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B U L L E T I N 

Ralph Lee’s 

Myths & Masks 

A Command of Her Own for 

Cindy Thebaud 

TAFT ALUMNI 

Return 

to Teach 

F A L L • 2 0 0 1

B U L L E T I N 

Fall 2001 

Volume 72 Number 1 

Bulletin Staff 

Editor 

Julie Reiff 

Director of Development 

Jerry Romano 

Alumni Notes 

Anne Gahl 

Karen Taylor 

Design 

Good Design 

www.goodgraphics.com 

Proofreader 

Nina Maynard 

Bulletin Advisory Board 

Bonnie Blackburn ’84 

Todd Gipstein ’70 

Thomas P. Losee Jr. ’59 

Rachel Morton 

Nancy Novogrod P’98, ’01 

Josh Quittner ’75 

Peter Frew ’75, ex officio 

Julie Reiff, ex officio 

Bonnie Welch, ex officio 

Mail letters to: 

Julie Reiff, Editor 

Taft Bulletin 

The Taft School 

Watertown, CT 06795-2100 

ReiffJ@TaftSchool.org 

Send alumni news to: 

Anne Gahl 

Alumni Office 



TaftBulletin@TaftSchool.org 

Deadlines for Alumni Notes: 

Spring–February 15, 2002 

Summer–May 30, 2002 

Fall–August 30, 2002 

Winter–November 15, 2002 

Send address corrections to: 

Sally Membrino 

Alumni Records 



TaftRhino@TaftSchool.org 

1-860-945-7777 

www.TaftAlumni.com 

This magazine is printed 

on recycled paper. 

Page 15 Page 20 Page 28

PETER FINGER 

Page 5 

Page 9 

S P O T L I G H T 

The Man 

Behind the Masks 15 

The creator of the Greenwich Village 

Halloween Parade, Ralph Lee ’53 builds a 

life telling stories. 

By Mark Novom 

Beyond the Promise 

of Command 20 

She loved to sail as a young girl. Now U.S. 

Naval Commander Cindy Thebaud ’81 is 

taking charge of a guided missile destroyer. 

By Bill Slocum, Greenwich Magazine 

On the Other Side 

of the Desk 28 

Alumni return to their alma mater and find 

surprising rewards of teaching and a second 

life at Taft. 

By Julie Reiff 

D E P A R T M E N T S 

From the Editor 4 

Letters 4 

Alumni in Print 5 

The latest work from alumni in fiction, 

history, and tales of personal tragedy, along 

with a new HBO miniseries featuring one 

of our own from the Band of Brothers. 

Around the Pond 9 

Bishop Paul Moore, award-winning author 

Andrea Barrett, campus happenings, and a 

look back at students’ summer adventures. 

Endnote 35 

By Bishop Paul Moore 

On the Cover 

Front: Ralph Lee’s masks and puppets 

help him explore the myths and folklore 

of other cultures with his Mettawee River 

Theatre Company. 

Back: A campus scene in oil pastel by A.P. 

Studio Art student Mimi Luse ’02 

The Taft Bulletin is published quarterly, in February, 

May, August, and November, by The Taft School, 

110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100 

and is distributed free of charge to alumni, parents, 

grandparents, and friends of the school. 

E-Mail Us! 

Now you can send your latest news, address change, 

birth announcement, or letter to the editor to us via 

e-mail. Our address is TaftBulletin@TaftSchool.org. 

Of course we’ll continue to accept your communiqués 

by such “low-tech” methods as the fax machine 

(860-945-7756), telephone (860-945-7777), or U.S. Mail 

(110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100). 

So let’s hear from you! 

Taft on the Web: 

News? Stocks? Entertainment? Weather? Catch up 

with old friends or make new ones, get a job and 

more!—all at the new Taft Alumni Community online. 

Visit us at www.TaftAlumni.com. 

What happened at this afternoon's game?—Visit us at 

the new www.TaftSports.com for the latest Big Red 

coverage. 

For other campus news and events, including 

admissions information, visit our NEW main site at 

www.TaftSchool.org, with improved calendar 

features and Around the Pond stories.

L E T T E R S 

Caitlin Keys ’03 gathers with 

other students and faculty for 

a candlelight vigil, as many 

Americans did, the Friday 

evening following the attacks 

of September 11. BOB FALCETTI 

From the Editor 

Little did we know what events would rock the world the next day when we 

welcomed new students to campus on September 10. Although few Americans 

were unaffected by the tragedy, you already know from Head of School Willy 

MacMullen ’78 that our community of parents and alumni miraculously 

escaped casualties. 

Still, many of us now reference events in our lives as taking place before or 

after those terrorist attacks. It is all the more amazing to me every time I read 

them, that the remarks by the Right Reverend Bishop Paul Moore Jr. (page 35) 

were delivered to the assembled faculty on September 7. 

The role of the late David Kenyon Webster ’40 in the recent HBO miniseries 

Band of Brothers also seems astonishingly timely (page 5). So many everyday 

occurrences hold increased meaning; despite the magnitude of world events 

everything I read now reads truer. In that way, each of the alumni works highlighted 

in this issue seems somehow more poignant. 

Artist Ralph Lee ’53, our cover profile, lives only blocks from “Ground 

Zero” when he is in the city, but like his fellow New Yorkers he proved amazingly 

resilient. Like others he continued his work. 

And students here were, and continue to be, supported by our terrific faculty, 

some of whose faces may be familiar to you from your own days here. 

Some may even be your classmates (page 28). 

But no story in this issue brings my mind to the current state of world 

affairs more than the profile of Commander Cindy Thebaud ’81, and I promise 

to include an update on her activities, along with those of several of her fellow 

servicemen, in the winter issue. Please let us hear from you. 

May peace be with you all. 

—Julie Reiff 

Roommates First 

It was with pride and pleasure that I read 

question 2 of the Commencement Trivia in 

the summer issue. I am one of the granddaughters 

of Edward G. Bourne, for whom 

the history medal is named, and a daughter 

of Edward W. Bourne ’15, who with his 

sister originally funded this award. Thank 

you so very much. 

The supplied answer to the question is, 

however, not correct. Horace Taft was, in 

fact, Edward G. Bourne’s roommate at Yale. 

He died in 1908, and it was through the 

generosity of Horace Taft that all four Bourne 

boys went to Taft. My father often spoke of 

this, with a great deal of gratitude. 

Both Horace Taft and my grandfather 

were in the Class of 1883 at Yale. My grandfather 

remained there, first as a student and 

then as an instructor in history and political 

science until 1888, when he went to Adelbert 

College. In 1895, he returned to Yale as 

professor of history (he had received his 

Ph.D. from Yale in 1892) and remained 

there until his death. It appears from some of 

my grandfather’s Yale yearbooks that he and 

Horace Taft were together again briefly in 

1887. [Horace Taft was a tutor in Latin at 

Yale for three years.] By the time my grandfather 

returned to Yale in 1895, Horace Taft 

had already started his new school. 

—Margaret Bourne Pedersen 

We welcome Letters to the Editor relating to the 

content of the magazine. Letters may be edited 

for length, clarity, and content, and are published 

at the editor’s discretion. Send correspondence to: 

Julie Reiff, Editor • Taft Bulletin 

110 Woodbury Road 


or to ReiffJ@TaftSchool.org 

Correction: 

The cover image on the summer issue was 

photographed by Craig Ambrosio. Our 

apologies for the error. 

4 Taft Bulletin Fall 2001

ALUMNI IN PRINT 

Alumni 

IN PRINT 

Parachute Infantry: An American Paratrooper’s Memoir 

of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich 

by David Kenyon Webster ’40 

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1994. $29.95 

When Stephen Ambrose wrote Band of 

Brothers, the recent 10-part HBO 

miniseries produced by Tom Hanks and 

Steven Spielberg, he went right to the 

source—which included interviews with 

veterans as well as classic wartime memoirs 

like Webster’s Parachute Infantry. 

In the series, Webster is played by 

Eion Bailey (Almost Famous). Webster, 

who left Harvard in 1942 to join the 

infantry, got shot in the leg in Holland, 

but rejoined Easy Company following 

the Battle of the Bulge, and was later 

wounded a second time. 

Although Webster wrote the book 

shortly after the war, relying on his letters 

home and recollections he penned 

right after his discharge—making this 

memoir much closer to the war than 

most such works—the work was published 

many years after his death. He 

spent his career as a journalist and was 

lost at sea in 1961 while shark fishing 

off the coast of Santa Monica, California, 

leaving a wife and three children. 

“It is a bit surreal to think that 

these stories are being told after all 

these years,” Webster’s widow Barbara 

told TV Guide, “but it is just fabulous, 

because [our children] didn’t have 

a lifetime with him.” 

Band of Brothers follows the 

paratroopers of E Company from 

training in Georgia through the 

end of World War II. E Company 

jumped into Normandy 

on the night before D-Day and 

into Holland as part of Operation 

Market-Garden. The unit 

later fought in the Battle of the 

Bulge, and captured Hitler’s 

Eagle’s Nest at the end of the 

war; it suffered 150 percent 

casualties. 

Webster’s “motives for 

insisting on being a member 

of a parachute infantry 

regiment went beyond 

patriotism,” writes Stephen Ambrose in 

the introduction to Parachute Infantry. 

“Webster wanted to be a writer.” 

“I recommend this memoir,” 

Ambrose adds, “to anyone who wants 

to know more about World War II, 

about combat, about being a paratrooper, 

about discovering oneself and 

being involved when the whole world 

was being tested and threatened. It 

The author during the liberation of 

Eindhoven. Photo by Hans Wesenhagen. 

Visit www.davidkenyonwebster.com for 

more information. 

brings back a place and a time, a sense 

of commitment, the feeling of ‘we are 

all in this together’ as the United States 

and her allies fought for freedom.” 

Taft Bulletin Fall 2001 

5

NINA BRANHALL 


All the Finest Girls 

by Alexandra Styron ’83 

LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY, 2001. $23.95 

The Daily News praises Styron’s “ability to 

worry out race’s many conflicting layers,” 

while the New York Times says her writing 

“is frequently accomplished and the insights 

wise.” Read more about the book 

at twbookmark.com. 

Art restorer Addy 

Abraham lives a quiet 

existence trying to attract 

as little attention 

as possible. “I had always 

relied on the 

museum as a place where I could disappear,” 

she explains after a mental 

and physical collapse that leaves her 

numb. Upon the subsequent death of 

her childhood nanny, Addy visits the 

woman’s family in a “bid for self-preservation.” 

While there, Addy uncovers her 

nanny’s other life, learning about herself 

at the same time. Waking from some 

quasi-existential state, she begins to 

make sense of her life, to accept it for 

what it is instead of trying to hide from 

it. Rather than renounce her dysfunctional 

life for a new beginning, she finds 

comfort in the idea that loving someone 

is enough—I love, therefore I am. 

“Rarely do we take wholesale analysis 

of our lives and make 

deep discoveries. That 

isn’t how people’s lives 

work,” says author 

Alexandra Styron. “The 

act of growing up is 

accepting the tough truths and making 

the best of them. You can’t go back. 

That’s why the metaphor of art restoration; 

the aging process becomes part of 

the work, who you are.” 

Comparisons to Styron’s famous 

father were inevitable, she says, but even 

though Addy’s parents are also highprofile 

creative people who summer at 

the shore, the book—her first—truly is 

a work of fiction. 

