the foundation of a dream - library.standrews-de.org filebare fields turned green. trees went in....

M A G A Z I N E

F A L L 2 0 0 4

PLUS: Summer Studies • Campus Update • Living Diversity at St. Andrew’s

The Foundation of a Dream

Bare fields turned green. Trees went in. Buildings went up. Cloisters went on.

Why affords a nice speculation.

A benevolent foundermay have had something to do with it,

or money, or boys and men.

Divine providence may even have had a hand in it. Who knows?

You sit down and figure it out. The answer you find is the only one you will ever believe.

And when you’re done, another question remains:

What are you going to do with what you have?”William “Bull” Cameron

Master and Assistant HeadmasterFounders’ Day 1966

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ST.ANDREW’S MAGAZINE 1

EDITORGreg Doyle ’87

EXECUTIVE EDITORJoy McGrath ’92

CLASS NOTES EDITORAmy MacKenzie

PROOFREADERSAnn DoyleFran HolveckMary Loessner

PHOTOGRAPHYGreg Doyle ’87

CONTRIBUTORSSteve BrodnerNicole FurlongeNigel FurlongeAdam GopnikHume Horan ’51Hope McGrath ’01Joy McGrath ’92Allison Prevatt ’05Tad RoachLanie Thomas ’88Matt Wolinski ’00Peter Zimmerman ’05

ADDRESS CORRESPONDENCE TO:St. Andrew’s Magazine350 Noxontown RoadMiddletown, DE 19709-1605

Fax: (302) 378-0429Tel: (302) 285-4257General email : [email protected] notes email: [email protected]

ON THE COVERN.C. Wyeth depicted the inspiration behind the founding of St. Andrew’s School in his mural, which graces the School’s Dining Hall.

DEPARTMENTS

3 TRUSTEE NOTES

5 HEADMASTER’S REMARKS

6 CAMPUS UPDATE

9 UP FRONT

36 ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

46 ALUMNI PERSPECTIVE

54 ALUMNI NEWS

58 IN MEMORY

63 CLASS NOTES

ST.ANDREW’SM A G A Z I N E

Volume 26, No. 4 Fall 2004

FEATURES

THE FOUNDATION OF A DREAM

In 1929, the first Trustees did more than just lay the cornerstoneof a building—they provided the foundation for a transformingand visionary educational institution.

A LIVING EXPERIMENT

Faculty members Nicole and Nigel Furlonge explore the past,present and future of diversity at St. Andrew’s School.

MiGU Press in Warminster, Pennsylvania,prints St.Andrew’s Magazine.

St.Andrew’s Magazine is published four times a year by the Communications Office for the alumni, parents and friends of St.Andrew’s School.Copyright 2004.

Third-class postage paid at: Philadelphia, PA

POSTMASTER: Send address changes toSt.Andrew’s School, 350 NoxontownRoad, Middletown, DE 19709-1605.

28

18

36 LAST OF THE METROZOIDS

In this article reprinted from The New Yorker, Adam Gopnikshares his insights about his close friend and renowned arthistorian, Kirk Varnedoe ’63.

The views expressed by writers in this Magazine may not represent the official views orpolicies of St. Andrew’s School of Delaware, Inc., or its Trustees or administration.

2 FALL 2004

Katharine duP. Gahagan • ChairWilmington, Del.

J. Kent Sweezey ’70 • PresidentDallas, Tex.

Caroline duP. Prickett • Secretary, TreasurerChesapeake City, Md.

Adm. Dennis C. Blair ’64, USN (Ret.)Alexandria, Va.

Robert B. Blum Sr. P’84, ’90 • Trustee EmeritusJupiter, Fl.

Gay Kenney Browne ’78Pacific Palisades, Calif.

William H. Brownlee ’44 P’73, ’75, ’77, ’79 GP’05 • Trustee EmeritusChevy Chase, Md.

John Cook ’45Falmouth, Mass.

Andrew C. Florance ’82 • Alumni Term TrusteeChevy Chase, Md.

Sabina Forbes P’97, ’06 • Parent TrusteeBedminster, N.J.

Robert G. GahaganLocust Valley, N.Y.

