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BULLETIN<br />
WINTER•1999<br />
Volume 69 Number 2<br />
S P O T L I G H T<br />
<strong>The</strong>y Call Her Dr. Mary Wash-Your-Hands ................ 3<br />
Mary Washburne ’79 volunteers with Doctors Without Borders<br />
helping Burmese refugees<br />
By Sarah Hare, Diversion Magazine<br />
Mr. Doyle Goes to Washington................................... 8<br />
Two video-making trips <strong>Taft</strong> students won’t soon forget<br />
By Nathan Whittaker ’99, <strong>Taft</strong> Papyrus<br />
For the Love of Learning ........................................... 12<br />
A New Option for the Senior Year<br />
By Michael Townsend<br />
His Work is For the Birds.......................................... 16<br />
Cover: Kem Appell ’55 traded in his golf clubs to tend a flock<br />
of exotic and endangered waterfowl<br />
By Sara Beasley<br />
D E P A R T M E N T S<br />
Letters ......................................................................... 2<br />
Alumni in the News .................................................. 21<br />
Around the Pond ...................................................... 24<br />
Sport ......................................................................... 30<br />
Big Red Scoreboard<br />
Endnote .................................................................... 32<br />
By Dr. Alfred Gilman ’58<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin is published quarterly, in February, May, August, and November, by<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Taft</strong> <strong>School</strong>, 110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100 and is distributed<br />
free of charge to alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends of the school.<br />
E-Mail Us! Now you can send your latest news, address change, birth announcement,<br />
or letter to the editor to us via e-mail. Our address is <strong>Taft</strong>Rhino@<strong>Taft</strong>.pvt.k12.ct.us.<br />
Of course we’ll continue to accept your communiqués by such “low tech” methods as<br />
the fax machine (860-945-7756), telephone (860-945-7777), or U.S. Mail (110 Woodbury<br />
Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100). So let’s hear from you!<br />
Visit <strong>Taft</strong> on the Web to find the latest news, sports schedules, or to locate a classmate’s<br />
e-mail address. www.<strong>Taft</strong>.pvt.k12.ct.us or www.<strong>Taft</strong>sports.com. <strong>The</strong> password<br />
to access alumni or faculty e-mail addresses—or to add your own—is dutton.
Sports<br />
Trivia<br />
Winner<br />
Congratulations to<br />
Wilmot North ’30, the<br />
winner of the <strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin<br />
Sports Trivia Contest.<br />
Mr. North was the<br />
first respondent to identify<br />
correctly the three<br />
Indian tribes after which<br />
the intramural clubs<br />
were named: Senecas,<br />
Mohawks, and Cayugas.<br />
<strong>The</strong> groups, known<br />
as the Triangle Clubs,<br />
replaced the earlier<br />
Reds and Blues created<br />
in 1922, and were<br />
themselves replaced<br />
in the fall of 1930 by<br />
the Alpha, Beta, and<br />
Gamma clubs, “which<br />
embraced the entire<br />
student body.” <strong>The</strong><br />
Triangle Club competitions<br />
awarded points<br />
for the winners in intramural<br />
baseball,<br />
hockey, football, soccer,<br />
basketball, and<br />
track contests (with<br />
some boxing and cross<br />
country) as well as<br />
points for Scholarship<br />
and Deportment.<br />
Medals were also<br />
awarded, and the winning<br />
club was traditionally<br />
treated to a special<br />
steak dinner in the dining<br />
room, served by<br />
members of the other<br />
clubs. Interestingly, students<br />
who worked for<br />
the Alumni Bulletin garnered<br />
an extra five points<br />
each for their team!<br />
Letters to the Editor<br />
TIME wasn’t on his side<br />
I have received today and perused<br />
with interest the 75th<br />
anniversary edition of the <strong>Taft</strong><br />
Bulletin. You have done a<br />
wonderful job of capturing<br />
the spirit and texture of the<br />
publication over the years.<br />
I am particularly interested<br />
in your references to my<br />
grandfather, Robert L.<br />
Johnson ’14, in both the<br />
March 1924 and October<br />
1954 issues. Johnson family<br />
history always has held that<br />
my grandfather “helped”<br />
Henry Luce, his Yale classmate,<br />
“found” Time, but there<br />
is no reference to him in anything<br />
published by Time. I<br />
believe they had a falling-out<br />
early on. But family pride says<br />
that without my grandfather<br />
selling advertising in the upstart<br />
magazine, it would never<br />
have made it.<br />
—Robert L. Johnson III P’96<br />
Houston, Texas<br />
Photos of Youth<br />
Much time has passed since<br />
my sons Charles ’65 and Wells<br />
’67 graduated from <strong>Taft</strong>, and<br />
I was particularly pleased to<br />
see Wells’ picture in the library<br />
on page 11 and again<br />
his picture on the ranch on<br />
page 12. I am thankful that I<br />
can see again how youthful<br />
Wells was when these pictures<br />
were taken.<br />
—Charles Jacobson, Jr.<br />
P’65, ’67<br />
Manchester, Connecticut<br />
Correction:<br />
In the fall issue we incorrectly identified Cheves Smythe as a member of<br />
the Class of 1960. He is a member of the Class of 1942. Our apologies.<br />
Kudos on Crisis<br />
Hearty, hearty congratulations<br />
on that superb 75th anniversary<br />
issue of the <strong>Taft</strong><br />
Bulletin.<br />
Great from cover to cover,<br />
starting with that magnificent<br />
front cover photograph with<br />
all the essentials of communication<br />
from a cup of coffee to<br />
a computer, with <strong>Taft</strong> printed<br />
matter in between.<br />
Thanks for all the space allotted<br />
to ’33, including the<br />
Dexter Blake family <strong>The</strong>n and<br />
Now. What a job Hank Becton<br />
does for us as class secretary!<br />
But to me the prize piece<br />
was “<strong>The</strong> World in Crisis” by<br />
Ambassador Frank Wisner. So<br />
glad you ran that as I think it<br />
is as good an overview of the<br />
present world situation—and<br />
the place of the US in it all—<br />
as I have yet encountered. I<br />
am making photocopies for<br />
our non-<strong>Taft</strong> children and<br />
some others including Curt’s<br />
[Buttenheim ’36] daughter<br />
Lisa, who is stationed with<br />
the UN in Geneva, and Jennifer<br />
[’84] in case the Bulletin<br />
doesn’t reach her in Moscow.<br />
p.s. Also nice to see Geg’s [’40]<br />
letter to the editor!<br />
—Donald V. Buttenheim ’33<br />
Lenox, Massachusetts<br />
Like Father Like Son<br />
I very much enjoyed your 75th<br />
anniversary edition of the<br />
Alumni Bulletin.<br />
I offer one correction and<br />
one suggestion.<br />
On page 28, you show a<br />
photograph of new boy sons,<br />
etc., dated the fall of 1968.<br />
Not so—this photo was taken<br />
in the fall of 1967. Source: my<br />
clouded memory and the 1968<br />
yearbook, which verifies (to<br />
name a couple) Bermingham<br />
and Wheeler as lower mids,<br />
’71. I know that the unforgettable<br />
Caulkins ’70 was there<br />
for two years at least, and he<br />
never made it to senior!<br />
On page 41 Charles Yonkers<br />
’58 mentions receiving an<br />
article by one of Cruikshank’s<br />
daughters. I spent my<br />
Thanksgiving vacation lower<br />
mid year with Scott McMullen<br />
’70, Cruikshank’s grandson.<br />
Scott’s mom’s name was Janet<br />
McCawley (at the time), and<br />
they lived in the town of<br />
Fairfield. As I recall we had<br />
Thanksgiving dinner with the<br />
retired (and intimidating)<br />
schoolmaster at his house on<br />
Breakneck Hill in Middlebury<br />
[CT]. Recollections of a time<br />
when the headmaster lived in<br />
the school building proper<br />
might be interesting—not to<br />
say frightening.<br />
My uncle Rawson Foreman<br />
’58 tells of a classmate who,<br />
infuriated that Cruikshank’s<br />
dorm inspection police had<br />
removed a centerfold poster<br />
from his room, confronted the<br />
headmaster in his office. After<br />
listening to the boy’s protestations<br />
of theft, invasion of privacy,<br />
and so forth, Cruikshank<br />
calmly and deliberately flipped<br />
him a quarter—the cost of the<br />
magazine.<br />
Thanks again for an interesting<br />
issue.<br />
—Bob Foreman ’70<br />
New York, NY<br />
Ed Note:<br />
<strong>The</strong> article by Janet Cruikshank<br />
McCawley that Charlie Yonkers<br />
mentions in the Class of 1958<br />
notes [someone is a thorough<br />
reader!] was originally entitled<br />
“View from the Third Floor”<br />
and appeared last year in the<br />
Social Register Observer. Our<br />
agreement with the Observer<br />
is that we would wait one year<br />
before publishing it in the <strong>Taft</strong><br />
Bulletin, so look for it in a later<br />
issue this year.<br />
While your issues of the Bulletin<br />
are always interesting,<br />
entertaining, and instructive,<br />
your fall issue was exceptional.<br />
I appreciate all the<br />
work you did in getting everything<br />
together!<br />
As you may have guessed<br />
by now, I was particularly<br />
interested in the reference to<br />
the Fall 1970 issue that contained<br />
an article written by<br />
my son Bob ’70. Presaged by<br />
that article and his drama<br />
society work at <strong>Taft</strong>, Bob has<br />
devoted his life to the saving,<br />
preservation, and restoration<br />
of movie palaces and also to<br />
the operation of theatres of<br />
more recent vintage; I am<br />
extremely proud of him and<br />
his work!<br />
That makes it much<br />
harder to admit that I do not<br />
have a copy of his Bulletin<br />
article and to request that, if<br />
possible, you send me a photographic<br />
copy. Thank you<br />
very much for this and for<br />
your continuing good works<br />
for our <strong>School</strong>.<br />
—Bob Foreman ’44<br />
Lawrenceville, Georgia<br />
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<br />
the editor’s discretion. Send correspondence to: Julie Reiff, Editor • <strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin • 110 Woodbury Road • Watertown, CT 06795 or to: reiffj@taft.pvt.k12.ct.us
S P O T L I G H T<br />
<strong>The</strong>y Call Her Dr. Mary<br />
Wash-Your-Hands<br />
A First-Time Volunteer Finds War and Fulfillment<br />
in the Company of Burmese Refugees<br />
By Sarah Hare<br />
Photographs by Timothy Hellum<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 3
S P O T L I G H T<br />
Two years ago, Mary Washburne, M.D.,’79 was slogging away in her<br />
family practice in Milwaukee, thinking there must be a more satisfying<br />
way to make use of her hard-earned medical skills. After making some<br />
inquiries into volunteer opportunities for physicians, Washburne, then 36,<br />
decided to join Doctors Without Borders (DWB), an international relief<br />
agency that’s among the world’s oldest medical service organizations. Within<br />
months she got someone to cover her practice, rented out her house, and found<br />
herself living in Thailand, working with Burmese refugees.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> New York office [of DWB] chose the<br />
mission,” Dr. Washburne explained as we<br />
bounced along a rutted road one morning<br />
early last year en route to Maw Ker, one of<br />
19 refugee camps near the Myanmar (formerly<br />
Burma) border. More than 100,000<br />
Karen, a mountain tribe fighting for independence<br />
from the Burmese government,<br />
call these camps home. DWB’s program<br />
in western Thailand assists the Karen in five<br />
of the Burmese refugee camps.<br />
“I was really lucky to end up with the<br />
Karen,” Washburne said as she steered the<br />
four-wheel-drive pickup clear of potholes<br />
almost as big as the truck. “<strong>The</strong> Karen<br />
have been the highlight of this entire experience.<br />
Really an inspiration. <strong>The</strong>y have<br />
so little and yet they are so hopeful. Medically<br />
it’s been fascinating, too,” She noted.<br />
“At this mission we’re not dealing with just<br />
one epidemiology—straight Ebola or<br />
cholera—like in Africa. Here we’ve got the<br />
whole stir-fry of diseases.”<br />
This was the fifth month of her sixmonth<br />
post, and Dr. Washburne had had<br />
intimate contact with diseases she never<br />
would have seen in her Milwaukee practice:<br />
malaria, dengue, beriberi, tuberculosis,<br />
cholera, and typhoid fever (which she contracted<br />
just two weeks into her mission),<br />
plus a potpourri of illnesses prevalent<br />
among displaced people.<br />
Although the first-time volunteer<br />
had anticipated battling exotic ailments<br />
during her stay in Thailand, she hadn’t<br />
expected to encounter a full-scale war.<br />
“Oh, those are just Chinese New Year<br />
“Here, people don’t believe doctors are gods,<br />
like we’re supposed to be in the West. <strong>The</strong>y don’t<br />
come into the clinic loaded with expectations.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y appreciate anything we can do to help them.”<br />
firecrackers,” Washburne said dismissively<br />
as we listened to rapid-fire popping in the<br />
distance. It was the first week of February<br />
and the Sino-Thai were celebrating in<br />
nearby Mae Sot with an abandon that made<br />
the festivities in New York’s Chinatown<br />
look tame. Still, by the alarmed expressions<br />
on the faces of the Burmese Karen gathered<br />
outside town, I realized I wasn’t the<br />
only one who thought the explosions<br />
sounded like rifle shots. <strong>The</strong>re was good<br />
reason to believe that they were.<br />
A few days earlier, two refugee camps<br />
had been attacked in the dead of night by<br />
Burmese soldiers who’d crossed the river<br />
from Myanmar. After forcing the Karen out<br />
of their beds at gunpoint, the invading<br />
troops burned hundreds of bamboo homes,<br />