“We all write somewhat from what 

we know. I started with this character 

and tried to imagine what would make 

a troubled child. It’s all made up.” 

A former actress, Styron lives in New 

York City and Martha’s Vineyard and was 

married in September to Ed Beason. She 

is already working on her next novel. 

Coming to Term: A Father’s Story of Birth, Loss, and Survival 

by William H. Woodwell Jr. ’81 

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI, 2001. $25 

William Woodwell with his daughter Josie. 

KIM WOODWELL 

When Kim Woodwell visited the doctor 

for a routine checkup on the progress of 

the twin girls she was carrying, she received 

startling news. 

Nearly four months before term, the 

babies would have to be delivered in a matter 

of days. Kim had preeclampsia, a rare 

condition in which a pregnant mother’s 

blood pressure soars, threatening child and 

mother. Her condition and early delivery, 

the loss of one of the twins, and the agonizing 

suspense of premature intensive 

care are covered in Woodwell’s book. 

“After the doctors left,” he writes, “I 

sat on the edge of Kim’s bed and we cried. 

It had all come to this. All the back-andforth 

about whether to have children; all 

the thinking and talking about what we’d 

need; all the books and the articles and 

the prenatal classes; all the morning sickness 

Kim had endured; and all the 

excitement about the twins. And now 

here we were, 100 miles from home in a 

hospital room in Charlottesville, Virginia, 

sixteen weeks before term and 

waiting for Kim to get sick—very sick— 



Dematerializing: Taming the Power of Possessions 

by Jane Hammerslough ’78 

PERSEUS PUBLISHING, 2001. $25 

Dematerializing is the book for the person 

who has everything—and for whom 

everything is not enough. This is not, 

however, a book about cutting material 

things out of your life, or about how 

living simply will lead to happiness. 

Rather, Hammerslough suggests— 

through examples, research, and her own 

experiences—that we take control over 

our complicated relationship with what 

we own and what we want to possess. 

“It’s a process of deciding what objects 

can and can’t do for our lives,” she writes. 

“We may not expect possessions to perform 

magic, but we sure hear about the magic of 

owning something. We hear that possessions 

promise to deliver all sorts of feelings 

and qualities such as love, belonging, control, 

authenticity. It’s easy to believe that 

objects can transform situations, turning 

Dematerializing is a personal process, 

Hammerslough tells us, with no “right” 

answers. Ask yourself why you’re acquiring 

something—out of boredom, 

frustration, or some other feeling—and 

see if there’s a better way to meet that 

need. See www.dematerializing.com for 

more information. 

things from bad to 

good, from good to 

better. Rationally, 

we know that they 

can only do so 

much, but we hear 

about the magic so 

often we begin to 

believe it to some extent.” 

Hammerslough encourages us to 

ask ourselves what we expect from our 

objects, and shows how we can work to 

retrieve that power from possessions in 

order to find what we value most. 

An award-winning journalist and college 

writing instructor, Hammerslough 

has worked as a columnist for the New 

York Post and other newspapers. Her feature 

stories and essays have appeared in 

Parenting, Child, Saveur, Travel & Leisure, 

Country Living, and other national magazines. 

She lives with her husband and two 

sons in Westport, Connecticut. 

so the doctors could cut her open and 

bring our babies into the world too early.” 

The birth of the twins later that 

week—each weighing less than a pound 

and a half—marked the start of a monthlong 

roller coaster ride that reminded the 

parents and everyone around them how 

fragile and how precious life can be. 

This is a gripping account of the 

day-to-day struggles facing the thousands 

of families every year whose 

pregnancies end far too soon and whose 

babies have to fight to survive. It offers 

a firsthand view of the anger, grief, hope, 

and the joy that can follow in the wake 

of a too-early birth. 

“And it proves,” says Woodwell, 

“that the smallest human beings can teach 

us the biggest lessons we will ever learn.” 

Woodwell, an independent writer 

and editor, is also the author of Choosing 

the President: The Citizen’s Guide 

to the 2000 Election. His work has also 

appeared in the Washington Post. 

To read an excerpt from Coming to 

Term, visit www.upress.state.ms.us or 

www.amazon.com. 

Kirkus Reviews calls the book “an absorbing 

blow-by-blow account of life and 

death in the NICU” that is “told with emotional 

honesty and couched in suspense.”

CHARLES NESBIT 


The Lost Art of Drawing the Line: 

How Fairness Went Too Far 

by Philip K. Howard ’66 

RANDOM HOUSE, 2001. $22.95 

Other books 

received in the 

Alumni Collection: 

After the release of his 

best-selling book, The 

Death of Common Sense: 

How Law is Suffocating 

America (Random House, 

1995), people asked 

Phil Howard for a solution 

to the problem. 

At first, he writes, it 

seemed obvious, “unchain 

people from 

detailed rules and bureaucratic 

process and let them take 

responsibility, to succeed or fail.” 

But it turned out not to be so simple. 

“Authority,” writes Howard, “has become 

a suspect concept, the enemy of individual 

rights.” And that is what his 

second book does: “explores the relationship 

between individual rights and 

authority in a free society.” 

There are several 

parts to the problem. 

First, in an overlylitigious 

society, where 

it is no longer even 

necessary to sue, the 

potential for litigation is 

sufficient to immobilize 

anyone tempted to do 

“the right thing.” 

Then there is the 

lack of incentive—with 

some notable exceptions—in the public 

sector. “In public service especially, any 

notion of a common purpose is pushed 

aside by obsession with personal entitlement,” 

he writes. 

And why bother if initiative is 

rarely rewarded and frequently punished? 

Still, Howard finds that leaders 

and other success stories are people who 

break a lot of rules in the name of common 

sense. That, however, takes a form 

of personal courage rarely seen today, 

when one needs to break the rules to 

do what one thinks is right. 

Howard is a partner at the New 

York law firm of Covington & Burling 

and a contributor to the op-ed pages of 

the Wall Street Journal and the New York 

Times. He has served as an advisor on 

regulatory reform to members of both 

political parties, including former Vice 

Presidents Al Gore and Bob Dole. 

“This book sits at the center of 

important questions about frivolous 

litigiousness, disdain for authority and 

the tendency of bureaucracy to stifle 

judgment and initiative…,” writes the 

New York Times, about “our failure 

to use our freedom responsibly.” 

Share your comments and suggestions 

at www.drawing-the-line.com. 

The Enthusiasms of 

Centerbrook, The Master 

Architect Series, IV 

by William H. Grover, Jefferson 

B. Riley ’64, Mark Simon, Chad 

Floyd, and James C. Childress 

AIA PRESS/ROCKPORT PUBLISHERS, 2001. $60 

A History of the United 

States According to 

Franciscus and Related 

Families (1710–2000) 

by John Allen Franciscus ’50 

The Bouchayers of 

Grenoble and French 

Industrial Enterprise 

1850–1970 

by Robert J. Smith ’53 

Take on the World! Rules 

of the Road 

by Seth Taft ’40 

Hello Cherry Tree 

by George Napier Wilson ’39 


AROUND THE POND 

pond 

Those Teaching Moments 

Describing how his high school English 

teacher sent the class outside to sit in the 

woods for two hours, to write down what 

they saw, Bishop Paul Moore talked to faculty 

at the opening meetings in September 

about “those” teaching moments—like this 

one that helped develop in him a love of 

nature—and the chances teachers have to 

touch students’ lives. 

“It was because of teachers I had, 

time I had out of class, not what they 

taught, but who they were,” he said, that 

made the difference. 

The Right Rev. Paul Moore Jr., 

bishop of New York, retired, remarked 

that “like the priesthood, teaching is 

a high privilege,… to enter the sensitive, 

secret places in someone’s mind, 

someone’s soul. In teaching, it is not 

as important who you are, but that 

you convey a genuine, caring love to 

the students.” 

Moore cited four issues—values, 

freedom, religion, and politics—as being 

the preeminent topics with which students 

are faced. Each one stirs the emotional 

adolescent mind, yet all are imperative 

to kindle the essential 

growth of human experience. 

Moore exhorted 

the faculty to make 

students aware of these 

issues and to confront 

them head-on, with 

the understanding that 

“kids are changing, you 

are changing, and the 

process continues as long 

as you are here.” 

He advised people not to avoid politics, 

that in order to change things people 

must “go to the source if they can, not 

just minister to the pain.” A man who 

more than practices what he preaches, 

Moore—among his many activities— 

serves on the board of the NAACP Legal 

Defense Fund. He was senior fellow of 

the Yale Corporation and has been a 

trustee of The General Theological Seminary, 

Berkeley Divinity School, Bard 

College, and Trinity School. He was also 

president of the Episcopal Mission Society 

and serves on the Asia committee of 

Human Rights Watch. 

Moore’s deep and unflagging interest 

in the plight of cities and his concern 

for their survival is well known, earning 

him the Social Sciences Award, the 

New York Urban League Award, and 

the Freedom of Worship Medal from 

the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt 

Institute. He has also received the 

Margaret Sanger Award of Planned 

Parenthood, the Alumni Medal from 

St. Paul’s School, and the General John 

Russell Leadership Award of the United 

States Marine Corps. 

Excerpts from his remarks to the 

faculty are on page 35. 


9


For the Love of Writing 

Author Andrea Barrett talks with seniors Nick Fisser and Sarah Bromley before her presentation 

at Morning Meeting in September. PETER FINGER 

Author Andrea Barrett describes her love 

for writing as the one constant for her 

throughout a ten-year period in which she 

held 13 different jobs, “none pleasant or 

well-paying or interesting in any way.” 

Barrett, whose short story collection 

Ship Fever won the National Book 

Award for fiction in 1996, spoke to a 

packed audience in Bingham Auditorium 

in September. 

Barrett urged Taft’s students to be 

“passionate in pursuit of their interests, 

regardless of what those interests are.” 

A self-described “geek,” Barrett noted 

that she, like many writers and adolescents, 

felt awkward expressing herself 

publicly, but was at home alone in a 

dark room putting down her thoughts 

on paper. “When I am writing, the 

world just drifts by,” she said. 

Following her talk, Barrett attended 

several English classes and met informally 

with aspiring authors. “I felt in each class 

that I was in the company of those who 

really cared about books and reading,” 

Barrett said. “Really there is no greater 

gift for a writer.” 

Ship Fever was required summer 

reading for all Taft students and faculty. 

Her visit to Taft was sponsored by the 

Paduano Lecture Series, established to 

bring speakers and groups to the school 

to share their diverse and culturallyenriching 

experiences with the community. 

A Taste of Tibet 

Bingham Auditorium was filled with chanting earlier this 

fall as ten Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Drepung 

Gomang Monastic University performed from the Milarepa 

festival, a traditional Tibetan cultural pageant featuring harmonic 

overtone chanting of traditional prayers, accompanied 

PETER FREW ’75 

by temple instruments including horns, flutes, bells, and 

drums. The event provided the community with a fascinating 

and warm glimpse into Tibetan culture in general, and 

the ritual lives of monks in particular. The evening performance 

was open to the public. 

The purpose of the monks’ 14-month tour was to share 

the compassion and wisdom of the ancient Tibetan Buddhist 

culture with the West while raising funds to insure the survival 

of this culture-in-exile. The original monastery was 

founded in 1416 and was reestablished in South India under 

the direction of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, in 1969. There 

are close to 1,500 monks studying at the monastery. 