Francis Giammattei Jr. ’47Wilmington, Del.

Monie T. Hardwick P’02, ’04, ’07 • Parent TrusteeBlairstown, N.J.

Paul H. Harrell Jr. P’90Montchanin, Del.

Maureen K. Harrington P’91, ’93, ’96, ’99, ’02Queenstown, Md.

Garrett J. Hart ’78 P’07 • Alumni Corporation PresidentLeesburg, Va.

Henry N. Herndon Jr. ’48 P’83 • Trustee EmeritusHanover, N.H.

Thomas H. Hooper III ’71Montclair, N.J.

Catherine E. Kinsey, P’99, ’01New York, N.Y.

Arthur M. Miller ’70New York, N.Y.

Deval L. Patrick P’07 • Parent TrusteeMilton, Mass.

Timothy W. Peters ’66 P’91, ’93 Lancaster, Pa.

Steven B. Pfeiffer P’95, ’97, ’00, ’04Alexandria, Va.

Sally E. Pingree P’01Washington, D.C.

Henry duPont Ridgely ’67Camden, Del.

Daniel T. Roach Jr. P’04, ’07 • HeadmasterMiddletown, Del.

H. Hickman Rowland Jr. ’58New Castle, Del.

Winthrop deV. Schwab ’36 P’66, ’82 GP’86 • Trustee EmeritusGladwyne, Pa.

Henry H. Silliman Jr. GP’07 • Trustee EmeritusGreenville, Del.

Scott M. Sipprelle ’81 P’08Princeton, N.J.

Edward M. Strong ’66 P’07New York, N.Y.

O. Lee Tawes III ’65 P’96 • Alumni Term TrusteeBedford Hills, N.Y.

Richard B. Vaughan ’88 • Alumni Term TrusteeNew York, N.Y.

Patricia G. Warner P’00Locust Valley, N.Y.

Rev. Wayne P. Wright • Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of DelawareWilmington, Del.

ST.ANDREW’S SCHOOL

BOARD OF TRUSTEES


Trustee Henry duPont Ridgely was nominated byGovernor Ruth Ann Minner and unanimously confirmed byDelaware’s State Senate to fill a vacancy on the DelawareSupreme Court.

In a June 16 news release, Gov. Minner praised Ridgely,calling him “a respected jurist with a distinguished record onthe bench going back two decades.” Ridgely had served asPresident Judge of Superior Court since 1990, a SuperiorCourt resident judge from 1988 to 1990, and an associatejudge from 1984 to 1988. He was presented the American BarAssociation’s and National Center for State Courts’Award forOutstanding Service in Adopting and Implementing StandardsRelating to Juror Use and Management in 1993. In 1997 hereceived the Chief Justice’s Annual Award for OutstandingJudicial Service. In 2000 the American Board of TrialAdvocates - Delaware Chapter presented to Justice Ridgely itsAward for Judicial Professionalism and Civility.

The Delaware Supreme Court consists of a chief justiceand four justices who are appointed for 12-year terms.Threeof the justices must represent one of the major political partieswhile the other two justices must be members of the othermajor political party.

During remarks at his July 22 investiture before theGeneral Assembly, Ridgely acknowledged his father’s lastinginfluence, as well as the time he spent at St.Andrew’s:

At an investiture, one cannot help but reflect a little bit onthe past, and I have done that. I did not begin my legal careerexpecting to be a judge. I intended to practice law with myfather, Henry J. Ridgely. Many of you in this courtroom knewhim.

Pop, as his sons called him, inspired me to be a lawyer. Asa lawyer, he showed me how law was to be practiced with civility.He loved to help his clients, and his word was always his bond.And he was fair.

Chancellor Grover Brown wrote about my Dad in theDelaware Lawyer magazine, as he reflected on his own earlydays as a country lawyer. He said,“I was never much on heroesor role models, but Henry J. Ridgely and Collins Seitz cameabout as close for me as you could get. Henry was tall and hada gangly gait. His stride was easy and confident, and as hewalked across The Green from his office to the courthouse, hesymbolized a man completely in control of whatever it was hehad to do.