leaving thousands of people huddled on<br />
vast stretches of scorched, smoldering earth.<br />
That same night, Thai authorities held off<br />
the Burmese army’s attempt to raze a third<br />
camp, Mae La, rescuing the homes of more<br />
than 8,000 Karen.<br />
<strong>The</strong> soldiers were now thought to be<br />
hiding in the leafy jungles just inside the<br />
Thailand border, hoping to repeat the destruction<br />
they’d brought upon the Wanka<br />
and Don Pakiang camps. By torching the<br />
camps, the Burmese government aimed to<br />
induce the Karen refugees to return home.<br />
Her dangling earrings and shock of<br />
blond hair glinting in the morning sun,<br />
Dr. Washburne calmly peeled pus-soaked<br />
gauze bandages from the back of a 33-<br />
year-old man suffering from an acute<br />
renal infection. Shooing away a swarm<br />
of flies, she drained his oozing wound.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Karen call me Dr. Mary Wash-<br />
Your-Hands because I’m always saying<br />
that a few simple sanitary procedures can<br />
go a long way,” she said while scrubbing<br />
up for the next patient with a bucket of<br />
water. “Sometimes, like now, sanitary<br />
measures are all we have.”<br />
4 Winter 1999
S P O T L I G H T<br />
Since the invading Burmese had stolen<br />
most of the medical supplies and<br />
reduced the camp hospitals to ashes, the<br />
DWB team had constructed a makeshift<br />
outpatient dispensary (OPD): four bamboo<br />
poles draped with a huge blue, plastic<br />
tarp. Barefoot patients wearing tattered sarongs<br />
wrapped around their waists lay on<br />
straw mats along the tent’s perimeter. Those<br />
with minor injuries sat listlessly on wooden<br />
examination benches in the middle of the<br />
tent, where Karen medics took histories and<br />
recorded vital signs. Off to one side, a table<br />
though, it’s frustrating. I know they would<br />
heal faster and we could diagnose sooner<br />
if we had the luxury of the meds and the<br />
labs we have back home.” At the camp<br />
clinics, the lab technicians are equipped<br />
to perform only rudimentary tests: malaria<br />
smears, sputum tests for TB, urine<br />
dipsticks, and a rough hemoglobin.<br />
Among the Karen refugees now<br />
forced to sleep in fields rife with malarial<br />
mosquitoes and poisonous snakes, even<br />
these few diagnostic aids were saving lives.<br />
At least the lives of those treated in time.<br />
of Plasmodium falciparum following a<br />
1994 trip to Central America. “Without<br />
a clinic in the camp, she didn’t<br />
know where to go,” Washburne lamented.<br />
“Bullets didn’t kill her, but<br />
indirectly, the war still did.”<br />
Before the invasion, Washburne had<br />
sent e-mail messages to friends describing<br />
the conflict between the Burmese<br />
army and the Karen rebels as “a strange,<br />
slow, stuttering, kind of war... a war you<br />
know is there but can’t see.” <strong>The</strong>n, suddenly,<br />
it had exploded.<br />
displayed boxes of bandages and a few other<br />
basic supplies, enshrined as if offerings in a<br />
Buddhist temple.<br />
“I’ve learned about making do with<br />
very little,” Washburne responded optimistically<br />
when I asked about the medical<br />
tools she had to work with. “You really<br />
have to rely on your clinical skills, and that<br />
is making me a better doctor. Sometimes,<br />
“We could have saved her if she had<br />
come in sooner,” Dr. Washburne explained,<br />
pointing to the blanket-enshrouded<br />
corpse in the back of the pickup truck.<br />
An 18-year-old girl had died of cerebral<br />
malaria that morning. Staring at<br />
her body, which we were transporting<br />
to her family, I remembered my own<br />
agonizing bout with the deadly strain<br />
According to reports that filtered<br />
down to the camp leaders, the refugees<br />
were not the only target of these attacks.<br />
Burning the hospitals had been a primary<br />
objective for the soldiers, who had orders<br />
to confiscate all medical supplies and<br />
equipment. “Where are the microscopes?<br />
And we want both of them!” the soldiers<br />
had demanded of the terrified refugees.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 5
S P O T L I G H T<br />
“How did they know we had two microscopes<br />
at each camp?” Washburne<br />
wondered out loud as she described the<br />
attack—an attack that I would have witnessed<br />
if delays in obtaining a permit to<br />
visit the camps had not postponed my trip.<br />
“It makes you think that the soldiers had<br />
been watching us for a while,” she explained<br />
eerily. “And maybe they still are.”<br />
After the rampage, the Burmese army<br />
sent warnings to the relief agencies, threatening<br />
that medical personnel would be<br />
kidnapped and taken across the border to<br />
And so, despite the threats, Dr.<br />
Washburne and a team of medics and<br />
nurses continued to sew up lacerations,<br />
clean burns, drain infections, treat dysentery,<br />
and deliver babies in the thick<br />
tropical heat. During my visit, three<br />
healthy babies were born.<br />
<strong>The</strong> only American serving on<br />
DWB’s Mae Sot mission, Washburne<br />
worked side by side with Canadian and<br />
French doctors and Karen medics,<br />
switching easily from English to French<br />
or the smattering of Karen she’d learned<br />
had developed flourishing friendships<br />
with several Karen medics, among them<br />
Stanley, whom we met that morning at<br />
Maw Ker. (Many Karen anglicize their<br />
names to ease pronunciation for foreigners.)<br />
A broad-faced Karen wearing glasses<br />
and Western clothes, Stanley is a lab technician<br />
who wouldn’t look out of place<br />
walking down a street in Bangkok. But<br />
instead this 25-year-old father of a newborn<br />
boy is living in a refugee camp.<br />
Stanley came across the border with<br />
his family when he was 14. A few years<br />
A first-time volunteer, Mary Washburne found the Karen inspiring.<br />
treat its soldiers. <strong>The</strong> orders were clear: <strong>The</strong><br />
physicians were to leave the camps, and the<br />
Karen were to return to Myanmar. But both<br />
the doctors and the refugees stayed put.<br />
“<strong>The</strong>y need us now more than ever,”<br />
Washburne explained. Wells at other camps<br />
had become contaminated, and there was<br />
increasing concern about a cholera outbreak.<br />
during her stay. “It’s like a residency<br />
teaching program, and we’re the<br />
attendings,” Washburne noted of the<br />
Western doctors’ interaction with the<br />
Karen medics and nurses. “We train the<br />
Karen, so later, when we are gone, they<br />
can take care of themselves.”<br />
In just a few months, Dr. Washburne<br />
ago, he moved from Wanka (one of the<br />
camps just incinerated) to marry a woman<br />
who lived in Maw Ker. He said the recent<br />
assault had destroyed his parents’ house.<br />
Red-eyed and obviously exhausted,<br />
Stanley told us how he had stayed up all<br />
night to guard his wife and baby. Yesterday,<br />
he had buried all their possessions to<br />
6 Winter 1999
S P O T L I G H T<br />
protect them from fire, “just in case.” (A<br />
week later, I read in <strong>The</strong> Bangkok Post that<br />
part of Maw Ker had been burned.)<br />
Late that night, when the medical<br />
team was unwinding with cold Singha<br />
beer in the colorless border town of Mae<br />
Sot, Dr. Washburne talked about why she<br />
had volunteered and what she had left<br />
behind. After trading in a six-figure salary<br />
for a DWB stipend of about $600 a<br />
month, she found that it wasn’t the doctoring<br />
that had been unsatisfying, it was<br />
the medical system.<br />
she stopped by the OPD to make rounds.<br />
Three days earlier, we had seen a sweetfaced<br />
18-month-old boy with malarial<br />
tremors. We had watched as he writhed<br />
on a straw mat, teeth-chattering chills<br />
racking his febrile body, his honey-colored<br />
skin damp with perspiration.<br />
Today, it was apparent that the malaria<br />
therapy was working. <strong>The</strong> little boy’s<br />
fever had subsided, and he was feeling much<br />
better. Upon seeing Washburne, he jumped<br />
off his mother’s lap and ran to his doctor.<br />
He was smiling, and so were the Karen<br />
Dr. Washburne makes rounds at a camp clinic, before the devastating torchings by the Burmese army.<br />
“Here, people don’t believe doctors are<br />
gods, like we’re supposed to be in the West,”<br />
she said. “<strong>The</strong>y don’t come into the clinic<br />
loaded with expectations. <strong>The</strong>y appreciate<br />
anything we can do to help them.<br />
“Part of the reason I wanted to volunteer<br />
was the whole entitlement thing that<br />
people have at home,” she added. “<strong>The</strong>y<br />
feel they are entitled to smoke and take<br />
drugs and abuse their bodies and still be in<br />
perfect health. And you have to fix them<br />
or they’ll sue you. <strong>The</strong>y feel they are entitled<br />
to a perfect life. Here, they smile. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
give you presents. <strong>The</strong>y are so appreciative.”<br />
In the days that followed, more refugees<br />
arrived at the camps under DWB’s<br />
supervision, some relocating from the<br />
charred camps, some fleeing from the<br />
other side of the border.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> ones who have just arrived from<br />
Burma are always in pretty bad shape,” observed<br />
Washburne. <strong>The</strong> refugees who have<br />
lived in the camps for 12 years face challenges<br />
as well. “<strong>The</strong>y cannot grow their own<br />
food. It’s prohibited by the Thai government,<br />
so they completely rely on aid,” she explained<br />
as we passed a truck that was distributing<br />
rice out of huge white plastic sacks.<br />
On my last afternoon with Washburne,<br />
medics and villagers gathered nearby. He<br />
held out a rice cake. A simple present. And<br />
by the smile on Washburne’s face, more<br />
valuable than money in the bank.<br />
This article was reprinted with permission<br />
from the April 15, 1998, issue of DIVERSION<br />
magazine.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 7
S P O T L I G H T<br />
Mr. Doyle<br />
Goes to<br />
Washington<br />
Two video-making trips <strong>Taft</strong><br />
students won’t soon forget<br />
By Nathan Whittaker ’99<br />
L<br />
ast summer, video teacher Rick Doyle and<br />
twenty of his students traveled both to the<br />
noble and majestic Olympic Peninsula in<br />
Washington State and to the blue waters of the<br />
British Virgin Islands to make movies. “I like to go<br />
a minimum of 500 miles away from here, so kids<br />
can’t go home and do other stuff.” All told, the two<br />
groups spent a combined four weeks dedicating<br />
themselves to nothing other than making movies.<br />
Rick Doyle, Matt Donahue, and Scott Britell follow Maggie as they return from filming<br />
Killing Lassie on location. And, no, the movie has nothing to do with Rick’s faithful collie<br />
companion and video team mascot, who is alive and well and living in Watertown.<br />
8 Winter 1999
S P O T L I G H T<br />
This sort of excursion is certainly not a new<br />
occurrence in <strong>Taft</strong> history, but in fact, it is<br />
a decade-long tradition. To find the perfect<br />
backdrops for their screenplays, Rick<br />
and his aspiring pupils have traveled all<br />
across the United States, as well as to foreign<br />
countries, to film in such places as<br />
Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, the Florida<br />
Keys, West Virginia, Iowa, Montana, North<br />
Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Minnesota, Wisconsin,<br />
St. John’s Island, Norway, and<br />
England. <strong>The</strong>se voyages have produced several<br />
extraordinary films; in fact, Rick has<br />
received 38 regional Emmy nominations<br />
for the movies made on these trips.<br />
<strong>The</strong> first of their two expeditions occurred<br />
in June as they set off for a tree farm<br />
in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula for two<br />
weeks. Here, they made a film about a<br />
school shooting, a very real problem in<br />
Filming the final scene of Killing Lassie. An old fisherman’s cabin on the Pacific coast is<br />
used as the setting.<br />
According to Doyle…<br />
“We try to make a family out of the whole thing. <strong>The</strong> kids take turns planning and preparing<br />
dinner each night; the traditions build each year. I always make a toast on the first night,<br />
and it’s always the same: Here’s to the movies and the people who make them.”<br />
today’s society. <strong>The</strong> film, titled Killing Lassie,<br />
stars Tim Dzurilla ’01 (Gordy), a distressed<br />
student who commits homicide; Matt<br />
Donahue ’98, Gordy’s brother and the<br />
cause of Gordy’s distress; and Eric Hansen<br />
’99, Gordy’s friend who gets swept into the<br />
action. According to Rick, “It is a reflection<br />
on today’s glorification of violence, the<br />
desensitizing of the human being toward<br />
the value of life, and how television plays a<br />
role in the glorification of the sensational.<br />
It is a very hard-hitting, angry movie. It’s<br />
scary to think about what is going on.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> movie premiered at <strong>Taft</strong> in October<br />
and will be aired by either PBS or the<br />
local cable access station later this year. Two<br />
earlier movies, Pristine, filmed on a Wyoming<br />
trip, and Translucent, filmed in upper<br />
Minnesota two years ago, are now distributed<br />
through 23rd Publications, a Christian<br />
organization that promotes tapes about<br />
teenage issues and family values.<br />
Making Movies on Location<br />
Olympic Peninsula, June<br />
“<strong>The</strong> location was a tree farm on the<br />
Pacific Coast of Washington. We<br />
stayed in a wonderful old cabin and<br />