The performance was the last of the monks’ tour of 

North America, and the second of two visits to Taft, the first 

in October 2000 when they spent several days creating a 

sand mandala. The monks’ visit was again sponsored by the 

Paduano Lecture Series in Philosophy and Ethics. 

“We were honored and thrilled to welcome the monks 

back to our campus,” said Taft’s Chaplain Michael Spencer, 

“as they are a unique and compelling group who reached 

out to our entire community in a singular manner.” 



Opening Day 

William R. MacMullen ’78 welcomed 

187 new students and parents on September 

10 as he began his tenure as 

Taft’s fifth head of school. New students 

join 369 old boys and girls, 

bringing this year’s enrollment to 556. 

They were selected from a competitive 

applicant pool of nearly 1,400 candidates 

and hail from 35 states and 25 

foreign countries; 21 percent are students 

of color and 33 percent were 

awarded $3,300,000 in financial aid. 

In his opening address to the 

faculty, MacMullen called on them 

to awaken the intellect in each child. 

“If you came into teaching because you 

were passionate about working with 

adolescents, you entered a profession 

that needs you more than ever,” he said. 

“I think we are all charged and entrusted 

to give to the intellectual community, 

but we are never off duty, in the dorm, 

the dining room, and in the halls. Our 

willingness to make contact is imperative. 

That is where we do some of our 

best teaching. That is where we touch, 

perhaps, most often.” 

Faculty Show 

Visual arts teachers Claudia Black, Loueta Chickadaunce, and Laura Harrington 

exhibited the fruits of their summer labors at a faculty show in the Mark Potter 

’48 Art Gallery. The exhibit ran through October 28, followed by the works of 

the late Andrew Heminway ’47. His work was on display through December 8. 

Works by first semester visual art students will follow in January, with an opening 

reception for that show on January 4. Please check the website for more 

details: www.TaftSchool.org. 

Barclay’s Room 

After a while a classroom becomes 

more than an assemblage 

of desks and chalkboards; it begins 

to take on the personality 

of its teachers. And so it 

seemed only fitting that the 

room in which Barclay 

Johnson ’53 taught English to 

so many students in his 39 

years at the school should also 

bear his likeness even after his 

retirement. Head of School 

Willy MacMullen ’78 and the 

other members of the English 

Department gathered for the 

dedication in September. 


11

BOB FALCETTI 


New Faces on the Faculty: 

Elizabeth F. Barisser, Dance 

Michael F. Berger, Teaching Fellow in Physics 

Neil C. Cifuentes, Spanish 

Kevin E. Conroy, Spanish 

Athena D. Fliakos, English 

Kathleen M. Fox, Teaching Fellow in English 

Michael L. Friesner, Carpenter Teaching Fellow in French 

Dana C. Hardy, Chemistry 

Simon Rhys Jones, French 

Ginger O’shea, Admissions, Psychology 

Maria Pilar Santos Pestonit, Spanish 

Gina Sauceda, History 

Sunny Sharma, Physics, Chemistry 

Daniel M. Sheff, Mailliard Teaching Fellow in Spanish 

Kumudini Yapa, Mathematics 

Jennifer L. Zaccara, English 

Light a Candle 

Students held two candlelight vigils following the terrorist 

attacks on September 11, one on Tuesday evening, 

and another with the rest of the nation that Friday night. 

“The sun was just going down as we gathered by the 

pond,” said Chaplain Michael Spencer, “and as we 

looked over beyond the Arts and Humanities Center 

there was this amazing sky, and it reflected with our 

candles on the water. It was a sad but beautifully moving 

moment to watch hundreds of students and teachers 

come together this way.” 

In his letter home to the community, Head of 

School Willy MacMullen ’78 shared the unbelievable 

news that, although many faculty and students knew 

someone who was lost, no parent or alumnus was listed 

among the dead and missing. 

Efforts to help the victims continued on campus 

as students “showed a resilience and a generosity of heart 

that brought faith to us all,” Willy wrote. 

Alumna Speaks Out 

Kippy Phelps ’79 returned to campus in October with her 

teen theatre troupe called SPEAK-OUT, a group of gay, lesbian, 

bisexual, and straight teens who use improvisational 

drama as a tool to promote diversity and transform homophobia. 

The troupe spoke openly with students and 

faculty at a question-and-answer session following their skits. 

“I was pleasantly surprised,” said Phelps, “at the number of 

students who felt comfortable enough to ask questions.” 

“We were very pleased with the widespread discussion 

and questioning of beliefs, with respect to people’s 

sexual orientation, that SPEAK-OUT provoked among 

both students and faculty,” said Diversity Committee cochair 

Jon Willson ’82. “Obviously, not all agreed with 

SPEAK-OUT’s message, but the goal was to promote introspection 

and discussion, not to change minds, and we 

feel that that goal was achieved.” 



Summer Explorations 

Instead of fireworks and a barbecue on the 

Fourth of July, imagine walking through 

tobacco fields and listening to Fidel Castro 

speak on Cuban Independence Day, as Ali 

Rickards ’02 did last summer while working 

on a documentary film. Hers is just 

one of hundreds of incredible student adventures 

over the summer break. Here are 

a few of the more unusual or noteworthy: 

• Writers • 

Senior Sera Reycraft won the Pulitzer 

Award at the High School Journalism Program 

hosted by Regis College and UMass 

Boston. Sera served as the news editor for 

their paper, while Dennis Liu ’02, who 

also participated, served as editor-in-chief. 

Jess Haberman ’02 attended the Sewanee 

Young Writers Conference. Julie Church 

’03 and seniors Grace Morris, Elena 

Sorokin, and Greg Stevens spent a week 

in August working at the Yale Daily News. 

Ali Rickards ’02 explores Cuba’s viñales, tobacco fields, for a documentary film she is 

working on that looks at the effects of communism on the people of that country. 

• Entrepreneurs • 

Jordan Gussenhoven ’02 did more than 

talk trash this summer, he did something 

about it. Jordan and his friend Charles 

Wilson created their own company, Intracoastal 

Recycling, to earn some money 

while helping the environment. “To be 

honest,” Jordan told the Morning Star 

[Wilmington, NC], “I was surprised 

somebody hadn’t done this before.” They 

plan to resume their work next summer, 

and to expand their customer base on 

Figure Eight Island and other nearby areas 

still not served by the county. 

• Immersion • 

Jessie Little ’03 took a leap of faith when 

she packed an extra large suitcase and 

took a twelve-hour flight to Japan to 

spend a month in the little town of 

Komatsu. After only two years of Japanese 

at Taft, Jessie immersed herself in 

the culture and found the experience and 

the people very rewarding. Although she 

has traveled to many continents, Asia 

was, she says, “by far the best.” 

Poole Fellow David Gambone ’03 shared a love of football with his new friends at a 

summer camp in St. Lucia. 

• Competition • 

This summer crew captain Ted Thompson 

’02 rowed the pair-with (2+) for the 

Men’s Junior National Crew. After six 

weeks of selection and training in Philadelphia 

on the Schukyl River, the team 

(8+, 4+, 2+, 2x, 1x) flew to Duisburg, 

Germany, for the World Championship. 

Ted’s boat placed eighth in the pair-with 

event, losing in the B finals to Yugoslavia, 

whom they had beaten the day before. 

Audrey Banks ’02 spent nearly the 

entire summer competing in horse shows 

everywhere from Vermont to Saratoga, 


13


Ted Thompson ’02, center, warms 

up on the race course in Duisburg, 

Germany, where he placed 8th in the 

World Championship pair-with event. 

TED WALKLEY 

NY, in order to accumulate points to 

qualify for regional and national finals 

this fall. She competed in the national 

AHSA medal finals in Harrisburg, PA, 

as well as the New England Finals in October, 

for which she qualified over the 

summer. Her sister Emily ’04 also qualified 

for the New Englands. 

• Artists • 

Anton Yupangco ’03 participated in the 

Lee Strasburg Acting Workshop in Los 

Angeles through Taft’s Kilbourne Fellowship. 

Seniors Tom Keidel, who studied 

jazz at the Berklee College of Music in 

Boston, and Mimi Luse, who studied 

art at the Massachusetts College of Art, 

were the other two recipients. 

• Fellowships • 

Although she was originally headed for 

Nepal, political unrest there sent Kirsten 

Pfeiffer ’03 to northern India instead on 

a Where There Be Dragons program. 

Traveling briefly to Bangkok and Delhi, 

the group embarked on two multiday 

treks through the Ladakh mountains, 

visited a local school where they learned 

more about the Tibetan-influenced 

Ladakhi culture, and later saw the Taj 

Mahal. Kirsten’s stay with a “gracious and 

hospitable” family was among the highlights 

of her travels, along with meeting 

the Karmapa (a religious leader second 

to the Dalai Lama), ex-political prisoners, 

a reincarnate Lama who gave the 

group a lesson in Tibetan Buddhism, and 

respected radical writer and activist 

Lahsang Tsering. 

For someone who had never traveled 

very far from Watertown, David Gambone 

’03 expanded his horizons and ventured to 

the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, where 

he taught the game of “American football” 

to the children at a summer camp. 

Taylor Snyder ’02 in Nasiui Coso, Fiji, 

with her host brother Jim at the sauusauu, 

a gift-giving ritual in which her 

adopted family says good-bye. 

Marci McCormack ’02 went to 

Virgin Gorda, where her group of 21 

teens built a park, painted a church hall, 

ran a summer camp, taught swimming 

lessons for local children, helped vaccinate 

goats for local farmers, and worked 

on building a dock for a local beach. 

On her Cuban adventure, Ali Rickards 

’02 lived in Ernest Hemingway’s town of 

Cojimar, just a few miles outside Havana. 

Traveling with Putney-Excel, she went to 

film in viñales (tobacco fields), the Bay 

of Pigs, in addition to her Castro sighting 

on Independence Day. Ali was one 

of 11 Poole grant recipients, along with 

David, Marci, and seniors Faith Rose, 

Blair Boggs, Andrew Yarbrough, Taylor 

Snyder, Christina Jankowski, Dan Riley, 

Marc Moorer, and Elise Mariner. 

Faculty member Lynette Sumpter ’90 examines wood-carved rhinos in one of the 

many images from her West African photojournal. 

• By Example • 

Not to be outdone, faculty member 

Lynette Sumpter ’90 traveled to Ghana, 

West Africa, on a Davis Fellowship, creating 

a photojournal for Taft on the history 

of the transatlantic slave trade. Two of the 

largest slave castles in West Africa (from 

where most Africans were transported) are 

in Ghana: Elmina Castle and Cape Coast 

Castle. “It was a great experience to visit 

these historical sites,” she said, “and to 

experience the present cultures of Ghana.” 


The Man Behind 

Masks 

the By Mark Novom 

The creator of the Greenwich Village Halloween 

Parade, Ralph Lee ’53 builds a life telling stories.

“ Do you have a favorite moment in your career?” I ask Ralph Lee as we sit 

on the porch of his house in Salem, New York. 

“Sometimes there are moments in these outdoor performances 

that are just really earth shattering. The moon comes out at the right moment. 

We were doing this play that had this huge monster that came on and devoured 

all creatures. And it happened that it rained earlier in the day, so there was a lot 

of ground fog. And man, this creature came out of the fog and flew.” 

