S P O T L I G H T D E P A R T M E N T S - The Taft School

BULLETIN 

WINTER•1999 

Volume 69 Number 2 

S P O T L I G H T 

They Call Her Dr. Mary Wash-Your-Hands ................ 3 

Mary Washburne ’79 volunteers with Doctors Without Borders 

helping Burmese refugees 

By Sarah Hare, Diversion Magazine 

Mr. Doyle Goes to Washington................................... 8 

Two video-making trips Taft students won’t soon forget 

By Nathan Whittaker ’99, Taft Papyrus 

For the Love of Learning ........................................... 12 

A New Option for the Senior Year 

By Michael Townsend 

His Work is For the Birds.......................................... 16 

Cover: Kem Appell ’55 traded in his golf clubs to tend a flock 

of exotic and endangered waterfowl 

By Sara Beasley 

D E P A R T M E N T S 

Letters ......................................................................... 2 

Alumni in the News .................................................. 21 

Around the Pond ...................................................... 24 

Sport ......................................................................... 30 

Big Red Scoreboard 

Endnote .................................................................... 32 

By Dr. Alfred Gilman ’58 

The Taft Bulletin is published quarterly, in February, May, August, and November, by 

The Taft School, 110 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100 and is distributed 

free of charge to alumni, parents, grandparents, and friends of the school. 

E-Mail Us! Now you can send your latest news, address change, birth announcement, 

or letter to the editor to us via e-mail. Our address is TaftRhino@Taft.pvt.k12.ct.us. 

Of course we’ll continue to accept your communiqués by such “low tech” methods as 

the fax machine (860-945-7756), telephone (860-945-7777), or U.S. Mail (110 Woodbury 

Road, Watertown, CT 06795-2100). So let’s hear from you! 

Visit Taft on the Web to find the latest news, sports schedules, or to locate a classmate’s 

e-mail address. www.Taft.pvt.k12.ct.us or www.Taftsports.com. The password 

to access alumni or faculty e-mail addresses—or to add your own—is dutton.

Sports 

Trivia 

Winner 

Congratulations to 

Wilmot North ’30, the 

winner of the Taft Bulletin 

Sports Trivia Contest. 

Mr. North was the 

first respondent to identify 

correctly the three 

Indian tribes after which 

the intramural clubs 

were named: Senecas, 

Mohawks, and Cayugas. 

The groups, known 

as the Triangle Clubs, 

replaced the earlier 

Reds and Blues created 

in 1922, and were 

themselves replaced 

in the fall of 1930 by 

the Alpha, Beta, and 

Gamma clubs, “which 

embraced the entire 

student body.” The 

Triangle Club competitions 

awarded points 

for the winners in intramural 

baseball, 

hockey, football, soccer, 

basketball, and 

track contests (with 

some boxing and cross 

country) as well as 

points for Scholarship 

and Deportment. 

Medals were also 

awarded, and the winning 

club was traditionally 

treated to a special 

steak dinner in the dining 

room, served by 

members of the other 

clubs. Interestingly, students 

who worked for 

the Alumni Bulletin garnered 

an extra five points 

each for their team! 

Letters to the Editor 

TIME wasn’t on his side 

I have received today and perused 

with interest the 75th 

anniversary edition of the Taft 

Bulletin. You have done a 

wonderful job of capturing 

the spirit and texture of the 

publication over the years. 

I am particularly interested 

in your references to my 

grandfather, Robert L. 

Johnson ’14, in both the 

March 1924 and October 

1954 issues. Johnson family 

history always has held that 

my grandfather “helped” 

Henry Luce, his Yale classmate, 

“found” Time, but there 

is no reference to him in anything 

published by Time. I 

believe they had a falling-out 

early on. But family pride says 

that without my grandfather 

selling advertising in the upstart 

magazine, it would never 

have made it. 

—Robert L. Johnson III P’96 

Houston, Texas 

Photos of Youth 

Much time has passed since 

my sons Charles ’65 and Wells 

’67 graduated from Taft, and 

I was particularly pleased to 

see Wells’ picture in the library 

on page 11 and again 

his picture on the ranch on 

page 12. I am thankful that I 

can see again how youthful 

Wells was when these pictures 

were taken. 

—Charles Jacobson, Jr. 

P’65, ’67 

Manchester, Connecticut 

Correction: 

In the fall issue we incorrectly identified Cheves Smythe as a member of 

the Class of 1960. He is a member of the Class of 1942. Our apologies. 

Kudos on Crisis 

Hearty, hearty congratulations 

on that superb 75th anniversary 

issue of the Taft 

Bulletin. 

Great from cover to cover, 

starting with that magnificent 

front cover photograph with 

all the essentials of communication 

from a cup of coffee to 

a computer, with Taft printed 

matter in between. 

Thanks for all the space allotted 

to ’33, including the 

Dexter Blake family Then and 

Now. What a job Hank Becton 

does for us as class secretary! 

But to me the prize piece 

was “The World in Crisis” by 

Ambassador Frank Wisner. So 

glad you ran that as I think it 

is as good an overview of the 

present world situation—and 

the place of the US in it all— 

as I have yet encountered. I 

am making photocopies for 

our non-Taft children and 

some others including Curt’s 

[Buttenheim ’36] daughter 

Lisa, who is stationed with 

the UN in Geneva, and Jennifer 

[’84] in case the Bulletin 

doesn’t reach her in Moscow. 

p.s. Also nice to see Geg’s [’40] 

letter to the editor! 

—Donald V. Buttenheim ’33 

Lenox, Massachusetts 

Like Father Like Son 

I very much enjoyed your 75th 

anniversary edition of the 

Alumni Bulletin. 

I offer one correction and 

one suggestion. 

On page 28, you show a 

photograph of new boy sons, 

etc., dated the fall of 1968. 

Not so—this photo was taken 

in the fall of 1967. Source: my 

clouded memory and the 1968 

yearbook, which verifies (to 

name a couple) Bermingham 

and Wheeler as lower mids, 

’71. I know that the unforgettable 

Caulkins ’70 was there 

for two years at least, and he 

never made it to senior! 

On page 41 Charles Yonkers 

’58 mentions receiving an 

article by one of Cruikshank’s 

daughters. I spent my 

Thanksgiving vacation lower 

mid year with Scott McMullen 

’70, Cruikshank’s grandson. 

Scott’s mom’s name was Janet 

McCawley (at the time), and 

they lived in the town of 

Fairfield. As I recall we had 

Thanksgiving dinner with the 

retired (and intimidating) 

schoolmaster at his house on 

Breakneck Hill in Middlebury 

[CT]. Recollections of a time 

when the headmaster lived in 

the school building proper 

might be interesting—not to 

say frightening. 

My uncle Rawson Foreman 

’58 tells of a classmate who, 

infuriated that Cruikshank’s 

dorm inspection police had 

removed a centerfold poster 

from his room, confronted the 

headmaster in his office. After 

listening to the boy’s protestations 

of theft, invasion of privacy, 

and so forth, Cruikshank 

calmly and deliberately flipped 

him a quarter—the cost of the 

magazine. 

Thanks again for an interesting 

issue. 

—Bob Foreman ’70 

New York, NY 

Ed Note: 

The article by Janet Cruikshank 

McCawley that Charlie Yonkers 

mentions in the Class of 1958 

notes [someone is a thorough 

reader!] was originally entitled 

“View from the Third Floor” 

and appeared last year in the 

Social Register Observer. Our 

agreement with the Observer 

is that we would wait one year 

before publishing it in the Taft 

Bulletin, so look for it in a later 

issue this year. 

While your issues of the Bulletin 

are always interesting, 

entertaining, and instructive, 

your fall issue was exceptional. 

I appreciate all the 

work you did in getting everything 

together! 

As you may have guessed 

by now, I was particularly 

interested in the reference to 

the Fall 1970 issue that contained 

an article written by 

my son Bob ’70. Presaged by 

that article and his drama 

society work at Taft, Bob has 

devoted his life to the saving, 

preservation, and restoration 

of movie palaces and also to 

the operation of theatres of 

more recent vintage; I am 

extremely proud of him and 

his work! 

That makes it much 

harder to admit that I do not 

have a copy of his Bulletin 

article and to request that, if 

possible, you send me a photographic 

copy. Thank you 

very much for this and for 

your continuing good works 

for our School. 

—Bob Foreman ’44 

Lawrenceville, Georgia 

We welcome Letters to the Editor relating to the content of the magazine. Letters may be edited for length, clarity, and content, and are published at 

the editor’s discretion. Send correspondence to: Julie Reiff, Editor • Taft Bulletin • 110 Woodbury Road • Watertown, CT 06795 or to: reiffj@taft.pvt.k12.ct.us


They Call Her Dr. Mary 

Wash-Your-Hands 

A First-Time Volunteer Finds War and Fulfillment 

in the Company of Burmese Refugees 

By Sarah Hare 

Photographs by Timothy Hellum 

Taft Bulletin 3


Two years ago, Mary Washburne, M.D.,’79 was slogging away in her 

family practice in Milwaukee, thinking there must be a more satisfying 

way to make use of her hard-earned medical skills. After making some 

inquiries into volunteer opportunities for physicians, Washburne, then 36, 

decided to join Doctors Without Borders (DWB), an international relief 

agency that’s among the world’s oldest medical service organizations. Within 

months she got someone to cover her practice, rented out her house, and found 

herself living in Thailand, working with Burmese refugees. 

“The New York office [of DWB] chose the 

mission,” Dr. Washburne explained as we 

bounced along a rutted road one morning 

early last year en route to Maw Ker, one of 

19 refugee camps near the Myanmar (formerly 

Burma) border. More than 100,000 

Karen, a mountain tribe fighting for independence 

from the Burmese government, 

call these camps home. DWB’s program 

in western Thailand assists the Karen in five 

of the Burmese refugee camps. 

“I was really lucky to end up with the 

Karen,” Washburne said as she steered the 

four-wheel-drive pickup clear of potholes 

almost as big as the truck. “The Karen 

have been the highlight of this entire experience. 

Really an inspiration. They have 

so little and yet they are so hopeful. Medically 

it’s been fascinating, too,” She noted. 

“At this mission we’re not dealing with just 

one epidemiology—straight Ebola or 

cholera—like in Africa. Here we’ve got the 

whole stir-fry of diseases.” 

This was the fifth month of her sixmonth 

post, and Dr. Washburne had had 

intimate contact with diseases she never 

would have seen in her Milwaukee practice: 

malaria, dengue, beriberi, tuberculosis, 

cholera, and typhoid fever (which she contracted 

just two weeks into her mission), 

plus a potpourri of illnesses prevalent 

among displaced people. 

Although the first-time volunteer 

had anticipated battling exotic ailments 

during her stay in Thailand, she hadn’t 

expected to encounter a full-scale war. 

“Oh, those are just Chinese New Year 

“Here, people don’t believe doctors are gods, 

like we’re supposed to be in the West. They don’t 

come into the clinic loaded with expectations. 

They appreciate anything we can do to help them.” 

firecrackers,” Washburne said dismissively 

as we listened to rapid-fire popping in the 

distance. It was the first week of February 

and the Sino-Thai were celebrating in 

nearby Mae Sot with an abandon that made 

the festivities in New York’s Chinatown 

look tame. Still, by the alarmed expressions 

on the faces of the Burmese Karen gathered 

outside town, I realized I wasn’t the 

only one who thought the explosions 

sounded like rifle shots. There was good 

reason to believe that they were. 

