, he knows when he’s ready to evict. “I start
getting dissatisfied,” he says.
“I will say, ‘You know, you’re not fitting in with
what I have on the wall.’ And then I’ll put it in the
hallway, or I’ll put it someplace a little farther down,
and then finally, it just has to go.”
Now it’s as if “Plowing,” a colored crayon over
charcoal drawing c. 1936, by Grant Wood, left dirty
dishes in the sink one too many times.
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN10
Morton LivingstonSchamberg, (American,
1881 – 1918),LLaannddssccaappee ((wwiitthhBBrriiddggee)),, 11991144. Oil on canvas, 26 x 32 inches. IM
AGEBY
ANDREA
NUÑEZ
After the show in Philly, “The Grant Wood is defi-
nitely going to be banished,” he says. “That’s definitely
GOING.”
�Williams says education is key to the collecting. He
never stops trying to learn more about the period he’s
collecting and the artists, but more importantly, he
says, he keeps trying to get better at recognizing great-
ness. “You have to keep working. If you don’t keep your
aesthetic growing, you’ll be just satisfied with what’s on
the wall. You have to educate yourself constantly.”
He also has some strict rules he adheres to in order
to keep his collection in check.
“I have a rule that I only allow 80 paintings on the
wall,” he says.
When Williams finds a piece of art he wants to buy,
it sets a whole series of questions in motion. He has to
decide whether he’s going to sell something he already
has, donate it, put it up for auction or give it back to the
gallery that oversees the estate of the artist.
“But once I decide that I’m going to get rid of it, I
will get rid of it somehow, because something else is
better. What I’m getting has to be better—for what I’m
deciding to get rid of is no longer of interest to me.”
But while collecting art for him is driven by very
personal desires and instincts, Williams doesn’t make
his buying decisions alone. He says he knew right away
he needed experts to help him. “We’re a team,” he says
of Shoemaker and others at the museum who counsel
him on the conservation, preservation and overall
worthiness of the pieces he covets. He says he also
depended on Jonathan Greenberg, now at Sotheby’s in
New York, for helping him “cut [his] eyeteeth” when he
was at the bottom of the learning curve.
“It is so good to have backup,” he says. “If I’m
going to buy paintings, I want to make sure I buy
paintings that are worth displaying, and they’re the
ones who can tell me if there is something hiding out
there that is better.”
He calls his collecting “sport” because sometimes it
is about winning. He got a definite thrill, he says, when
he got word from the museum that one of his bronze
sculptures, a piece called “Wounded Stag” by Elie
Nadelman (1882-1946), was originally a wedding
present to the artist’s daughter—and was therefore
worth more to collectors because of the special atten-
tion the artist paid to the patina. And when he passed
over a William Zorach painting in an auction once
because it was damaged and it went for a much higher
price than he expected, he says he called a gallery owner
to get his opinion why. When the gallery owner said it
was because the painting was so rare the damage didn’t
matter, Williams says he reacted with a pang of com-
petitive disappointment.
“It’s not, ‘Oh, I’m too old to play football, so I’ll
collect art,’ but it’s that same sort of game,” he says. “It’s
making sure you get that ball through the line.”
�You learn a lot about how Charles K. Williams II
feels about art just by walking down Fifth Avenue in
New York with him. “For instance, if I were going to
paint this,” he says looking up at the glistening towers
that line the street, “I’d examine what’s really going on.
I’d see it—and then I’d do something with it, make it
what it is to me right now. Is it more about noise, light,
movement or some such dynamic?”
On this warm June afternoon in New York,
George C. Ault,(American,
1891 – 1948), TTrreeee SSttuummpp, 1934.
Oil on canvas, 28 x 20 inches.
IMAGE BY ANDREA NUÑEZ
Joseph Stella (1877-1946)
AAnnggeellffiisshh, 1937Oil on canvas laiddown on board161/2 x 23 inches
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 11
IMAGECOURTESY
OFMARTH
APA
RRISH& JAMESRE
INISH, INC.
Charles Demuth(American, 1883-1935),
TTuubbeerroosseess, 1922.Graphite andwatercolor
on paper, sheet: 13 x 101/2 inches
Williams is in the city to visit a few galleries and take in
the Francis Bacon exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum
of Art. He takes the train in from Philly—oftentimes
once a week when he’s in the States—and makes his
base at the University Club on 54th Street and Fifth
Avenue. Meeting him in the regal lobby of the club,
where porters are at your service right as you walk in
the door, you’d expect Williams to be all business and
reserve. But there’s a playfulness about him and an
offbeat humor that’s striking—and like his artwork,
captivating. He teases the bellhop about whether his
briefcase will be there when he gets back. You get the
feeling he looks at each part of the day as an opportu-
nity for fun. Collecting art makes his life better.
He heads into the DC Moore Gallery at 724 Fifth
Ave. with a sense of excitement. He takes in the exhibit
called “Trees” in the gallery and then is invited behind
the counter to a private back room.
If your last purchase of “art” was from
allposters.com, the back “showing” room at DC
Moore has the rarefied air of the Louvre. Gallery
assistants travel light-footed in and out with coveted
selections from the gallery’s collection. The favored
works get a special display spot on the carpeted stage
in the corner. The light is just right. Today Williams
has his eye on a few works by the Texas artist David
Bates, a series of paintings done in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina.
He calls one of a flooded street, called “Industrial
Canal Breach, 2007” “gutsy,” admitting he’ll consider
buying it later this year. Another one, of a fire scene in
the Garden District, he says, “is a little decorative.” It’s
clear that one likely won’t make the cut.
Leave it to Williams to notice that the view out
the showroom’s windows also is interesting. It’s an
above-street-level look at one of the Trump Towers,
with terraced gardens on one corner. The trees look
pitiable up there amidst all the steel and glass, but it’s
a true city moment.
“You’re lucky to have that,” he tells the gallery
director.
�When Williams’ private collection went on exhibit
July 12 at the art museum, he wasn’t there to attend the
opening. “They’re mine. I’ve lived with them,” he said
of the paintings, sculptures, watercolors and drawings.
“It’ll be more interesting for me to see how other peo-
ple react to it.”
The other reason he wasn’t there is that he had
work to do in Athens. Currently he’s at work on the
final draft of an archeological manuscript on the results
of excavation he did for 10 years in the neighborhood
of the theater in Ancient Corinth. The manuscript
examines the rise and fall of the neighborhood from 44
B.C. to ca. A.D. 500. This summer he’s on a fact-check-
Emil Nolde(German,
1867-1956), RReedd PPooppppiieess (Roter Mohn),
c. 1920. Watercoloron Japanese tissue,131/2 x 187/8 inches.
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN12
IMAGEBY
ANDREA
NUÑEZ
ing mission, making sure all his numerical references to
the collection of artifacts are correct.
Indeed, Williams travels between two places—
archeology and art, literally and figuratively. He’s in
Athens in summer and winter, Philadelphia in spring
and fall.
When he comes home in September, he’ll attend a
gala event at the museum on Sept. 10. A St. George’s
reception there is planned to celebrate the collection on
Friday, Sept. 11.
When his art comes home, he won’t put the paint-
ings back where they were before. While “some people
fill their walls and then just quit,” Williams says he
keeps his art in motion. About every three months, he
rearranges his entire collection, methodically taking
down each painting and putting it in a different place
on the walls of his apartment. He says he never enlists
the aid of anyone else, or a professional. “I’d be embar-
rassed to move it after someone helped me hang it,” he
says, admitting he takes his time and doesn’t always get
it the way he wants the first time.
“I hang things every which way,” he says, “either
with something that gives a history or with something
that I think gives a comparative study in aesthetics, or
as a grouping to show similar artists.”
When he first started his collection, Williams
thought he had to have a representative sample of
art, of what the first half of the 20th century meant to
the rest of the century. “But if you do that, you need
a museum,” he says.
He also has the feeling that his collection is a kind
of community service—that he was collecting so that
when people came into his apartment, he could show
them things that were interesting and that would “help
them with their aesthetics, but I don’t want to be too
abrupt about how I do it.”
His first step forward, he says, was settling in on the
fact that it was his own collection, and he could do
what he wanted, no matter how it played to the outside
world. “When people come in and are upset with your
art, tough on them. I have decided now that I frankly
don’t give a damn. I’m going to do it my own way.”
It’s taken Williams a long time to realize that.
“Actually, it’s taken me until this show,” he says.
Some visitors have recoiled at the sight of the
Nadelman stag sculpture. The 21-inch deer, his head
thrown back with mouth agape, an arrow embedded
in his side, has forced some to recoil, notably
Williams’ sister, Joan Rhame GP ’10, to whom he’s
very close. Williams is sensitive to her animal rights
activism and turns the sculpture so the arrow faces the
back, but he won’t otherwise make concessions. “The
trouble is if you don’t show a stag being shot with an
arrow, people are not going to realize that you should-
n’t hunt with bow and arrows. You have to have the
bad contrasting the good, otherwise the art is not
going to have any effect.”
Williams has been honing his philosophies over
the last decades. Raised in a half-Quaker family,
Williams’ spirituality now tends more toward transcen-
dental. The grandson and namesake of the owner of a
pigment and dry fuller company that had its main
plant in Easton, Pa., Williams is a generous philanthro-
pist who believes, “You should make life on Earth better
before you leave it, so that if you are returned, you’ll
find that there will then be more to enjoy.”
Both he and his sister do a certain amount of
charity. “Mine is to raise the cultural level of the world,”
he said. “Hers is the position of women, street people
Joseph Stella,(American, born
Italy, 1877 – 1946)PPaallmm TTrreeee aannddBBiirrdd, 1927-28 Oil on canvas,
54 x 40 1/4 inches.
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 13
George C. Ault(American, 1891-1948),
LLoofftt BBuuiillddiinnggss,, NNoo.. 11, 1922. Oil on canvas, 20 x 14 inches.
IMAGE COURTESY OF
WILL BROWN
David Bates, (American, born 1952)
IInndduussttrriiaall CCaannaallBBrreeaacchh, 2007 Oil on canvas
and children with mental or medical problems. It just
depends upon what your take is on what ‘better’ is.”
Williams has donated to a number of capital proj-
ects at St. George’s, most recently the planned renovation
of the library. He’s the major contributor to the $7.5
million project. He’s also the 1999 recipient of SG’s
highest alumni/ae honor, the Diman Award. In fact,
educational institutions, such as the Fitch Laboratory
of the British School at Athens, the American Academy
in Rome, and various excavations around the Mediter-
ranean basin, but especially the University of Pennsylva-
nia and the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthro-
pology, have been the recipients of his generosity.
You never get the feeling that Williams is content
to rest on the accomplishments of his past. For
Williams, even in collecting art the chase is some times
more fun than the catch. He doesn’t do much impulse
buying, “but I do some,” he admits.
The last such purchase was a painting called
“Angelfish” by Joseph Stella.
When I went into the gallery, it was in the direc-
tor’s office rather than in the gallery. And I said, “Oh, I
have to have that.”
In fact, when Williams walked into Menconi &
Schoelkopf Fine Art in New York that day in May,
Susan Menconi, a partner at the art gallery says, “He
could not take his eyes off the wall. We had other things
to show him, but it didn’t matter. He basically said,
‘Wrap it up,’ metaphorically.”
Menconi said when the gallery secured the con-
tract to sell the piece, they knew they had a potential
buyer in Williams.
“Angelfish” was the third Stella he’s purchased
from the East 69th St. gallery, and it had arrived at the
gallery by a rather circuitous route. A woman named
Mary Jane had the painting in her trailer home. It had
belonged to her great-granduncle who managed a hotel
on the West Side of New York. There was a room that
had a skylight, and so he let Thomas Benton use it as
his studio and other artists from the Student League.
The painting, she figured, was either a gift for using the
room or a purchase from the artist himself. Mary Jane
brought the painting to the June 7, 2008, taping of PBS’
“The Antiques Roadshow” in Palm Springs, Calif.
The professional appraiser valued the painting at
$250,000.
The episode originally aired Jan. 19, 2009, and is on
the PBS web site.
Williams hadn’t seen it when he walked into the
gallery.
When they knew he would be arriving that day,
“Let’s just say we hung it where we knew he could see
it,” Menconi said. “It was a little calculated.”
Menconi counts Williams among her favorite
clients.
“He likes the offbeat,” she said. “He has a very
definite eye, but he’s not always totally predictable.
“Really he just loves his pictures and his sculp-
tures. You don’t feel there’s any other motive: He just
loves them.”
�When the exhibit is over at the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, Williams says he’ll “start out again.”
“What I want to do is find out who are the people I
really want, the people who are gutsy.”
Artists like Marcel Duchamp, who once drew a
moustache on a postcard of the “Mona Lisa.”
“[That’s] what art is all about,” Williams says. “Art
is not something that you should look at once and say,
‘That’s the standard.’ It changes as people do.”
Charles Sheeler,(American, 1883-1965),NNeeiigghhbboorrss, 1951.Oil on canvas, 18 x 15 inches.
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN14
II ff yy oo uu gg oo .. .. ..
ADVENTURES IN MODERN ARTThe collection of Charles K. Williams II ’49
Through Sunday, Sept. 13
Approximately 100 paintings, sculptures, watercolorsand drawings from the early 20th century.
Philadelphia Museum of ArtDorrance Special Exhibition Galleries, first floor
2600 Benjamin Franklin PkwyPhiladelphia, PA 19130phone: (215) 763-8100
Museum hours: Tuesday through Sunday: 10 a.m.–5 p.m.,
Friday: 10 a.m.– 8:45 p.m.
For more information, visit www.philamuseum.org
IMAGECOURTESY
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ILLBR
OWN
BY JAY DOOLITTLE ’56
Bill Schenck understood right from the
get-go that some journeys mattered and
some didn’t.
On May 5, 1941, as he was finishing up his senior
year at Rome Free Academy, the cover of Life maga-
zine carried an image of Harvard, which Bill would
have appreciated. And in September, as he was arriv-
ing in Cambridge to begin his freshman year, the
magazine carried a photo of Ted Williams with a bat
resting on his shoulder. The hoopla over the last
player to hit .400 meant absolutely nothing to Bill.
During his four years at Harvard, Bill lived within a
stone’s throw of Fenway Park, and it was a journey he
never had any inclination to make.
As recorded in the 1941 Rome Free Academy
yearbook, Bill served as president of the National
Honor Society, editor-in-chief of the Press Club, vice
president of the Roman Forum, and member of the
National Forensic League. Next to his senior photo,
he is characterized as “the walking encyclopedia of
the senior class, the heartthrob of all women, and the
pal of all pals.” And in the Class Prophesy, he is touted
as “the mellow-voiced orator who would become a
professor of law at Harvard and grow a goatee, no
less.” So much for prophesy!
At heart, Bill was in many ways a wanderer who
traveled during vacations to Europe, to the Middle East
and the Far East, to Africa and South America and fre-
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 15
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The man fromPPoodduunnkk RRooaaddReflections on the life of Bill Schenck, SG Faculty 1952-1990
Lee Center
LEE CENTER
NEW YORK CITY
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN16
quently to Greece. It is remarkable how
often he went forth from the Hilltop
into the larger life of the world. But no
less remarkable are some of the shorter
trips he took: the ride from his family
home on Podunk Road in Lee Center,
N.Y., to Rome Free Academy, the trip
from Rome Free Academy to Harvard
and later to Columbia and Oxford
where he completed his graduate work,
and especially the adventure we shared together one
afternoon in 1953 when I was hoofing it back to school
from a town permission with a friend. Bill stopped along
Memorial Boulevard to give us a lift, and it didn’t take a
rocket scientist to figure out that Bill’s many talents did
not include driving a motor vehicle and that my life was
probably about to end. Miraculously, we did not even
put a dent in the main school gate, and by the time Bill
pulled into the front circle, I had concluded that my
mother actually did know something about the dangers
of hitchhiking. In the years that followed, Bill made
countless trips into Newport and back, and every one of
his sorties was an adventure. His various Fords left a lot
of paint samples and not a few scars on the trees and
telephone poles that line Purgatory Road.
Bill was my history teacher, my colleague, my men-
tor, my friend. Along with George Wheeler, who was the
director of admission when I applied to St. George’s, he
probably had something to do with my being admitted
to the school. I was only one of the many risks Bill took
along his way. During the spring of our senior year at St.
George’s, my roommate and I took to raising a pet fox
in one of our closets. It was a closely guarded secret until
the night Rommel decided to help himself to a chunk
of our dorm master’s leg. We might well have been ex -
pelled, had not Bill interceded on our behalf, and on
Rommel’s. I was only one of the many students he
would help to stay the course at St. George’s.
Over the course of his 37 years on the Hilltop, Bill
managed to wear just about every conceivable St.
George’s hat, and he hung them all on the same peg in
the same apartment in Old School. Bill’s furnishings
were spartan, and on the coffee table in front of his sofa
there were always piles of history books, magazines,
and the New York Times. Surely, he had other housing
options, but Bill always liked it right where he was,
right in the middle of things, and right across the hall
from what was, until the Hamblets arrived, the Head-
master’s apartment. He also liked the fact that the stairs
creaked, as there was no way to get up or down, or in or
out, of Old School without his knowing it.
Bill served as assistant headmaster, acting head-
master, college advisor, assistant director of admission,
head of the History Department, director of studies,
and director of the summer school. He sat through
countless faculty meetings, and served on countless
committees. He was the champion of institutional
change, and it is more than likely that had he not had
his oar in our water, the dragons might have held off
even longer on admitting students of color, girls, and
international students, on increasing the budget for
financial aid, on participating in the Advanced Place-
ment programs, on developing interdisciplinary and
team-taught offerings like American Studies, on offer-
ing a wider range of elective courses, and on creating a
more flexible daily schedule. Given that he was involved
in just about every aspect of school life, it is entirely
possible that Bill may even have had a hand in selecting
the Saturday night movies we watched in the 1950s in
the study hall, movies like “My Six Convicts,” “It Came
from Outer Space,” “Whistle Stop at Eaton Falls” and
“Joe Learns a Thing or Two.” Clearly, Bill needed to
learn a thing or two about Hollywood productions. On
the other hand, even a cursory study of the school
catalogue would reveal that under his leadership, it was
always the history department that came up with the
most substantive changes and the widest array of new
courses. Bill was certainly no movie buff, but his wheels
were ever turning when it came to curricular offerings.
First and finally, Bill was a teacher, a master teacher.
As his students, we spent an awful lot of class time
daydreaming about vacation and the chance to hang
out under the clock at the Biltmore Hotel. However,
many of us remember Bill’s map tests better than any
dates we managed to arrange, and while we can no
longer put a face or a name on any of those girls, we
can still put a finger on Smolensk and Borodino. Bill
wanted us to know that the world extended beyond the
Hilltop and even beyond the clock in the Biltmore, and
because Smolensk and Borodino mattered to him, they
came to matter to us. Although there were probably
days when he couldn’t wait for a class to end, not one of
PHOTO
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us could have guessed it. On the other hand, through-
out the single season he served as middler football
coach, there were definitely days when he couldn’t wait
for practice to end, and every one of his players knew it.
In the 1950s, there were no round tables in the St.
George’s schoolhouse. Students were arranged in two
or three rows facing the teacher and the chalkboard, a
setup suggesting that any available knowledge would be
passed down from the oracle in charge. This arrange-
ment was never Bill’s vision of teaching or learning.
Versed as he was in Greek culture and in Socratic dia-
logue, his special talent lay in raising questions for us to
chew on, in eliciting responses, in leading us to discuss
or to defend a point of view. Bill did his class prepara-
tions and he demanded that we do ours. On some days,
what he led us to discover was that we were, as he put it,
“newts,” laggards who ought to be considering more
seriously what would become of us if we didn’t shape up.
It is no accident that so many students make refer-
ence to Bill in the Lance. He was omnipresent, and in
the classroom, in his office, at meals and in his apart-
ment, he was an expert at mischievous dialogue. Tire-
lessly, he sought to persuade generations of dragons
never to vote Republican. The doors to his office and to
his apartment were always open, and whenever we
went to visit him, he would immediately set aside
whatever he’d been doing in order to give us his ear. He
welcomed our interruptions. Sometimes, he chewed us
out. Mostly though, we just chewed the fat with Bill. He
was our listening post. He had his ear to the student
ground and also served as the sounding board for
countless colleagues and trustees.
In a school where athletics has always played such
an important role, Bill knew less about sports than
anyone I’ve ever met. It comes as no surprise that there
is no mention of his having ever played for the Black
Knights at Rome Free Academy. Indeed, I doubt that he
ever played a sport, and I don’t think he ever played any
games either—not even canasta. And yet, how many
blustery afternoons he spent standing in his gray over-
coat on the sidelines of a middler soccer field or at the
rink or in the gym, watching something which, other
than the score, he couldn’t possibly have understood!
Bill was an expert on blitzkriegs and sieges, bombing
raids over Dresden and maneuvers at Midway, but he
didn’t have a clue what a press was, or a power play, or a
zone defense. Bill was a loyal fan of the
school teams, but it was the players
that interested him and not the games.
After retiring from St. George’s,
Bill moved back to his home on
Podunk Road and set about demon-
strating anew that indeed there is life
beyond the Hilltop. He lived only a
short drive from the prime trout
waters of the West Canada Creek and
from some very fine grouse and woodcock hunting,
but he never carried a fly rod or a shotgun into the
field. Nor did he ever make his way down to nearby
Donovan Stadium to watch a twinight double-header
between the Utica Blue Sox and the Watertown Indi-
ans. Always a teacher, he served as a founding member
of the Mohawk Valley Institute for Learning in Retire-
ment, chaired the institute’s curriculum committee
and for some 10 years taught a wide range of
extremely popular courses ranging from Alexander
the Great, to George Washington, to Thomas Jeffer-
son, to Abraham Lincoln, to the Roosevelts, and
Afghanistan.