“He greeted you with a smile and always seemed concernedfor your well-being. His eyebrows arched upward in apparentinterest as he made some inquiry or offered a compliment onsomething you had done. He had only one pace, at least as faras I ever saw him, and that was steady.

“I never knew him to show anger, or give any indicationthat he would ever lose his composure, no matter what was goingon around him, in court or out. He always spoke in the samesoothing measured tone. He was always just Henry. He was alsoa very good lawyer.”

I want to add to the Chancellor’s description: He was aneven better Dad.

The advice he gave me that I want to share with you todaywas,“Get as much education as you can. No one can ever takethat away from you.” He said that with the perspective of a manwho had seen the Great Depression and knew how material pos-sessions could be lost.

I know today that he and my mother set the right course forme by sending me to St.Andrew’s where academic and athleticchallenges were matched by the same steady encouragement bythe faculty and Headmaster. I’m glad the current Headmasterand many present and former trustees can be here today to hearme say how grateful I am to St.Andrew’s School for the founda-tion of faith and learning that the school has given me.

Ridgely appointed to Delaware Supreme Court

TRUSTEE NOTES

Delaware Supreme Court Justice Henry duPont Ridgely ’67

4 FALL 2004

TRUSTEE NOTES

Two new Trustees appointed to Board

Adm. Dennis C. Blair ’64, USN (Ret.)Dennis Blair joins the Board as a nonclassified Trustee.

Dennis attended the Naval Academy following his graduationfrom St.Andrew’s and then Oxford University as a RhodesScholar, earning a master’s degree in Russian language andEuropean history. During his 34-year career in the Navy heserved at sea in the Pacific; ashore he served on military staffsin the Pentagon and on the National Security Council staff.His final assignment on active duty was Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Forces Pacific. For the past year Dennis has beenpresident of the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria,Va. Dennis and his wife, Diane, live in Alexandria. They havetwo children: Duncan works in the environmental field, andPamela is a social worker.

In 2000, Dennis delivered the commencement address at St.Andrew’s.

Richard B. Vaughan ’88Richard Vaughan has been elected to the Board as an

Alumni Term Trustee. Richard is managing director of privateequity at Cockrell Interests, the investment arm for theCockrell family in Texas. He is responsible for investing familycapital as well as other client capital managed under the PintoGroup of funds. Previously, Richard was a managing principalof Zephyr Management in New York, where he focused onprivate equity investing in non-U.S. developing markets. Inthis capacity, Richard traveled extensively and worked in mar-kets throughout Latin America and Asia, including being basedin Seoul, South Korea 1997-2000. Prior to Zephyr he workedat Bankers Trust Company in New York in global investmentmanagement and the bank’s proprietary funds managementgroup. He graduated from Princeton University with an A.B.degree in politics.

Richard is a native of Texas and resides in New York andHouston with his wife,Ann Davis Vaughan.Ann is a native ofNorth Carolina and is a senior special writer on the WallStreet beat for the Wall Street Journal.

Cynthia Primo Martin completes service to Board

Cynthia Martin has made distinguished contributions to theBoard during her tenure. As a past parent and leader withinthe Delaware community, she has inspired St.Andrew’s deepcommitment to diversity, to service learning and to humanrights. As the leader of the Primo Lecture Series, Cynthia hasconnected St.Andrew’s students to the inspiration and worksof Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.N.AmbassadorAndrew Young and other national and international figures.

While a Trustee, Cynthia served on the Board’s educationand diversity committees, and she has been a trusted mentorand friend to Headmaster Tad Roach.

I do not know about you, but I have never enjoyed myown birthday celebrations. As a young child in Buffalo, I dis-tinctly recall watching lots of children running around myback yard as I resisted my mother’s entreaties to join my ownparty. And now that I am nearly 50, the birthday each yearbecomes a reminder that I probably should have enjoyedthose early birthdays when I had the chance.

As we begin our celebration of the 75th anniversary of thefounding of St.Andrew’s, I stand on much more secureground; for as we celebrate the School’s birthday, we have theluxury of remembering the past and creating its future. I havethought a great deal about how I should mark this 75thanniversary year, and in this essay I would like to share myconclusions and observations.

