B U L L E T I N Taft Portrait of a Graduate - The Taft School

B U L L E T I N 

Northern Exposure 

to Native Arts 

Taft Portrait 

of a Graduate 

COMMENCEMENT 

REFLECTIONS 

ALUMNI 

WEEKEND ALBUM 

S U M M E R • 2 0 0 3

B U L L E T I N 

Summer 2003 

Volume 73 Number 4 

Bulletin Staff 

Director of Development 

John E. Ormiston 

Editor 

Julie Reiff 

Acting Editor 

Linda Beyus 

Alumni Notes 

Anne Gahl 

Jackie Maloney 

Design 

Good Design 

www.goodgraphics.com 

Proofreader 

Nina Maynard 

Bulletin Advisory Board 

Todd Gipstein ’70 

Peter Kilborn ’57 

Nancy Novogrod P’98, ’01 

Bonnie Blackburn Penhollow ’84 

Josh Quittner ’75 

Peter Frew ’75, ex officio 

Julie Reiff, ex officio 

Bonnie Welch, ex officio 

Mail letters to: 

Julie Reiff, Editor 

Taft Bulletin 

The Taft School 

Watertown, CT 06795-2100 U.S.A. 

ReiffJ@TaftSchool.org 

Send alumni news to: 

Anne Gahl 

Alumni Office 



TaftBulletin@TaftSchool.org 

Deadlines for Alumni Notes: 

Fall–August 30 

Winter–November 15 

Spring–February 15 

Summer–May 30 

Send address corrections to: 

Sally Membrino 

Alumni Records 



TaftRhino@TaftSchool.org 

1-860-945-7777 

www.TaftAlumni.com 

This magazine is printed on 

recycled paper. 

Page 22 

Page 35

F E A T U R E S 

Satisfaction in 

the Journey—113th 

Commencement 22 

Remarks by Rear Admiral Richard T. Ginman 

’66, P’03, Willy MacMullen ’78, Anton 

Yupangco ’03, Taylor Walle ’03, and James 

Blanchard ’03 

The Taft Portrait 

of a Graduate 30 

Defining the characteristics of a successful 

education and personal excellence 

By Debora Phipps 


to Native Arts 35 

Susan Heard ’77 and her quest to find and 

share the work of Alaskan Native artists with 

the lower 48 states. 

By Linda Beyus 

Alumni 

Weekend Album 39 

Photography by Peter Finger 

D E P A R T M E N T S 

From the Editor 4 

Letters 4 

Alumni Spotlight 5 

Four new members of the Board of 

Trustees, Citation of Merit awarded to 

Nobel Prize winner, farmer exchange with 

Kazakhstan, beekeeping around the world, 

award to Romano 

Around the Pond 10 

Potter Gallery, the Taft rhino, historic Torah 

dedication, DuBois speaker, Habitat for 

Humanity, Missa Gaia performed, faculty 

news, engineering contest, alumni offspring 

Annual Fund News 17 

Sport 19 

Spring season scoreboard and photo essay 

By Steve Palmer & Peter Frew ’75 

On the Cover 

Ted Squires ’28 is greeted by Headmaster 

Willy MacMullen ’78 on Ted’s 75th Reunion. 

PETER FINGER 

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! 

Send your latest news, address change, birth announcement, 

or letter to the editor via e-mail. Our address is 

TaftBulletin@TaftSchool.org. We continue to accept 

your communiqués by fax machine (860-945-7756), telephone 

(860-945-7777), or U.S. Mail (110 Woodbury Road, 

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

Taft on the Web: 

News Stocks Entertainment Weather Catch up 

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

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

us at www.TaftAlumni.com. 

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

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

For other campus news and events, including 

admissions information, visit our main site at 

www.TaftSchool.org, with improved calendar 

features and Around the Pond stories. 

Don’t forget you can 

shop online at 

www.TaftStore.com 

Page 39 

Bagpipers lead the parade on Alumni Weekend. Photo by Peter Finger

L E T T E R S 

From the Editor 

The past year has flown by while I’ve sat 

in the editor’s seat. The themes I see 

having emerged from Alumni Weekend 

and Commencement particularly are celebration 

and affirmation. 

Alumni gathered together to affirm each 

other as with the Citation of Merit award, 

or, as with the Class of 1953, for the largest 

contribution and most participation to the 

Annual Fund campaign. Yet there were 

other forms of affirmation—learning that 

a fellow alum now has grandchildren in 

their life, or that a classmate’s children 

have gone on to schools of their choice, or 

that a classmate one hasn’t seen in years has 

had a completely different career than might 

have been imagined. Maybe they sailed 

their boat to the Caribbean and happily 

made a new life there. Others are artists, 

lawyers, parents, fundraisers, doctors, writers, 

publishers, or as in the case of John 

Rodgers ’55, farmers. Women and men 

who have gone on to fully live their lives 

and Taft has often provided them with the 

springboard to soar. 

Celebration filled the air on Commencement 

Day with graduates surrounded by 

family, friends, and faculty. One parent 

said it was a mixture of joy and wistfulness 

as their child moved on to the next stages 

of young adult life. On this day too, 

affirmations were part of every class 

speaker’s words at the podium, echoed by 

Headmaster Willy MacMullen naming the 

achievements and uniqueness of the Class 

of 2003. 

Finally, I want to welcome Editor Julie 

Reiff back from her sabbatical. Her ongoing 

dedication to sharing all of your stories 

in the Bulletin is something to affirm and 

celebrate as well. 

Thank you all for staying in touch this 

past year. It’s been an honor and a pleasure. 

—Linda Beyus, Acting Editor 

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 • Taft Bulletin 

110 Woodbury Road 


or to ReiffJ@TaftSchool.org 

Taft’s ski club in 1980 

Ski Club 

I read with great interest the article on Jonathan 

Selkowitz ’84 in the Spring Bulletin. The origins 

of the Ski Club [mentioned in the Selkowitz 

article] are a little imprecise. In 1978, I was sick 

of all the boring intramural activities for the 

winter and wanted to ski so I went to Coach 

Stone and inquired about skiing as an intramural 

sport. Not being a lover of non-“American” 

sports, he told me I’d need at least 30 names. 

The other individual involved in this legwork 

was Tim Post ’79. We came back a few days 

later with at least 60 names, a bus contract for 

travel to Mt. Southington a few days a week 

and a package deal for passes from Mt. 

Southington. As a result, he couldn’t say no. 

Tim Post and John Gagne did all of the legwork 

getting skiing recognized as a winter 

intramural sport in 1978 or 1979. I was so 

involved in skiing that I began to teach at 

Okemo Mountain in Vermont in 1979, and 

was excused from Saturday classes because the 

learning experience of teaching was considered 

so valuable. As one can see in the Class of 1980 

Annual (p. 184), it was already a very large 

group in its second year of existence! So when 

Taft starts winning state championships, I’ll be 

very proud to have given it its beginnings. 

—John R. Gagne ’80 

Super Bowl and Sermon 

In reading of the dedication of Walker Hall, I 

was reminded of having been placed on a student-faculty 

committee in the fall of 1968, 

under the direction of then Chaplain Phil 

Zaeder, where our findings resulted in the abolition 

of the school’s long-standing compulsory 

church attendance requirement. How happy we 

were! Abolition would also sound the death 

knell for the dreaded Sunday suit requirement. 

At one of the final required services, the 

sermon coincided with the broadcast of the third 

Super Bowl, prompting a few boys to secrete 

transistor radios into the church, so as to follow 

the game surreptitiously on earphones. “The 

Strazette Gazzee,” a short-lived underground 

student newspaper, recounted this event as follows, 

which I have abridged to protect the guilty. 

Super Sandman’s 

Sermon Awakens Tafties 

Today the Taft School was liberally put to 

sleep by a certain Reverend “Sandman.” 

This was the only required church gathering 

to hear the Super Bowl this term. The 

service started out with the Jets in field goal 

range, leading 10–0. As the prelude ended, 

the Jets had scored against the Colts, putting 

them ahead 13–0. After the 

“convocation” sang a hymn, Reverend 

“Sandman” talked for an hour and a half on 

‘up-tightness.’ Many Tafties guarded their 

radios, while others tried in vain to tackle 

the point of the sermon. As the game ended, 

“Sandman’”conveniently finished his sermon, 

with the score 16–7 Jets, quite an 

upset to go along with an upsetting service. 

The author of that piece, incidentally, was 

labeled by the school as having an “N.A.” 

(negative attitude), a prevalent student syndrome 

in those turbulent years. He was soon 

thereafter tried and convicted for the crime of 

smoking a Camel Filter in his dorm room (as 

witnessed by a Master through his window 

from across the CPT courtyard) and was sentenced 

to a year of hard labor at Loomis. He is 

now a schoolteacher. 

—Bob Foreman ’70

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT 

Alumni 

SPOTLIGHT 

New Members Elected to Board of Trustees 

Roger H. Lee ’90 

At the annual Alumni Day luncheon at 

Taft on May 24, Headmaster Willy 

MacMullen ’78 announced that Roger 

H. Lee ’90 has been elected by the 

school’s graduates as the new Alumni 

Trustee. Roger will serve a four-year term 

on the Board of Trustees, ending in 2007. 

Roger is employed with Battery 

Ventures, where he is actively investing 

in and advising entrepreneurs. His own 

entrepreneurial career 

began during his junior 

year at Yale. His first 

company, NetMarket, 

developed security software 

and conducted 

some of the first secure 

commerce over the 

Internet. In 1997, Roger 

cofounded Corio, a 

provider of outsourced 

information technology 

services. 

During his four 

years at Taft, Roger 

played varsity soccer, 

varsity tennis, and junior 

varsity hockey. He 

also served as both a 

school monitor and 

dormitory monitor his 

senior year, graduating 

cum laude. Following 

his graduation from 

Taft, Roger has served as head Class Agent 

for the Annual Fund and started the John 

Alexander ’90 Memorial Scholarship. 

Roger earned a B.A. from Yale University 

and graduated with distinction in 

political science. He was a member of the 

soccer team, worked at the Investments 

Office at Yale, and also studied abroad at 

the London School of Economics. Roger 

also serves as a member of Yale’s University 

Committee on Distance Learning. 

Outside of work, Roger is a cofounder 

and board member of the 

Schools Mentoring and Resource Team 

(SMART), a 5-year-old nonprofit organization 

that provides a wide range of 

educational and social services to povertystricken 

children in San Francisco. 

Roger lives in San Francisco with 

his wife Clarissa where they spend free 

time with friends, skiing, and exploring 

northern California. 

Headmaster Willy MacMullen ’78 welcomes Alumni Trustee Roger Lee ’90 to the Board. PETER FINGER 

Taft Bulletin Summer 2003 

5


Dyllan McGee ’89 

At the April Board of Trustees meeting, 

Dyllan McGee ’89 was appointed to serve 

a four-year term as a Corporate Trustee. 

She has been an ex-officio member of the 

Board for the past four years during her 

term as chair of the Annual Fund. 

Currently, Dyllan is the senior 

producer for Kunhardt Productions, a 

company specializing in historical documentaries, 

which she joined in 1993. 

Recent documentaries include HBO’s 

Emmy-award winning In Memoriam: 

New York City 9/11/01 and the 8-hour 

PBS series, Freedom: A History of US. 

While at Taft, Dyllan served as a 

school monitor her senior year. She was 

the director of Hydrox both her uppermid 

and senior years and a member of 

the Taft Repertory Theater, playing 

various leads. 

Dyllan received a B.A. with honors 

from Trinity College in Hartford in 

1993, majoring in theater arts. She was 

the director of the Trinitones, an allfemale 

a cappella singing group, and 

continued acting and directing throughout 

her college career. 

She is a member of the Blue Hill 

Troupe, an amateur acting group in New 

York City that raises money for local 

charities. Dyllan lives in Katonah, N.Y. 

with her husband Mark and son Max. 

William O. DeWitt III ’86 

William O. DeWitt III ’86 was appointed 

a Corporate Trustee by the 

Board of Trustees in April. Bill is the vice 

president of business development for 

the St. Louis Cardinals. In this capacity 

he helps manage the financial planning 

and design process for the proposed $350 

million new ballpark and Ballpark 

Village in downtown St. Louis. He also 

oversees concessions and merchandising 

projects and is team liaison for the 

Cardinals/Marlins spring training joint 

venture in Jupiter, Fla. 

At Taft, Bill played varsity ice hockey 

for three years, and varsity golf for four, 

co-captaining the golf team both as an 

upper mid and as a senior. He greatly enjoyed 

studying art with Mark Potter and 

excelled in AP art his senior year, winning 

the Art award at graduation. 