I arrived here two hours earlier at 10:40 

in the morning—this small town near the 

Adirondack Mountains. A four-hour 

drive from Taft, it is a straight shot up 

Route 22 just west of the New York- 

Vermont border. I turned left onto a dirt 

road. I feel that I have less control of the 

car. About half a mile down, a moderately 

sized white house stands in a 

clearing. I pull into the driveway, which 

is grass with wear and tear tire tracks. 

The house is pure country. A porch 

with an old rocking chair and bench. 

What looks like a converted old milktruck 

with the words “Mettawee River 

Theatre Company” sits parked under a 

tree. The only sound is crickets rubbing 

their legs together. The door is open. I 

knock and peer through the screen. No 

one is home. I’m twenty minutes early, 

so I decide to sit on the bench, read, and 

wait for Ralph Lee. 

A couple of minutes later, a woodpaneled 

station wagon made years before 

the SUV craze pulls into the grassy driveway. 

Two-by-fours are strapped to the 

top and bags of asphalt litter the back— 

supplies for a new roof over a shed. 

Previous page: 

From a production of Psyche 

Ralph Lee ’53 at his home in Salem, NY 


Ralph drives. He steps out of the car and 

a cairn terrier jumps out with him. “Have 

I kept you long?” he asks politely through 

his short, white beard. 

He sits in the rocking chair and 

offers me something to drink. His boots 

are untied. His dark blue khakis are as 

worn-in as his reddish button-down shirt. 

He looks like a man who has spent the 

better part of the past fifty years working 

with his hands. 

“I grew up in Middlebury, Vermont. 

My parents worked there,” Ralph begins 

while keeping a watchful eye on Bluebell, 

the cairn terrier, who has been 

running in the front lawn. 

“From the time I was seven, theater 

was it,” he laughs. “I was in a oneroom 

schoolhouse for the first four 

years and my first performance was in 

a Halloween play.” 

Living in Middlebury helped Ralph 

develop his passion for theater. “Whenever 

they needed a kid to be in a play, there I 

was.” He laughs again. His mother taught 

modern dance and his father, an amateur 

writer, was dean of men. Also, a summer 

stock theater that made its home in 

Middlebury let Ralph paint the scenery, and 

he performed puppet shows for schools and 

birthday parties when he was twelve. 

I watch Ralph as he recalls his childhood. 

I am envious. Some people live 

their entire lives without finding their 

passion. And here is this man who has 

done it for the past fifty-five years. 

He arrived at Taft in the early ’50s. 

Even though it took him some time to 

fit in, Ralph soon found a home in the 

theater department. He built the sets for 

a number of plays, but did little acting. 

Ralph cajoles the god Jupiter into acceptable 

behavior during a rehearsal. 


17

Later at Amherst, Ralph directed 

his first plays: Chekhov’s The Marriage 

Proposal and a couple of original pieces 

written by his roommate. 

After two years studying modern 

dance in Paris on a Fulbright grant and 

acting in London, Ralph returned to 

New York City hoping to make a career 

as a performer. There, performing occasionally 

on Broadway, he stumbled upon 

Julian Beck’s The Living Theater—the 

pioneer in American avant-garde theater 

in the 1960s. 

“I was interested in what they were 

doing. I just went by there and asked 

them if they needed anybody to make 

them masks,” he says. 

Ralph also started acting at Joseph 

Chaiken’s Open Theater—another leading 

experimental theater in the 1960s. 

“You just felt like you were doing something 

beyond rehearsing a show and 

performing. You were exploring the 

whole idea of what acting was about and 

I was really happy. I felt that there was 

no place in this world I’d rather be. To 

The Mettawee River Theatre Company, 

founded in 1975, creates original theater 

productions which incorporate 

masks, giant figures, puppets, and 

other visual elements, drawing on 

myths, legends and folklore of the 

world’s many cultures for its material. 

The company is committed to bringing 

theater to people who may have 

little or no access to live professional 

theater. Each year Mettawee presents 

outdoor performances in rural communities 

of upstate New York and New 

England as well as performing in the 

New York City area. For more information, 

a full schedule, or to view images 

from the company’s 26 years’ of productions, 

visit www.Mettawee.org. 

feel that way was really great.” Ralph 

worked at the Open Theater on and off 

for five years. 

Ralph hears a car approaching. He 

continues speaking with his head turned 

toward the dirt road in front of his 

house. A black pickup truck drives by. 

The driver waves. Ralph waves back. He 

turns back to me and continues talking 

through his smile. 

Soon after his involvement in the 

New York experimental theater scene of 

the 1960s, Ralph taught at Bennington 

College in Vermont during the spring 

of 1974. He was to direct a play with 

the undergraduates. After toying with 

the idea of directing a Bertolt Brecht 

play, Ralph came up with a better idea. 

“I had made all these masks and 

giant puppets and I had them lying 

around, so I thought, why don’t I just 

put them all together and see what kind 

of show I could do and incorporate 

them? So we did this very loose play that 

took place outdoors and went all around 

the Bennington campus.” 

This outdoor production was the 

genesis for another one of Ralph’s ideas 

that would soon grow beyond expectations: 

the Greenwich Village Halloween 

Parade. It started out very small with 

him begging his friends to participate, 

but now attracts over 20,000 marchers 

and nearly 2 million spectators, requires 

a police motorcade, and is televised nationally. 

Ralph stayed on as parade 

director for twelve years and bowed out 

when it became too big. 

Many of Ralph’s puppets and masks 

from other productions have also appeared 

in the parade. He has received commissions 

from the Lincoln Center Repertory 

Theatre, New York Shakespeare Festival, 

Joffrey Ballet, and NBC’s Saturday Night 

Live (the land shark). He is now content 

being the head of the Mettawee River 

Theatre Company, founded in 1975 by 

some of his former Bennington students. 

A year later, they asked him to come on 

board as artistic director. All of the founding 

members have moved on except for 

one, Casey Compton, his wife and company 

manager. 

Why bring theater to upstate New 

York? Ralph got tired of doing it in New 

York City, “which is such a glut of theater.” 

“One thing that is very important 

to me is the whole idea of bringing theater 

to places that don’t have any. People 

are so excited and grateful that you are 

making an impact on their lives. Every 

show I do uses a lot of visual elements 

such as masks and puppets. We’re exploring 

different ways of storytelling.” 

And what kind of stories does he tell? 

“We have spent many times over 

the years working with folklore in one 

culture or another—from Navaho and 

Iroquois creation myths to Greek, Egyptian, 

or Eskimo stories. Most myths and 

legends deal with natural phenomena. 

I just feel like people today tend to lose 

sight of the natural world. I never try 

to preach a lesson with my plays, but I 

feel that they’re such rich stories that 

people can pull whatever they want 

from them.” 

Ralph now makes an annual pilgrimage 

to Chiapas, Mexico, to help the Mayan 

writers’ collective—not trained actors— 

create their own shows based on local 

legends. There, even with the language 


arrier, he and his Mayan actors have been 

able to produce meaningful theater that 

touches many. “For them Spanish is the 

language of the oppressor. The performance 

may start in Spanish then slip into 

their own Mayan language and the performance 

becomes much more musical 

and spontaneous. They really enjoy playing 

around with words.” 

At times a professor (he is on the 

faculty at New York University and has 

taught at Hamilton, Hampshire, and 

Smith colleges as well as Bennington) 

or, for many years now, an artist-in-residence 

at the Cathedral of St. John the 

Divine in New York City, you can tell 

that Ralph really enjoys what he does. 

Bruce Fifer, Taft’s choral director 

and head of the Arts Department, was 

formerly director of music and head of 

productions at St. John the Divine. In 

1985, he was actually responsible for 

bringing Ralph to the Cathedral, and 

for about ten years, they collaborated in 

numerous productions. The Boar’s Head 

Festival, Wildman, Halloween procession 

of ghosts and ghouls, and their very 

moving staged production of Bach’s 

St. John Passion, are some of the highlights 

of their creative years there together. 

Ralph readjusts himself in his rocking 

chair, trying to get comfortable. He 

looks down at Bluebell and smiles. He 

is a man whose job is his passion. I hope 

we all could be that lucky. 

So when I ask him if he has a favorite 

moment, I expect him to say that it 

was that first Halloween parade in the 

Village, or when his company won a 

Village Voice Obie Award in 1991, or 

when in 1996 Ralph received a New 

York State Governor’s Arts Award, or in 

1998 when the New York Public Library 

for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center 

presented an exhibition of his work. 

Instead, after thinking back over his 

career, a smile emerges behind his white 

beard, and he says, “We were doing this 

play that had this huge monster that 

came on and devoured all creatures…” 

and he tells the story of an audience 

being moved by a huge puppet monster 

emerging out of a natural ground fog 

that happened to be passing by at the 

right moment. 

“I want this experience to be woven 

into the audience’s lives. Not to be 

something that is totally apart from 

them. I want them to be included.” 

They are, Ralph. We are. 

Mark Novom is a member of the English 

Department and has written and directed 

some of his own plays at Taft, including oneacts 

Bagging Groceries and Morning Way. 

The Woman Who Fell From the Sky 

SAM ZUCKERMAN 


19

She loved to sail 

as a young girl. 

Now U.S. Naval 

Commander 

Cindy Thebaud ’81 

is taking charge 

of a guided 

missile destroyer. 

By Bill Slocum, 

Greenwich Magazine 

BEYOND the Promise 

COMMAND 

of

The cigarette boat slammed through the rough 

Caribbean chop, twin engines on full throttle. 

The man at the controls swerved his vessel 

hard from port to starboard, leaving behind a serpentine 

wake. The rest of the crew lifted bales of 

cargo and threw them overboard. Not a hundred 

yards behind, a 563-foot guided-missile cruiser 

barreled after them, closing fast. 

On the bridge of the USS Ticonderoga 

all was dark except the dim, green glow 

that pulsated from a handful of control 

monitors. Cynthia Thebaud ’81, then a 

lieutenant commander in the United 

States Navy and executive officer of the 

Ticonderoga, peered out through her 

night-vision goggles as the evening’s prey 

disappeared and reappeared from under the 

cruiser’s bow. It was late November 1998. 

Cindy had assumed her duties as the ship’s 

second-in-command just days before. 

“There were times we worried we 

might have run over the boat, because 

we were right on top of it,” she recalls. 

“The attitude on the bridge was quiet and 

professional, but there was an electricity 

in the air, a good, positive tenseness. You 

had to keep track of this guy and be attentive 

to how you were handling the 

ship. We had a helo overhead we had to 

keep track of, and call on if we needed 

light. And one of the LEDETs (Law Enforcement 

Detachment personnel) said 

he saw someone on the boat with a gun.” 

The chase finally ended more than 

three hours after it began, when the cigarette 

boat blew an engine. The boarding 

party from the Ticonderoga found nothing 

except an empty cargo bay and a crew 

who claimed it was enjoying an evening 

joyride off the Colombian coast. Any cocaine 

bales it may have been carrying were 

deep underwater. 

As far as the war on drugs went, no 

cartel lord in Cali was going to lose sleep 

over this one. But looking out at the cigarette 

boat roped to the Ticonderoga’s side, 

Cindy felt a small measure of satisfaction. 

“A lot of the time, in the Navy, you 

don’t get to see a lot in the way of positive 

results when you do your job, but 

here you did,” she says. “You don’t have 

the drugs, but they don’t have them, 

either. So it has the same effect, because 

the drugs aren’t being brought into the 

country,” 

Positive results mean a lot to this 

Navy officer, and have since she earned 

her commission upon graduation from 

Annapolis in 1985. Soon Commander 

Cynthia Thebaud will reap her most positive 

result in uniform when she assumes 

command of the guided-missile destroyer 

USS Decatur. Turning down Brown for a 

Navy career has never felt more worth it. 