Although Bill was running on empty when it came
to movies or cars or popular music or sports or games
or hunting and fishing, his gift lay in being able to
persuade us to take an interest in what he did know, in
the lessons of history, in civilizations and cultures other
than our own, in current events, and of course in the
platform of the Democratic party.
During my senior year at Williams, Bill came to
take me out to dinner and suggested that I consider
teaching as a career. I took his advice. Years later, in
Paris, where June and I were enjoying a leave of absence
from the school, Bill came again to take us out to din-
ner. It was a long dinner and a very long tab. Bill had a
knack for keeping tabs on former students, graduates
and colleagues, and the dragons he treated to good fare,
good advice and good conversation are legion. We are
all grateful for Bill’s good company. It mattered!
JJaayy DDoooolliittttllee ’56 was a member of the St. George’s
faculty from 1962-2006, during the bulk of which
he served as director of admission and financial
aid. He lives in Montana and can be reached at
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 17
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Silver liningIn the worst of times, laughter—and triumph
C H A P E L T A L K SDifferent Takes
BY MEGAN LEONHARD ’09Following is a chapel talk delivered on April 14, 2009.
Afew weeks ago I started writing this chapel
talk. Ironically, last week Dr.Wein posed a
question to the audience and to himself.Why
are we here? His answer was,“I guess I’m just lucky.”
But, I don’t think I’m here because of luck, I think I’m
here for a reason. There’s no moral to my story, no deep
hidden meaning, and no big metaphors. Instead I want
to encourage you to be willing to accept and deal with
change. Obstacles will always present themselves in
what seem like the worst of times and getting through
these difficult times with a positive attitude defines the
best of our character. Helen Keller once wrote,“Charac-
ter cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only
through experience of trial and suffering can the soul
be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success
achieved.”Much of the character I have developed and
lessons I have learned have largely come from dealing
with the hardships that have confronted me.
Now, let’s back up to 2004 where my story starts, in
seventh grade.My choice to come to boarding school
was largely influenced by my older brother, Andrew’s,
decision to go to St. Paul’s in New Hampshire. He left
for school during my seventh-grade year. At the time I
was very unaware of what boarding school was all
about, but I knew from that moment on, this might be
a path that I would one day follow. In my previous K-8
school, a large percentage of the graduating eighth-
grade class continued on to boarding school. As eighth
grade began to roll around, the lists of schools I would
18 ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 009 SUMMER BULLET IN
Megan’s mom, Kelle,and her brothers,Mark and Andrew,greet Megan afterPrize Day servicesin May.
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19ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 09 SUMMER BULLET IN
apply to slowly started to take form. I visited 11 schools
and applied to nine. There were a few I liked more than
the others, but St. Paul’s ranked very high on my list
because Andrew went there. I couldn’t help but think
how cool it would be to go to school with my older
brother. Going to the same school as Andrew began to
dominate my thoughts, and if accepted I would be
thrilled to go to St. Paul’s. Just weeks before my second-
ary school letters came in the mail, we found out that
Andrew was being “DC’d”—a term that had no mean-
ing to me or my family. Andrew and five of his peers
had been accused of harassing another student by
writing on the desk during Driver’s Ed. The whole
thing seemed overblown and we assumed Andrew
would apologize and he and the others boys would
sand the desks until what they had written disappeared.
That night I went out to a friend’s house and returned
home to see my mom leaving to make the five-hour
drive to St. Paul’s. The DC was more serious than any
of us expected. The next day,my mom came home
with Andrew sitting in the passenger seat and our
Suburban filled to the top and packed full of his
belongings from his dorm room.Andrew had been
suspended from St. Paul’s for a year and a half. None of
it made sense to me or to anyone for that matter. I don’t
ever remember my family being so upset and having
one single event take such a toll on us. Once Andrew
had been home for several weeks, I knew that for me
being at home would be the hardest thing. I immedi-
ately had to rethink my school options, dismissing the
idea of attending St. Paul’s altogether. After a long
month of revisits, I decided that from the remaining
schools on my list, St. George’s was the best fit for me
and, lo and behold, six months later I unpacked my
bags into my small Twenty House room. To this day, I
can’t help but think of how this unfortunate series of
events led me to St. George’s. Not only have I never lost
to a St. Paul’s sports team, but I can’t imagine having
spent my four years at high school anywhere else. I’m a
strong believer that many events happen for a reason,
even though we may not know it at the time.
There is always good that comes from every situa-
tion, even if it’s not evident at that moment. The imme-
diate weeks after Andrew’s suspension were a few of the
hardest weeks my family has ever been through.Andrew
rarely left his room, family dinners weren’t the same and
Andrew was devastated to have been forced to leave a
place where he wanted and chosen to be.
After time, things slowly but surely started to piece
themselves back together.Andrew began at Summit
High School and had a few of his best years there. By his
senior year he was vice president of his class and a
member of the varsity soccer and lacrosse teams and he
was accepted early decision to Dartmouth. From this
trial of hardship,Andrew had turned this series of
events into a real success.His, or more or less my par-
ents’, decision not to return to St. Paul’s proved to be the
best decision in the end and a real character-building
experience for him.OnceAndrew adapted to his new
situation living at home, and having made a comfort-
able environment for himself, he was back to being
himself.We are often faced with challenging situations
that can forever change our lives and help us define our
character and who we are. It is in our best interest to
adapt to change with an open mind knowing that with
time, things will work themselves out. These ideas of
change coincide with my next story.
One night in the beginning of this past November,
I was on duty in Auch. As a prefect in Auch, you are
responsible for “manning” the common room for
study hall and checking people in at 10 p.m. Typically
when I am on duty, I stay in the common room and
rarely leave between check-ins. However, on this night
in November I ran up to my room around 11:15 p.m.
to check that my roommate Leslie hadn’t gotten too
lonely without me there all night. Before running back
to do the 11:30 p.m. check in, I heard my phone beep. I
had about 10 missed calls; missed calls from Home,
Home, Home,Andrew, Mom, Home, Dad, Home,
Mom,Andrew.With my heart racing, I immediately
phoned home. I came to find that it was one of those
phone calls we all dread, one of those phone calls that
you hesitate to answer. I went to my missed calls and
quickly dialed the last number to have called me.
Heavily breathing, I waited and waited as the phone
rang only to hear my mom explain that she had been
diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer. It’s the kind of
phone call you imagine receiving in nightmares. The
worst part about it was that as she explained every-
thing to me, it seemed like she was comforting me on
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20 ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 009 SUMMER BULLET IN
the phone, whereas when I look back on it now, it
should have been the other way around. The following
days seemed to drag on forever, because it was all I
thought about. My eyes constantly felt swollen and
periodically throughout the day I would take freezer
pops from my freezer and place them over my eyes. I
was distracted at school and called home twice a day
just to check in. I was dying to get home for Thanks-
giving to be with my mom while she had surgery.
Unfortunately, during the surgery, the doctor had
found out that a small part of the cancer had spread
from her breast to the lymph nodes under her arm.
The spreading of the cancer meant that she would
have to undergo 20 weeks of chemotherapy treatment
instead of just a few months of radiation. She is cur-
rently on week 14 and hanging in there.
It’s hard not to be down when you have something
like this hovering over you, but we all find our ways to
cope with these difficult situations.At home, we try to
make light of the situation. Over Spring Break both of
my brothers came home with shaven heads for lacrosse.
My mom jokes that my dad and I are the only ones left
in the family with a trace of hair on our heads (but she
adds that my dad won’t be a part of this group much
longer).My mom goes for chemotherapy treatments
every Friday. Every treatment takes quite a toll on her
body,making her pretty sick and feeling lousy for a few
days. Since my brothers and I are all away at school and
my dad is often busy with work,my grandmother flies
up from Florida every week to take care of her.
My grandmother is actually quite cute about the
whole thing. She’s all about breast cancer awareness
these days, especially after my mom’s diagnosis and
after her younger sister was diagnosed with the cancer
only a few years ago. She ordered my mom all of these
wigs and hats in addition to the one she wears on a
daily basis. The hairpieces and wigs that my grand-
mother got are very creative. In addition to the regular
wig she ordered, my grandmother ordered an assort-
ment of hairpieces for every occasion.My favorite is the
one that you wear to the gym. It’s a sweatband that goes
around your hair line with this crazy curly red hair on
top and attachable Velcro bangs. [Excuse me for a
second] Now let me ask you one thing:What would
you think if the lady next to you on the treadmill had
hair like this? I mean, come on.Who would ever wear
this?! It looks like a hairstyle that someone attending a
Richard Simmons ’80s workout class would wear.
Sometimes I even parade around my parents’ room,
dressing up in funny outfits and pinning my hair up
and wearing one of my mom’s wigs. Now I’m sure at
this point some of you are appalled and probably
thinking about how awful it is that I jokingly try on my
mom’s wigs. But in all honesty, you have to laugh about
it and make light of the situation because it helps you
and those around you get through it. It’s so easy to let
one thing really bring you down, especially when you’re
in an environment like St. George’s, where stress sur-
rounds us at all times. I think it’s essential to keep a
larger view on what’s important in life.We all struggle
at times, but like Alfred’s question in “Batman”—“Why
do we fall, sir?”—we might find wisdom in his answer:
“So that we might learn to pick ourselves up.”
My advice to you is this: the next time you go
through something that you think will just be the end
of you, know that it may just be a character-building
experience.We never intend for bad things to happen
and often we think that these things will never happen
to us. But bad things do happen to everyone and some-
times for no apparent reason. Personally I like the way
Mr.Haskell views it all when he tells our calculus class,
“The sun will still rise tomorrow regardless of what
happens today.” (Although he might just have been
comforting me after I nearly failed the midterm—still
not quite sure.) But as for me, the trials of suffering
have strengthened my soul, defined what’s important
and helped me to know happiness. To me, I find happi-
ness in smaller things that I use to take for granted. For
example, I now try to call home as often as I can, even if
it’s only to remind my parents of how much I love
them.And I encourage you to do the same. I know that
most of us just returned from break and were most
likely with our loved ones, but if you haven’t done it in
a while,make sure you do call home and tell whomever
answers the phone that you love them. It’s weird, but
these days I find so much happiness in just that.
MMeeggaann LLeeoonnhhaarrdd ’09 of Summit, N.J., is heading to
Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., this fall. She can
be reached at [email protected].
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The bonds of BoothbayA boarding student gains a new appreciation for her Maine home
BY ANNA MCCONNELL ’09Following is a chapel talk delivered on May 19, 2009.
Ihad never minded the smell of bait. Although
entirely persistent at first, the smell tends to grow
on you. In fact, I had never much minded work-
ing on the boat at all. I loved the reassuringly distinct
smell of the ocean, the morning calm, the days when
the sun would beat down on my back. I was my
father’s most faithful stern man. Although my brother
was often there too, he was far too superior to make
the bait bags. He was a real lobsterman then with
nearly as many traps as my father. No, I was always
standing in the back, with one task, one goal, and that
was to keep making bait bags. There were many differ-
ent kinds of fish, you see, so that every day was cer-
tainly not the same. We would use pogies and herring,
and on the most special occasions, redfish. It became
systematic; I could grab six or seven at a time, stuff
them in the mesh, and normally I would throw one
more in to top it off, to make sure the grub was extra
appealing to our crustacean friends. As the day went
on, the bait would begin to disappear, and my back
would begin to hurt, until finally the tray was empty.
It was the summer after the fifth grade and I had
finally received my official lobster license. I was a sim-
ple 10-year-old girl, a girl who had saved up all of her
money her whole life—all $600 that I had was in my
savings account. At that point I had decided with con-
viction that I wanted to be a lobsterwoman, and that I
was going to take my $600 and buy 10 new traps. I
wanted to start on my own. I wanted to be a real fisher-
man. And so I bought what to me were the 10 most
beautiful traps in the world: They were yellow with
Anna makes a baitbag on her father’sfishing boat.
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dark heads, three-brickers, and my buoy was yellow
with a purple strip on a pink spindle—as if I needed to
pronounce my girliness any more. To me, those traps
represented my future and although I suppose I knew
that at some point I would leave Maine, I could not
picture a life better than one working on the boat.
You see, I am from Boothbay, a small town that
many of you might know as a booming summer vaca-
tion spot, a cute, bright little place with ice cream and
lobster rolls, schooners and tall ships. I hate to say,
however, that in the middle of the winter, Boothbay
resembles what most of you might consider the mid-
dle of nowhere. It is undeniably true that my life does
follow many of the stereotypes people assume when
they think of Maine. My father is a lobsterman with a
wooden boat that he fixed up with his own two hands
and named after my mother, Karen Sue. I live in a
small wooden house that my father also built, a house
that is a fundamental part of who I am, a house whose
walls seem to know me better than I know myself,
walls that have witnessed me in my most intimate and
vulnerable moments. And yes, perhaps the most main-
tained stereotype is that of the people in my life—the
lobstermen at the docks, the neighbors down the road,
the people that I did not know to call townies and
hicks until I left.
I am not, however, your typical Mainer. My
father was born in Long Beach, Calif., and came to
Maine in 1978 on a journey for clean air and a new
beginning. Consequently, he is the only non-native
lobsterman in town. My mother was the daughter of
a colonel in the Army and after moving her entire
life, landed in Maine during her first marriage. I am
a product of liberal ideology, a daughter of hippies
who were not constrained by conformity but who
had seen and understood the world and who con-
sciously decided to live a more simple way of life. In
our modest home I was given the love that every
child needs to feel boundless, to feel like you can be
anything, become anything.
And yet despite the unique circumstances of my
life in Maine, I was subject to the sense of isolation that,
as it does in many places, permeates our small town. I
did not have the opportunity of a strong education and
I was rejected socially because of my academic eager-
ness. In addition, I was unable to pursue my newfound
passion for sailing, a desire that had developed out of
my enthusiasm for the ocean. While Maine, lobstering,
and my family had given me my roots, I was acutely
aware of needing something different for myself.
I did not know that boarding school existed until I
spent one afternoon on my school computer and
Googled “private schools.” The schools were beautiful,
inexplicably mysterious to me, but I had never known
anyone who had gone to boarding school, I did not
know that any of that was real. And I did not tell my
parents about my secret fantasies of leaving Boothbay
until I had decided that I would apply to one school.
They knew that my acceptance was possible, but had
little hope that I would receive a full scholarship, and
were certain that we could not afford any part of
tuition. Yet somehow with the ignorance of desire and
curiosity I shrugged off their statements, sent in the
application, and told my family I was only applying
out of interest and was fully aware that I would not go.
Despite my outward indifference, I was simply unwill-
ing to give up on what had, for me, become a dream.
With the strength of hope I consciously gave myself to
the vulnerability of disappointment. Unfortunately,
my parents were right; I was accepted without any
financial aid at all.
A month had already come and gone when I
received a phone call. My mother told me that I had
been reconsidered and offered a full scholarship to
attend St. George’s School. I found out later that
because of one donor’s benevolence and graciousness
in giving to the scholarship fund, I had the opportunity
to attend St. George’s. The chance for a better educa-
tion required me to leave my home and my family, but
no second thought ever passed through my mind.
Somehow, I knew that I was ready.
It was quite a transition, I must say, my first day as
a “third former” in Twenty House. I hardly knew what
to expect and I understand now that I simply and
completely lost myself. It was as if from the instant I
walked on this campus, I thought I was better than
anything I had ever been before, as if from that
moment on I was better than everyone back in Maine.
It did not make sense; I was not a different person. But
to me, in my young 14-year-old mind, I had overcome
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all of my setbacks and I was here, in this perfect and
wealthy place with seemingly perfect and wealthy
people. Here I could pretend that my family was not
lower middle class; I could pretend that I owned fancy
clothes and preppy polos. I could pretend that I was
one of these beautiful people, that I was not a hick like
everyone else back home.
I cannot deny that I am ashamed to stand up here
and say this. I am ashamed that I ever thought, for one
second, that I was better than my family because I was
here, because I had left them for something I thought
was better.
It is funny how in retrospect things can have such
clarity. I believe now that I needed to lose myself in
order to appreciate and understand where I came
from. Perhaps I needed to come to St. George’s, to
leave home, in order to see that the other side wasn’t so
great, that I couldn’t pretend to be something I was
not. From afar, I had the vision to see the beauty in my
family, in my parents’ love and devotion to me. From a
distance I was able to comprehend the beauty in the
simple life, the honor in having a decent job and work-
ing to feed your family, the dignity that my father
carries as a lobsterman.
I do not know how all of this happens. I am not
a Christian. I do not believe in the Christian God,
but perhaps I do believe in some natural order, some
reason things work out as they are supposed to. I
think perhaps I am lucky. I am lucky because I am
here, because I was able to come to this place and
meet you all. I am lucky because for some unexplain-
able reason I was chosen to attend this school and
receive an education that has empowered me with
the knowledge and the understanding to appreciate
my life and to comprehend the strength of my roots.
I am grateful for this education, for my teachers and
my classmates who forced me to think beyond what I
had ever thought before. I am grateful because now I
am able to return home knowing that with this
experience my influence can reach beyond the
appreciation of my family.
When I bought those 10 traps I thought that at last
my life had begun. I felt boundless, limitless. I felt an
independence and determination so strong that I had
no doubt of future success. And I suppose that there are
many times in life when
we question whether it
is really the beginning.
But when is that
exactly? When do we
say that we are starting
our lives? When do we
begin to feel that we
know ourselves well
enough to fully value
who we have become?
We are all here now,
nearing the end of this
long haul, and yet we
stand again at the face
of something new. I
have told you the story
of how I arrived at St.
George’s, and I am sure that all of you have your own
unique histories, your own personal motivations that
made you follow the path you did and that brought you
to this point in time. It is undeniable that the decision
to come to boarding school has inherently shaped our
lives and our understanding of ourselves. But I want to
pose to you at this moment one question: When will
our potential ever be greater than it is now?
Do not forget who you are, what you have
learned, who you have become. Although life is
dynamic and we are forever evolving, we must take
our roots, our education, all of the possibility that
resides within us right now and leave this place
prepared to become involved in our world and to
make this world better because we have been given
the power to do so. We cannot lose sight of what we
have come to understand about ourselves; our confi-
dence, our eagerness and our knowledge are invalu-
able. We, as graduates of St. George’s School, can
appreciate where we have come from, this experience
we have gone through, and move on with a profound
sense of duty to give back to the world those oppor-
tunities that we have been given.
AAnnnnaa MMccCCoonnnneellll ’09, of Boothbay, Maine, is heading
to Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. this fall.
She can be reached at [email protected].
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Confessions of a nonbelieverA graduating senior professes his atheism
Max Fowler ’09gives his chapel talk on atheism.
BY MAX FOWLER ’09Following is a chapel talk delivered on April 28, 2009.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to give
this talk. My topic is important to me, but
I’m not sure how it will be received. I just
hope that you all will consider what I have to say,
and hopefully learn something from it. What I’m
going to talk about today is faith.
Faith means a lot of different things to a lot of
different people, but faith is an extremely important
aspect of our modern day culture. For some people
their faith defines them, and for others it is a less
important aspect of what makes up their character. It
is expected, however, that everyone believes some-
thing, and while it is a highly personal choice what to
believe, it is believed that understanding other peo-
ple’s faiths helps us to understand them better. Our
country has only known Christian presidents, pre-
dominantly Protestant, and while we do have free-
dom of religion, this and other evidence indicates
that not all faiths are looked upon equally by the
majority. A study was done to find which social
groups were least likely to be elected for president: 5
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percent would not vote for a woman, 8 percent would
not vote for a Jew, 8 percent would not vote for a
Black, 21 percent would not vote for a homosexual,
and 51 percent would not vote for an atheist—a
person without faith. (Gallup Poll 1999, Dawkins)
Ninety percent of Americans consider themselves
religious (Gallup, 2007), and while that number is
probably slightly lower here, as it generally is in acade-
mia, atheists are a tiny minority (less than 3 percent,
Gallup, June 23, 2006), a minority hardly even noticed,
and certainly not protected. There is a large group of
Americans who truly believe that atheists are wicked,
that there can be no morality without God, and that
those without faith are a primary source of evil in this
world. Of atheists, the bible says, “They are corrupt,
they do abominable deeds, there is none who does
good.” (Psalm 14:1) In fact there are probably some
people in this audience who share a similar belief, or at
least would think less of someone knowing they had no
faith. That is why it is not easy for me to say in front of
all of you, that I am an atheist. It really feels like a con-
fession: I do not believe in any type of God, nor in any
higher power controlling or influencing our universe.
Faith is a belief that is not based on proof, and I hold
no such belief. I believe in the rational—in evidence,
and in my personal opinion there is not sufficient
evidence to warrant belief in anything other than the
mathematical and physical laws that explain the behav-
ior of our universe.
My mother is Jewish, and my father is Protes-
tant, and while neither is particularly religious, it
was on my own that I found my faith, or rather lack
thereof. As a child I went to church on Sundays, and
celebrated all the major holidays of both Judaism
and Christianity with my family, as I still do. And
there was a time when I believed in God, in an old
man in the sky with a long gray beard, but then I
also believed in Santa, and perhaps the Easter
bunny. When I truly lost my faith was in the fourth
grade. I still distinctly remember a conversation
with my father inspired by our study of world reli-
gions at school, when I asked him which religion
was right. I said to him, there are so many religions,
and they’re all different, so how does someone
choose which one to believe? He told me that it was
my choice what to believe, but that some people
called themselves agnostic, which meant they
believed they didn’t have enough information to
know what to believe. From that day forward, and
even today, when asked what I believe, I have gener-
ally replied that I am agnostic—without knowledge,
or yet to be decided. However, I am lying. I only say
this, because agnosticism is somewhat more main-
stream, undecided is a happy middle ground which
isn’t too controversial, and is less likely to offend or
turn someone away from me unnecessarily.