A few days earlier, two refugee camps 

had been attacked in the dead of night by 

Burmese soldiers who’d crossed the river 

from Myanmar. After forcing the Karen out 

of their beds at gunpoint, the invading 

troops burned hundreds of bamboo homes, 

leaving thousands of people huddled on 

vast stretches of scorched, smoldering earth. 

That same night, Thai authorities held off 

the Burmese army’s attempt to raze a third 

camp, Mae La, rescuing the homes of more 

than 8,000 Karen. 

The soldiers were now thought to be 

hiding in the leafy jungles just inside the 

Thailand border, hoping to repeat the destruction 

they’d brought upon the Wanka 

and Don Pakiang camps. By torching the 

camps, the Burmese government aimed to 

induce the Karen refugees to return home. 

Her dangling earrings and shock of 

blond hair glinting in the morning sun, 

Dr. Washburne calmly peeled pus-soaked 

gauze bandages from the back of a 33- 

year-old man suffering from an acute 

renal infection. Shooing away a swarm 

of flies, she drained his oozing wound. 

“The Karen call me Dr. Mary Wash- 

Your-Hands because I’m always saying 

that a few simple sanitary procedures can 

go a long way,” she said while scrubbing 

up for the next patient with a bucket of 

water. “Sometimes, like now, sanitary 

measures are all we have.” 

4 Winter 1999


Since the invading Burmese had stolen 

most of the medical supplies and 

reduced the camp hospitals to ashes, the 

DWB team had constructed a makeshift 

outpatient dispensary (OPD): four bamboo 

poles draped with a huge blue, plastic 

tarp. Barefoot patients wearing tattered sarongs 

wrapped around their waists lay on 

straw mats along the tent’s perimeter. Those 

with minor injuries sat listlessly on wooden 

examination benches in the middle of the 

tent, where Karen medics took histories and 

recorded vital signs. Off to one side, a table 

though, it’s frustrating. I know they would 

heal faster and we could diagnose sooner 

if we had the luxury of the meds and the 

labs we have back home.” At the camp 

clinics, the lab technicians are equipped 

to perform only rudimentary tests: malaria 

smears, sputum tests for TB, urine 

dipsticks, and a rough hemoglobin. 

Among the Karen refugees now 

forced to sleep in fields rife with malarial 

mosquitoes and poisonous snakes, even 

these few diagnostic aids were saving lives. 

At least the lives of those treated in time. 

of Plasmodium falciparum following a 

1994 trip to Central America. “Without 

a clinic in the camp, she didn’t 

know where to go,” Washburne lamented. 

“Bullets didn’t kill her, but 

indirectly, the war still did.” 

Before the invasion, Washburne had 

sent e-mail messages to friends describing 

the conflict between the Burmese 

army and the Karen rebels as “a strange, 

slow, stuttering, kind of war... a war you 

know is there but can’t see.” Then, suddenly, 

it had exploded. 

displayed boxes of bandages and a few other 

basic supplies, enshrined as if offerings in a 

Buddhist temple. 

“I’ve learned about making do with 

very little,” Washburne responded optimistically 

when I asked about the medical 

tools she had to work with. “You really 

have to rely on your clinical skills, and that 

is making me a better doctor. Sometimes, 

“We could have saved her if she had 

come in sooner,” Dr. Washburne explained, 

pointing to the blanket-enshrouded 

corpse in the back of the pickup truck. 

An 18-year-old girl had died of cerebral 

malaria that morning. Staring at 

her body, which we were transporting 

to her family, I remembered my own 

agonizing bout with the deadly strain 

According to reports that filtered 

down to the camp leaders, the refugees 

were not the only target of these attacks. 

Burning the hospitals had been a primary 

objective for the soldiers, who had orders 

to confiscate all medical supplies and 

equipment. “Where are the microscopes? 

And we want both of them!” the soldiers 

had demanded of the terrified refugees. 



“How did they know we had two microscopes 

at each camp?” Washburne 

wondered out loud as she described the 

attack—an attack that I would have witnessed 

if delays in obtaining a permit to 

visit the camps had not postponed my trip. 

“It makes you think that the soldiers had 

been watching us for a while,” she explained 

eerily. “And maybe they still are.” 

After the rampage, the Burmese army 

sent warnings to the relief agencies, threatening 

that medical personnel would be 

kidnapped and taken across the border to 

And so, despite the threats, Dr. 

Washburne and a team of medics and 

nurses continued to sew up lacerations, 

clean burns, drain infections, treat dysentery, 

and deliver babies in the thick 

tropical heat. During my visit, three 

healthy babies were born. 

The only American serving on 

DWB’s Mae Sot mission, Washburne 

worked side by side with Canadian and 

French doctors and Karen medics, 

switching easily from English to French 

or the smattering of Karen she’d learned 

had developed flourishing friendships 

with several Karen medics, among them 

Stanley, whom we met that morning at 

Maw Ker. (Many Karen anglicize their 

names to ease pronunciation for foreigners.) 

A broad-faced Karen wearing glasses 

and Western clothes, Stanley is a lab technician 

who wouldn’t look out of place 

walking down a street in Bangkok. But 

instead this 25-year-old father of a newborn 

boy is living in a refugee camp. 

Stanley came across the border with 

his family when he was 14. A few years 

A first-time volunteer, Mary Washburne found the Karen inspiring. 

treat its soldiers. The orders were clear: The 

physicians were to leave the camps, and the 

Karen were to return to Myanmar. But both 

the doctors and the refugees stayed put. 

“They need us now more than ever,” 

Washburne explained. Wells at other camps 

had become contaminated, and there was 

increasing concern about a cholera outbreak. 

during her stay. “It’s like a residency 

teaching program, and we’re the 

attendings,” Washburne noted of the 

Western doctors’ interaction with the 

Karen medics and nurses. “We train the 

Karen, so later, when we are gone, they 

can take care of themselves.” 

In just a few months, Dr. Washburne 

ago, he moved from Wanka (one of the 

camps just incinerated) to marry a woman 

who lived in Maw Ker. He said the recent 

assault had destroyed his parents’ house. 

Red-eyed and obviously exhausted, 

Stanley told us how he had stayed up all 

night to guard his wife and baby. Yesterday, 

he had buried all their possessions to 

6 Winter 1999


protect them from fire, “just in case.” (A 

week later, I read in The Bangkok Post that 

part of Maw Ker had been burned.) 

Late that night, when the medical 

team was unwinding with cold Singha 

beer in the colorless border town of Mae 

Sot, Dr. Washburne talked about why she 

had volunteered and what she had left 

behind. After trading in a six-figure salary 

for a DWB stipend of about $600 a 

month, she found that it wasn’t the doctoring 

that had been unsatisfying, it was 

the medical system. 

she stopped by the OPD to make rounds. 

Three days earlier, we had seen a sweetfaced 

18-month-old boy with malarial 

tremors. We had watched as he writhed 

on a straw mat, teeth-chattering chills 

racking his febrile body, his honey-colored 

skin damp with perspiration. 

Today, it was apparent that the malaria 

therapy was working. The little boy’s 

fever had subsided, and he was feeling much 

better. Upon seeing Washburne, he jumped 

off his mother’s lap and ran to his doctor. 

He was smiling, and so were the Karen 

Dr. Washburne makes rounds at a camp clinic, before the devastating torchings by the Burmese army. 

“Here, people don’t believe doctors are 

gods, like we’re supposed to be in the West,” 

she said. “They don’t come into the clinic 

loaded with expectations. They appreciate 

anything we can do to help them. 

“Part of the reason I wanted to volunteer 

was the whole entitlement thing that 

people have at home,” she added. “They 

feel they are entitled to smoke and take 

drugs and abuse their bodies and still be in 

perfect health. And you have to fix them 

or they’ll sue you. They feel they are entitled 

to a perfect life. Here, they smile. They 

give you presents. They are so appreciative.” 

In the days that followed, more refugees 

arrived at the camps under DWB’s 

supervision, some relocating from the 

charred camps, some fleeing from the 

other side of the border. 

“The ones who have just arrived from 

Burma are always in pretty bad shape,” observed 

Washburne. The refugees who have 

lived in the camps for 12 years face challenges 

as well. “They cannot grow their own 

food. It’s prohibited by the Thai government, 

so they completely rely on aid,” she explained 

as we passed a truck that was distributing 

rice out of huge white plastic sacks. 

On my last afternoon with Washburne, 

medics and villagers gathered nearby. He 

held out a rice cake. A simple present. And 

by the smile on Washburne’s face, more 

valuable than money in the bank. 

This article was reprinted with permission 

from the April 15, 1998, issue of DIVERSION 

magazine. 



Mr. Doyle 

Goes to 

Washington 

Two video-making trips Taft 

students won’t soon forget 

By Nathan Whittaker ’99 

L 

ast summer, video teacher Rick Doyle and 

twenty of his students traveled both to the 

noble and majestic Olympic Peninsula in 

Washington State and to the blue waters of the 

British Virgin Islands to make movies. “I like to go 

a minimum of 500 miles away from here, so kids 

can’t go home and do other stuff.” All told, the two 

groups spent a combined four weeks dedicating 

themselves to nothing other than making movies. 

Rick Doyle, Matt Donahue, and Scott Britell follow Maggie as they return from filming 

Killing Lassie on location. And, no, the movie has nothing to do with Rick’s faithful collie 

companion and video team mascot, who is alive and well and living in Watertown. 

8 Winter 1999


This sort of excursion is certainly not a new 

occurrence in Taft history, but in fact, it is 

a decade-long tradition. To find the perfect 

backdrops for their screenplays, Rick 

and his aspiring pupils have traveled all 

across the United States, as well as to foreign 

countries, to film in such places as 

Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, the Florida 

Keys, West Virginia, Iowa, Montana, North 

Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Minnesota, Wisconsin, 

St. John’s Island, Norway, and 

England. These voyages have produced several 

extraordinary films; in fact, Rick has 

received 38 regional Emmy nominations 

for the movies made on these trips. 

The first of their two expeditions occurred 

in June as they set off for a tree farm 

in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula for two 

weeks. Here, they made a film about a 

school shooting, a very real problem in 

Filming the final scene of Killing Lassie. An old fisherman’s cabin on the Pacific coast is 

used as the setting. 

According to Doyle… 

“We try to make a family out of the whole thing. The kids take turns planning and preparing 

dinner each night; the traditions build each year. I always make a toast on the first night, 

and it’s always the same: Here’s to the movies and the people who make them.” 

today’s society. The film, titled Killing Lassie, 

stars Tim Dzurilla ’01 (Gordy), a distressed 

student who commits homicide; Matt 

Donahue ’98, Gordy’s brother and the 

cause of Gordy’s distress; and Eric Hansen 

’99, Gordy’s friend who gets swept into the 

action. According to Rick, “It is a reflection 

on today’s glorification of violence, the 

desensitizing of the human being toward 

the value of life, and how television plays a 

role in the glorification of the sensational. 

It is a very hard-hitting, angry movie. It’s 

scary to think about what is going on.” 

