TaftSpr for pdf - The Taft School

B U L L E T I N 

Peter Berg 

S P R I N G • 2 0 0 5

B U L L E T I N 

Spring 2005 

Volume 75 Number 3 

Bulletin Staff 

Director of Development 

John E. Ormiston 

Editor 

Julie Reiff 

Alumni Notes 

Linda Beyus 

Anne Gahl 

Jackie Maloney 

Design 

Good Design, LLC 

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Proofreader 

Nina Maynard 

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: 

Linda Beyus 

Alumni Office 



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Deadlines for Alumni Notes: 

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Winter–November 15 

Spring–February 15 

Send address corrections to: 

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Alumni Records 



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1-860-945-7777 

www.TaftAlumni.com 

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. 

This magazine is printed on 

recycled paper.

F E AT U R E S 

The Quarterback Behind the Camera ...... 19 

Actor/director Peter Berg ’80 calls the plays 

By Sara Beasley 

School Bells and Wedding Bells ............ 23 

Alumni who married alumni 

By Julie Reiff 

Take Two ................................................ 38 

Teaching couple Rachael Ryan and Greg Hawes ’85 

By Jennifer Zaccara 

D E P A R T M E N T S 

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

Alumni Spotlight ................................... 3 

Around the Pond ................................... 9 

Sport ..................................................... 16 

Course Notes ........................................ 36 

HU41 The Humanities 

Endnote: The Flower Girl ...................... 44 

By Ben Steele ’98 

On the Cover 

Actor/director Peter Berg ’80 on location filming The Rundown. 

Berg says he’s happiest these days writing and directing 

(see page 19). MYLES ARONOWITZ 

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: 

Find a friend’s new address or look up back issues of the Bulletin 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. 

� One of the favorites 

from the Potter Gallery 

show of works by Bridget 

Starr Taylor ’77 was this 

illustration from Gargoyles’ 

Christmas written by Louisa 

Campbell (see page 10). 

PETER FREW ’75 

Don’t forget you can 

shop online at 

www.TaftStore.com

L E T T E R S 

From the Editor 

This issue of the magazine is a real sea change 

from the previous one, where most of the articles 

featured alumni around the globe and their present-day 

efforts to improve our environment. This 

time, we asked a number of alumni to look back 

on their time at Taft, for various reasons. 

It’s not often we have a movie star grace the 

cover of the Bulletin, but our profile of Peter Berg 

’80 has been long in coming (see page 19). I first 

noticed Berg in his 1991 film Late for Dinner, but 

didn’t realize he was a Taft graduate until I became 

a loyal fan of Chicago Hope (as much for Berg’s 

charming portrayal of hockey-playing doctor Billy 

Kronk as for the fact that it didn’t have as many 

gory scenes as E.R.). Since then I have followed 

his career with interest and finally had the chance 

to talk with him on the phone this fall about the 

release of Friday Night Lights (see Fall 2004). 

Letters 

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 

Congratulations on a fine winter issue. Those 

identified as “Serving the Environment” are to 

be applauded, as they are working to enhance our 

planet. All best wishes to our 1947 mates and 

those of lesser classes. 

—David M. Marsh ’47 

I was quite gratified to see the practical and nonideological 

approach to solving environmental 

problems portrayed in the recent Taft Bulletin. I 

feel a real kinship to these folks! Perhaps it should 

be the subject of ongoing programming on 

Alumni Weekend. I have been fortunate enough 

to be involved in a major wetlands restoration 

project on the Lower Colorado River—an area 

that, frankly, people had given up on. You can 

learn more about it on our website yumaheritage. 

com. We have also recently produced a half-hour 

documentary available on DVD. 

—Charles Flynn ’70 

2 Taft Bulletin Spring 2005 

It was natural to ask Berg about the path 

that has led to his success in Hollywood. Very 

little of it has to do with Taft, of course, but 

his interest in film was sparked here, and like 

many of us, he does look back on his adolescence 

and try to put some of those difficult 

years in perspective. 

Greg Hawes ’85, who returned to campus 

as a member of the faculty five years ago, has 

re-immersed himself in the scene of his adolescence, 

bringing with him his wife Rachael Ryan 

(see page 38). Together they form that increasingly 

rare breed at Taft: the teaching couple. And 

what’s more amazing is that, like Sue and Steve 

McCabe, they teach in the same department. 

Coaching, advising, and raising two boys of their 

own can be more than a full-time operation, but 

it is also, they say, very fulfilling. 

I read “Serving the Environment” in the last Taft 

Bulletin. You all did a wonderful job, and it is 

nice to see that Taft alumni are doing their part 

to make the world a better place to live for us and 

our children. I now work at Navigant Consulting 

and have been consulting in this field for 26 

years. Keep up the good work. Warm regards to 

all my old friends. I will be there for my 30th 

reunion in May! 

—Lisa Frantzis ’75 

And in response to the archive photograph on page 

46, we received the following letters. We asked 

“What’s up with the fishbowl?” 

Ask a silly question.... The fishbowl was the residence 

of Big Jean, of course. 

—Dexter Newton, former faculty 

At our request for further details, he also provided 

the following: 

Big Jean was given to me by a young lady 

friend outside a movie theater. “Happy birthday,” 

she said, and handed me a baggie full of 

water and a goldfish. She said she thought I 

needed some female companionship at the allboys 

school where I was teaching. She assured 

me that the fish was female; so I named it after 

her mother, and we went to the movie—Cool 

Hand Luke, which remained Big Jean’s favorite 

throughout her life. She loved the scene in 

which Newman eats all the hard-boiled eggs. 

That’s how I know that my friend was right; 

Big Jean was a female. A male would have 

And finally, I surveyed 62 graduates who 

married fellow Tafties—31 couples—asking 

them, among other things, how they came to 

be together and whether or not that relationship 

started at Taft (see page 23). It’s hard to 

imagine, most days, that teenagers are capable 

of choosing wisely at that age, and indeed, only 

a handful couples have had a continuous relationship 

since they started dating at Taft, but 

those bonds created at such vulnerable points in 

our lives can be powerful. We often talk about 

making lifelong friends in boarding school; how 

wonderful if one of those friends also turns out 

to be a partner for life. 

I look forward to hearing from you, so 

please keep those letters and stories coming. 

—Julie Reiff 

preferred the car-washing scene. Big Jean and 

I cohabitated in the Cruikshank Wing for the 

rest of my time at Taft. More than that about 

the nature of the Newtonian Society I am not at 

liberty to divulge. 

—Dexter Newton 

I observed with great amusement the photograph 

on page 46 of the winter 2005 Taft Bulletin. 

Standing, from left, are members of the Class 

of ’68 and the Newtonian Society as follows: 

Stephen Parsons, John Geer, Douglas Lawson, 

Peter Scherman, Richard deVillafranca, Robert 

Clark Jr., Charles Bahlman, and Thomas Shaw. 

Seated is faculty member Dexter Newton, who 

taught English. Naturally, I am unable to divulge 

the charter of the Newtonian Society. 

—Charles R. Bahlman ’68 

Newton provided unfailing kindness, patience, 

and an immense sacrifice of his privacy to that 

small group of Taft seniors in the Class of ’68. 

—Peter Scherman ’68

Kerney Goes to Pro Bowl 

Number 97 Patrick Kerney ’95 was on fire last season, leading the Falcons in sacks. JIMMY CRIB/FALCONS.COM 

The Atlanta Falcons’ most consistent 

pass rusher the last three seasons, Patrick 

Kerney ’95 made his first trip to the Pro 

Bowl this year following the third doubledigit 

sack season of his career. Kerney, a 

first-round draft pick in 1999 and former 

first team All-American at UVa, was also 

named NFC’s Defensive Player of the 

Month (September) by the NFL. 

In addition to leading the team in 

sacks (13), he is quickly moving up on 

the Falcons’ all-time sacks list with 47 

in six seasons. Kerney is tied with former 

Falcons defensive end John Zook 

(47 sacks from 1969–75) for third. The 

Falcons (11–5) lost to the Eagles in the 

NFC Championship game in January. 

The subject of numerous profiles 

A L U M N I S P O T L I G H T 

S P OT L I G H T 

this season, Kerney, at 6 feet, 5 inches 

and 273 pounds, has been called a “free 

spirit” and “quirky.” He is an active 

board member for Special Olympics of 

Georgia and is the Falcons’ United Way 

spokesperson. He also raises money for 

the Lt. Thomas L. Kerney Fund, created 

in memory of his brother—a police officer 

who was killed in the line of duty. 

Taft Bulletin Spring 2005 3

Joe Knowlton and Bing Bingham, both Class of ’64, as The Coachmen at Taft with classmate Tony Howe (center), “who was smarter 

than either of us and became a doctor,” says Knowlton. 

Best of Friends 

When classmates Joe Knowlton and 

Bing Bingham ’64 heard that an 

original pressing of their 1971 album 

Daybreak sold on eBay for $770, they 

decided it might be time to rerelease 

their music on CD. 

Their “white album,” as they called 

it, was a limited edition pressing of 

1,500 they sold at live shows. Knowlton 

and Bingham say they remember many 

“late nights spent applying the Xeroxed 

paste-up slicks to the LP,” their “own 

faces lovingly sketched by pal Betsy 

Byrne staring back” at them. 

Thanks to George Klabin ’64, 

Brazilian record producer Roberto 

Quartin heard some of the demos they 

were recording in New York and asked 

for an album’s worth of material. The best 

thing to come from this experience, they 

said, was their introduction to Eumir 

Deodato, a talented arranger, composer, 

and musician. “Eumir wrote several of 

the arrangements on the record, played 

some piano, and has been a good friend 

and supporter ever since,” they said. 

All totaled, there are four “distinctly 


different pressings” of the album—each 

with unique covers and track orders— 

from three different countries, including 

a bootleg version in Italy. Unbeknownst 

to them, “Joe and Bing” acquired the 

band name Best of Friends on all but 

their “white album.” 

The remastered album includes 

seven previously unreleased tracks. All 

but three songs—Stephen Stills’ “Love 

the One You’re With,” Harry Nilsson’s 

“Without Her,” and the traditional 

folk tune “Fennario”—are originals by 

Knowlton and Bingham and published 

by Brandreth Music Company. 

“We are delighted (and surprised) 

at the rerelease,” said Knowlton. “And 

to think it all started at Taft.” 

In fact, their collaboration started 

when Knowlton was assigned as 

Bingham’s “old boy” back in 1962. 

They “got along famously thanks to a 

common love of music and its special 

ability to excite the mind, promote 

spiritual growth and (most importantly) 

to attract the attention of girls at nearby 

Westover School.” 

In addition to regular appearances at 

Taft and neighboring schools, the band 

traveled as far south as Washington, 

D.C., for shows at the Madeira School 

and a number of clubs in Georgetown. 

Bingham and Knowlton went on 

to Williams College and still performed 

as The Coachmen, but took a break in 

1965 when both of them enlisted in the 

Army. They reunited in New York after 

both spent time in Vietnam. 

In 1976, they made their national 

television debut on the Dinah Shore 

Show. After a flurry of activity that took 

them well into the late ’70s, they went 

their separate ways, pursuing a variety of 

artistic enterprises, but they stayed with 

music and stayed in touch. 

Bingham is now director of college 

counseling at The Marvelwood School, 

and Knowlton is director of academic 

technology at Greenwich Academy. A 

new CD is already in the works for 2005. 

This one, titled Destiny, will feature all 

previously unreleased tracks and three or 

four new songs, so stay tuned! For more 

information, visit www.joeandbing.com.

Energy in Iraq 

Joseph W. Bishop ’74 recently spent 

time in Iraq, working on a single Pratt & 

Whitney gas turbine in Bayji, about 150 

miles north of Baghdad. The plant only 

generated about 20 megawatts, which 

is less than one percent of Iraq’s needs, 

he said, “but it did make a difference. 

Loud explosions, gunfire, and immense 

pipeline fires in the distance constantly 

hampered our efforts and reminded us 

of the danger at hand. The closest U.S. 

soldiers were a good 40 minutes away. 

“Security was on everyone’s minds,” 

he said. “I had committed to go only a 

few days before the Fallujah killings 

when everything changed for civilian 

contractors. The most dangerous part 

was transportation within country. 

We would travel in convoys of three 

to five SUVs at speeds of close to 100 

mph. A number of our convoys were 

attacked, and one South African guard 

and a number of Iraqis were killed while 

transporting people I knew. 

“We were very isolated at our site. 

In five months I only left an area the 

size of several football fields a few times. 

I was one of the few Americans who 

Carol Simon 

Carol Simon recently completed her 

18th season at the helm of the Brandeis 

University Judges women’s basketball 

team. Her success there has made her one 

of the most respected Division III coaches 

in New England, receiving the University 

BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY/JIM SPIRAKIS 

did not have a firearm in my room. We 

never ventured into town although I did 

interface with a large number of Iraqi 

workers at the site. As part of our security 

training I avoided political discussions 

with them,” he said. 

“I put a lot of effort into letting the 

Athletic Association Coaching Staff of the 

Year honors in 1992 and again in March. 

“Simon’s specialty is picking off smart 

kids who just happen to be star basketball 

players,” wrote the Boston Globe, including 

some who pass up Division I scholarship 

offers to attend Brandeis. 