After graduating from Taft, Bill went 

on to major in art history and graduated 

cum laude from Yale University. While 

at Yale, Bill played on the varsity golf 

team and captained his intramural 

hockey team. Upon his graduation, he 

served as staff assistant for the head of 

the U.S. Environmental Protection 

Agency for three years. 

Bill is president of the board of Emergency 

Children’s Home in St. Louis, and 

director of Cardinals Care, the charitable 

arm of the St. Louis Cardinals. He and his 

wife, Ira Aldanmaz DeWitt, live in St. Louis 

with their children Natalie, 4, and Will, 1. 

Irene C. Chu P’99 

Irene C. Chu has been appointed to the 

Board of Trustees as a Corporate Trustee. 

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Irene attended 

NYU receiving both her B.S. in 

accounting and management and her 

M.B.A. in finance. Upon her graduation, 

she worked for public accounting firms 

in Hong Kong and New York, specializing 

in taxation and finance. 

In 1984, Irene cofounded Eastbank, 

a commercial bank based in New York 

City, where she is on the board of 

directors and serves as executive vice 

president and chief financial officer. 

Active in civic endeavors, she is 

particularly interested in the areas of 

health care and education. For the last 

20 years, Irene has been a member of 

the board of directors of Charles B. 

Wang Community Health Center, and 

is currently the board’s vice chairperson. 

She also chairs the Center’s finance 

committee, and until recently, served 

on the board of overseers of NYU’s 

Stern School of Business. 

Irene is married to Alexander F. 

Chu ’66, a former trustee (1987–91), and 

they have two children, Lauren ’99 and 

Jonathan. The Chus reside in New York 

City and enjoy traveling, golfing, and 

ballroom dancing. 

6 Taft Bulletin Summer 2003

PETER FINGER 


Alumni Citation of Merit Awarded to Dr. Alfred G. Gilman ’58 

This year’s esteemed Alumni 

Citation of Merit was awarded 

to Nobel Laureate Dr. Alfred 

G. Gilman ’58 who serves as 

professor and chairman of pharmacology 

at the University of 

Texas Southwestern Medical 

Center at Dallas. Dr. Gilman is 

their Regental Professor and 

holds the Raymond and Ellen 

Willie Distinguished Chair in 

Molecular Neuropharmacology. 

In 1994 he was awarded the 

Nobel Prize in medicine, along 

with co-winner of the $930,000 

prize Martin Rodbell, for the 

discovery of G proteins and 

their role in signal transduction 

in cells. Understanding the 

“wiring diagram” of a molecule’s 

“switchboard” is key in enabling 

drugs to work most effectively. 

G proteins were discovered in 

1980 by Gilman and other 

colleagues who have continued to pursue 

research on the critical role these 

play within cells. Since that time, they 

have worked to form an alliance that 

will foster sharing of research on cell 

signaling, creating a database by which 

a “virtual cell” might be constructed. 

Gilman now serves as director of the 

Alliance for Cellular Signaling. 

In a 2001 issue of Molecular Intervention, 

Gilman stated of the Alliance 

and its research, “Our goal 

is to generate data—to identify 

pieces of the signaling ‘puzzle,’ 

and then see how the pieces fit 

together…What we will primarily 

offer to the community is free 

access to our data and insights 

into how signaling systems are 

built and organized.” Their findings 

will be put in the public 

domain through the Internet. 

In a 1995 Bulletin interview 

Gilman said, “Taft taught me 

how to study, but more importantly, 

Taft taught me how to 

think, [and] how to go on learning 

for the rest of my life. The 

foundation I got there has carried 

me through until now.” 

Gilman has received numerous 

professional awards 

including the Albert Lasker 

Award for Basic Medical Research 

in 1989, the Richard Lounsbery 

Award in 1989, and the John J. Abel 

Award in Pharmacology in 1975. In addition, 

he has authored over 100 

scientific papers for professional journals. 

The 2003 Alumni Citation of Merit States: 

Alfred Gilman, humanitarian and renowned 

leader in the scientific 

community, your life’s singular quest 

to understand and unravel the secrets 

of nature for the benefit of mankind 

was forged at Taft where, as a cum 

laude society inductee and recipient 

of the Rensselaer Alumni Medal for 

excellence in mathematics and science, 

you “learned how to learn.” 

Earning your bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry 

from Yale University and 

doctorates of Medicine and Pharmacology 

from Case Western Reserve 

University, you applied your knowledge 

in pursuit of unlocking the 

mysteries of genetics and biochemistry 

as Assistant Professor of Pharmacology 

at the University of Virginia. But it was 

during your tenure as Chair of the 

Department of Pharmacology at the 

University of Texas Southwestern Medical 

Center that the culmination of your 

prodigious contribution to science was 

noted. Hailed for your landmark discovery 

of the G-Protein component of basic 

cellular function and communication, 

you were recognized as a 1994 Nobel 

Laureate in Physiology or Medicine. 

Uncompromising and impassioned in 

your commitment to excellence, innovative 

and principled in your research, 

humble and unselfish in your eagerness 

to share your success, your 

seminal work has been transformational, 

engendering hope, inspiration, 

and enrichment across the globe. 

Alfred Gilman, you have lived a life 

of purpose and achievement always 

dedicated to upholding and preserving 

your Alma Mater’s most cherished 

ideal: non ut sibi ministretur sed ut 

ministret. You have gracefully held 

aloft the torch lighted by our Founder, 

and it is with the greatest pride, respect, 

and admiration that we bestow 

upon you Taft’s highest honor, the 

Alumni Citation of Merit. 


7


Dairy Farming from Pennsylvania to Kazakhstan 

John Rodgers ’55 (fourth from right) in Kazakh barn with dairy farm director and employees 

John Reed Rodgers ’55 is a seasoned and 

dedicated dairy farmer, owner of Plum 

Bottom Farm in Pennsylvania. Although 

John barely knew where Kazakhstan was, 

he says, let alone its spelling, he is now 

committed to an ongoing farmer to farmer 

exchange with Kazakh and U.S. farmers. 

Rodgers’ involvement with the 

American Forage and Grassland Council, 

as a board member and president, allowed 

him to serve beyond his own farm’s boundaries. 

Through this group and Rotary 

International, he met a number of interesting 

people—word soon got out about 

John’s farming expertise. In 1993, a representative 

of Winrock International, an 

organization that administers the Farmer 

to Farmer Exchange program, invited 

John to go to Kazakhstan on one of its 

trips to share his farming knowledge. 

John initially said no to the invitation—he 

felt he had already traveled 

enough, having visited many countries for 

pleasure and having served in the military 

in Europe including Scotland. Winrock 

didn’t give up. The turning point, John 

says, was when they told him he’d be the 

first American farmer the Kazakh farmers 

had ever seen. Because his family was always 

doing things for others, he also knew 

his parents would be thrilled he was doing 

the Kazakhstan exchange program. 

Since his first trip to Kazakhstan, 

John has been back seven times. He has 

facilitated trips in which 34 Kazakh farmers 

came to learn U.S. farming techniques 

and also saw scenic sights. Ten more will 

come in summer of 2003. Hosting the 

visitors at his Plum Bottom Farm, John 

says they branch out to visit Cornell, Univ. 

of Maryland, Wisconsin’s U.S. Dairy and 

4-H Research Center, and take trips to 

California and Idaho. Like Rodgers, many 

Kazakhs are dairy farmers. 

One of his Kazakh farming friends 

came to the U.S. upon John’s invitation 

and worked for five months on John’s 

farm. This farmer-friend couldn’t speak 

a word of English but now John says they 

can communicate very well—“Our natures 

are the same.” John truly enjoys the 

farmers he’s met in Kazakhstan and those 

who have come here. John’s next trip is 

scheduled for this fall when they will 

hopefully implant U.S. embryos in 

Kazakh native cows, with the objective 

of strengthening their herds’ genetic base. 

After studying at Taft, John went on 

to study dairy science at Penn State. He 

always knew he wanted to continue the 

family tradition of dairy farming. “My 

uncle and parents said the first thing I 

wanted as a child was a pair of boots so I 

could wade in the manure,” he laughs. 

He has a dedication to both farming 

and to the farm that has been in his 

family since 1754. He feels a deep sense 

of stewardship to the 375 acres (of an 

original 1,000) that have been given to 

him. “As a young man I slowly became 

aware that the land I was farming had 

been in our family a long time,” John 

states. “This burden of stewardship became 

an integral part of my thinking. 

Being the eighth generation, I felt and 

still feel a drive to pass the property along 

through the family that has been here 

since the 18th century.” 

Supper in a ute in Kazakhstan 

(John in center) 


“Over the 45 years of actively managing 

the land my thoughts have been 

stewardship, conservation, preservation and 

perpetuation. Our goal is to leave the land 

better than when we started,” he affirms. 

“Both what is best for the land and the economics 

of operating a profitable dairy farm 

have been foremost in my planning.” 

John was honored this year for his 

skills and accomplishments as a farmer 

when he was inducted into the Master 

Farmers Association, an esteemed association 

of approximately 450 farmers 

(developed over 70 years) that inducts only 

four to six farmers annually from the 

Middle Atlantic states. It is apparent that 

John has both the willingness and sense 

of duty to serve far beyond his own farm 

in this country and others, exemplifying 

Taft’s motto. To learn more about John 

Rodgers’ Plum Bottom Farm, see its Web 

site at www.plumbottomfarm.com. 

Award to Romano 

The Council for Advancement 

and Support of Education (CASE) 

presented former Director of Development 

Jerry Romano with the 

prestigious Eleanor Collier Award 

this spring. The 2003 Achievement 

and Awards Ceremony was held in 

New York City at Tavern on the 

Green before 500 education professionals 

from CASE Districts I and II. 

Jerry was recognized for his extraordinary 

17 years of service to and 

performance at Taft. Under his leadership, 

Annual Fund giving doubled 

and the Parents’ Fund, the most successful 

in the country, boasted a 

participation rate of 95 percent. He 

directed the Campaign for Taft from 

1994–99, raising $133 million, far 

exceeding the original goal of $75 

million. He was honored for his devotion 

to the school, his leadership 

of staff and volunteers, and his tireless 

efforts to make Taft one of the 

finest secondary schools in the nation. 

Emily McNair ’99 (far right) at a Kathmandu Tibetan refugee center, visited by her 

sister Annie ’02 (hidden from view at left) and brother Roody ’04 who took this photo. 

Studying Beekeeping 

Emily McNair ’99 will soon be studying 

beekeeping around the world. As 

one of 60 U.S. college graduates who 

have been awarded a Thomas J. 

Watson Fellowship, she will study the 

ecological, historical, economic, and 

social aspects of beekeeping, visiting 

Malta, Slovakia, Tunisia, Argentina, 

New Zealand, and Vietnam. Emily 

graduated from Bard College this year 

majoring in anthropology, with a concentration 

in environmental studies. 

The idea for this project came 

about when Emily was living in Nepal 

(her third trip there), doing research 

on development issues. Emily has a 

long-standing interest in environmental 

justice, land reform, and land rights 

and as a result, she met with squatter 

camps of Kamaiya, emancipated 

bonded workers living in the Bardiya 

district, who are struggling for land 

reform. Much of this region is now a 

national park where locals have been 

excluded from land ownership and use 

of the land and its resources. And because 

Maoist rebel fighting has been 

going on in that area, all international 

NGOs have left leaving locals who 

have been dependent on them for employment 

desperate for work. Emily 

says that the Kamaiya are now interested 

in sustainable agriculture ideas, 

more in line with their agrarian roots. 

Her interest in Nepal began while she 

was a student at Taft, participating in 

a program of ecological work there. 

A friend invited Emily to visit a 

Nepali friend who is director of the 

Lalitpur Beekeeping Concern in the 

Kathmandu Valley. “It hit me,” Emily 

says, “Beekeeping—the perfect project 

for the Kamaiya community.” At the 

Lalitpur beekeeping project, she 

learned what was needed to make a 

collective work and have high yield 

honey production. In Bardiya, the 

clearing of jungle land for rice paddies 

has significantly reduced the bee 

population so apiaries will need to 

be constructed, ideally, out of local 

materials and using local bees for honey 

production. 

Because the Watson fellowship 

requires that a recipient visit countries 

where one has not already spent 

significant time, Emily will not be 

spending her project time in Nepal. 

She’ll learn how beekeeping is done in 

a number of countries, and how it can 

be applied with simple technology elsewhere 

as a viable project for fostering 

sustainable agriculture for agrarian 

communities such as those in Nepal. 