The movie premiered at Taft in October 

and will be aired by either PBS or the 

local cable access station later this year. Two 

earlier movies, Pristine, filmed on a Wyoming 

trip, and Translucent, filmed in upper 

Minnesota two years ago, are now distributed 

through 23rd Publications, a Christian 

organization that promotes tapes about 

teenage issues and family values. 

Making Movies on Location 

Olympic Peninsula, June 

“The location was a tree farm on the 

Pacific Coast of Washington. We 

stayed in a wonderful old cabin and 

did almost all the filming in the lush, 

green forest.” 

Olympic Peninsula Trip: 

Scott Britell ’98 

Dan Cole ’00 

Mike DeMarco ’99 

Matt Donahue ’98 

Tim Dzurilla ’01 

Bridget Everly ’98 

Eric Hansen ’99 

Giorgio Litt ’99 

Nick Ryan ’00 

Cordy Wagner ’01 

and Maggie, of course 



Rick Doyle directs Tim Dzurilla in a scene for Killing Lassie. 


“Each summer we go on location movie trips to all parts 

of the globe. I work with Connecticut Public Television 

and the movies that we do on these location trips are 

often shown on CPTV. Some are later distributed by a 

company called 23rd Publications.” 

Later in the summer, the group 

again packed their bags to go on location 

for another movie: they lived on 

a 42-foot catamaran off the coast of 

the British Virgin Islands for ten days. 

One of the movies is called How My 

Mother Met My Father. “It’s a totally 

different idea and mood than the first 

project. It is a light-hearted movie 

about relationships after people first 

get married. It is a very pleasant, visually 

stunning movie.” 

Rick was not the only director on 

the trip— several students took the opportunity 

to film their own movies. 

Cordy Wagner ’01 created a film in 

which Georgio Litt ’99 stars as a man with 

a mental disorder. Mike DeMarco ’99 

also pursued his interests in a film about 

two people—Georgio Litt ’99 and Nick 

Ryan ’00—who are lost in the woods 

and have to depend on each other to 

survive. Finally, Damon Cortesi ’98 directed 

a movie written by Ryan Murray, 

Eric Hansen ’99, and Aaron Kovalchik 

’98 about four graduating high-school 

seniors who have difficulties “saying 

good-bye.” When completed, these 

Making Movies Under Sail 

British Virgin Islands, August 

“The 42-foot catamaran was our 

center of operations as we ate and 

slept there. Ten days is what was 

needed to tape two movies. It was 

the first time I ever made a movie 

on water.” 

BVI trip: 

Scott Britell ’98 

Damon Cortesi ’98 

Josh Einstein ’01 

Tammy Grella 

Eric Hansen ’99 

Aaron Kovalchik ’98 

Ryan Murray 

Lanny Shreve ’99 

Andy Smith ’79 

Sara Weitzel 

10 Winter 1999



“Making movies on location is nothing but problems— 

weather, bugs, batteries. Murphy is sometimes the 

13th party member. You never know when he’s going 

to show up. When things can go wrong they will go 

wrong, but you learn to expect that. How to deal with 

people, that’s the toughest thing going. Learning how 

to make decisions, that can be the hardest part of 

making a movie, too.” 

movies will also be aired on either CPTV 

or the local access station. 

“The nice thing about the whole 

procedure,” says Rick, “is that people 

have the opportunity to write, to act, to 

direct, and to go on location. Going on 

location centers everyone; that’s the only 

way we can do a movie in nine or ten 

days. But it’s more than just that. It’s 

the whole idea of going together to an 

unusual place and living as a group. We 

become an extended family with a 

shared objective—to make a movie. 

Even then, the movie is fifth down the 

pole of importance on these trips: safety, 

food, water, shelter, then the movie. 

Social activities are way down the list.” 

“It was probably the most intensive 

learning process I’ve ever been 

through,” said Cordy Wagner while 

editing his movie this fall. “Definitely 

the most rewarding.” 

This article originated in The Taft Papyrus last 

November. Nathan Whittaker is the paper’s 

arts editor and a highly talented cellist. 

Eric Hansen and Aaron Kovalchik, in the boat, seem to be at the mercy of Josh Einstein, 

as this group learns to film on the water. 

The trees—gentle, mossy green, gorgeous weather. That’s part of the experience, says Doyle, 

the beauty of these places. Eric Hansen and Matt Donahue survey the awesome setting. 



For the Love 

of Learning 

By Michael Townsend 

Portraits by Lisa Jackier 

For twenty-four seniors, the notion of a Taft education has an added 

dimension this fall. In accordance with the school’s long-standing 

mission of fostering independence, these students are taking charge of 

their education and enjoying a degree of self-reliance that has not been available 

in the school’s curriculum since the early days of the Independent Studies 

Program of the Sixties. Conspicuous by their toting enormous spiral notebooks 

and their obsessing over boxes of index cards, these students have elected to take 

the risk of leaving the traditional classroom behind in order to study subjects 

of their own choosing. 

Kate Bienen 

“The course has been the best leaning experience 

of my life: I’ve learned things that 

I will use forever. Trembling on the phone 

during my interview with Elie Wiesel, listening 

to his brilliance, is something I will 

never forget. But I’ve also learned self-discipline; 

the seminar has made me learn to 

manage my time, to set priorities, and to 

focus my energy as never before.” 

Ben Cirillo possesses a keen interest in the 

stock market and has devoted long hours 

this semester to studying Wall Street and 

considering the possible effects of the economic 

crises in Asia on our markets. 

Danielle Perrin, one of the school’s 

most accomplished musicians, has been 

looking into the science of music therapy: 

the physiological and psychological benefits 

of music on convalescing patients. 

Kate Bienen, intent on forging a 

stronger connection to her cultural roots, 

is daring to examine the Holocaust in excruciating 

detail. 

Peter Walke, a committed environmentalist 

since seventh grade, has been exploring 

12 Winter 1999


“constructed wetlands,” a method of purifying 

water in an ecologically sound way, 

and looking into the feasibility of creating 

a limited system at Taft. 

These seniors, whose passions could not 

be more diverse, share one common experience: 

each is enrolled in the inaugural Taft 

Senior Independent Research Seminar. They 

have elected to take a risk and, by designing 

and undertaking their own full-year academic 

course, they are presently following a 

path which diverges from the traditional Taft 

curriculum and challenges them to become 

both more resourceful and more aware of 

themselves as learners. 

The program’s genesis goes back to last 

year’s Senior Year Committee, a group of 

faculty members—led by Bob Wheeler— 

charged with evaluating the senior year at 

Taft and with making suggestions about how 

our seniors’ experiences could be enriched. 

Although initial discussions focused on 

the phenomena of “senior spring term”— 

the tendency of seniors in all high schools 

to tune out after the college process is completed—and 

on the sad fact that too many 

seniors reported that their last semester was 

the least intellectually stimulating and rewarding 

of their Taft careers, the committee 

rather quickly turned its attention to what 

the senior year should be. 

Bob Wheeler, who had been doing 

extensive research into approaches other 

schools had taken, was particularly intrigued 

by the Dwight-Englewood 

School, a day school in New Jersey. As 

that program had a six-year history of 

thoughtful revision and success, it provided 

a model well worth examining. 

Moreover, the committee believed in 

the inherent value of this kind of program 

to students of widely ranging abilities and 

interests; it was not to be a course exclusively 

for our most accomplished students. 

Mike Townsend and Willy MacMullen 

agreed to direct the program which would 

be based, with permission, on the Dwight- 

Englewood model. 

According to Headmaster Lance 

Odden, the enthusiastic response from 

students for this idea should have come as 

no surprise; indeed, the new program represents 

merely the latest evolutionary step 

in a school with a long-standing commitment 

to both innovation and independent 

work. According to Odden, the new seminar 

is “similar in its purpose and in the 

range of the intellectual excitement it generates” 

to the original Independent Studies 

Program, which Odden founded and 

oversaw in the Sixties. 

The new course honors the tradition 

of independent study at Taft, explains 

Bob Wheeler, “by embracing the conviction 

that our kids will do phenomenal 

work if we allow them to take charge of 

their education and then support them. 

What we are doing is shifting the focus 

from what we teach to what they learn— 

and that is the real measure of education.” 

First Semester: The Thesis 

In the fall, participating students write a research 

paper of at least fifteen pages for the 

Seminar, which replaces a regular course. The 

process begins in the summer when they read 

at least two primary sources related to a field 

in which they have a particular interest. 

As soon as they return in September, 

they begin to consider questions 

which they believe will lead to an exciting 

exploration of some issues in that 

field. Concurrently, they begin the pro- 

Andrew Bostrom 

“Even though I find the scarcity of time to 

be extremely frustrating, I have learned so 

much about my topic and about how I 

think. I am still struggling to find a precise 

direction for my paper, but I am learning 

slowly how best to manage my hectic 

schedule and still fit in my nightly research. 

This course has really challenged me to develop 

independence, and I am more 

confident now of my own ability to make 

things happen.” 

Seniors and Their Topics 

Kate Bienen: The Holocaust: An Investigation 

of “Rescuers” and Silent Conspirators. 

Andrew Bostrom: An Investigation into 

the Separation of Church and State (its 

constitutional history as well as contemporary 

interpretations—especially as it 

was interpreted by Judge Ira DeMent’s 

ruling in the Alabama case in 1994). 

Brooke Carleton: The Environmental, 

Economic, and Educational Importance 

of Microscale Chemistry as a 

Teaching Method in Chemistry Classes. 

Ben Cirillo: The Effects of The Asian 

Economic Crises on American Markets. 

Charles Crimmins: The Challenges that 

Confront Disadvantaged Urban Minority 

Students at Prep Schools. 

Michael DeMarco: The Consequences 

of Advances in Special Effects Technology 

in American Cinema. 

Taj Frazier: An Examination of the Explosion 

of Conversions to Islam in the Black 

Community in the Late 1960s (an argument 

that were it not for Islam, the rage 

and energies of the blacks would have 

been channeled into destructive forms). 

Jill Giardina: Effective AIDS Education 

for Adolescents. 

Lauren Henry: Primary Causes of Eating 

Disorders in Adolescent Females. 



Peter Walke 

“My consultation with an outside expert 

has been both the scariest and the most 

rewarding part of my experience. Calling a 

complete stranger and asking for guidance 

was not something that came naturally to 

me. But I finally worked up the nerve to 

call the public relations director of a wetlands 

construction company. We had a 

great talk, I learned a lot from him, and 

we’ve ended up being good friends.” 

Galen Largay: The Pedagogical Roots 

of Montessori Education (and the effect 

of hands-on community learning 

on the student). 

Emily Lord: A Study of Twins: What It 

Reveals about the Nature vs. Nurture 

Debate. 

Julie Marmolejos: The Cross-cultural 

Influences Resulting from Increased 

Hispanic Immigration to the US. 

Emily McNair: The Ramifications of 

Making English the Primary Language 

of the Nepali Educational System. 

Bea Ogden: Creating an Environmental 

Studies Program for Primary School 

Children. 

Samantha Page: The Theme of Redemption 

in the Films of Martin Scorsese. 

Danielle Perrin: An Examination of Music 

Therapy and its Physical and 

Psychological Effects on Patients. 