did almost all the filming in the lush,<br />
green forest.”<br />
Olympic Peninsula Trip:<br />
Scott Britell ’98<br />
Dan Cole ’00<br />
Mike DeMarco ’99<br />
Matt Donahue ’98<br />
Tim Dzurilla ’01<br />
Bridget Everly ’98<br />
Eric Hansen ’99<br />
Giorgio Litt ’99<br />
Nick Ryan ’00<br />
Cordy Wagner ’01<br />
and Maggie, of course<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 9
S P O T L I G H T<br />
Rick Doyle directs Tim Dzurilla in a scene for Killing Lassie.<br />
According to Doyle…<br />
“Each summer we go on location movie trips to all parts<br />
of the globe. I work with Connecticut Public Television<br />
and the movies that we do on these location trips are<br />
often shown on CPTV. Some are later distributed by a<br />
company called 23rd Publications.”<br />
Later in the summer, the group<br />
again packed their bags to go on location<br />
for another movie: they lived on<br />
a 42-foot catamaran off the coast of<br />
the British Virgin Islands for ten days.<br />
One of the movies is called How My<br />
Mother Met My Father. “It’s a totally<br />
different idea and mood than the first<br />
project. It is a light-hearted movie<br />
about relationships after people first<br />
get married. It is a very pleasant, visually<br />
stunning movie.”<br />
Rick was not the only director on<br />
the trip— several students took the opportunity<br />
to film their own movies.<br />
Cordy Wagner ’01 created a film in<br />
which Georgio Litt ’99 stars as a man with<br />
a mental disorder. Mike DeMarco ’99<br />
also pursued his interests in a film about<br />
two people—Georgio Litt ’99 and Nick<br />
Ryan ’00—who are lost in the woods<br />
and have to depend on each other to<br />
survive. Finally, Damon Cortesi ’98 directed<br />
a movie written by Ryan Murray,<br />
Eric Hansen ’99, and Aaron Kovalchik<br />
’98 about four graduating high-school<br />
seniors who have difficulties “saying<br />
good-bye.” When completed, these<br />
Making Movies Under Sail<br />
British Virgin Islands, August<br />
“<strong>The</strong> 42-foot catamaran was our<br />
center of operations as we ate and<br />
slept there. Ten days is what was<br />
needed to tape two movies. It was<br />
the first time I ever made a movie<br />
on water.”<br />
BVI trip:<br />
Scott Britell ’98<br />
Damon Cortesi ’98<br />
Josh Einstein ’01<br />
Tammy Grella<br />
Eric Hansen ’99<br />
Aaron Kovalchik ’98<br />
Ryan Murray<br />
Lanny Shreve ’99<br />
Andy Smith ’79<br />
Sara Weitzel<br />
10 Winter 1999
S P O T L I G H T<br />
According to Doyle…<br />
“Making movies on location is nothing but problems—<br />
weather, bugs, batteries. Murphy is sometimes the<br />
13th party member. You never know when he’s going<br />
to show up. When things can go wrong they will go<br />
wrong, but you learn to expect that. How to deal with<br />
people, that’s the toughest thing going. Learning how<br />
to make decisions, that can be the hardest part of<br />
making a movie, too.”<br />
movies will also be aired on either CPTV<br />
or the local access station.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> nice thing about the whole<br />
procedure,” says Rick, “is that people<br />
have the opportunity to write, to act, to<br />
direct, and to go on location. Going on<br />
location centers everyone; that’s the only<br />
way we can do a movie in nine or ten<br />
days. But it’s more than just that. It’s<br />
the whole idea of going together to an<br />
unusual place and living as a group. We<br />
become an extended family with a<br />
shared objective—to make a movie.<br />
Even then, the movie is fifth down the<br />
pole of importance on these trips: safety,<br />
food, water, shelter, then the movie.<br />
Social activities are way down the list.”<br />
“It was probably the most intensive<br />
learning process I’ve ever been<br />
through,” said Cordy Wagner while<br />
editing his movie this fall. “Definitely<br />
the most rewarding.”<br />
This article originated in <strong>The</strong> <strong>Taft</strong> Papyrus last<br />
November. Nathan Whittaker is the paper’s<br />
arts editor and a highly talented cellist.<br />
Eric Hansen and Aaron Kovalchik, in the boat, seem to be at the mercy of Josh Einstein,<br />
as this group learns to film on the water.<br />
<strong>The</strong> trees—gentle, mossy green, gorgeous weather. That’s part of the experience, says Doyle,<br />
the beauty of these places. Eric Hansen and Matt Donahue survey the awesome setting.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 11
S P O T L I G H T<br />
For the Love<br />
of Learning<br />
By Michael Townsend<br />
Portraits by Lisa Jackier<br />
For twenty-four seniors, the notion of a <strong>Taft</strong> education has an added<br />
dimension this fall. In accordance with the school’s long-standing<br />
mission of fostering independence, these students are taking charge of<br />
their education and enjoying a degree of self-reliance that has not been available<br />
in the school’s curriculum since the early days of the Independent Studies<br />
Program of the Sixties. Conspicuous by their toting enormous spiral notebooks<br />
and their obsessing over boxes of index cards, these students have elected to take<br />
the risk of leaving the traditional classroom behind in order to study subjects<br />
of their own choosing.<br />
Kate Bienen<br />
“<strong>The</strong> course has been the best leaning experience<br />
of my life: I’ve learned things that<br />
I will use forever. Trembling on the phone<br />
during my interview with Elie Wiesel, listening<br />
to his brilliance, is something I will<br />
never forget. But I’ve also learned self-discipline;<br />
the seminar has made me learn to<br />
manage my time, to set priorities, and to<br />
focus my energy as never before.”<br />
Ben Cirillo possesses a keen interest in the<br />
stock market and has devoted long hours<br />
this semester to studying Wall Street and<br />
considering the possible effects of the economic<br />
crises in Asia on our markets.<br />
Danielle Perrin, one of the school’s<br />
most accomplished musicians, has been<br />
looking into the science of music therapy:<br />
the physiological and psychological benefits<br />
of music on convalescing patients.<br />
Kate Bienen, intent on forging a<br />
stronger connection to her cultural roots,<br />
is daring to examine the Holocaust in excruciating<br />
detail.<br />
Peter Walke, a committed environmentalist<br />
since seventh grade, has been exploring<br />
12 Winter 1999
S P O T L I G H T<br />
“constructed wetlands,” a method of purifying<br />
water in an ecologically sound way,<br />
and looking into the feasibility of creating<br />
a limited system at <strong>Taft</strong>.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se seniors, whose passions could not<br />
be more diverse, share one common experience:<br />
each is enrolled in the inaugural <strong>Taft</strong><br />
Senior Independent Research Seminar. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
have elected to take a risk and, by designing<br />
and undertaking their own full-year academic<br />
course, they are presently following a<br />
path which diverges from the traditional <strong>Taft</strong><br />
curriculum and challenges them to become<br />
both more resourceful and more aware of<br />
themselves as learners.<br />
<strong>The</strong> program’s genesis goes back to last<br />
year’s Senior Year Committee, a group of<br />
faculty members—led by Bob Wheeler—<br />
charged with evaluating the senior year at<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> and with making suggestions about how<br />
our seniors’ experiences could be enriched.<br />
Although initial discussions focused on<br />
the phenomena of “senior spring term”—<br />
the tendency of seniors in all high schools<br />
to tune out after the college process is completed—and<br />
on the sad fact that too many<br />
seniors reported that their last semester was<br />
the least intellectually stimulating and rewarding<br />
of their <strong>Taft</strong> careers, the committee<br />
rather quickly turned its attention to what<br />
the senior year should be.<br />
Bob Wheeler, who had been doing<br />
extensive research into approaches other<br />
schools had taken, was particularly intrigued<br />
by the Dwight-Englewood<br />
<strong>School</strong>, a day school in New Jersey. As<br />
that program had a six-year history of<br />
thoughtful revision and success, it provided<br />
a model well worth examining.<br />
Moreover, the committee believed in<br />
the inherent value of this kind of program<br />
to students of widely ranging abilities and<br />
interests; it was not to be a course exclusively<br />
for our most accomplished students.<br />
Mike Townsend and Willy MacMullen<br />
agreed to direct the program which would<br />
be based, with permission, on the Dwight-<br />
Englewood model.<br />
According to Headmaster Lance<br />
Odden, the enthusiastic response from<br />
students for this idea should have come as<br />
no surprise; indeed, the new program represents<br />
merely the latest evolutionary step<br />
in a school with a long-standing commitment<br />
to both innovation and independent<br />
work. According to Odden, the new seminar<br />
is “similar in its purpose and in the<br />
range of the intellectual excitement it generates”<br />
to the original Independent Studies<br />
Program, which Odden founded and<br />
oversaw in the Sixties.<br />
<strong>The</strong> new course honors the tradition<br />
of independent study at <strong>Taft</strong>, explains<br />
Bob Wheeler, “by embracing the conviction<br />
that our kids will do phenomenal<br />
work if we allow them to take charge of<br />
their education and then support them.<br />
What we are doing is shifting the focus<br />
from what we teach to what they learn—<br />
and that is the real measure of education.”<br />
First Semester: <strong>The</strong> <strong>The</strong>sis<br />
In the fall, participating students write a research<br />
paper of at least fifteen pages for the<br />
Seminar, which replaces a regular course. <strong>The</strong><br />
process begins in the summer when they read<br />
at least two primary sources related to a field<br />
in which they have a particular interest.<br />
As soon as they return in September,<br />
they begin to consider questions<br />
which they believe will lead to an exciting<br />
exploration of some issues in that<br />
field. Concurrently, they begin the pro-<br />
Andrew Bostrom<br />
“Even though I find the scarcity of time to<br />
be extremely frustrating, I have learned so<br />
much about my topic and about how I<br />
think. I am still struggling to find a precise<br />
direction for my paper, but I am learning<br />
slowly how best to manage my hectic<br />
schedule and still fit in my nightly research.<br />
This course has really challenged me to develop<br />
independence, and I am more<br />
confident now of my own ability to make<br />
things happen.”<br />
Seniors and <strong>The</strong>ir Topics<br />
Kate Bienen: <strong>The</strong> Holocaust: An Investigation<br />
of “Rescuers” and Silent Conspirators.<br />
Andrew Bostrom: An Investigation into<br />
the Separation of Church and State (its<br />
constitutional history as well as contemporary<br />
interpretations—especially as it<br />
was interpreted by Judge Ira DeMent’s<br />
ruling in the Alabama case in 1994).<br />
Brooke Carleton: <strong>The</strong> Environmental,<br />
Economic, and Educational Importance<br />
of Microscale Chemistry as a<br />
Teaching Method in Chemistry Classes.<br />
Ben Cirillo: <strong>The</strong> Effects of <strong>The</strong> Asian<br />
Economic Crises on American Markets.<br />
Charles Crimmins: <strong>The</strong> Challenges that<br />
Confront Disadvantaged Urban Minority<br />
Students at Prep <strong>School</strong>s.<br />
Michael DeMarco: <strong>The</strong> Consequences<br />
of Advances in Special Effects Technology<br />
in American Cinema.<br />
Taj Frazier: An Examination of the Explosion<br />
of Conversions to Islam in the Black<br />
Community in the Late 1960s (an argument<br />
that were it not for Islam, the rage<br />
and energies of the blacks would have<br />
been channeled into destructive forms).<br />
Jill Giardina: Effective AIDS Education<br />
for Adolescents.<br />
Lauren Henry: Primary Causes of Eating<br />
Disorders in Adolescent Females.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 13
S P O T L I G H T<br />
Peter Walke<br />
“My consultation with an outside expert<br />
has been both the scariest and the most<br />
rewarding part of my experience. Calling a<br />
complete stranger and asking for guidance<br />
was not something that came naturally to<br />
me. But I finally worked up the nerve to<br />
call the public relations director of a wetlands<br />
construction company. We had a<br />
great talk, I learned a lot from him, and<br />
we’ve ended up being good friends.”<br />
Galen Largay: <strong>The</strong> Pedagogical Roots<br />
of Montessori Education (and the effect<br />
of hands-on community learning<br />
on the student).<br />
Emily Lord: A Study of Twins: What It<br />
Reveals about the Nature vs. Nurture<br />
Debate.<br />
Julie Marmolejos: <strong>The</strong> Cross-cultural<br />
Influences Resulting from Increased<br />
Hispanic Immigration to the US.<br />
Emily McNair: <strong>The</strong> Ramifications of<br />
Making English the Primary Language<br />
of the Nepali Educational System.<br />
Bea Ogden: Creating an Environmental<br />
Studies Program for Primary <strong>School</strong><br />
Children.<br />
Samantha Page: <strong>The</strong> <strong>The</strong>me of Redemption<br />
in the Films of Martin Scorsese.<br />
Danielle Perrin: An Examination of Music<br />
<strong>The</strong>rapy and its Physical and<br />
Psychological Effects on Patients.<br />
Nicole Robertson: An Investigation<br />
into the Dangers and Benefits of Bone<br />
Marrow Transplants (and into why so<br />
few transplants occur).<br />
Becky Seel: An Examination of the<br />
Controversy Surrounding the Reintroduction<br />
of Wolves to Yellowstone Park.<br />