9

AROUND THE POND 

pond 

Ralph Lee ’53 with students 

Colin Fenn ’05 (left) 

and Renier Van Breen 

’05 (right), surrounded 

by Lee’s puppets 

SAM DANGREMOND ’05 

Potter Gallery Hosts Ralph Lee’s Puppets and Creatures 

The whimsical and exceptional work of 

Ralph Lee ’53 was shown in the Mark 

W. Potter ’48 Gallery in May. Ralph is a 

freelance creator of masks, fantastical 

props, puppets and giant figures for a wide 

spectrum of dance and theater companies 

ranging from the Living Theatre to 

the Metropolitan Opera to Saturday 

Night Live. A recipient of a Fulbright 

Scholarship, Ralph has studied acting 

and mime and has performed for many 

years in the theater. Ralph and his wife, 

Casey Crompton, are co-directors of the 

Mettawee River Company of upstate 

New York, formed to bring theater to 

rural communities. “We choose material 

that excites us and speaks to us no matter 

how ancient or remote the original may 

be,” Ralph says, “Trickster tales, Sufi 

stories, folk tales, and superstitions. 

These stories often contain events of epic 

proportion, which can be made manifest 

through the use of masks and strong 

visual elements.” He has taught at a 

number of colleges including Amherst, 

Bennington, Hampshire, and has been on 

NYU’s faculty since 1988. 



Why a Rhino 

How the rhino became Taft’s mascot is 

a story of a popular movement, and it 

never would have happened were it not 

for two unusual circumstances. In the 

late 1980s, there was a Taft student who 

ended up with the nickname “Rhino” 

because of the way he ran while playing 

soccer. Headmaster Willy 

MacMullen ’78 coached the soccer 

team then, and recalls that this student 

was funny, spirited, and well loved. 

Around the same time, student 

monitors did a poll to come up with a 

school mascot, which Taft didn’t have 

at the time. Other private schools were 

choosing mascots then and Tafties 

wanted one of their own. They were, 

as Willy says, “looking for the Big Red 

what” And though no one saw the 

poll as particularly serious, students 

took interest. 

The big beast welcomes all inside the Donald F. McCullough Athletic Center. “The Taft 

Rhino” is a gift of the Classes of 1999 and 2000. SAM DANGREMOND ’05 

PETER FINGER 

One of the many 

ideas, some almost too 

gruesome to name (the 

Big Red Bloodworms, 

for instance), was the 

Big Red Rhino. After 

the student poll, the results 

were announced 

in an assembly and the 

winning mascot name 

would be chosen by 

applause. When the 

“Big Red Rhinos” was 

named the audience 

went wild with cheering, 

chanting, and 

clapping. In fact, the 

students came up with 

the mascot name as 

somewhat of a joke. 

Nothing was ever official 

about the choice of 

the rhino, nor was it 

formally announced. 

“It wasn’t an instant 

hit,” Assistant Headmaster 

Rusty Davis pointed out. “It took 

a few years to take off—it died and then 

came back as an idea.” Some time after 

the student poll, rhinos began appearing 

all over campus—on T-shirts and posters. 

“Part of the reason it caught on,” said 

Davis, “was that no team is known as the 

Rhinos. They might be the Tigers, the 

Bulldogs, but not the Rhinos.” 

“The fact that it began as a joke and 

became ingrained spoke to how perfect 

it was,” Willy notes. “It became the Taft 

rhino not by some conscious design,” 

Willy added, “but by stories and rituals 

passed down. It became part of the cultural 

fabric of the school and took on a 

life of its own.” The rhino choice actually 

spoke of strength, power, and humor, 

although it’s likely none of that was factored 

in when the students adopted it. 

By 1990, at the Centennial celebration, 

the rhino suit made its appearance. 

Soon after the rhino was everywhere— 

on hats, T-shirts, books, stationery, 

yearbooks, and suited up at sports events. 

Looks like it’s here to stay. 


11


The Dedication of Taft’s Torah and Ark 

The calligraphy of the historic Taft Torah 

and yad (pointer). PETER FREW ’75 

On May 21, a ceremony to dedicate a 

historic Torah scroll was held at Walker 

Hall. The gift of the Torah was made 

possible through the generosity of Edgar 

Bronfman. Mr. Bronfman is the parent 

of alumnus, Adam Bronfman ’81, who 

donated the ark to the School. Headmaster 

Willy MacMullen ’78 observed, 

“At Taft, and in a world in which it is 

increasingly vital to understand and 

celebrate diverse beliefs, the Torah offers 

something powerfully educational. 

Once a school of one faith, we are now 

one of many. Once a school without a 

Torah, we now house one. I am inspired 

by the Bronfmans’ commitment to Taft 

and the way they have made ours an 

even better school.” 

Rabbi Philip Hiat, an expert in 

Torah scrolls and a well-known specialist 

for the Reform Movement and who 

helped orchestrate this fine acquisition, 

estimates that this particular Torah is between 

150 and 200 years’ old and can be 

traced back to Tashkent (now Uzbekistan). 

Rabbi Philip Hiat reading the Torah attended by, left to right, Adam Bronfman ’81, Assistant 

Chaplain Rabbi Eric Polokoff, and Chaplain Michael Spencer. BOB FALCETTI 

Front row, left to right, Sylvia Albert P’77, ’79, ’82, Eric Polokoff, Andrea Britell P’03, 

Willy MacMullen ’78, Adam Bronfman ’81, Philip Hiat, Eric Albert ’77, P’06, Jan Albert 

P’06, and Rachel Albert. Back row, Burton Albert P’77, ’79, ’82, Jonathan Albert ’79, 

Paul Ehrlich ’62, P’06, Peter Britell ’59, P’03, and Michael Spencer. BOB FALCETTI 

Formerly part of the Soviet Union, 

Tashkent was an active Sephardic Jewish 

community in the early twentieth century 

and a major area of refuge for 

European Jews fleeing the Holocaust. 

The scroll is written in Ashkenazic 

calligraphy on vellum, signifying a 

European origin, and is a valuable piece 

of Judaica that survived the Holocaust— 

in all probability shepherded to 

Tashkent by Eastern European Jews 

during World War II. Containing the 

first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures 

(Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, 

and Deuteronomy), the quality of its artistic 

detail suggests the authorship of 

an accomplished scribe. 

Chaplain Michael Spencer commented 

that the Torah is “a valuable 

archival acquisition for our school that 

carries an intriguing history and has symbolic 

value beyond any monetary sum.” 

Spencer noted, “This is an unprecedented 

gift in the boarding school world 

that is treasured by the Taft community 

and underscores our commitment to diversity 

and multifaith dialogue.” 



Adam Bronfman ’81 with the Taft Torah 

BOB FALCETTI 

The Torah is housed in a special ark 

built by a Woodbury, Conn., craftsman. 

The ark is a movable storage unit that 

supports the Torah and is constructed to 

complement the architectural design of 

the altar and podium in Walker Hall, 

Taft’s sacred communal space for spiritual, 

musical, and intellectual reflection. 

Accompanying the Torah and ark are 

a mantle, crown and pointer, and an eternal 

light. The mantle is a cloth inscribed 

with Hebrew text that adorns the top of 

the Torah during storage and is visible 

during worship. The crown and breastplate 

adorn the Torah during storage and 

are visible during worship, while the 

pointer is used during the reading of the 

sacred text. An eternal light given by Paul 

Ehrlich ’62, P’06, hangs near the ark signifying 

its uniqueness. The adornment 

of the Torah was made possible by the 

generosity of Andrea and Peter Britell ’59, 

P’03, Sylvia and Burton Albert P’77, ’79, 

’82, Jan and Eric Albert ’77, P’06, and 

Rachel and Jonathan Albert ’79. 

Headmaster Willy MacMullen, 

Chaplain Michael Spencer, Associate 

Chaplain Rabbi Eric Polokoff, Rabbi 

Philip Hiat, and Taft’s Jewish Student 

Organization led the dedication at 

Walker Hall. A reception followed the 

moving ceremony that was well-attended 

by alumni and their families, 

students, faculty, and members of the 

extended Jewish community. 

DuBois Medal Recipient 

Judge James E. Baker, appointed to the 

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed 

Forces by President Clinton, spoke at 

Morning Meeting in April on the subject 

of honor. Judge Baker’s visit was 

funded by the Rear Admiral Raymond 

F. DuBois Fellowship in International 

Affairs from which he received the 

DuBois Medal. Willy MacMullen ’78, 

who attended Yale with Judge Baker, 

gave a warm welcome, remembering 

that he and Judge Baker had enjoyed 

canoeing in the Everglades and 

whitewater rapids trips in Canada. Willy 

noted that Judge Baker’s capabilities are 

made even more impressive by the fact 

that he is the youngest appellate judge 

in the nation. 

Having served as special assistant 

to the president and legal adviser to 

the National Security Council (NSC) 

(1997–2000), Judge Baker advised 

both on U.S. and international law. 

In 1999, the NSC awarded Judge 

Baker its highest honor, the Colonel 

Nelson Drew Memorial Award. He 

also served as deputy legal adviser to 

the NSC (1994–97) and as counsel 

to the President’s Foreign Intelligence 

Advisory Board and Intelligence 

Oversight Board. In the late 1980s, 

Judge Baker served as legislative aide 

and acting chief of staff to Senator 

Daniel Patrick Moynihan. 

The topic of Judge Baker’s speech 

was honor as a moral compass for high 

school and beyond. “Honor is a sense 

of responsibility of how we conduct 

ourselves in our public and private lives 

and not just about the choices we 

make,” he stated. “We may not always 

know what is right, but honor is a compass 

that helps us find true north and 

then helps us to find the courage to 

follow its course…[It is] putting the 

common good before oneself.” 

As to where students might find 

their own moral compass, he suggested 

some sources for guiding one’s 

conduct—law, literature, religion, and 

everyday heroes (such as teachers and 

parents). Pointing out that honor is 

not blind to context, he recounted a 

childhood incident. “A gang of boys 

who followed me home one day in 

New York were not impressed when I 

turned on them and offered my sixth 

grade insights on Gandhi and nonviolence 

before surrendering my body 

to their fists. My track coach would 

have been a better model at that 

time,” he admitted. 

Headmaster Willy MacMullen ’78 greets Judge James E. Baker. PETER FREW ’75 


13


Missa Gaia (Earth Mass) Performed 

On May 9 Taft hosted the Missa Gaia, 

a spring concert celebrating creation, in 

the First Congregational Church in 

Watertown. The Missa Gaia, or Earth 

Mass, has been performed for over 20 

years as part of the St. Francis Day Celebration 

at the Cathedral of St. John the 

Divine in New York City. Collegium 

Musicum, led by Arts Department 

chair Bruce Fifer, performed the 

monumental work based on the songs 

of whales, seals, and wolves and included 

performances by acclaimed 

gospel singer, Theresa Thomason, 

award-winning composer, Paul Halley, 

and the New York African dance company, 

Forces of Nature. Missa Gaia 

was the culminating event to the 

school’s yearlong discussion of environmental 

ethics and awareness which 

began with the school’s reading of 

Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael. 

PETER FREW ’75 

Taft Competes in 

JETS Engineering 

Contest 

Thirty-two Taft students participated 

in the TEAMS competition held in 

March at the Univ. of New Haven. 

TEAMS, or Tests of Engineering Aptitude, 

Mathematics, and Science, is 

sponsored by the Junior Engineering 

Technical Society (JETS), a national 

nonprofit organization that works 

with high-school students interested 

in engineering, technology, mathematics, 

and science. Students met once a 

week for the month preceding the 

competition to prepare for it, under 

the guidance of physics teacher Jim 

Mooney, who has been entering Taft 

students in the competition for more 

than 10 years. Three of the four teams 

of eight students each, advanced to the 

national level this year, with the Varsity 

teams placing second and third in 

their division, and one Junior Varsity 

team placing third. 



Faculty News 

Jonathan Bernon, school counselor, 

recently became a Licensed 

Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in 

Connecticut. Among other things, 

the criteria for licensure included 

3,000 hours of post-master’s degree 

clinical practice that he accumulated 

at Taft over the past two years. 

Habitat for Humanity in Mexico 

Twelve members of the Taft Chapter of Habitat for Humanity, led by Baba 

Frew (front center), Director of Community Service, traveled to Mexico in June 

to work on a week-long build in the state of Morelos. Taft’s active chapter of 

Habitat also works on local builds in New Milford and Washington, Conn. 