Nicole Robertson: An Investigation 

into the Dangers and Benefits of Bone 

Marrow Transplants (and into why so 

few transplants occur). 

Becky Seel: An Examination of the 

Controversy Surrounding the Reintroduction 

of Wolves to Yellowstone Park. 

Cathy Schieffelin: The Relationship between 

Manic Depressive Illness and 

Creativity. 

cess of self-assessment that must continue 

throughout the year: they each take a 

“passion test” that compels them to evaluate 

candidly the depth of their interest, 

and they take a “personal learning inventory” 

that leads them to consider their 

strengths and weaknesses as a learner. 

Early on, the seminar classes focus 

on formal and systematic training in the 

use of written and electronic media for 

research. Each student must also contact 

at least one expert in his or her field in 

order to seek direction and advice. 

The rest of the semester is devoted to 

composing the Thesis. Students are given 

ample time to work independently as they 

do the research and the writing, but the 

seminar classes are focused on collaboration. 

Students take a variety of workshops 

designed to assist them with each stage of 

the writing process, and they work with 

each other, evaluating one another’s work 

and offering counsel. They also submit 

formal self-evaluations of their work in its 

various stages and write short papers in 

which they reflect on their progress. 

Second Semester: Field Work 

In the second semester students continue 

to pursue their passion by working in the 

field in lieu of one or two “regular” courses. 

The only prerequisites for the field work 

are that it be directly related to the Senior 

Thesis, that it provide an opportunity to 

expand on the learning presented in the 

Thesis, and that it not be of such scope to 

pose logistical difficulties for a student to 

meet his or her other obligations. 

By the end of the second week in 

January, each student submits a specific 

proposal for field work. In it, students 

must identify a series of questions from 

their research that can be most effectively 

answered through field work. Whenever 

possible, they should identify a mentor 

or outside expert (not a Taft faculty member) 

who can help them pursue answers 

to their questions. Students are asked to 

consider the following list and to name 

specific activities that would constitute 

meaningful field work for them: 

• subjects for personal interviews 

• sites to visit (museums, specialized libraries, 

archives, etc. ) 

• locations for actual work in the field 

• contact with any of the above via telephone, 

fax, Web site, etc. 

• specialized courses (not offered at Taft) 

in their field 

• additional reading 

• an experiment or survey or other project 

that carries theory into practice. 

Students keep a detailed log of their activities 

and a journal in which they assess 

their odysseys as they unfold. Moreover, 

the class meets at regular intervals to enable 

the students to work collaboratively, 

discuss specific aspects of their experiences, 

and give oral reports to their peers. 

By the end of April, students must 

bring the field work to a conclusion and 

begin work on a portfolio and an oral 

presentation that will represent the fruits 

of their year’s labor. 

The oral presentation will be evaluated 

by a panel that includes a head 

panelist (a student in the course who coordinates 

the presentation), an outside 

expert in the field, a faculty member, and 

another seminar student. 

How has the first group of pioneering 

seniors reacted to the experience thus 

14 Winter 1999


far? As some of the voices that accompany 

this article attest, there are as many 

reactions as there are students in the program. 

Certainly, all would agree that it 

has challenged them in ways that are personal 

and profound, and that they have 

discovered heretofore untapped resources 

within themselves. Certainly, seminar 

student Cathy Schieffelin’s reflection indicates 

the richness of her experience and 

embodies many of the aspirations of all 

who had a hand in bringing this kind of 

experience to Taft. She writes: 

“Although I have learned a great deal 

about my topic—the relationship between 

manic depression and creativity—I 

have learned even more about my abilities 

as a student. I now realize that, 

ironically, it is often important to consult 

other experienced minds even while 

working in an ‘independent’ seminar. 

However, as Emerson said, ‘There is a 

time in every man’s education when he 

arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; 

that imitation is suicide. . .’ 

These words are especially relevant when 

I consider what I have gained from my 

senior seminar. By being enthusiastically 

engaged in learning about something that 

fascinates me, I have realized the impor- 

Cathy Schieffelin 

“Although I have learned a great deal 

about my topic—the relationship between 

manic depression and creativity—I have 

learned even more about my abilities as a 

student. I now realize that, ironically, it is 

often important to consult other experienced 

minds even while working in an 

‘independent’ seminar. By being enthusiastically 

engaged in learning about 

something that fascinates me, I have realized 

the importance of self-reliance in 

education. In this seminar the knowledge I 

have gained is directly proportionate to my 

curiosity, diligence, and desire. Even 

though I pay dearly for it, no college will 

give me an education, for, to quote 

Emerson again, ‘no kernel of nourishing 

corn can come to [me] but through [my] 

own toil bestowed upon that plot of ground 

which is given [me] to till.’” 

tance of self-reliance in education. In this 

seminar the knowledge I have gained is 

directly proportionate to my curiosity, 

diligence, and desire. Even though I pay 

dearly for it, no college will give me an 

education, for, to quote Emerson again, 

‘no kernel of nourishing corn can come 

to [me] but through [my] own toil bestowed 

upon that plot of ground which 

is given [me] to till.’” 

Mike Townsend is a member of the English 

Department and dean of the Senior 

Class. Fellow English teachers Willy 

MacMullen and Linda Saarnijoki also 

contributed to this article. 

Laura Stevens 

“Senior Seminar gave me the opportunity 

to explore a subject—the effects of stress— 

that I am really interested in, and it also 

gave me the chance to become a certified 

Emergency Medical Technician, something 

I wouldn’t have been able to do this year 

otherwise. Also, because my paper is about 

the effects of stress on EMT’s, I learned a 

lot of important things that my class outside 

of school didn’t teach me. The learning 

in my Senior Seminar project was a perfect 

complement to my EMT training; I know it 

will make me a better EMT.” 

Sarah Sicher: The Effects of the Fundamentalist 

Taliban Regime on the 

Lives of Women in Afghanistan. 

Elliot Sharron: Stanley Kubrick and 

Woody Allen: How their Personal Lives 

Intersect with their Art. 

Laura Stevens: Emergency Medical 

Technicians and Critical Incident Stress. 

Peter Walke: An Analysis of Four Major 

Types of Constructed Wetlands 

(which are used to purify water) and 

an Argument in Favor of Taft’s Embracing 

such a System. 

Akio Yamanaka: An Examination of the 

Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia 

(and how the devastating effects of 

that rule can still be seen in the 

country’s educational and medical infrastructure). 

Senior Year Committee 

Bob Wheeler, chair 

Rusty Davis 

Gerry DePolo 

Helena Fifer 

David Hostage 

Barclay Johnson 

Jack Kenerson 

Willy MacMullen 

Debora Phipps 

Mike Townsend 

Carolyn White 

Gail Wynne 

Bill Zuehlke 


His Work is 

For the Birds 

Kem Appell’s Sanctuary for Exotic Waterfowl 

By Sara Beasley 

Photography by Kindra Clineff


This pair of black-necked swans, native to 

the southern tip of South America, are one 

of only eight species of swans. Swans pair 

bond strongly and will remain together for 

twenty years or more. 

A demoiselle crane is the smallest of the 

thirteen species of cranes and is indigenous 

to southern Russia, northern Iraq, Iran, and 

India. A gentle bird, many are allowed to 

roam freely in parks and zoos. This one will 

eat from Kem’s hand. 

J. Kemler Appell ’55 is an artist, a creator, 

and an educator. He and his wife, 

Julia, whose knowledge of and enthusiasm 

for birds is absolutely equal to her 

husband’s, have devoted themselves to 

building and maintaining a habitat for 

more than 75 different species of birds. 

His backyard aviary is a complex world, 

full of graceful lines and pure colors. The 

two hours we spent together on a wet and 

chilly Friday afternoon were magical: I 

was invited to wander through a paradise 

for birds and to contemplate the 

calm of the large pond and the singular 

beauty of its many inhabitants. 

As we talked, he opened up to me a 

world of intricacies and subtleties, patiently 

explaining to me every detail of 

what was a decade ago an imaginative 

birthday gift for Julia. That gift—a pair 

of swans—turned into an avocation; now, 

what began as a hobby must be described 

as a passionate mission that both Kem and 

The Sanctuary is home to exotic waterfowl 

from every continent except Antarctica— 

a feathered UN of sorts. Although there 

are generally 500 birds in residence, at 

times, before a new generation of fledglings 

departs, there can be nearly 700. 

A Baikal hen is as curious about us as we 

are about her. 

Julia share: to protect rare and endangered 

species and to share with others some of 

nature’s most beautiful creatures. I learned 

a great deal in my time with the Appells. 

Like each of their 250 pairs of birds, they 

are truly an impressive couple. They have 

taught themselves well enough that they 

can in turn educate others. 

Appell’s collection is one of the largest 

and most comprehensive in North 

America. It includes as many as 700 birds 

representing nearly 80 species. Some 

originate in South America, Nepal, and 

Bangladesh, to name but a few of the exotic 

species to be found in Appell’s 

backyard. This is the only place on the 

East Coast that one can see sea ducks in 

captivity. The Appells’ collection ranks 

with those found in the Bronx, San Diego, 

and Miami zoos. The names of the 

birds, although plenty poetic, do not begin 

to do them justice: silver versicolor 

teal, Bahama pintail, white cheek, European 

wigeon, Argentine red shoveler, cinnamon 

teal, Barrows goldeneye, hooded 

merganser, blue-scaled quail, Hawaiiannene, 

coscoroba swan, West African 

crown crane. My favorite was the iridescent 

Impian pheasant from Nepal—a 

truly gorgeous and majestic bird. Nestled 

on a wooded lot near the heart of 

Farmington, the “Sanctuary” is home to 

all of these birds and to many, many 

more. Some of the birds can come and 

go, but all seem to know that this place 

is always their home. 

This private aviary is designed to 

educate and to excite the minds and 

imaginations of all who visit. Connecticut 

College students studying animal 

behavior and behavioral science have 

found the aviary an invaluable resource, 

for example. Kem and Julia are especially 

interested in youngsters: second grade 

classes from schools all around the area 

have been visiting for years. Kem shows 



Luke and his Lady: An adopted Canada goose 

(originally misnamed Lucy) eventually found 

his match in this emperor goose at the Sanctuary. 

Kem doesn’t normally keep Canada 

geese, but he took Luke in after he was 

hatched in a shoebox in an Ohio motel. His 

mother had been frightened off the nest and 

some traveling students cared for the gosling 

until they found the Sanctuary. So far the 

mismatched pair have laid only infertile eggs. 

For Julia’s birthday, Kem wanted to surprise her with a pair of black swans for the pond, 

and so the Sanctuary began in their backyard. It is now a collection to share. There are 

four black swans today. Fittingly, black swans are among the few birds where the male 

and female share the responsibility of incubating eggs, much as Kem and Julia have 

worked together to create this amazing aviary. 

me stacks of letters he has received from 

his seven- and eight-year-old friends. He 

saves every letter, clearly relishing the 

connection forged with the students. 

School buses pull into the Appells’ quiet 

neighborhood each spring and disgorge 

loads of excited youngsters. Typically, 

Kem and Julia take the children upon 

arrival into the garage for some preliminary 

teaching. The youngsters are then 

instructed to “park their noisy voices” 

in this makeshift “lecture hall.” At that 

point, each youngster is given a photograph 

of a bird. If the child can find that 

bird during the carefully planned walk 

through the aviary, then he or she gets 

to take home the photograph. 