Cathy Schieffelin: <strong>The</strong> Relationship between<br />
Manic Depressive Illness and<br />
Creativity.<br />
cess of self-assessment that must continue<br />
throughout the year: they each take a<br />
“passion test” that compels them to evaluate<br />
candidly the depth of their interest,<br />
and they take a “personal learning inventory”<br />
that leads them to consider their<br />
strengths and weaknesses as a learner.<br />
Early on, the seminar classes focus<br />
on formal and systematic training in the<br />
use of written and electronic media for<br />
research. Each student must also contact<br />
at least one expert in his or her field in<br />
order to seek direction and advice.<br />
<strong>The</strong> rest of the semester is devoted to<br />
composing the <strong>The</strong>sis. Students are given<br />
ample time to work independently as they<br />
do the research and the writing, but the<br />
seminar classes are focused on collaboration.<br />
Students take a variety of workshops<br />
designed to assist them with each stage of<br />
the writing process, and they work with<br />
each other, evaluating one another’s work<br />
and offering counsel. <strong>The</strong>y also submit<br />
formal self-evaluations of their work in its<br />
various stages and write short papers in<br />
which they reflect on their progress.<br />
Second Semester: Field Work<br />
In the second semester students continue<br />
to pursue their passion by working in the<br />
field in lieu of one or two “regular” courses.<br />
<strong>The</strong> only prerequisites for the field work<br />
are that it be directly related to the Senior<br />
<strong>The</strong>sis, that it provide an opportunity to<br />
expand on the learning presented in the<br />
<strong>The</strong>sis, and that it not be of such scope to<br />
pose logistical difficulties for a student to<br />
meet his or her other obligations.<br />
By the end of the second week in<br />
January, each student submits a specific<br />
proposal for field work. In it, students<br />
must identify a series of questions from<br />
their research that can be most effectively<br />
answered through field work. Whenever<br />
possible, they should identify a mentor<br />
or outside expert (not a <strong>Taft</strong> faculty member)<br />
who can help them pursue answers<br />
to their questions. Students are asked to<br />
consider the following list and to name<br />
specific activities that would constitute<br />
meaningful field work for them:<br />
• subjects for personal interviews<br />
• sites to visit (museums, specialized libraries,<br />
archives, etc. )<br />
• locations for actual work in the field<br />
• contact with any of the above via telephone,<br />
fax, Web site, etc.<br />
• specialized courses (not offered at <strong>Taft</strong>)<br />
in their field<br />
• additional reading<br />
• an experiment or survey or other project<br />
that carries theory into practice.<br />
Students keep a detailed log of their activities<br />
and a journal in which they assess<br />
their odysseys as they unfold. Moreover,<br />
the class meets at regular intervals to enable<br />
the students to work collaboratively,<br />
discuss specific aspects of their experiences,<br />
and give oral reports to their peers.<br />
By the end of April, students must<br />
bring the field work to a conclusion and<br />
begin work on a portfolio and an oral<br />
presentation that will represent the fruits<br />
of their year’s labor.<br />
<strong>The</strong> oral presentation will be evaluated<br />
by a panel that includes a head<br />
panelist (a student in the course who coordinates<br />
the presentation), an outside<br />
expert in the field, a faculty member, and<br />
another seminar student.<br />
How has the first group of pioneering<br />
seniors reacted to the experience thus<br />
14 Winter 1999
S P O T L I G H T<br />
far? As some of the voices that accompany<br />
this article attest, there are as many<br />
reactions as there are students in the program.<br />
Certainly, all would agree that it<br />
has challenged them in ways that are personal<br />
and profound, and that they have<br />
discovered heretofore untapped resources<br />
within themselves. Certainly, seminar<br />
student Cathy Schieffelin’s reflection indicates<br />
the richness of her experience and<br />
embodies many of the aspirations of all<br />
who had a hand in bringing this kind of<br />
experience to <strong>Taft</strong>. She writes:<br />
“Although I have learned a great deal<br />
about my topic—the relationship between<br />
manic depression and creativity—I<br />
have learned even more about my abilities<br />
as a student. I now realize that,<br />
ironically, it is often important to consult<br />
other experienced minds even while<br />
working in an ‘independent’ seminar.<br />
However, as Emerson said, ‘<strong>The</strong>re is a<br />
time in every man’s education when he<br />
arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance;<br />
that imitation is suicide. . .’<br />
<strong>The</strong>se words are especially relevant when<br />
I consider what I have gained from my<br />
senior seminar. By being enthusiastically<br />
engaged in learning about something that<br />
fascinates me, I have realized the impor-<br />
Cathy Schieffelin<br />
“Although I have learned a great deal<br />
about my topic—the relationship between<br />
manic depression and creativity—I have<br />
learned even more about my abilities as a<br />
student. I now realize that, ironically, it is<br />
often important to consult other experienced<br />
minds even while working in an<br />
‘independent’ seminar. By being enthusiastically<br />
engaged in learning about<br />
something that fascinates me, I have realized<br />
the importance of self-reliance in<br />
education. In this seminar the knowledge I<br />
have gained is directly proportionate to my<br />
curiosity, diligence, and desire. Even<br />
though I pay dearly for it, no college will<br />
give me an education, for, to quote<br />
Emerson again, ‘no kernel of nourishing<br />
corn can come to [me] but through [my]<br />
own toil bestowed upon that plot of ground<br />
which is given [me] to till.’”<br />
tance of self-reliance in education. In this<br />
seminar the knowledge I have gained is<br />
directly proportionate to my curiosity,<br />
diligence, and desire. Even though I pay<br />
dearly for it, no college will give me an<br />
education, for, to quote Emerson again,<br />
‘no kernel of nourishing corn can come<br />
to [me] but through [my] own toil bestowed<br />
upon that plot of ground which<br />
is given [me] to till.’”<br />
Mike Townsend is a member of the English<br />
Department and dean of the Senior<br />
Class. Fellow English teachers Willy<br />
MacMullen and Linda Saarnijoki also<br />
contributed to this article.<br />
Laura Stevens<br />
“Senior Seminar gave me the opportunity<br />
to explore a subject—the effects of stress—<br />
that I am really interested in, and it also<br />
gave me the chance to become a certified<br />
Emergency Medical Technician, something<br />
I wouldn’t have been able to do this year<br />
otherwise. Also, because my paper is about<br />
the effects of stress on EMT’s, I learned a<br />
lot of important things that my class outside<br />
of school didn’t teach me. <strong>The</strong> learning<br />
in my Senior Seminar project was a perfect<br />
complement to my EMT training; I know it<br />
will make me a better EMT.”<br />
Sarah Sicher: <strong>The</strong> Effects of the Fundamentalist<br />
Taliban Regime on the<br />
Lives of Women in Afghanistan.<br />
Elliot Sharron: Stanley Kubrick and<br />
Woody Allen: How their Personal Lives<br />
Intersect with their Art.<br />
Laura Stevens: Emergency Medical<br />
Technicians and Critical Incident Stress.<br />
Peter Walke: An Analysis of Four Major<br />
Types of Constructed Wetlands<br />
(which are used to purify water) and<br />
an Argument in Favor of <strong>Taft</strong>’s Embracing<br />
such a System.<br />
Akio Yamanaka: An Examination of the<br />
Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia<br />
(and how the devastating effects of<br />
that rule can still be seen in the<br />
country’s educational and medical infrastructure).<br />
Senior Year Committee<br />
Bob Wheeler, chair<br />
Rusty Davis<br />
Gerry DePolo<br />
Helena Fifer<br />
David Hostage<br />
Barclay Johnson<br />
Jack Kenerson<br />
Willy MacMullen<br />
Debora Phipps<br />
Mike Townsend<br />
Carolyn White<br />
Gail Wynne<br />
Bill Zuehlke<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 15
His Work is<br />
For the Birds<br />
Kem Appell’s Sanctuary for Exotic Waterfowl<br />
By Sara Beasley<br />
Photography by Kindra Clineff
S P O T L I G H T<br />
This pair of black-necked swans, native to<br />
the southern tip of South America, are one<br />
of only eight species of swans. Swans pair<br />
bond strongly and will remain together for<br />
twenty years or more.<br />
A demoiselle crane is the smallest of the<br />
thirteen species of cranes and is indigenous<br />
to southern Russia, northern Iraq, Iran, and<br />
India. A gentle bird, many are allowed to<br />
roam freely in parks and zoos. This one will<br />
eat from Kem’s hand.<br />
J. Kemler Appell ’55 is an artist, a creator,<br />
and an educator. He and his wife,<br />
Julia, whose knowledge of and enthusiasm<br />
for birds is absolutely equal to her<br />
husband’s, have devoted themselves to<br />
building and maintaining a habitat for<br />
more than 75 different species of birds.<br />
His backyard aviary is a complex world,<br />
full of graceful lines and pure colors. <strong>The</strong><br />
two hours we spent together on a wet and<br />
chilly Friday afternoon were magical: I<br />
was invited to wander through a paradise<br />
for birds and to contemplate the<br />
calm of the large pond and the singular<br />
beauty of its many inhabitants.<br />
As we talked, he opened up to me a<br />
world of intricacies and subtleties, patiently<br />
explaining to me every detail of<br />
what was a decade ago an imaginative<br />
birthday gift for Julia. That gift—a pair<br />
of swans—turned into an avocation; now,<br />
what began as a hobby must be described<br />
as a passionate mission that both Kem and<br />
<strong>The</strong> Sanctuary is home to exotic waterfowl<br />
from every continent except Antarctica—<br />
a feathered UN of sorts. Although there<br />
are generally 500 birds in residence, at<br />
times, before a new generation of fledglings<br />
departs, there can be nearly 700.<br />
A Baikal hen is as curious about us as we<br />
are about her.<br />
Julia share: to protect rare and endangered<br />
species and to share with others some of<br />
nature’s most beautiful creatures. I learned<br />
a great deal in my time with the Appells.<br />
Like each of their 250 pairs of birds, they<br />
are truly an impressive couple. <strong>The</strong>y have<br />
taught themselves well enough that they<br />
can in turn educate others.<br />
Appell’s collection is one of the largest<br />
and most comprehensive in North<br />
America. It includes as many as 700 birds<br />
representing nearly 80 species. Some<br />
originate in South America, Nepal, and<br />
Bangladesh, to name but a few of the exotic<br />
species to be found in Appell’s<br />
backyard. This is the only place on the<br />
East Coast that one can see sea ducks in<br />
captivity. <strong>The</strong> Appells’ collection ranks<br />
with those found in the Bronx, San Diego,<br />
and Miami zoos. <strong>The</strong> names of the<br />
birds, although plenty poetic, do not begin<br />
to do them justice: silver versicolor<br />
teal, Bahama pintail, white cheek, European<br />
wigeon, Argentine red shoveler, cinnamon<br />
teal, Barrows goldeneye, hooded<br />
merganser, blue-scaled quail, Hawaiiannene,<br />
coscoroba swan, West African<br />
crown crane. My favorite was the iridescent<br />
Impian pheasant from Nepal—a<br />
truly gorgeous and majestic bird. Nestled<br />
on a wooded lot near the heart of<br />
Farmington, the “Sanctuary” is home to<br />
all of these birds and to many, many<br />
more. Some of the birds can come and<br />
go, but all seem to know that this place<br />
is always their home.<br />
This private aviary is designed to<br />
educate and to excite the minds and<br />
imaginations of all who visit. Connecticut<br />
College students studying animal<br />
behavior and behavioral science have<br />
found the aviary an invaluable resource,<br />
for example. Kem and Julia are especially<br />
interested in youngsters: second grade<br />
classes from schools all around the area<br />
have been visiting for years. Kem shows<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 17
S P O T L I G H T<br />
Luke and his Lady: An adopted Canada goose<br />
(originally misnamed Lucy) eventually found<br />
his match in this emperor goose at the Sanctuary.<br />
Kem doesn’t normally keep Canada<br />
geese, but he took Luke in after he was<br />
hatched in a shoebox in an Ohio motel. His<br />
mother had been frightened off the nest and<br />
some traveling students cared for the gosling<br />
until they found the Sanctuary. So far the<br />
mismatched pair have laid only infertile eggs.<br />
For Julia’s birthday, Kem wanted to surprise her with a pair of black swans for the pond,<br />
and so the Sanctuary began in their backyard. It is now a collection to share. <strong>The</strong>re are<br />
four black swans today. Fittingly, black swans are among the few birds where the male<br />
and female share the responsibility of incubating eggs, much as Kem and Julia have<br />
worked together to create this amazing aviary.<br />
me stacks of letters he has received from<br />
his seven- and eight-year-old friends. He<br />
saves every letter, clearly relishing the<br />
connection forged with the students.<br />
<strong>School</strong> buses pull into the Appells’ quiet<br />
neighborhood each spring and disgorge<br />
loads of excited youngsters. Typically,<br />
Kem and Julia take the children upon<br />
arrival into the garage for some preliminary<br />