Departing Faculty 

Erik Berg, Science 

Jim Binkoski, Mathematics 

Alison Binkowski, Mathematics 

Constantine Demetracopoulos, Science 

Aissatou Diop, French 

Athena Fliakos, English 

Laura Harrington, Photography 

Stephen Jackson, English, 

College Counseling 

Jonas Jeswald, Spanish 

Jennifer Bogue Kenerson, Mathematics 

David Kim, Science 

Lauren Lambert, English 

Camilla Moore, Mathematics 

William G. Morris ’69, 

Dean of Academic Affairs 

Julie Palombo, French 

Gina Sauceda, History 

Lynette Sumpter ’90, Admissions, 

Director of Multicultural Affairs 

Leonard Tucker ’92, History 

Faculty Awards 

The Shoup Award to 

William G. Morris ’69 

The Abramowitz Award for Excellence in 

Teaching to Michael Spencer 

Davis Fellowship Award to 

Steve Schieffelin 

Grandparents’ Day 

Harrison Fraker enjoys Grandparents’ Day with grandchildren Jillian ’05, Antonia 

’04, and Keegan ’06, all cousins. Harrison’s son, Ford (left), is the father of Antonia. 

Bill Morris ’69 accepts the Shoup 

Award upon his departure with his wife 

Sue and children Cassidy ’02 and 

David ’99. PETER FINGER


Alumni and Their Offspring 2003–04 

Great-Grandfathers 

Elias C. Atkins* ’15 ......................................................... Spencer T. Clark ’05 

Thomas W. Chrystie* ’21 ....... Peter H. Wyman, Jr. ’05, Henry T. Wyman ’07 

Eugene W. Potter* ’17 ....................................................... Steven B. Potter ’07 

Samuel F. Pryor, Jr.* ’17 .................................................. Antonia R. Pryor ’07 

Henry C. Robinson* ’20 ................................................... Reed E. Coston ’06 

Grandfathers 

Russell E. Aldrich* ’38 ................................................ Andrew P. Garrison ’04 

Bernhard M. Auer ’35 .......................................................... Cody E. Auer ’05 

Thayer Baldwin* ’31 ................................................... Jacob B. L. Baldwin ’07 

Edward Madden Bigler ’40 ........... Paul G. Bigler III ’04, Marika K. Bigler ’06 

G. Renfrew Brighton, Jr. ’43 .............................. Renfrew M. Brighton, Jr. ’05, 

Whitney Z. Brighton ’06 

John B. S. Campbell* ’34 ......................................... Susannah M. Walden ’06 

Robert A. Campbell* ’34 .. Randolph H. Lamere ’04, Robert A. Campbell ’07 

Page Chapman* ’29 ....................................................... James H. Wheeler ’05 

Ronald H. Chase ’54 .................................................. Hillary N. Simpson ’06 

Thomas L. Chrystie ’51 .......... Peter H. Wyman, Jr. ’05, Henry T. Wyman ’07 

Marshall Clark ’40 ........................................................... Mary F. Graham ’04 

Charles A. Coit* ’35 ..................... Charles M. Coit ’04, Caroline M. Coit ’05 

David W. Fenton ’48 ............................................. Elizabeth W. Shepherd ’05 

Edward F. Herrlinger II ’46 ......................................... Daniel M. Hillman ’06 

Herbert S. Ide, Jr.* ’21 ........................................................ Thomas S. Ide ’05 

Robert G. Lee* ’41 ...................................................... Emily C. Monahan ’04 

William M. Miller ’42 .................................................. Malcolm B. Miller ’06 

Condict Moore ’34 ........................................................... Emily L. Moore ’07 

James I. Moore ’41 ............................................................ Emily L. Moore ’07 

Thomas F. Moore, Jr. ’43 ............................................. Samuel M. Smythe ’05 

Scott Pierce ’49 ................................................................... Pierce M. Brix ’04 

William A. Pistell ’44 .................................................... Johanna M. Pistell ’04 

John S. Potter, Jr. ’49 ................................................ Michael S. Bruno III ’06 

Mark W. Potter, Sr.* ’48 .................................................... Steven B. Potter ’07 

Samuel F. Pryor III ’46 .................................................... Antonia R. Pryor ’07 

Thomas E. Rossin ’52 ................................................... Jonathan Bouchlas ’04 

Edward Van V. Sands, Sr.* ’14 ............................................ Diana P. Sands ’06 

William Shields, Jr.* ’29 ............................................. Katherine M. Squire ’04 

Spyros S. Skouras ’41 ................................................ Spyros S. Skouras III ’05 

Cheves McC. Smythe ’42 ............................................ Samuel M. Smythe ’05 

J. Chester Stothart* ’37 .................................................... Peter T. Stothart ’06 

Gordon B. Tweedy* ’24 ... Gordon B. McMorris ’04, Elisabeth T. McMorris ’05 

Harry W. Walker II ’40 ........... Webster C. Walker ’05, Holland E. Walker ’07 

John S. Wold ’34 ...................... Claire W. Longfield ’06, Allison M. Wold ’06 

Parents 

George B. Adams, Jr. ’74 .......................................... George B. Adams III ’06 

Eric D. Albert ’77 .......................................................... Lindsay C. Albert ’06 

Thayer Baldwin, Jr. ’58 ............................................... Jacob B. L. Baldwin ’07 

Paul G. Bigler II ’74 ...................... Paul G. Bigler III ’04, Marika K. Bigler ’06 

Renfrew M. Brighton ’74 ................................... Renfrew M. Brighton, Jr. ’05, 

Whitney Z. Brighton ’06 

John S. Brittain, Jr. ’77 .................................................. John S. Brittain V ’06 

Fred X. Brownstein, Jr. ’64 ...................................... Vanessa R. Brownstein ’06 

Robert C. Campbell ’76 ............................................. Robert A. Campbell ’07 

June Pratt Clark ’72 ......................................................... Spencer T. Clark ’05 

Robert T. Clark ’72 .......................................................... Spencer T. Clark ’05 

David M. Coit ’65 ........................................................... Charles M. Coit ’04 

Carlotta Shields Dandridge ’74 .................................. Katherine M. Squire ’04 

Hugh W. Downe ’73 .................................................... Edward R. Downe ’07 

Paul M. Ehrlich ’62 ................................................... Benjamin A. Ehrlich ’06 

Jeffrey Foote ’73 ............................................................... Andrew J. Foote ’05 

Peter A. Frew ’75 ............................................................. Amanda L. Frew ’05 

Alexis D. Gahagan ’74 .............................................. William D. Gahagan ’06 

Michael D. Gambone* ’78 ........ Ashley I. Gambone ’05, Kyle S. Gambone ’06 

Gordon P. Guthrie, Jr. ’62 .... Gordon P. Guthrie III ’04, Joseph S. Guthrie ’07 

Laura Weyher Hall ’78 ..................................................... Caroline C. Hall ’06 

Elizabeth Christie Hibbs ’78 ............................................. Carter E. Hibbs ’05 

Katharine Herrlinger Hillman ’76 ............................... Daniel M. Hillman ’06 

Douglas G. Johnson ’66 ........................................ Douglas G. Johnson, Jr. ’04 

H. Craig Kinney ’68 ....................................................... Jane I. E. Kinney ’06 

Andrew J. Klemmer ’75 ............. Arden Klemmer ’05, Austin G. Klemmer ’07 

Daniel K. F. Lam ’75 ................................................... Adrienne P. Y. Lam ’07 

Brian C. Lincoln ’74 ................. Gray B. Lincoln ’05, Lysandra D. Lincoln ’07 

Sharon Gogan McLaughlin ’73 ................................ Laura R. McLaughlin ’06 

Peter H. Miller ’72 ........................................................ Malcolm B. Miller ’06 

Laird A. Mooney ’73 ....................................................... Clare E. Mooney ’05 

James I. Moore, Jr. ’74 ...................................................... Emily L. Moore ’07 

Frederick F. Nagle ’62 ..................................................... Kierstin A. Nagle ’04 

Cassandra Chia-Wei Pan ’77 ................................................ Nicholas Chu ’05 

Kenneth A. Pettis ’74 ....................................................... Kendra B. Pettis ’06 

Jean Strumolo Piacenza ’75 ..... Lucia M. Piacenza ’04, Thomas F. Piacenza ’06 

Steven B. Potter ’73 .......................................................... Steven B. Potter ’07 

Samuel F. Pryor IV ’73 .................................................... Antonia R. Pryor ’07 

Langdon C. Quin III ’66 .......................................... Langdon C. Quin IV ’05 

Peggy D. Rambach ’76 ......................................... Madeleine E. R. Dubus ’05 

Peter B. Rose ’74 ................................................................... Amy B. Rose ’04 

Edward Van V. Sands ’65 .................................................... Diana P. Sands ’06 

Kenneth A. Saverin ’72 ................................................... Hilary C. Saverin ’06 

Roy A. Schonbrun ’68 ............................................ Zachary S. Schonbrun ’05 

Lynn Creviston Shiverick ’76 ..................................... William L. Shiverick ’04 

Spyros S. Skouras, Jr. ’72 .......................................... Spyros S. Skouras III ’05 

John L. Smith* ’66 ............................................................. Emily T. Smith ’06 

James L. Smythe ’70 .................................................... Samuel M. Smythe ’05 

John P. Snyder III ’65 ............... Torie T. Snyder ’04, Mackenzie M. Snyder ’05 

Peter B. Stothart ’76 ........................................................ Peter T. Stothart ’06 

Taylor J. Strubell ’63 ...................................................... Emma T. Strubell ’07 

Tom R. Strumolo ’70 ......... Andrew C. Strumolo ’06, Harriet E. Strumolo ’07 

Bridget Taylor ’77 ............................................................. Reed E. Coston ’06 

Samuel W. M. Thayer ’72 ........................................... Katharine T. Thayer ’07 

C. Dean Tseretopoulos ’72 .................................. Denisia K. Tseretopoulos ’07 

Karen Kolpa Tyson ’76 ........................................................ Julia B. Tyson ’04 

George D. Utley III ’74 ................................................. Hannah D. Utley ’07 

Elizabeth Brown Van Sant ’75 ................................... William R. Van Sant ’04, 

Elinore F. Van Sant ’07 

John B. Wallace ’72 .................................................... Nicholas T. Wallace ’07 

Sally Childs Walsh ’75 ....................................................... Mary C. Walsh ’06 

Christopher C. Wardell ’69 .................................... Clayton C. H. Wardell ’06 

John P. Wold ’71 .............................................................. Allison M. Wold ’06 

Michael S. C. Wu ’73 .......................................................... Mercer T. Wu ’05 

W. Dewees Yeager III ’75 ............................................ Benjamin B. Yeager ’07 

* deceased 


ANNUAL FUND REPORT 

Volunteers Raise $2.6 Million 

2003 Class Agent Awards* 

Snyder Award 

Largest amount contributed 

by a reunion class 

Class of 1953: $307,217 

Class Agents: Geo Stephenson & John Watling 

Chairman of the Board Award 

Highest percent participation 

from a class 50 years out or less 

Class of 1953: 86% 

Class Agents: Geo Stephenson & John Watling 

McCabe Award 


by a non-reunion class 


Class Agent: Brian Lincoln 

Class of 1920 Award 

Greatest increase in dollars 

from a non-reunion class 


Class Agent: Rob Barber 

The Romano Award 

Greatest increase in percentage support 

from a non-reunion class less than 50 years out 


Class Agents: Rob Barber 

Young Alumni Dollars Award 


from a class less than 10 years out 


Class Agents: Dan Oneglia & Tony Pasquariello 

Young Alumni Participation Award 

Highest participation 

from a class 10 years out or less 


Class Agent: Devin Weisleder 

John Watling and Geo Stephenson, Class of ’53 Agents, accept fundraising 

awards. PETER FINGER 

Annual Fund 

This has been a great year for the Annual Fund. In total the Taft family 

has collectively raised $2.6 million for the School, only $40,000 less 

than last year. I am deeply grateful to all the alumni/ae, current parents, 

former parents, grandparents and friends for their generosity and 

loyalty to Taft. 

Of this total, 38 percent of alumni raised $1.35 million. Thank 

you so much to all the Class Agents who worked so hard this year to 

raise these funds. I know this has been a difficult year for fundraising, 

and your efforts are truly appreciated. 

Special kudos goes to Class Agents Geo Stephenson and John Watling 

and the 50th Reunion Class of ’53 for winning both the Snyder Award 

and the Chairman of the Board Award by raising $307,217 with 86 

percent participation. I would also like to recognize Class Agents Woolly 

Bermingham and Ross Legler for leading the Class of ’43 to 100 percent 

participation for the fifth year in a row! Well done! 

It has been my privilege to chair the Annual Fund for the last four 

years. I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know so many dedicated 

and loyal alumni and parents. It is my pleasure to announce my fellow 

alumnus and classmate Dave Kirkpatrick 

’89 as the new Annual Fund chair. I hope 

you all welcome him as he leads the Annual 

Fund to new heights! 