It was in 10th grade that my religious views were
fully formed, the year in which I read a book that
changed my life, and I found the knowledge I needed
to leave my agnosticism behind me. It was then that I
read “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. A good
part of this book is devoted to rationally disproving
the existence of God, which I found compelling and
would recommend to any atheist or agnostic because
it is extremely interesting, however I would not rec-
ommend this to anyone religious—I have no desire to
eliminate or lessen others’ faith—and even if a reli-
gious person did read this book it would probably
have no impact on them, for the funny thing about
faith is, it needs no explanation. However, much of
the rest of the book was focused on the social implica-
tions of being an atheist, and this is what more pro-
foundly influenced me. It made me realize that I was
only an agnostic in that I thought there was a remote
possibility in some type of higher power, and I cer-
tainly didn’t believe in the validity of any particular
religion. But I also believe there’s a remote possibility
my life is a dream and I don’t exist. So just as I would
tell you I am alive and the world is real, I am an athe-
ist, I do not believe in God, and to say I am agnostic is
a misrepresentation of my true beliefs.
The book also discusses the moral implications
of being an atheist, and despite the view of a majority
of Americans that atheists are necessarily immoral,
Dawkins argues that morality is in fact entirely sepa-
rate from religion and is perfectly possible without
faith. I believe in happiness, that life is good, and
should be honored and protected. I believe in kind-
ness, in goodness, and in helping others achieve their
own happiness. I live by an ethical code completely
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 25
C H A P E L T A L K S
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C H A P E L T A L K SDifferent Takes
independent of religion, I just believe that I should be
moral not because I will be punished with eternal
damnation if I am not, but out of a respect for the
beauty and potential of the human condition, and
life in general, the potential we have to have a great
and meaningful existence even without God. And it is
for this reason that I respect all religions very much,
for I believe we for the most part share a common
end. I believe in most of the Ten Commandments
(the business with the killing, the stealing, the lying,
and the honoring your parents all sounds good to
me); I just don’t believe in those three about God. But
what I’m saying is, for the most part, that the moral
ideas expounded by religion are in line with those of
my own moral compass, a compass not guided by
faith. Some of you may feel it is ironic, or even hypo-
critical of me, to stand here before you on this pulpit,
in this chapel dedicated to the Lord, our savior Jesus
Christ, and tell you why I don’t believe in him. But I
do not feel this way. Even though I choose not to
believe, I think that for many people faith is very
positive, and as a community the traditions and
ceremony surrounding this chapel and our Episco-
palian orientation are very constructive, and bring us
together. I wouldn’t want to change the faith of any-
one in this chapel, especially if your faith is leading
you to live a happier, more meaningful and more
moral existence.
Yet while I believe for many individuals religion
is a positive force in their lives, I do not think any
religion as a whole is perfect. I am extremely against
fundamentalism, and in fact I think fundamentalist
religion is one of the primary sources of evil in our
world right now, far more so than the atheists, who
are on average a rather peaceful and educated bunch.
Terrorism in the name of Islam is a primary exam-
ple, but there are fundamentalist members of every
religion who are just as guilty. The one thing I ask of
everyone is that they respect the right of others to
believe what they want to believe, including believ-
ing nothing at all. I never want someone to try to
convert me. The idea of imposing one’s beliefs on
someone else really upsets me. I am open to learning
about other people’s beliefs in an attempt to try to
connect with them, but there is a fine line between
advocating your own beliefs and putting down the
beliefs of others.
Above all I ask that you all, those who know me
well or barely at all, don’t think differently of me now.
The final point that I took away from Dawkins’
book was to be proud of my atheism, to fight back
against our oppression—for that really is what it is. Yet
for four years I told only my closest friends this fact
about me, because I believed that if I told people I was
an atheist, some people would hate me, just for that
small little tidbit of everything that makes up my char-
acter—an aspect of me that I certainly don’t believe to
be one of my most important. Yet here I am, announc-
ing to all of you my faithlessness in this chapel, sanctu-
ary of faith, defending my beliefs and imploring all of
you not to judge others based on their faith, whether
Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Humanist. I felt it was
my obligation to do this before I graduate, because I
think the current state of things is not OK. I should not
have felt it necessary to keep my atheism secret for my
SG career. It really seems absurd, but unfortunately our
modern social climate is just not empathetic or forgiv-
ing towards atheists.
I also hope this talk will give strength and encour-
agement to other atheists and agnostics here today,
because I know I am not the only one. I hope we can all
find a way to be proud of our faith or faithlessness, and
let our beliefs have a positive and meaningful influence
on our lives while still respecting the beliefs of others,
without judging them for an entirely personal choice or
pressuring them into seeing things our way. And sure, if
any humanists, agnostics, atheists, deists, rationalists,
secularists or open-minded people simply interested in
hearing another perspective would like to sit down and
discuss their beliefs with me and what it means to live a
meaningful and purposed life without God, I’d be
happy to.
Let us go forth into the world in the name of good-
ness and kindness and forgiveness, our common goals,
and peacefully coexist.
Thanks to everyone for your time.
MMaaxx FFoowwlleerr ’09 of Newport, R.I., will attend
Brown University this fall. He can be reached at
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ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 27
C H A P E L T A L K S
BY THE REV. NED MULLIGANFollowing is a sermon delivered on May 26, the final
chapel service of the 2008-09 school year.
Idecided that I would talk to you this morning about
some of the issues and principles I have talked to you
about during the year. I want to leave you with a
general understanding of what I have tried to do from
the pulpit. I hope that you might think about some of
these issues over the summer because they all have to do
with your choice of who to be as young women and men.
When I first met with the entire school to introduce
myself last fall and to talk about my philosophy about
chapel, I urged you to spend your time in chapel, which
is substantial over the entire year, attempting to find a
meaningful way to connect with some aspect of the
service. I suggested that there are many ways to use the
time productively regardless of your individual faith. The
potential connection points are almost limitless and
range from actually engaging in worship and connecting
with God, to supporting your friends participating in the
service, to simply immersing yourself in the beauty of
this building. I know that many of you have tried to do
just that and I would urge you to find additional points
of connection when you return next fall.
One of the primary purposes of worshipping as a
community is just that: loving and supporting each other
simply because we are members of this community.
I also urged anyone with questions about anything
we do in chapel to come see me and to have an open
conversation about any questions you may have. I will
continue to be available to all of you to discuss any issue.
The topics that I have offered you during the year
for your thoughtful engagement ranged broadly. I
have talked to you about whether there is a God in
the first place and the process of choosing to believe
or not to believe.
I have urged you to open your hearts to the possibil-
ity that there really is a God who actually loves each one
of us as individuals, flaws and all.
I presented the question whether God changes and
evolves over time, or whether we change and whether
we gain a more accurate understanding of God through
the maturation of our individual faith resulting from
thoughtful engagement, discussion, prayer, and worship.
I talked to you about prayer and the strength of
prayer based in faith in the context of my experience as
chaplain at the Hartford Hospital and the total recovery
of a patient everyone believed should be allowed to die,
except for his mother. Was this a miracle? Was it simply a
PHO
TOBY
KA
THRY
NW
HIT
NEY
LUC
EY
If youdecide tolet in GodReflections on a year presiding over the St. George’s Chapel
83277_STG_18-29.qxd 8/25/09 12:43 PM Page 27
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN28
coincidence? Was it a product of the power of faith and
prayer? No matter what your response might have been
to the preceding questions, there is no easy answer.
I did a sermon on your favorite lyrics and I sang a
stanza of Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” song to you. I
also sang a stanza from a Rolling Stones song to your
parents on Parents’ Weekend. Music appeals to the
human spirit and perhaps music offers us a glimpse of
our deepest selves and the presence of God in those most
personal places. Music is a connection point with God in
this place.
We all wore hats one day. Did the hats indicate who
we really are? Do we hide our true selves behind labels
and appearances without revealing more? Do we respond
to each other by making judgments on the basis of those
labels and appearances or should we actively seek to
know more about each other, particularly living in a
close community like St. George’s?
I preached early in the year about Paul Jones who
lost his position as bishop of Utah during the First World
War because he was a pacifist. He is an example of a man
with strength of conviction and moral courage exercised
at great personal peril and with substantial negative
personal consequences. The irony in a priest being fired
because he was a pacifist requires no explanation.
I preached about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as
another example of someone who became a national
hero because of the exercise of moral courage including
his willingness to die for his beliefs.
I have urged us all to try to take small steps in
becoming morally courageous including telling the truth,
being honest, acting with humility and compassion and
simply doing what you believe to be the good and decent
thing to do regardless of the risks or possible
consequences for doing so.
Attempting to live humbly and courageously will
build personal moral character and ultimately change the
world, which in many respects, seems to regularly replace
moral character with the insatiable desire to accumulate
money and power at the expense of others.
I have also talked to you about gifts. We are all given
certain gifts as children of God. Your time at St. George’s
is an opportunity to discover and cultivate your gifts, not
only for your own benefit, but also ultimately for the
benefit of others. Use your gifts openly and constructively.
I would urge you in quiet personal moments during
your summer vacation to think about what you might do
to improve not only your life, but to improve the lives of
others. What could you do in your life that you have been
reluctant to do because doing so requires the exercise of
moral courage?
What are the things in your life that get in the way of
exploring the possibility of a personal relationship with
the God? What are the risks to you personally if you
choose to experiment with a relationship with God? I
would suggest to you that there simply are no risks in the
exploration. Read about, examine, and discuss issues
pertaining to God so that you can make an unbiased and
informed decision about an issue that may be the most
important issue you ever address.
Find time this summer to give back to your families
who have sacrificed to send you here and who continue
to provide you with opportunities that most people
simply do not have.
Find some time to give something back to your
communities through volunteer work and giving your
time and talent to those who truly need you. There are
limitless opportunities for you to contribute and to give
back. All you have to do is to make yourself available.
And while you are engaged in giving back, look for the
inherent goodness in those you serve. Grow and learn
and mature because of the relationships you establish
based upon your common humanity. See if you can
experience God in your relationships. God will show up
when you least expect it in acts of love, selflessness,
humility, courage and compassion. Listen and look for
God’s presence in your lives and God will be there if you
decide to let God in.
I wish you all success in your exams, and a restful,
safe, and productive summer.
I pray that you might choose to act in ways that
demonstrate gratitude for what you have been given and
an appreciation for who God is or may become in your
life. Amen.
TThhee RReevv.. NNeedd MMuulllliiggaann joined the St. George’s community
in the fall of 2008 as school chaplain and head of the
Theology and Religious Studies Department. He can be
reached at [email protected].
C H A P E L T A L K SDifferent Takes
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ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 29
S E E N O N T H E H I L L T O PAround CampusA painting in the chapel once thought to be the work of the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio has
been restored by conservators at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and re-hung on the
northwest wall of the chapel. Unfortunately the painting, “The Supper at Emmaus,” loaned to the
school in 1925 by Mr. Louis B. McCagg P’22, has been deemed a copy, likely done by a student, and
not a highly valuable work of art.
Restoration has stabilized the painting, which
apparently was once cut up into pieces and
then reassembled, causing one appraiser to
remark, “No one in the conservation department
has ever seen anything quite like it. Several of the
areas were cut into odd parallelograms and then put
back together, jigsaw puzzle-style. Other parts look
as though the canvas was cut into long strips and
pieced together again.”
The condition would also lower the appraisal,
advised Sandra Tropper, accredited senior appraiser
with Artemis Inc. in Bethesda, Md. “The work itself
is clearly a copy of Caravaggio’s. While the composi-
tion is the same and the figures resemble the origi-
nal, there are several areas of the painting that are
weak, including Christ’s arm that is bent in front of
his body, the still life in the foreground of the image,
and the contrasts of light and dark, although that
may be the result of ‘inpainting’ done in a previous
repair. The subtlety of shadow and the reflections of
the light source on the figures have been lost in this
‘translation’ of the work.”
The real “Supper at Emmaus,” executed in
1601, was copied several times by Caravaggio him-
self. Originally painted for the Roman nobleman
Ciriaco Mattei, and later purchased by Cardinal
Scipione Borghese, it is now in the National Gallery
in London.
Anonymous Artist18th-19th century
Copy of SSuuppppeerr aatt EEmmmmaauuss by Michelangelo Merisi da CaravaggioOil on Re-lined canvas approximately 55 x 77 inchesLoaned to the school by Louis B. McCagg P’22, 1925
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ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 09 SUMMER BULLET IN30
BY C. JOSEPH GOULD
Atthe April 24 meeting of the
trustees’ finance committee, I
reported that the Annual Fund was
lagging well behind the pace of recent years
in both dollars and donors. Our hope, I
said, was that the fund-raising pundits
were right and that we’d see a surge of
support in the waning two months of the
campaign. Indeed those pundits were
suggesting that constituents were taking a
“wait and see” approach with the economy
and were just deferring their giving until
the last possible moment.
Fortunately, my colleagues and I in the
development office were starting to doubt
the expert thinking and in the week follow-
ing that finance committee meeting the
“Flat is the New Up!” Challenge was con-
ceived. At the time, we needed to raise
more than $500,000 to reach our budgeted
goal of $2,225,000—a goal established in
February 2008. Our plan then was to find
challengers willing to commit $250,000 so
we could offer a one-to-one match to our
entire constituency. Maximize the match
and the job is done! Simple?
May 14: Challenge fund of $250,000
completed with commitments from 25
donors.
May 18: “Flat is the New Up!” Chal-
lenge launched with the first electronic
announcement to the entire constituency.
May 18 to June 24: 651 gifts received,
maximizing the $250,000 Challenge! Mean
gift: $100; 371 gifts of $100 or less; eleven
gifts of $5,000 or more; two gifts of
$10,000 or more.
June 30: Close of the fiscal year. Annual
Fund total: $2,233,339.24!
Is “Flat is the New Up!?”Our $2,233,339
total was only 1.4 percent less than our
record-setting 2007-08 Annual Fund year
of $2,265,546. Our 2,052 donor total was
“Up” 0.004 percent (nine donors) from
2007-08. “Flat” indeed!
But the enthusiasm generated was a
“new up!” It was reflected in the faculty
and staff: 93 percent of the teachers and
administrators gave. It was reflected in the
entire constituency: 40 percent of the total
gifts for the year came after the launching
of the Challenge. And it was reflected in
our excitement as a development staff.
Notwithstanding its importance to the
very being of the school, annual fund rais-
ing is rarely news—except when “Flat is
the New Up!”
JJooee GGoouulldd is the assistant head of school for external affairs. He can be reached at
Development news
Challenge catapultsAnnual Fund
““FFLLAATT IISS TTHHEE NNEEWW UUPP!!””
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 31
N E W S F R O M T H E B O A R D O F T R U S T E E SBoard notes
RICHARD A. WAYNER ’85
CHRISTINE E. ELIA ’92
JONATHAN T. ISHAM, JR. ’78
LAURA S. DE RAMEL ’90
BB OOAA RR DD WWEE LL CCOOMM EE SSNN EEWW MM EEMMBB EE RR SS ;; TT WWOOTT RR UU SS TT EE EE SS DD EE PPAARR TT
The Board of Trustees voted this spring to
appoint three new members—CChhrriissttiinnee EElliiaa ’92,JJoonnaatthhaann TT.. IIsshhaamm,, JJrr.. ’78 and RRiicchhaarrdd AA.. WWaayynneerr ’85.
Christine Elia is an Internet executive who started
Closet Couture, an online social network for the fash-
ion-minded. The business was launched in September
2008 and named one of the 50 best start-ups of the year
from around the world by TechCrunch, the leading
publication of record in Silicon Valley. At St. George’s,
Chris served on the SG Annual Giving Committee
from 2006 to 2008 and served on her class’s 15th
reunion committee. She and her husband Eric Simon
live in Santa Monica, Calif.
Jon Isham is an economics professor at Middle-
bury College, writer and environmentalist. He co-
authored “Ignition: What you can do to Fight Global
Warming and Spark a Movement,” published in July
2007 by Island Press. Isham is a national organizer of
Focus the Nation, a national educational initiative of
faculty, staff, students and community members at
more than 1,000 colleges, universities, and high
schools in the United States committed to engaging in
a nationwide, interdisciplinary discussion about global
warming solutions. He is also an adviser to 1Sky, for-
mer Vice President Al Gore’s Climate Project, and the
new Presidential Climate Action Project.
At St. George’s, Isham was the Burnett Lecture
speaker in 2005, and in March 2006 he participated in
the Strategic Planning Workshop. He is the son of
Jonathan T. Isham ’46, who was an SG trustee from
1967 to 1980. Jon and his wife Tracy live in Middle-
bury, Vt., with their two daughters.
Richard Wayner is a partner at The Keffi Group,
a private investment firm focused on fundamental,
research-driven value investing, and chairman at
Alliance TRACE Media.
In 2003, Richard and Claude Grunitzky formed
The TRUE Agency, which became one of the fastest
growing minority-owned agencies in the USA. In
2007, Wayner was a National Finalist for the Ernst &
Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” Award. He has com-
pleted two fiction novels, both unpublished. Wayner
and his wife, Ayanna, have a daughter Arielle and make
their home in New York.
In addition to welcoming the new members, the
board thanked RRaallpphh EEaaddss III P’07, ’08, ’10 andRRooggeerr SSmmiitthh ’55 for all their efforts as they com-pleted their terms on the board this spring.
DD EE RR AAMMEE LL TT OO HH EE AADDAANNNNUUAA LL FF UUNNDD
LLaauurraa ddee RRaammeell ’90 has now officially taken overduties as SG’s 2009-10 Annual Fund chair.
After several months of understudy with
last year’s chair, Bob Ceres ’55, de Ramel is now
flying solo as organizer of the school’s core fund-
raising vehicle.
“I feel privileged just to be considered for the task,”
de Ramel said. “It’s an interesting time to be taking on
the challenge, to say the least, but that should make it
more rewarding, hopefully.”
Assistant Head of School for External Affairs
Joe Gould told de Ramel earlier this year: “It will
be a challenging period but together I know we can
be successful.”
Gould cited a number of alums who may be
enthusiastic supporters—and motivators for de Ramel,
including Ceres, Roger Smith ’55, Tom Bullitt ’73, Bill
Dean ’73 and Board Chair Skip Branin ’65, who all
recently held the post themselves.
“I have big shoes to fill,” de Ramel said, “but
with the help of the amazing development staff and
other leaders on campus and the board, I hope not
to disappoint.”
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN32
PHOTO
BYTI
MFR
IEND
The turtle manA former summer student on Geronimofondly recalls his time with Steve Connett
Geronimo
Steve Connettaboard Geronimoin July 2000. (inset)Steve and John ontheir recent trip tothe Bahamas.
BY JOHN LEE
Last year, I got a call from Steve Connett asking if
I wanted to give him a hand tagging turtles in
the northern Bahamas. It was early November
and I was working the deck on a trawler, catching
flatfish off New England. I told Steve I needed a few
days to think about it. Three 16-hour days later, with
winter coming on strong, the Bahamas started to sound
pretty good.
I called Steve back. “Excellent,” he said. “We’ll make
the run from Spanish Wells to Grand Bahama. Then
we’ll turtle out of the skiff. I’ll drive. You’ll be jumping
them.”
The last time I’d tagged turtles with Steve was in
Bermuda in the early 1990s. We’d tagged maybe 30
green turtles up to 100 pounds. Steve’s tagged more
than 1,200 turtles and 12,000 sharks for scientific study.
He works mostly with the Bahamas National Trust and
the Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research at the
University of Florida.
For more than 30 years, from Great Inagua to
Grand Bahama and Nova Scotia to New England, Steve
ran the sail-training vessel, Geronimo, a 54-foot yawl
built in 1964 for St. George’s School in Newport, Rhode
Island. The boat carried eight students. The first mate,
Babbie, was Steve’s wife.
We learned how to sail by hand without mechani-
cal aids. We also learned how to record and send
weather conditions twice a day over the single side-
band radio, learned how to plot a position on the chart
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 33
with a pencil and dividers, and how to stand a watch.
He taught us about blue shark migration and growth
rates of green turtles and how to tag them for scientific
research. He taught “The Sun Also Rises” and “Othello,”
though I’d wager most students who shipped out on
Geronimo don’t remember much about the murder of
Desdemona. What we remembered was the 400-pound
mako or 800-pound tiger at the rail, its tail banging the
hull, its teeth gripped tight around the wire, with
Steve’s voice, anything but quiet: “Let’s get a tag in that
thing. We got a length yet? A sex? Come on, let’s go.
Quit messing around.”
Besides being captain and mate, Steve and Babbie
were guidance counselors, dorm parents, field medics,
and adolescent therapists. Steve often handled the latter
simply: “Hey buddy. Your turn to steer.”
On Christmas Day 1997, Babbie passed away. A
small service was held for her in a turtle creek on
Conception Island. They spread Babbie’s ashes into
the water, then released a hawksbill turtle and
watched it swim through the ashes. Steve ran Geron-
imo alone until 2001. Then he swallowed the anchor
… came ashore.
Some years went by, enough years for Steve to
realize that a boat would be a good thing for a retired
man. He found a 38-foot working lobsterboat, Foxy
Lady, in Nova Scotia, bought it cheap and converted it
into a Bahamian cruiser.
Now Steve’s come full-circle. He’s back on the
water nearly year-round, back to teaching kids, back to
tagging turtles. The Foxy Lady is based out of Spanish
Wells, Northern Eleuthera, where Steve and his girl-
friend, Barbara Crouchley, spend much of their time.
I joined the boat in Spanish Wells and we made the
long run up the Northwest Channel, steaming at eight
knots through the night and into the next day. We held
hour-and-a-half wheel watches, jotting logbook
entries—RPMs, position, course, how the 19-foot skiff
rode 50 feet astern on two heavy lines.
Nineteen hours later, a cold front came on. The
northerly pinned us to the dock at Old Bahama Bay
Marina, our base camp, on and off for days. Steve used
the downtime to visit local schools. He talked about the
importance of marine regulations, conservation and
the impacts of poaching.