“I look for kids that are self- 

motivated, disciplined, and who are willing 

to take on a challenge,” Simon told the 

Globe. “If they’re committed to athletics 

and academics, I know we’ll be fine.” 

Since 1987, Simon has led Brandeis to 

three New England Women’s Eight tournament 

titles, three regular season crowns, 

and three berths in the ECAC Division 

III New England tournament, including 

back-to-back titles last year and this year. 


Joe Bishop ’74 and a guard at the Bayji Electric Generation facility in Iraq last September. 

The fire is in the Tigres River after an attack on a major pipeline, which would occur each 

month like clockwork at this location, he said. 

Iraqis know I wanted to be their friend,” 

Bishop explained. “We were apprehensive 

of each other at first, but got along 

well with time. A few of them apparently 

received serious threats for working 

too closely with us. I can only hope 

that I made a difference.” 

The nationally ranked Judges play 

in the University Athletic Association, 

a far-flung conference that includes 

Carnegie Mellon, Emory, NYU, and the 

University of Chicago. 

A native of Middlebury, Connecticut, 

Simon was a member of Colby’s ECAC 

Division III women’s basketball championship 

teams in 1984 and 1985. A threesport 

athlete, she captained the team her 

senior year, while also serving as captain 

of the soccer and softball teams. Perhaps 

a highlight to her personal athletic career, 

Simon represented the United States in 

the 1981 World Maccabiah Games. 

—Sources: Brandeis.edu 

and the Boston Globe 



In Print 

Another Tree in the Yard 

By Lucia Sera 

Illustrated by John Iorio ’79 

Vocalis, 2004 

A Soulful Season 

A Jazz Celebration of 

Holiday Classics 

Niro Satchi Feliciano ’94 

2004 

All proceeds go to Angel Tree 

Ministry 

Means of Escape: 

Memoirs of Vietnamese 

Immigrants and Refugees 

Living in the Merrimack 

Valley of Massachusetts 

Peggy Rambach ’76 

2004 

Daybreak: Joe and Bing 

Originally released in 1971 

as Best of Friends 

Joe Knowlton ’64 and 

Bing Bingham ‘64 

Rev-Ola Records, 2004 

(See page 4) 


Techno Goalie 

It was a routine investigation into a 

“phishing” scam. Phishing is what computer 

hackers call a scheme setting up a 

fake Web site to look like a real one, say, a 

bank or an online store. The fake site acts 

as a depository for credit card and bank 

account numbers, and the scammer can 

then use those accounts to commit some 

serious identity theft and fraud. 

Chris Ries ’01, a senior at Colby 

College who also served as the starting 

goalie on the White Mules ice hockey 

team, was poking around the site trying 

to fi nd out where all the illicitly obtained 

info was going, when he found an open 

directory. There, Ries found spam tools 

for sending out those nuisance mass 

e-mails, text fi les with hundreds of credit 

card numbers, and templates for dozens 

of fake web pages. 

“That was a big fi nd for us,” Ries 

said. “We turned it over to law enforcement. 

A lot of stuff we were working on 

led to federal cases.” 

For Ries, it was another kick save, 

and a beauty. 

On the ice, Ries had his best season 

between the pipes for the Mules, including 

the fi rst shutout in 42 games of defending 

national champion Middlebury. Off 

Salud 

Neena Qasba ’02 chose to study at 

Johns Hopkins because she wants to go 

to medical school, but she has already 

discovered that “there’s a whole other 

side of medicine that’s just as important 

as the proteins and receptors we’re 

learning about.” 

A native of Torrington, Connecticut, 

Qasba has helped form an organization 

called Programa Salud to overcome 

the barriers that make it diffi cult for 

Baltimore’s Hispanic residents to receive 

proper health care. 

“The purpose of our organization 

is to alleviate the cultural and linguistic 

the ice, Ries is using his computer science 

knowledge to keep your computer from 

becoming an expensive paperweight. 

“I’ve been into computers a very 

long time, since the fourth or fi fth 

grade,” Ries, said. “I was interested in 

the Internet early on, and one of the big 

issues was security.” 

For his senior honors project, 

Ries is analyzing computer viruses and 

worms. Working with the Computer 

Emergency Response Team, based in his 

hometown of Pittsburgh, Ries is trying 

to fi nd new variations of old viruses and 

worms. Just as the fl u virus mutates every 

few years and becomes resistant to 

treatment, computer viruses are constantly 

being changed just enough to 

slip past the latest antivirus technology. 

“(Hackers) sort of tweak it so it can 

escape antivirus tools, then we update 

the antivirus and they change again,” 

Ries said. “What I’m sort of looking at is 

fi nding new variants based on old ones.” 

The goal of Ries’s project is to stay 

ahead of the hackers. If the antivirus developers 

can determine how a computer 

bug is going to change, they’ll be ready 

to knock it out when it does. Ries has a 

collection of approximately 130 viruses 

Neena Qasba ’02, third from left, with 

fellow Salud members Shanti Shenoy, 

Mara Youdelman, and Elizabeth Kim at 

Salud’s third annual student leadership 

conference.

and worms, picked up from old mailing 

list archives, hacker Web sites, and 

friends. He has them running safely on 

a computer in his room, where he can 

study them and try and find where the 

code hackers will try and change them. 

If there’s a virus out there ready to chew 

up your computer files, Ries is confident 

he can stop it. 

barriers that many Hispanics/Latinos 

in Baltimore encounter when seeking 

medical care,” she said. 

To accomplish this goal, Programa 

Salud targets two populations. First, 

the Hispanic/Latino community itself 

through health fairs, health education 

presentations, and community outreach. 

Second, they target their healthcare 

providers through cultural competency 

training and interpretation services. 

“With our volunteers expanding 

from undergraduate students, to graduate, 

public health, and medical students, 

we are increasing our partner institutions 

After graduation in May, Ries has a 

job lined up with Vigilantminds, a 

Pittsburgh company specializing in computer 

security. He’ll approach the job the 

same way he approaches hockey. 

“I like the idea,” Ries said, “of being 

the last line of defense.” 

—Travis Lazarczyk, Morning Sentinel 

throughout Baltimore to achieve our 

goals of health promotion and cultural 

competency education,” Qasba said. 

She started the collaboration between 

other schools last year. In April, 

the group hosted its fourth leadership 

conference, Changing the Face 

of Health: Addressing Diversity and 

Disparities in Health Care, hoping to 

motivate students to start similar programs 

at their own schools. For more 

information, visit www.jhu.edu/salud. 

—Source: 

Baltimore Sun, Johns Hopkins Gazette 

TOM STURTEVANT 

Galen Cheney ’80, After the Wave, 

oil and mixed media on canvas, 

53 x 33 in., 2004 HOWARD ROMERO 

On and Off 

the Wall 

Recent and upcoming exhibits by 

alumni artists 

The Wave 

Galen Cheney ’80 

February 24–March 26 

Galerie 1225 Art et Vin 

Montréal, Québec 

Elements of Light 

William Hudders ’82 

January 26–February 23 

The Gallery 

Northampton Community College 

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 

Surfacing 

Annie Olson ’01 

January 29–February 5 

Belk Visual Arts Center 

Davidson College 

Davidson, North Carolina 



Beanpot 

Boston University goalie John Curry ’03 

had something other than romance on 

his mind on Valentine’s Day this year as 

his team faced Northeastern in the final 

game of the annual Beanpot Tournament 

at the sold-out Fleet Center in Boston. 

The sophomore goalie might 

have faced a number of other Tafties 

in the tournament, including Boston 

College captain Ryan Shannon ’01, 

except for a separated shoulder that 

kept Curry out until the final game 

against Northeastern, with B.U. winning 

the game 3–2 in overtime. 

Despite B.U.’s frequent success in 

the tournament—winning 26 titles in 

its 53-year history—the Terriers were 

not expected to take the trophy this year, 

but upset top-ranked Boston College in 

the first round. 

Curry is a bit of an underdog himself. 

A third-string walk-on last year, 

In Brief 

Golden Eagle 

First to Worst, a PBS documentary by 

John Merrow ’59 that chronicles the 

rise and fall of California’s public school 

system, was awarded the CINE Golden 

Eagle in the investigative news category 

(www.cine.org). 

The CINE Golden Eagle Film and 

Video Competitions acknowledge high 

quality professional production in a 

variety of content categories. Merrow’s 

company, Learning Matters, previously 

received a Golden Eagle in 1995 for 

Caught in the Crossfire. 

First to Worst traces California’s education 

crisis to the anti-tax movement 

of the 1970s and ’80s and to civil rights 

lawsuits that aimed to equalize school 

spending but resulted instead in disastrous 

funding limits on schools. 


Boston University goalie John Curry ’03 came back from a separated-shoulder injury in 

time to defend the net against Northeastern in the finals of the Beanpot Tournament at 

the sold-out Fleet Center. BRIAN BABINEAU/GETTY IMAGES 

he was expected to challenge for playing 

time, but started for more than 

25 games this season and compiled a 

15–8–2 record and .928 save percentage. 

Curry, Shannon, and Jamie Sifers 

Op-Ed 

Lawyer and author Phil Howard ’66 

wrote an Op-Ed for the New York 

Times that was published in December. 

In “You Can’t Buy Your Way Out of a 

Bureaucracy” he talked about a recent 

court panel’s attempts to fix America’s 

schools. “All things being equal,” he 

wrote, “more money is always welcome. 

But no one knows where it will come 

from. Worse, experience shows that failing 

social institutions are rarely resuscitated 

by money alone.” Howard is also the 

founder of Common Good, a bipartisan 

legal reform group (www.cgood.org). 

Access v. Accountability 

Arizona state senator Slade Mead ’80 had 

an article in the fall issue of the College 

Board Review’s Recommendations from 

Eight Great Leaders: Making Education 

Work in America. “Recent demands for 

’02 (UVM) were among the 15 semifinalists 

this year for the Walter Brown 

Award, the oldest nationally recognized 

honor accorded to individual players in 

American college hockey. 

greater school accountability, by testing 

all students, have hurt the special needs 

population,” he wrote. Mead, the parent 

of a special needs child, praises the 

increased access children with disabilities 

have gained in the last 30 years, but stresses 

that standardized tests should only be 

applied to the mainstream population. 

“It is unfair to require special needs students 

to be tested in the same way.” The 

magazine also included viewpoints from 

Edward Kennedy and Jeb Bush. 

Soloist 

Violinist Katalin Viszmeg ’95 performed 

with the Hartt Symphony Orchestra in 

December at The Bushnell’s Belding 

Theater. Conducted by Christopher 

Zimmerman and Mickey Reisman, the 

orchestra performed Stravinsky’s Firebird 

Suite, Chausson’s Poème op. 25 for Violin 

and Orchestra featuring Viszmeg, and 

Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances.

Odds on Favorite 

Homer’s epic tales of Odysseus came 

alive on stage in Bingham Auditorium 

this spring through the talents of 

master storyteller Odds Bodkin, an 

award-winning performer, musician, 

and educator. He served as storyteller in 

residence for the day, performing scenes 

from The Odyssey in Morning Meeting, 

telling stories at the daycare center in 

late morning, holding a Doorway to 

Imagination workshop on storytelling 

for students, and closing the day with 

a collection of tales from around the 

world in the Choral Room. 

AROUND THE 

A multivoiced character actor and 

instrumentalist, Bodkin tells a wide 

range of stories self-accompanied on 

twelve-string guitar, electric guitar, 

Celtic harp, grand piano, pipes, drums, 

African sanza, and Indian sitar. The New 

York Times dubbed him “a consummate 

storyteller” while Time Out New York 

wrote, “armed with only a guitar and 

a microphone, this versatile performer 

effortlessly creates sounds of weather, 

objects, animals, not to mention dozens 

of colorful characters.” His most 

recent recording, Little Proto and the 

A R O U N D T H E P O N D 

SAMUEL P.C. DANGREMOND ’05 

Volcano’s Fire, won the Parents’ Choice 

Silver Award. He also received the 

Oppenheim Platinum Award for Best 

Children’s Audio, in addition to many 

other awards and honors. 

Bodkin taught storytelling and 

imagination for seven years at Antioch 

New England Graduate School while 

pursuing a full-time career as a children’s 

author and musical storyteller. He has 

been a featured teller at the National 

Storytelling Festival and performed 

twice at the White House. For more 

information, visit www.oddsbodkin.com. 



Kaffi r Boy 

Visiting author Mark Mathabane 

grew up in intense poverty in 

South Africa under apartheid. He 

recounts the story of his childhood 

and his escape from the ghetto of 

Alexandra—one of the country’s 

notorious black townships—in 

the autobiographical Kaffir Boy. 

Inspired by Arthur Ashe and 

aided by Stan Smith, Mathabane 

tells how tennis became his “passport 

to freedom.” 

Kaffi r Boy won a prestigious 

Christopher Award and was a New 

York Times bestseller. Its sequel, 

Kaffi r Boy in America, was also a national 

bestseller. 

Mathabane is also the author 

of Love in Black and White, African 

Women: Three Generations, Ubuntu, 

and Miriam’s Song. He studied at 

the Poynter Media Institute and 

Columbia Graduate School of 

Journalism. He was a White House 

Fellow in 1997. 

He spoke in Morning Meeting 

and visited with students throughout 

the day. 