Sincerely, 

*Awards determined by funds raised 

as of June 30, 2003 

Dyllan McGee ’89 

David Kirkpatrick ’89 


17

ANNUAL FUND REPORT 

Parents’ Fund Raises $1.03 Million 

93% Participation 

We are delighted to announce that the 2002–03 

Parents’ Fund, led by Leslie and Angus Littlejohn, 

closed with extraordinary success, having raised 

$1,032,726 from 93 percent of the current parent 

body. “This achievement,” according to Headmaster 

Willy MacMullen ’78, “could not have happened 

without the untiring efforts of not only the Littlejohns 

and a dedicated Parents’ Committee, but also the 

hundreds of parents who have given so much to 

this great school.” 

For the fourth time in the past five years, over 

one million dollars has been raised for the Parents’ 

Fund. Just as notable is the 90 plus percent parent 

participation for the eleventh consecutive year. A 

parent body that supports a school so unanimously 

speaks to the strong belief that academics must remain 

strong, athletics competitive, and the arts flourishing. 

We look forward to another year with Leslie 

and Angus once again serving as Chairs of the upcoming 

2003–04 Fund. 

Parents’ Fund Chairs Leslie and Angus Littlejohn P’03, ’05 

2002–03 Parents’ Committee 

Leslie & Angus Littlejohn, Chairs 

Leslie & Samuel Acquaviva 

Dale & Dick Ahearn 

Rosanne & Steve Anderson 

Sallie & Scott Barnes 

Sandra Bisset 

Ann & Alan Blanchard 

Cindy & Larry Bloch 

Sandi & Glenn Bromagen 

Howard & Barbara Cherry 

Gail & Daniel Ciaburri 

Peg & John Claghorn 

Donna & Chris Cleary 

Kate & Dan Coit 

Susan & Bill Coogan 

Mary & David Dangremond 

John Deardourff 

Marguerite & Tom Detmer 

Emily & Steven Eisen 

Julie & Michael Freeman 

Louise & Dan Gallagher 

Pippa & Bob Gerard 

Katy & Tiger Graham 

Susan & Chuck Harris 

Lisa Ireland 

Linda & Bill Jacobs 

Sally & Michael Karnasiewicz 

Kathryn Kehoe 

Kim & Dave Kennedy 

Anne & Reid Leggett 

Janet & Paul Lewis 

Robin & James Little 

Bridget & John Macaskill 

Mary & Joe Mastrocola 

Dale McDonald 

Jane Perry & Barclay McFadden 

K.T. & Alan McFarland 

Clare & Howard McMorris 

Anne & John McNulty 

Pat & Patrick McVeigh 

Virginia Mortara 

Hattie & Bill Mulligan 

Lois & Larry Nipon 

Ann & William Nitze 

Wendy & Fred Parkin 

Rosemarie & Scott Reardon 

Sera & Tom Reycraft 

Ann & James Rickards 

Lindsay & Edgar Scott 

Jean & Stuart Serenbetz 

Margi & Michael Sermer 

Debbie & Michael Shepherd 

Charlotte & Richard Smith 

Jane & Tom Steele 

Maria & Glenn Taylor 

Margaret & Joseph Toce 

Jane & Bill Waters 

Sandra & Rick Webel 

B.J. & Ed Whiting 

Patty & Bill Wilson 

Alice & Peter Wyman 


S P O R T 

sport 

Spring 2003 Highlights 



Teammates Adam Kowalsky (pitching) 

and Nick Kehoe (scoring) in action 

during a key win at home against 

Salisbury. These seniors led the Varsity 

Baseball Team to a 12–6 record. Kehoe 

compiled a 5–1 record, with a 2.33 

ERA, and 42 strikeouts in 36 innings. 

Kowalsky earned a 3–1 record with a 

2.45 ERA. Four-year starter Steve 

Richard led the team in batting average 

(.442), home runs (4) and RBIs (24). 

The Girls’ Crew Team enjoyed its most successful 

season yet, with all four boats scoring at the Founders’ 

League race to earn 2nd place. The first boat of Zita 

Vimi ’03, Jenn Sifers ’03, Katy Wilks ’03, Shannon 

Sylvester ’03, and cox Nancy Townsend ’05 placed second 

at the Founders’ League race, while the third boat 

(Meg Gallagher ’03, Meaghan Martin ’05, Lucy Piacenza 

’04, Alexandra Lauren ’06, and cox Catherine Bourque 

’05) medalled by placing third in the Grand Finals at 

the New England Regatta. 

PHOTO BY SPORTGRAPHICS, INC. SEE MORE RACING PHOTOS AT WWW.SPORTGRAPHICS.COM.

S P O R T 

PHOTOGRAPHY BY PETER FREW ’75 

The Boys’ Varsity Lacrosse Team 

ended the season on top again with a 

13–1 record thanks to a stunning 11–7 

victory over previously undefeated and 

nationally ranked Hotchkiss at the end 

of the season. Senior George McFadden 

(making save) made the transition into 

the goal and helped set a new school 

record of 3.43 goals allowed per game. 

All-League players Robbie Madden and 

Tanner Fogarty (with ball) were central 

to the team’s league-leading defense. 

Senior co-captains 

Kirsten Pfeiffer (hurdling) 

and Marisa 

Ryan set new school 

records at the New 

England Track 

Championships this 

year. Pfeiffer broke 

her own record in 

placing second in 

the 300 meter 

hurdles (46.38), and 

Ryan set records in 

winning both the 

3,000 meter and 

1,500 meter runs. 

Senior Kofi Ofori-Ansah holds the school record in the 

triple jump (46´4˝) and helped the Boys’ Track Team to a 

6–2 record this year. 


S P O R T 

Coming off their New England 

championship last year, the Girls’ 

Varsity Tennis Team finished 10–0–1 

this year. Co-captain Katherine 

O’Herron (left) has been the number 

one player for this incredible run, 

and Katie Franklin (right) made it to the 

finals of the New England Tournament 

in the number two flight this year. 

Scoreboard 

Varsity Baseball 

Captains: ........................... Nicholas J. Kehoe ’03, Steven G. Richard ’03 

Captains Elect: ............ Brian C. Baudinet ’04, Henry W. Coogan III ’04, 

Keith S. Shattenkirk ’04 

Record: ........................................................................................... 12–6 

Stone Baseball Award Winners: ............................Nicholas J. Kehoe ’03, 

Steven G. Richard ’03 

Varsity Softball 

Captains: ............................ Samantha K. Hyner ’03, Randi J. Lawlor ’04 

Captain Elect: ........................................................... Randi J. Lawlor ’04 

Record: ............................................................................................. 0–9 

Softball Award Winner: .................................. Abagail E. Cecchinato ’05 

Girls’ Varsity Lacrosse 

Captains: ..................... Nicole Mandras ’03, Alexandra T. Woodworth’03 

Captains Elect: .......... S. Tucker Marrison ’04, Katherine U. Simmons ’04 

Record: ............................................................................................. 7–8 

Wandelt Lacrosse Award Winner: .............. Alexandra T. Woodworth ’03 

Boys’ Varsity Lacrosse 

Captains: .................... Robert W. Madden ’03, George S. McFadden ’03, 

Todd R. Ogiba ’03 

Captains Elect: ........................... Todd Johnson ’04, Rory T. Shepard ’04, 

Nicholas J. Smith ’04 

Record: ........................................................................................... 13–1 

Odden Lacrosse Award Winner: ....................... George S. McFadden ’03 

Boys’ Varsity Crew 

Captain: .............................................................. Alexander W. Bisset ’04 

Captain Elect: ..................................................... Alexander W. Bisset ’04 

Record: ............................................................................................. 5–6 

Crew Award Winner: ....................................... Anton P. L. Yupangco ’03 

Girls’ Varsity Crew 

Captain: .................................................................. Jennifer E. Sifers ’03 

Captain Elect: ..................................................... Fiona F. McFarland ’04 

Record: ............................................................................................. 4–4 

Crew Award Winner: .............................................. Jennifer E. Sifers ’03 

Girls’ Varsity Tennis 

Captains: ................ Victoria B. Ilyinsky ’03, Katherine M. O’Herron ’03 

Captain Elect: ........................................................... Bettina L. Scott ’04 

Record: ....................................................................................... 10–0–1 

Alrick H. Man, Jr. ’09 Award Winner: ........... Katherine M. O’Herron ’03 

Boys’ Varsity Tennis 

Captain: ........................................................... Alexander T. Ginman ’03 

Captain Elect: ................................................ Christopher L. Carlson ’04 

Record: ............................................................................................ 7–8 

George D. Gould Tennis Award Winner: ........... Alexander T. Ginman ’03 

Boys’ Varsity Track 

Captains: .......................... Matt W. McIver ’03, Kofi O. Ofori-Ansah ’03 

Captains Elect: .................... Francois Berube ’04, Camden J. Bucsko ’04, 

Anthony J. Rodriguez ’04, Tyler J. Whitley ’04 

Record: ............................................................................................. 6–2 

Seymour Willis Beardsley Track Award Winners: .................................... 

Matt W. McIver ’03, Kofi O. Ofori-Ansah ’03 

Girls’ Varsity Track 

Captains: ..................... Katherine S. McCabe ’04, Kirsten E. Pfeiffer ’03, 

Marisa A. Ryan ’03 

Captains Elect: ....... Sha-kayla M. Crockett ’05, Lauren C. Malaspina ’04, 

Katherine S. McCabe ’04 

Record: ............................................................................................. 4–2 

Seymour Willis Beardsley Track Award Winners: .................................... 

Kirsten E. Pfeiffer ’03, Marisa A. Ryan ’03 


21

Five speakers 

share their 

thoughts about 

the journey of 

an education 

and growth 

within a gifted 

and dedicated 

community. 

Satisfaction 


PHOTOGRAPHY BY BOB FALCETTI 

Rear Admiral 

Richard T. Ginman ’66 P’03 

Commencement Speaker 

There are three groups of people represented 

here today—parents, faculty, and 

graduating seniors. I plan to address 

each in turn. 

To the Parents: We all took a risk 

and entrusted our children to the Taft 

School. Some of us knew Taft because 

we had been here ourselves, some had 

entrusted other children to Taft, and for 

some this was a first introduction to the 

school. For each of us, it was a big step. 

I hope each of you feels it was a decision 

well made. 

I’ve seen the unbelievable endeavors 

of your children displayed in the halls and 

art studios, in the concerts given on parents’ 

weekends, in the athletic contests, 

in the plays, and in the student’s thoughts 

expressed in the Papyrus. With each visit 

to Taft, I’ve seen a vibrant community; a 

community that your children make possible. 

I only wish that all children had 

the opportunity that ours have had here. 

To the Faculty and Staff: I’ll come 

back to the school’s motto, “To serve, not 

to be served” later, but it seems so appropriate 

to mention it now. Taft is the 

faculty and the staff. Each of you, individually 

and as a group, serves our 

children. You make a difference in their 

lives each and every day. You push them 

to excel, you praise their successes, and 

you’re there to support them in their failures. 

You have done this as a team, 

working together to make the educational 

and personal development of each 

student the best it could be. 

The tangible part of your performance 

is obvious. The facilities of Taft 

are impressive. They are a testament to 

you and all those who have gone before 

you. Because of your collective desire to 

excel as teachers, the school has been able 

to raise the funds from alumni, parents, 

and friends that enable this school to 

continue to thrive and be the excellent 

institution it is. The intangible part is less 

obvious, but even more important. It is 

the vibrant, young students with a desire 

to excel and to serve others that you have 

developed. You need only look at the seniors 

assembled in front of you to know 

you have excelled in your work. 

For the Students: Thirty-six years ago I 

sat in Graduation Court—I bet most of 

you don’t even know where it is—and listened 

to a number of speeches. I’d like to 

say I remember every word, but I don’t. 

I’ve even given a few and I don’t remember 

those either. I do, though, remember Taft 

well and I’d like to share with you why. 

The faculty of Taft made me work 

harder than I had ever worked before. 

They challenged me to go beyond what 

I thought my limits were. They caused 

me to look into academic areas I’d never 

considered. They made me question my 

Rear Admiral Richard T. Ginman ’66, Commencement 

speaker with son Alex ’03 

beliefs. They made me express my opinions 

and then defend why I thought the 

way I did. They took an interest in me 

and worked hard at finding ways to make 

me excited about the work. 