“Many of the kids—because their dads do it—
think it’s fine to keep undersized conch. I tell them it
isn’t.” Steve teaches them to see conch, reefs, groupers
and sea turtles collectively as vital components of the
Bahamian ecosystem. Save one species, save them all.
The north side of Grand Bahama is all mangroves
and flats. The flats stretch for miles across Little
Bahama Bank. While the wind blew, Steve lined up
some local fishermen—among them bonefish guide
Jim Foley, a conch diver named “Magic,” and the
Bahamian National Trust’s Prescott Gay—to help guide
us through the tangle. “These guys do this all day, look-
ing for bonefish and conch. They know things we don’t,
and they’ve got eyes. Man, can some of these guys spot!
They also know about turtles,” Steve added, laughing.
“Most of them grew up eating them.”
When the wind allowed, we went turtling. Most of
our effort centered on remote (as in “off the charts”)
Man O’ War Bush, a place of eagle rays, nurse sharks
and turtles, mostly greens.
Spotting conditions were tough. The wind had
churned the water, making it hard to pick out the
subtle differences between turtle and bottom. When a
turtle was spotted, the chase would begin, the skiff
trailing the animal at speed, spotter in the bow hanging
on, pointing.
To jump a turtle from a moving boat in two feet
of water with the possibility of landing on a stingray
proved not to be my strong suit. I missed plenty.
Magic’s warning that one of these turtles could “take
your hand off” didn’t help my cause. When I missed,
Steve had advice: “Lee, you can’t dive in behind them.
You have to jump on top of them—the little buggers
will out-swim you every time.” An adult green can tip
the scales at over 400 pounds. We were dealing with
PHOTO
COURTE
SYOFJO
HNLE
E
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN34
babies and adolescents, little pie-plates that scooted
like frisbees.
Man O’ War Bush now has six tagged green tur-
tles in it, all small, immature ones under 30 pounds.
In the Bahamas, most of the green turtles haven’t yet
reproduced. They’ll spend up to 20 years feeding and
growing in the Bahamas before returning to natal
beaches in places like Costa Rica and the Yucatan
Peninsula. After that, they head into the Caribbean
and the Gulf of Mexico.
Our best day of turtling happened in Eleuthera.
We had some help in the form of another jumper. Alex
Friedman had flown in from Martha’s Vineyard where
he sometimes teaches middle school, sometimes
catches giant tuna. Alex and I were students on Geron-
imo together in 1989. It had been 20 years since the
three of us had stood on deck together. Not much has
changed. Steve’s still older than we are, and to him,
we’re still boys. Granted, boys pushing 40.
“There’s one—starboard bow!” Alex screamed.
“Keep your eyes on that turtle, Friedman,”
said Steve.
I whispered things to Alex about rays and sea
urchins, trying to throw off his balance. But when the
timing was right and the turtle was tiring, Alex would
launch out, no mask, no fins, no wet suit, and come
swimming back to the skiff with a turtle. Getting a big
turtle to settle down so that we could put a tag through
its flipper takes time. One 80-pound Hawksbill took
three of us to subdue.
We worked a whole tide, not really talking except
for commands of direction: “Over there! Cutting across
the bow, Steve. Ten o’clock.” And our favorite: “He’s
gone under the boat, captain.”
The banter hadn’t changed at all from years ago,
when the three of us chummed for sharks on Geronimo
south of Nantucket. “Friedman? Lee? You guys got that
fish tagged yet?” One day we’d hand-lined and tagged
400 blue sharks. I remember the burn in my hands and
how it hurt to make a fist.
And here, among mangroves and on a creek, it was
basically the same thing–working hard, tagging things
with flippers and fins. We were beat from a day of
chasing turtles around Corrie Sound. Just three guys
doing something that keeps them young–not that any
of us would say anything that nostalgic out loud.
JJoohhnn LLeeeewas a student aboard Geronimo for a summer program in 1989.Reprinted with permission from Southern Boating magazine.
Geronimo summer crew, l-r: Sabra Wilson ’10, Haley Congdon ’11, Sophie Flynn ’11, Julia Carrellas ’11,Rosie Putnam ’11, Molly Richards ’11, Heydi Malave ’11.
Geronimo
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 35
Andreas AdamFa i r f i e l d , CT
James AllanNew Yo r k , NY
Ryan AndradeNewpo r t , R I
Hayden ArnotStowe , VT
Alexandra BallatoWest Hampton Beach , NY
Samantha BauerCambr idge , MA
Honoria BermanPh i l ade lph ia , PA
Katherine BienkowskiLex ing ton , MA
Andrew BoydMad i son , CT
Wyatt BramhallConco rd , MA
Colby BurdickYo r k town He igh t s , NY
Terrence BurnsPo r t smou th , R I
Brooke BurrowesK ings ton , J ama i ca
Josephine CannellMat t apo i s e t t , MA
Elizabeth CareyWinne tka , I L
Anna CarrEas t G reenw i ch , R I
Claire ChalifourK ings ton , J ama i ca
Frances ChampionWes t Ha r t f o rd , CT
John CoatyNewpo r t , R I
Richard ConlogueSan t a Ana , C A
Carolyn ConwayLocus t Va l l ey, NY
Eliza CoverDedham , MA
Victoria CunninghamWake f i e l d , R I
Rebecca CutlerDuxbu r y, MA
James D’AmarioWel l e s l ey, MA
Casey DeLucaBed fo rd , NY
Nico DeLuca-VerleyPo r t smou th , R I
Sophia DenUylL i t t l e Compton , R I
Kelly DugganAus t i n , TX
Peter DurudoganMidd l e town , R I
Miriam ElhajliCambr idge , MA
David ElronCha r l o t t e s v i l l e , VA
Chloe EvansNewton , MA
Rahil FazelbhoyMumba i , I nd ia
William FlemingDuxbu r y, MA
Marianne Foss-SkiftesvikWes tpo r t , CT
Bethany FowlerNewpo r t , R I
Sebastian FrugoneNew Yo r k , NY
Alison GhriskeyMt . K i s co , NY
Polina GodzKha rk i v , Uk ra ine
Ellen GranoffBr i s t o l , R I
William GreerNew Canaan , CT
Joseph GrimehBed fo rd , NY
Kathleen HamrickP r i n ce ton , N J
John HarrisNor th Hampton , NH
Elizabeth HaskellMidd l e town , R I
Tyshon HendersonNewark , N J
Javier HillCh i cago , I L
Michael HoffmanConco rd , MA
Jessica HomHo lmde l , N J
Alexander HopeBa r r i ng ton H i l l s , I L
Jonathan JanuszewskiGreenw i ch , CT
Carine KanimbaKraa inem , Be lg ium
David KehoeWake f i e l d , R I
Sean KilleavyBr i s t o l , R I
Michael KimConco rd , MA
Rowon KimWes t Newton , MA
Soojin KimSeou l , Ko rea
Peter KohlerWinne tka , I L
Edith KremerCambr idge , MA
Efstathios KyriakidesPo r t smou th , R I
Anh LaHano i , V i e tnam
Nicholas LarsonBr i s t o l , R I
William LeathermanBos ton , MA
Stephanie LeeJama i ca P l a in , MA
Erin LeistSou thbo rough , MA
Shannon LeonardEas t G reenw i ch , R I
Charles MacaulayCa rbonda l e , CO
Jackson McBrideSu r r ey, Eng land
Hannah McCormackNewton , MA
Michael McGinnisMidd l e town , R I
Allison McLaneSou th Hami l t on , MA
Alana McMahonPo r t smou th , R I
Lisbeily MenaWes t New Yo r k , N J
Carter MillaneMad i son , CT
Andrew MoreauWaccabuc , NY
McKenzie NagleWhi te Ha l l , VA
Tao OuyangShenzhen , Ch ina
Chanjoon ParkSungnam , Ko rea
Yonghan ParkSeou l , Ko rea
Harrison ParkerCambr idge , MA
Daniel PerryKe l l e r , TX
Nicholas PezzaGreenv i l l e , R I
John PhillipsSpa r t a , N J
Kyle PowersWycko f f , N J
Saskia Pownall-GrayWes ton , CT
Matias PriborMad i son , N J
Oona PritchardMidd l e town , R I
Attasind PulsirivongBangkok , Tha i l and
Callie ReisJames town , R I
Elizabeth ReynoldsLo s Ange l e s , C A
Vivianne ReynosoAlameda , C A
Theresa SaludMorganv i l l e , N J
Dominique SamuelOk lahoma C i t y, OK
Daniel ScheererDuxbu r y, MA
Elizabeth ScholleChes tnu t H i l l , MA
Jae Young ShinGa ine s v i l l e , VA
Raleigh SilviaL i t t l e Compton , R I
John SnowWinche s t e r , MA
Somer StapletonAt lan t a , GA
Caroline ThompsonWash ing ton , DC
Whitney ThomsonP r i de s C ro s s i ng , MA
Daniel TobinHanove r , MA
Sienna TurecamoMidd l ebu rg , VA
Theodore VoulgarisNew Canaan , CT
Han XuHangzhou , Zhe j i angP rov in , Ch ina
Henry YoungHigh Po in t , NC
Nicole YoungNewpo r t , R I
Olivia ZurawinMount K i s co , NY
PHOTO
BYDIA
NNERE
ED
School Year 2009-10C L A S S E S S T A R T S E P T . 1 4 A N D W E ’ L L W E L C O M E T H E S E N E W S T U D E N T S
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN36
BY ERIC F. PETERSON
Following is the Prize Day address delivered on Monday,May 25, 2009.
On behalf of the entire St. George’s community, it
is my great pleasure to welcome you to our Prize
Day ceremonies. For more than 100 years, the
school has gathered here each spring to say farewell to its
graduates and to honor their contributions to the life of the
school. Today we will honor the Class of 2009, and we are
joined by their schoolmates, the faculty, staff, members of
the board of trustees, alumni/ae, friends and of course, the
graduates’ families, who have come from across the nation
and around the world to help celebrate this occasion. We
bid you all a very warm welcome.
I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge and
recognize the hard work of the many members of the
school community who have made this day possible. In
addition to the efforts of my assistant, Donna Woishek, the
grounds, maintenance, housekeeping staffs have the cam-
pus looking beautiful, the food service staff has been pro-
viding delicious meals, and countless other employees have
been working for weeks to prepare for this day. It is a gigan-
tic and seemingly endless task, and though for the most
part their labors are unseen, their contributions to this
event and to the life of the school are invaluable. Please join
me in recognizing their efforts.
Finally, I wish to remind us that in addition to being
Prize Day today is also Memorial Day. I ask that we pause
for a moment of silence and prayer for all those, including
52 graduates of St. George’s, who have given their lives in
the service and defense of our nation. …
Thank you. Now, on to the formal business of the day.
To the members of the Class of 2009, we offer our heartfelt
congratulations. You are without question an exceptionally
close class, full of personality, interesting characters, and
overflowing with joy and energy. You are scholars, artists,
athletes and activists. You have studied, competed, and
served the school and the community with great zeal and
great success. Over the course of this year as the Sixth Form
you have led by example, even in some complicated and
difficult circumstances. You should be very proud. We will
miss you all next year, but we know that you will enrich
your new collegiate communities with the same energy and
character you’ve shown in your time at St. George’s. In the
PHOTO
BYKATH
RYNW
HITNEY
LUCEY
Roll over, Aurelius
G R A D U A T I O N 2 0 0 9Prize Day
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 37
meantime however, we have you as our own for a few min-
utes more.
As I stand here this morning, I confess that I am hum-
bled by the words of the various speakers who have
addressed your class over the course of the last week. From
Mr. Weston’s erudite and considered message about David
Foster Wallace and choosing how to think, to Izzy’s heartfelt
remarks in chapel last night on the nature of family at St.
George’s, to Mr. Stack’s thoughts this morning on pursuing
your dreams, I am afraid that all of the good talks have
already been given. Nevertheless, as we gather this morning
at the borders of land and sea, youth and adulthood, your
past and our future, I hope you will indulge me one last
chance to offer you some perspective.
My remarks today are influenced by one of my favorite
books, one that I keep on my desk here at school. Despite
my interest in literature, the book is not a work of fiction.
Entitled “The Emperor’s Handbook,” it is a modern transla-
tion of the writings of the Roman emperor Marcus Aure-
lius. More commonly called “The Meditations,” the book
describes Aurelius’ thoughts and reflections on life and the
world around him. For those who do not recall exactly who
Aurelius was, he was the last of the so-called “five good
emperors” of Rome, ruling as emperor for almost 20 years
before his death in the year 180 A.D. If you are more famil-
iar with modern movies than ancient Rome, you might
recall Aurelius as the aged and ailing emperor who dies
early on in the movie “Gladiator.”
In any case, by nearly every account, Aurelius was a
remarkable ruler. Despite unlimited access to the riches and
temptations of imperial Rome at the height of its power,
Aurelius lived a balanced and measured life, choosing to
avoid the excesses and debauchery of the emperors who
followed him. In this, Aurelius is commonly considered to
be the ultimate historical example of Plato’s ideal of the
philosopher-king: honest, thoughtful and principled.
But Aurelius was not a philosopher, at least not in the
way we use the term today. He was a king, a soldier and a
man of action far more than he was a solitary thinker or a
scholar. As a result, “The Meditations” is not a philosophical
treatise. Indeed, it is not clear that his reflections were ever
meant for public viewing, much less for publication. Rather,
“The Meditations” is a collection of thoughts, reminders,
and advice that Aurelius was writing to himself. David and
Scot Hicks, the translators of the version I like, suggest that
the true purpose of the writings was to remind Aurelius of
his own guiding principles and to hold himself accountable
to them. For example, you can hear the reminder to himself
in one of my favorite lines, one that I have shared with the
school prefects each year I have been here. Aurelius writes:
“It is the fate of kings to do men good and be hated for it.”
At another point in the book he reminds himself: “Modest
in victory, graceful in defeat.”
With these sorts of observations, Aurelius’ words echo
across the canyon of time. At the same time, so much has
changed in the world, that there are, naturally, certain omis-
sions or gaps in coverage in his world view. So, while I
consider myself in no way fit to be compared to Aurelius, I
thought it might be entertaining to offer your class a some-
what updated version of “The Meditations.” Like Aurelius’,
my list comes in the form of a series of short observations.
So with all due humility I offer you the following thoughts
and reflections:
Be very skeptical of lists of advice.
Courage does not generally come easily; it often
requires either great duress or a conscious choice to do the
right thing, not the easy thing.
No matter how many times you’ve been “friended” on
Facebook, your true friends are living, breathing humans.
Your class knows this better than most, as you are distin-
guished by your connection to and dependence on each
other. Hold onto those friends; you will each need one
another someday.
Take chances. But make them good ones. Risk is part of
life, so embrace it and use it to your advantage.
Make your living at something you love to do. Do not
waste your life’s energy hating your job.
Peterson’s Third Law of Social Dynamics: Nothing
good ever happens between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Unless you
are up late working or studying, if the clock reads 3:10, or
4:17, or something like that, go home. Immediately.
The Internet is forever, no matter what they tell you.
Consider carefully everything you post there.
Take every chance to laugh with your friends, and at
yourself. Laughter is a universal truth.
No one has ever reached the age of 80 and wished
they’d gotten more tattoos.
When you find love, or it finds you, protect and defend
it like the rare treasure it is.
E-mail is a lousy way to communicate important or
sensitive information, and the worst possible medium for
expressing anger or disappointment. Angry e-mails tend to
generate nothing more than escalating anger all around. Try
a face-to-face conversation instead.
G R A D U A T I O N 2 0 0 9
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN38
Produce some piece of art—
visual, musical, anything. Just
give voice to your powers of
creativity.
When you choose to misbe-
have (and you will), do it wisely.
When things go wrong (and
they will), take responsibility for the outcome. No one
wants to hear “It’s not fair,” “But it was my first time” or
“That’s not mine, I’m just holding it for a friend…”
Your parents love you, they will help and advise you,
but do not let them solve your problems for you. Do it
yourself, develop self-confidence, and become a grown-up.
From time to time, do something that frightens you.
No matter who you are or where you were born, you
are entitled to exactly nothing. Work hard, and earn your
own rewards.
Your mother was right. Get off the couch. Go outside
and play.
Say please and thank-you. A lot. To everyone.
Devote some of your time and energy to something
larger than your own needs.
Be very wary of easy answers and blowhard pundits
and preachers. The world is not simple, and neither are the
answers to our problems.
Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and the like are of extremely
limited utility. Be careful not to let your online world sup-
plant the real one. If you have to choose, pick the carbon-
based life forms over the silicon ones.
Chase your dreams, have a plan, and be prepared to
adapt it. Nothing ever goes according to the plan.
Visit and learn about as many other nations as you can.
It’s a big world, with lots of different lives, and the more
you’ve experienced this, the happier you will be.
Plant a garden, and consider the miracle of each seed.
Remember that everything we eat comes from the work of
farmers somewhere.
Do not listen to your critics, the cynics, and the experts
who tell you something cannot be done. Remember Mark
Twain’s remark: “It’s a shame that all the people who really
know how to run the world are too busy cutting hair and
driving taxis …”
Alternatively, consider another Twain quote: “Be good
and you will be lonesome.”
At least once in your life, own a dog and come to
understand the unconditional love of a pet.
Spend some time out in the natural world. It will
remind you of your true place as one small part of Creation.
Read more. No one has ever reached mid-life or later
and thought, “If only I had watched more television.”
Take your work and your relationships seriously, but
not yourself. Self-deprecating humor is always welcome.
Be kind. Be kind. Be kind. Always.
If you do not already know how, learn to sail a boat.
Read poetry, and write some of your own, even if
you’re the only one who will ever read it.
Be generous. Nobody loves a miser. Not even the miser.
Cultivate and enlarge your spirit in worship or service
to others.
Go to as many live concerts and sporting events as you
can. There is nothing like being part of an energized crowd.
Get to know your own parents and grandparents as
people, not simply as figures. The stories of their lives are
the story of your life, whether you realize it or not.
No matter what you may have heard, no Zebra has ever
really beaten a Dragon …
Life is absurd. Life is unfair, and sometimes life is cruel.
All of this is true, but life is also immeasurably beautiful.
Try not to lose sight of its magic.
As we part ways today, may the beauty of this place
continue to be reflected in the beauty of your lives. You may
not realize it, but there are times when it hurts to look at
you, so filled with bright promise are you all. We speak in
the school prayer of our desire to send you forth from this
school “well-equipped for the battle of life.” It’s a metaphor
that Aurelius would have understood well, and it’s a goal
that is no less true today than it was in the year 180. In your
time here with us, brief as it has been, we have given you all
we can. It is our fondest hope that the lessons of these years,
and the examples of the lives that have surrounded you will
guide and sustain you for the rest of your days. We have
given you a great deal of knowledge and a bit of experience.
It is now up to each of you to distill from these raw materi-
als the wisdom you will need in the years to come.
So, Class of 2009, we wish you good luck, fair winds,
and Godspeed. May the Lord watch over, protect, and bless
you in the years ahead. May you recall fondly your days at
St. George’s, and may you remember always that we are
proud to count you as our own.
EErriicc FF.. PPeetteerrssoonn is the 11th head of school of St. George’s. He can be reached at [email protected].
PHOTO
BYKATH
RYNW
HITNEY
LUCEY
G R A D U A T I O N 2 0 0 9Prize Day
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 39
So this guy walks intothe chapel and …Comedian Stack P’09 warms up the crowd on Prize Day
Timothy StackP’09 wasn’t afraid
to insert a fewjokes into his Prize
Day address.
BY TIMOTHY STACK P’09
Following is the Prize Day address delivered on May 25.
Hi everybody!
Congratulations to all the seniors. Congratulations,
congratulations, congratulations! But an even bigger con-
gratulations to all the parents, huh?!
Izzy was talking last night about the St. George’s
family and so many of us drop our kids off here to be
raised by another family: the St. George’s of Newport.
And many of us come from many miles away. The
Stacks, we’re from California. The Kinneys are from
Seattle. All the kids from Korea, which somebody said
was even farther.
Anyway, time flies. It was a little under four years ago
when a future captain of the SG football team called me on
his first night and said, “Dad I don’t think I’m gonna, gonna
make it here!” (fakes crying) I said, “Doyle, calm down, give
it a day. Let’s see what happens. The next day arrives … We
never heard from him again! I have a question for the par-
ents: Did your kids call you? Ever? They did ... good, good.
This is what our experience was: We’d call and it would go
like this, “Oh, hi Dad.”
“Doyle, are you OK?”
“Yeah Dad. What’s up? Yah, I’m kind of busy, what’s
going on?”
“Oh, are you studying?” And then I’d hear, “Ha ha! My
dad wants to know if we’re studying!” And then 16 guys are
all laughing!
Oh boy. Now you’re off to college. Congratulations.
These schools today are so hard to get into. I did not start
off at the college I graduated from. I started off at a big
PHOTO
BYKATH
RYNW
HITNEY
LUCEY
G R A D U A T I O N 2 0 0 9
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN40
G R A D U A T I O N 2 0 0 9Prize Day
school in Connecticut called the University of the Mohe-
gan Sun. It’s a university and an Indian casino. Double
major in theater and pai gow poker. No seriously. I was
lucky enough to go to Boston College. But these schools
are not the same schools your parents went to. I took
Doyle up to Boston College for a look-see and I kept
looking for the guys that I knew when I was there. Like
the big, 6-foot-4 redhead named Fitzy. He was always
drunk by 9:30 in the morning. That guy doesn’t exist
today. He does not exist—and he was my mentor. Fitzy is
the guy that took me down to the liquor store and said,
“You don’t have to buy Budweiser. For a third of the price
and twice the hangover, there’s Tuborg. You people from
New England remember Tuborg.