teaching. <strong>The</strong> youngsters are then<br />
instructed to “park their noisy voices”<br />
in this makeshift “lecture hall.” At that<br />
point, each youngster is given a photograph<br />
of a bird. If the child can find that<br />
bird during the carefully planned walk<br />
through the aviary, then he or she gets<br />
to take home the photograph.<br />
<strong>The</strong> walk itself is calm and full of<br />
information. <strong>The</strong> children are given every<br />
opportunity to ask questions. <strong>The</strong><br />
children’s letters are decorated with drawings<br />
of the birds they saw; the care taken<br />
with the drawings (and with the spelling<br />
of the birds’ names) conveys how powerfully<br />
affecting an experience each child<br />
has. Kem and Julia believe strongly in the<br />
value of the education the Sanctuary provides:<br />
“Growing up in 20th century<br />
suburbia, children are deprived of the<br />
chance to learn about nature, about animal<br />
behavior,” says Kem. “Here, they can<br />
learn about life. Lessons are easily learned<br />
in this context; they see the whole cycle<br />
of life.” He and Julia also believe that visiting<br />
the fragile beauty of the Sanctuary<br />
teaches children basic lessons in responsibility.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se children visit from all over<br />
the area; however, it is not surprising that<br />
some of the most responsive students are<br />
those from urban schools.<br />
During my time with him, Kem<br />
Appell impresses me with the breadth<br />
of his knowledge and the depth of his<br />
commitment. He shows me every facet<br />
of the Sanctuary’s design, pointing out<br />
the “salamanders” designed to melt snow<br />
on the roof of the hatchery before it can<br />
gain any appreciable weight and pose a<br />
danger to the vulnerable chicks below.<br />
<strong>The</strong> entire area is enclosed within an<br />
electric fence. While these birds have<br />
many natural predators and thus are in<br />
constant danger, the fence and other<br />
protective measures do slow down a<br />
would-be adversary. <strong>The</strong> birds’ natural<br />
haven is the large pond. As we walk toward<br />
it, several black swans swim out<br />
to greet us. Kem and Julia immediately<br />
begin to talk to the swans, and they encourage<br />
me to do the same. I am taken<br />
aback by the volume and responsiveness<br />
of the birds. Clearly, these birds are comfortable<br />
with humans.<br />
Kem and Julia acknowledge just how<br />
attuned they’ve become to the various<br />
calls and sounds of their birds; it is easy<br />
to distinguish a cry of greeting from a<br />
cry of panic. It is difficult to imagine any<br />
threat, however, as I look out over the<br />
18 Winter 1999
S P O T L I G H T<br />
Getting your ducks in a row: <strong>The</strong>se harlequin<br />
ducks are excellent swimmers and<br />
divers. <strong>The</strong>y also enjoy a swing Kem built<br />
to resemble floating logs such as they<br />
might find in the wild. <strong>The</strong> harlequins are a<br />
threatened species, with an Atlantic population<br />
of roughly 2,000 and a population<br />
of 50,000 on the Pacific. <strong>The</strong>re are only a<br />
dozen pairs in captitivity.<br />
Kem and Julia are fairly tethered to their backyard oasis, but it is something to share with<br />
others, from second graders to college students, from grandchildren to hip-wader wearing<br />
Audubon Society members.<br />
serene community of waterfowl. <strong>The</strong><br />
birds enjoy a beautifully landscaped and<br />
gently sloping beach along one side of<br />
the pond. Kem has built a series of connecting<br />
decks on the water to allow the<br />
birds to move about. Overall, the pond<br />
looks much like a park; there are swings<br />
for the birds to play on, and all kinds of<br />
perches and natural vantage points. Protective<br />
measures—such as the electric<br />
fence—blend in with the lush and<br />
wooded setting. <strong>The</strong> most vulnerable<br />
birds and those not native to North<br />
America live within an enclosed aviary.<br />
Kem has made strategic use of hollowed<br />
out tree trunks and logs in order to achieve<br />
a harmonious and appealing habitat. One<br />
could sit quietly for hours, just observing<br />
the birds in what must be a very happy<br />
playground. Kem confesses that he often<br />
does just that: he sits and watches and listens<br />
and learns. “It’s amazing how human<br />
they seem sometimes,” he explains.<br />
Our tour includes the nesting area,<br />
marked by private nest boxes made of cedar.<br />
It’s nicely solitary and the birds are well-protected<br />
from crows simply because they are<br />
ever so-slightly hidden from view. Again, I’m<br />
struck by how carefully designed the aviary<br />
is: it preserves and replicates the natural habitats<br />
of these birds in a simple, graceful<br />
fashion. Every bird is mated; if a bird is lost,<br />
it is immediately replaced. <strong>The</strong>ir diet is as<br />
carefully considered as their environment.<br />
<strong>The</strong> birds eat wheat and corn in the winter<br />
to build fat; otherwise, Iams makes a special<br />
sea-duck diet. I learn that quail and pheasants<br />
love fruit, and that three pounds of<br />
fathead minnows are served every Friday. As<br />
we enter a storage shed, I ask Kem to show<br />
me what is inside several large bins. His<br />
strong, blunt fingers gently sift through the<br />
mix of wheat, dog food, oyster shells and<br />
bird seed that his birds eat. He gives the mix<br />
his full attention, patiently explaining to me<br />
why his birds need each element.<br />
Every detail matters to him; one<br />
small miscalculation of temperature or<br />
amount can affect the health and life of<br />
his birds. Considering the care that he<br />
and Julia take with their aviary, it is no<br />
surprise that he chooses and handles the<br />
birds’ food with such tenderness. Luckily,<br />
waterfowl are hardy; of all birds, they<br />
are among the least susceptible to viruses.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y are treated prophylactically for<br />
water-borne illnesses, and given heartworm<br />
medicine as well. <strong>The</strong> Appells have<br />
lost birds over the years, to be sure. But<br />
Kem and Julia are matter-of-fact about the<br />
risks they run. <strong>The</strong>y are sure to do everything<br />
they can think of to protect and to<br />
sustain the birds in a healthy, safe, and<br />
aesthetically pleasing environment. And<br />
the eight resident endangered species are<br />
provided a secure place to live, thus ensuring<br />
the perpetuation of the breed.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Sanctuary tries to combine a park<br />
theme and setting with a commitment to<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 19
S P O T L I G H T<br />
<strong>The</strong> white wood duck is a mutation, not an<br />
albino, of the Carolina wood duck found<br />
along the eastern seacoast. <strong>The</strong> mutation<br />
happens once in 100,000 birds. <strong>The</strong> bird on<br />
the right is an old squaw, which is found<br />
along the Atlantic seacoast.<br />
Julia and Kem Appell ’55 in their backyard aviary.<br />
education. As Julia explains, “We can’t be<br />
all things to all people. We make the choice<br />
not to breed the birds.” Instead, they are<br />
bred and hatched in Litchfield and then<br />
brought to the Sanctuary. In fact, Kem is<br />
quick to invoke his “mentor” Mike Bean,<br />
and to credit his help with creating and<br />
maintaining the Sanctuary. Mike is some<br />
thirty years younger than Kem, and is the<br />
superintendent and curator of the<br />
Livingston-Ripley Waterfowl Trust in<br />
Litchfield, begun by Dillon Ripley, an ornithologist<br />
and former secretary of the<br />
Smithsonian. It is Mike Bean who first<br />
showed Kem, clad in his Cole-Haan shoes<br />
and his Sunday finest, as they tramped together<br />
through the muddy grounds of the<br />
Waterfowl Trust, what is possible to create<br />
for these birds. Kem’s reaction, he says, was<br />
“typical: I want it all, and I want it now.”<br />
Unfortunately, he had to wait for the<br />
eggs to hatch and for the hatchlings to<br />
fledge (to feather), so he read, and he<br />
learned “the hard way.” I sense the determination<br />
of this man—and the vision,<br />
and the patience it took to execute his<br />
dream. <strong>The</strong>re was much to add and to<br />
alter in terms of his property. <strong>The</strong> pond<br />
originally held trout; the neighbors had<br />
to learn to accept the deliveries of propane<br />
to heat the buildings, and to get<br />
used to the school buses. Kem gave up<br />
golf, skiing, the country club, and trips to<br />
the Caribbean. He and Julia are fairly tethered<br />
to their backyard oasis, in fact, and<br />
they get only part-time help in running<br />
and maintaining the Sanctuary. Yet both<br />
are quick to affirm its centrality in their<br />
lives and its many rewards. Put most simply,<br />
it is something to share with others,<br />
from second graders to college students,<br />
from grandchildren to hip-wader wearing<br />
Audubon Society members.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Appells’ creation of the Sanctuary<br />
has led to professional memberships<br />
and an ardent side interest. Kem is on the<br />
board of the American Pheasant and Waterfowl<br />
Society. He has also developed a<br />
passion for wood carvings of birds and has<br />
been asked to judge carvings from all over<br />
the world. “Wildfowl Art,” as it is called,<br />
is a beautiful and delicate form of representation.<br />
Like the second graders, wood<br />
carvers also make use of the Sanctuary.<br />
<strong>The</strong>y come to observe and study the eider<br />
and other waterfowl living on the pond.<br />
Kem and Julia show me some of these incredible<br />
carvings, and I am struck by the<br />
detail of each. Life-size and life-like in every<br />
way, the carvings are warm and vivid<br />
renderings of the very creatures I had seen<br />
swimming, splashing and feeding on the<br />
pond. Thanks to the Appells, I am far away<br />
from Friday afternoon traffic and the cares<br />
of a restless world.<br />
Sara Beasley is a member of the English<br />
Department. She came to <strong>Taft</strong> two years<br />
ago after teaching at Davidson College.<br />
20 Winter 1999
ALUMNI IN THE NEWS<br />
Alumni<br />
IN THE NEWS<br />
Bob <strong>Taft</strong> ’59, Governor of Ohio<br />
Ohio picked another <strong>Taft</strong> for public office<br />
last November. Bob <strong>Taft</strong>, two-term Republican<br />
secretary of state, won the governor’s<br />
seat 90 years to the day after his great-grandfather<br />
William Howard <strong>Taft</strong> was elected U.S.<br />
president. Bob also recalled the service of his<br />
grandfather and father in the U.S. Senate<br />
[Robert <strong>Taft</strong> ’06 and Robert <strong>Taft</strong> ’35].<br />
“My only aspiration is to be the very<br />
best governor I can be,” Bob said. He prevailed<br />
in an “often bitter campaign” with<br />
a 50-to-45 percent victory that marked<br />
the closest Ohio gubernatorial race since<br />
1978 and a largely Republican sweep in<br />
that state in November.<br />
<strong>The</strong> New York Times called it “a race<br />
between Ohio’s conservative south and the<br />
urban north.” <strong>Taft</strong> built his near-180,000-<br />
vote statewide victory on comfortable<br />
margins in GOP-friendly smaller cities,<br />
greater Cincinnati, and rural Ohio.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong>, 56, campaigned on a “moderate<br />
package of promises led by his vow<br />
to improve both the funding and quality<br />
of public schools and to work aggressively<br />
to ensure that pupils can read well by the<br />
end of fourth grade.” He is the first Republican<br />
to succeed a Republican<br />
governor in Ohio since 1903.<br />
Prior to holding public offices in<br />
Ohio, where he has held various posts<br />
since 1969, Bob worked for the State<br />
Department in Vietnam and for the Peace<br />
Corps in East Africa. He holds a BA from<br />
Yale, an MA from Princeton, and a JD<br />
from the University of Cincinnati.<br />
Source: Randy Ludlow, <strong>The</strong> Cincinnati Post.<br />
Will Polkinghorn ’95, Rhodes Scholar<br />
<strong>The</strong> Rhodes Scholarship Trust has announced that Will Polkinghorn ’95 was one of 32<br />
American students selected for 1999. This year’s recipients of scholarships for two years of<br />
study at Oxford University in England were chosen from 909 applications endorsed by 310<br />
colleges and universities.<br />
Currently a senior at Colby College, Will called <strong>Taft</strong> Headmaster Lance Odden shortly after<br />
learning of this prestigious honor. According to Mr. Odden, Will wanted to express his gratitude<br />
to the <strong>Taft</strong> <strong>School</strong> for “changing his life and making this possible.” In particular, Will wanted to<br />
thank Chemistry teacher David Hostage, retired English teacher Bill Nicholson, and retired baseball<br />
coach Larry Stone for “instilling in him the desire to reach for excellence.” Mr. Odden said that<br />
he is “incredibly proud of Will’s accomplishment,” noting that Will struggled at first when he<br />
came to <strong>Taft</strong>, but he “took full advantage of the school and held himself to the highest standards.”<br />
Will is the third <strong>Taft</strong> <strong>School</strong> alumnus to be named a Rhodes Scholar, following Karen<br />
Stevenson ’75 and Julianna Horseman ’85.<br />
Photo courtesy of Colby College<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 21
ALUMNI IN THE NEWS<br />
Mary Mason Young ’82, Raising Stroke Awareness<br />
Photo by Jeff Frey & Assoc.<br />
Mary Mason Young was recently<br />
profiled in a Duluth, Minnesota,<br />
newspaper for her work in stroke<br />
awareness. <strong>The</strong> issue is a personal one<br />