“To serve, not to be served.” I suspect 

few of you graduating seniors know 

what you’d like to do in life, and I can’t 

help with you with that decision (unless 

you’d like to consider military service after 

college, an option I’d encourage you 

to consider). I can tell you that you won’t 

find long-term satisfaction in your own 

achievements; you will find satisfaction 

in the journey that brings you to those 

achievements. I’m also certain your 

achievements will be made possible because 

of the efforts of others. Focusing 

on their needs and helping them achieve 

their goals will not only allow you to 

achieve your objectives, but will bring 

you great pleasure in seeing them achieve 

their goals and the organizations that you 

are a part of achieve theirs. Seniors, in a 

long Navy tradition, I wish you Fair 

Winds and Following Seas. 

Journey 

Remarks from the 113th Commencement, 2003 

in the 


23

Willy MacMullen ’78 

Headmaster 

Class of 2003, do you recall your first 

day, perhaps just nine months ago, 

perhaps nearly four years You were 

sitting in a folding seat in Centennial 

Quad, nervous. 

In those opening weeks, you may 

have felt what my favorite poet, William 

Wordsworth, felt when he came to 

Cambridge as a young man at the turn 

of the 18th century. The similarities are 

many—like him, you came brimming 

with promise, and you entered a school 

of thrilling energy. Wordsworth wrote: 

I was the Dreamer; they the Dream; I roam’d 

Delighted through the motley spectacle…. 

For hither I had come with holy powers 

And faculties…. 

I was a Freeman; in the purest sense 

Was free, and to majestic ends was strong. 

There he is, a 17-year old from a small 

town in the Lake District, and he is crackling 

with excitement at this “motley 

spectacle,” as you no doubt were when 

you walked down the Main Hall bustling 

with students or sought to find your seat 

in the din of your first School Meeting. 

He feels a “holy power,” and who knows 

the “majestic ends” of which he dreams. 

You had such dreams. But above all, he 

feels free, and there he and you were alike 

on that unforgettable first day. 

You were free that moment—to reinvent 

yourself, to start anew, to discover 

new passions, and to face new challenges. 

Such a life-moment is thrilling, 

and frightening; and you may never 

again feel it as intensely as you did when 

you came here. You parents know what 

I mean by this; so many of you remarked 

on it at dinner last night: the girl or boy 

who walked into this Quad on that first 

day is gone. Someone else will be accepting 

a diploma. 

It would be a mistake to think that 

what distinguishes this class was what they 

did. What finally marked them singular 

was who they were. With them, you think 

less of talent and more of character. 

I think finally it was their humanity 

that marked them unique. One teacher 

said, “I know it’s an old-fashioned word, 

but they were just so darn nice.” We 

peered out on the world and saw international 

relations among too many 

nations too often marked by chilly 

impatience or arrogant xenophobia, 

relations among peoples marked by 

apathetic inaction or fanatical violence. 

We read of ethical violations at the 

corporate level that dwarfed even the 

stupendous wrongdoings in the late 19th 

century. We had daily reminders that this 

walled city on the hill, formed on timeless 

ideals of respect, service, and integrity, 

could not isolate itself. We were inextricably 

interconnected to the world. 

Here we were given hope for a better 

world, and it came from some 150 

young men and women who treated each 

other, and their faculty, and the traditions 

of the school, with respect, humanity, and 

Peter Granquist 

Ryan Ahearn, center, winner of the Class of 1981 Award, with his family 


Cathy Marigomen and cousins 


understanding. They came from small 

towns and large cities, from America and 

a score of nations; they were black and 

white, far right and radical left. They had 

a mutual respect that led to robust, re- 

spectful debates in coffeehouses, School 

Meetings, electronic forums, classrooms 

and dorms. They had strong opinions 

and were anything but moral relativists— 

they were principled and often staked out 

lonely positions. But they listened to each 

other and treated each other as all the 

world’s religions advise: as we wish to be 

treated. There were many rooms in this 

house. We adults should do as well. 

Proud new graduate Henry Siemon 

Alexandra Peterffy with her family 


25

Anton Yupangco ’03 

Head Monitor 

As I look back on my years here at Taft, 

I can’t help but remember how it all 

began. The first time I ever set foot on 

the campus was in the winter of 1999. I 

was a ninth grader at the Eaglebrook 

School in Deerfield, Mass., and had 

stopped by Taft in the middle of my 

grand touring sweep of all of the New 

England prep schools. I am sure that all 

of the students and parents here remember 

doing something similar—driving 

up and down Connecticut and Massachusetts, 

cramming in two school visits 

in one day, grabbing lunch on the road. 

Practicing what you were going to say 

in the car, with your mom in the driver’s 

seat pretending to be the admissions 

officer. Personally, by day four it all became 

one large blur. I had already done 

the Choate-Deerfield thing. Andover 

and Exeter, Loomis, Lawrenceville, 

Hotchkiss—Ugh. 

And then I got to Taft. Let me just 

say that the weather wasn’t spectacular, 

to say the least. It was cold and rainy. 

Snow and ice covered every inch of 

ground—there was nothing green in 

sight. We pulled in through the heavy 

iron gates and around main circle. I 

looked up at the towering red brick buildings 

with heavy wooden doors, thick dark 

clouds looming overhead. Leafless trees 

that looked like they were dead lined the 

pathway and all in all the scene was— 

well, for someone from southern 

California—the scene was terrifying. 

I stepped out of the car—hesitantly—and 

slowly proceeded to enter, 

fully expecting to see Count Dracula 

waiting inside to give me my tour. But 

instead, I kept meeting friendly person 

after friendly person. At first I didn’t 

know why these people were so happy, 

and I thought that maybe the faculty I 

met were friendly because they had to 

be. But then I went on my tour. Every 

corner I turned, hallway I walked down, 

and classroom I visited I saw people 

smiling and laughing. In my mind it 

came down to either one of two things. 

One, there was something in the water. 

Or two, the more likely one: that these 

people were genuinely happy. 

That’s when I knew I wanted to 

be a part of this place. I don’t know 

how best to describe it, but I got a vibe. 

Here I was in a place where despite how 

awful it looked outside, how terribly 

cold and gloomy it was, people on the 

inside were still full of energy, still full 

of life, still smiling. On a nice day like 

today it’s easy for someone to feel the 

energy and life of this place, but it took 

something special to shine through on 

that day. Taft shone through for me on 

that day. 

I’d like to thank the people who make 

learning at Taft happen. The amazing men 

and women standing behind me: The faculty. 

For without them, none of this would 

be possible. Thank you for your guidance, 

and leadership not just during our final 

year here, but from day one. You have always 

been, just as you are now, behind us 

George McFadden with his parents 

Isatta Jalloh (back center) with her family members 



all the way. You have been incredible teachers, 

talented coaches, inspiring mentors, 

and true friends. You have instilled and 

nurtured a love for learning within us. 

Thank you for bringing your passion 

for teaching to every class, rehearsal, 

and game. On behalf of every student 

of the Taft School, I wish you a heartfelt 

thank you. 

Secondly, I would like to thank the 

other group of adults that has made this 

experience possible: Our parents. From 

the very beginning you have been with 

us. Every moment, guiding us as we 

took our first steps and urging us to 

continue when we faltered. You have 

continued to do the same even through 

our years here at Taft. The care packages, 

cards, e-mails, phone calls are 

appreciated more than you know. Today 

we stand in front of you, products 

of your love and caring. We hope we 

have made you proud. 

To the senior class—to 153 of the 

brightest, most incredible, most talented, 

most caring people I have ever 

Head monitor Anton Yupangco displays the class stone. 

known. You, my friends, are the unforgettable 

people we dreamed and planned 

great futures with, who accepted us as 

we were, and encouraged us to become 

JONATHAN WILCOX 

all that we wanted to be. When you leave 

here, it is my hope that you bring with 

you that energy, that life, and take it 

with you wherever you go. 

Chaplain Michael Spencer accepts the 

Abramowitz Award for Excellence in Teaching. 

Will Blanden (center) with his family 


27

Taylor Walle ’03 

Class Speaker 

I came to Taft three years ago as a new 

sophomore and have since considered 

this to be one of the best decisions I ever 

made. In so many ways, Taft has helped 

me to become the person that I am today 

and, in turn, Taft has become an 

integral part of who I am—for it is here 

that I have both discovered and pursued 

my passions, here that I have made 

friends with whom I will never lose contact, 

here that I have grown up so much. 

My teachers and friends have brought 

out the best in me, and one of the things 

I love most about our class is that we bring 

out the best in each other. We’ve all grown 

up a lot, but the point is that we’ve done 

it together and that we couldn’t have done 

it without each other. Consequently, our 

friends, classmates, and teachers have all 

become a part of who we are as much as 

we have become a part of them. And so, 

our experiences are no longer solely our 

Class speaker Taylor Walle (second from right) and family 

own, but rather part of the collective experience 

of those around us—and what 

an incredible experience ours has been. 

I firmly believe our class to be one of 

the most talented and accomplished classes 

Taft has seen in a long time, and I’m so 

proud to have been a part of it. I have no 

doubt that we will go on to do great things 

with our lives, and I can’t wait to see how 

all of our various talents will manifest 

themselves in the world outside of Taft. 

For the past three years I have defined 

myself largely by my role as a 

student here and my place in our community 

and our class. Everyone and everything 

here has held an unprecedented 

importance to me, and the prospect of 

leaving all of this has been unthinkable… 

I have realized that it is the very strength 

of my attachment to this place and these 

people that makes me so ready for the 

next step. When all of us have gone our 

separate ways, we will remember our experience 

here. We will remember our 

teachers, our classmates, and of course 

our friends—and in so doing will we be 

better prepared to face all the challenges 

that lie ahead. 

Angus Littlejohn III with his parents Angus and Leslie and sister 

Lindsay ’05 

Glenton Davis (at right) with his family 



James Blanchard ’03 

Class Speaker 

When I first came to Taft I was scared. 

Everyone seemed so much more experienced 

and confident than I was. I’d never 

lived away from home or gone to school 

with girls. Everyone seemed to have their 

group of friends already, whether from 

being here freshman year or from coming 

early to preseason. 

I wasn’t the best at making new 

friends, and my initial plan of using my 

incredible athletic ability to make me more 

popular failed when I was cut from JV 

soccer. Academically, I didn’t know what 

to expect. Everyone I had met seemed so 

smart that it made me doubt my own ability. 

I decided to take only regular level 

classes because the idea of taking an honors 

level course at a school with so many 

intelligent people just petrified me. After 

losing academics and sports, my former 

two sources of confidence, I didn’t know 

what to think of myself. 

However, despite 

my lack of effort I was 

still gradually making 

new friends. I was being 

accepted by people without 

even trying. Others 

more confident than I 

were making the effort to 

help out someone who 

was desperately looking 

for their acceptance. 

Looking back on it now, 

I’ve realized this is what 

has defined our class in 

my mind. We are innately 

good-hearted and 

good-spirited. We are accepting in nature 

and nonjudgmental of our peers. 

You could have taken that 130 

pound non athlete, nonscholar and 

immediately labeled him as an outcast 

but instead you made him appreciate 

himself for what he was. You became 

my source of confidence—both the 

reasons how and why I did the things 

I did. You gave me security during the 

James Blanchard ’03, class speaker, and family members 

most insecure years of a person’s life. 

It’s impossible for me to express 

how much you all have meant to me and 

even more impossible for me to imagine 

going to school without you. For all 

of that there’s nothing I can say except 

thank you. We’ve made the best possible 

of this year and I have no doubt in the 

future that we will all make the best of 

wherever we go next. 

The family of Meghan Gallagher (center) celebrates her graduation. 

Ryan Ahearn and Veronica 

Aguirrebeitia 

The preceding excerpts are taken from actual speeches given in May. 


29

The Taft 

Portrait of a 

Graduate 

By Debora Phipps

Portrait of a Graduate 

Children often ask why they have to 

do things—make their beds, eat their 

broccoli, write thank-you notes—and 

sometimes, depending on the frustration 

level of the parent, they receive the quick 

reply, “because I said so.” If this occurs, they 

might eat the vegetable or pull up the sheets, 

but they won’t understand the reasons for 

doing so—making it less likely that they’ll 

learn much from the exercise or perform 

the action voluntarily in the future. 

In the same way, students ask, “Why 

do we have to do this” Experienced teachers 

know the predictive signs: the escalating 

grumbling as an assignment sheet or quiz 

circulates the room, the shuffling of feet as 

students reposition themselves, lingering 

glances at the clock, and ultimately, the 

heavy sigh which prompts a classmate to 

ask the critical question. The query, though, 

is a good one. Without a sense of its purpose, 

students may complete an assignment 

without learning much from doing so. And 

without a shared sense of what she will 

learn, the design of the assignment, the student 

may find herself completing it only 

to earn a grade. Just as importantly, she 

might be unable to see how her learning is 

connected to the learning she experiences 

elsewhere on campus. 