She calls her first command assignment 

“a culmination point.” 

It’s more than a personal milestone. 

Cindy is one of four women slated to 

captain a destroyer by the end of 2002, 

duty which has up to now been filled 

entirely by men. Throw out terms like 

“pioneer” and “example,” though, and 

she groans: “There’s enough going on 

as it is when you’re in command of a 

ship. You don’t need the public looking 

over your shoulder.” 

Previous page, left: With the 

USS Hayler looming in the 

background, its chief engineer 

Cindy Thebaud poses with 

retired Capt. Robert Hayler, a 

former commander of several 

ships and a son of the admiral 

for whom the Spruance class 

destroyer is named. 

Right: Now a full-fledged 

naval commander, Cindy looks 

over the side of the USS Kinkaid 

for other ships in the harbor. 


Much of Cindy’s control was honed 

from her exposure to the sea, a journey 

that began when she was not yet in the 

fourth grade and the prospect of going 

out on her parents’ sloop for an afternoon 

filled her with dread. 

“She hated the tipping of the boat,” 

recalls her mother Sally, a former chemistry 

teacher at the old Rosemary Hall 

school when it was based in Greenwich. 

Sally raised Cindy and her two younger 

sisters, Beth and Ander, in north Greenwich 

with her husband Mike, a program 

engineer at IBM now retired. “Her sisters 

would tease her because she clung so to 

the side. But she got over it. We told her 

we were going out sailing, and we weren’t 

going to hire a babysitter. By the time she 

was ten or eleven, she couldn’t wait to go 

out. Now I don’t think you could put 

enough sail on a boat to please her.” 

The Thebauds were, and Cindy’s 

parents remain, members of the American 

Yacht Club in Rye, a place Cindy 

credits for her development as a sailor. 

By the time she came to Taft, Cindy was 

an eager member of the school’s highly 

touted sailing team. 

“The Navy ran a couple of high 

school regattas I’d go down and race in,” 

Cindy recalls. “Once a year, they’d host a 

regatta at Annapolis. There’d be people 

there who had sailed the Great Lakes, 

people from California, from the Gulf 

Coast. One of the reasons the Navy does 

this is for recruiting.” 

It worked on Cindy. When it came 

time for college, Cindy had Annapolis 

down on her short list along with Brown. 

She collected the necessary letters of recommendation 

from Senator Abe Ribicoff 

and Congressman Stewart McKinney. 

Sally knew which school she wanted her 

daughter at: the one without the uniform 

requirement and a mandatory five-year 

postgrad service commitment. “It’s like 

joining a nunnery,” she remembers thinking 

of Annapolis, “only when you become 

a nun, you can get out before five years.” 

But Cindy heard a different drum. 

Both Brown and Annapolis had sterling 

academic credentials, but at Brown, undergraduates 

wrote their own majors and 

designed their own curriculums. For 

someone who always sought a degree of 

structure in her life, Annapolis was more 

attractive. 

“It was 1980, too, the year the Ivies 

just went over ten grand a year,” Cindy 

says. “It seems like a pittance now, but 

back then it was a big deal. So either you 

paid a huge tuition at Brown or you got 

paid an active-duty midshipman’s stipend 

at the Naval Academy!” 

Cindy crawls out of a foxhole 

during a summer training session 

between her second and third 

year at the Naval Academy. 

Young Cindy was not particularly 

fond of being on the water, 

but since her parents were sailors, 

she had to accept it. Now 

as a Naval commander, she will 

live months at a time on the sea. 

There is life beyond the 

ocean blue. Cindy, at far left, 

joined the women’s glee club 

at the Naval Academy. When 

she can get away, she loves to 

drive in a convertible—with the 

top down. 

Sisters Beth, Ander, and 

Cindy enjoy a happy moment 

during a Christmas reunion.

Sally got over her misgivings about 

Annapolis; but even with her boardingschool 

background, Cindy’s transition 

was not easy. “She would call us sometimes, 

especially the first two years, when 

she was bumming,” Sally remembers. 

“We’d worry, but she’d have forgotten it 

already when we brought it up later.” 

“There are not a lot of sounding 

boards at the academy,” Mike adds. “The 

chaplains were helpful. One day a chaplain 

spotted her in the library looking sad 

and asked if something was the matter. 

She said there was, and he told her to be 

at his office at three the next afternoon. 

That’s one good thing about Annapolis, 

the counselors can order you to come talk 

about your problems.” 

Cindy describes her deepening involvement 

in the Navy as a series of 

progressions, “not a snap decision at any 

one point.” When it came time to decide 

whether to commit at the end of her 

sophomore year, Cindy decided to stay 

where she was. She thought seriously 

about getting out a few years later, though, 

while running the propulsion system of 

the destroyer tender USS Prairie. 

“I didn’t particularly like some of the 

people I was working with, and I didn’t 

find my job that rewarding,” she recalls. 

“But the captain at the time told me I 

was crazy not to stay in the Navy. He said: 

‘Stop this nonsense and baloney. You’re 

not getting out.’ ” 

She didn’t, and then in 1988, she 

was named the ship’s navigator. “It was 

a big step up for me, a big responsibility,” 

she says. 

Baby steps were more what Cindy 

was used to at the time. Throughout the 

1980s, women in the U.S. Navy hardly 

enjoyed equal footing with their male 

counterparts. When she accepted her 

commission, the Combat Exclusion Law 

forbade women to serve on any vessel 

with weapons systems on board, effectively 

limiting her to logistical ships like 

tenders and oilers. Between stints at sea, 

she did time as a NROTC instructor and 

as an intern with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

Getting her subordinates to accept 

her orders wasn’t easy, either, especially 

in the eighties. There was resistance from 

some male personnel who didn’t think 

Cindy or any other woman should be in 

a position of authority on their ship and 

weren’t subtle about letting her know it. 

“People had to be careful not to be 

overt about it, there were rules, but 

people told me I had no business being 

in the job I was in,” she says. “It wasn’t 

everyone, or most people, but enough 

that I noticed. Even just one would have 

been enough for me to have noticed.” 

There was another kind of attitude 

Cindy had to deal with, too, among 

many she had known in her youth. “In 

the early eighties, military service wasn’t 

the profession of choice in the mainstream, 

not among upper-class people, 

anyway,” she said. “It certainly wasn’t 

looked upon as a great career choice by 

people I grew up with. That was probably 

a good reason why I didn’t maintain 

close contact with a lot of them.” 

Sally remembers a time when she 

was with her daughter at Yale University, 

which Navy was about to play in a football 

game. Cindy was in uniform with 

the other midshipmen, and, as they 

walked across the New Haven campus, 

Ivy undergraduates sneered and made 

derogatory comments. 

“Cindy and her fellow plebes just ignored 

them,” Sally says. “A few older 

people, in their forties and fifties, stopped 

to tell the kids they were proud of them, 

which was nice.” 

Much has changed, Cindy notes. 

Military service today is looked upon in 

a different and more favorable light. 

Cindy credits the success of Operation 

Desert Storm for much of this. And 

through the 1990s, the U.S. Navy gradually 

lifted bans on women serving in all 

On the USS Kinkaid Cindy is 

ever on the alert. 

Headed for some R and R in 

Istanbul, Turkey, are Cindy, 

right, and her three officers (all 

the officers in the engineering 

department were women). 


ut submarine or SEAL commando capacities. 

It’s a change reflected in the 

warmer climate Cindy says female servicemen 

experience today. 

While feminists may feel gratitude 

toward Cindy, she is no willing critic 

when it comes to discussing current practices. 

Asked how she feels about the 

continued restriction on submarine duty, 

Cindy claims there is more going on than 

blinkered sexism. “How would you like 

it if your sister slept in a bunk surrounded 

by men?” she asks. “Now in Sweden that 

wouldn’t be a problem, and that’s why 

they have women in submarines there. 

It’s a cultural issue.” 

Bob McCullough of Riverside, a 

former lieutenant commander and thirtyyear 

member of Annapolis’s seamanship 

studies oversight committee, recalls his 

own reservations about women serving 

on warships. “I didn’t think it was such a 

hot idea,” says McCullough, who commanded 

a destroyer escort during World 

War II. But meeting Cindy at veterans’ 

reunions the Navy has hosted over the 

years helped change his mind. 

“I would say she’s equally as impressive 

as the men in her situation,” he says. 

“In fact, she’s outstanding. I was on the 

Fales Committee at the Naval Academy 

[an advisory committee] for years, and 

I got to know a lot of the young officers. 

She represents the very best of them. 

She’s a very meticulous person, a fine 

personality, and commands the respect 

of her colleagues.” 

One colleague is Commander Rob 

Newell, the public affairs officer of the 

U.S. Pacific Fleet, which is headquartered 

in San Diego. There, Cindy works 

as the executive assistant to the U.S. 

Pacific Fleet’s commander, Vice Admiral 

Ed Moore. 

“I’ve been in the Navy fifteen years, 

and I’ve seen a lot of EAs, but she’s the best,” 

Newell said. “She knows immediately what 

is important and needs to be focused on. 

She can juggle a lot of balls in the air. 

Also, more important, she is a professional 

surface-warfare officer, so she has an essential 

understanding of what goes on.” 

Cindy’s surface-warfare background 

consists of having served on five vessels 

since receiving her commission, going 

from communications officer on a 

weapons-testing ship to command of the 

engineering department of an oiler. 

She never did get to serve on an amphibious 

vessel, which she recalls as 

something of a disappointment. Though 

never in a combat situation, she was on 

the Prairie in the eighties when it was 

stationed at the mouth of the Strait of 

Cindy gets pinned—but this 

time in the Navy—by husband 

Mike and VDM Ed Moore, 

right, to the rank of commander 

in July 2000. 

As photographers snapped 

away, Cindy, who graduated 

near the top of her 

class, received her diploma 

from President Ronald 

Reagan on Commissioning 

Day, May 22, 1985.

Hormuz; American ships farther along 

the channel protected tankers passing 

through from attack. 

Talking about the Hormuz operation 

brings up the issue of military 

mishaps and their sometimes-tragic consequences. 

Whether it was the shooting 

down of a commercial airliner during the 

Hormuz operation, or this year’s fatal 

sinking of a Japanese fishing boat by a 

submarine, the cases point up in Cindy’s 

mind the need for “training, training, 

training, and more training.” 

“Everything you do is a risk assessment,” 

she says. “If I’m a stock fund 

manager, I’m playing with people’s 

money. When you are out underway on 

a ship, it’s people’s lives.” 

Last year was a defining time for 

Cindy, both professionally and personally. 

In January 2000, Commander Thebaud 

was assigned to her present position running 

the headquarters for Vice Admiral 

Moore. “You learn a lot about decisionmaking,” 

she says. “You have to resolve the 

allocation of a finite amount of resources 

available to us.” In July, she became eligible 

for command duty when she marked fifteen 

years of commission service. 

The other big change came on Memorial 

Day weekend, when she married 

Mike Fierro, a fellow Navy commander. 

The two had been midshipmen at Annapolis 

for a time, and their paths crossed 

again in 1993 at the Surface Warfare 

Officers School in Newport, Rhode Island, 

where she took his engineering 

class. She didn’t waste time making an 

impression on her instructor. 