The illustrious Miss Hildy brightened the Potter Gallery during an exhibit of works by 

illustrator Bridget Starr Taylor ’77. PETER FREW ’75 

Making Books Come Alive 

Rockwell Visiting Artist Bridget 

Starr Taylor ’77 exhibited her beautiful 

drawings and illustrations in the 

Potter Gallery in January. 

Taylor lives and works in New 

York City and has illustrated numerous 

children’s books, including Animal 

Friends, Ten Surprise Packages for 

Squiggle Street, Where’s Whitney?, 

Miss Hildy’s Missing Cape Caper, 

Harry McNairy, Tooth Fairy. 

Taylor has had illustrations published 

in the New York Times, Sports 

Illustrated, Highlights Magazine, 

Publishers Weekly, MacUser, and 

the National Review. She earned a 

bachelor’s degree from Rhode Island 

School of Design. She is married to 

John R. Coston, an editor at Wall 

Street Journal, and is the stepmother 

of Winnifred Coston and mother of 

Reed ’06 and Elias ’08.

Big Brothers, Big Sisters 

Jessica Giannetto ’05 has recently resurrected 

the Big Brother Big Sister (BBBS) 

program on campus. 

“Taft had participated before,” she 

said, but not for a while. Her oldest 

sister, Stephanie ’01, was the head of 

Enduring Legacy 

People are the foundation of our school. 

Thousands of students and faculty have 

walked these halls. Daily, as we make 

our own journey through the school, we 

are reminded of those who have gone 

before us—reminded by the names memorialized 

in so many of Taft’s buildings 

and rooms. But the passage of time 

wears away at memories until they are 

it when she was here. “I love kids and 

thought that it would be a great program 

at Taft,” said Jessica. “It gives us 

the chance of getting involved with the 

surrounding community.” 

BBBS is a mentor program that pairs 

so thin that only the name remains. 

Bingham is one such name, but 

a recent bequest from Harry Payne 

Bingham ’32 has revived the tale of this 

family’s generosity. 

Students make their daily migration 

to Bingham Auditorium for Morning 

Meeting or assembly, and again on 

the weekend to watch a movie or a 

play, but few know of the family who 

made it possible. Given by Harry 

Bingham 1905 and his sister Elizabeth 

Bingham Blossom, the auditorium 

was the closest thing to a chapel on 

campus for 75 years. 

Bingham’s son Harry arrived in 

Watertown in the fall of 1928 and was 

a student here when Mr. Taft was conceiving 

his plans for the replacement 

of the old Warren House—the white 

gingerbread hotel to which he had 

moved the school in 1893. By 1929, the 


children with a mentor. For the Taft program, 

parents bring their kids between 

the ages of 6 and 12 to Taft to meet their 

“big” once a week for about two hours. 

Jessica and her co-head Abbey 

Cecchinato ’05 also organize events for the 

entire group; one was planned for March 

and another for May. Last year the kids 

scaled the climbing wall in Cruikshank at 

one party and played tag and capture the 

flag outside in the spring. 

“We have access to all Taft facilities, 

including the gym, student union, computer 

labs, and dining hall,” Jessica said. 

“Some play computer and video games 

or soccer or basketball. In the winter 

others go sledding or play cards, or hang 

out in the dorms.” 

Students who would like to be a Big 

Brother or Big Sister fill out an application 

and are interviewed by representatives 

from BBBS. For more information, 

visit www.bbbsi.org. 

wooden structure had been torn down 

and the construction of Charles Phelps 

Taft Hall was well underway. At the east 

end of the building, Taft wanted a place 

where the whole school could gather for 

assemblies and nightly Vespers. 

Bingham’s father had written, upon 

learning that the space would bear his 

name, “There is no institution in the 

country that I would rather have my 

name permanently connected with than 

The Taft School.” 

Young Harry died in January, leaving 

a legacy to the school surpassing 

his father’s. A quiet and mostly anonymous 

philanthropist, he was a major 

benefactor of many organizations and 

recently gave his Vermont home to the 

Southwestern Vermont Medical Center 

in Bennington. He had previously given 

his Florida ranch to the Audubon 

Society. A tribute appears on page 43. 



Sonatas 

Walker Hall was filled with beautiful 

music in January as flutist 

Vanessa Holroyd ’90 returned to 

campus to perform with pianist Joy 

Cline Phinney. Their program presented 

sonatas by Bach, Poulenc, 

Taktakishvili, along with Bourne’s 

Carmen Fantasie. 

Holroyd is on the chamber 

music faculty for the Greater Boston 

Youth Symphony and a member 

of Acadian Winds, a Bostonbased 

professional woodwind 

quintet. A graduate of Yale and 

McGill universities, she was a top 

prizewinner in the 2002 Young 

Artist Competition sponsored by 

the National Flute Association 

and is a frequent soloist with 

Vermont’s Rochester Chamber 

Music Society. She is also the 

daughter of the late Chaplain 

Peter Holroyd (1969–92). 

Holroyd and Phinney have 

been featured artists with the 

Westford Chamber Music Society 

and the Steinert & Son Concert series 

among other. They have twice 

toured the U.S. Virgin Islands, 

performing at the Tillet Gardens 

Arts Alive festival and the Historic 

Whim House concert series. 

Felecia Washington Williams ’84 and Chaplain Michael Spencer welcome Dr. Ibrahim Ramey 

Martin Luther King Day 

Dean of Multicultural Affairs Felecia 

Washington Williams ’84 says she wanted 

this year’s celebration of Martin Luther 

King Jr. to “allow us to pause as an entire 

community and reflect on his legacy of 

diversity, justice and civil rights.” 

The celebration involved students 

and faculty and worked with various 

media—print, song, speech, and movie. 

Importantly, we stopped our “business 

as usual.” 

The Diversity Committee worked 

hard, she pointed out, to create a series of 

events that did justice not only to King but 

also to our community. Events included a 

screening of the movies Amistad and the 

civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize. 

Dr. Ibrahim Ramey, the director 

of Disarmament for the Fellowship of 

Reconciliation, was the keynote speaker 

at an all-school meeting in Bingham, 

followed by an optional question and 

answer session in the Choral Room. 

Student returned to Bingham in the afternoon 

for a celebration of song, music, 

poetry, and reading. 

Faculty prepared discussion groups 

and 30–45-minute workshops on such 

varied topics as the 1964 civil rights 

march to Selma; Jackie Robinson and 

the integration of major league baseball; 

poetry of Langston Hughes; the legacy 

of Malcolm X; Duke Ellington: the 

Man and His Music; integration and 

bussing in Boston; and a workshop of 

African-American dance. 

The dining hall provided a soulfood 

feast to end the day. 

Ordained 

The entire school community was invited 

to attend the ordination service of school 

chaplain Michael Spencer in Waterbury 

at St. John’s Church on January 16. 

Collegium Musicum, members of the 

Chamber Ensemble, and other students 

and faculty were also involved in the 

service, which was followed by a “festive 

Feast.” Joining Michael for the ceremony 

were his wife Amy and children Aidan and 

Katherine. PETER FREW ’75

Postcard from Watertown 

Mr. MacMullen surprised us all by declaring Friday, February 

25, a Headmaster’s Holiday. The day gave upper mids a chance 

to work on their term papers, and the school also offered 

students the opportunity to go to New York City and see 

“The Gates” by artists Christo and Jean-Claude. I was one of 

the 31 Tafties who went to see it. We had about four 

hours in the city. The bus 

dropped us off at The 

Met, and we walked south 

through the park. After 

ending up around 61st 

Street, a group of about 

ten of us ate lunch at the 

Italian restaurant Serafi na. 

After lunch, we woefully 

boarded the bus to come 

back to campus for classes 

the next day. 

—Sam Dangremond ’05 



Vintage Comedy 

Students and their families were treated to 

performances of Moss Hart’s and George 

Kaufman’s well-loved comedy You Can’t 

Take It With You on the February Parents 

Weekend. Directed by Helena Fifer, the play’s 

fabulous set sent audiences back to 1936, at 

the Manhattan home of patriarch Martin 

Vanderhof, played by Javier Garcia ’05. 

The cast also included seniors Lily 

Cowles and Mac Morris (at left) as well as 

Nell Maltman, Spenta Kutar, Camden Flath, 

Donald Molosi, Madeleine Dubus, Eric 

Roper, Alexandra Kelly, Monica Raymunt, 

and Mike Negron; upper mids Michael 

Davis, Brian Romaine, John Ale, Matt 

Nelsen, and Skye Priestley; middler Sara 

Partridge, and lower mid Charlie Fraker. 

Support for the production was provided 

by the James G. Franciscus ’53 and James 

Hollyday Webb ’92 theater funds. 

To: 

Taft Bulletin Spring 2005 13 

JANA DRAPER


Tuning In 

Hockey fans were able to tune in to a live 

webcast of the girls’ and boys’ ice hockey 

games against Choate in February. 

Publicity director Jon Guiffre recruited 

the help of seniors Zach Schonbrun and 

Peter Murphy, who hosted the broadcast 

and provided color commentary as 

well as analysis and interviews during 

the intermissions. 

“We were also lucky to have John 

Mengual from ESPN, to do the play-byplay 

during both games,” said Guiffre, 

who had organized an earlier campusonly 

test broadcast. “Feedback was very 

positive, so we had cautiously high hopes 

for the Choate game. We overcame a few 

minor technical problems, and the broadcasting 

staff got a better idea of what it 

would take to get a good broadcast off. 

“I hope Zach and Peter pave the 

way for many more students who 

want to get involved with this project. 

Having a weekly radio sports show of 

their own already on WRED gave them 

an opportunity to hone their skills. And 

I hope we can continue to train a core of 

students who are interested in this sort 

of thing, by having them mentor with 

more experienced broadcasters.” 


Seniors Zach Schonbrun and Peter Murphy are joined by ESPN’s Chris Berman during 

the school’s first live webcast. PETER FREW ’75 

In a lucky coincidence, ESPN’s 

Chris Berman made an appearance 

on the webcast. “He was at the game 

watching his son’s roommate play for 

Choate,” said Guiffre, “and chatted 

with Mengual, and Zach and Peter between 

the first and second periods. The 

broadcasting trio seamlessly adjusted 

their intermission plans to accommodate 

the special guest.” 

“We’ve had great feedback so 

far,” he said. “An alum e-mailed from 

Middlebury saying it was great; she was 

folding laundry and listening to the 

game. Another family told us they made 

it home in time for the game and set up 

their computer in the kitchen and listened 

in while they made dinner.” 

A lot of the credit goes to Mark Bodnar 

and Rob Prigioni from the Information 

Technology Department, he added, “who 

really enabled this to happen.” 

Guiffre intends to do several more 

tests, in an outdoor venue as well as trying 

to broadcast a musical performance 

or speaker. He hopes to provide webcasts 

on a much larger scale next year. “We 

envision a full three-season broadcast 

schedule of varsity sporting events, musical 

performances, speakers, and theatrical 

performances. Down the road, these 

broadcasts could include video as well.” 

To tune in, listeners need only 

connect to the Internet and visit www. 

taftsports.com, where there is a link for 

“Audio Broadcasts and Video Clips.” 

BONNIE WELCH 

Alumni on Ice 

The Alumni Hockey Game on Feb. 

26, organized by Jake Odden ’86, 

drew 36 alumni back to Watertown 

to play in a spirited game in Odden 

Arena, with a final score of 6–4. 

Willy MacMullen ’78 captured the 

first goal. Other scorers include 

Chris Wandelt ’96, Jeff Potter ’80, 

John Plume ’91, Carl Erdman ’77, 

John Lieber ’91, Jake Odden ’86, 

Nick Tuozzolo ’89, and varsity 

coach Dan Murphy.

Tsunami Relief 

The Volunteer Program was especially active 

in the wake of the major tsunami in 

December. Raising over $3,300 in a matter 

of weeks, students organized a rock 

concert, bake sales, and lapel ribbons to 

support the Red Cross. They also continued 

the recent tradition to “Redress 

for Charity,” in which girls traded dresses 

or wore ones they already owned to this 

year’s formal dance and donated what they 

would have spent to Save the Children. 

In Brief 

Math Team 

In the space of five Tuesdays, the school 

hosted three math contests, including 

the third and fourth round of the New 

England Mathematics League. 

The American Mathematics Competition 

took place on February 1. “It 

comes in two flavors,” said Math Team 

adviser Ted Heavenrich, “one aimed 

at lower schoolers and one aimed at 

kids in Honors PreCal and higher.” A 

25-question multiple-choice test, the 

AMC is the first round in qualifying 

for the U.S. Mathematics Olympiad. 

Black History Month 

Director of Multicultural Affairs Felecia 

Washington Williams ’84 organized a 

number of events on campus in February 

in celebration of Black History Month. 

Screenings of the movies Rosewood 

and Malcolm X and a special soul-food 

dinner were among the activities, as 

well as an interschool dance and an 

interviewing Workshop with Jacqueline 

Rosa ’82. Students ended the month 

with a Spoken Word and Music 

Celebration. The highlight for many 

was a visit by author Mark Mathabane 

(see story on page 10). 