The following italicized examples—all 

taken from students’ real experiences— 

describe various instances in which students 

exhibit behavior described by the “Taft Portrait 

of a Graduate,” a document the faculty 

have created to identify the school’s educational 

aims. They illustrate the ways in 

which our daily behavior and attitudes reveal 

what we really learn and act on, rather 

than what we’re merely compelled to do. 

Portrait of a Graduate: 

A Taft education prepares its students in a community devoted to creating 

lifelong learners, thoughtful citizens, and caring people. More particularly, 

Taft graduates have exhibited that they 

• act with honor and integrity, and value both the Taft Honor Code and the 

School’s fundamental conviction that honesty and personal responsibility are 

the cornerstones of character and of community. 

• serve others unselfishly, reflecting and acting upon the School’s motto in both 

formal and informal contexts: Non ut sibi ministretur sed ut ministret. 

• have cultivated a moral thoughtfulness through exposure to various ethical 

perspectives and ways of thinking. They have shown that they make 

informed choices after considering the possible consequences of their 

actions and decisions. 

• respect and appreciate diverse peoples and cultures, and they recognize the 

opportunities inherent in a diverse community. 

• make informed choices in living healthy and balanced lives. 

• apply the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind of all disciplines to framing 

questions and solving problems in the pursuit of understanding. Moreover, 

they see even the most formidable challenges as opportunities for growth. 

• possess intellectual curiosity and resourcefulness, and actively engage in the 

process of learning. 

• work cooperatively and collaboratively; they are willing to subdue their individual 

needs and desires in order to contribute to the collective efforts of 

people united in a common purpose. 

• work and think independently. They are self-reliant, disciplined, and courageous 

about taking risks in their thinking. 

• express themselves clearly, purposefully, and creatively in their speaking and 

writing, as well as other forms that they find effective and rewarding. 

• appreciate the arts and have explored their own capacity for creation in 

all of their endeavors. They apply imagination and inventiveness in the 

creative process. 

• apply appropriate technologies to the process of learning and understand the 

possibilities and limitations of various technological innovations. 

• reflect regularly upon their learning and themselves as learners, leading to 

greater awareness of themselves as individuals and of their places in the world 

in which they live. 

Michael Karin ’81 


31

Graduation 1988 

An upper mid, packing up her books 

after a class discussion on Emerson’s 

“Self-Reliance,” asks her teacher 

whether the essay seems to predict 

America’s self-absorption today. 

In the spring of 2001, new Headmaster 

Willy MacMullen announced the formation 

of the Faculty Forum committee, 

charged with considering the academic 

life of the school. The purpose of this 

committee, made up of ten faculty members 

totaling over a century of experience, 

was to examine what and how we teach— 

specifically, to explore what we wanted a 

Taft graduate to know and be able to do. 

Two years later, after countless meetings 

whose records take up 4 1/2 inches worth 

of paper in my file drawer, we now have 

a “Taft Portrait of a Graduate,” a document 

that begins with this preamble: “A 

Taft education prepares its students in a 

community devoted to creating lifelong 

learners, thoughtful citizens, and caring 

people. More particularly, Taft graduates 

have exhibited that they...” followed by 

a list of those skills, attitudes, and habits 

of mind that define Taft students. 

A lower mid, struggling with a geometry 

proof in the Learning Center, relaxes when 

an upper-school student offers his help. On 

the third problem, the younger student suggests, 

“Wait. Let me try it on my own.” 

When Willy first alluded to this Portrait in 

his Fathers’ Day talk last November, he expressed 

feeling both excited and daunted. 

To promise parents that their children 

would exhibit these characteristics requires 

enormous faith in the faculty as well as 

the students. That trust derives from the 

process through which the School designed 

the Portrait. Initially, each academic 

department met to identify those discipline-specific 

skills that each student should 

demonstrate by his or her senior year. The 

history department struggled to define the 

role of research, a concern shared by the 

Library staff. Foreign language teachers considered 

the importance of teaching an 

appreciation for native cultures in the classroom—and 

so on. 

Students enter the classroom with multiple 

copies of their essays, ready for peer critique. 

They understand that constructive criticism 

is a form of respect, and settle down to work 

collectively to improve each paper. 

These departmental statements were then 

shared with the Forum committee, which 

sifted through the material, identifying 

those skills and attitudes valued by more 

than one department. From eight, to four, 

to two, and finally, to one page, we honed 

the Portrait to include those overlapping 

and crucial descriptors that reflect what we 

value and, ultimately, what we want to be 

sure that all students learn. Though charged 

with consideration of the academic program, 

many departments included qualities 

more traditionally associated with character 

education—evidence of a quality of the 

school often noted by alumni. At Taft, students 

learn as much about themselves as 

they do about math or science, and much 

of this character education occurs in the 

classroom. Whether it be ethical analysis 

of Hamlet’s decisions, consideration of the 

ways in which intolerance leads to conflict 

throughout history, or simply lower school 

teachers’ reminding students of the importance 

of getting enough sleep before a test, 

class discussion extends to issues much 

larger than a particular text or academic 

idea. Qualities such as honesty and integrity, 

an appreciation of community and 

diversity, understanding of the importance 

of healthy balance—these are as much a 

part of the academic curriculum as of the 

teaching that occurs in dorms, adviser meetings, 

athletics, arts, activities, and Morning 

Meetings. 

The teacher distributes a mixture of iron, 

sand, and salt; lower-mid science students, 

working in pairs, must find a way to determine 

the amount of each component in their 

sample. An art teacher assigns students to 

construct a clay structure: the only stipulation 

is that each piece must be 25 inches tall. 

All faculty members then discussed the 

Forum’s edited list, which went back to 



academic departments as well as those 

groups responsible for teaching students 

in areas beyond the classroom: the admissions 

group, dormitory heads, the alumni 

office, the school counselors, the athletic 

directors. At each meeting, questions 

arose, spirited discussion ensued, and the 

Portrait evolved. The more we talked, the 

more we discovered ways that the Portrait 

will help guide the design of athletic 

practices, rehearsals, conversations in the 

hallways, residential life, and discussions 

at sit-down dinner. Dormitory heads spoke 

of redesigning their student evaluation 

forms to reflect the relevant qualities list in 

the Portrait. A play director chooses to allow 

students to select—and then 

swap—roles during initial rehearsals, including 

actors in the decisions guiding the 

production. A soccer coach includes in his 

“curriculum” a definition of sportsmanship 

derived from statements in the Portrait, 

those requiring respect for others, honesty 

and integrity, and unselfishness. 

Fifteen students gather in the seminar 

room to discuss their progress in their research 

for senior seminar projects. One 

offers guidance in narrowing an Internet 

search. Another, researching forensic science, 

reports that she’s secured an interview 

with Dr. Henry Lee. The class brainstorms 

about questions she might ask. 

“Have exhibited” is a strong phrase to use 

in the preamble, one that prompted a 

number of discussions, and some doubt, 

among the faculty members who worked 

with this document. Questions arose: 

What if a student doesn’t demonstrate 

these qualities Why not suggest that these 

qualities were ones we hoped to teach, 

rather than insisting that all students provide 

evidence of their acting according to 

this outline Why was this important to 

our school if we felt that most students 

already, in fact, fulfilled this definition 

A math teacher distributes a test and leaves 

to refill her water bottle while students 

complete the assignment. 

It’s this insistence on “exhibited,” the 

necessity of students demonstrating their 

learning, that gives the Portrait its power. 

Many schools have a mission statement, 

a description of those tenets that they 

hope that teachers will instill in students. 

Our current Portrait inverts this more 

traditional statement: It instead defines 

what students will learn, rather than what 

we hope to teach. It requires that teachers 

provide opportunities for students to 

learn and, most importantly, to demonstrate 

their learning. Every teacher knows 

the feeling of believing that we’ve taught 

a skill—applications of the side-angleside 

theorem, or the importance of respecting 

classmates in discussion—only 

to encounter evidence (a set of bad quizzes, 

students’ continual interrupting) that 

demonstrates that they haven’t learned 

what we think we’ve taught. In these 

cases, the teacher must reconsider ways 

to help students learn the skill and to 

demonstrate their learning. The Portrait 

employs the same logic on a larger scale 

by asking students to provide evidence 

of their acting upon those characteristics 

listed in the Portrait. 

A middler begins “That’s an interesting 

comment” and offers a summary of the previous 

speaker’s idea before disagreeing with 

a classmate’s comment about Gandhi’s 

principles of nonviolence. 

It’s in the classroom that the Portrait may 

exact the biggest change. Although the 

process affirmed the value of what we do 

and the way we currently teach, it also 

points towards ways we might refine our 

practices. The Portrait will guide teachers 

in creating more varied forms of 

assessment designed to measure particular 

skills. Lab practicals in science classes, 

foreign language oral exams, writing 

portfolios, graded class debates—these all 

reflect teachers’ designing alternative 

projects with the clear purpose of assess- 

Nancy Demmon ’81


ing skills that aren’t measured on traditional 

written tests or papers. As teachers 

explain their designs to students, referring 

to those qualities of the Portrait that 

an assignment might draw on, learning 

becomes a responsibility shared between 

the teacher and students. 

A Jewish student invites a Roman Catholic 

friend to Shabbat dinner in the Living 

Room, a communal space outside the counseling 

and chaplain’s offices. Students at 

Morning Meeting listen to an upper mid 

explain his Independent Study Project on 

the conflict in the Middle East. 

None of the items in the Portrait are revolutionary. 

More, they refine and expand 

on the same ideals that Horace Dutton 

Taft first identified as goals for the school. 

The difference lies in the necessity of students’ 

exhibiting their understanding of 

these qualities—not through their work 

on any single test, but through demonstration 

in their daily actions. If a mid, 

noting a new student sitting alone in the 

dining hall, goes to sit with that new 

arrival and make him or her feel comfortable, 

that reveals an awareness of the 

importance of community and the active 

role of the school’s motto. A senior 

who independently researches the Biblical 

allusions in a James Joyce short story 

and shares her findings in class demonstrates 

intellectual curiosity, respect for 

her classmates, and her willingness to 

work on her own to solve academic problems—even 

when those problems aren’t 

assigned by her teacher. We, as faculty 

members, will need to actively recognize 

these moments, to teach students to be 

aware of and reflect on the ways they exhibit 

these ideals every day. As they learn 

to recognize the Portrait in their own actions, 

they will more often recognize 

these behaviors in their peers, creating a 

stronger community with clearly defined 

and shared goals. 

While checking in lower-school students at 

night, a corridor monitor notes a tired mid 

nodding over his list of irregular French 

verbs. The monitor suggests that the student 

go to bed, and offers to wake him up 

early so that he’ll have time to finish studying 

before breakfast. 

As we continually remind ourselves, 

the current Portrait is a living document, 

one which should change and 

evolve in response to our experience 

in using it. Designing it has been an 

exciting process involving the entire 

faculty and guiding our work going 

forward. The task ahead—shaping 

curriculum to provide more creative 

opportunities for reflective learning— 

already has faculty members thinking 

independently, sharing ideas, designing 

courses, and reflecting—exactly 

those behaviors that students will exhibit 

in defining our community. 

At her last class meeting before graduation, 

a senior writes a letter to herself—a required 

English assignment, but also a chance to 

reflect on her experience at Taft. She imagines 

walking across the stage at graduation, 

and considers the complex, shifting world 

she will enter. She’s ready, she knows, to meet 

those challenges, to lead positively and 

meaningfully. She knows this because she’s 

done so; she’s already exhibited those qualities 

that will allow her to continue to do so. 

She proudly seals the envelope, hands it to 

her teacher for a later mailing, and smiles. 

Debora Phipps is the new dean of academic 

affairs and holds the Holcombe T. Green 

Chair. She served as chair of the Faculty 

Forum committee that worked on the 

Portrait and will assume the position of 

academic dean next year. 

Faculty Forum committee members included 

Loueta Chickadaunce, Laura 

Erickson, Baba Frew, Bill Morris, Debbie 

Phipps, Linda Saarnijoki, Steve Schieffelin, 

Mike Townsend, and Jon Willson.


to 

Native 

Arts 

Susan Heard ’77 & the Alaska Native Arts Foundation 

By Linda Beyus

GRETCHEN SAGAN 

SUSAN HEARD ’77 

Iditarod race dogs resting at a checkpoint 

A Native doll 

From Taft 

to Teaching to 

Native Arts 

Susan Heard ’77 has a photo of herself taken 

on the Arctic Ocean—“The next stop is 

Santa Claus,” she laughs. How she ended 

up marketing Alaskan Native arts and following 

the Iditarod race after having been 

an East Coast kindergarten teacher is a story 

of serendipity plus commitment. 