“Many students skim the surface of 

the material and do just well enough to 

get by,” Mike says. “Cindy was a 

topnotch student who took her lessons 

seriously as a means of preparation for 

her next assignment. That doesn’t mean 

she didn’t have fun, but she knew what 

was important.” 

Mike and Cindy had more in common 

than a love for engineering. They 

had grown up in close proximity to one 

another. Mike’s family was from Port 

Chester. That gave them something to 

talk about other than pressure levels and 

steam turbines. 

The romance took off while the 

Ticonderoga was in its homeport of 

Pascagoula, Mississippi, and Mike was 

stationed six hours away in Tennessee. 

Being a Navy couple, they knew that 

physical distance would be a constant in 

their relationship. Today Mike is in command 

of a destroyer, USS Kinkaid, which 

began a six-month assignment in the 

Pacific Ocean in March. 

Cindy insists it’s no big deal that she 

and her husband are both in the Navy and 

thus are forced to spend so much time apart. 

If only one was in the Navy, she noted, they 

would still face six months of separation a 

year. Her mother recalls her telling a class 

at Taft, “Would you rather be the one going 

out to sea, or the one waiting at home? 

I’d rather be the one going out.” 

“It’s one of those things you deal with,” 

Cindy said. “If nothing else, we have an 

advantage, because we both understand 

why we have to go out and get underway. 

There are no surprises. We keep in touch 

by letters and e-mail. E-mail is a great morale 

booster for people in the Navy.” 

When she isn’t tapping out a missive 

to her husband, or running the vice 

admiral’s headquarters, Cindy cooks, does 

needlepoint, and sings in the church choir. 

Mike noted her abiding love for ragtops: 

“You won’t catch her driving anything 

other than a convertible.” Cindy tries to 

take advantage of her present West Coast 

location with an occasional sailing jaunt. 

When Cindy was named to her first 

command assignment, she had time to 

share the news with Mike before he embarked 

on his own command. The couple 

went to an Italian restaurant and ordered 

a bottle of champagne. “Trust your gut,” 

Mike told her. “Knowledge gained 

A proud family—father Mike, 

sister Ander, and mother 

Sally—pose with newly commissioned 

Cindy. 

At a friend’s wedding, 

they’re the ones in full white 

uniform—the bridegroom is in 

black behind them. They were 

in his Arch of Swords. 


through experience may be internalized, 

but it makes itself felt when necessary.” 

Beyond the promise of command, 

much remains unclear about the future, 

near-term and beyond. In 2005, assuming 

she remains in the Navy until then, Cindy 

will become eligible for a full retirement 

pension. “Would I stay on for twenty 

years?” she asks. “A lot of things factor into 

that. Would we start a family? How do I 

do in command?” For his part, Mike envisions 

him and Cindy “doing the family 

thing or the retired thing” in ten years’ time: 

“I’d even be Mr. Mom if the situation required. 

In either case, I expect we’ll do some 

traveling and exploring together.” 

One thing Mike says impresses him 

most about Cindy as an officer is the way 

she connects with the sailors who serve 

under her. While she may wonder at times 

where her life would have led had she chosen 

stockbroking or some other civilian 

career, Cindy said she has no reservations 

that her choice has been the right one. 

“You get to meet people from all 

walks of life,” she says. “There’s a huge 

opportunity to have a phenomenal influence 

on the development of young 

people. You get hands-on leadership opportunity 

at a very early age. You learn 

how to be responsible for a lot of things, 

including people’s lives.” 

Sally Thebaud says she still has trouble 

figuring out what Cindy’s Navy responsibilities 

entail, even after her daughter has 

been explaining them to her for the better 

part of an hour. But she likes how those 

duties have shaped her daughter. 

“Mike and I were with her a few 

years ago after she had been reassigned 

and was having her stuff moved. Every 

half-hour or so she’d be on the phone 

talking to someone. You could tell when 

it was business and when it wasn’t, because 

when it was business she talked 

twice as fast, and her tone changed. She 

is very straightforward and no-nonsense. 

Mostly it was the people moving her furniture. 

She was telling them what she 

wanted done, and how to do it. 

“It was all very impressive, how she 

was ordering them around by phone, but 

the most impressive part came at the end, 

when she told the guy on the line she 

wanted to speak to his boss. She told him, 

‘I want you to put your boss on, because 

he needs to know how good a job you 

did for me.’ That was nice. I was very 

proud that she did that.” 

“Beyond the Promise of Command” 

originally appeared in the June 2001 issue 

of Greenwich Magazine. This excerpt is 

reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. 

Occasionally, Cindy finds 

time to take her parents’ 

boat for a sail with her 

sister Beth. 

LCDR Cindy Thebaud and her 

bridegroom CDR Mike Fierro pass 

under the Arch of Swords formed by 

the men of the wardroom of the 

Kinkaid, Mike’s ship at the time.

On the Other 

PHOTOGRAPHY BY PETER FINGER 

Side of the Desk 

Alumni return to their alma mater and find surprising 

rewards of teaching and a second life at Taft 

By Julie Reiff 

Willy MacMullen ’78 may be the first 

alumnus to head the school, but what few 

people may realize is that roughly 20 percent 

of the faculty, in any given year, are 

also Taft graduates. For some alums the return 

to Watertown is only a brief stop on 

the way to graduate school. For others it 

may be the beginning of a lifelong career. 

Many are surprised that the number 

of alumni is that high. But who 

better understands the values and goals 

of this place, the ins and outs of boarding 

life in general, than those who sat 

on the other side of the desks? So we 

asked those who’ve returned to reflect 

on what brought them back to Taft, how 

the place has changed, and what changes 

they value most. 

In addition to some of the more 

obvious changes, such as coeducation and 

new facilities, faculty talk about the draw 

of raising children here or having the 

good fortune to meet and work with a 

spouse—prospects they probably didn’t 

consider when filling out their admission 

applications to Taft. 

The traditional model for the boarding 

school job is the “triple threat” of 

teaching, coaching, and running a dormitory. 

Clearly the faculty here represent 

that well, but what is harder to portray is 

the change in responsibilities over the 

course of their careers. How can we possibly 

do justice to all the teams coached, 

committees led, and courses taught and 

designed over the years? 

Contributing to a community means 

meeting its needs today and tomorrow; 

roles change with those needs and faculty 

rise to meet them. Always at Taft, 

students have come first. Developing 

the whole person is and has been the 

core of our philosophy, 

and it is a calling that can 

last a lifetime. 

Frederick H. Wandelt III ’66 

“Ferdie” 

B.A. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; M.A.L.S. 

Wesleyan University 

Returned in 1971 

Director of admissions, former lacrosse coach, history 

teacher 

CPT, HDT, 7 years in the dorms 

I came back to the school because of Lance Odden; 

except for my parents, no one has had a greater influence 

on my life. During my years at Taft, he taught me 

Asian history, was my adviser, my coach, and I served 

as a monitor on his corridor. 

How has the school changed? 

Taft is more academic and diverse now than when 

I was a student. There is a greater sense of institutional 

pride. As a facility, our school now rivals any in the 

country; surely not the case in 1963. Coeducation is 

the biggest improvement of all. 

What do I like best about Taft now? Non ut Sibi.... 

The soul, culture, and excellence our school stands for 

across the board are unparalleled. 


Andrew Bogardus ’88 

“Bogie” 

B.A. Denison University; diploma in 

African Studies, University of Cape 

Town, South Africa 


Admissions officer, history teacher, 

international student adviser, squash 

and lacrosse coach 

HDT, 5 years in the dorms and counting 

Before returning, I taught, coached and 

lived for four years at the Marvelwood 

School. Once offered a job, I returned to 

Taft because I knew firsthand of its many 

strengths—particularly the positive energy 

of the students and the healthy priorities 

of the faculty and administration. In addition, 

I wanted to become involved in 

admissions and I knew certainly that Taft’s 

department was the one for which I 

wanted to work. I also looked forward to 

getting involved once again with squash 

and lacrosse. Most importantly though, 

as it turns out, I returned to meet my lovely 

wife, a fellow teacher, and life is good. 

Certainly the physical plant and facilities 

have changed drastically since I was a 

student and are now stunning. The intangibles 

on campus, however, are largely the 

same: the consistent emphasis on learning 

in all arenas, the demand always for high 

standards, honesty, and integrity, the distinctive 

ability of the students and faculty to 

blend work, focus, and fun. I do think, however, 

that students are now more interested 

in the quantifiable aspects of achievement. 

I appreciate most the energy of the 

students here. They take on incredible 

loads, they achieve at such a high level, 

and they do it with a positive attitude 

that is infectious. 

Lynette Sumpter ’90 

B.A. Brown University 


Director of multicultural affairs, admissions officer, 

psychology teacher 

Congdon, 3 years in the dorms and counting 

Before returning, I ran an electrical contracting firm 

with my dad, Ampere Electric, Inc., in Newark, NJ, 

developed and taught the STEP Program for eighthgrade 

Wight Foundation Scholars (an enrichment 

program to prepare students for boarding school), 

and did coursework for a master’s program in religion 

and psychology. 

I came back for a change of venue. I needed to be 

in an educational setting. It nurtures the “nerd” in me! 

I also wanted to be supportive of diversity objectives 

and add to the diversity of the faculty. I love Taft and 

wanted to give back to a place that gave me so much! 

The plant is much more “high class” now; there 

are many new facilities! It’s incredible! The support services 

we provide our students—the Learning Center, 

school counselors, Peer Advocates, Diversity Committee, 

and having a director of multicultural affairs, just 

to name a few—have progressed tremendously. 

My own perspective has changed in terms of my 

understanding of the awesome privilege afforded me as 

a result of my experiences as a student, and now as a 

faculty member. 

I like the classes offered now, the classes I teach, 

the food! I like the energy around innovation, and I 

like that we are constantly reviewing ourselves and making 

changes. It keeps life around here interesting! 

Clayton B. Spencer ’56 

“Chip” 

B.A. Yale University; M.A. Trinity College 

Returned from June 1964–June 1970; 

again in January 1994 

Interim director of development, 

director of planned giving, former 

director of development 


Between stints at Taft, I have been headmaster 

of St. Margaret’s-McTernan, a 

marketing manager for a securities firm, 

and a financial planner. 

I wanted to become involved again 

with a school I loved, known as a parent 

of Oliver ’85 and Jonathan ’88 for seven 

years, and knew was on an incredible roll 

for the past 25 years. I was also not wild 

about the financial planner job. 

There have been huge changes here! 

The place is warmer, friendlier, and there 

are girls. The campus is twice the size now; 

there are closer student-faculty relationships 

as well as better facilities, but having 

my daughter Jane ’03—a third-generation 

Taftie—here is the best part of all! 


29

Leonard Tucker ’92 

“L.T.” 

B.A. Princeton University 


History teacher, football, wrestling, 

track and field coach, Diversity Committee 

HDT, 6 years in the dorms and counting 

I was interested in giving current students 

what I did not have, African American 

male influence in the faculty. I wanted 

to be that someone who allowed minority 

students to see that separating from 

their roots, at least educationally, did not 

destroy the innate elements that made 

them a minority and proud, but it also 

made them inherently connected to this 

American Dream principle. When I pursue 

my dream of local politics in New 

Jersey, education will be the major tabletop 

my views will rest upon. 