A number of faculty participated 

as well, by showing off their fine cooking 

skills as well as their desire to make 

the world a better place. Students looking 

for an alternative to dining hall fare 

contributed $10 or more per person 

and in exchange, teachers opened their 

homes to students and their friends for 

a home-cooked meal. Proceeds went to 

AmeriCares, a nonprofit disaster relief 

and humanitarian aid organization pro- 

To Recite or Not to Recite 

Sarah Pyfrom and Penelope Smith tied 

for first place in the Mid Class Sonnet 

Recitation Contest, with Ned Durgy 

taking second. 

An all-school Shakespeare Recitation 

competition followed, in which first 

place went to Tory Church. Sarah 

Pyfrom placed second, and honorable 

mentions were given to Mac Morris and 

Penelope Smith. 

Participants memorized a monologue 

of 17 to 20 lines, or a sonnet, to 

enter the competition. Costumes were 

not permitted. Judges in the all-school 

competition were drama teacher Helena 

Fifer, head monitor Sean O’Mealia ’05, 

Chaplain Michael Spencer, and English 

teacher Michael Townsend. 

Tory went on to represent the 

school at the regional competition in 

New Haven on March 2. 

Winter Dance Spree 

Dance classes are back! Students learned 

hip-hop with Josue Jasmin this winter. 

Evening classes, which took place in 

the Pailey Dance Studio, were open to 

students and faculty free of charge. 


viding immediate response to emergency 

medical needs, as well as supporting longterm 

humanitarian assistance programs. 

“The need is huge and the work 

has only just begun,” said Baba Frew. 

“Students will also be doing a local food 

drive for the Watertown Food Bank, 

a clothing drive for the St. Vincent 

dePaul shelter, and have a pajama 

day planned to help support continued 

relief efforts.” 

A Little Dixie 

Taft’s Dixieland Jazz Band performed 

songs by Jelly Roll Morton, Spencer 

Williams, Louis Armstrong, Duke 

Ellington, D.J. LaRocca, and Wynton 

Marsalis in Walker Hall this January. 

Guest artists were Omar Butler and 

Louis Romao on banjo. 

A recent Juilliard graduate and 

current master of music student at Yale 

Conservatory, Butler has performed 

with Wynton Marsalis, Victor Goines, 

the James Carter Quartet, as well as 

the Carnegie Hall Jazz Orchestra. His 

classical experience includes performing 

with the Waterbury Symphony as 

well as Kathleen Battle and the Detroit 

Symphony Orchestra. 

In addition to teaching guitar at 

Taft, Romao is also the music director of 

the Connecticut Classical Guitar Society 

Guitar Ensemble and is on the faculty at 

Naugatuck Valley Community College 

in Waterbury. 


S P O R T 

Winter Season Wrap-Up by Steve Palmer 

BOYS’ BASKETBALL 20–5 

Tri-State League Co-Champions, 

New England Semifinalists 

With the infusion of some talented new 

players and a core of steady veterans, 

the 2005 team made some noise as they 


rumbled through the league on their way 

to a 19–4 record, Taft’s first league title 

in over thirty years, and a #4 ranking for 

the Class B New England Tournament. 

Highlights of the regular season included 

an exciting overtime win over Deerfield 

(78–66), and sweeping the home-and- 

home games against Berkshire, Kent, 

Hotchkiss, and Avon. However, the game 

that defined the season came at home, in 

front of a capacity crowd, versus a very 

talented Westminster team in the first 

round of the tournament. The game was 

a high-octane affair from the start, with 

Taft falling behind by 15 points early and 

battling back with their up-tempo play 

and intense defense. The Rhinos muscled 

out a seven-point lead in the final 

minutes before Westy hit a long-range 

three and one foul shot in the waning 

seconds to send the game to overtime. 

The deafening crowd saw Taft down 83– 

80 with 26 seconds left. Leading scorer 

Ryan Callahan ’06 (42 pts. in the game) 

drove the length of the floor for a layup, 

then grabbed a loose ball on the inbounds 

pass, missed his first shot but put 

back the rebound to give Taft the lead. 

Cory Keeling ’05 stole the final pass and 

made one free throw to seal the 85–83 

win, one of the most exciting contests the 

Cruikshank gym has ever seen. Taft then 

gave Trinity-Pawling everything it could 

handle in the semifinal game, leading by 

� Cory Keeling ’05 helped lead boys’ 

basketball to their winningest season in 

recent history. The team finished 20–5, 

reached the semifinals of the New England 

tournament, and earned a share of the 

Tri-State League title. PETER FREW ’75

four at half time but unable to hold the 

eventual New England champs, 64–76. 

Callahan led the team in scoring and 

rebounds and was named the MVP for 

the Tri-State League. Guards Steve Trask 

’05 and Keeling were also named to the 

All-League team; Frank Cheske ’06 and 

Chris Baudinet ’05 accounted for a lot 

of the inside muscle all season, and both 

captain David Halas ’05 and Tommy 

Piacenza ’06 were critical to the team’s 

great defense all year. 

WRESTLING 8–7 

The team did not boast as many bodies 

as usual, but this tight, hard-working 

team was solid in the lower and middle 

weight classes, knocking off Salisbury 

and Choate along the way to a winning 

record. Co-captains Nick Chu ’05 and 

Jon Canary ’06 wrestled well all season at 

152 lbs. and 140 lbs. respectively, as did 

Phil Martinez ’06 (145 lbs.) and Afolabi 

Saliu ’07 (130 lbs.). The team enjoyed 

its best day at the Western New England 

Championships where they placed 8th 

� Dante Paolino ’07 executes a perfect 

double-leg shot in front of the home 

crowd in the 103-pound finals of the 

New England Wrestling Tournament. 

Dante won in commanding fashion to 

become the school’s first New England 

Champion since 2000 (and the first lower 

schooler). PETER FREW ’75 

out of 19 schools. Dante Paolino ’07 

was the top wrestler on the team as he 

won the Western and All-New England 

individual titles at 103 lbs. That final 

victory was exciting, as Taft hosted the 

New England Tournament, and Paolino 

won the championship match in front 

of a large Taft contingent; he was down 

early, but came back to win in the final 

periods, 11–8. Of note, Ariana Maloney 

’07 (119 lbs.) became the first female 

letter winner in school history. 

GIRLS’ SQUASH 8–3 

Founders’ League Champions, 

4th at National Tournament 

For the third year in a row, Taft won the 

Founders’ League and placed 2nd behind 

Greenwich Academy at the New 

England Tournament. Highlights of the 

season included dominant 6–1 wins over 

Hotchkiss and Deerfield and the team’s 

4th place finish at the National High 

School Team Championship held at Yale. 

Taft also boasted two individual New 

England champions: Sydney Scott ’06 

at the #1 draw, and Alisha Mashruwala 

’08, undefeated all season at the #2 spot. 

Captain Margot Webel ’05, Corey Staut 

’05, and Jessica Lee ’05, also made it to 

the championship match for the 5th, 

7th, and 6th draws respectively. Sydney 

Scott now has three New England titles 

to her credit and will be going for four 

straight next year. 

� Ashley Russell ’06, set to take a free 

throw in a home game against Loomis 

Chaffee, played an important role in the 

team’s surprising success this winter. The 

team, which finished at 22–3, won a record 

21 straight games, claimed the Founders 

League title, and made its first-ever 

appearance in the Class A New England 

championship game. PETER FREW ’75 

S P O R T 

GIRLS’ BASKETBALL 22–3 


New England Finalists 

The Rhinos surprised everyone this year, 

though not because of their solid record, 

the fact that they challenged for the 

league title or earned a sport in the New 

England tournament—those have been 

common achievements for this program 

through the years. But this team, without 

a key scorer or dominating player, 

set school records for wins and consecutive 

wins and became the first team to 

make it to the New England championship 

game. This was truly a “team effort” 

season for Jon Willson’s squad, marked 

by tenacious defense and a relentless 

team attitude. The results were 21 consecutive 

wins, a cumulative 9–0 record 

against league rivals Hotchkiss, Choate, 

Kent and Loomis, and a #3 ranking in 

New England. Taft opened the tournament 

with a 44–35 win over Loomis at 

home, then traveled to Boston to knock 

off a strong Nobles team, 38–37, before 

falling to defending champion Tabor 

Academy in the finals. Colleen Sweeney 

’07 led the team in scoring (11 points per 

game), co-captain Sha-Kayla Crockett 

’05 led in rebounds (8 per game), and 


� Will Roe ’07 taking his run at a blistering pace at the Giant Slalom Championship at 

Butternut Ski Area, where he finished 15th out of 66 racers. The boys’ team went on 

to win the overall championship—placing 1st out of 18 teams—at Mt. Sunapee, New 

Hampshire, for the NEPSAC Class C ski races on February 16. ROGER KIRKPATRICK ’06 

both were league all-stars along with cocaptain 

Jill Fraker ’05. Crockett also was 

named a Class A New England All-Star 

for the second straight year. 

SKI RACING 

Class C New England Champions, 

2nd Berkshire Ski League GS 

Taft won its first New England title as 

the boys took home the Class “C” combined 

championship behind the strong 

skiing of captain Wylie Johnston ’06 

who placed 4th in the giant slalom and 

won the slalom title (out of 91 skiers). 

Will Roe ’07, Harry Weyher ’07, and 

Will Rickards ’06 also placed in the top 

eleven spots in either the SL or GS. Nick 

Wirth placed 7th in the GS following his 

3rd place finish in the Berkshire League 

Championships, where the team finished 

2nd. The girls’ team finished 8th of 15 

teams at the New Englands, with Maggie 

Seay ’07 finishing as the top skier, 11th in 

the slalom (out of 65 skiers), and captain 

Mercer Wu ’05 finished in the top 20. 

GIRLS’ HOCKEY 2–15–2 

This was a young team, particularly on 

offense, but twelve of those fifteen losses 

came by one or two goals, and that tells 

the story of the season for this hardskating 

team that had trouble scoring. 


Defensively, the team was solid, starting 

with two strong goalies; both Lacey 

Brown ’05 and Jackee Snikeris ’07 were 

named as Founders’ League All-Stars, 

and together they earned a save percentage 

of 92 for the season. Brianna Uliasz 

’05, Molly Malloy ’06, Penelope Smith 

’07, and Ashley Wiater ’06 provided 

sound defense all season, while Heidi 

Woodworth ’07 and Sarah Dalton ’05 

led the team in scoring. The highlight 

of the season came in the most unlikely 

of places, up in Lakeville against a very 

strong Hotchkiss team. Taft played another 

of their close, tight games, but this 

time the puck bounced their way as they 

earned a convincing 2–0 win. 

BOYS’ SQUASH 10–2 


2nd New England Tournament 

Once again, Peter Frew’s squad marched 

through league play without losing a single 

game, defeating strong teams from 

Choate, Hotchkiss and Deerfield 7–0. 

Captain Michael Shrubb ’05 was a solid 

#1 and finished 3rd at the New England 

Championships. The team’s two losses 

came against a talented Brunswick team, 

the eventual New England champ, but 

Taft placed three players in the individual 

finals: McCay Claghorn ’07 finished 

2nd in the #7 draw, Ben Macaskill ’05 

was 2nd in the 6th draw, and Andrew 

Kazakoff ’07 also finished 2nd in the #3 

spot. As is often the case, the Taft boys’ 

team again won a share of the team 

sportsmanship award, and they placed 

7th at the National High School Team 

Championships. The only real disappointment 

for this team was the loss of 

hard-driving captain Alastair Smith ’05 

for the season due to injury. 

BOYS’ HOCKEY 18–5 

4th in New England 

Despite the loss of twelve seniors and not 

even a mention in pre-season rankings, 

Taft again showed why it is one of the 

top hockey teams in the country behind 

new coach Danny Murphy and their 

18–4 regular season record. The Rhinos 

started the season 4–2, with a close loss 

to eventual New England champ Avon 

(3–1) and an overtime loss in the championship 

of the Lawrenceville Tournament 

to Choate despite dominating the game. 

January saw them tear through a challenging 

schedule with nine wins, including 

two against the top-ranked teams in 

New England: 1–0 over an undefeated 

Avon and 5–4 over #2 Salisbury. After 

key wins over Deerfield (5–3) and two 

over Choate to take the league title, Taft 

faced off against Salisbury in the first 

round of the New England tournament. 

Last year, the Rhinos came back from a 

2–1 third period deficit to win, this year 

they had the 2–1 edge in the third but 

lost in overtime, 4–3—another classic, 

finely played game in this growing rivalry. 

Goalies Andrew Margolin ’07 and Alex 

Kremer ’06 combined for seven shutouts 

and gave up only 41 goals in 23 games. 

Leading scorers for the season were Shane 

Farrell ’05 (21 goals, 36 pts.), Jeff Beck 

’05 (17 goals, 35 pts.), and Doug Jones 

’06 (22 pts.). The core of the team were 

the very physical and skilled senior defensemen—captains 

Brendan Milnamow 

’05 and Jack Christian ’05, and Peter 

Boldt ’05. Farrell and Jake Davis ’05 were 

named Founders’ League All-Stars.

The Quarterback 

the Camera 

Peter Berg ‘80 Calls the Plays 

By Sara Beasley

Peter 

Peter Berg 

called me 

from his office, “Universal City Studio” showed up on my 

caller ID, just above the 310 area code. My heart leapt. Like 

many (some of whom have created Web sites devoted to him), 

I count myself a big fan of Peter Berg the actor. I remembered 

well his rugged and charismatic Dr. Billy Kronk from Chicago 

Hope; over the eight years that I’ve been 

teaching my Elements of Film course at 

Taft, I’ve shown Berg’s excellent 1994 

film The Last Seduction many times, and 

always to enthusiastic student response. 