for Mary, who suffered a stroke just<br />
three months after her graduation from<br />
Patrick Kerney ’95, Football First Team All-American<br />
Photo by Pete Emerson<br />
<strong>Taft</strong>. <strong>The</strong> myth that strokes affect only<br />
the elderly is one she’d like to correct.<br />
Now 33 years old and recently married,<br />
stroke is still part of Mary’s life, “but<br />
it’s not her whole story.” She got her degree<br />
on what she “jokingly refers to as the<br />
6-year college plan,” with a double major<br />
in youth ministry and religious studies. She<br />
then went on for her MS in education from<br />
the University of Wisconsin. Mary now coordinates<br />
the Human Development<br />
Center’s Public Housing Outreach Program,<br />
working with older adults and people<br />
with disabilities and helping them to live<br />
independently as long as possible. “She has<br />
a keen understanding of the struggle to<br />
maintain a balance between the need for<br />
independence and the value of a support<br />
system,” Twin Ports People wrote.<br />
“I see people communicate with persons<br />
who have disabilities from what I<br />
University of Virginia defensive<br />
end Patrick<br />
Kerney was named to the<br />
Football News All-American<br />
team as selected by the<br />
publication’s editorial<br />
staff. He was also named<br />
first-team All-America by<br />
the Football Writers Association<br />
of America. He is<br />
one of two defensive players<br />
from the Atlantic<br />
Coast Conference, both<br />
from UVa, named to the team.<br />
Pat went to Virginia on a lacrosse<br />
scholarship, but decided to go out for football<br />
his first year. He has since molded<br />
himself into one of the top pass rushers in<br />
the nation. He leads the ACC with 14<br />
quarterback sacks, one shy of the school<br />
record. He has made 59 tackles this season,<br />
including 20 for lost yardage. At 6-6<br />
and 265 pounds, he seems NFL bound<br />
Photo by Jim Carpenter<br />
call a ‘feel sorry for’ attitude,” Mary<br />
said. “Sympathy perhaps. My question<br />
then becomes: ‘Is that what’s appropriate?’<br />
Sure, we support our friends<br />
and family when they go through a difficult<br />
time in life; but, do they really<br />
need our ongoing sympathy? Perhaps<br />
my attitude seems harsh, but I really<br />
feel that people need solutions, alternatives,<br />
and an attitude of ‘where do I<br />
go from here?’ in order to lead the best<br />
possible life with dignity and respect....<br />
While it’s okay to offer assistance, we<br />
need to be open to the fact that it’s<br />
equally okay for them to decline any.”<br />
“For me, my stroke has become a<br />
very valuable learning tool. I have<br />
grown and learned in areas of which I<br />
probably would never have thought.”<br />
Source: Gail Wallace, Twin Ports People<br />
and scouts are already<br />
“hounding” him.<br />
“It’s a great honor—<br />
the best thing that’s ever<br />
happened to me. Four<br />
years of hard work has<br />
paid off,” said Pat upon<br />
learning of his selection.<br />
“I started as a walk-on<br />
here at Virginia, so it<br />
shows how far a player<br />
can go in a career. I’m<br />
thankful to my teammates<br />
and coaches because it wasn’t just<br />
me. I’ve been able to be a part of a great<br />
team and I’ve been blessed to have outstanding<br />
coaches.”<br />
Pat originally came to <strong>Taft</strong> with the<br />
intention of playing ice hockey but never<br />
did make the varsity. Instead, he lettered in<br />
football, wrestling, and lacrosse and rarely<br />
missed a day of lifting weights. Virginia<br />
football is ranked seventh in the nation.<br />
22 Winter 1999
Photo by Nicole Keys<br />
Donald Buttenheim ’33 Receives First<br />
John Willard Award<br />
<strong>The</strong> Emma Willard <strong>School</strong> chose Donald Buttenheim ’33 as the first person honored<br />
with the John Willard Award “for unsurpassed service to the school founded by<br />
his mother.” John Willard’s legacy of excellence in molding the school through the<br />
years and helping to form a financially sound institution has been an inspiration to<br />
those who followed.<br />
In honoring Don, the school said, “Through your years of consistent and gracious<br />
service to the three educational institutions that have shaped your wise and<br />
generous spirit, you have grown a three-sided heart that warmly embraces the pasts<br />
and futures of <strong>The</strong> <strong>Taft</strong> <strong>School</strong>, Williams College, and our own Emma Willard....<br />
You have helped to navigate the Emma Willard community through unsettled times,<br />
lending the strength of your dignity, your humor, your clear sense of values, not only<br />
to solve difficult problems, but also to help us all move forward in our educational<br />
task with vision and dedication.... (We recognize) your personal and professional<br />
excellence and integrity, your active commitment to optimistic human and spiritual<br />
values, and your years of loyalty, generosity, and leadership in keeping the legacies of<br />
Emma and John Willard alive and flourishing.”<br />
Don’s three daughters attended Emma Willard, as did his sister. He has served<br />
as a parent trustee, an honorary trustee, and a member of their board for fourteen<br />
years—as both first vice president and then president.<br />
Barbie Potter ’79 Recalls Life on Tour<br />
Barbie Potter [see also Potter Enters<br />
Hall of Fame, Winter ’98] spoke to a<br />
packed audience at Yale University’s<br />
Smilow Field Center during the U.S.<br />
Tennis Association’s New England Junior<br />
Sectional Championships. She<br />
spoke along with Tim Mayotte of<br />
Springfield, Mass.; together they were<br />
“billed as the top male and female pro<br />
players to rise from the tennis courts of<br />
New England.”<br />
Looking back, Barbie, 36, listed the<br />
highlight of her career as the time she<br />
beat her childhood idol, Billie Jean King,<br />
in three sets during the third year of her<br />
pro career. “Don’t listen to people who<br />
Photo by Jeannette Montgomery Barron<br />
Architectural<br />
Acclaim<br />
Centerbrook Architects and Planners,<br />
of which Jefferson Riley ’64 is one of<br />
the founding partners, was honored<br />
by the American Institute of Architects’<br />
1998 Architecture Firm Award.<br />
<strong>The</strong> honor is the highest that the AIA<br />
confers on a firm and is awarded annually<br />
to a single practice that has<br />
produced distinguished architecture<br />
for at least ten years.<br />
Jeff’s firm is in good company as<br />
previous recipients include I.M. Pei &<br />
Partners, Cesar Pelli & Associates,<br />
among others. Centerbrook was recognized<br />
for its ability to “consistently<br />
create beautiful architecture that responds<br />
to local contexts with human<br />
scale and spaces filled with delight.”<br />
Centerbrook has worked with<br />
Nobel laureate Dr. James Watson at<br />
Long Island’s Cold Spring Harbor<br />
Laboratory to develop humane settings<br />
and has extended that experience<br />
to many other institutions including<br />
Dartmouth, Yale, MIT, Williams, and<br />
Colgate, as well as designing churches,<br />
hotels, libraries, theaters, retail complexes,<br />
community centers, industrial<br />
plants, and private residences.<br />
say it can’t be done,” Barbie advised.<br />
“Nobody can tell you you can’t be<br />
good. You have to decide the reality<br />
for yourself.”<br />
Barbie was once ranked seventh in<br />
the nation in professional tennis. She retired<br />
in 1989 and is now a reporter for<br />
the Providence, RI, Journal-Bulletin.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 23
AROUND THE POND<br />
pond<br />
Photo by Vaughn Winchell<br />
Nobel Laureate<br />
Visits <strong>Taft</strong><br />
On Thursday, November 12, Dr. Alfred Gilman<br />
’58, paid his first visit to <strong>Taft</strong> in forty years to<br />
speak at morning meeting, visit science classes,<br />
and speak with students and faculty.<br />
Dr. Gilman, also a graduate of Yale University,<br />
won the 1994 Nobel Prize in<br />
Physiology or Medicine for his ground-breaking<br />
discovery of the G-protein component of<br />
the cell membrane; the G-protein is involved<br />
in intercellular communication, and G-protein<br />
research has now become one of the<br />
hottest topics in biological research.<br />
During his speech, Dr. Gilman reflected<br />
upon his experience at <strong>Taft</strong> and played a brief<br />
video of the Nobel Prize induction ceremony.<br />
While at <strong>Taft</strong>, he was active in science, music,<br />
and sports, graduating cum laude and receiving<br />
the Rensselaer Alumni Medal for<br />
excellence in mathematics and science. His remarks,<br />
in part, appear on page 55.<br />
Source: <strong>Taft</strong> Press Club<br />
Nobel Laureate Al Gilman ’58<br />
24<br />
Winter 1999
AROUND THE POND<br />
Squashing the Competition<br />
<strong>The</strong> extraordinary depth of the<br />
current boys’ squash team<br />
prompted a week-long tour to<br />
England over Thanksgiving, during<br />
which they played six<br />
matches, sampled England’s culinary<br />
delights, and adjusted their<br />
notion of time and tradition.<br />
<strong>The</strong>ir opponents included<br />
England’s finest school teams,<br />
against whom they fared very<br />
well, losing only to the very<br />
best—Wycliffe College. In that<br />
match, #1 and Captain Nick<br />
Kyme won his first game 9-1, and<br />
was up in the second when he repulled<br />
a hamstring injured<br />
during the soccer season. Nick<br />
lost in four; Ryan Byrnes, Max<br />
Montgelas, Aftab Mathur, and<br />
Eric Wadhwa each lost tight<br />
matches 3-2; Dave Morris lost 3-<br />
0 at #7; and Ross Koller emerged<br />
with <strong>Taft</strong>’s only win (3-1) at #6.<br />
With Kyme sidelined for the rest of the<br />
trip, they beat Lansing College 4-3,<br />
Brighton College 5-2, Millfield 5-2, and<br />
Harrow 6-1.<br />
“We were treated like royalty by our<br />
hosts, particularly Lansing College,” said<br />
Coach Peter Frew ’75. “Playing at Harrow<br />
was really fun, as the game of squash<br />
was invented there, and we also got to<br />
play ‘rackets,’ the precursor to squash, in<br />
which the rock-hard ball flies at 180 miles<br />
per hour around a slate court. Andrew<br />
<strong>The</strong> varsity squash team spent their Thanksgiving holiday in an unusual place.<br />
Bogardus ’88 also did a great job driving<br />
on the left side of the road and keeping<br />
the tank full of petrol.” <strong>The</strong>y met the<br />
great English player Jonah Barrington,<br />
toured Salisbury and Westminster Cathedrals,<br />
stayed in a haunted pub, ate “Toad<br />
in a hole” too often, and visited<br />
Stonehenge by moonlight. “It was lots<br />
of fun… a real learning experience…<br />
once-in-a-lifetime. We learned a lot about<br />
squash and about ourselves,” said Captain<br />
Nick Kyme. <strong>The</strong> trip was also a great<br />
tune-up for the season, as the team<br />
opened its season with wins over perennial<br />
powerhouses Chestnut Hill Academy<br />
and Haverford <strong>School</strong> in Philadelphia.<br />
Lansing College visited <strong>Taft</strong> earlier<br />
this fall to play both squash and soccer.<br />
<strong>The</strong> fourth international soccer match for<br />
<strong>Taft</strong>, the game ended at 1-1. “It was a<br />
great match for all involved,” said Coach<br />
Willy MacMullen ’78. “As we always discover<br />
in games like this, sports can bring<br />
people together.”<br />
Admissions Travel<br />
Alex Chu ’66 accompanied Director of Admissions Ferdie<br />
Wandelt ’66 on his November trip through southeast Asia,<br />
including Hong Kong, Taipei, Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho Chi<br />
Minh City, and Mumbai (Bombay). Alex is pictured here,<br />
left, with the parents of Khiem Do Ba ’00, who are both<br />
math teachers at Hanoi Amsterdam <strong>School</strong>, the leading<br />
school in Hanoi for math and science. On the right is<br />
their translator, Ha, who was at Ake Panya in Thailand<br />
last year with Khiem.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 25
AROUND THE POND<br />
ACADEMIC HONORS<br />
AP Scholar Awards<br />
Fifty-seven <strong>Taft</strong> students have been<br />
named Advanced Placement Scholars<br />
by the College Board in<br />
recognition of their exceptional<br />
achievement on AP Examinations.<br />
Approximately 23 percent of<br />
America’s graduating seniors have<br />
taken one or more AP Exams. Only<br />
about 13 percent of the more than<br />
635,000 students who took AP Examinations<br />
in May 1998 performed<br />
at a sufficiently high level to merit<br />
such recognition.<br />
At <strong>Taft</strong>, 18 students qualified<br />
for the AP Scholar with Distinction<br />
Award by averaging at least 3.5 on<br />
all AP Exams taken, and earning<br />
grades of 3 or higher on five or more<br />
of these exams. Eight students qualified<br />
for the AP Scholar with Honor<br />
Award by averaging at least 3.5 on<br />
all AP Exams taken, and receiving a<br />
grade of 3 or higher on four or more<br />
exams. Thirty-one students qualified<br />
for the AP Scholar Award by completing<br />
three or more AP Exams with<br />
grades of 3 or higher. Of this year’s<br />
award recipients, five are currently<br />
seniors at <strong>Taft</strong> and have at least one<br />
more year in which to earn another<br />
Advanced Placement Award. At <strong>Taft</strong>,<br />
the average grade is 3.9.<br />
AP Examinations, which 75 percent<br />
of all seniors take after<br />
completing challenging college-level<br />
courses, are graded on a 5-point scale.<br />
Most of the nation’s colleges and universities<br />
award credit, advanced<br />
placement, or both for grades of 3 or<br />
higher. More than 1,400 institutions<br />
award sophomore standing to students<br />
presenting a sufficient number<br />