I feel that much of the Taft Spirit has 

given way to the preparatory aspect of the 

school. Students, while smarter than those 

in the past in a lot of ways, are definitely 

less self-sufficient. Books seem to have become 

less important! On a better note, Taft 

is computer friendly, in a way that would 

not have been possible ten years ago. Also, 

the support networks for students, thanks 

to the likes of Jean Piacenza, have increased 

and improved so much that I feel 

Taft is ready to handle any issues that may 

arise from students. 

I like the ability to help students rethink 

their positions in society. I like 

allowing them to not feel smug about their 

level of privilege, but to help others, who 

represent the masses of those that “don’t 

have.” I love being able to learn from kids 

as they grow and learn from us! 


Richard M. Davis ’59 

“R.M.” “Rick” 

A.B. Princeton University; M.A. University of Michigan 


History teacher, former department head, 

Debating Society adviser 

HDT, CPT, 32 years in the dorms 

Inspired to become an educator by the superb examples of 

my Taft teachers Al Reiff Sr. and John Small, I applied to 

several schools. I had been a student under Paul Cruikshank 

and found Taft, during an interview in the winter of 1964 

with John Esty, to be in so many ways a new and different 

school. I was so intrigued by the blend of the familiar and 

the new that I accepted a teaching position here. 

The school in 2001 barely resembles the Taft of 1959 

in many ways, yet in others it is unchanged. Taft still 

cares about the whole student, still has warm facultystudent 

relations, still places academics and character 

building on equal footing, and still preserves the overall 

spirit and mission of Mr. Taft. The school is quite different 

physically, not only with the new buildings and 

facilities, but with major transformations of the old ones; 

the rule and daily life structure is much more liberal and 

realistic. Obviously coeducation has made the most important 

difference to the institution. Taft is a much more 

connected-to-the-world place now rather than the selfcontained 

and inward-looking place it was. 

Taft is a school with compassion, standards, character, 

a sense of mission, and now has the physical 

facilities to permit all these to flourish. 

Jessica Clark ’94 

“Jess” 

B.A. Dartmouth College 


Science teacher, ice hockey, lacrosse, 

and field hockey coach 

McIntosh, 4 years in the dorms and 

counting 

I was looking for a supportive community 

as a new teacher, and I thought 

my connections at Taft would provide 

that. I was very much looking forward 

to coaching with Patsy Odden during 

my first few years as a coach. 

It has been exciting and often difficult 

the past three years watching my 

views on the school and faculty change. 

I think the kids are much more competitive 

than when I was here in both 

the classroom and on the fields, and I 

often think that is why the school has 

lost some of its spirit. Nevertheless, I 

feel the community structure is much 

more welcoming because of its support 

outlets like the learning center and the 

counseling office that keep the community 

up and running. 

Students are entering the school in 

a time when the world around them is 

often unforgiving. The support network 

does not change our most 

important goal of educating a whole 

person. The continued closeness between 

the faculty and the students 

today is imperative, and it is the reason 

I stay at Taft. 


Robert Campbell ’76 

“Bob” 

B.B. Washington and Lee; M.B.A. 

University of Hartford 


Associate dean of students, former 

director of the Annual Fund 

1781 House, Congdon, CPT, 12 years in 

the dorms and counting 

Before I joined Taft I was a product manager 

at Bank of New England. I came 

back because the bank failed; I was laid 

off and looking for a new career path. 

Today, more students seem to be 

increasingly connected to a greater number 

of faculty. The facilities are more 

impressive and less “worn.” There seems 

to be more pressure on the students. 

Twenty-five years ago, you couldn’t have 

paid me enough to work here. Now, I 

can’t imagine a better work environment. 

I work with a great group of colleagues, 

and the students keep me 

young, mentally anyway. There is still a 

real sense of community; that is what 

attracted me as a student and what keeps 

me here on the faculty. 

Jean Strumolo Piacenza ’75 

B.A. Yale University; M.S.W. University of Connecticut 

School of Social Work, licensed clinical social worker 


Director of counseling and community health, 

former math teacher 

McIntosh, 10 years in the dorms 

My husband John wanted to try teaching, so I called 

Lance Odden, asking for information on schools 

that might be looking for math teachers. Taft had 

an opening, as it turned out, and Lance encouraged 

him to apply. I thought it would be weird 

working here, and that transition from student to 

colleague took awhile. I was certified to teach music 

at the time, but eventually joined the Math 

Department, too, before returning to school to 

study counseling. 

I believe we spend an enormous amount of time 

and energy attempting to build and teach community 

responsibility. Although that has always been true to 

some degree, I believe we are more thoughtful, determined, 

and therefore more successful at it now. 

Donald Oscarson ’47 

“Oscie” 

B.A., M.A. Yale University 


Latin teacher, dean of students for 

20 years, head of dining room, 

middle class dean, coached “Jumpers,” 

transportation, tutoring 


I had several talks with 

Mr. Cruikshank during my 

years at Yale and I returned, 

in part, because of my great 

respect for the man. 

The school is now 

much less rigid, but also much less clear 

on what its moral message is. The atmosphere 

here is more normal, less artificial, 

since the arrival of coeducation. 

David Hinman ’87 

B.A. Hobart College; M.A. Boston University 


Director of Athletics 

Congdon, 3 years in the dorms and counting 

Before returning, I taught for six years at Rippowam Cisqua 

and two years at St. Sebastian’s. I came back to Taft because 

I had so much respect for the teachers and coaches 

who worked with me as a student. I also wanted to work 

for Lance Odden, who in my mind was one of the very 

best educators in the boarding school community. 

I believe that Taft is a more diverse place today than it 

was in 1987. The Admissions Office has done a terrific job 

finding talented kids with varied interests and backgrounds. 

What I like most about Taft now is what I enjoyed 

most about the school as a student. There is a close relationship 

between students and faculty which creates a 

learning environment that is beneficial to all at Taft. 


31

William R. MacMullen ’78 

“Willy” “Mr. Mac” 

B.A. Yale University; M.A. Middlebury 

College 


Head of school, English teacher, former 

class dean, soccer and ice hockey coach 


I taught at a wilderness-based school for 

mentally retarded and delinquent boys. 

It was a wonderful, exhausting, meaningful 

job, but after a year, I felt it was 

time to move on. 

I wanted to teach and coach—and 

work with children who had the intellect, 

character, and opportunity to change 

the world. And I had great memories 

of Taft—I think I hoped I could have 

the effect on students that people like 

Tim Briney, Rick Davis ’59, and Robin 

[Blackburn] Osborn had on me. 

The school has become a better 

place in every imaginable way, and yet 

without losing its soul. 

I have wonderful colleagues, terrific 

students, and a beautiful campus; and 

each day I come to work excited. Best 

of all, I work with my best friend— 

my wife Pam. 

(See also Willy’s interview, “Steering the 

Course,” in the summer issue.) 


John Kenerson ’82 

“Jack” 

B.A. Colgate University; M.A.L.S. Dartmouth College 


Head of the History Department, admissions officer, 

golf and football coach 


Three Taft teachers were key in getting me interested 

in teaching: Larry Stone, Monie Harwick, and Jol 

Everett. Jol’s history classes were great: interesting, full 

of discussion, and challenging. I had Monie in upper 

middle English, and I struggled! She was always there 

to help me and at the same time kept the standards 

high. Monie showed me you could be both compassionate 

and hold students to high standards, and I 

thought it would be neat to do that for students. Larry 

Stone, too, had a huge impact on me; he made me believe 

in myself. He pushed me, challenged me, 

demanded perfection, and I came to thrive on that. My 

senior year playing for Larry was one of the best experiences 

of my life. I loved everything about Taft Football. 

I did not miss a practice, a weight room session, or a 

film session, and when we beat a previously undefeated 

Hotchkiss team, I realized something about myself: If I 

put my mind to it, I could accomplish most anything. 

I still remember it clear as day—Larry was carried onto 

the field and we were all jumping around like we had 

won the Super Bowl! My continued love of football 

and of coaching stems directly from Larry. 

As America becomes more diverse and more welcoming, 

Taft does as well, whether it be increasing the 

percentage of girls in the student body or recognizing the 

need to increase the number of students on financial aid. 

Taft has changed a tremendous amount for the better. 

I like interacting with Taft kids on all levels. 

Whether in the classroom, on a Saturday afternoon in 

the fall on the football field, or with a couple of students 

who are babysitting for my son Peter, having the 

opportunity to work with motivated, interested, and, 

most importantly, good kids is a real joy. I feel fortunate 

that my “job” involves working close to my family 

and with young people in a variety of ways. 

Eric Norman ’81 

B.A., M.B.A. University of Connecticut 


Business manager, former assistant 

business manager 

Before returning, I spent ten years in a 

Big 6 public accounting firm as a practicing 

CPA for primarily SEC registrants. 

Taft was my smallest audit client, which 

kept the connection alive. I saw a strong 

need here, and felt that I could address 

it, as well as create a nice career opportunity 

for myself. 

I was completely unaware of this side 

of the school when I was a student, but I 

would say that Taft seems much more 

dynamic these days in terms of facilities 

and finance. We also seem to have lost 

some of the more colorful faculty members 

who were here when I was a student. 

As a student, you hope that the 

school’s existence makes a difference in 

your life; as a faculty member, you hope 

that your existence makes a difference in 

the school’s life. 


Greg Hawes ’85 

B.A. Dartmouth College; M.F.A. The 

American Film Institute 


History teacher, wrestling coach, 

Outdoor Program 

CPT, 2 years in the dorms and counting 

I spent three years in L.A. getting a master’s 

in screenwriting and trying to break into 

the film business. Then I taught English 

and history for six years at Blair Academy 

under former Taft faculty Chan Hardwick. 

My wife and I were thinking about 

exploring the boarding school world beyond 

Blair, but we were going to put 

off our search until after we had a child. 

I met John Wynne by chance at the Prep 

Nationals, and he informed me that he 

and a number of other history teachers 

were leaving and suggested I apply. A 

month later it seemed it wasn’t going to 

happen and then two weeks after that 

we had the job. Certainly we were looking 

for a more challenging academic 

environment, as well to broaden our 

own experiences as educators. 

It’s harder for me to notice the 

changes here, since I spent twice as long 

at Blair as I did as a student at Taft. I’ve 

changed so much since then. On the 

other hand, the opportunity for individual 

student academic exploration is 

fascinating. If you wish to pursue the 

study of something on your own, the 

resources here are remarkable. The artistic 

talent manifested by the student 

body is impressive. 

While we still do a great job of teaching 

the fundamentals, it seems to me that 

we are much more experimental in what 

we teach and how we teach it. That’s a 

fun environment in which to work. 

William G. Morris Jr. ’69 

“Mo” 

B.A. Bucknell University; M.A. University of Connecticut; 

M.A. Columbia University 


Dean of academic affairs, history and humanities 

teacher, former director of college counseling, 

lower mid and senior class dean, director of financial aid, 

and assistant director of admissions 

McIntosh, Congdon, 7 years in the dorms 

I came back to work with Lance Odden, whom I had 

known well as a student, and to try teaching for a few 

years; it has turned into 25 and still going. 

Coeducation and Lance’s leadership have made Taft 

a more humane and sensitive school. I think we do a 

much better job of fulfilling Mr. Taft’s original mission—to 

educate the whole person—than at any other 

time in the history of the school. 