Anyway, seriously, when Eric asked me to make this
speech, three thoughts crossed my mind:
No. 1. Why would Eric Peterson ask me?
No. 2. What can I talk about?
And No 3: Will my children really laugh out loud at
me in this outfit? (laughter) I think we know the answer
to that one.
I did want to ... just give me one second … I always
wanted to yell this in this chapel, “And the winner is Dumb-
ledore!” (laughter).
So the first question: Why would Eric Peterson ask me?
We have famous authors in the room, we have doctors, we
have lawyers, we have people who through their volunteer
work are literally changing the world. I write and perform
comedy for a living—a little risqué at that. So, why would
Eric ask me? I think the obvious answer is … Eric Peterson
is insane! He smart, he’s a lawyer, looks fantastic. Could
have played Don Draper on “Mad Men.” But, he’s a little
crazy. Anyway, I promised him I wouldn’t do any risqué or
questionable material.
So here it goes … A minister, a rabbi and a priest walk
into a bar...
No. I’m not going to do any jokes. But I do have one
question for Ned. Why is the minister never the punch line?
We Catholics and Jews, we’re always getting into trouble,
but just before the punch line, the minister says “I have to
go now.”
Actually, the reason Eric asked me to speak is because I
am a true oxymoron. I am someone who has had a 30-year
career in Hollywood. And it is a very difficult, a very
rewarding, but very different path in life. One of the things I
know you got out of St. George’s as seniors now is that you
did things here that you may never have done had you
stayed at home. There are so many paths here at St. George’s
and I know that you all took a walk on so many of those
paths. So keep doing that.
Thank you. Good night, Newport.
No, I’m just joking. You’re not getting rid of me that
quickly.
Anyway, I was your age when I started choosing my
path. We had an older woman who lived with us. My grand-
mother had some medical issues, my mother had a care-
taker and this woman Katherine sort of became our
surrogate grandmother. In my senior year in high school I
used to stay in to “Katherine sit.” My friends would be
saying “Tim, come on man, we got tickets for Deep Purple,
let’s go.” “No I have to stay in and watch Katherine.” Except I
had another agenda. You see, in 1978 the lineup on CBS was
this: at 8:00 “All in the Family,” 8:30 “Mary Tyler Moore,”
9:00 “Mash,” 9:30 “Bob Newhart” and at 10, “The Carol
Burnett Show”—the greatest lineup of television in the
history of television. Absolutely. And I used to stay in
because I wanted to watch all this television. It was during
one of those viewings that I sort of found my dream and
that was, “I want to have a TV show.” I didn’t tell anybody.
People would’ve said, “You’re crazy, you’re nuts, you’re out
of your mind. You know what the odds are. You can’t do
that. The message today for you folks is if you have a dream,
no matter how crazy it is, go for it. Don’t even think about
it; go for it. I am a big believer in dreams. I believe in day-
dreams. I spent 98 percent of my education daydreaming.
(laughter) If I were in school today they couldn’t make
enough Adderall for me. You could come to my room at
St. George’s and you’d have Adderall on tap right there. Get
yourself a big mug of Adderall.
I think nightmares are good because at the end of the
nightmare you wake up and you realize, “I got through it.
It’s a new day and I can start again.” Those nightmares
prepare you for all the setbacks you’ll get when you are
going after those dreams. But mostly, I like the dreams that
you want to do something: I want to open a grocery store. I
want to run a marathon. I want to break a record for
dreaming. In my case, I wanted to have a TV show. So, with
all that in mind, I give you “Tim Stack’s Five Easy Steps to
Capturing your Dreams.” This beautiful pamphlet. Now,
normally I sell this pamphlet for 35 cents, but today,
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 41
because we are family, you get a copy—an autographed
copy—for 40 cents. I know what you are thinking. Don’t
worry. My wife, Jano, has plenty of change.
Anyway, No. 1: Try anything. If you are going to set out
for your dream, try anything. What’s the worse thing (this is
the biggest lesson in life), what’s the worse thing anybody
can say? “No.”
OK, let me tell you how I got started. After I got out of
college, I was sitting in my apartment in New York trying to
get on television. I came up with an idea for a TV show
based on a play I had done in college. So I put together a
treatment, and I sent it out to all these producers, I don’t
know what I am doing, just trying anything. I had one
slight connection with a guy I had gone to high school with.
His father was friends with Grant Tinker, who at the time
was Mary Tyler Moore’s husband and running MTM, a
huge deal in television. And within three weeks I got a call
from a guy named Bruce Paltrow, who was Gwyneth Pal-
trow’s father, and he said, “Grant Tinker wants you to read
for a TV series.”
“What? Ya, great.”
So I go up and I read for him and he said, “You are
pretty good, Tim. You should move to L.A. “Uh, I just got
an apartment. I am tending bar.”
And he said, “Well, your choice.”
A week later Grant Tinker called, and then a week later,
I was in Los Angeles and that’s what got me started trying
anything. And I promise whatever you try, if you put out
positive efforts, it may not be exactly what you want that
comes back, but I promise you that positive things will
come back if you try anything.
No. 2. Get along with people. OK. Get along with
people. My biggest mistake in my career was in 1986
when I was working at the Groundlings Theater, a big
comedy theater in Los Angeles, where I met my lovely
wife, Jano, of 22 years this weekend, thank you. And, it
was in the alley behind the Groundlings that we first
found our children. (Laughter). Sorry kids, we thought
we’d use today to tell you.
No, but in 1986 the only thing that was working on
“Saturday Night Live,” a dream job, was my friend, John
Lovitz. He got Lorne Michaels to come to the Ground lings
Theater to come see me. Lorne Michaels was a big deal at
Saturday Night Live. Lorne Michaels flies out, and I have
an incredible night. He said to me, “You’re on the show in
September, but why don’t you come back for three weeks
and learn how the show works and that way you’ll be really
ready to go for September.”
So, I come back and I write a sketch and one of the
writers tells me, “Yeah, that’s pretty funny, but you
should take out that joke.” And I’m thinking after what
Doyle Stack ’09receives his
diploma from his father,
Timothy Stack,television actor,
writer and producer.
PHOTO
BYKATH
RYNW
HITNEY
LUCEY
Continued on page 43
G R A D U A T I O N 2 0 0 9
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN42
PP RR II ZZ EE SSAAWWAA RRDD EE DD MMAAYY 22 55 ,, 22 00 00 99BINNEY PRIZE— For the highest scholarship in the Sixth Form:
SSaarraahh JJoosseepphhiinnee HHaarrrriissoonn
DRURY PRIZE— For excellence in art:KKaatthheerriinnee LLoouuiissee WWooeesstteemmeeyyeerr
HOWE PRIZE— For excellence in graphic arts:MMccCCrreeaa IInnggaallllss DDaavviissoonn
CAMERA PRIZE:YYaaeehh LLyynnee CChhuunngg
THE CLASS OF 1978 MUSIC PRIZE—Awarded to a student who through personalefforts has inspired the musical life of the school:
MMaatttthheeww AAlleexxaannddeerr GGaayyddaarr
THE ST. GEORGE’S INSTRUMENTALMUSIC PRIZE— Awarded to a student whosetalents, dedication and leadership have con-tributed the most to the instrumental programof the school:
NNiicchhoollaass SSaannffoorrdd KKiieerrsstteedd
CHOIR PRIZE:MMaarrggaarreett AAllaaiinnaa HHaawwkkiinnssJJuussttiinn CChhrriissttiiaann HHooffffmmaannnnSSaammuueell JJoonneess TTiillddeenn VV
WOOD DRAMATICS PRIZE— For thestudent whose abilities and efforts have con-tributed most to the theater at St. George’s:
SSoopphhiiaa NNiiccoollee NNooeellKKaatthheerriinnee AAnnnn PPrryyoorr
THE REAR ADMIRAL JOHN REMEYWADLEIGH MEMORIAL PRIZE— Awardedto a student whose enthusiasm for and interestin history and marine studies is worthy of special recognition:
LLeeiigghh FFrraanncceess AArrcchheerr
LOGAN PRIZE FOR ENGLISH:MMaaxx HHeennrryy FFoowwlleerr
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE HISTORY PRIZE:TTrriiaa MMiicchheellllee SSmmootthheerrss
RIVES FRENCH PRIZE:LLiinnddssaayy TThhoorrpp BBeecckkSSaammuueell JJoonneess TTiillddeenn VV
EVANS SPANISH PRIZE:MMaaxxiinnee AAlleexxaannddrraa MMuusstteerr
THE KING MEDAL— For excellence inLatin:
VViiaannccaa JJuulliieettttaa MMaassuuccccii
EDGAR PRIZE IN MATHEMATICS:HHaa EEuunn CChhuunngg
THE RAMSING PRIZE— For excellence in marine and environmental biology:
HHaallsseeyy WWooooddwwoorrtthh LLaannddoonn
DEAN SCHOLARSHIP— In memory ofCharles Maitland Dean, Senior Prefect 1968,killed in Laos in 1974. Given by his family andfriends, and awarded for the sixth-form year to a boy or a girl who has demonstrated a concernfor the community, the ability to lead, and asense of civic responsibility:
KKiinnyyeettttee HHeennddeerrssoonn
CONGRESSMAN PATRICK J. KENNEDYAWARD— To a member of the Sixth Formwho has demonstrated commitment to community service:
HHaannnnaahh NNooeellllee MMccQQuuiillkkiinn
GEORGE D. DONNELLY ATHLETICAWARD— Awarded to a girl(s) and boy(s)who, in the opinion of the Head of School and the Athletic Directors, possess a passion forathletics and who demonstrate the dedicationand the sportsmanship to succeed in a variety of athletic endeavors:
GGaalliimmaahh DDoouuggbbaa BBaayyssaahhCChhrriissttoopphheerr GGeerraarrdd MMccCCoorrmmaacckkLLeesslliiee LLeeMMooiinnee MMuuzzzzyy
CHINESE PRIZE— Awarded to the studentwho has demonstrated consistently high per-formance in the study of Mandarin Chinese and shown a genuine interest in the Chineselanguage and culture while at St. George’s:
PPhhiilliipp JJaammeess RRooyyeerr
(The next four prizes in athletics are awarded by vote of the coaches)
MARY EUSTIS ZANE CUP— Awarded to a girl of the Sixth Form whose steady devotionto the high ideals of good sportsmanship has been an inspiration to her fellow students:
MMaaddeelliinnee PPaattrriicciiaa CCaarrrreellllaass
THAYER CUP— Awarded to a boy of the SixthForm whose steady devotion to the high idealsof good sportsmanship has been an inspirationto his fellow students:
PPhhiilliipp JJaammeess RRooyyeerr
LOUISE ELLIOT CUP— Awarded to a SixthForm girl for excellence in athletics and forpromoting the spirit of hard, clean play:
MMeeggaann KKaatthhlleeeenn LLeeoonnhhaarrdd
SAMUEL POWEL CUP— Awarded to a SixthForm boy for excellence in athletics and forpromoting the spirit of hard, clean play:
DDrreeww JJaammeess MMiilllleerr
CENTENNIAL PRIZE — Inaugurated duringthe school’s centennial year. Awarded to a boy(s)and girl(s) of the graduating class who have demonstrated extraordinary and inspirationalefforts on behalf of the school community:
LLeeiigghh FFrraanncceess AArrcchheerrAAnnnnaa LLoouuiissee MMccCCoonnnneellllSSaammuueell JJoonneess TTiillddeenn VV
G R A D U A T I O N 2 0 0 9The Prizes
PHOTO
BYRAYW
OISHEK
’89
Phil Royer ’09
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 43
Lorne was saying last night … I am really
cool, I don’t need to take out that joke. That
joke’s funny; I am the man. The joke stayed
in. Cut to September. My friend Phil Hart-
man’s on the show and calls me. “Phil, what’s
going on? Are they going to take me? Are
they going to take me?”
He said, “You know, Tim, apparently you
didn’t cut some joke when what’s-his-name
told you to.”
One joke cost me a dream job. But the
point is ... at that point it was more impor-
tant for me to get along than it was for me to
be right.
So No. 2: Get along with people.
No. 3: This is really, really important.
Stay in touch with people. OK? Just stay in
touch. You have e-mail now and Facebook
and, what’s that thing? Tweeter? Twitter?
What is it? Whatever it is, stay in touch with
people. OK. Send thank-you notes. Let peo-
ple know what you are doing. Ask how other
people are doing. I can’t tell you how many
jobs I have gotten in Hollywood because I
stayed in touch with people.
No. 4: Don’t give up. You have to stay
focused. So many of you stayed focused on
your schoolwork right up until the very end.
Some of you decided to throttle it back in the
last semester. Excuse me, I have to cough,
“Doyle!” (laughter) Uh, I have another cough
coming on. “Pat Guerriero!” Anyway, through
all of that, certainly I hung in there. I once lost
a comedy show because my teeth were too big.
Since when aren’t big teeth funny? You tell me.
Anyway in 1986 I got a writing job on a
show called “On Our Own,” which this family
convinced ABC was going to make them the
next Jacksons—except ABC never bothered to
listen to them sing. They were horrible. But on
that show, for one thing, I met Greg Garcia
whom I have been working with for the last
four years on “My Name is Earl” because I
stayed in touch with him. Also during that
show, two friends of mine came to me, whom
I stayed in touch with, came to me with an
idea for a show, a spoof of daytime talk shows
called, “Night Stand with Dick Dietrick.” And
while we are doing that show on our own, we
are trying to sell “Night Stand with Dick
Dietrick.” We go to 20, 30 different places.
Finally, we meet this guy Larry Little. He had
just opened. He didn’t even have furniture in
his office, we were literally pitching the show
standing up. But, within a month we wrote
this pilot, we shot the pilot, and I am at the
convention in Las Vegas and he comes up to
me and said, “Well, congratulations, Tim, you
did it, you got your own TV show. You’re on
the air.” It had been 15 years, but I did it. And I
promise you, if you do all those four things:
try anything, get along, stay in touch and don’t
give up—I promise you, great things, what-
ever they are, will happen for you.
And finally, here is my last one: Help
others! At some point you are going to reach a
goal in your life and you are going to be able
to help others. Do it. Pick up the phone, call
somebody for someone else, get a kid a job,
come back to St. George’s, wherever you go to
college. Share your knowledge with younger
people to help them get their dream and I
promise you it will continue your dream. So
tomorrow morning, tonight actually, I go back
to L.A., and tomorrow morning at 6 a.m., the
alarm clock goes off and I begin my dream
again, all over again. Tomorrow—at noon,
when you wake up—you begin yours. So
anyways, thank you, Newport. Good night,
and I love you.
TTiimmootthhyy SSttaacckk is a TV actor and screen-writer whose most recent job was writing
for and acting on “My Name is Earl.”
Among many other guest-starring roles in
popular sitcoms over the years, he played
Dwayne on an episode of “Seinfeld” called
“The Glasses,” (Season 5, Episode 3), which
first aired in 1993. He can be reached at
HEADMASTER’S AWARD— To the SeniorPrefect for his or her faithful devotion to themany duties of the past year. Given in memory of Henry W. Mitchell, Class of 1933:
IIssaabbeell HHaarrrriieett EEvvaannss
(The next prizes are awarded by vote of the faculty)
ALLEN PRIZE— To a member of the FourthForm who during the year has maintained ahigh standard in all departments of the life of the school:
SSoopphhiiee CCaarrooll FFllyynnnn
HARVARD AND RADCLIFFE CLUBS OFRHODE ISLAND PRIZE— For the student ofthe Fifth Form whom the Head of School andthe faculty deem most worthy in scholarship,effort and character:
HHeennddrriikk KKeeaattiinngg KKiittss vvaann HHeeyynniinnggeenn
THE JEFFERYS PRIZE— Given in memoryof Cham Jefferys to the Sixth Former who in theopinion of the faculty has done the most toenhance the moral and intellectual climate ofthe school:
SSaarraahh JJoosseepphhiinnee HHaarrrriissoonn
PHELPS MONTGOMERY FRISSELL PRIZE— Awarded to the member of the Sixth Formwho, in the opinion of the faculty, has made thebest use of his or her talents:
MMaaxxiinnee AAlleexxaannddrraa MMuusstteerrGGaalliimmaahh DDoouuggbbaa BBaayyssaahh
ST. GEORGE’S MEDAL— Awarded to themember of the Sixth Form who through effort,character, athletics and scholarship during theyear has best caught and expressed the ideals and spirit of St. George’s:
AAnnnnaa MMaattrroonnee MMaacckk
Continued from page 41
G R A D U A T I O N 2 0 0 9
PHOTO
BYRAYW
OISHEK
’89
Jenny Chung ’09
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 09 SUMMER BULLET IN44
Administrative Technology Coordinator EEdd MMccGGiinnnniiss was thelatest faculty member from St. George’s to take part in the teacher
exchange with the Chinese International
School in Hong Kong.
McGinnis arrived in Hong Kong (right)
on March 8 and took part in a variety of
activities at the school, including observing
classes and assembly, attending faculty meet-
ings and teaching classes.
McGinnis was also able to take in a few
student music performances, join the Hiking
Club on a trip to the New Territories, and visit
the Sheung Wan Heritage Trail on a history class trip.
His de facto host for the trip was CIS Chinese teacher Craig Boyce,
who visited St. George’s last October.
Even the journey to and from the day school, McGinnis said, was a
unique experience.
“Each morning I lined up in an extremely orderly fashion to ride
the 49M up the hill to CIS. It took about 25 minutes. The bus then
stopped at another depot—so no matter how inattentive I was or how
bad my Chinese, it was very difficult to mess up this commute.”
He came back from the trip with a unique perspective on interna-
tional education.
“The visit was very beneficial,” he said, “and I was able to see how a
different system, that of an international day school, approaches the
same issues that we deal with day in and day out.”
Molly Boyd ’10 and Jake Riiska ’10 visited South Africa this summeras part of a new student exchange with two Capetown schools—theall-boys Bishops school and the all-girls St. Cyprian’s. The twoattended classes in tradition uniform, visited dramatic parts of thecountryside and historic sites, and even got to meet with ArchbishopDesmond Tutu, thanks to the Rt. Rev. Dr. Hays Rockwell, our trusteeand former bishop of Missouri. In the 1970s, Rockwell was the rectorof St. James Church in Manhattan and befriended Tutu on his manyearly visits to the United States.
PHOTO
BYPE
TERANDER
SON
C O M M U N I T Y M E M B E R S G E T A W O R L D V I E WGlobal outreach
Network Manager Ed Morin spent two weeks in Korea inMarch as part of the faculty/staff exchange program withthe Taejon Christian International School. Asked aboutsome of the highlights of his trip, Morin cites a communityservice trip he and a group of TCIS teachers and studentstook to Boracay, Phillipines, where they met native childrenat a feeding center, and helped construct a four-story build-ing that will become a church and community center.
PHOTO
COURTE
SYOFED
MORIN
PHOTO
COURTE
SYOFED
MCGIN
NIS
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 45
In March, students in the Global Studies Seminar
class—seniors JJeennnnyy CChhuunngg, MMaarrggaarreett HHaawwkkiinnss, TTiimmKKiimm, AAnnnnaa MMaacckk, KKaajjssaa MMaasshhaaww--SSmmiitthh and TTrriiaa SSmmootthh--eerrss—traveled to Panama with Director of Global Stud-ies TToonnyy JJaaccccaaccii and Spanish teachers MMeerriillyynn WWiillbbeerrand AAnntthhoonnyy PPeerrrryy.
The group spent 11 days in the developing nation
conducting interviews on various research topics,
including “The Sovereignty in the Great Canal,” “The
Benefits of Non-Formal Education in Rural Commu-
nities of Developing Countries,” “NGOs and the
State: Sustainable Harvest International in San Pedro,
Panama,” “Chinese Populations Across the Globe and
in Panama: Migration, Labor and Social Networks,”
and Migrants’ Search for Capital: Panama and Cen-
tral America.”
The group also got a first-hand look at sustainable
agriculture efforts with a five-day stint with Sustainable
Harvest International. Students and teachers stayed
with host families in San Pedro Village in Coclé
Province and learned about the organization’s efforts
working with local families to convert deforested land
areas “to sustainable uses through reforestation, sus-
tainable agriculture and agro-forestry practices.”
The class then went on to visit a number of impor-
tant sites linked to their research projects, including
Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal, the National
Archaeology Museum, the Panama Viejo ruins, Barro
Colorado Island, and the Ciudad del Saber.
The trip ended with an afternoon tour of the
Casco Viejo (the Old City) and a treat of French-style
ice cream.
Tony Jaccaci, TimKim, Anthony Perry,Margaret Hawkins,
Kajsa Mashaw-Smith, Anna Mack,Jenny Chung, a tourguide, Tria Smothersand Merilyn Wilber
in Panama.
C O M M U N I T Y M E M B E R S G E T A W O R L D V I E W
Cathy Bao Bean,author of “TheChopsticks-Fork
Principle: A Memoirand Manual,” willbe the featured
speaker at an open-ing of school talk on Western andEastern cultures.
Many community mem-
bers are reading “Confucius
Lives Next Door” by T.R. Reid
this summer in preparation
for a series of discussions
about Eastern and Western
cultures—and what they teach
us about morality and ethics.
A nonfiction book, “Con-
fucius Lives Next Door” tells the story of Reid, a Wash-
ington Post foreign correspondent, who lived for five
years in Tokyo with his wife and children.
A July 11, 1999, New York Times review called
the book “a sympathetic Baedeker to the Japanese
way of life,” saying it was “written with grace,
knowledge and humor,” and that “his explanations
of modern Japan and its Confucian background are
accurate and useful.”
For students entering the fifth and sixth forms,
the book is a required summer read. Third and fourth
formers will be required to read a chapter from the
book and are strongly encouraged to read the book in
its entirety.