The walk itself is calm and full of 

information. The children are given every 

opportunity to ask questions. The 

children’s letters are decorated with drawings 

of the birds they saw; the care taken 

with the drawings (and with the spelling 

of the birds’ names) conveys how powerfully 

affecting an experience each child 

has. Kem and Julia believe strongly in the 

value of the education the Sanctuary provides: 

“Growing up in 20th century 

suburbia, children are deprived of the 

chance to learn about nature, about animal 

behavior,” says Kem. “Here, they can 

learn about life. Lessons are easily learned 

in this context; they see the whole cycle 

of life.” He and Julia also believe that visiting 

the fragile beauty of the Sanctuary 

teaches children basic lessons in responsibility. 

These children visit from all over 

the area; however, it is not surprising that 

some of the most responsive students are 

those from urban schools. 

During my time with him, Kem 

Appell impresses me with the breadth 

of his knowledge and the depth of his 

commitment. He shows me every facet 

of the Sanctuary’s design, pointing out 

the “salamanders” designed to melt snow 

on the roof of the hatchery before it can 

gain any appreciable weight and pose a 

danger to the vulnerable chicks below. 

The entire area is enclosed within an 

electric fence. While these birds have 

many natural predators and thus are in 

constant danger, the fence and other 

protective measures do slow down a 

would-be adversary. The birds’ natural 

haven is the large pond. As we walk toward 

it, several black swans swim out 

to greet us. Kem and Julia immediately 

begin to talk to the swans, and they encourage 

me to do the same. I am taken 

aback by the volume and responsiveness 

of the birds. Clearly, these birds are comfortable 

with humans. 

Kem and Julia acknowledge just how 

attuned they’ve become to the various 

calls and sounds of their birds; it is easy 

to distinguish a cry of greeting from a 

cry of panic. It is difficult to imagine any 

threat, however, as I look out over the 

18 Winter 1999


Getting your ducks in a row: These harlequin 

ducks are excellent swimmers and 

divers. They also enjoy a swing Kem built 

to resemble floating logs such as they 

might find in the wild. The harlequins are a 

threatened species, with an Atlantic population 

of roughly 2,000 and a population 

of 50,000 on the Pacific. There are only a 

dozen pairs in captitivity. 

Kem and Julia are fairly tethered to their backyard oasis, but it is something to share with 

others, from second graders to college students, from grandchildren to hip-wader wearing 

Audubon Society members. 

serene community of waterfowl. The 

birds enjoy a beautifully landscaped and 

gently sloping beach along one side of 

the pond. Kem has built a series of connecting 

decks on the water to allow the 

birds to move about. Overall, the pond 

looks much like a park; there are swings 

for the birds to play on, and all kinds of 

perches and natural vantage points. Protective 

measures—such as the electric 

fence—blend in with the lush and 

wooded setting. The most vulnerable 

birds and those not native to North 

America live within an enclosed aviary. 

Kem has made strategic use of hollowed 

out tree trunks and logs in order to achieve 

a harmonious and appealing habitat. One 

could sit quietly for hours, just observing 

the birds in what must be a very happy 

playground. Kem confesses that he often 

does just that: he sits and watches and listens 

and learns. “It’s amazing how human 

they seem sometimes,” he explains. 

Our tour includes the nesting area, 

marked by private nest boxes made of cedar. 

It’s nicely solitary and the birds are well-protected 

from crows simply because they are 

ever so-slightly hidden from view. Again, I’m 

struck by how carefully designed the aviary 

is: it preserves and replicates the natural habitats 

of these birds in a simple, graceful 

fashion. Every bird is mated; if a bird is lost, 

it is immediately replaced. Their diet is as 

carefully considered as their environment. 

The birds eat wheat and corn in the winter 

to build fat; otherwise, Iams makes a special 

sea-duck diet. I learn that quail and pheasants 

love fruit, and that three pounds of 

fathead minnows are served every Friday. As 

we enter a storage shed, I ask Kem to show 

me what is inside several large bins. His 

strong, blunt fingers gently sift through the 

mix of wheat, dog food, oyster shells and 

bird seed that his birds eat. He gives the mix 

his full attention, patiently explaining to me 

why his birds need each element. 

Every detail matters to him; one 

small miscalculation of temperature or 

amount can affect the health and life of 

his birds. Considering the care that he 

and Julia take with their aviary, it is no 

surprise that he chooses and handles the 

birds’ food with such tenderness. Luckily, 

waterfowl are hardy; of all birds, they 

are among the least susceptible to viruses. 

They are treated prophylactically for 

water-borne illnesses, and given heartworm 

medicine as well. The Appells have 

lost birds over the years, to be sure. But 

Kem and Julia are matter-of-fact about the 

risks they run. They are sure to do everything 

they can think of to protect and to 

sustain the birds in a healthy, safe, and 

aesthetically pleasing environment. And 

the eight resident endangered species are 

provided a secure place to live, thus ensuring 

the perpetuation of the breed. 

The Sanctuary tries to combine a park 

theme and setting with a commitment to 



The white wood duck is a mutation, not an 

albino, of the Carolina wood duck found 

along the eastern seacoast. The mutation 

happens once in 100,000 birds. The bird on 

the right is an old squaw, which is found 

along the Atlantic seacoast. 

Julia and Kem Appell ’55 in their backyard aviary. 

education. As Julia explains, “We can’t be 

all things to all people. We make the choice 

not to breed the birds.” Instead, they are 

bred and hatched in Litchfield and then 

brought to the Sanctuary. In fact, Kem is 

quick to invoke his “mentor” Mike Bean, 

and to credit his help with creating and 

maintaining the Sanctuary. Mike is some 

thirty years younger than Kem, and is the 

superintendent and curator of the 

Livingston-Ripley Waterfowl Trust in 

Litchfield, begun by Dillon Ripley, an ornithologist 

and former secretary of the 

Smithsonian. It is Mike Bean who first 

showed Kem, clad in his Cole-Haan shoes 

and his Sunday finest, as they tramped together 

through the muddy grounds of the 

Waterfowl Trust, what is possible to create 

for these birds. Kem’s reaction, he says, was 

“typical: I want it all, and I want it now.” 

Unfortunately, he had to wait for the 

eggs to hatch and for the hatchlings to 

fledge (to feather), so he read, and he 

learned “the hard way.” I sense the determination 

of this man—and the vision, 

and the patience it took to execute his 

dream. There was much to add and to 

alter in terms of his property. The pond 

originally held trout; the neighbors had 

to learn to accept the deliveries of propane 

to heat the buildings, and to get 

used to the school buses. Kem gave up 

golf, skiing, the country club, and trips to 

the Caribbean. He and Julia are fairly tethered 

to their backyard oasis, in fact, and 

they get only part-time help in running 

and maintaining the Sanctuary. Yet both 

are quick to affirm its centrality in their 

lives and its many rewards. Put most simply, 

it is something to share with others, 

from second graders to college students, 

from grandchildren to hip-wader wearing 

Audubon Society members. 

The Appells’ creation of the Sanctuary 

has led to professional memberships 

and an ardent side interest. Kem is on the 

board of the American Pheasant and Waterfowl 

Society. He has also developed a 

passion for wood carvings of birds and has 

been asked to judge carvings from all over 

the world. “Wildfowl Art,” as it is called, 

is a beautiful and delicate form of representation. 

Like the second graders, wood 

carvers also make use of the Sanctuary. 

They come to observe and study the eider 

and other waterfowl living on the pond. 

Kem and Julia show me some of these incredible 

carvings, and I am struck by the 

detail of each. Life-size and life-like in every 

way, the carvings are warm and vivid 

renderings of the very creatures I had seen 

swimming, splashing and feeding on the 

pond. Thanks to the Appells, I am far away 

from Friday afternoon traffic and the cares 

of a restless world. 

Sara Beasley is a member of the English 

Department. She came to Taft two years 

ago after teaching at Davidson College. 

20 Winter 1999

ALUMNI IN THE NEWS 

Alumni 

IN THE NEWS 

Bob Taft ’59, Governor of Ohio 

Ohio picked another Taft for public office 

last November. Bob Taft, two-term Republican 

secretary of state, won the governor’s 

seat 90 years to the day after his great-grandfather 

William Howard Taft was elected U.S. 

president. Bob also recalled the service of his 

grandfather and father in the U.S. Senate 

[Robert Taft ’06 and Robert Taft ’35]. 

“My only aspiration is to be the very 

best governor I can be,” Bob said. He prevailed 

in an “often bitter campaign” with 

a 50-to-45 percent victory that marked 

the closest Ohio gubernatorial race since 

1978 and a largely Republican sweep in 

that state in November. 

The New York Times called it “a race 

between Ohio’s conservative south and the 

urban north.” Taft built his near-180,000- 

vote statewide victory on comfortable 

margins in GOP-friendly smaller cities, 

greater Cincinnati, and rural Ohio. 

Taft, 56, campaigned on a “moderate 

package of promises led by his vow 

to improve both the funding and quality 

of public schools and to work aggressively 

to ensure that pupils can read well by the 

end of fourth grade.” He is the first Republican 

to succeed a Republican 

governor in Ohio since 1903. 

Prior to holding public offices in 

Ohio, where he has held various posts 

since 1969, Bob worked for the State 

Department in Vietnam and for the Peace 

Corps in East Africa. He holds a BA from 

Yale, an MA from Princeton, and a JD 

from the University of Cincinnati. 

Source: Randy Ludlow, The Cincinnati Post. 

Will Polkinghorn ’95, Rhodes Scholar 

The Rhodes Scholarship Trust has announced that Will Polkinghorn ’95 was one of 32 

American students selected for 1999. This year’s recipients of scholarships for two years of 

study at Oxford University in England were chosen from 909 applications endorsed by 310 

colleges and universities. 

Currently a senior at Colby College, Will called Taft Headmaster Lance Odden shortly after 

learning of this prestigious honor. According to Mr. Odden, Will wanted to express his gratitude 

to the Taft School for “changing his life and making this possible.” In particular, Will wanted to 

thank Chemistry teacher David Hostage, retired English teacher Bill Nicholson, and retired baseball 

coach Larry Stone for “instilling in him the desire to reach for excellence.” Mr. Odden said that 

he is “incredibly proud of Will’s accomplishment,” noting that Will struggled at first when he 

came to Taft, but he “took full advantage of the school and held himself to the highest standards.” 

Will is the third Taft School alumnus to be named a Rhodes Scholar, following Karen 

Stevenson ’75 and Julianna Horseman ’85. 

Photo courtesy of Colby College 


ALUMNI IN THE NEWS 

Mary Mason Young ’82, Raising Stroke Awareness 

Photo by Jeff Frey & Assoc. 

Mary Mason Young was recently 

profiled in a Duluth, Minnesota, 

newspaper for her work in stroke 

awareness. The issue is a personal one 

for Mary, who suffered a stroke just 

three months after her graduation from 

Patrick Kerney ’95, Football First Team All-American 

Photo by Pete Emerson 

Taft. The myth that strokes affect only 

the elderly is one she’d like to correct. 