What I discovered in our conversation, 

however, is that his life has included many 

potential identities. While he is still perhaps best known for 

the three dozen acting roles he’s performed in the past twenty 

years, he is happiest these days in the challenging roles of 

director and writer. 

Certainly, if the phenomenal success of last fall’s Friday 

Night Lights is any indication, Berg has established himself 

securely as both. He still works as an actor, most recently 

in Michael Mann’s Collateral, in which he plays a cop who 

doggedly pursues Tom Cruise’s and Jamie Foxx’s characters 

into a crowded nightclub for an extraordinary shootout. But 

being an actor is simply not challenge enough for the energetic, 

articulate Berg: “An actor uses only 10–11 percent of his 

brain, sitting around, being told what to do,” he explained. 

“I wanted to use my brain, my ability to conceive something 

intricate and to see it through.” Although he works 19- to 20hour 

days with no breaks for weeks and months on end, his 

directing has taken him literally all over the world. “I was in 

northern Thailand and trekking to Burma when the tsunami 

hit,” he told me. Scouting locations for his projects has taken 

him to the heart of the Brazilian jungle, where he and several 

cast members were robbed and held at gunpoint for hours. 

Still, Berg is unfazed by the occasional unplanned event or 

unexpected delay: “I meet all kinds of people in my work. I 

work hard, but I also play hard.” 

I don’t know if the analogy will hold up, but I’m tempted 

to see Peter Berg’s career in Hollywood in terms of football. At 

Taft, Peter told me, he played football for Coach Stone. His 

mistake then, he says now, was to have seen himself as a quarterback 

instead of as a linebacker. Although “I found myself 

during my senior year,” his first three years at Taft were “miserable.” 

A fledgling when he picked up his first movie camera, 

he now cites the film production course he took—when he 


� Berg and 

actor Billy 

Bob Thornton 

on the set of 

Friday Night 

Lights 

was but a ninth grader—as one of his most shaping experiences. 

His most vivid memory, in fact, is of a short film he made, 

initially, in order to meet a girl. “A film was much better than 

a puppy,” he laughed, when I said that most guys would have 

gone for the easier gambit. Using the classic Milton Bradley 

board game Stratego as the concept, he dressed all of the guys 

on his floor as characters from the popular board game, and 

staged a massive, highly choreographed action scene that culminated 

in a chaotic fight. His only regret about the film is 

that he didn’t keep a copy. Even now, he wonders, would anyone 

know where he could find the film? 

While he struggled to shape a coherent identity for himself—and 

“struggled to keep up”—Berg also emphasizes that 

he “did feel prepared by Taft to bloom in college.” He attended 

Macalester College, heading to Minnesota quite pleased 

with the knowledge that he was veering from his family’s wellestablished 

plan for his life. Having been “aggressively encouraged 

to go to Taft,” he’d come from Chappaqua, New York, 

perfectly aware that his family’s idea of success saw him going 

on to Yale, and then to Harvard for his law degree. With pride, 

however, Berg characterizes himself as having been both unfit 

and unwilling to pursue the traditional lifestyle that his family 

envisioned for him. Heading to Minnesota instead of to New 

Haven, Berg flourished. At Macalester, he found a home in 

the theater, and studied film production locally at the College 

of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Following Chris Bayes ’80 (“the best

actor at Taft”) who was also at Macalester, Berg headed West. 

His family was “nervous” when he moved to Los Angeles after 

graduating from Macalester, “convinced that they’d see him 

next on the soft-core porn channel.” When I scoffed, he said, 

simply, “Hey, it happens.” 

In Berg’s case, his rangy physique led him first to dock 

work in Los Angeles. Soon, however, he found work on a film 

crew: “I’ve had every job in film production. That became my 

film school.” While he never auditioned for a single role at 

Taft, he had known since making that Stratego film that he 

wanted to direct: “Taft had created the energy in me; I found 

an outlet in college and never looked back.” As we talked, the 

writer Matthew Carnahan was in the room with him, and 

Berg kept up a steady stream of joking references to Carnahan. 

Carnahan is writing the screenplay for one of Berg’s two ongoing 

directing projects, this one a Michael Mann-produced 

film called The Kingdom (due in 2006), about an American 

FBI agent who collides with the Saudi Arabian culture. Berg 

also will direct the highly anticipated adaptation of the Tom 

Clancy novel Splinter Cell, about international terrorism and 

a video game. Michael Mann has become a trusted friend and 

supporter for Berg, a mentor for someone who learned the 

ropes on his own. 

Berg made the leap into writing and directing from 

acting. “The first time was for Chicago Hope in 1994. I wrote 

an episode and then directed it. That went very well, and I 

RALPH NELSON 

was off.” Later, in 2000, he wrote 

a pilot and several episodes for 

a TV series called Wonderland. 

While well reviewed by critics, 

the series was cancelled after 

Peter 

� Directing has 

literally taken 

Berg all over 

the world. 

just a few episodes were shot. Characteristically, Berg was 

candid about the cancellation: “Running a TV show is ulcerproducing. 

It’s a ton of work, but more than that, television 

is cursed by a low-risk mentality. It’s simply not structured 

in a way to support the design of anything edgy.” 

“Edgy” is perhaps the just the word to describe Berg’s first 

feature film outing as a director, Very Bad Things. This 1998 

film, which he also wrote, earned him a fair amount of attention, 

although not many reviews were favorable. Still, Berg 

established a reputation for being interested in dark themes 

and for pushing boundaries. Given the commercial success 

of The Rundown, the next film he directed, Berg found that 

he had the clout necessary to get Friday Night Lights made. 

Inspired by his belief in the source material, his cousin Buzz 

Bissinger’s 1990 book, Berg fought to make a film—and to 

write a screenplay—that would be aesthetically and narratively 

satisfying. “The book is just so rich in detail and so broad 

in scope,” he said. “I am really proud of that screenplay.” 

Berg found his years of work on Friday Night Lights 

to be an incredible experience. As many of his interviewers 

have noted, Berg’s film handles the complexities of the 

Taft Bulletin Spring 2005 21 

MYLES ARONOWITZ

Peter 

� Peter Berg 

explains the fi ner 

points of basketball 

to son Emmett at 

the Lakers home 

opener this season. 

VINCE BUCCI/GETTY IMAGES 


book with great sensitivity. Like 

his cousin, who had moved to 

Odessa for a period of years in 

order to research the great football 

dynasty of the Permian Panthers, 

Berg spent seven months in West 

Texas, studying the landscape, 

attending football games, and making friends. As he 

explained to me, we at Taft can barely imagine the notion of 

20,000 people at a high-school football game. He immersed 

himself in West Texas football culture, though, and made 

many friends there. His fi lm does a beautiful job of painting 

that gritty scene, using stark, washed-out visuals, and just 

the right number of establishing shots, each of which is of 

just the right duration. The lonely vistas are unbroken but 

for the bobbing pumps of oil derricks. 

Something in that loneliness evokes the particular pain of 

high school. Berg says now that he is most interested in those 

who fi nd themselves “not fi tting in at Taft.” For him, there 

was Donald Oscarson ’47 and his “Jumpers” program. “I was 

in the very fi rst group,” Berg proudly admits. “Don Oscarson 

saved me.” Headmaster Willy MacMullen ’78 was a corridor 

monitor on Berg’s fl oor; indeed, Berg remembers that they 

lived next door to one another. Often “confused” while a 

student at Taft, Berg now sees his high school experience as 

having offered him important opportunities, resources, and 

challenges. In fact, he can imagine sending Emmett, his “awesome” 

fi ve-year-old son “who goes with me everywhere—and 

I do mean everywhere,”—to Taft. That would be a Hollywood 

ending, perhaps, to Berg’s own narrative. 

Sara Beasley teaches English at Taft. An avid fi lm buff, she 

is teaching her “Elements of Film” elective for the eighth 

consecutive year to 16 senior movie-lovers, and counts several 

active fi lmmakers among past students. 

of Peter Berg 

Actor 

• Collateral (2004) 

• Corky Romano (2001) 

• Very Bad Things (1998) 

• Cop Land (1997) 

• The Great White Hype (1996) 

• The Last Seduction (1994) 

• Across the Moon (1994) 

• A Case for Murder (1993) 

• Fire in the Sky (1993) 

• Aspen Extreme (1992) 

• A Midnight Clear (1992) 

• Crooked Hearts (1991) 

• Genuine Risk (1991) 

• Late for Dinner (1991) 

• Tale of Two Sisters (1990) 

• Never on Tuesday (1989) 

• Race for Glory (1989) 

• Shocker (1989) 

Director 

• Friday Night Lights (2004) 

• The Rundown (2003) 

• Very Bad Things (1998) 

Screenwriter 

• Friday Night Lights (2004) 

• Very Bad Things (1998)

School School School Bells Bells Bells 

and and 

Wedding Wedding Wedding Bells Bells Bells 

Alumni Alumni Alumni who who who married married married alumni alumni alumni 

By By By Julie Julie Julie Reiff Reiff Reiff

School Bells 


This month 

marks the 

28th wedding 

anniversary of 

Rob and June 

Pratt Clark ’72

When Laura Black Holt ’85 

told her family that she wanted to leave Midland, 

Texas, to come to Taft, her West Texas-born father 

expressed concern that she might meet a Yankee 

and get married. “Dad, I’m only 15 years old,” 

she told him. He let her go, but sure enough he 

was right. 

“Laura was a tough catch,” says Stephen 

Holt ’85. “In fact, courting Laura was an exercise 

in humiliation.” 

He says he fell for Laura in the fall of their 

senior year while talking with her in the Jig about 

his summer studies in Beijing. “The mascara, the 

Texas accent; I was smitten. She was not.” 

He learned that she was auditioning for 

the fall play, and even though he was not that 

keen on participating, evening rehearsals provided 

an irresistible opportunity to pursue her, 

he said. She landed the role of Eve, and he the 

Serpent. “I figured this would seal the deal, but 

Laura was focused on practicing her lines and 

developing her character. She was not averse to 

flirting, however.” 

One evening, he felt the time had come to 

be more demonstrative in his interest for her. 

“Around midnight, I snuck out of CPT and 

skirted through the darkness until I reached Mac 

House, where Laura was a monitor. I could see 

her room on the second floor, but reaching the 

ledge in front of it required climbing the tree outside 

Mr. and Mrs. Piacenza’s bedroom window. 

If caught, I knew I would either be suspended or 

on penalty crew for the rest of the term, but the 

potential reward far outweighed the risk.” 

He climbed the tree and knocked on her 

window. She was surprised to see him but 

smiled and hurried over to open the window. 

“Convinced this was it I began to climb in,” he 

said, “when she announced with an air of incredulity, 

‘You can’t come in.’ Shocked, I described 

the risk I had taken in coming over, the even 

greater risk of returning to my room, but she 

stood her ground even if she did seem a bit flattered. 

It would still be several long months until 

we really started dating. It was, however, and always 

has been, worth the wait.” 

Wedding Bells 

Laura and Stephen are not the only graduates 

to find a spouse among their fellow alumni. 

In only 34 years of coeducation, 31 couples have 

emerged, and who knows how many other romances 

will bloom at that next reunion party—or 

even tonight at the “walk back,” as students call the 

nightly stroll when boys are known to escort girls 

back to Mac House, Congdon, or Centennial. 

Only a few couples have confessed to dating 

at Taft, but many others describe close friendships 

and intense flirtations. Others noted the missed 

opportunities. Despite attending different colleges, 

four of those couples say the relationship 

never quit from that first Taft date. 

Some alumni married as little as three years 

after Taft and others as much as 17 years later! 

Ann Magnin ’76 says she met Michael Stein 

’73, her future husband, at a party he was throwing 

for Steve Vaccaro ’75. “David Lefkowitz ’76 

asked if I’d like to go,” said Ann. Ann and Michael 

married in 1990. 

Claire Laverge ’90 and Pete Petitt ’89 

didn’t date at Taft either, but say they were good 

friends and “flirted a lot.” 

“Our courtship at Taft was a string of missed 

opportunities. We flirted like crazy every day on 

the ski team bus, but never went further, fearing 

the other considered us just good friends.” 

They fared no better on their first date when 

then met at The Wetlands to see a Phish show 

two days after the senior parties of 1990. “It was 

about 125 degrees in the club, and I passed out,” 

said Claire. “Pete gallantly carried me home and 

promptly left. The following year he invited me on 

the vacation of a lifetime: flying around the Rocky 

Mountains in a Cessna for two weeks of skiing. I 

couldn’t go. It took Pete two years to forgive me.” 

They kept in touch off and on in college, and 

when they both wound up in New York City, Pete 

gave Claire a call. 

“We made plans to meet downtown, and 

when we saw each other it was like dynamite,” 

she said. “Fireworks flew, and it’s been love, travel, 

and great skiing and adventure ever since.” 

Annagret Burtschy ’90 and Alex 

Sacerdote ’90 also reconnected in New York 



City after college. They didn’t date at Taft, but 

were great friends and co-editors of the Papyrus. 

They’ve been married now for fi ve years. 