As a Taft senior, Susan did volunteer 

work at the Watertown Montessori 

School that met in the front hall of CPT 

at the time. She fell in love with teaching, 

proven by the fact that she taught 

kindergarten for 21 years and also 

coached field hockey and lacrosse. Susan 

summers on Nantucket (about as removed 

from Alaska as one can get in the 

contiguous U.S.) where, for nine years, 

previous page: Rainy Pass where the 

Iditarod usually runs when snow is adequate. 

PHOTO BY SUSAN HEARD ’77 

inset: Susan Heard ’77 on the Arctic Ocean 

holding a precious piece of Native art 

she ran a day camp for three- to six-yearolds. 

At her Taft 25th Reunion in 2002 

Susan told fellow alumni she planned to 

leave teaching. Susan now works with the 

Alaska Native Arts Foundation where she 

is its marketing director for “the lower 

48 states,” she says—work that is both 

gratifying and challenging. 

The Alaska Native Arts Foundation, 

founded in 2002, is dedicated to 

supporting Alaska’s Native artists. Works 

of art marketed through the foundation, 

one of Susan’s responsibilities, will 

generate donations from retailers that 

will subsequently fund grants for arts 

education among Alaska’s Native population. 

She is excited about the progress 

they’ve made so far. 

Susan became involved with her new 

work through a founder of the Alaska 

Native Arts Foundation, Alice Rogoff 

Rubenstein from Nantucket. Alice had 

gone on a trip to Alaska, inspired by her 

son’s school, the Potomac School in 

Maryland, where third grade students 

follow the Iditarod dogsled race each year. 

Students track the progress of a musher 

through a computer. As Alice planned a 

2003 trip to Alaska, She persuasively told 

Susan, “You have to do this with me.” So 

off Susan went to follow the Iditarod in 

person this past March. 

In November 2002, Susan was invited 

by Alice to meet the 2002 winner 

of the Iditarod, Martin Buser, who was 

speaking at the National Geographic 

Society and at the Potomac School. 

“After meeting him and hearing about 

the race,” Susan says, “I fell in love 

with the dogs, the adventure, with the 

whole thing.” At the same time, she 

was invited to work for the foundation, 

not hesitating for one minute in 

her decision. She had been looking for 

something different to do, having 

spent many years as a teacher and 

wanting a change. 

The Iditarod 

Race 

If Susan was smitten by the Alaska bug 

when she first heard a lecture on the 

Iditarod, she was over the top when she 

witnessed her first race in person this 



An exquisite basket made of baleen 

March, visiting rural villages to purchase 

Native art objects. The only way to 

travel from checkpoint to checkpoint as 

a race bystander is by plane, snowmobile, 

or dogsled. Susan and her traveling 

companions opted for plane travel in a 

ski plane flown by Alaskan pilots Terri 

Smith, a foundation board member, and 

her husband Terry. Susan traveled the 

race route with founding board member 

Alice and her son, along with 

another friend and his son. 

The ceremonial start of the 

Iditarod race was in Anchorage. “I left 

32 inches of snow in Nantucket and 

flew to Anchorage where there was 

none!” she laughs. Since there was so little 

snow in Alaska this year, they trucked 

snow into the streets for the ceremonial 

start. The actual start of race was held 

later in Fairbanks. In fact, a whole new 

section of the course had to be created to 

provide a snow-covered route this year. 

The Iditarod mushers travel 1,100 

miles over mountain ranges, completing 

the race in anywhere from 10 to 14 days. 

Stopping points, mostly for the dogs to 

rest and be fed, can be 60 to 90 miles 

apart. Since mushers can’t carry all their 

supplies on their sled, the checkpoints offer 

tents for sleeping, hay bedding 

outdoors for the dogs, dog food, plus 

many veterinarians who check every 

single dog (as the mushers also do). 

Entrants usually keep a schedule such 

as six hours mushing and six hours resting. 

Interestingly, there is no doctor for 

the mushers themselves who are lucky 

if they can sleep for one or two hours at 

each stop since dog care and dog rest 

are the priorities. 

Finding 

Native Artisans 

Flying to different checkpoints on the 

Yukon River, Susan and her colleagues 

met Native artists all along the race route 

in very rural villages where the population 

ranges from 100 to 650 people. She 

says that when they arrived in each town, 

the word quickly got out as to whom they 

were—no trouble finding the local artists 

as a result. In one village, a woman 

they nicknamed “the mayor,” an artisan 


herself, had listened to a radio scanner 

so she quickly knew Susan’s group was 

flying in. The names of the villages they 

visited evoke a Native Alaskan culture 

that the rest of the U.S. knows little 

about: Kaltag, Unalakleet, Shaktoolik, 

Koyuk, Grayling, Eagle Island, and 

White Mountain. 

Susan and Alice purchased objects 

from the families of artisans they visited 

who sold the foundation beadwork, 

skinwork, and carved ivory. The foundation 

believes in paying fair and generous 

prices for the beautifully made works, 

knowing this is often the only source of 

income for many rural Native people. 

“They can’t go to K-Mart and buy a new 

pair of mittens,” Susan emphasizes. 

“They’ll make them out of skins—there 

is no fabric store down the street.” Rural 

Native houses might be built of plywood 

and look as if they’re barely standing up, 

but ironically, she says, they often have a 

satellite dish outside. 

“As you travel and meet the Natives 

they have artwork in their pockets,” Susan 

states. “They’ll pull a hand-carved object 

out of their pockets and say, ‘Do you like 

it’” She equates the rural Alaskan stores 

that sell everything from milk to snow 

shovels to eyeglasses, with Vermont 

country stores. “There might be a little 

table with unbelievable artwork under 

glass. Someone will have made a polar 

bear carving from fossilized ivory and 

traded it for diapers,” she says. It’s a practical 

way to buy what they need and can’t 

make themselves. 

Hunting 

and Gathering 

Alaskan Native people still hunt and gather 

Susan points out. They hunt and subsist 

on whale, walrus, moose, caribou, seal, and 

fish. The whole animal is used where possible. 

The village of Shishmaref in the far 

north is known for its fossilized ivory of 

mastodon and wooly mammoth. Before 


37


Bracelets made of fossilized ivory 

the incredulity of this sinks in to an outsider, 

Susan affirms that the fossilized ivory 

is millions of years old. “They find it while 

digging in their gardens, or it washes up 

on the beach,” she says. Bearing blue veins, 

fossilized ivory (see photo above) gets darker 

with age and makes exquisite carvings at 

the hand of native residents. 

They also carve the ivory of musk 

ox, a descendant of the wooly mammoth. 

“Musk ox…are hunted for their 

fur which is softer and warmer than 

cashmere,” Susan states. “When we were 

flying to Shishmaref, we were looking 

for polar bears and saw a whole musk 

ox herd. They were just wandering 

around—about 15 to 20 of them. Our 

pilot told us that they travel in groups 

and if they feel threatened, they back 

into a big circle with the young in the 

middle and their big horns facing out. 

That way, their predators think that they 

are huge, scary beasts—that’s why they 

have survived since prehistoric days. So, 

as we flew over them, Terry took a turn 

over the herd and they did exactly that. 

They backed right into each other and 

stared us down!” 

Showing 

the Artwork 

A marketing coup for the foundation is 

an offer from the Alaska State Council 

on the Arts to exhibit their collection 

of Eskimo dolls created by Native artists. 

“These beautiful dolls which depict 

indigenous life will travel the New England 

Coast this summer,” Susan says, 

and will be exhibited at nautical and 

whaling museums such as Connecticut’s 

Mystic Seaport, the Rotch-Jones-Duff 

House and Garden Museum in New 

Bedford, Mass., and Nantucket’s Whaling 

Museum. Historically, New 

England, Hawaii, and Alaska have had 

a connection due to the whaling industry. 

New England ships, for instance, 

ended up in Alaska so this former linkage 

makes sense for future exhibits. 

Susan is also happy to report that 

Native art from the foundation will be 

shown at the fall 2004 opening of the 

new Washington, D.C., location of the 

National Museum of the American Indian. 

Susan says the Alaska Native Arts 


Foundation will soon have available for 

sale through retailers a wide range of artwork 

such as jewelry, dolls, carvings (in 

ivory, soapstone, alabaster, fossilized 

whale bone), hairpieces, wearable art 

such as gloves, mittens, hats, parkas, and 

some prints and paintings. To see some 

of the items, visit its website: 

www.alaskanativearts.org. 

Successful inroads to retailers include 

a showcase of Native art works at 

Neiman Marcus in their Tyson’s Corner, 

Va., location this September. The 

Neiman Marcus exhibit, Susan notes, 

“is serendipitous and it’s huge.” Also, 

Gorsuch Ltd. will showcase Native arts 

from the foundation in both their Vail, 

Colo., store and 2003–04 catalog. 

The Native artisans create very highquality 

carving and beadwork but have 

very few places in which to sell it. As a 

result, the foundation will help them sell 

their works of art by finding new avenues 

where it can be marketed. Some of the 

younger Natives have not been interested 

in continuing the tradition of artwork because 

they don’t feel that they can make a 

living with it. “The cultural heritage up 

there is spectacular,” Susan notes, highlighting 

the need for a Native arts 

education program so that the skills of 

elders can be transmitted to the next generation. 

An arts education program is in 

the planning stages with the Univ. of 

Alaska in Fairbanks—“spirit camps” for 

Native boys and girls (similar to Girl and 

Boy Scout camps) that will focus on doing 

hands-on Native arts, helping keep 

the traditions alive. 

“I’m an educator at heart,” Susan 

notes. “It’s in my blood. It’s not just 

about selling [Native works of art] but 

about educating the lower 48 about the 

people and culture of Alaska’s Native 

population.” She is after all, still teaching, 

only now it is about the richness of 

a Native people and their culture here 

in the U.S. Susan Heard is helping prove 

that there is so much more to Alaska 

than a cruise along its waterways. 


Alumni Weekend began with a well-attended memorial 

service and an evening of class reunion dinners scattered 

throughout the area. Saturday’s forum with Headmaster 

Send in the clowns. 

Don’t Rain 

Our Parade 

on 

The high-spirited Class of ’53 marches up the hill. 

PHOTOGRAPHY BY PETER FINGER

TAFT ALUMNI WEEKEND 

Willy MacMullen ’78 and student representatives preceded an 

enthusiastic, bagpiper-led parade of alumni (while all held their 

breath that the rain would hold off for a while). 

The Class of ’53 stands in front of their 50th reunion gift, a connector to the new John L. Vogelstein ’52 Dormitory and two terraces. 

John Watling, Barclay Johnson and Geo Stephenson, all Class of ’53, share a moment 

with Headmaster Willy MacMullen ’78 during their 50th reunion. 

Despite foul weather, the parade goes on! 


Alumni awards, such as the Citation of Merit for 

Dr. Alfred G. Gilman ’58, were given and graciously 

accepted at the alumni luncheon, held in 

Lance Odden greets alumni lacrosse 

players before the game. 

Tafties of the next generation enjoy 

alumni weekend. 

Pam and Willy MacMullen ’78 join 

his class for the parade.

TAFT ALUMNI WEEKEND 

the McCullough Athletic Center. The success of Taft’s Annual Fund 

Campaign was also reported to supportive alumni donors. The weekend 

culminated with the Taft lacrosse team taking on the alumni and 

Class of ’43 members Renny Brighton, Woolly 

Bermingham, and Mike Tenney at their 60th reunion. 

Clarissa Lee, wife of Alumni Trustee Roger Lee ’90, 

Dyllan McGee ’89, and Jessica Oneglia Travelstead ’88 

at the alumni luncheon PETER TAFT ’53 

Henry Becton and John Morrissey celebrate their 

70th reunion. 

The Service of Remembrance at Christ Church on the Green 


an evening dinner. The smiles on the faces of alumni and 

their families said it all—it was a weekend to celebrate 

friends and the school where these friendships began. 

Paul Foster ’33 

helps lead the 

parade. 

Faculty emeritus Jol Everett prepares the 

alumni for battle. 

Bagpipers lead alumni through Centennial 

Arch to the luncheon.

Taft Bulletin 


Watertown, CT 06795-2100 

860-945-7777 

www.TaftAlumni.com 

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Non-profit Org. 

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Permit No. 101 

Burl., VT 05401 

save the 

date! 

Alumni 

Weekend 

May 14–15, 2004 

Notice: Postal regulations require the school to pay 

50 cents for every copy not deliverable as addressed. 

Please notify us of any change of address, giving 

both the new and old addresses. You may e-mail 

changes to TaftRhino@TaftSchool.org.

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