To continue discussion of the topic, an all-school
lecture by author Cathy Bao Bean (http://www.cathy-
baobean.com/) is scheduled for the first week of
school in September. The all-school lecture also will
focus on what it is like to live a life influenced by
both Western and Confucian culture. Bean, an immi-
grant from China who married an American painter,
published her own book on the topic, “The Chop-
sticks-Fork Principle: A Memoir and Manual.”
SS UUMMMMEE RR RR EE AADD WW II LL LL PP RROOMM PP TT DD II SS CC UU SS SS II OONN OO FF EE AA SS TT EE RR NN AA NNDD WWEE SS TT EE RR NN CC UU LL TT UU RR EE SS
BY ALEX MYERSAt the first rehearsal of the Oxford Hills Junior
High School band, there were 36 flute players. I was
one of them. Flute was, for whatever
reason, the instrument of choice among
the girls in this corner of western Maine.
Perhaps they flocked to it because its high
pitched trillings seemed more feminine than the
blattings of a trombone, or because the embouchure
left their lips kissably pursed, rather than the
squinched, rabbit-like mouth of a clarinet player. Or
the size—the flute is more accessory than instrument
and, much to the dismay of our conductor, the portly
Mr. Spath, the girls of the flute section could easily
place their instruments on their laps, leaving both
hands free to apply makeup, brush hair, or fix skirts.
I had not wanted to play the flute. I was, at the
time, a resolutely butch 12-year-old with short, dark
hair about to crinkle and curl with the onslaught of
puberty. In my small Maine town, I was somewhat
anomalous for a number of reasons; mine was the
only Jewish family in the town, which was difference
enough to render all my family members odd. On top
of that I was smart and bookish, a tendency that
landed me with the nerds in school. To cap it all off
was my undeniably masculine demeanor—despite
being fully female, my friends were almost exclusively
boys; I preferred flannel shirts and jeans to skirts and
blouses (though my mother had not given up trying
to get me in a dress for special occasions); and my
musical tastes tended towards Elvis and k.d. lang, not
the New Kids on the Block. Older women were always
trying to kick me out of the ladies’ room, and the
question most kids asked when they met me was, “Are
you a boy or a girl?” My reply was always succinct,
firm, and only slightly sarcastic: “I’m a tomboy.”
English teacher AlexMyers, born AliceMyers, talks toguests at the GLBTconference in March.
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN46
PHOTO
BYRAYW
OISHEK
’89
Campus happenings
A transgender teacher recalls thoseearly days of yearning to be male
Instrumental move
Emphasis on that second syllable. Said res-
olutely, it could leave my questioner with a
veneer of doubt about my identity, and I
liked that. Clearly, I would never have chosen
such a girly instrument as the flute.
But my mother was a firm believer in
the importance of music; my older brother
was ensconced three rows back in the band,
seated in the trumpet section, where he and
Billy Morton squirted the butts of the clar-
inetists (also an instrument played exclu-
sively by girls, though less attractive ones
than the flute players) with valve oil. My
mom had started her campaign to get me to
play a musical instrument years ago. It hap-
pened to coincide with a visit from my crazy
aunt, who was headed out of the country,
leaving her guitar in our possession. Cheap-
ness and convenience won out over my
mother’s disinclination to encourage me to
be at all like her nutty sister, and guitar
became my instrument. I took lessons and
practiced and loved the guitar, despite my
hands being much too small to adequately
make the chords (I would often sneak my
thumb from behind the neck to cover a
string when my teacher wasn’t looking), but
one day my mother packaged up the guitar
and mailed it off, saying her sister wanted it
back. I suspect this was a cover story; the
truth was that I had recently discovered my
true talent as an Elvis impersonator, and I
think that it was too much for my poor
mother to witness: her only daughter with
painted sideburns on her face, hips swinging
behind the guitar and singing “You Ain’t
Nothin’ But a Hounddog” in a gravelly near-
baritone. Sending the guitar away must have
seemed like a way she could prevent any
more gender confusion on my part—a defi-
nite action in the face of her considerable
and increasingly consistent dismay.
So it was to be a new musical instru-
ment for me, and my mom, gamely trying to
cheer me up from the loss of my guitar,
offered to let me make the selection. Bag-
pipes were my first choice. Rolling her eyes
and swearing off of future democratic
endeavors, my mother called the local music
school—sadly, they had no bagpipe teachers
(I’m not sure she didn’t pay them to say
this). My next choice was piccolo; I think I
had in mind the drum and fife of the Revo-
lutionary War, which is what we were study-
ing in fifth grade at the time. Seizing her
opportunity, my mother signed me up for
flute lessons, assuring me that it was the first
step toward learning the piccolo. Grudgingly,
I attended my weekly lessons, where my
teacher had a high-pitched laugh and was
most interested in confiding in me what she
regarded as the most important trade-secret:
which brands of lip gloss wouldn’t smear
onto the mouthpiece. I had no interest. It
was some small consolation that at my fifth-
grade recital, I played “Love Me Tender,”
alternately playing a verse on the flute and
then singing a verse with my best Elvis voice.
My mother wouldn’t let me paint on any
sideburns for the performance, and the
audience wasn’t sure whether to laugh or
clap, which could well be a metaphor for
most of my childhood.
And now, two years of playing had
brought me to this: the last row of the over-
populated flute section of my junior high
school band. What Mr. Spath thought as he
looked out over the sea of flutes in front of
him, I do not know. He was a round man,
and the exertion of conducting left him
flushed and sweating within the first few
measures of a piece—the front row of the
band was a dangerous place to sit for this
reason—and he was additionally cursed by
his first name, Blaise. As my friend Rocky
had pointed out over lunch one day, if it had
been Blaze, it would be the perfect soap-
opera name for some chiseled hunk. But
replace that bold z with a susurrant s and all
the glamour went out. You were left with the
cheerful, rotund, perspiring, and hopelessly
fey Mr. Spath.
That first rehearsal, with fully three rows
of girls clasping their silver flutes, heads
leaned close together, whispering, Mr. Spath
must have known that he was desperately
outnumbered. Gazing out across the expanse
of woodwinds, did he select those whom he
thought would not protest? (In addition to
being butch, I was a goody-two-shoes,
inclined to obey.) Did he, with insight and
compassion, perceive that I was not meant
for the flute section? (I was, after all, the only
one not fixing my bangs at the moment.) I
may never know, but at that second he deliv-
ered me from the feminine ranks of the
woodwinds—with a gesture of his fingers
and a brief set of instructions, six of us flute
players were told to pack up our flutes and
go to the instrument closet. I’ve come to
regard this moment as prophetic, indicative
of my ultimate deliverance and transference
from the ranks of femininity entirely. At that
second, as I pulled the pieces of my flute
apart and placed them in their tiny case, I
felt the fluttering of a possibility. Anything
that Mr. Spath might want of me—even the
triangle; even having to sit next to Dan, the
acne-laden player of the bassoon, an instru-
ment that sounded like a sick goose, made
you red-faced with exertion, and couldn’t
even be heard over the rest of the band—
would be better than the flute section.
The honks, squeaks, and shrills from the
outside indicated that the remainder of the
band was warming up. The six of us stood
amidst the racks of the store-room a little
glumly, not talking. Now that I think of it,
Mr. Spath had really selected the social
rejects, myself included. Was he, still smart-
ing from his own childhood, which must
have been miserable (c’mon…Blaise!), try-
ing to save us from the hair-sprayed social
tyranny of the flute section? Mr. Spath
entered the closet, took our flutes, carefully
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 47
GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER CONFERENCE: MARCH 27-29, 2009
Campus happenings
48 ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN
stacking the cases like so much cordwood,
and walked us to the back rack. The cases
here were larger, rectangular but slightly
bulbous; I could only guess what they held.
Gone were the days of the insubstantial wisp
of an instrument. These cases meant busi-
ness. The three smallest girls were given
trombones—Mr. Spath took one out of its
case and showed them how to put it
together, then sent them back to join the
band. I didn’t know any of these three well;
skinny girls with lank hair and shabby jean
skirts, they seemed to be what we called “hot
lunch” kids. The trombones sealed their fates
as unpopular—what girls could possibly
look good honking away on one of those?—
resignedly, they lugged their heavy burdens
back to the crowded band room. The sce-
nario was repeated with the next two girls,
who were each given a euphonium, which
left just me and Mr. Spath in the depths of
the instrument store room.
Pushing aside the other cases, Mr. Spath
stretched to the far reaches of the rack, then
tugged mightily on an elephantine case. The
sweat beaded on his brow. With an ominous
scraping, the case fully emerged. Grimacing
with the effort and exertion, Mr. Spath wiped
his brow and patted the case. “Every band
needs one!” he said cheerfully. One what?
Sweaty conductor? Wildly butch flute player?
With a smile, trying perhaps to allay the
doubt that must have been easily readable on
my face, Mr. Spath declared, “Look, just do
your best today, and we’ll start lessons tomor-
row.” He turned to rejoin the band, whose
blatting and squeaking had long ago given
way to screams and thuds, indicating that the
obligation of warming up had yielded to the
adolescent urge of boys to harass girls; it
sounded like the brass section had attacked
the flutes and the clarinets. (In the scheme of
the band, only the saxophone and percussion
sections were mixed gender and therefore on
the sidelines of any conflict.)
Left alone in the closet, I undid the
latches on the case. Within, nestled in blue
faux velvet, was a silver tuba and the singu-
larly most unhygienic mouthpiece I had ever
seen. I hoisted the tuba from its case and,
sitting right there on the closet floor,
unflinchingly belted out my first note. I was
in love. At the end of the first rehearsal,
wherein I mostly discovered how to empty
the spit from the tubes and occasionally gave
forth a tremendous, flatulence-esque tone,
which Mr. Spath either ignored or couldn’t
hear over the equally dubious efforts of the
rest of the band, I put my tuba back in the
case and headed home.
Why did I love it? Was it being alone and
unique—the only tuba in the band—after
belonging to a veritable army of conformist
flute players? Was it the size and the bass tone,
together with their connotations of masculin-
ity, that intrigued me? Or was it the thought
of the look of horror on my mother’s face that
would greet me when I came home toting this
tremendous instrument and a failsafe excuse:
Mr. Spath said I had to quit flute!
As if sensing the reception it would get at
home, my tuba case got stuck in the bus door
as I tried to disembark. Sandy, the bus driver,
had to let other kids out the rear emergency
exit so that she and I could push the case from
the inside while the others pulled from the
outside. Finally disgorged from the bus, I
dragged the case up to my front steps, where
my mother’s reaction was as excellent as I had
expected. I had hardly crammed the case
through the door when she was on the phone
with Mr. Spath, protesting his decision. The
call was short, and I kept the tuba, though I
doubt her acceptance had anything to do with
my glee or Mr. Spath’s persuasiveness; in the
face of my brother’s and my own teen years,
my mother had decided she needed to mar-
shal her strength and choose her battles care-
fully. Playing tuba was better in her eyes than
no music at all, or perhaps she had just grown
sick of hearing “Love Me Tender” on the flute.
Once inside the house, with the exor-
cism of the hated flute complete, it is almost
as if I could see my future unfurling before
me. The tuba changed everything. From
front-row seats in the woodwind section
where utter girliness was expected, I had
been shunted to the margins, the last row of
the band, the outer fringes of the ensemble,
where no one was watching, and certainly
where there were no expectations of prissi-
ness. That day I took a step out of my life as
a girl and into my life as a boy. As I sat on the
couch and fumbled through a scale for my
mother, who did her best to feign admira-
tion, (just as she would do her best to accept
my announcement of being transgender five
years in the future) I knew that if I could
ditch the flute, I could probably do anything.
AAlleexx MMyyeerrss is an English teacher at St.
George’s and organized the first-ever Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Confer-
ence at SG in March 2009. He can be
reached at [email protected]
The tuba changed
everything. From
front-row seats in the
woodwind section,
where utter girliness
was expected, I had
been shunted to the
margins ...
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 49
Former tobaccoscientist VictorDeNoble shows
students a rat’s brainfrom his
experiments on theeffects of nicotine.
Dr. Victor DeNoble delivered an all-school talk
in Madeira Hall April 29, 2009, recounting
his days as a scientist for the Philip Morris
Tobacco Co. in the 1980s—and the secret research he
carried out in a locked lab to analyze nicotine’s affect
on the human brain.
DeNoble says he was hired by the Richmond, Va.-
based company to find a substance to replace the nico-
tine in cigarettes that wouldn’t have the same adverse
affect on the heart, but he soon found himself con-
sumed with his studies on rats about the affects of the
toxin on the brain.
He is one of a few so-called “whistleblowers” who
came forward during a Congressional investigation in
the mid-1990s about whether or not the U.S. Food and
Drug administration should be allowed to classify
nicotine as a drug, and therefore regulate the manufac-
ture and sale of tobacco products.
DeNoble gives more than 600 talks per year to
students, most in middle school, urging them to stay
away from tobacco products, and all addictive drugs.
“There are no safe addictive drugs,” he told SG
students. “They all have side effects.”
After displaying a few props, including the
frozen brain of a research monkey and that of a
man who died of lung cancer, he went on: “I like to
think of drugs as a city, and every drug as a building.
One is 125 stories, another is 155. Every building
is over 120 stories high—and you have to jump off
of one of them.”
Mr. DeNoble’s talk was made possible by a grant
from the Middletown Substance Abuse Task Force.
Former Philip Morrisscientist warns studentsabout tobaccoSays execs hid data for years
PHOTO
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OISHEK
’89
St. George’s students hear from best-selling author, critic of Islam
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Dutch parliamentarian whose views on the Muslim
faith have prompted death threats, spoke to the St. George’s School community
on April 16, 2009. Surrounded by bodyguards, Hirsi Ali, entered
Madeira Hall for the afternoon talk, in which she outlined her life
experiences as a young Somali girl repressed by her religious roots,
and her escape from the bonds of an arranged marriage.
Ali, who has lived in exile since 2006, now resides in Washington, D.C., where
she continues to speak out about religious extremism and vows to improve the lot
of Muslim women.
Her provocative memoir, “Infidel,” rose to No. 7 on the New York Times
bestseller list in 2007.
Ali has been living with strict security since she came under fire for her
religious views following the Nov. 2, 2004 murder by a Muslim extremist of
filmmaker Theo van Gogh, with whom she collaborated on the anti-Islam film,
“Submission.”
GUEST SPEAKERS VISIT SG
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ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN50
“Speak Up Against Bias and Bigotry” was the
theme of a series of workshops attended by mem-
bers of the fourth form this past spring.
The workshops, organized by Director
of Diversity KKiimm BBuulllloocckk, taught studentsabout how to help stop discrimination
by calling attention to prejudice and stereotyping.
One workshop focused primarily on how to
respond to everyday bias and bigotry, primarily
verbal. “We used role play… and ended the session
with each student signing a pledge to “Speak Up
Against Bias And Bigotry,” Bullock said. Students
kept the pledges and were asked to post them in an
area where they felt they had some control and
influence, such as a dorm room.
St. George’s fourth annual Clambake Institute
was held on campus from Sunday, July 19, through
Wednesday, July 22. The conference, organized by
Director of College Counseling BBuurrkkee RRooggeerrss and
his staff, brought together independent school col-
lege counselors as well as admission representatives
from colleges and universities to talk about current
issues in the field.
Clambake honorees this year were Bill Hartog of
Washington & Lee University in Virginia and Spike
Gummere of Lake Forest College in Illinois.
King Hall hosted Chef Santos Nieves, executive
chef of Salve Regina University in Newport, on
Tuesday, April 28, for a special sustain-
able/organic dinner. Associate Director
of Dining Services SStteevvee MMooyyeerr organ-ized the visit.
Chef Nieves prepared organic salad of Organic
heirloom tomatoes with fresh local mozzarella on
a bed of locally grown mesculin greens drizzled
with aged balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive
oil, topped with farm-raised cage free Italian mari-
nated grilled chicken and garnished with fried basil
and local sliced French baguette.
Nieves, who was born and raised in Puerto
Rico, has worked for 18 years in the Northeast
restaurant industry, including the Back Bay
Restaurant Group, Johnson & Wales University,
Clements Market and East Side Catering. He
counts meeting the Dalai Lama during his visit to
Salve Regina in November 2005 as one of his
favorite experiences.
Campus happenings
AA LL UUMMNN II //AA EE OO FF CCOO LL OORR CCOO NN FF EE RR EE NNCC EE
Author Lorene Cary will be the
keynote speaker for the 2009 Alumni/ae
of Color Conference to be
held on campus Oct. 9 and
10.
Ms. Cary will reflect on
her book “Black Ice,” a memoir of her
years first as a black female student, and
then teacher, at St. Paul’s School.
“Black Ice” was chosen as a Notable
Book for 1992 by the American Library
Association.
Stanford University English Prof. Arnold Rampersad has
dubbed it “...probably the most beautifully written and moving
African-American autobiographical narrative since Maya An-
gelou’s celebrated ‘I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.’”
For more information on the conference, please contact
Director of Diversity Kim Bullock at [email protected].
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 51
ARTW
ORK
BYNATE
PEARSO
N’09
Artwork by Nate Pearson ’09 was on display at theSenior Art Show in the Hunter Gallery in May.
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D.J. Wilson ’12 performs in the Spring Music Guild in the chapel.
It’s rehearsal time for the SG Orchestra, conducted by math and music teacher Jinny Chang.
C R E A T I V I T Y O N T H E H I L L T O PArts
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN52
PHOTO
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Seniors Piers Kermode, Phil Royerand Scott Chanelliwork on a project inMs. Lothrop’s APEnglish class. PH
OTO
BYKATH
RYNW
HITNEY
LUCEY
ClassroomsL E A R N I N G O N — A N D O F F — T H E H I L L T O P
Members of Holly Williams’ DNA Science class—BBrriiddggeettKKiilllleeaavvyy ’09, CCaarrll NNiigghhttiinnggaallee ’10 (right in photo at left), LLeesslliieeMMuuzzzzyy ’09, KKaatthheerriinnee SShheekk ’10, CCllaayy DDaavviiss ’09 (left in photo) and
EErriicc JJeerrnniiggaann ’10—visited Genzyme Corp. and Harvard Univer-sity’s FAS Center for Systems Biology, both in Cambridge,
Mass., on April 7. The group got tours of both facilities and
learned more about the work that goes on inside the biotech
company and a research facility.
“At Genzyme, we got to look at the cutting-edge, real world
importance of DNA,” Jernigan said. “Usually we only talk about
it and go to the websites, which gets pretty old after a while. It’s
like we are usually just looking out of the window, but never
going outside to see what it’s like.”
At Harvard, the group learned more about micro arrays
and lab equipment from Claire Reardon, the Bauer Center’s lab
manager. Afterwards, Williams asked students to evaluate the
experience.
“This trip gave us the opportunity to learn from the pro-
fessionals in the field about just how DNA was being incorpo-
rated into modern science,” Nightingale said. “The trip took
everything we have learned so far and made it seem more real
and important.”
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 53
PHOTO
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Students and facultyparticipate in a
panel discussion inMr. Leslie’s Environ-mental Science class.
In the front row:Seniors Nick Baker,Christina Haack,
Catherine Esposito,Peter Lawson-John-ston, Teddy Collinsand Halsey Landon.
Back row: Charlie Fleming ’09
and FindlayBowditch ’10. On theteacher panel: Steve
Leslie and (notshown) DevonDucharme and
captain of GeronimoMike Dawson.
Fifth-form students from Mr. Wang's Chinese class: Laney Yang, Christy Lee, Mary Behan, Tony Kim, Hayden Fownes, NontJiarathanakul, and senior prefect-elect Stephanie Johnson. For a special project the group created two Chinese-language newspapersduring the year.
L E A R N I N G O N — A N D O F F — T H E H I L L T O P
Polly Murray ’10,Lydia Willie ’09,Annetta O'Leru ’12and Tria Smothers’09 work on a globalwarming campaign.
Ms. McGrady’sjournalism class gotthe chance to meetwith CBS Newscorrespondent
Anthony Mason ’74this spring. Picturedare: Alex Layton,Carmen Boscia,
Maddie Carrellas,Christina Haack,Annie Warren,Mason, Hannah
McQuilkin, CharlieFleming and Nick Biedron.
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN54
PHOTO
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PHOTO
BYSU
ZANNEM
CGRADY
ClassroomsL E A R N I N G O N — A N D O F F — T H E H I L L T O P
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 55
Third formers Katie Desrosiers and
Grace Alzaibakbuild birdhouses for
Holly Williams’biology class.
Mr. Haskell’s geometry class hard at work.
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L E A R N I N G O N — A N D O F F — T H E H I L L T O P
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 09 SUMMER BULLET IN56
“St. George’s is an athlete’s heaven,”writes sports
reporter Mike Szostak in theMay 2, 2009, edition of
the Providence Journal.“Any small college would be
proud to boast of Crocker and Elliott Fields for foot-
ball, lacrosse and baseball; the Hersey all-weather
outdoor track; acres of fields for junior varsity and
thirds (freshman) teams; eight outdoor tennis courts;
the twin sheets of the Cabot-Harman Ice Center; the
Dorrance Field House with its four tennis and three
basketball courts and a two-lane, nine-lap-to-the-mile
track; the Hoopes Squash Center with eight interna-
tional courts; the eight-lane Hoyt Swimming Pool, and
the van Beuren Gymnasium with its hardwood basket-
ball court.”
Aw, shucks.Well, we knew that.What’s even better
is that Szostak is equally adulatory about our strong
and dedicated players in his article, which takes a liter-
ary snapshot of the school on one fine spring Game
DayWednesday.
Rhode IslandersMMaaddddiiee CCaarrrreellllaass ’09, PPhhiill RRooyyeerr’09, AAnnnnaa MMaacckk ’09 and GGaalliimmaahh BBaayyssaahh ’09 arequoted in the piece.