Emily Hopper ’91 and Billy Carifa ’90 

met in the City as well, although they never dated 

at Taft. “We both ended up in New York after college. 

There was a big group of Tafties from both 

of our classes, so we all ended up hanging out together. 

Billy likes to say I stalked him after a Taft 

party, when we all ended up at Dorian’s Bar. I like 

to say it was the other way around!” 

Another couple to connect years later, 

Lindsay Stanley ’93 and classmate Ian 

McConnel, met again at their Fifth Reunion and 

have been married now for three years. 

Janetje Chayes ’81 and Rob Peterson 

’80, who’ve been married now for 13 years, also 

met at a reunion party. 

“I returned to Taft from Pittsburgh for the 

Centennial Celebration in 1990,” says Jan. “I 

crashed Rob’s class reunion party at the Sheraton 

in Waterbury on Friday night. Rob had organized 

it and was collecting money at the door. He tried 

to get me to pay, but I gave him a hard time. 

Eventually I did, and now he likes to say it’s the 

best investment I ever made. To tell the truth, he’s 

absolutely right!” 

Cindi Post and Mike Stone ’74 reconnected 

at their 10th Reunion and were married 

one year later. “Many people couldn’t believe we 

had gotten together,” Cindi said. “We were very 

different, very opposite in high school. What a 

difference a decade makes!” 

A decade after Taft, Amanda Costanzo ’93 

and classmate Todd McGovern both happened 

to be spending the summer at the Jersey shore. 

“We ran into each other one night at the local bar. 

We hit it off, moved to Boston, and were engaged 

eight months later.” 

They married last May, and Todd was diagnosed 

with stage IV colon cancer shortly after. Todd 

underwent chemotherapy from August to January. 

Severe abdominal pain brought them to the ER at 

one point, but tests showed that his cancer hadn’t 

spread (which is what they feared). “With huge 

grins, we were high-fi ving each other in the ER—a 

priceless newlywed moment,” Amanda said. 

Knowing that physical activity would be his 

biggest help, Todd has stayed active kayaking, 

bike riding, and going to the gym. 


Ian and Lindsay 

Stanley McConnel 

’93 married while 

Ian was still in the 

Marines. They 

now live outside 

of Boston. 

Jennifer 

D’Angelo ’95 

and Aaron 

Fabas ’94 

married in 

July 2001 

and had their 

photograph 

taken at Taft.

Wedding Bells 

Steven and Shannon 

Engels Turner ’86 at 

their 1995 wedding, 

and more recently 

with their three 

children, Callie, 

William, and Sam. 

Laura (Black) and 

Stephen Holt ’85 

at their wedding 

in 1994 and 10 

years later living in 

New York. 




The romance 

between Amy Julia 

Truesdell ’94 and 

Peter Becker ’95 

started when they 

were 16, after a 

weekend FOCUS 

retreat with 40 

other Tafties. 

Mike and Cindi 

Post Stone ’74, who 

married in 1985, 

fi nally connected at 

their 10th Reunion, 

but say they dated 

each others’ friends 

in school. They have 

three children: Jamie, 

Hunter, and Kylie.

Liz Murphy and 

Peter Hallock ’95 

were assigned to 

the same table for 

their fi rst sit-down 

dinner at Taft. They 

married last July. 

Wedding Bells 

“After six months, we’ve learned to take things 

in stride and to ‘just keep digging in the corners’ 

as Todd’s hockey buddies have been wisely telling 

him. We are so thankful of our Taft connections,” 

Amanda said. When Todd had surgery in 

Pittsburgh in February, “Brooks Fisher ’92, Henry 

Simonds ’93, and Sara Sutton ’92 (all Pittsburgh 

natives) were very helpful in making this diffi cult 

trip seem manageable.” 

Although it has been a challenging first 

year together, Amanda has been keeping family 

and friends up to date through their Web site, 

www.gov21.com. 

A summer romance also started things off 

for Shannon Engels ’86 and classmate Steve 

Turner, who will celebrate their 10th anniversary 

this summer. 

“Steve and I lived across the street from each 

other one summer on Nantucket after our freshman 

year in college.” Even though they went to 

different schools, the relationship grew. 

Although it would be an off-again on-again 

relationship for Peter Hallock ’95 and classmate 

Elizabeth Murphy, they met when both 

were assigned to Reggie Brulotte’s table for 

sit-down dinner the fi rst night of their mid year. 

She was a new mid, and Pete had already been at 

Taft for a year. “Pete made some joke at dinner,” 

she said, “and I knew he was going to make me 

laugh anytime he opened his mouth. I was also 

roommates with Katama Guernsey Eastman, 

who grew up with Pete, and she was the catalyst 

behind our getting to know each other better.” 

Pete and Liz dated for three months that year, 

deciding to break it off on Valentine’s Day. “We 

still have issues celebrating that day!” she said. 

They reconnected the summer following 

their Taft graduation “while working on Martha’s 

Vineyard with a bunch of other Tafties,” but decided 

to call it quits in the fall when Pete went to 

Princeton and she to Bucknell. “There were defi - 

nitely trips made between the two to see mutual 

friends,” she said. “So we kept in touch.” 

The third time was defi nitely the charm for 

these two when they met up again at a party by 

classmate Mary Firestone in 2000, “and the rest 

was history.” They married last July. 

Laura Ellis ’84 and classmate Jonathan 

Dworken sat next to each other in Bingham 

Auditorium for Vespers and assemblies for three 



years. “We were both always early so got to know 

each other well by chatting every day,” Laura said. 

“We started seeing each other outside Bingham 

just two weeks before our graduation.” 

Laura went off to Yale and Jonathan to 

Georgetown, but they kept up the romance over 

weekends and summer vacations. They eloped 

shortly after fi nishing college and now have three 

children: Michael, 10, David, 7, and Caroline, 2. 

Even though Jessica Oneglia and Jason 

Travelstead, both Class of ’88, dated for a few 

weeks their upper-mid year at Taft, the romance 

really started in 1993 when she was fi nishing up 

school in Boulder and he moved to Denver to 

start a business with his brother. 

“We had always been great friends,” said Jessica, 

“going out to play pool, or go to the movies—usually 

in groups. Then we decided to drive back to 

Connecticut together to attend our Fifth Reunion, 

in a sort of a caravan with Bob MacSweeney ’88— 

Bob in his Jeep and Jason, me, all of my stuff (two 

black labs and a rottweiler) in my car. We camped 

through Wyoming, through the Black Hills into 

South Dakota. Jason ended up staying with me at 

my parents’ house for three weeks after the reunion. 

When he agreed to take my dog back to Denver 

with him while I went on a two-month trip to Italy, 

I knew he was the guy for me!” 

When Jessica returned from Italy, she drove 

straight back to Denver, where they promptly decided 

to move north to Sun Valley, Idaho, for the 

ski season, but because of all their dogs, they had 

diffi culty fi nding a place to live. So for the fourth 

road trip together in one year, they packed up again 

and headed south to Taos. After 130 straight days 

of working and skiing together they were engaged 

in April and married four months later. 

Amy Julia Truesdell ’94 and Peter 

Becker ’95 also started dating when they were 

16, after a weekend FOCUS retreat with 40 other 

Tafties. “Although there were bumps along the 

road,” she says, “we have been together since.” 

A.J. was a senior and Peter an upper mid. 

“He was voted ‘class gigolo’ and I ‘class Biblebeater,’ 

so clearly our peers did not expect it to 

last! Andrew Holbrook ’95, who was one of our 

groomsmen, reminded me at our rehearsal dinner 

that he had implored me not to date Peter, in fear 

that he would be a bad infl uence. The beginning 

of our dating relationship was heralded by dozens 


Katharine Bryson ’86 

met future classmate 

and husband Andy 

Winchell on a summer 

program in France. 

They married in 1990 

and have two children: 

Jay and K.J.

Amanda Costanzo 

’93 and classmate 

Todd McGovern both 

happened to spend the 

summer at the Jersey 

shore back in 2003. 

They married last May. 

Emily Hopper 

’91 and Billy 

Carifa ’90 at 

their wedding in 

1998 and now 

Wedding Bells 




Michael Stein ’73 

had just graduated 

when Ann Magnin ’76 

arrived on campus, 

but the two met 

up years later and 

married in 1990. 

Claire Laverge 

’90 and Pete 

Petitt ’89, who 

married in 2000

Annagret Burtschy ’90 

and Alex Sacerdote ’90 

were just friends when 

this photo was taken at 

the spring concert. They 

married fi ve years ago. 

Wedding Bells 

of girls in Mac House (where I was a monitor) 

watching out the windows to see if he kissed me 

on the doorstep. They even had the song ‘Kiss the 

Girl’ from the The Little Mermaid playing.” 

Katharine Bryson ’86 met future classmate 

Andy Winchell before she even came to 

Taft. “I was still in school in North Carolina, and 

we met on a summer program in France after our 

sophomore year. We did the pen pal thing for a 

year until I came to Taft.” 

“Our senior year, Katharine had to fl y home 

a week early for spring break because she had 

mono,” Andy said. “I volunteered to accompany 

her on the fl ight and spend the weekend at her 

parents’ house before fl ying back to Taft. That 

trip came with the perk of getting to sit at midcourt 

for the UNC-Duke game that weekend, 

which had nothing to do with my decision to escort 

her…nothing at all.” 

Andy went on to Amherst and Katharine to 

Brown. “They are 99.2 miles apart,” she said. 

“Trust me on that. I kept a notice on the ride 

board saying I was willing to drive over any 

weekend I could get enough people to go to 

pay for gas.” Apparently she made the trip often 

enough to be dubbed the ninth suite-mate by 

Andy’s roommates. 

“Both Andy and I chose to spend a semester 

of our junior year in Paris. Unfortunately for 

the relationship, I chose the fi rst semester and 

he chose the second. One part that worked out 

really well was that we rented Gerry LeTendre’s 

(my adviser) apartment near the Bastille, and 

each got it for fi ve months.” 

Another Taft couple, Sherrard Upham 

’73 and Dan Côté ’74, started dating in 1972, 

and although Dan went to Trinity and Sherrard 

to New England College, they “never took a 

break,” Sherrard said. “We married after Dan’s 

junior year and lived in Hartford until he fi nished 

graduate school. We’ve been together for 

over 32 years.” They’ll celebrate their 28th wedding 

anniversary in June. 

Although Dan and Sherrard, who married 

in 1977, were the fi rst Taft couple to have children—Sarah 

in 1981 and Dan in 1984—it is 

Rob and June Pratt Clark ’72 who hold the 

distinction of being the fi rst husband and wife 

alums to send their kids to Taft. When Spencer 

’05 graduates in May, he follows not only his 



parents, but also his sister Eliza ’03, making every 

member of the family a Taft grad. 

As with the Winchells, June was not enrolled 

at Taft when she met Rob in Bingham 

Auditorium the fall of his lower-mid year. She 

soon joined him on campus in the fall of 1971 

when the school went coed. 

“In the fall of our senior year, we were 

caught illegally driving together,” said Rob. “To 

this day we believe Oscie (Don Oscarson ’47) 

put the word out to catch us doing something 

wrong because the school needed switchboard 

coverage over long weekend. (June had run the 

switchboard as a summer job, and I was head 

of switchboard coverage for evening and weekend 

hours.) Conveniently, this was our punishment. 

We lost our long weekend, but hung out 

together all weekend at the switchboard.” Rob 

did not elaborate further, in the interest of not 

embarrassing their kids. 

After graduation, June took a year off from 

Beloit to train full-time in fi gure skating at Lake 

Placid. “Once June turned professional,” said 

Rob, “we spent more time together, since she 

was working around southern Connecticut and 

I was at Yale. Her career as a skating teacher was 

such a success that she never attended college. 

We used to kid that while I worked at school 

and a job, June had the benefi t of attending Yale 

without actually having to go to class.” 

Rob and June have been together since 

1968, becoming the fi rst Taft husband-wife team 

in May 1977 (only a month before Sherrard and 

Dan). It is fi tting that the fi rst couple should 

come from the school’s fi rst coed class. 

And Taft relationships seem to beat the 

odds, surviving at a much higher rate than the 

general population. Perhaps because so many of 

the couples started out as good friends they have 

a stronger base to build on than most. 

Knowing that few emotions are as powerful 

as that fi rst love, numerous Web sites have 

emerged to reunite high-school sweethearts and 

fi nd old fl ames. The school may not have had 

such romantic purposes in mind when it created 

TaftAlumni.com, but if you have an old friend 

you’d like to reconnect with, who knows, it may 

turn out to be something more. 

Editor Julie Reiff found an alum of her own in Al 

Reiff ’80. They’ve been married for 17 years. 


Sherrard Upham ’73 

and Dan Côté ’74 

started dating in 1972 

and also celebrate 

their 28th wedding 

anniversary this year.

Wedding Bells 

Janetje Chayes ’81 

and Rob Peterson 

’80 at their wedding 

in 1991 and skiing at 

Whistler last winter. 

Jason Travelstead ’88 

courted classmate 

Jessica Oneglia over 

the course of four 

long road trips. They 

now live in Litchfi eld, 

Connecticut, with 

their daughter Eliza, 3. 


CourseNotes 

The second installment 

in our look at academic 

offerings available to 

Taft students. An 

interdisciplinary course 

introduced in 1982 

by Robin (Blackburn) 

Osborn and John 

Philpit, the basic goals 

of Humanities have 

changed little. 