of qualifying grades. <strong>The</strong> College<br />
Board offers 32 AP examinations in<br />
18 subject areas. <strong>Taft</strong> students took<br />
over 400 AP exams last year.<br />
Cum Laude<br />
In December, ten members of the<br />
Class of 1999 were inducted into<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong>Taft</strong> <strong>School</strong> Chapter of the Cum<br />
Laude Society.<br />
Although the school is allowed to<br />
elect a maximum of one-fifth of a graduating<br />
class, only 7 percent were inducted<br />
this year in the first round. <strong>Taft</strong> generally<br />
includes 10 percent of the class in<br />
the fall and the remainder at graduation,<br />
rarely inducting more than 16 or 17 percent<br />
of a given class, according to Dean<br />
of Academic Affairs Bill Morris ’69.<br />
Cum Laude is the highest academic<br />
honor given at <strong>Taft</strong>. “While we celebrate<br />
their academic accomplishments,” Bill<br />
Morris said, “these students have distinguished<br />
themselves in all areas of school<br />
life.” Selection is based on both the up-<br />
per-middle and middle year records. <strong>The</strong><br />
Cum Laude Committee may also elect<br />
one-year students with extraordinary<br />
records. Averages are weighted for accelerated<br />
or Advanced Placement courses.<br />
Students were inducted at morning<br />
meeting. This year’s honorees are seniors<br />
Seth Caffrey, Sonia Cheng, Steve Dost,<br />
Tyler Doyle, Lauren Henry, Mythri<br />
Jegathesan, Sara Mehta, Dave Morris,<br />
and Danielle Perrin. Steffi Holler, an<br />
ASSIST student from Germany last year,<br />
was inducted in absentia. Other members<br />
of the class will be named to Cum<br />
Laude at commencement in May.<br />
Michael Baudinet ’00 and Andrew<br />
Karas ’01 were recognized at the same<br />
school meeting as the ranking scholars<br />
in their respective classes.<br />
Rockwell Visiting Artist John Hull<br />
Photo by Susan Faber, Town Times<br />
Artist John Hull came to <strong>Taft</strong> on Thursday,<br />
November 19. A narrative painter,<br />
he works with many themes including<br />
baseball, boxing, Los Alamos, and King<br />
Lear, to name a few. He gave two lectures<br />
on his work and attended art<br />
classes where he gave professional critiques<br />
of students’ artwork.<br />
Hull has been described as a “narrative”<br />
and “economical” painter. Some<br />
of his work is currently on display at the<br />
Metropolitan Museum of Art, <strong>The</strong> New<br />
Museum of Contemporary Art, and the<br />
Yale University Art Gallery. He is a cum<br />
laude graduate of Yale University and<br />
has received four grants from the National<br />
Endowment for the Arts.<br />
His visit to <strong>Taft</strong> was sponsored<br />
by the school’s Rockwell Fellowship,<br />
established in 1997, which funds<br />
the visits of several professional artists<br />
each year.<br />
26 Winter 1999
AROUND THE POND<br />
Summer Well Spent<br />
French teacher WT Miller had a productive summer in 1998.<br />
First, he traveled to Switzerland to teach at TASIS. From there<br />
he went to Nantes, France, where he set up a summer program<br />
that will become <strong>Taft</strong> in France. He hopes it will attract <strong>Taft</strong><br />
students, but it will be available to all students through the<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Summer <strong>School</strong>.<br />
From Nantes, WT went to Genneteil, a small town just<br />
outside of Saumur, where he spent two weeks collaborating<br />
with French author Jérôme de Boissard. “As a teacher there is<br />
no better way to understand literature than to see a book ‘constructed’<br />
and to see how the author thinks.” He also attended<br />
a Balzac conference at a nearby chateau where Balzac worked<br />
on many of his best known works, including Le Père Goriot.<br />
Finally, WT created a new course for <strong>Taft</strong> that will lead<br />
directly into the AP French language course.<br />
Photo by Eric Poggenpohl<br />
Woelper<br />
to Head<br />
Thai <strong>School</strong><br />
History teacher Tom<br />
Woelper has been chosen to<br />
succeed former <strong>Taft</strong> faculty<br />
member Gordon Jones as<br />
the head of Ake Panya International <strong>School</strong> in<br />
Chiang Mai, Thailand. Ake Panya is <strong>Taft</strong>’s sister<br />
school founded by Thai businessman Krits Palarit.<br />
Mr. Woelper, on sabbatical leave for the 1998-<br />
99 school year, is attending Columbia University<br />
for the second semester and will begin his new post<br />
in June, according to Headmaster Lance Odden.<br />
Head Nurse Retires<br />
Barbara Houle, <strong>Taft</strong>’s head nurse for 26 years, recently announced<br />
her retirement at the end of December. “Barbara<br />
served <strong>Taft</strong> and the students wonderfully during her tenure<br />
as head nurse, providing increasingly<br />
excellent care and<br />
expansion of services. She<br />
served ably twenty-four hours<br />
a day,” said Charlie McNair,<br />
the school’s physician. “We’ll<br />
miss her deeply.”<br />
Johnson Recognized in<br />
Poetry Competition<br />
English teacher Barclay Johnson ’53 won Honorable<br />
Mention in the 1998 Writer’s Digest poetry competition.<br />
<strong>The</strong> contest attracted over 9,000 entries. <strong>The</strong> rhyming<br />
poem he submitted is reproduced here.<br />
Heirlooms of War<br />
At Saturday’s flea market fair on the Green,<br />
I saw within the bright moraine<br />
of farm towns vanishing, heirlooms of war<br />
that only skinheads consider sane:<br />
Helmets and bayonets, a Kraut grenade<br />
Medievally at home with pots and needlepoints.<br />
“Handle what you like,” a peddler said.<br />
Could he remember those devotees,<br />
Sifting through debris for arms and brass?<br />
When I was small and Dad went overseas,<br />
I hung my treasured blades beyond my cot<br />
To stare them down like snakes!<br />
<strong>The</strong> peddler tracked my eyes across a sword,<br />
Drawn to show its sharpness to the sun.<br />
“British,” I told him. “1805.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> grip and pitted hilt looked better won<br />
Than all those custom-made now under glass.<br />
To my surprise, I never picked it up.<br />
Not nowadays: my visit to Les Invalides,<br />
Where Bonaparte remains, pristine,<br />
With hordes of armour, walls of swords, the world’s<br />
First hospital for vets still smelling of chlorine<br />
Had smothered fascination, mocked my awe<br />
In sacrifice—the gaudy and the hostage-like.<br />
So much for my collection—bric-a-brac<br />
I can’t give away—not even to my sons!<br />
Yet still we watch for anniversaries<br />
Of brotherhoods on sacred battlefields,<br />
Cooking steaks in smoky reveries;<br />
While just across the valley, ranks of headstones<br />
Climb through all our years<br />
To take the high ground with their bones.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 27
AROUND THE POND<br />
Grandparents’ Day<br />
John and Kay Alban with Gregory Stevenson ’00<br />
Alex Dickson ’99 with both of her grandmothers, Isabel Leach<br />
and Marge Dickson.<br />
Katie Blunt ’02 and Todd Peebler ’99 with their grandmothers, Ms. Janet Anderson, left center,<br />
and Mrs. Mildred Worley, right center, who each traveled from Dallas, TX, for Grandparents’<br />
Day. <strong>The</strong>y discovered that they lived relatively near one another in the Lone Star State.<br />
Mihoko Maru ’01 pictured with her grandfather,<br />
Hiroshi Maru, who traveled from<br />
Tokyo to attend Grandparents’ Day and<br />
visit with his granddaughter. Mr. Maru said<br />
Mihoko was very lucky to be able to study<br />
in such excellent conditions.<br />
Roswell Johnson and Betty Carey with grandson Ged Johnson ’01<br />
Laura Marvel with granddaughter Blair Boggs ’02<br />
28 Winter 1999
AROUND THE POND<br />
Telethon Time<br />
Talk<br />
About<br />
Fun<br />
Rob Barber ’75 and Carl<br />
Sangree ’75<br />
Times!<br />
Talk<br />
Mike Brenner ’53<br />
Claudia Friedman-<br />
Hoffman ’89<br />
About<br />
Fantastic<br />
<strong>Taft</strong>ies!<br />
Dylan Simonds ’89<br />
Picture It…<br />
New York City…<br />
November 1998…<br />
John Greer ’47 and Dick<br />
Hulbert ’47<br />
Bridget George ’94, Victoria<br />
Larson ’94, and Mimi<br />
Hamilton ’94<br />
More than 50 alumni spent<br />
two nights feverishly dialing<br />
classmates in hopes of winning<br />
the nightly competition for<br />
most pledges raised. Rocky<br />
Gaut ’56 and Bob Coons ’41<br />
tied for first place on Wednesday<br />
night while Rob Barber<br />
’75 beat out Mike Giobbe ’59<br />
by a mere 2 pledges on Thursday.<br />
Nobody went home<br />
empty-handed as <strong>Taft</strong> water<br />
bottles were given to all in<br />
thanks for a job well done!<br />
Next competition:<br />
March 3 and 4.<br />
Be <strong>The</strong>re!<br />
Bert Ross ’79 and Wendy<br />
Weaver Chaix ’79<br />
Whitney Parks ’93<br />
Rocky Gaut ’56<br />
Nick Finn ’87 and Sophie<br />
Griswold ’87<br />
Dyllan McGee ’89<br />
Eric Mendelsohn ’88<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 29
S P O R T<br />
sport<br />
Fall Big Red Scoreboard<br />
Boys’ Crew<br />
Head Coach: ............................................................ Al Reiff<br />
Captain: .......................................................... Ed Miller ’99<br />
Record: ........................................................................... 7-2<br />
Crew Award: ............................................. David Morris ’99<br />
Captain-elect: ......................................... Ryan Sochacki ’00<br />
Boys’ Cross Country<br />
Head Coach: .................................................... Steve Palmer<br />
Captain: ............................................... Mark Deschenes ’99<br />
Record: ........................................................................... 7-4<br />
John Small Cross Country Award: ............. Mark Deschenes<br />
Captains-elect: ..... Michael Baudinet ’00, Cameron White ’00<br />
Girls’ Cross Country<br />
Founders’ League Champs<br />
Head Coach: .................................................... Karla Palmer<br />
Captain: .................................................. Danielle Perrin ’99<br />
Record: ........................................................................... 9-0<br />
Girls’ Cross Country Award: ........................ Danielle Perrin,<br />
Heather McKeller ’99<br />
Captains-elect: .... Lindsay Dell ’00, Heather Lindenman ’00<br />
Field Hockey<br />
Head Coach: ..................................................... Fran Bisselle<br />
Captains: .............. Emily Townsend ’99, Jillian Giardina ’99<br />
Record: ..................................................................... 14-1-1<br />
Field Hockey Award: ........ Emily Townsend, Jillian Giardina<br />
Captains-elect: ....... Keely Murphy ’00, Katherine Putnam ’00<br />
Football<br />
Head Coach: .................................................. Steve McCabe<br />
Captain: ..................................................... Todd Peebler ’99<br />
Record: ........................................................................... 0-8<br />
Black Football Award: ......................... Michael Sipowicz ’99<br />
Cross Football Award: ................................... Ned Smith ’99<br />
Captain-elect: .............................................. Venroy July ’00<br />
Boys’ Soccer<br />
Head Coach: ............................................ Willy MacMullen<br />
Captain: ..................................................... Brad D’Arco ’99<br />
Record: ..................................................................... 10-5-2<br />
Carroll Soccer Award: ....... Ben Cirillo ’99, Brad D’Arco ’99<br />
Captains-elect: ................... Ramsey Brame ’00, Art Solis ’00<br />
Girls’ Soccer<br />
Head Coach: ............................................ Andrew Bogardus<br />
Captain: .................................................. Julie Feldmeier ’99<br />
Record: ........................................................................... 8-7<br />
1976 Girls’ Soccer Award: ............................. Julie Feldmeier<br />
Captains-elect: .......Emily Blanchard ’00, Kelly Sheridan ’00<br />
Girls’ Volleyball<br />
Head Coach: ........................................................... Jane Lee<br />
Captains: ................. Sabrina R. Idy ’99, Kathryn Parkin ’00<br />
Record: ........................................................................... 1-6<br />
Volleyball Award: ........................................... Sabrina R. Idy<br />
Captains-elect: ..... Meredith Morris ’00, Kathryn Parkin ’00<br />
30<br />
Winter 1999
S P O R T<br />
Girls’ Varsity<br />
Soccer Wins<br />
Sportsmanship<br />
Award<br />
<strong>The</strong> Western Connecticut Soccer<br />
Officials Association awarded <strong>Taft</strong>’s<br />
girls’ varsity soccer team the Ted Alex<br />
Award for outstanding sportsmanship<br />
displayed throughout the 1998<br />
season. Coach Andrew Bogardus ’88<br />
proudly accepted this award at the<br />
association’s annual banquet on November<br />
10, saying, “I am lucky to<br />
have a team full of focused, goodnatured<br />
athletes who simply love the<br />
game and always play a full 80 minutes<br />
without letting anything<br />
distract them. We are also fortunate<br />
to have very good leadership from<br />
Captain Julie Feldmeier ’99.”<br />
Townsend<br />
is All-American Girl<br />
Emily Townsend ’99, co-captain of<br />
the varsity field hockey team, earned<br />
her way onto the first team All<br />
American this year. She was picked<br />
from all high school field hockey<br />
players across the United States as<br />
one of the top eleven players in the<br />
country (and the only one from New<br />
England). “This is an incredible<br />
honor for an outstanding athlete,”<br />
said Coach Fran Bisselle. In Emily’s<br />
three years starting on <strong>Taft</strong>’s varsity<br />
squad, the team is 40-7-3. She scored<br />
20 assists and 15 goals this year alone.<br />