Working with students is what it is all about, but 

the combination of autonomy and a strong sense of 

community also make this a great place to live. 

Jonathan Willson ’82 

“Jon” 

B.A. Amherst College; M.A. Brooklyn 

College 


History teacher, basketball coach, 

Diversity Committee co-chair 

CPT, 5 years in the dorms 

I taught at Brooklyn Technical High 

School for nine years before coming back 

to Taft. After our second child was born, 

my wife and I looked at how we might 

escape the perils and costs of child-rearing 

in New York City. About the only 

way we could figure out for me to keep 

teaching in the involved manner (beyond 

“just” the classroom part of it) to which 

I had grown accustomed, and still be a 

major presence in my children’s lives, was 

to teach at a boarding school. Taft was 

my first choice because I had had such a 

positive experience here as a student and 

felt much gratitude toward and affection 

for the place, in addition to its having 

become one of the truly elite schools in 

the time since I had graduated. 

The facilities, solid when I was a student, 

have become spectacular, and it just 

keeps getting better. The overall options 

available to students also expanded, especially 

those in the arts. The percentage of 

students of color also increased, and rather 

dramatically. But beyond that, the fundamentals 

of the school have changed little: 

strong teaching, involved and caring faculty, 

a small-school feel in a medium-size 

school, across-the-board competitive athletics, 

and (paramount) the idea of 

“educating the whole student” really does 

pervade Taft, then and now. It’s a fantastic 

environment in which to teach, coach, and 

advise other people’s children and an equally 

fantastic one in which to raise my own. 


33

Peter Allan Frew ’75 

B.A., M.A. Middlebury College 


English teacher, director of 

communications, associate director of 

admissions, squash and tennis coach, 

head of the Discipline Committee 

Congdon, CPT, HDT, 5 years in the dorms 

Before returning, I was head pro at an 

indoor tennis center for three years. I 

played the Satellite Tennis Circuit for 

a year, traveling around the world, and 

I was a journalist for a year, writing articles 

and shooting photos. 

I had Barclay Johnson ’53 as a 

middler, and he led me to love literature. 

My senior year at Middlebury, I 

enrolled at The Bread Loaf School of 

English, fairly sure I wanted to teach. 

As I worked on my master’s and met 

other high school teachers, I became 

convinced that teaching was more 

noble than a lucrative job offer I had 

at the same time. Ten years after Taft, I 

bumped into Al Reiff Sr., who encouraged 

me to come work at my alma 

mater. I thought he was kidding at first, 

but after interviews with Lance Odden, 

Robin [Blackburn] Osborn, Ferdie 

Wandelt, and Rusty Davis, I was 

hooked. I am still amazed that the 

people who knew me as a teenager 

would hire me. 

The most obvious change here is 

the way the campus has evolved. The 

facilities are unbelievable now. I think 

back to the days when I’d sneak into 

the gyms to shoot baskets between periods 

in what is now the Potter Gallery, 

the Woodward Theater, the Pailey 

Dance Studio, electronic music studios, 

and computer labs. Speaking of computers, 

I remember Andrew Potter ’75 

feeding paper tape into a state-of-theart 

computer that took up a whole 

room in the old science center and was 

less capable than the graphing calculators 

kids now carry to class. 

One thing hasn’t changed—the 

friendships students make with roommates, 

classmates, and teammates from 

all over the nation and the world are extremely 

strong and last a lifetime. These 

kids are phenomenal ... filled with energy 

and enthusiasm, bright, talented, 

and idealistic. Working with them every 

day is a privilege. I can’t imagine a more 

meaningful, satisfying job than preparing 

kids to be leaders and citizens of the 

world. They appreciate adults in their 

lives who push them to do their best, and 

who stress integrity, sportsmanship, and 

service to others. Teaching here is 

uniquely gratifying work. 


Al Reiff Jr. ’80 

A.B. Harvard University; M.A.L.S. 

Wesleyan University 


Head of the Math Department, 

wrestling and cross-country coach, 

former crew coach 

CPT, SGD, 10 years in the dorms 

I had interned at Taft’s summer school 

and had a teaching offer from 

Lawrenceville when I got a call from my 

father, who was dean of faculty here at 

the time. A math teacher had made a lastminute 

decision not to return, and Taft 

was a little desperate. Although I’m glad 

I had three years working with my dad, 

I’ll admit that I came because Taft made 

the better offer. 

Despite the incredible improvement 

in the physical plant, it is the atmosphere 

here that has changed the most. As a student, 

I felt a real us/them dichotomy 

between students and faculty. I don’t 

think there was a whole lot of trust between 

the two sides. Given that most of 

my schooling was in the late ’70s, there 

probably shouldn’t have been much, but 

it still made the school feel less like a 

home. I think Taft is now a much more 

trusting, more caring place. I think kids 

genuinely are happy to be here and enjoy 

their relationships with the faculty. 

Kids now are much more talented 

and capable than 20 years ago, too. Their 

plates are much fuller. Expectations are 

higher and the vast majority of kids live 

up to their high billing. There is a scholarly 

pride about the place; it’s perfectly 

okay to be smart these days. 

As a student, I certainly appreciated 

the quality instruction I received. When 

I went to Harvard, I longed for the quality 

of teaching I had at Taft. But now, 

as a teacher, I realize how much more 

the faculty put into the school than I 

ever knew as a student. Teaching here is 

not just a job. Now I see how much passion 

and energy goes into teaching. I see 

how exhilarating and draining it is to 

coach; how trying and rewarding it can 

be to work in the dorms. Now that I 

am a teacher (or perhaps now that I am 

an adult), I have so much more respect 

for those teachers who touched my 

life—who gave of themselves to help out 

a teenage kid. 


E N D N O T E 

Longing for Freedom 

By Bishop Paul Moore 

Freedom happens to be one of my passions. 

Although a much, much abused word, it is still 

terribly important as a concept, as an ideal. 

We all thought we were fighting for freedom 

in World War II, at least we were told we 

were, but I never quite put it that way in my 

head, although I almost got killed in combat. 

Later on I came back to the United States, 

and in the early ’50s I got to know Thurgood 

Marshall. He asked me to go on an expedition 

to Florida, where four black kids were accused 

of raping a white girl. Our job was to find out 

whether the venue where they were to be tried 

was an appropriate, unprejudiced place. 

We knew the answer before we got there, 

but we needed evidence. So we drove down to 

this beat-up old town in the middle of the orange 

groves. We got out of our car—Thurgood 

had on a three-piece suit, looking immaculate—and 

were walking down the street when 

this great big guy, he actually had a red neck, 

says, “What are you all doing here?” And we 

replied that we were there to investigate…. 

“I knew you were here to cause trouble. 

What’s that nigger doing in a three-piece suit? 

And what are you doing in those funny looking 

clothes and a round collar, kid like you?” 

As he was talking, about twenty other men 

looking just like him began to circle around us. 

Finally he said, “You all better get out in about 

five minutes or I’m gonna ride you out on the 

rail.” And all the other rednecks sort of closed 

in, so we got in our car and left very quickly. 

On the morning of the trial we learned 

that the sheriff shot all four of the boys and 

killed three, alleging that they tried to run away 

as he was driving them down from the state 

prison. So here’s this idealistic ex-marine who 

fought for freedom, finding this in our country, 

and that got me thinking about race. 

I went to Mississippi in the summer of 

1964 to work on voter registration. There I experienced 

the incredible courage, not just of 

the civil rights workers who came in from the 

North—even though three of them were murdered 

that summer—but also of the black 

people who would have to stay there after we 

left, whose houses had been burned down, 

whose churches had been burned down, who 

might be lynched. 

And yet, day after day they would go 

out—some of them kids—on the dusty roads 

with us to register black voters. We’d come back 

at night to eat in a hot Baptist church and hear 

those incredible freedom songs—this wonderful 

passionate singing, holding hands and 

swaying back and forth. I felt palpably free for 

the first time with people who were less free 

than anybody I’d ever known. Their souls were 

freer, so free that it infected the atmosphere with 

this quality of freedom. 

“I felt palpably free for the first time with people 

who were less free than anybody I’d ever known.” 

Over the years I’ve been privileged to go 

to some of the trouble spots in the world, and 

I’ve found in the eyes of young people, this incredible 

passion for freedom—whatever their 

culture, whatever their race, whatever their 

religion. Kids in South Africa before apartheid: 

I remember preaching in Soweto and seeing 

hundreds of kids ready to go out even though 

there had already been massacres. In Nicaragua: 

the young people’s glorious beginning of 

the Sandinista revolution. I went to Saigon in 

1970. After a rally, the Buddhist kids talked to 

us about their experiences being tortured, having 

their fingernails pulled out and being 

beaten. They, having just got out of the tiger 

cages, wanted us to join them in a manifestation, 

a demonstration, the next day. We went 

there only to talk, but we stayed up all night 

and finally decided that we would. The worst 

that could happen to us was that we’d be sent 

home—which we were—but these kids, willing 

to go back to their deaths or to terrible 

torture in the tiger cages, were out there on the 

street. How could we refuse to go with them? 

I remember my first visit to East Timor, 

right after the Pope’s visit. A group of young 

people had been demonstrating for freedom, 

and the Indonesian militia arrested some of 

them and hauled them off to prison; some of 

them “disappeared,” others rushed into the 

Bishop’s compound for sanctuary. Some of 

them were still there when we visited, and I 

saw the same longing for freedom and the willingness 

to give their lives for it shining in their 

eyes that I saw in South Africa, in Mississippi, 

and in Nicaragua. 

Sometimes in schools you run across this 

thirst for freedom in rather unattractive ways. 

I remember a few years ago one school that 

had a custom where two seniors would speak 

to alumni about how wonderful the place was, 

but this time, these kids got up and were nearly 

shouting about the oppression they had felt because 

there was no freedom of religion there. 

This was a church school. The headmaster has 

a rabbi there part time, he’s had Buddhist 

monks come to visit, he’s had Muslim leaders 

come in, but it is a church school. Even though 

these kids were arrogant, unreasonable, and 

outrageous, if you trace what’s going on inside, 

what makes kids rebellious, it may be the downside 

of this freedom longing. So even though 

you have to tell them where to get off, never 

forget that that instinct of rebellion can be one 

of the most positive parts of their beings. 

That instinct may even be embedded in 

their souls, but if channeled, gradually and tentatively 

and with difficulty, then you may be 

bringing someone into the world who will fight 

for freedom in whatever way he or she is called, 

whether it be by teaching or political action, 

or whether it be by war, should that terrible 

thing ever happen again. 

The beginning of Judaism, and therefore 

Christianity, was when the Israelites, who were 

slaves in Egypt, followed Moses to freedom. So 

the dynamic of the Christian and Jewish faiths 

started with the longing for freedom. And it still 

is the heart of any religion that you must be free 

to choose, otherwise you cannot be free to love 

or to be loved or to be fulfilled. Freedom is not 

just a political concept, not simply a social concept, 

it is also at the very heart of spirituality. 

The Right Rev. Moore is the author of The Church 

Reclaims the City, 1965; Take A Bishop Like Me, 

1979; and Presences, 1997. He became bishop 

of New York in 1972 and retired in 1989. He 

retired from the marines with the rank of captain, 

receiving the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, and the 

Purple Heart. These remarks are excerpted from 

his opening address to faculty on September 7. 

For more on his visit, turn to page 9. 


35

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