Humanities 

and English 

teacher Steve 

Schieffelin asks 

Avery Clark 

’05 about her 

reactions to a 

painting at the 

new MOMA on a 

class fi eld trip 

to New York. 

HU41 

The Humanities 

This interdisciplinary course is a chronological 

introduction to some major 

fi gures and ideas of Western civilization. 

Students explore how a seamless 

integration of philosophy, literature, 

history, the arts, and science comprises 

a cultural experience. As students learn 

about various cultures and periods, they 

will discuss the application of their un- 

derstanding to their own lives in making 

responsible, informed decisions 

concerning philosophical, spiritual, and 

moral issues. Readings from the Old 

and New Testaments, and such authors 

as Homer, Plato, Sophocles, Dante, 

Chaucer, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, 

Galileo, Voltaire, Marx, Darwin, 

Nietzsche, Freud, Einstein, and Sartre

eveal the thoughts and experiences 

that have shaped societies and individuals 

over the last 3,500 years. Some 

recurring themes in the course are the 

nature and use of power; the relationships 

between men and women and between 

parents and children; the nature 

of spiritual experience and the divine; 

changing perceptions of the natural 

world and the position of human beings 

in the context of nature; and the causes 

and consequences of the development 

of science and technology. Discussions 

of art history illustrate the historical and 

social contexts of the readings. Various 

writing projects, period tests, oral presentations, 

and collaborative performances 

enable students to demonstrate 

their understanding of the moral and 

intellectual positions represented in the 

material and to exercise personal critical 

judgment regarding the value or validity 

of the ideas to which they have been 

exposed. And periodically students are 

asked to form and share their own opinions 

about the essential questions raised 

in the course. 

Faculty: Steve Schieffelin 

“Our object is not to tell them what 

to see and think,” says current teacher 

SteveSchieffelin, “but to show 

them how to use their minds and to give 

them ample opportunity to apply that 

learning to a wide range of objects we 

SAMUEL P.C. DANGREMOND ’05 

CourseNotes 

study. We do not ask them to agree with 

the great, creative minds we encounter 

in our studies, nor to agree with me or 

their classmates, but we do expect there 

to be courteous, well-reasoned, and vigorous 

dispute in our discussions.” 

Open only to seniors, the beauty of 

Humanities, says JamieWheeler, “is 

that it transcends the often monotonous 

and uniform structure of traditional 

classes. In Humanities, the beauty and 

power of culture is revealed through the 

great melting pot that boils away the 

distinctions between what was previously 

known only separately as literature, 

history, and art.” 

KateParks agrees that “the combination 

of English and history gives 

us the unique chance to look at history 

through a literal lens. We are able to 

synthesize ideas from all disciplines to 

create our own world views.” 

LoisTien says that art history has 

been her favorite part of the course, working 

with the book Arts & Ideas. “This 

book has really interesting stuff; the 

visuals (paintings, architecture, etc.) are 

simply amazing!” Studying Renaissance 

art and thinkers has been particulary 

interesting for LizShepherd, who 

went to Italy over spring break with 

Collegium Musicum. 

SarahPetrino says her favorite 

part of the course so far was the paper 

she wrote in which she compared 

a scene from the ceiling of the Sistine 

Chapel to Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale. 

“I’ve enjoyed all the works we studied 

so much that for graduation I asked my 

parents for a trip to Florence so I can see 

some of them,” Sarah admits. “It is by 

far my favorite class.” 

“Humanities synthesizes art, history, 

music, philosophy, and literature 

so we can experience the entire 

artistic perspective of the time in 

history that we’re studying,” explains 

ElspethMichaels, “which has 

really influenced my art in the studio. 

My work has become more complex, 

meaningful, and thoughtful as a result.” 


TAKE TWO 

Teaching Couple Make Taft Their Home 

By Jennifer Zaccara


Down the hall in CPT, tucked away on the left beyond 

Lincoln Lobby, is a small offi ce shared by history teachers 

Rachael Ryan and Greg Hawes ’85. There is a faded oriental 

carpet on the fl oor and two good-sized desks: a wooden one, 

hers, faces the window and has a Rosie-the-Riveter lunchbox 

at the back; his has a Dartmouth banner hanging above and is 

made of dated green metal with coffee-stains on the Formica 

top—although it’s hard to see the surface of either for all the 

books and papers stacked on them. 

There are so many books in the room, in fact, that it’s unclear 

which belong to whom. Clearly this is a joint operation. And 

it’s not unusual for teachers to share an offi ce at Taft, but what 

makes this collaboration unique is that Greg and Rachael are 

also husband and wife. As such, they possess a unique vision of 

Taft, a gaze through the triple-threat kaleidoscope of teaching, 

coaching, and dorm duty, to what makes Taft a community. 

Greg’s story at Taft is one of multiple departures and returns, 

a drift and pull of tides. Greg left Dartmouth for a 

term in his sophomore year to return to Taft as a student 

teacher, working side by side with Barclay Johnson. After 

attending Taft classmate Dan Scheibe’s wedding and meeting 

with Chan Hardwick, former Taft dean and current head of 

Blair Academy in Montclair, New Jersey, Greg thought about 

a life of teaching and coaching. Greg had just spent three and 

a half years attending fi lm school in Los Angeles, attempting 

to break into screenwriting. He wryly commented that watching 

the movie Sideways gave him a glimpse of what he might 

have become had he continued to pursue that path. “My life 

was like that Edward Hopper painting with the guy sitting 

alone in an apartment with bare walls.” 

Graduating from Georgetown with a focus in American 

government, Rachael Ryan had worked on political campaigns 

and considered an eventual run for offi ce herself. Dynamic 

and deeply focused on national issues, she took a job at Blair 

Academy to experience a possible career path in teaching. 

Not yet abandoning a political career but remembering the 

powerful infl uence of strong teachers, Rachael tested the waters. 

2 

Failing to fetch me at fi rst keep encouraged, 

Missing me one place search another, 

I stop somewhere waiting for you. 

—Walt Whitman, Song of Myself 

The story of Rachael and Greg’s meeting at Blair in 1994 

contains all of the fi ts and starts that happen when two people 

are right for each other but the paths to one another and the 

timing are circuitous. Always the writer, Greg sent Rachael 

some romantic poems, but prior relationships were still hanging 

in balance. A chance meeting in Nantucket after Greg’s 

residency at Blair had concluded brought the startling realization 

that they both had family houses on the island. Still, their 

paths were going in different directions, and Rachael set off to 

travel in Spain. When Greg secured a permanent position in 

history at Blair in 1996, the relationship sparked. 

Rarely inspired by his history professors in college, Greg 

opened his textbook at Blair and began to remember that 

what made history alive for him were narratives. “That textbook 

brought me back to R.M. Davis’ classes at Taft.” Known 

for his uncanny recollection of the minute details of historical 

biographies and events, R.M. Davis ’59 inspired generations 

of students and eventual Taft teachers and administrators with 

the living quality of history. 

Refl ecting on high school years at Taft, “You think about 

what you didn’t know as a teenager, and since I am in the 

place where I was a teenager, it feels especially strong. I was 

the classic underachiever, but teachers like Mark Potter ’48, 

Roger Stacey, John Philpit, and Jol Everett really seemed to 

care about what I was learning, about me as an individual. 

My old school did not have a place in their round holes for 

a triangle peg.” Desiring more challenge from students, an 

intensive curriculum, and the opportunity to work side by 

side in the same department, Rachael and Greg jumped at the 

chance to come to Taft in 2000. 

What makes Taft stand out as an exceptional community 

in which to live, teach, and raise a family? Here, Rachael 

remarked, “We are both doing what we love, we are always 

challenged. We understand each other’s work, share philosophies 

and beliefs. I can’t imagine what it would be like not 

doing the same thing.” What is her teaching philosophy? 

“Teaching is coaching and coaching is teaching,” for Rachael. 


“When I am on the field, I teach like I would in the classroom 

and vice versa.” 

As the only woman teaching in the History Department, 

Rachael is an important role model. “Often it is the woman 

female students relate most to, and if she is the only one 

students have to identify with, that must put a great deal of pressure 

on her. Rachael is a great model for girls here at Taft. She 

retains her femininity while conveying her strength and drive,” 

says former co-coach Kelley Bogardus. Recently finishing her 

graduate thesis and degree at Harvard, Rachael brings her 

awareness of the history of women’s studies into the classroom. 

Her research in grad school ends up fueling so many of her 

classroom endeavors—whether in terms of curriculum or in 

her awareness of drawing out the girls in the classroom, aiming 

for “50/50 participation from girls and boys.” In deciding on 

the topic for her master’s thesis, a Taft connection made a 

real difference. Dr. Elizabeth Griffith, head of the Madeira 

School, mother of J.D. Deardourff ’04, and graduation 

speaker last year, helped Rachael to focus on 1963 as a pivotal 

year in the history of women’s rights. “It was great to have that 

connection with a Taft parent and scholar. My paper would 

not have been as focused and vital without Dr. Griffith’s input.” 

Overall, Taft is distinctive for Rachael because the students 

provide the challenge and that drives her to find “the most 

interesting material to bring into class.” In all of her classes, 

Rachael teaches with the passionate belief that “it is really 

important for kids to know what happened in the past in 

order to understand the complicated world we live in today.” 

With their busy lives, teaching and coaching, and now 

raising two boys, Peyton three and a half and Lachlan fifteen 

months, Rachael and Greg sometimes feel like they are passing 

ships. “Yet even if it is just a walk by or a quick hello or wave, 

it’s nice to see him,” Rachael reflects. Greg has been active as 

the leader of the freshman history program, revamping the curriculum 

by working from the ideals listed in the “Portrait of a 

Graduate.” “Post 9-11 we needed to have a focus on world religions 

and on some of the founding political and economic philosophies—capitalism, 

democracy, communism, etc. The students 

needed a basic vocabulary before entering World History.” 

Greg also considered the History Department’s responsibility 

in teaching writing, in helping students “to know the structure 

of argument, to defend their ideas with evidence.” 

Greg believes that their strengths and weaknesses complement 

each other. Both engage in “mutual mentoring,” often 


TAKE2 

asking, “Can I run this essay question by you?” Greg marvels 

at how Rachael teaches. “It’s an education working with her. 

She has such a vital approach in the classroom. Her research 

skills are amazing.” As a team, they have made a lasting contribution 

to the History Department. “Rachael and Greg have 

been important members of the History Department for five 

years. Always willing to do whatever is asked of them, they 

are intelligent, engaging, and enthusiastic historians who have 

successfully brought history alive for a number of Taft students. 

Both Rachael and Greg have inspired students to major 

in history and political science upon graduation from Taft,” 

notes Jack Kenerson ’82, department head. 

As the faculty coordinator of Taft’s Model UN and Model 

Congress programs, Rachael takes Taft students every year to 

conferences at Georgetown, Columbia, Rutgers, or Princeton, 

coaching them to prepare their position papers and debating 

skills that will be tested in a forum with students at other private 

and public schools who represent various countries and 

political philosophies. Teaching AP Government is Rachael’s 

real love, and she has a passion for moving ideas out of the 

classroom and into action. “It’s a full-time job,” says Greg, “to 

teach, prepare for classes, grade, and inform oneself about the 

world to make the classes relevant, and yet I have never seen 

Rachael walk away from a kid with a question. She will upend 

her own life to find time to help a student.” 

The coaching and dorm duty make for two full-time jobs 

masquerading as one. Greg and Rachael are devoted coaches 

with Greg focusing on wrestling and Rachael, field hockey. 

Wrestling at Taft is thankfully more relaxed than at Blair, says 

Greg, and there is “more forgiveness of errors. We are more 

concerned with what the students are getting out of the sport 

than what the team is getting out of it.” Always the deeplyreflective 

philosopher, Greg believes that wrestling teaches selfreliance 

and independence. “You walk out on that mat alone.” 

Rachael has played field hockey since she was in seventh grade, 

and she has coached both JV and varsity field hockey at Taft. 

When Rachael took over the varsity field hockey program, she 

acquired a team with only four returning varsity players and 

several girls who moved up from junior varsity. Taking this 

team to the semi-finals of the New England Tournament was 

an impressive feat. Rachael is a talented coach who cares deeply 

about her players’ development. “Witnessing her coaching 

plan for each day and her organization of each practice, it is 

evident that she puts more than just a few minutes of thought

� The family 

environment 

at Taft is truly 

sustaining 

� “It’s great to 

win, but it is really 

all about the team, 

about that spirit 

and bond,” says 

Rachael 

� “As a team, 

they have made a 

lasting contribution 

to the History 

Department,” says 

Jack Kenerson ’82. 

� The time spent 

away from Taft 

is rejuvenating 

for Rachael and 

Greg, who travel 

to Nantucket and 

to Greg’s family 

farm in Elberton, 

Georgia. 


into each practice. Each drill has a purpose and connects well 

with the next. Her players understand the reason behind 

practice, and this is what I think makes them better players,” 

Kelley Bogardus comments. With a blue ribbon season two 

years in a row, the team has been inspired—“It’s great to 

win, but it is really all about the team, about that spirit and 

bond,” notes Rachael. 