Check out the whole article, “Athletics is a way of
life at St. George’s,” on the “Athletics” page (under
“School Life”) of our web site at www.stgeorges.edu.
The varsity girls swim team, led by coach TToommEEvvaannss, boasted their best-ever season with a NewEngland Small School Championship at Hotchkiss
School on the weekend of March 6-7. Among the
outstanding performers this winter were senior cap-
PHOTO
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Photos, clockwise from top left: The 2008-09 swim team; girls varsity softballfirst baseman Hannah Coffin ’10 and pitcher Leslie Muzzy ’09; and track teammember Diatre Padilla ’09.
A T H L E T I C D E P A R T M E N T N E W SSG Zone
PHOTO
BYTOMEVANS
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 57
tains AAnnnnaa SScchhrrooeeddeerr, who won the Coaches’ Cup,and KKaarraa MMeerriinnggoolloo, who was part of two school-record relays). EErriinn HHeennddrriixx ’12 set three schoolrecords at the New Englands, and her twin sister LLooggaannHHeennddrriixx ’12, JJuulliiaa OOaakk ’10 and AAnnnnaa--SSppeenncceerr EErriicckk--ssoonn ’12 contributed to the school-record relays.
RRaacchheell SSuunngg ’12, LLeesslliiee MMuuzzzzyy ’09, EEvveellyynn MMaallddaannaaddoo ’11, and HHeelleenn WWeessttoonn ’12 all contributedstrong performances. HHiillllaarryy WWeeiinn ’11 was votedcaptain-elect.
The boys’ varsity swimmers fared nearly as well at
New Englands, finishing 2nd in the N.E. Small School
Championships, led by senior captains TTeeddddyy CCoolllliinnssand DDrreeww MMiilllleerr. Also performing at a high level forthe boys’ were PPaattrriicckk MMccGGiinnnniiss ’11 (captain-elect ),PPaattrriicckk HHoolloowweesskkoo ’11 (captain-elect), AAmmeess HHeennrryy’11, MMaatttt GGaayyddaarr ’09, TTiimmoonn WWaattkkiinnss ’11 and AAaarroonnBBrroowwnn ‘10.
Combined, the boys and the girls teams finished
the regular season undefeated—17-0.
CCoouurrttnneeyyJJoonneess ’10 becamesomewhat of a
web video star
after videogra-
pher Frieda
Squires from the
Providence Jour-
nal came to
campus to shoot
some footage for the newspaper’s web site in February.
Jones talks about her love for the game and gives a
few lessons on the game while she practices against a
friend of Coach PPeetteerr AAnnddeerrssoonn’s in the HoopesSquash Center.
Look for the video http://www.projo.com/video/
allstate-index.html?nvid=335038.
PPhhiill RRooyyeerr ’09 received all-scholastic honors fromthe Boston Globe for his spring season-track accom-
plishments. Royer, who heads to Dartmouth College
this fall also was named an Athlete of the Week by the
Newport Daily News for the week of May 18, 2009.
Among his many accomplishments at SG, Royer broke
the New England Division III track meet record in the
3000-meter set by fellow Dragon and SG Sports Hall of
Famer Jerry Pullins ’93 back in 1992. He came in sec-
ond in the 3,000 with a time of 9:06:05 at the Bishop
Hendricken Invitational on Sat., May 30.
The SG varsity sailing team traveled to St. Peters-
burg, Fla., May 9-10 to compete for the Mallory Tro-
phy, the National Fleet racing championships—and
amid tough competition, finished No. 7. “In an event
that is typically dominated by the west coast and south-
ern schools who specialize in this event, the team sailed
an extremely strong regatta,” reported Athletic Director
John Mackay. SG was the top New England team in the
event. Sailing were: EElliizzaa RRiicchhaarrttzz ’09, JJoohhnnnnyy NNoorr--fflleeeett ’09, AAlleexx WWhhiippppllee ’11, EEvvaann RReeaadd ’12 and WWiillllOOsslleerr ’10.
Photo, top left: Varsity tennis player
Kajsa Mashaw-Smith ’09.
Photo, top right:Varsity baseball
first baseman Doyle Stack ’09.
PHOTOSBYRAYWOISHEK’89
A T H L E T I C D E P A R T M E N T N E W S
DDrreeww MMiilllleerr ’09 was honored Monday, May 4, at
a black-tie banquet for the Rhode Island Chapter of
the National Football Foundation and the Hall of
Fame after being selected as one of Rhode Island’s
“Golden Dozen.”
Selected from a list of 29 nominees, Miller was SG’s
first-ever recipient of this award, given to a notable
scholar/athlete, and the first private school player to be
so honored.
In addition, Miller took home the top prize—the
$2,000 Chet Pono Scholarship Award (selected by a
group of admissions officers from Brown and URI).
Miller heads to Middlebury College this fall.
The University of Pennsylvania women’s lacrosse
team scored with five seconds remaining in overtime
to defeat the Duke Blue Devils, 10-9, and advance to
the NCAA final four for the third consecutive year—
and the team got 15 minutes of solid play at the end
of the game from LLiillyy PPoossnneerr ’07. “Lily was pleasedto be a part of the experience,” reports her mom,
Barbara Millen.
The Quakers lost a double-overtime
heartbreaker to Northwestern in the NCAA semifi-
nal game Friday, May 22, at Towson, Md., but came
out No. 2 in polling at the end of the season.
A group of faculty members who coach athletic
teams—Athletic Director JJoohhnn MMaacckkaayy (football),Assistant Head of School for Student Life TTiimmRRiicchhaarrddss (squash), math teacher JJuulliiee BBuuttlleerr (bas-ketball), Spanish teacher LLuuccyy HHaammiillttoonn (lacrosse),math teacher JJooee EElliiaass (hockey), Administrative
Technology Coordinator EEdd MMccGGiinnnniiss (baseball),English teacher MMaatttt RRyymmzzoo (tennis) and Web
Manager RRaayy WWooiisshheekk (soccer/hockey)—attended a
conference at Belmont Hill School on April 9 called,
“Building and Sustaining Athletic Excellence.”
The session, organized by the Association of
Independent Schools in New England, focused on
such topics as what makes a great coach/administra-
tor, how can coaches be supported to do their job
well and what is your school’s philosophy about the
role of sports?
Other sessions addressed such subjects as the
physical and emotional development of teenage
athletes, the differences between coaching boys and
girls, and managing parents who have complaints
about their child’s playing time or unrealistic expec-
tations about their child’s ability.
Featured speakers were Dr. Richard Ginsburg,
clinical psychologist in the Massachusetts General
Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry and a consultant
for Harvard men’s lacrosse team, and Jennifer Fulcher,
a former Middlebury College women’s basketball
coach who is now a teacher/administrator/coach at
Williston-Northampton School.
SG coaches: WendyDrysdale, LucyHamilton, MattRymzo, Julie Butler,John Mackay, JoeElias, Tim Richardsand Ed McGinnis
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN58
A T H L E T I C D E P A R T M E N T N E W SSG Zone
Drew Miller ’09 (center) takes the stage after receiving a “Golden Dozen”award from the R.I. Chapter of the National Football Foundation. Atright is chairman of the organization Emo DiNitto, a former high schoolathletic director and football coach at Veterans Memorial High School in Warwick, R.I., and SG Athletic Director John Mackay (left).
PHOTO
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COURTESY
OFDREWMILLER
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 59
A T H L E T I C D E P A R T M E N T N E W S
SS PP RR II NN GG AA TT HH LL EE TT EE SS MM AA KK EE TT HH EE II RR MM AA RR KK22 00 00 99 SS TT .. GG EE OO RR GG EE ’’ SS SS PP RR II NN GG AA TT HH LL EE TT II CC AAWWAA RR DD SS
BASEBALLTwitchell Baseball Cup (M.V.P.) ............................................Drew MillerReynolds Baseball Cup ..........................................................Doyle StackR.B.I. Cup..........................................................................Patrick GuerrieroAll-ISL, honorable mention ......................................................Ben Lewis
BOYS LACROSSEAlessi Lacrosse Bowl (M.V.P.) ............................Peter Lawson-JohnstonHerter (Coaches’) Cup ........................................................Teddy CollinsHollins-Sheehan Lacrosse Cup (M.I.P.)..................................Cam HoweAll-ISL, first team ................................................Peter Lawson-JohnstonAll-ISL, honorable mention................................................Scott Chanelli
GIRLS LACROSSELacrosse M.V.P. ................................................................Megan LeonhardLacrosse Coaches’ Cup..................................................Maddie CarrellasLacrosse M.I.P. ..........................................................Lindsay MacNaughtUS Lacrosse, All-American............................................Maddie CarrellasAll-ISL, first team ........................Megan Leonhard, Maddie Carrellas,
Sydney MasAll-ISL, honorable mention ..................................................Leigh ArcherPro Jo All-State ..............................................................Megan LeonhardNEPSWLA All-Star ..................................Megan Leonhard, Sydney MasNLE selection............................................................................Sydney MasUS Lacrosse, Academic All-Americans......................Maddie Carrellas,
Anna Mack, Leigh Archer, Lauren O’Halloran
SAILINGWood Sailing Bowl (M.V.P.) ......................................................Alex CookLeslie Sailing Bowl (Best Crew) ..................................Anna McConnellCoaches’ Cup ..................................................................Andrew MeleneySailing M.I.P...........................................................................Pearson PottsProvidence Journal All-State ....................................................Alex Cook
SOFTBALLSoftball M.V.P. ........................................................................Leslie MuzzySoftball Coaches’ Cup ....................................................Bridget KilleavySoftball M.I.P.......................................................................Hannah CoffinAll-ISL, first team ....................................Leslie Muzzy, Bridget KilleavyAll-ISL, honorable mention ..................Hannah Coffin, Jesse PachecoPro Jo All-State ......................................................................Leslie Muzzy
BOYS TENNISYork Tennis Bowl (M.V.P.) ............................................Chris McCormackTennis Coach’s Cup ..................................................................Emil HenryTennis M.I.P. ............................................................................Moritz PetreAll-ISL, honorable mention..........................................Chris McCormack
GIRLS TENNISTennis M.V.P. ......................................................................Courtney JonesTennis Coach’s Cup ................................................Kajsa Mashaw-SmithTennis M.I.P.......................................................................Victoria LeonardAll-ISL, first team ................................................................Leiter ColburnPro Jo All-State ..................................................................Courtney Jones
BOYS TRACKHolmes Track Trophy (M.V.P.) ..................................................Phil RoyerCoaches’ Cup ........................................................................Diatre PadillaTrack M.I.P. ..............................................................................Garrett SiderAll-ISL, first team ..............................................Phil Royer, Garrett SiderISL MVP (Boston Globe All-Scholastic) ..................................Phil RoyerPro Jo All-State............................................................................Phil RoyerAll-New England ........................................................................Phil RoyerAll-County ....................................................................................Phil Royer
GIRLS TRACKHubert C. Hersey Track Award (M.V.P.) ................................D.J. WilsonTrack Coaches’ Cup ................................................................Hillary WeinTrack M.I.P. ........................................................................Oxy Nagornuka2009 Newport County Champions ........................St. George’s SchoolAll-ISL, honorable mention............................Jenny Chung, D.J. WilsonAll-County ................................D.J. Wilson, Jenny Chung, Hillary WeinManager of the Year ............................................................Tria Smothers
LETTER AWARDS9-Letter Awards ......................................Patrick Guerriero, Max Fowler,
Bridget Killeavy, Drew Miller, Chris McCormack10-Letter Awards ..................................Leigh Archer, Galimah Baysah,
Teddy Collins, Scott Chanelli11-Letter Awards..........................Maddie Carrellas, Thomas Growney,
Megan Leonhard, Phil Royer12-Letter Awards ......................................Carmen Boscia, Leslie Muzzy
PHOTO BY LEN RUBENSTEIN PHOTOGRAPHY
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN60
Only seniors with the most outstanding grades for
the sixth-form year graduate “with high distinction”
on Prize Day—and just four made the cut this year.
They were: CCllaayy DDaavviiss, MMaaxx FFoowwlleerr, SSaarraahh HHaarrrriissoonnand SSoo YYoooonn JJuunn.
Students with at least a B+ average and a rigorous
course load with no grade below a B- are awarded their
diploma “with distinction.” This year, they were: LLeeiigghhAArrcchheerr, EEtthhaann AAyyeerrss, LLiinnddssaayy BBeecckk, MMaaddeelliinneeCCaarrrreellllaass, HHaa EEuunn CChhuunngg, MMccCCrreeaa DDaavviissoonn, AAnnnniieeIIrreellaanndd, NNaamm HHeeee KKiimm, MMeeggaann LLeeoonnhhaarrdd, AAnnnnaa MMaacckk,VViiaannccaa MMaassuuccccii, CCaalllliiaann MMccBBrreeeenn, AAnnnnaa MMccCCoonnnneellll,CChhrriissttoopphheerr MMccCCoorrmmaacckk, HHaannnnaahh MMccQQuuiillkkiinn, MMaaxxiinneeMMuusstteerr, SSoopphhiiaa NNooeell, JJeellaannii OOddlluumm--LLaannssiiqquuoott, PPaauullaaPPiimmeenntteell, KKaatthheerriinnee PPrryyoorr, PPhhiilliipp RRooyyeerr, TTrriiaaSSmmootthheerrss, PPaayyttoonn SSoommeerrss, AAnnnniiee WWaarrrreenn, KKaatthheerriinneeWWooeesstteemmeeyyeerr and SSii MMiinn YYuunn.
SSoo YYoooonn JJuunn ’09 of Seoul, Korea, is the recipient ofa four-year Weissman scholarship at Babson College in
Massachusetts. The scholarship, the newest and most
prestigious at the school, is “designed to bring together
the world’s top business students and to provide them
with the resources they need to make their wildest
educational and personal dreams a reality.” Awarded to
just four students each year, the scholarship is worth
$170,000, plus access to additional funds “to support
[the students’] unique educational goals.”
Scoring 99 out of 100, third formers AAllaannaaMMccCCaarrtthhyy, EEmmiillyy DDeerreecckkttoorr and EEmmmmaa GGaarrfifieelldd allcame in first place in Rhode Island following
National Spanish Exam competition this spring.
Overall, 10 St. George’s students earned gold
medals in recognition of their excellent performance
on the 2009 National Spanish Examinations, 26 stu-
dents earned silver and 23 earned bronze medals.
“Attaining a medal for any student on the National
Spanish Examinations is very prestigious,” said Kevin
Cessna-Buscemi, National Director of the Exams,
“because the exams are the largest of their kind in the
United States with well over 115,000 students partici-
pating in 2009.”
The exams are administered each year in grades 6
through 12, and are sponsored by the American Associ-
ation of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.
Other gold medal winners from SG were: MMeeggaannEEvveerreetttt ’12, AAlleejjaannddrraa PPaaiinnddiirriiss ’12, GGeeoorrggee MMeennccooffff’11, JJooee MMaacckk ’12, SSiimmoonn HHaarrddtt ’11, CCaarroolliinnee MMiilllleerr’11, and GGrraaccee OOwweennss--SSttiivveellyy ’10.
On May 16, more than 65 local children took
part in the first-ever PMC Kids Ride in Rhode
Island, organized by our own CChhaadd LLaarrccoomm ’11
of Middletown (above).
The Kids Ride is an offshoot of the larger Pan-
S T U D E N T A C H I E V E M E N T SHighlights
Chris McCormack ’09 spent 10 days in Rwanda last March, where he met several locals as he visited schools (above) and health care facilities. McCormack’s godfather is Dr. Paul Farmer, who heads up a Partners in Health initiative in the country to help stop the spread of infectious diseases.
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 61
Massachusetts Challenge, a yearly event in which adults
ride up to 192 miles to raise money for Boston’s Dana-
Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund.
The kids event took place at Second Beach and
received rave reviews from participants, most of whom
were under 12.
There were three routes for the riders, all of which
began and ended at the beach. The longest was 5.98
miles, and riders could complete the loop three times
for about an 18-mile ride.
Larcom also arranged services from volunteers and
local businesses, which provided T-shirts, stretching
lessons, and refreshments.
Chad’s mom Liz was diagnosed with non-
Hodgkins lymphoma in 1998, and his father, Chuck,
has been taking part in the big PMC for 11 years.
The PMC has become an annual celebration for
the family,” Mr. Larcom, who has six children in all, told
the Newport Daily News. “And Chad decided to take it
a step further.”
OOkkssaannaa NNaaggoorrnnuukkaa ’10, SSaarraahh HHaarrrriissoonn ’09 andSSoopphhiiee LLaayyttoonn ’12 were the recipients of the highesthonor awarded—summa cum laude distinction—for
their performance on the National Latin Exam. During
the second week in March, more than 137,000 students
took the National Latin Exam in their own schools,
and it was administered in 17 colleges and 12 elemen-
tary schools.
HHaannnnaahh MMccQQuuiillkkiinn organized a soup kitchenMarch 4 at the First Presbyterian Church in Newport.
A group of students helped set up, serve meals to those
who attend the soup kitchen, and cleaned up after-
wards. “It was a great opportunity to reach out to those
in need in the Newport Community,” said McQuilkin.
Sixteen St. George’s students were among the more
than 500 independent school attendees to take part in
the 16th Annual High School Students of Color Confer-
ence at Thayer Academy April 18 and 19. TTrriisshhaa--JJooyyJJaacckkssoonn, HHeeyyddii MMaallaavvee, GGaalliimmaahh BBaayyssaahh, AAnnaaiissee KKaann--iimmbbaa, VVaallddaaiirr LLooppeess, MMaarrttiinn EEjjiiaakkuu, JJaalleeeell WWhheeeelleerr,AAaarroonn BBrroowwnn, JJoonnaatthhaann MMaaiioo, AArreennaa MMaannnniinngg, JJooyyBBuulllloocckk, KKiinnyyeettttee HHeennddeerrssoonn, DDiiaattrree PPaaddiillllaa, DD..JJ..
WWiillssoonn, AAnnnneettttaa OO’’LLeerruu and OOlliivviiaa HHooeefftt participated ina number of workshops and activities, designed to
“raise self-awareness, build community, provide sup-
port and cultivate leadership among students.” The
conference is organized by the National Association for
Independent Schools. Faculty members Kevin Held
and Anthony Perry, along with Director of Diversity
Kim Bullock served as chaperones. The conference
keynote speaker was SuChin Pak, a
correspondent for MTV News who has
co-hosted MTV’s pre-Grammy show
and has covered the MTV Video Music
Awards, MTV Movie Awards and the
Jim Thompson ’84, P’13 (center)presents a check to 2008-09 SchoolPrefect S.J. Tilden (left) and Headof School Eric Peterson (right) for$1,825—$912.50 from the sixthformers and $912.50 from the 25th
reunion class (1984), matching theseniors’ gift. Emphasizing the importance of giving back to the school, Thompson told students and community members in Assembly that all SGstudents benefit from the generosity of their predecessors, and that his class was proud to continue the tradition. The money raised by the Class of 2009,with 93 percent participation in the campaign, was used toward the purchaseand installation of a solar panel for the school’s electric-powered catering van.
S T U D E N T A C H I E V E M E N T S
Mr. Leslie’s science students worked on a project this spring to grow vegetable plants from organic seeds. CChhaarrlliiee FFlleemmiinngg ’09 and GGeeoorrggeeWWiilllliiaammss ’09 helped man the tables when the plants became available for sale to community members in May.
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN62
Dozens of students and faculty members took
part in a “Bike-a-thon for Sustainability” on April
28, organized by the Sustainability Club
and in particular JJuulliiaa OOaakk ’10. Theevent, meant to increase awareness
about global warming and to raise
school spirit through the club system, asked volun-
teers to pedal for 15-minute intervals on a station-
ary bicycle and to create “clean” energy.
Advertising for the event read: “Global warming is
one of the most dire environmental issues that we face
now. Automobiles are one of the main sources of
carbon dioxide, one of the of greenhouse gases that
leads to global warming. We can reduce the emission
of CO2 by driving less and using more public trans-
portation or walking or cycling if possible.”
Sundance Film Festival. On
Sunday afternoon Kabir
Sen, a professional hip hop
artist and a music teacher
from Boston, performed.
HHeennddrriikk KKiittss vvaannHHeeyynniinnggeenn ’10, Editor-in-Chief of the Red & White
for the 2008-09 school year,
will retain that role for the
2009-10 school year.
In addition to Kits van
Heyningen, SSccootttt YYaanngg ’11,SSaamm LLiivviinnggssttoonn ’10 andEEssmmee YYoozzeellll ’10 will returnto the Editorial Board
next year.
Yang will continue as
Layout Editor and Liv-
ingston will take on Manag-
ing Editor duties after
serving as news editor for the last two years.
Yozell will move from her position as Sports Editor
to serve as co-editor of the Arts & Lifestyle section.
Four new members were appointed to the Editorial
Board: SSoopphhiiee FFllyynnnn has been appointed News Editorafter contributing a number of outstanding articles as a
staff writer.
JJaacckk MMccCCaabbee ’11 will assume the role of SportsEditor after serving as a staff writer for several editions.
Staff writer JJaacckk BBaarrtthhoolleett ’12 has been appointededitorial page editor after joining the editorial team this
spring, his freshman year.
LLaanneeyy YYaanngg ’10 will assume the role of co-editor ofthe Arts & Lifestyle section. KKaatthhlleeeenn FFiittzzGGeerraalldd ’10 willbecome Photography Editor.
Based on their exceptional contributions to the
paper in the past, LLeellaa WWuullssiinn ’10, JJoonnaatthhaann MMaaiioo ’11,RRoossiiee PPuuttnnaamm ’11 and KKaattiiee MMccCCoorrmmaacckk ’11 have allbeen appointed senior writers.
SSaaddiiee MMccQQuuiillkkiinn ’12 (above) created the win-ning design for a mosaic installed in the Hamblet
Campus Center this spring. The mosaic was pro-
duced by the 2008-09 Western Civilization class
after the group studied Roman mosaics last fall. The
goal was to design and create their own—but with a
special SG twist.