Now 33 years old and recently married, 

stroke is still part of Mary’s life, “but 

it’s not her whole story.” She got her degree 

on what she “jokingly refers to as the 

6-year college plan,” with a double major 

in youth ministry and religious studies. She 

then went on for her MS in education from 

the University of Wisconsin. Mary now coordinates 

the Human Development 

Center’s Public Housing Outreach Program, 

working with older adults and people 

with disabilities and helping them to live 

independently as long as possible. “She has 

a keen understanding of the struggle to 

maintain a balance between the need for 

independence and the value of a support 

system,” Twin Ports People wrote. 

“I see people communicate with persons 

who have disabilities from what I 

University of Virginia defensive 

end Patrick 

Kerney was named to the 

Football News All-American 

team as selected by the 

publication’s editorial 

staff. He was also named 

first-team All-America by 

the Football Writers Association 

of America. He is 

one of two defensive players 

from the Atlantic 

Coast Conference, both 

from UVa, named to the team. 

Pat went to Virginia on a lacrosse 

scholarship, but decided to go out for football 

his first year. He has since molded 

himself into one of the top pass rushers in 

the nation. He leads the ACC with 14 

quarterback sacks, one shy of the school 

record. He has made 59 tackles this season, 

including 20 for lost yardage. At 6-6 

and 265 pounds, he seems NFL bound 

Photo by Jim Carpenter 

call a ‘feel sorry for’ attitude,” Mary 

said. “Sympathy perhaps. My question 

then becomes: ‘Is that what’s appropriate?’ 

Sure, we support our friends 

and family when they go through a difficult 

time in life; but, do they really 

need our ongoing sympathy? Perhaps 

my attitude seems harsh, but I really 

feel that people need solutions, alternatives, 

and an attitude of ‘where do I 

go from here?’ in order to lead the best 

possible life with dignity and respect.... 

While it’s okay to offer assistance, we 

need to be open to the fact that it’s 

equally okay for them to decline any.” 

“For me, my stroke has become a 

very valuable learning tool. I have 

grown and learned in areas of which I 

probably would never have thought.” 

Source: Gail Wallace, Twin Ports People 

and scouts are already 

“hounding” him. 

“It’s a great honor— 

the best thing that’s ever 

happened to me. Four 

years of hard work has 

paid off,” said Pat upon 

learning of his selection. 

“I started as a walk-on 

here at Virginia, so it 

shows how far a player 

can go in a career. I’m 

thankful to my teammates 

and coaches because it wasn’t just 

me. I’ve been able to be a part of a great 

team and I’ve been blessed to have outstanding 

coaches.” 

Pat originally came to Taft with the 

intention of playing ice hockey but never 

did make the varsity. Instead, he lettered in 

football, wrestling, and lacrosse and rarely 

missed a day of lifting weights. Virginia 

football is ranked seventh in the nation. 

22 Winter 1999

Photo by Nicole Keys 

Donald Buttenheim ’33 Receives First 

John Willard Award 

The Emma Willard School chose Donald Buttenheim ’33 as the first person honored 

with the John Willard Award “for unsurpassed service to the school founded by 

his mother.” John Willard’s legacy of excellence in molding the school through the 

years and helping to form a financially sound institution has been an inspiration to 

those who followed. 

In honoring Don, the school said, “Through your years of consistent and gracious 

service to the three educational institutions that have shaped your wise and 

generous spirit, you have grown a three-sided heart that warmly embraces the pasts 

and futures of The Taft School, Williams College, and our own Emma Willard.... 

You have helped to navigate the Emma Willard community through unsettled times, 

lending the strength of your dignity, your humor, your clear sense of values, not only 

to solve difficult problems, but also to help us all move forward in our educational 

task with vision and dedication.... (We recognize) your personal and professional 

excellence and integrity, your active commitment to optimistic human and spiritual 

values, and your years of loyalty, generosity, and leadership in keeping the legacies of 

Emma and John Willard alive and flourishing.” 

Don’s three daughters attended Emma Willard, as did his sister. He has served 

as a parent trustee, an honorary trustee, and a member of their board for fourteen 

years—as both first vice president and then president. 

Barbie Potter ’79 Recalls Life on Tour 

Barbie Potter [see also Potter Enters 

Hall of Fame, Winter ’98] spoke to a 

packed audience at Yale University’s 

Smilow Field Center during the U.S. 

Tennis Association’s New England Junior 

Sectional Championships. She 

spoke along with Tim Mayotte of 

Springfield, Mass.; together they were 

“billed as the top male and female pro 

players to rise from the tennis courts of 

New England.” 

Looking back, Barbie, 36, listed the 

highlight of her career as the time she 

beat her childhood idol, Billie Jean King, 

in three sets during the third year of her 

pro career. “Don’t listen to people who 

Photo by Jeannette Montgomery Barron 

Architectural 

Acclaim 

Centerbrook Architects and Planners, 

of which Jefferson Riley ’64 is one of 

the founding partners, was honored 

by the American Institute of Architects’ 

1998 Architecture Firm Award. 

The honor is the highest that the AIA 

confers on a firm and is awarded annually 

to a single practice that has 

produced distinguished architecture 

for at least ten years. 

Jeff’s firm is in good company as 

previous recipients include I.M. Pei & 

Partners, Cesar Pelli & Associates, 

among others. Centerbrook was recognized 

for its ability to “consistently 

create beautiful architecture that responds 

to local contexts with human 

scale and spaces filled with delight.” 

Centerbrook has worked with 

Nobel laureate Dr. James Watson at 

Long Island’s Cold Spring Harbor 

Laboratory to develop humane settings 

and has extended that experience 

to many other institutions including 

Dartmouth, Yale, MIT, Williams, and 

Colgate, as well as designing churches, 

hotels, libraries, theaters, retail complexes, 

community centers, industrial 

plants, and private residences. 

say it can’t be done,” Barbie advised. 

“Nobody can tell you you can’t be 

good. You have to decide the reality 

for yourself.” 

Barbie was once ranked seventh in 

the nation in professional tennis. She retired 

in 1989 and is now a reporter for 

the Providence, RI, Journal-Bulletin. 


AROUND THE POND 

pond 

Photo by Vaughn Winchell 

Nobel Laureate 

Visits Taft 

On Thursday, November 12, Dr. Alfred Gilman 

’58, paid his first visit to Taft in forty years to 

speak at morning meeting, visit science classes, 

and speak with students and faculty. 

Dr. Gilman, also a graduate of Yale University, 

won the 1994 Nobel Prize in 

Physiology or Medicine for his ground-breaking 

discovery of the G-protein component of 

the cell membrane; the G-protein is involved 

in intercellular communication, and G-protein 

research has now become one of the 

hottest topics in biological research. 

During his speech, Dr. Gilman reflected 

upon his experience at Taft and played a brief 

video of the Nobel Prize induction ceremony. 

While at Taft, he was active in science, music, 

and sports, graduating cum laude and receiving 

the Rensselaer Alumni Medal for 

excellence in mathematics and science. His remarks, 

in part, appear on page 55. 

Source: Taft Press Club 

Nobel Laureate Al Gilman ’58 

24 

Winter 1999


Squashing the Competition 

The extraordinary depth of the 

current boys’ squash team 

prompted a week-long tour to 

England over Thanksgiving, during 

which they played six 

matches, sampled England’s culinary 

delights, and adjusted their 

notion of time and tradition. 

Their opponents included 

England’s finest school teams, 

against whom they fared very 

well, losing only to the very 

best—Wycliffe College. In that 

match, #1 and Captain Nick 

Kyme won his first game 9-1, and 

was up in the second when he repulled 

a hamstring injured 

during the soccer season. Nick 

lost in four; Ryan Byrnes, Max 

Montgelas, Aftab Mathur, and 

Eric Wadhwa each lost tight 

matches 3-2; Dave Morris lost 3- 

0 at #7; and Ross Koller emerged 

with Taft’s only win (3-1) at #6. 

With Kyme sidelined for the rest of the 

trip, they beat Lansing College 4-3, 

Brighton College 5-2, Millfield 5-2, and 

Harrow 6-1. 

“We were treated like royalty by our 

hosts, particularly Lansing College,” said 

Coach Peter Frew ’75. “Playing at Harrow 

was really fun, as the game of squash 

was invented there, and we also got to 

play ‘rackets,’ the precursor to squash, in 

which the rock-hard ball flies at 180 miles 

per hour around a slate court. Andrew 

The varsity squash team spent their Thanksgiving holiday in an unusual place. 

Bogardus ’88 also did a great job driving 

on the left side of the road and keeping 

the tank full of petrol.” They met the 

great English player Jonah Barrington, 

toured Salisbury and Westminster Cathedrals, 

stayed in a haunted pub, ate “Toad 

in a hole” too often, and visited 

Stonehenge by moonlight. “It was lots 

of fun… a real learning experience… 

once-in-a-lifetime. We learned a lot about 

squash and about ourselves,” said Captain 

Nick Kyme. The trip was also a great 

tune-up for the season, as the team 

opened its season with wins over perennial 

powerhouses Chestnut Hill Academy 

and Haverford School in Philadelphia. 

Lansing College visited Taft earlier 

this fall to play both squash and soccer. 

The fourth international soccer match for 

Taft, the game ended at 1-1. “It was a 

great match for all involved,” said Coach 

Willy MacMullen ’78. “As we always discover 

in games like this, sports can bring 

people together.” 

Admissions Travel 

Alex Chu ’66 accompanied Director of Admissions Ferdie 

Wandelt ’66 on his November trip through southeast Asia, 

including Hong Kong, Taipei, Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho Chi 

Minh City, and Mumbai (Bombay). Alex is pictured here, 

left, with the parents of Khiem Do Ba ’00, who are both 

math teachers at Hanoi Amsterdam School, the leading 

school in Hanoi for math and science. On the right is 

their translator, Ha, who was at Ake Panya in Thailand 

last year with Khiem. 



ACADEMIC HONORS 

AP Scholar Awards 

Fifty-seven Taft students have been 

named Advanced Placement Scholars 

by the College Board in 

recognition of their exceptional 

achievement on AP Examinations. 

Approximately 23 percent of 

America’s graduating seniors have 

taken one or more AP Exams. Only 

about 13 percent of the more than 

635,000 students who took AP Examinations 

in May 1998 performed 

at a sufficiently high level to merit 

such recognition. 

At Taft, 18 students qualified 

for the AP Scholar with Distinction 

Award by averaging at least 3.5 on 

all AP Exams taken, and earning 

grades of 3 or higher on five or more 

of these exams. Eight students qualified 

for the AP Scholar with Honor 

Award by averaging at least 3.5 on 

all AP Exams taken, and receiving a 

grade of 3 or higher on four or more 

exams. Thirty-one students qualified 

for the AP Scholar Award by completing 

three or more AP Exams with 

grades of 3 or higher. Of this year’s 

award recipients, five are currently 

seniors at Taft and have at least one 

more year in which to earn another 

Advanced Placement Award. At Taft, 

the average grade is 3.9. 

AP Examinations, which 75 percent 

of all seniors take after 

completing challenging college-level 

courses, are graded on a 5-point scale. 