In addition to coaching and teaching, Greg has also worn 

the hat of Summer School dean at Taft. As dean, he has had to 

face tough questions and issues along with “setting the tone” in 

a constantly changing environment.” “Summer school kids do 

not have a sense of identity with Taft,” so things that we would 

expect from students during the year are just not possible. One of 

Greg’s trademarks as dean was the famous morning newsletter in 

which he revealed his wit and intelligence and kept teachers and 

students laughing. Positioned in a basement office, cool but remote 

during the sweltering summer, Greg was the “underground 

man,” scribing his witty missives in the news while maintaining 

Taft standards of conduct in student life as dean. 

With the birth of their first son, Peyton the day after 

9-11, during Rachael and Greg’s second year at Taft, Greg sent 

an e-mail to the Taft faculty, “When the whole world seems to 

be falling down, it’s nice to know you belong to a great community.” 

“I felt the impotence and irrelevance of being a new 

father,” Greg continued, and “I remember it being cold his 

first night home from the hospital, and buttoning Peyton up 

in my shirt as he slept. It was something I could do.” The family 

environment at Taft is truly sustaining. “When we were 

living in the dorm,” Greg comments,” Peyton would wander 

into the boys’ rooms in CPT and get “yums, yums” or candies 

from Nick Smith or play someone’s guitar.” “He learned how 

to high-five from the boys on the hall, and he got a sense of 

security.” Greg laughs, “Peyton had a habit of running up to 

random women in clothing stores and hugging them. You just 

can’t get that sense of security and stability easily.” There is a 

baby boom at Taft, and Lachlan, Greg and Rachael’s fifteenmonth-old 

sees recognizable faces, smiling and reaching out 

to the babies who will eventually be his friends and possible 

classmates down the road. Life is not solely an idyll, however, 

and Greg admits that his son Peyton submitted his art project 

to the faculty children’s showing in the Taft art gallery—a cell 

phone melted in a toaster. He just decided to pop that phone 

in the toaster and see what would happen. Unplanned, spontaneous, 

but still art. There is a “master family calendar” that 


TAKE2 

keeps everyone on track most of the time, but some nights 

when Greg faces dorm duty, leaving at 7 p.m., to Peyton’s 

“Don’t go, Daddy,” Greg says, “It takes something out of you.” 

Known for his wonderful voice, Greg will often sing songs to 

his children before bedtime. On occasion, he will run over to 

John and Jean Piacenza’s music night to give a performance 

like his lyrical rendition of Gillian Welch’s “Wind and Rain.” 

“We have to carve out time for each other or we will just keep 

working,” says Rachael. “Greg is really good about making 

that time. He had a New Year’s resolution to write a love letter 

once a week, which lasted for a while. It was great. Greg is the 

one who makes us stop and focus.” 

The time spent away from Taft is truly rejuvenating for 

Rachael and Greg, who travel to Nantucket and to Greg’s 

family farm in Elberton, Georgia. At the farm, they walk 

through pastures and woodland trails. “The simplest things 

matter there.” In Nantucket, “everyone comes together. So 

much that has been important in our lives happened there— 

all under the light of Peyton’s window.” Greg’s older brother 

and his first son’s namesake, Peyton, died at the age of four 

when Greg was two, and there is a stained glass window in 

the Episcopal church in Nantucket named after him. In that 

space, Greg and Rachael were married and the children had 

their baptisms. In each of the places that Greg and Rachael 

find their inspiration—Taft, the Georgia farm, Nantucket— 

there are those shards of memory that layer and filter over the 

experience of the present. The story of their work as teachers, 

coaches, and parents is one of separate paths that inevitably 

converged, and for Greg, in particular, the realization that T.S. 

Eliot made famous, “In my end is my beginning, and the end 

of all our exploring shall be to come to the place from which 

we started and know it for the first time.” Greg believes that 

they have been led back to Taft through a core set of shared 

values, and while high school may not have been the “glory 

years” for him, “now is the best time” of his life. 

“Being parents, doing essentially two jobs, makes us 

think we don’t have simple fun anymore, but we have these 

moments of joy that completely make up for it.” 

Jennifer Zaccara taught English at Rye Country Day, The Winsor 

School, and Trinity College before coming to Taft four years ago. 

Sister of Glenn ’88 and Adam Zaccara, who attended Taft, she is 

happy to be working at a school that has meant so much to her 

family. She lives in CPT with her sons Bryce ’07 and Keefe.

“She said that working 

for several months 

had given her a 

different outlook on 

her education. 

She had been talking 

to other expats on 

Bar Street and they 

had encouraged her to 

go back to school…” 

the migrant workers! They are dirty, unsophisticated, 

and commit crimes!” 

Such opinions are common, even from 

well-educated Chinese: migrants are a favorite 

scapegoat of the media and government when 

attempting to explain China’s social problems. 

While some migrant communities have given 

officials cause for concern in such areas as public 

health and safety, their overall impact on 

the economy is enormous. 

I asked my friend how she expected the 

Beijing economy to function without the migrants 

who work in construction, in restaurants, 

in barbershops, in food markets, and in countless 

other trades that locals prefer not to work in. 

“Oh yes, they are necessary and even beneficial 

to the economy,” she replied, “but we still dislike 

them. In fact, we dislike all outsiders. You 

know what,” she continued in a lower voice, 

“I was born in Henan! But I never tell anyone 

from Beijing this because I know they will look 

down at me.” Could her aversion to outsiders 

reflect shame for her own provincial roots? 

Tiantian’s roots are humble (her parents 

were farmers before they moved to Beijing). Her 

accent, her clothes, and her occupation are all a 

dead giveaway that she is an outsider in Beijing. 

She may only be an overnight train ride away 

from the capital, but the cultural gap is much 

wider. Relaxation of China’s household registration 

laws have made a once rooted population 

quite mobile, and Tiantian is just one of the 10 

percent of China’s overall population that has 

left their homes and communities for the frightening 

yet hopeful prospect of the city. 

� � � 

During our conversations in the fall, Tiantian 

seemed content to work and make money for 

her family. When I asked her when she would 

return home, she said, “Who knows!” with 

enough flair to indicate she was enjoying her 

sojourn in Beijing. But as the weather turned 

cold and business became more difficult, 

she said she was heading home at the end of 

November. “Working is hard,” she told me, 

with a look in her eye that said she just wanted 

to go home and be a kid again. 

She said that working for several months 

had given her a different outlook on her education. 

She had been talking to other expats on 

E N D N O T E 

Bar Street, and they had encouraged her to go 

back to school: “People here tell me if I go to 

school I can get knowledge and become cultured, 

and if I have knowledge and culture, I 

will have better opportunities.” 

She said this not just as if it was something 

people on Bar Street told her but also 

something she believed. The look on her face 

showed she understood the logic behind it. 

Perhaps it was even her parents’ idea to have 

her work so she could gain the proper perspective 

on school. Regardless, selling flowers for 

seven months had been a formative experience. 

Tiantian has realized that the best road out of 

her village is through hard work in school. Even 

with a middle-school education, she would be 

better prepared to find a job than she is now. 

It may be naïve to think she will suddenly 

turn into a diligent student, but it is not too 

much to say that so many late nights spent 

working in Beijing have left an impression. 

Her exposure to the big city and the welldressed 

and moneyed people there may give 

her something to strive for in school. 

� � � 

In mid-December I was surprised to see 

Tiantian still working at Bar Street. I told her 

I thought she would be home by now. “I was 

supposed to go home” she started, “but people 

were telling me that Christmas and New 

Year’s would be very busy, so I decided to stay 

and make some more money,” she said with a 

laugh. Even at 11, she is beginning to demonstrate 

the legendary Chinese business sense. 

She planned to return to school after the 

New Year’s holiday. Will she be ready? “My 

father has been tutoring me, so I think I will 

be OK.” She was smiling and in good spirits, 

wearing a down jacket she said a foreigner had 

given to her. She insisted she wasn’t cold: “Last 

winter was much worse at home; it snowed a 

lot. This isn’t so bad.” 

I said my goodbyes, wished her luck, and 

turned to go, walking past the cookie-cutter 

bars, the kebab stands, the beggars. I hoped 

that the next time I found myself on Bar Street, 

I would not see her. 

Ben Steele was formerly a Fulbright Fellow in 

Beijing, China, where he now lives. 


E N D N O T E 

“Children selling 

flowers are a common 

sight in the bar 

districts of Beijing. 

On a busy night when 

the weather is nice, 

they might make 

up to 100 yuan by 

capitalizing on the pity 

of the foreign students 

and businessmen 

and upper-middle-class 

Chinese that frequent 

the city’s bars 

and clubs.” 


The Flower Girl 

On an unusually cold October 

night on Sanlitun Bar Street, 

most of the mostly foreign 

crowd was not quite dressed 

for the weather; such weather 

called for more than a fleece 

jacket or a Gore-Tex shell. 

Still, the patrons were crowded 

around the outdoor tables, 

leaning in over their drinks and 

ordering kebabs from the adjacent 

stands. Remonstrations 

were made against the cold 

and wind, but no one moved 

indoors; it was cold, but evidently not cold 

enough not to drink outside. 

A young Chinese girl worked her way 

through the crowd, patiently approaching each 

person and offering them a rose while saying 

in a low voice, “Buy flowers, buy flowers” in 

Chinese. She, too, was not dressed for the 

weather, wearing only a couple of thin, pink 

cotton sweaters as protection against the cold. 

Her face and clothes were dirty, and her justover 

shoulder-length hair was tied back in a 

ponytail. Most of her offers of a flower for 5 

yuan (65 cents) were respectfully declined, but 

occasionally someone would buy one for his or 

her better half, eliciting a smile and a gush of 

appreciative language from the girl, who would 

then move on down the street. 

Children selling flowers are a common 

sight in the bar districts of Beijing. On a busy 

night when the weather is nice, they might 

make up to 100 yuan by capitalizing on the 

pity of the foreign students and businessmen 

and upper-middle-class Chinese that frequent 

the city’s bars and clubs. The money does not 

come easy, though; the flower sellers start in 

early evening and, when business is brisk, will 

work until 5:30 a.m., when the last of the bars 

has shut down and the last of the revelers has 

headed home. Until then they will canvas Bar 

Street (or one of its competing nightlife dis- 

By Ben Steele ’98 

tricts), pouncing on new arrivals, 

hoping to make a sale 

before the patrons are beset 

by the beggars who are also a 

fixture of Beijing nightlife. 

� � � 

The work is surely frustrating, 

but this young girl is there every 

night, as much an institution 

as any of the landmark 

bars of Sanlitun. Her name is 

Tiantian; she’s an 11-year-old 

from Henan province, well south of Beijing. 

She came here the previous May after completing 

fifth grade and says she was not interested in 

school and wanted to try her hand at working. 

Her parents were already in the city, selling fruit 

at a market stall in the northeast part of town. 

I tried to ask where in Henan she was from, 

but I could not understand her reply. When 

I asked her to repeat herself, she blushed and 

said, “I can’t really speak Mandarin, we only 

speak our local dialect at home. You foreigners 

speak better Mandarin than us non-locals.” 

“Nonsense,” I told her, even though she 

was right. Her reply, however, was revealing 

about the way migrants feel they are perceived: 

southern Chinese speak an accented form of 

Mandarin that immediately brands them as 

an outsider here in the north; Tiantian was 

clearly self-conscious about her speech and 

knew the locals looked down on her because 

of it. Nationalism in China may be strong, 

but localism is stronger, and Chinese people 

are often fiercely suspicious of outsiders in 

their communities. 

A friend of mine, a young Chinese woman 

in her mid-20s who works for an import/ 

export company, shared that same sense of regional 

bias. When I first met her, I told her I 

was in Beijing to study migrant workers, and 

she responded with vigor, “We Beijingers hate

Come join the fun on 

Alumni 

Weekend, 

May 12–14. 

Reunion Class Celebrations 

Thursday, May 12 Dinners 

Class of 1945 Dolce Heritage, Southbury 

Class of 1955 Taft School, Watertown 

Friday, May 13 Luncheons 

Class of 1933 Southbury Hilton, Southbury 

Class of 1935 Armstrong Dining Hall, 

Taft, Watertown 

Class of 1940 Dolce Heritage, Southbury 

Class of 1945 Armstrong Dining Hall, 

Taft, Watertown 

Class of 1950 Olive Tree, Southbury 

Class of 1955 Watertown Golf Club, Watertown 

Friday, May 13 Dinners 

Class of 1960 Good News Café, Woodbury 

Class of 1965 La Cupola, Litchfield 

Class of 1970 The Tollgate Hill Inn, Litchfield 


Class of 1985 Waterbury Country Club, 

Waterbury 

Class of 1990 Steel Lounge, Waterbury 

Class of 1995 Drescher’s, Waterbury 

Saturday, May 14 Dinners 


Class of 2000 Drescher’s, Waterbury 

To register, call 800-959-TAFT 

or for more information visit 


You may also register on campus Friday between 

4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., and on Saturday morning 

from 7:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon at the Main Circle.

Taft Bulletin 


Watertown, CT 06795-2100 

860-945-7777 


Change Service Requested 

Notice: Postal regulations require the school to pay 

70 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. 

Alumni Weekend 

May 12–14 

To register call 800-959-TAFT or visit www.TaftAlumni.com 

Non-profit Org. 

U.S. Postage 

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