The Dragon, the school’s literary magazine, is
produced once a year and distributed to students in the
spring. This year AAnnnnaa MMaacckk ’09, winner of the St.George’s Medal, served as editor-in-chief.
The Editor-in-Chief of the Dragon this year will
be MMaarryy BBeehhaann ’10. Art Editors will be LLeellaa WWuullssiinn ’10,TTaayylloorr MMccEEllhhiinnnnyy ’10, JJeessssee PPaacchheeccoo ’10 and KKaattFFiittzzggeerraalldd ’10; Literary Editors are HHeennrryy PPeetteerrssoonn ’10,JJuulliiaa EEaaddss ’10, SShhaarrnneellll RRoobbiinnssoonn ’11, and CCaarroolliinneeAAlleexxaannddeerr ’12.
PHOTO
BYRAYWOISHEK’89
Right: Piers Kermode’09, S.J. Tilden ’09and science teacherDevon Ducharmetake part in the“Bike-a-thon forSustainability.”
S T U D E N T A C H I E V E M E N T SHighlights
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 63
Babson College (2)
Bard College
Boston College (3)
Brown University
Bucknell University
Carnegie Mellon University
College of Charleston (4)
College of the Holy Cross
Colorado College (5)
Columbia University
Concordia University - Canada
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Duke University (3)
Emory University
George Washington University (4)
Georgetown University (2)
Gettysburg College (2)
Glasgow School of Art - Scotland
Hamilton College
Harvard University
Haverford College (3)
Hobart & William Smith Colleges
Johns Hopkins University
Lewis & Clark College
Middlebury College (2)
New York University
Occidental College
Pitzer College
And they’re off...Here’s where our graduates are heading:
Anna Mack received this year’s St. George’sMedal. Anna will attend Middlebury College in the fall.
PHOTO
BYKATH
RYNWHITNEYLU
CEY
N E W S F R O M T H E C O L L E G E C O U N S E L I N G O F F I C ENext steps
Princeton University
Providence College
Rice University
Rollins College (2)
Sacred Heart University
Sewanee: The University of the South
Skidmore College
Southern Methodist University
St. Lawrence University (2)
Stanford University (2)
Swarthmore College
Syracuse University
Trinity College (3)
Tufts University (2)
University College Maastricht - Netherlands
University of Chicago
University of Colorado at Boulder (2)
University of Denver (2)
University of Edinburgh (2) - Scotland
University of New Hampshire
University of Puget Sound
University of Richmond
University of Southern California
University of Vermont (2)
University of Virginia
Wake Forest University
Washington College
Washington University in St. Louis
Wesleyan University (2)
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN64
Mafalda visits CasaCalvo and Monte de Gozo.
PHOTOSCOURTESY
OFMAFALDANULA
Editor’s Note: St. George’s sabbatical program pro-
vides full-time faculty members the opportunity for
professional growth and personal renewal. While the
particular goals of one’s sabbatical proposal need not
be narrowly defined, the expectation is that a portion
of one’s sabbatical be spent away from campus, and
that one uses the time to broaden and deepen his/her
educational and intellectual interests.
Last summer, I was granted a semester sabbatical.It was very exciting, and the possibilities endless. I would
have six months to do whatever I wanted
to do. That was very easy. I would write the
great Argentine novel, or maybe a short story,
using magical realism. But then I realized
that I could never compete with great authors like
Bórges or Cortázar. Then what? I know, I should write
a children´s book. After all, I have four grandchildren.
Another possibility was to do something that I had
always wanted to do. Ever since my students from Level
5 started reading “La dama del alba,” the play by Alejan-
dro Casona, I wanted to be a pilgrim and walk “El
Camino de Santiago.” In the play, the main character is
a “peregrina” (pilgrim) who walks along the Camino
and visits a small town in the northern part of Spain.
Undoubtedly this was the opportunity of a lifetime for
me to become a “peregrina.”
When I revealed this idea to my husband he asked
if the Camino was a street with stores to shop for
women’s clothing and accessories. I guess I owe this to
my love of shopping. I explained that it was an ancient
pilgrimage route that stretches about 500 miles
through the scenic countryside and small towns of
northern Spain, starting in St. Jean Pied de Port and
ending in Santiago de Compostela. For more than
1,000 years pilgrims have been walking along the
Camino. It is said that those who make the pilgrimage
on the Camino will be allowed to enter the Kingdom of
Heaven sooner.
I then began planning my itinerary along the
Camino de Santiago, and talked my husband into
accompanying me. Although we did not complete the
entire 500 miles, we did walk 75 miles, the minimum
required to receive a “compostela” and be formally
declared “peregrinos.” We started in the village of Sar-
ria, walking eight hours daily for four days, sharing
A never-ending journeyBY MAFALDA NULA
Faculty/Staff Notes
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 65
solitary trails with livestock and fellow pilgrims,
through the breathtaking countryside and rural vil-
lages. We stayed in “casas de turismo rural” where we
experienced mountain fresh air and fresh food, includ-
ing homegrown vegetables, homemade pastries like
tarta de Santiago (almond-flavored coffee cake), local
game, and pulpo (octopus), a regional delicacy.
The Camino means different things to each pilgrim.
Some folks walk for religious reasons, others for the
cultural experience. One pilgrim explained: “El Camino
de Santiago, like life itself, is a wonderful and life-chang-
ing experience. It does not have an ending, because when
you arrive, you realize that you have to continue walking,
towards Santiago, towards others, towards yourself,
towards God. And this ‘camino’ will only end when the
life that we enjoy each day ends.” I agree.
In addition to the Camino, during my sabbatical I
traveled on 26 flights to 12 cities in five countries on
three continents. A few of the other highlights worth
mentioning include the rainforest and monkeys of
Costa Rica; a tango show in Buenos Aires; time with my
mother in Mendoza, Argentina; bidding farewell to my
friend, Conchita Kreisler (former head of the Spanish
Department who passed away on Sept. 29, 2008 , in
Madrid; visiting the Cicero family in Palermo and
Rome; the Vatican and mass with The Pope; New Year’s
Eve fireworks viewed from our balcony in Miami; and
the arrival of two new grandchildren.
My sabbatical was a remarkable journey, back to the
future of sorts, connecting with old friends, making new
friends, getting reacquainted with my roots, and new
beginnings. I must admit that all the traveling has left
me a little confused about my identity (mother, grand-
mother, daughter, wife, friend, teacher, student), my
roots, and my “home” (Newport, Mendoza, or Miami?).
This time away from school has given me the
opportunity to reflect, to wander, ponder the possibili-
ties, count my blessings, experience the inexorable
passing of time, the challenges, contemplate my calling,
the why and how come, and why I am here now telling
you about my experiences.
How about the children’s book? Oh yes, I will write
it during my next sabbatical.
MMaaffaallddaa NNuullaa, who came to St. George’s in 1984, is
the head of the Spanish Department. She can be
reached at [email protected].
AAmmyy DDoorrrriieenn TTrraaiissccii has been hired to teach Spanish.Amy has both her bachelor’s degree in international studies
and master’s degree in Spanish from Middlebury College.
She has taught upper level Spanish at the Wardlaw-Har-
tridge School in New Jersey and has worked as a program
director for Harvard University, placing students in study
programs abroad. She and her husband will be moving to
Rhode Island from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
HHeeaatthh CCaappeelllloo will serve as the sabbatical replacementfor Steve Leslie in the Science Department. In the spring,
Heath was finishing his Ph.D. in aquatic ecology at the
University of Mississippi. He holds a bachelor’s degree in
marine biology with a minor in chemistry from Roger
Williams University. Capello spent two years teaching
science at the Christchurch School in Virginia before pursu-
ing his doctoral studies.
MMaatttt DD’’AAnnnnoollffoo will serve in the newly created role ofAdmission Fellow in the Admission Office. He is a graduate
of Avon Old Farms School and Central Connecticut State.
D’Annolfo will be living in Sixth Form House, coaching two
sports and working as an affiliate in a dorm.
Educational Consultant TToomm CCaallllaahhaann has been hiredto fill the newly created role of Director of Teaching and
Learning for the Merck-Horton Center for
Teaching and Learning. Callahan, an educa-
tional psychologist, has been consulting the
school for years, administering testing to students with learn-
ing differences. “Those of you who know him, I’m sure have
found him to be very bright and talented, but also very
understanding of our faculty and our curriculum,” Head of
School Eric Peterson noted in a faculty meeting in June.
Amy Dorrien Traisci
Heath Capello
Matthew D’Annolfo
Tom Callahan
PHOTO
BYKATHRYNWHITNEYLUCEY
Will iams to head Science Depar tmentHHoollllyy WWiilllliiaammss, a biology teacher at St. George’s since 1991, has beenappointed head of the Science Department. A dedicated teacher,
coach and advisor, Williams will take over the role held for the last
few years by Steve Leslie, who leaves this August with his wife, Betsy,
for a sabbatical year in Montana. Williams takes over the department at a critical
point in its history: Architects are now in the final phases of drafting plans for a
new LEED-certified facility to replace the aging Dupont Science Center.
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN66
Faculty/Staff Notes
They’ve traded in their Toyota Prius for a four-
wheel drive SUV, packed their cross-country skis and
purchased snowshoes. Good thing. The
Leslies—Steve, head of the St. George’s
Science Department since 1972, and his
wife, Betsy, associate director of admission
since 1985—may have more of a challenge getting
home this year.
The two are head-
ing to Emigrant,
Mont., for a year-long
sabbatical—and
they’re moving into an
1880’s one-room
schoolhouse about six
miles down a gravel
road, about 20 miles
north of the north-
west corner of Yellow-
stone National Park.
The Leslies, who’ve
been fixtures on the
Hilltop for decades,
have earned some time away, Head of
School Eric Peterson acknowledged last
spring. “With more than 70 years of
combined service to the school, I can’t
imagine two people who have earned
more fully a sabbatical year,” he told
faculty members at their final meeting of
the year in June.
While on sabbatical the Leslies plan
to continue their study of wolves, an
interest that began some time ago after a
visit to St. George’s by Rene Askins, who
founded the Wolf Fund in 1986 for the
purpose of reintroducing wolves into
Yellowstone. The two were scheduled to
head west in the middle of August and at
presstime were considering “ranch-sit-
ting” for the Doolittles—former director of Admission
Jay Doolittle ’56 and his wife, June—by tending to their
“two horses, one pack mule, several sheep, three lambs,
20-something chickens, and three pugs” for about two
weeks. At the same time the Doolittles were scheduled
to travel east to visit family and make their annual
fishing trip to Canada.
In September, the Leslies will head to the
schoolhouse to resume their study of the wolves,
which formally began about three years ago at the
Yellowstone Institute with wolf biologists, learning
about the efforts, the success, the populations and
the effects on the park ecosystem, and also observ-
ing the wolves in the wild. The Leslies were back in
Montana for a week last summer to watch the same
pack of wolves.
During the sabbatical, Steve said, “We’ll extend our
observations of the wolves through the calendar year.
We will also study the ecological impacts of the return
of an apex predator after 80 years of absence.”
The federal government has just removed “endan-
gered species” consideration for the wolf population in
Montana, and so there may be a first hunting season
for wolf outside the park where the Leslies will be
living, according to Steve.
The schoolhouse where the two will stay is on a
sheep ranch that has seen fairly severe degradation of
their flock by wolves from out of the park. “So we won’t
be starry-eyed idealists,” Steve said. “We’ll be immersed
in the real-world impact of wolf populations both in
and outside of the park.”
Leslie added that he and Betsy are looking for-
ward to the challenges of “remote living in a moun-
tain valley, having winter access to Yellowstone
National Park, studying policy and biology of the
reintroduced wolves, and volunteering in conserva-
tion and education. “We also hope to catch Jay
Doolittle reading from his work on Author Night at
the Pine Creek Café, and hearing Andrew Doolittle
’88 sing and play guitar at the same venue!”
Veteran faculty coupleheads west
PHOTOSCOURTESY
OFTHELESLIES
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN68
EEmmiillyy BBeeeessoonn ’05 will travel
to Mexico, Guatemala, the
Dominican Republic, Peru,
Paraguay, Tanzania, and India
this year after receiving one of
just 40 travel grants awarded
by the Thomas J. Watson
Foundation.
Each year the foundation
awards fellowship recipients—all
college seniors—$28,000 “to test
their aspirations and abilities
and develop a more informed
sense of international concern” in the year following
their graduation.
Beeson, who graduated from the University of
the South in Sewanee, Tenn., in May, will be learning
about how Mennonites have attempted to preserve
their culture.
She has titled her proj-
ect, “The Mennonite Experi-
ence with Cultural Identity
and Adaptation Abroad.”
“I plan to explore the
issues of cultural identity
and adaptation within Men-
nonite communities that
have emigrated outside
North America,” Beeson
writes in her project descrip-
tion. “Many Mennonites
have sold their land and used
the profit to emigrate to less
developed countries.
Nonetheless, in an attempt to
escape the threat to their
identity posed by develop-
ments in North American
culture, they must respond to
the challenge of preserving
that identity in the face of
many new challenges—lin-
guistic, cultural, and agricul-
tural—in an unfamiliar
environment.”
Cleveland Johnson, director of the Watson Fellow-
ship Program and a former Watson Fellow, says the
program looks for people “likely to lead or innovate in
the future and give them extraordinary independence
to pursue their interests outside of traditional academic
structures.”
One hundred seventy-seven finalists competed on
the national level in 2009, after their institutions nomi-
nated them in the autumn.
Beeson came highly recommended, according to
Stephen Miller, associate professor in the Music
Department and Sewanee’s liaison to the Watson Foun-
dation. “As the granddaughter of Mennonites, Emily
has an opportunity to explore her heritage in a way that
few of us ever can; it’s sure to have a profound impact
on the rest of her life.”
TToonnyy BBooootthh ’53, who leads caravan tours through-
out the United States for the RV company Winnebago,
was the subject of a profile in the Brown University
alumni magazine this spring.
The article, titled “On the Road Again” by
Lawrence Goodman, can be found online at
http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/content/
view/2210/40/.
“If you fly from place to place you’re going to see
the things you want to see,” Booth told Goodman, “but
for me, getting there is half the fun. There’s so much to
see along the way.”
SStteepphheenn CCoonnnneetttt JJrr.. ’86 and his love for classic
cars—and penchant for driving them—were the sub-
ject of a Providence Journal feature story.
“Driving a classic car is part of the fun” by Peter
C.T. Elsworth was published in the paper’s automotive
section on May 2, 2009.
Connett, whose collection includes a ’63 Mercury,
a ’55 Oldsmobile Super 88 convertible, a ’65 Mustang
and a ’64 Mercedes Benz 220S, told the paper “I was
always into cars and still have too many.”
But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t take time to get
them out on the road.
He says his beige rose metallic 1963 Mercury Mon-
terey sedan, which he bought in 1993 in San Diego
when he was working on the tender fleet for America3,
Emily Beeson ’05
JJuulliiee ((BBoowweenn)) LLuueettkkeemmeeyyeerrPPhhiilllliippss ’98 is known for herroles on “Boston Legal” and “Ed,” and has also appearedon “Weeds” and “Lost.” Shegave birth to twin boys Johnand Gus in May.
A L U M N I / A E I N T H E N E W SPost hilltop
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 69
the yacht that won the America’s Cup that year, was a
real workhorse.
“I drove it every day for seven years, put 40,000
miles on it,” he told Elsworth. “It was a daily driver.”
In addition to running Naiad Inflatables of New-
port, which is licensed by Naiad of New Zealand to
produce rigid hull inflatable boats, Connett is also
part owner of Park Place Holdings, a storage facility
in Portsmouth, R.I. for high-end cars.
TTiiffffaannyy BBaakkeerr ’87 is getting rave reviews for her
first novel, “The Little Giant of Aberdeen County,”
published earlier this year by Grand Central
Publishing.
The book tells the story of Truly Plaice, who is
born huge and who grows to 400 pounds. The Wash-
ington Post called the book “a gothic tale of murder,
revenge and redemption.” In his review, Ron Charles,
also a senior editor of Book World, says that “How
this elephantine woman triumphed over the town’s
most powerful man is the secret that ‘The Little
Giant of Aberdeen County’ reveals, one surprising
chapter at a time.”
He gives credit to Baker for spinning an “allur-
ing plot.”
“She tells this emotional story in a lush voice
that’s spiked with just a taste of self-pity. She has a
good sense of the dark
comedy of melodrama,
too.”
SSeelleennaa EEllmmeerr ’08
wrote to the alumni/ae
office from an Internet
café in Arusha, Tanza-
nia, this summer to
update us on her activi-
ties since completing
her first year as a More-
head-Cain Scholar at
the University of South Carolina.
She is working in a sustainable agriculture pro-
gram with Global Service Corps, teaching “biointen-
sive agriculture methods meant to help farmers
increase yield and move away from the use of toxic
and expensive fertilizers and pesticides.”
“I will soon be embarking on a four-week-long
camping expedition to rural areas, where in addition
to teaching about BIA, we will be administering
chicken vaccinations for Newcastle Disease, which is
responsible for the death of over 70 percent of Tan-
zanian chickens yearly and is a huge strain on
resources for the local people,” she wrote.
CChhaarrlleess LL.. BBuurrcckkmmyyeerr ’95 and Scott Noll, co-
founders of Knob Hill Partners in Boston, were part
of a Feb. 11, 2009, New York Times story on busi-
nesses that are thriving in a bad economy. The two
founded the firm last summer “and persuaded a
dozen investors to provide them with a total of
$500,000 in operating capital to look for promising
businesses whose owners were interested in selling.
They are searching especially for companies with
strong growth potential and price tags of $10 million
to $30 million in energy efficiency, specialty software
or information technology.”
Once they locate a company, they said, “their
investors are prepared to contribute the funds for them
to acquire it and manage it.”
Selena Elmer ’08
A L U M N I / A E I N T H E N E W S
CChhrriiss TToollaann ’07 takes in the view after completing a hike up a mountain inPatagonia, where he traveled during a study abroad program in BuenosAires, Argentina. He spent time away from Pepperdine University inMachu Picchu, Peru, and Ushuaia, Patagonia, and various places in Chileand Uruguay. “I lived with a host family that is amazing. My Spanish isway better!” he reports to his class correspondent.
PHOTO
COURTESY
OFCHRISTOLAN’07
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN70
R E C O N N E C T I N G O N T H E H I L L T O PReunion Weekend ’09
Volunteers honored with Dean Award
Sandra Thornton Whitehouse ’77, P’12 accepts the Dean Award for Michael Case Kissel ’67 (on the screen)
Former trustee David Evans accepts his award fromBill Dean ’73.
Susie Hunter P’99, ’02
Bill Briggs ’59
MMiicchhaaeell CCaassee KKiisssseell ’67; former trustees DDaavviidd EEvvaannss; SSuussiieeHHuunntteerr P’99, ’02; and BBiillll BBrriiggggss ’59 were this year’s recipients of theHoward B. Dean Service Award, which recognizes members of the
SG community whose service to the school has been exceptional.
Bill Dean ’73 helped Head of School Eric Peterson present the
awards, named in memory of his late father, on May 16 in Madeira Hall.
David Evans, now a senior admissions officer at Harvard Univer-
sity, was the first African American to assume the role of trustee at SG.
An article about him published in a 2005 edition of Harvard’s student
newspaper, the Crimson, called “From Sharecroppers’ Son To College’s
Gatekeeper,” claims that during his tenure, the black population at
Harvard multiplied 15 times. It can be found on the web at
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=509161.
Hunter, a former trustee who served on several committees, has
been a generous benefactor and a valued advisor to the school.
Kissel died of brain cancer just weeks before the ceremony. His
sister-in-law, Sandra Thornton Whitehouse ’77, P’12, accepted his
award on his behalf. He and his wife, Elena Thornton Kissel ’77, have
been dedicated fund-raisers and supporters of the school for years.
And Briggs, former director of development, has been an enthu-
siastic advocate for St. George’s and served as social chair for his class
for its 50th reunion in May.
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN 71
ST. GEORGE’S TODAYMADEIRA HALL
MAY 16, 2009
Tim Kim ’09 and Anna Mack ’09
Head of School Eric Peterson presents the Diman Award to Howard Balloch’69 in May.
PHOTOSBYRAYWOISHEK’89
Balloch is recipient of 2009 Diman AwardThe Diman Award is presented annually during
Reunion Weekend to an alumna or alumnus whose
personal accomplishments or public service contri-
butions are greatly valued by St. George’s School.
This year the award was presented to HHoowwaarrdd RR..BBaalllloocchh ’69, former Canadian ambassador to China
and an expert on Pacific Rim nations and a consult-
ant in Asian financial affairs.
Balloch is now the president and founding part-
ner of The Balloch Group, an independent advisory
and merchant banking firm that serves domestic and
international clients in China. Established in 2001,
the firm was ranked one of the top five largest merg-
ers and acquisitions and private placement advisors
by China Venture in 2007.
Mr. Balloch lives in Beijing with his wife, Liani,
and they have four children. The family spends
time in the summer back in the United States, in
Jamestown, R.I.
To read the full text of Balloch’s address to the
community, visit the login page of www.stgeorges.edu.
R E C O N N E C T I N G O N T H E H I L L T O P
Reunion Weekend 2010Reunion Weekend 2010is May 14-16
Reunion Weekend 2010is May 14-16is May 14-16
ST. GEORGE ’ S 2 0 0 9 SUMMER BULLET IN72
In 1905, the St. George’s grounds crew cut the lawn with a manual reel mower. Rest was part of the drill, as is evident from this archival
photo. At bottom right, the slim shade of a young tree lining the Main Drive provided welcome relief from the sun.
R E M E M B E R W H E N ?Hilltop archives