Most of the nation’s colleges and universities 

award credit, advanced 

placement, or both for grades of 3 or 

higher. More than 1,400 institutions 

award sophomore standing to students 

presenting a sufficient number 

of qualifying grades. The College 

Board offers 32 AP examinations in 

18 subject areas. Taft students took 

over 400 AP exams last year. 

Cum Laude 

In December, ten members of the 

Class of 1999 were inducted into 

The Taft School Chapter of the Cum 

Laude Society. 

Although the school is allowed to 

elect a maximum of one-fifth of a graduating 

class, only 7 percent were inducted 

this year in the first round. Taft generally 

includes 10 percent of the class in 

the fall and the remainder at graduation, 

rarely inducting more than 16 or 17 percent 

of a given class, according to Dean 

of Academic Affairs Bill Morris ’69. 

Cum Laude is the highest academic 

honor given at Taft. “While we celebrate 

their academic accomplishments,” Bill 

Morris said, “these students have distinguished 

themselves in all areas of school 

life.” Selection is based on both the up- 

per-middle and middle year records. The 

Cum Laude Committee may also elect 

one-year students with extraordinary 

records. Averages are weighted for accelerated 

or Advanced Placement courses. 

Students were inducted at morning 

meeting. This year’s honorees are seniors 

Seth Caffrey, Sonia Cheng, Steve Dost, 

Tyler Doyle, Lauren Henry, Mythri 

Jegathesan, Sara Mehta, Dave Morris, 

and Danielle Perrin. Steffi Holler, an 

ASSIST student from Germany last year, 

was inducted in absentia. Other members 

of the class will be named to Cum 

Laude at commencement in May. 

Michael Baudinet ’00 and Andrew 

Karas ’01 were recognized at the same 

school meeting as the ranking scholars 

in their respective classes. 

Rockwell Visiting Artist John Hull 

Photo by Susan Faber, Town Times 

Artist John Hull came to Taft on Thursday, 

November 19. A narrative painter, 

he works with many themes including 

baseball, boxing, Los Alamos, and King 

Lear, to name a few. He gave two lectures 

on his work and attended art 

classes where he gave professional critiques 

of students’ artwork. 

Hull has been described as a “narrative” 

and “economical” painter. Some 

of his work is currently on display at the 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New 

Museum of Contemporary Art, and the 

Yale University Art Gallery. He is a cum 

laude graduate of Yale University and 

has received four grants from the National 

Endowment for the Arts. 

His visit to Taft was sponsored 

by the school’s Rockwell Fellowship, 

established in 1997, which funds 

the visits of several professional artists 

each year. 

26 Winter 1999


Summer Well Spent 

French teacher WT Miller had a productive summer in 1998. 

First, he traveled to Switzerland to teach at TASIS. From there 

he went to Nantes, France, where he set up a summer program 

that will become Taft in France. He hopes it will attract Taft 

students, but it will be available to all students through the 

Taft Summer School. 

From Nantes, WT went to Genneteil, a small town just 

outside of Saumur, where he spent two weeks collaborating 

with French author Jérôme de Boissard. “As a teacher there is 

no better way to understand literature than to see a book ‘constructed’ 

and to see how the author thinks.” He also attended 

a Balzac conference at a nearby chateau where Balzac worked 

on many of his best known works, including Le Père Goriot. 

Finally, WT created a new course for Taft that will lead 

directly into the AP French language course. 

Photo by Eric Poggenpohl 

Woelper 

to Head 

Thai School 

History teacher Tom 

Woelper has been chosen to 

succeed former Taft faculty 

member Gordon Jones as 

the head of Ake Panya International School in 

Chiang Mai, Thailand. Ake Panya is Taft’s sister 

school founded by Thai businessman Krits Palarit. 

Mr. Woelper, on sabbatical leave for the 1998- 

99 school year, is attending Columbia University 

for the second semester and will begin his new post 

in June, according to Headmaster Lance Odden. 

Head Nurse Retires 

Barbara Houle, Taft’s head nurse for 26 years, recently announced 

her retirement at the end of December. “Barbara 

served Taft and the students wonderfully during her tenure 

as head nurse, providing increasingly 

excellent care and 

expansion of services. She 

served ably twenty-four hours 

a day,” said Charlie McNair, 

the school’s physician. “We’ll 

miss her deeply.” 

Johnson Recognized in 

Poetry Competition 

English teacher Barclay Johnson ’53 won Honorable 

Mention in the 1998 Writer’s Digest poetry competition. 

The contest attracted over 9,000 entries. The rhyming 

poem he submitted is reproduced here. 

Heirlooms of War 

At Saturday’s flea market fair on the Green, 

I saw within the bright moraine 

of farm towns vanishing, heirlooms of war 

that only skinheads consider sane: 

Helmets and bayonets, a Kraut grenade 

Medievally at home with pots and needlepoints. 

“Handle what you like,” a peddler said. 

Could he remember those devotees, 

Sifting through debris for arms and brass? 

When I was small and Dad went overseas, 

I hung my treasured blades beyond my cot 

To stare them down like snakes! 

The peddler tracked my eyes across a sword, 

Drawn to show its sharpness to the sun. 

“British,” I told him. “1805.” 

The grip and pitted hilt looked better won 

Than all those custom-made now under glass. 

To my surprise, I never picked it up. 

Not nowadays: my visit to Les Invalides, 

Where Bonaparte remains, pristine, 

With hordes of armour, walls of swords, the world’s 

First hospital for vets still smelling of chlorine 

Had smothered fascination, mocked my awe 

In sacrifice—the gaudy and the hostage-like. 

So much for my collection—bric-a-brac 

I can’t give away—not even to my sons! 

Yet still we watch for anniversaries 

Of brotherhoods on sacred battlefields, 

Cooking steaks in smoky reveries; 

While just across the valley, ranks of headstones 

Climb through all our years 

To take the high ground with their bones. 



Grandparents’ Day 

John and Kay Alban with Gregory Stevenson ’00 

Alex Dickson ’99 with both of her grandmothers, Isabel Leach 

and Marge Dickson. 

Katie Blunt ’02 and Todd Peebler ’99 with their grandmothers, Ms. Janet Anderson, left center, 

and Mrs. Mildred Worley, right center, who each traveled from Dallas, TX, for Grandparents’ 

Day. They discovered that they lived relatively near one another in the Lone Star State. 

Mihoko Maru ’01 pictured with her grandfather, 

Hiroshi Maru, who traveled from 

Tokyo to attend Grandparents’ Day and 

visit with his granddaughter. Mr. Maru said 

Mihoko was very lucky to be able to study 

in such excellent conditions. 

Roswell Johnson and Betty Carey with grandson Ged Johnson ’01 

Laura Marvel with granddaughter Blair Boggs ’02 

28 Winter 1999


Telethon Time 

Talk 

About 

Fun 

Rob Barber ’75 and Carl 

Sangree ’75 

Times! 

Talk 

Mike Brenner ’53 

Claudia Friedman- 

Hoffman ’89 

About 

Fantastic 

Tafties! 

Dylan Simonds ’89 

Picture It… 

New York City… 

November 1998… 

John Greer ’47 and Dick 

Hulbert ’47 

Bridget George ’94, Victoria 

Larson ’94, and Mimi 

Hamilton ’94 

More than 50 alumni spent 

two nights feverishly dialing 

classmates in hopes of winning 

the nightly competition for 

most pledges raised. Rocky 

Gaut ’56 and Bob Coons ’41 

tied for first place on Wednesday 

night while Rob Barber 

’75 beat out Mike Giobbe ’59 

by a mere 2 pledges on Thursday. 

Nobody went home 

empty-handed as Taft water 

bottles were given to all in 

thanks for a job well done! 

Next competition: 

March 3 and 4. 

Be There! 

Bert Ross ’79 and Wendy 

Weaver Chaix ’79 

Whitney Parks ’93 

Rocky Gaut ’56 

Nick Finn ’87 and Sophie 

Griswold ’87 

Dyllan McGee ’89 

Eric Mendelsohn ’88 


S P O R T 

sport 

Fall Big Red Scoreboard 

Boys’ Crew 

Head Coach: ............................................................ Al Reiff 

Captain: .......................................................... Ed Miller ’99 

Record: ........................................................................... 7-2 

Crew Award: ............................................. David Morris ’99 

Captain-elect: ......................................... Ryan Sochacki ’00 

Boys’ Cross Country 

Head Coach: .................................................... Steve Palmer 

Captain: ............................................... Mark Deschenes ’99 

Record: ........................................................................... 7-4 

John Small Cross Country Award: ............. Mark Deschenes 

Captains-elect: ..... Michael Baudinet ’00, Cameron White ’00 

Girls’ Cross Country 

Founders’ League Champs 

Head Coach: .................................................... Karla Palmer 

Captain: .................................................. Danielle Perrin ’99 

Record: ........................................................................... 9-0 

Girls’ Cross Country Award: ........................ Danielle Perrin, 

Heather McKeller ’99 

Captains-elect: .... Lindsay Dell ’00, Heather Lindenman ’00 

Field Hockey 

Head Coach: ..................................................... Fran Bisselle 

Captains: .............. Emily Townsend ’99, Jillian Giardina ’99 

Record: ..................................................................... 14-1-1 

Field Hockey Award: ........ Emily Townsend, Jillian Giardina 

Captains-elect: ....... Keely Murphy ’00, Katherine Putnam ’00 

Football 

Head Coach: .................................................. Steve McCabe 

Captain: ..................................................... Todd Peebler ’99 

Record: ........................................................................... 0-8 

Black Football Award: ......................... Michael Sipowicz ’99 

Cross Football Award: ................................... Ned Smith ’99 

Captain-elect: .............................................. Venroy July ’00 

Boys’ Soccer 

Head Coach: ............................................ Willy MacMullen 

Captain: ..................................................... Brad D’Arco ’99 

Record: ..................................................................... 10-5-2 

Carroll Soccer Award: ....... Ben Cirillo ’99, Brad D’Arco ’99 

Captains-elect: ................... Ramsey Brame ’00, Art Solis ’00 

Girls’ Soccer 

Head Coach: ............................................ Andrew Bogardus 

Captain: .................................................. Julie Feldmeier ’99 

Record: ........................................................................... 8-7 

1976 Girls’ Soccer Award: ............................. Julie Feldmeier 

Captains-elect: .......Emily Blanchard ’00, Kelly Sheridan ’00 

Girls’ Volleyball 

Head Coach: ........................................................... Jane Lee 

Captains: ................. Sabrina R. Idy ’99, Kathryn Parkin ’00 

Record: ........................................................................... 1-6 

Volleyball Award: ........................................... Sabrina R. Idy 

Captains-elect: ..... Meredith Morris ’00, Kathryn Parkin ’00 

30 

Winter 1999

S P O R T 

Girls’ Varsity 

Soccer Wins 

Sportsmanship 

Award 

The Western Connecticut Soccer 

Officials Association awarded Taft’s 

girls’ varsity soccer team the Ted Alex 

Award for outstanding sportsmanship 

displayed throughout the 1998 

season. Coach Andrew Bogardus ’88 

proudly accepted this award at the 

association’s annual banquet on November 

10, saying, “I am lucky to 

have a team full of focused, goodnatured 

athletes who simply love the 

game and always play a full 80 minutes 

without letting anything 

distract them. We are also fortunate 

to have very good leadership from 

Captain Julie Feldmeier ’99.” 