<strong>The</strong> senior mid-fielder is described by her teammates as “one of the best field<br />
hockey players ever to attend <strong>Taft</strong>.” Emily traveled with teammates Katie Putnam,<br />
Keeley Murphy, and Jana Gold over Thanksgiving to compete at the Field Hockey<br />
Festival for the Houston Field Hockey Club. In addition, Emily has been invited<br />
to try out for the National Field Hockey Team over winter break.<br />
Photo by <strong>The</strong> <strong>Taft</strong> Papyrus<br />
Kyme Wins International<br />
Squash Award<br />
Nick Kyme ’99 from Bermuda was honored with the<br />
first Mark Talbott International Junior Squash Fair Play<br />
Award at the final awards dinner for the 1998 World<br />
Junior Men’s Championships. <strong>The</strong> award is given to<br />
the player who “exemplifies the spirit we are seeking to<br />
instill in all players,” said Ted Wallbutton, World Squash<br />
Federation’s chief executive. “Nick Kyme, in each of<br />
his four appearances at these world championships, has<br />
earned the respect of his opponents and the admiration<br />
of all the tournament officials for his outstanding<br />
sportsmanship.”<br />
<strong>The</strong> Squash Player magazine said, “Not only a fair<br />
player, Kyme is a legend in his own right; the only player<br />
ever to play in four world junior championships. His<br />
first appearance was at age 11.” He hasn’t fared poorly<br />
at <strong>Taft</strong> either, where he is captain for the second year of<br />
a team that is favored to win the New Englands for the<br />
3rd time in Nick’s four years. His individual record in<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> matches is 43 and 1. Nick also plays varsity soccer<br />
and was the anchor man on <strong>Taft</strong>’s school record-breaking<br />
4x400 meter relay team last spring.<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 31
E N D N O T E<br />
—By Dr. Alfred Gilman ’58<br />
This is truly an interesting experience for<br />
me. I speak formally to medical students,<br />
Ph.D. students, and scientific colleagues all<br />
the time, but I have never had the chance to<br />
speak formally to a group of young men and<br />
women in high school. I want you all to<br />
dream about being explorers. You must be<br />
an explorer in every aspect of your life, no<br />
matter what your pursuit.<br />
A goal as a scientist, teacher, or any<br />
other type of scholar should be to discover<br />
new truth and knowledge and/or better<br />
ways to impart that knowledge to the community.<br />
A goal as a physician should be to<br />
discover new ways to earn the trust that<br />
your patients have placed in you. A goal as<br />
an attorney should be to discover new and<br />
simple paths to fairness for all. A goal as a<br />
business person might be to discover new<br />
approaches to improve productivity and<br />
enhance satisfaction for your employees.<br />
When you look back, you will want to<br />
be able to say to yourself that you made a<br />
difference. You will want to be able to feel<br />
that you left the world a bit better for your<br />
presence. Otherwise, what was it all about?<br />
We are frighteningly insignificant in the<br />
grand scheme of things. We must not<br />
strive for less than making a difference.<br />
Here is a truism of life, but you will<br />
only believe it as you age: each fractional<br />
increment in life passes in equal apparent<br />
time. It is a geometric/ logarithmic system.<br />
For a 15-year-old to pass to age 20, you<br />
grow older by 33 percent in 5 years. To<br />
pass from 40 to 54 you age by 33 percent<br />
in 14 years. To pass from 60 to 80 you age<br />
by 33 percent in 20 years. But the bad news<br />
is that the 5 years starting at 15, the 14<br />
years starting at 40, and the 20 years starting<br />
at 60 seem to pass in equal time!<br />
A corollary of this truism is that most of<br />
you currently think you are immortal. You<br />
know that you are not, but you really believe<br />
that you are. You think you have all the time<br />
in the world, but you don’t. It is time to start<br />
the serious dreaming and planning.<br />
Now I want to spend a little bit of my<br />
time talking with you about science, particularly<br />
about biology and medicine. I was<br />
fortunate to start serious study of biology<br />
near the dawn of the age of enlightenment.<br />
1953 has been called “the end of history” in<br />
biology because it witnessed publication of<br />
the most important paper about biology to<br />
have ever been written.<br />
This paper is likely the most important<br />
ever published in all of science. And to go<br />
out on a limb, it is perhaps the most important<br />
paper that will ever be published in all<br />
of science, including the first descriptions of<br />
extra terrestrial life forms, which will happen<br />
some day. I hope that you know that<br />
the authors were James Watson and Francis<br />
Crick, and the discovery, published in a<br />
very brief two-page report, was of the<br />
double-helical structure of DNA.<br />
This fabulous structure showed two<br />
long strands of DNA wound helically around<br />
the same axis but running in opposite directions.<br />
<strong>The</strong> two strands were joined together<br />
because of beautifully complementary<br />
chemical bonding between pairs of the four<br />
bases that constitute the alphabet of DNA.<br />
An A on one strand dictated a T on the<br />
other, and vice versa, while a G on one<br />
strand dictated a C on the other, and vice<br />
versa. Thus, if the sequence of letters on one<br />
chain is given, the sequence on the other<br />
chain is determined automatically.<br />
When you look at some structures<br />
you don’t learn much about function. But<br />
when you look at this structure, you suddenly<br />
learn the secret of the most fundamental<br />
property of life—replication. In<br />
the most classic of all understatements,<br />
Watson and Crick wrote at the end of this<br />
brief report: “It has not escaped our notice<br />
that the specific pairing we have postulated<br />
immediately suggests a possible copying<br />
mechanism for the genetic material.”<br />
Where have we come since then? First,<br />
appreciation of the central dogma of biology:<br />
that DNA encodes the blueprint for life by<br />
specifying the sequences of RNA, and that<br />
the sequences of RNA specify the order of<br />
amino acids in proteins, which are the fundamental<br />
building blocks of cells. We have<br />
learned to read the blueprints of life and to<br />
clone and manipulate the genes in DNA.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se basic discoveries have had enormous<br />
practical consequences over the past<br />
20 years. To name just a few: <strong>The</strong> complete<br />
DNA sequence of most major pathogenic<br />
bacteria is now known, greatly facilitating<br />
design of new antibiotics, which we<br />
need very badly as bacteria become resistant<br />
to the older drugs. <strong>The</strong> complete<br />
DNA sequence of more complex eukaryotic<br />
organisms, such as yeast, worms, and<br />
fruit flies, is now known or will be soon.<br />
“…most of you currently think you are immortal. You know that<br />
you are not, but you really believe that you are. You think you<br />
have all the time in the world, but you don’t. It is time to start<br />
the serious dreaming and planning.”<br />
32 Winter 1999
E N D N O T E<br />
<strong>The</strong> complete sequence of the human genome<br />
will be known before any of you graduate<br />
from college. This is a monumental task,<br />
but it will be completed. <strong>The</strong>re are about<br />
100,000 genes in the human genome, so<br />
we are basically talking about an extremely<br />
dynamic puzzle with 100,000 pieces.<br />
To date, biologists have been trying to<br />
understand the mammalian organism by<br />
trying to put this puzzle together even though<br />
we only had a small fraction of the pieces.<br />
Human genes are now being cloned at a<br />
dizzying pace. When the genome is sequenced<br />
we will have them all, as well a read-out of<br />
other information in the DNA that controls<br />
the expression of these genes. In this postgenome<br />
era, which is starting right now, the<br />
complete puzzle will be assembled. This will<br />
happen in your lifetime.<br />
<strong>The</strong> consequences will be enormous.<br />
Right now human proteins can be synthesized<br />
in bacteria used to treat disease. Patients<br />
with diabetes now receive human<br />
insulin rather than insulin from pigs or<br />
cows and are thus spared allergic reactions<br />
to foreign proteins. Rare proteins like erythropoietin<br />
can be manufactured and used to<br />
treat anemia; this was impossible before the<br />
birth of recombinant DNA technology.<br />
Recombinant DNA technology has<br />
in turn given birth to literally hundreds<br />
and hundreds of biotechnology companies,<br />
and they all think they can make a<br />
fantastic contribution to human welfare.<br />
Much human disease has its basis in genetics.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re can be changes or mutations in<br />
an individual’s DNA. This is the basis of<br />
evolution. It is also the cause of diseases<br />
such as cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy<br />
or sickle-cell anemia. <strong>The</strong> molecular<br />
basis of these diseases is now known, and<br />
people will some day be treated by replacement<br />
of defective genes. Soon we will be<br />
able to understand the genetic basis for<br />
complex behaviors and for diseases that are<br />
manifest as abnormal behaviors, such as<br />
schizophrenia and depression. Rational and<br />
more effective therapies will follow.<br />
Here’s another thing that will happen<br />
to you or your children, but it’s a lot<br />
scarier. You will take a little scraping of<br />
skin cells from your newborn child to the<br />
DNA store for a sequence job. Return a<br />
few days later and you’ll be given a CD<br />
ROM containing the DNA sequence—<br />
your child’s blueprint. With some trepidation<br />
you will put the CD in the DNA<br />
reader and get back a printout from this<br />
21st century crystal ball. For example, it<br />
might say, “Your child will be tall, dark,<br />
and handsome, but not very bright. Personality<br />
will never develop depth, and<br />
temper tantrums will be a life-long problem.<br />
He will likely die of a heart attack in<br />
his late 70s if someone does not shoot him<br />
in a bar room fight before that time.”<br />
If this is not bad enough, you have<br />
this nasty feeling that despite assurances to<br />
We must not<br />
strive for less<br />
than making a<br />
difference.<br />
the contrary, the DNA sequence has also<br />
been submitted to the National Institute<br />
in charge of tracking perverts, and the<br />
profile is now available to future employers,<br />
insurance companies, and the FBI.<br />
Alternatively, mistakes could be made and<br />
the printout could proclaim that you are<br />
the proud father or mother of a German<br />
Shepherd with a great pedigree. <strong>The</strong>re are<br />
some real obvious issues here that are going<br />
to be very difficult to control, but the<br />
answer is not to bury our heads in the sand.<br />
We can now produce clones of virtually<br />
anything. You clone a gene by isolating it<br />
from all other genes and allowing it to replicate—thus<br />
producing an infinite number of<br />
identical copies of the gene. You clone a cell<br />
in the same way. But now we can clone mice<br />
and sheep by starting with a single cell from<br />
an adult animal, and there is no technical<br />
barrier standing in the way of cloning human<br />
beings. Here is a great category for the senior<br />
class poll, assuming it still exists: pick your<br />
classmate “who most wants to be cloned”.<br />
But this is no laughing matter; it is<br />
serious stuff, and it poses very serious questions.<br />
Most are repulsed by the thought of<br />
human cloning for the purpose of producing<br />
identical copies of ourselves; some say that it<br />
would be terrible to have even two genetically<br />
identical human beings. <strong>The</strong>y forget<br />
that nature does occasionally produce identical<br />
human twins. Nevertheless, I am happy<br />
to say that human cloning for this purpose is<br />
not likely on the horizon. <strong>The</strong>re is enormous<br />
power in biological diversity.<br />
But think about this— it will likely be<br />
possible to produce a clone of any given<br />
individual that could be “harvested”, to use<br />
a cold word, very early in embryonic life.<br />
This embryonic tissue could then be used to<br />
isolate multipotent stem cells. <strong>The</strong>se stem<br />
cells could then be grown and replicated in<br />
the laboratory and used for transplantation<br />
to replace neurons lost to Parkinson’s disease<br />
or Alzheimer’s disease, liver cells lost to<br />
hepatitis, bone marrow cells lost to cancer<br />
chemotherapy, and so forth. Now the issue<br />
is not so clear cut. We could each clone<br />
ourselves to produce a bank deposit of our<br />
own stem cells to be used to regenerate our<br />
aging or diseased tissues.<br />
Some will advocate such approaches;<br />
some will be repelled by it. Should research<br />
in these areas go forth? Who properly makes<br />
such decisions? Shall we leave it to the<br />
biologists and physicians? I think not. <strong>The</strong>re<br />
is much to be done by ethicists, theologians,<br />
attorneys, legislators, and a host of others—<br />
particularly a very well-informed and very<br />
well-educated public. In general, the public<br />
is woefully ignorant of science. Don’t ignore<br />
it, no matter what your area of primary<br />
interest. All of science will be impinging on<br />
your life with increasing frequency.<br />
<strong>The</strong> remarks above are excerpted from<br />
Dr. Gilman’s talk at Morning Meeting in<br />
November (see page 24).<br />
<strong>Taft</strong> Bulletin 33