Townsend 

is All-American Girl 

Emily Townsend ’99, co-captain of 

the varsity field hockey team, earned 

her way onto the first team All 

American this year. She was picked 

from all high school field hockey 

players across the United States as 

one of the top eleven players in the 

country (and the only one from New 

England). “This is an incredible 

honor for an outstanding athlete,” 

said Coach Fran Bisselle. In Emily’s 

three years starting on Taft’s varsity 

squad, the team is 40-7-3. She scored 

20 assists and 15 goals this year alone. 

The senior mid-fielder is described by her teammates as “one of the best field 

hockey players ever to attend Taft.” Emily traveled with teammates Katie Putnam, 

Keeley Murphy, and Jana Gold over Thanksgiving to compete at the Field Hockey 

Festival for the Houston Field Hockey Club. In addition, Emily has been invited 

to try out for the National Field Hockey Team over winter break. 

Photo by The Taft Papyrus 

Kyme Wins International 

Squash Award 

Nick Kyme ’99 from Bermuda was honored with the 

first Mark Talbott International Junior Squash Fair Play 

Award at the final awards dinner for the 1998 World 

Junior Men’s Championships. The award is given to 

the player who “exemplifies the spirit we are seeking to 

instill in all players,” said Ted Wallbutton, World Squash 

Federation’s chief executive. “Nick Kyme, in each of 

his four appearances at these world championships, has 

earned the respect of his opponents and the admiration 

of all the tournament officials for his outstanding 

sportsmanship.” 

The Squash Player magazine said, “Not only a fair 

player, Kyme is a legend in his own right; the only player 

ever to play in four world junior championships. His 

first appearance was at age 11.” He hasn’t fared poorly 

at Taft either, where he is captain for the second year of 

a team that is favored to win the New Englands for the 

3rd time in Nick’s four years. His individual record in 

Taft matches is 43 and 1. Nick also plays varsity soccer 

and was the anchor man on Taft’s school record-breaking 

4x400 meter relay team last spring. 


E N D N O T E 

—By Dr. Alfred Gilman ’58 

This is truly an interesting experience for 

me. I speak formally to medical students, 

Ph.D. students, and scientific colleagues all 

the time, but I have never had the chance to 

speak formally to a group of young men and 

women in high school. I want you all to 

dream about being explorers. You must be 

an explorer in every aspect of your life, no 

matter what your pursuit. 

A goal as a scientist, teacher, or any 

other type of scholar should be to discover 

new truth and knowledge and/or better 

ways to impart that knowledge to the community. 

A goal as a physician should be to 

discover new ways to earn the trust that 

your patients have placed in you. A goal as 

an attorney should be to discover new and 

simple paths to fairness for all. A goal as a 

business person might be to discover new 

approaches to improve productivity and 

enhance satisfaction for your employees. 

When you look back, you will want to 

be able to say to yourself that you made a 

difference. You will want to be able to feel 

that you left the world a bit better for your 

presence. Otherwise, what was it all about? 

We are frighteningly insignificant in the 

grand scheme of things. We must not 

strive for less than making a difference. 

Here is a truism of life, but you will 

only believe it as you age: each fractional 

increment in life passes in equal apparent 

time. It is a geometric/ logarithmic system. 

For a 15-year-old to pass to age 20, you 

grow older by 33 percent in 5 years. To 

pass from 40 to 54 you age by 33 percent 

in 14 years. To pass from 60 to 80 you age 

by 33 percent in 20 years. But the bad news 

is that the 5 years starting at 15, the 14 

years starting at 40, and the 20 years starting 

at 60 seem to pass in equal time! 

A corollary of this truism is that most of 

you currently think you are immortal. You 

know that you are not, but you really believe 

that you are. You think you have all the time 

in the world, but you don’t. It is time to start 

the serious dreaming and planning. 

Now I want to spend a little bit of my 

time talking with you about science, particularly 

about biology and medicine. I was 

fortunate to start serious study of biology 

near the dawn of the age of enlightenment. 

1953 has been called “the end of history” in 

biology because it witnessed publication of 

the most important paper about biology to 

have ever been written. 

This paper is likely the most important 

ever published in all of science. And to go 

out on a limb, it is perhaps the most important 

paper that will ever be published in all 

of science, including the first descriptions of 

extra terrestrial life forms, which will happen 

some day. I hope that you know that 

the authors were James Watson and Francis 

Crick, and the discovery, published in a 

very brief two-page report, was of the 

double-helical structure of DNA. 

This fabulous structure showed two 

long strands of DNA wound helically around 

the same axis but running in opposite directions. 

The two strands were joined together 

because of beautifully complementary 

chemical bonding between pairs of the four 

bases that constitute the alphabet of DNA. 

An A on one strand dictated a T on the 

other, and vice versa, while a G on one 

strand dictated a C on the other, and vice 

versa. Thus, if the sequence of letters on one 

chain is given, the sequence on the other 

chain is determined automatically. 

When you look at some structures 

you don’t learn much about function. But 

when you look at this structure, you suddenly 

learn the secret of the most fundamental 

property of life—replication. In 

the most classic of all understatements, 

Watson and Crick wrote at the end of this 

brief report: “It has not escaped our notice 

that the specific pairing we have postulated 

immediately suggests a possible copying 

mechanism for the genetic material.” 

Where have we come since then? First, 

appreciation of the central dogma of biology: 

that DNA encodes the blueprint for life by 

specifying the sequences of RNA, and that 

the sequences of RNA specify the order of 

amino acids in proteins, which are the fundamental 

building blocks of cells. We have 

learned to read the blueprints of life and to 

clone and manipulate the genes in DNA. 

These basic discoveries have had enormous 

practical consequences over the past 

20 years. To name just a few: The complete 

DNA sequence of most major pathogenic 

bacteria is now known, greatly facilitating 

design of new antibiotics, which we 

need very badly as bacteria become resistant 

to the older drugs. The complete 

DNA sequence of more complex eukaryotic 

organisms, such as yeast, worms, and 

fruit flies, is now known or will be soon. 

“…most of you currently think you are immortal. You know that 

you are not, but you really believe that you are. You think you 

have all the time in the world, but you don’t. It is time to start 

the serious dreaming and planning.” 

32 Winter 1999

E N D N O T E 

The complete sequence of the human genome 

will be known before any of you graduate 

from college. This is a monumental task, 

but it will be completed. There are about 

100,000 genes in the human genome, so 

we are basically talking about an extremely 

dynamic puzzle with 100,000 pieces. 

To date, biologists have been trying to 

understand the mammalian organism by 

trying to put this puzzle together even though 

we only had a small fraction of the pieces. 

Human genes are now being cloned at a 

dizzying pace. When the genome is sequenced 

we will have them all, as well a read-out of 

other information in the DNA that controls 

the expression of these genes. In this postgenome 

era, which is starting right now, the 

complete puzzle will be assembled. This will 

happen in your lifetime. 

The consequences will be enormous. 

Right now human proteins can be synthesized 

in bacteria used to treat disease. Patients 

with diabetes now receive human 

insulin rather than insulin from pigs or 

cows and are thus spared allergic reactions 

to foreign proteins. Rare proteins like erythropoietin 

can be manufactured and used to 

treat anemia; this was impossible before the 

birth of recombinant DNA technology. 

Recombinant DNA technology has 

in turn given birth to literally hundreds 

and hundreds of biotechnology companies, 

and they all think they can make a 

fantastic contribution to human welfare. 

Much human disease has its basis in genetics. 

There can be changes or mutations in 

an individual’s DNA. This is the basis of 

evolution. It is also the cause of diseases 

such as cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy 

or sickle-cell anemia. The molecular 

basis of these diseases is now known, and 

people will some day be treated by replacement 

of defective genes. Soon we will be 

able to understand the genetic basis for 

complex behaviors and for diseases that are 

manifest as abnormal behaviors, such as 

schizophrenia and depression. Rational and 

more effective therapies will follow. 

Here’s another thing that will happen 

to you or your children, but it’s a lot 

scarier. You will take a little scraping of 

skin cells from your newborn child to the 

DNA store for a sequence job. Return a 

few days later and you’ll be given a CD 

ROM containing the DNA sequence— 

your child’s blueprint. With some trepidation 

you will put the CD in the DNA 

reader and get back a printout from this 

21st century crystal ball. For example, it 

might say, “Your child will be tall, dark, 

and handsome, but not very bright. Personality 

will never develop depth, and 

temper tantrums will be a life-long problem. 

He will likely die of a heart attack in 

his late 70s if someone does not shoot him 

in a bar room fight before that time.” 

If this is not bad enough, you have 

this nasty feeling that despite assurances to 

We must not 

strive for less 

than making a 

difference. 

the contrary, the DNA sequence has also 

been submitted to the National Institute 

in charge of tracking perverts, and the 

profile is now available to future employers, 

insurance companies, and the FBI. 

Alternatively, mistakes could be made and 

the printout could proclaim that you are 

the proud father or mother of a German 

Shepherd with a great pedigree. There are 

some real obvious issues here that are going 

to be very difficult to control, but the 

answer is not to bury our heads in the sand. 

We can now produce clones of virtually 

anything. You clone a gene by isolating it 

from all other genes and allowing it to replicate—thus 

producing an infinite number of 

identical copies of the gene. You clone a cell 

in the same way. But now we can clone mice 

and sheep by starting with a single cell from 

an adult animal, and there is no technical 

barrier standing in the way of cloning human 

beings. Here is a great category for the senior 

class poll, assuming it still exists: pick your 

classmate “who most wants to be cloned”. 

But this is no laughing matter; it is 

serious stuff, and it poses very serious questions. 

Most are repulsed by the thought of 

human cloning for the purpose of producing 

identical copies of ourselves; some say that it 

would be terrible to have even two genetically 

identical human beings. They forget 

that nature does occasionally produce identical 

human twins. Nevertheless, I am happy 

to say that human cloning for this purpose is 

not likely on the horizon. There is enormous 

power in biological diversity. 

But think about this— it will likely be 

possible to produce a clone of any given 

individual that could be “harvested”, to use 

a cold word, very early in embryonic life. 

This embryonic tissue could then be used to 

isolate multipotent stem cells. These stem 

cells could then be grown and replicated in 

the laboratory and used for transplantation 

to replace neurons lost to Parkinson’s disease 

or Alzheimer’s disease, liver cells lost to 

hepatitis, bone marrow cells lost to cancer 

chemotherapy, and so forth. Now the issue 

is not so clear cut. We could each clone 

ourselves to produce a bank deposit of our 

own stem cells to be used to regenerate our 

aging or diseased tissues. 

Some will advocate such approaches; 

some will be repelled by it. Should research 

in these areas go forth? Who properly makes 

such decisions? Shall we leave it to the 

biologists and physicians? I think not. There 

is much to be done by ethicists, theologians, 

attorneys, legislators, and a host of others— 

particularly a very well-informed and very 

well-educated public. In general, the public 

is woefully ignorant of science. Don’t ignore 

it, no matter what your area of primary 

interest. All of science will be impinging on 

your life with increasing frequency. 

The remarks above are excerpted from 

Dr. Gilman’s talk at Morning Meeting in 

November (see page 24).

S P O T L I G H T D E P A R T M E N T S - The Taft School

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