I began the 2004-05 year by talking to the faculty aboutthe recently released 9/11 Report. This is an important doc-ument for Americans to read and study as we seek to under-stand a new era of world terrorism. But the study is also afascinating challenge to all organizations, especially schoolsand colleges. The report’s most compelling finding is that adistinct failure of imagination on the part of two administra-tions, the Congress and our intelligence communities, led tothe tragic events of September 11, 2001. The Commissiondescribed this failure of imagination as an inability on the partof individuals and organizations to view the world withoutpreconceptions, without a blind adherence to old principlesand assumptions, without an ability to speak up, question andultimately change course. We know that individuals and particularly organizations fear creativity and change, but wealso know that a sense of complacency and self-satisfactioncan lead to stagnation, paralysis and mediocrity.

The history and legacy of St.Andrew’s School describes aninstitution that has sought to be creative and imaginative asAmerica and our understanding of education has evolved.What strikes me as I survey these 75 years on the campus ishow wise our founding principles were. They clearly havestood the test of time. The radical idea of a new kind ofboarding school, one designed to offer access to all regardlessof means, was a great idea in 1929 and still is in 2004. In1929, that concept of socio-economic diversity was one thatwas rarely articulated or pursued either by other privateschools or colleges. Today, socio-economic diversity is the

foundation of admissions, student life and academic programsat the most creative and enlightened college campusesthroughout the country. Mr. duPont understood this almost acentury before it became important for colleges, universitiesand schools to give educational opportunities to all.

St.Andrew’s was always envisioned as a community—acommunity of learning, a community of faith, a communityof goodness. The School’s values and ethos were never tied toindividualistic success, materialism or the lure of the world.Dr. Pell, Bishop Cook and Mr. duPont were skeptical of theworth of a life of materialism, greed and individual ambition.They sought to create a community where character andresponsibility and stewardship come first, where teachers andstudents share a love of learning and a deep respect for oneanother.

And finally, the Founders believed that a beautiful settingwould provide the stage for learning and community to flour-ish. So it was that from the barren cornfields and desolation aschool grew, took shape and prospered.

As America changed, our definition and understanding ofdiversity changed. Once a school for white boys, rich, middleclass and poor, St.Andrew’s slowly developed into a school forall: girls, students of color, international students, students ofvarying faiths and religious backgrounds. The original visionand gift provided to ensure socio-economic diversity inspiredus to be more and more creative, more and more inclusiveand more and more diverse. Now we see an educational com-munity with the potential for deep learning in our class-rooms, dorms, studios and playing fields.

What was our most important creative act in all of theseyears? . . . impossible to say except to remember that theFounders made possible the notion of St.Andrew’s as a dis-tinct, unique boarding school. They gave us the resources andthe incentives to dream.

I plan to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the School’sfounding with all of you. And I ask you to join me in thank-ing those who came before us and in thinking actively andimaginatively about St.Andrew’s future.


Celebrating 75 years of visionary education

HEADMASTER’S REMARKS

6 FALL 2004

As school opened this fall, construction workersworked diligently to complete the final phases of thenew Joan D. and Jonathan B. O’Brien Arts Center, thefacility in the center of campus that will bring all of St. Andrew’s arts programs under one roof.

The roof, in fact, was one of the most striking featuresin students’ eyes as they returned to campus Labor Dayweekend. The side of the building facing Founders’ Hall,clearly visible across the gully, is completely covered in the roofing material selected for the building by architect Richard Conway Meyer of Philadelphia—lead-coated copper. This material was also used for the roofof the bays of the Kip duPont Boathouse, also designedby Meyer, in 1990.

Meyer also used Belden brick for the other sections ofthe building. These materials firmly connect the com-pletely new and modern design of the O’Brien ArtsCenter to the other important buildings surrounding it.According to Fine Arts Department Chair John McGiff,“the building provides a truly generous bridge betweenboth sides of campus and shifts the center of our com-munity to its real geographical center—the gully.”

The new building, whose construction was headed byMichael Loessner ’84 of Bellevue Holding Company(construction managers for the project), opened to stu-dents during September, as soon as a certificate of occu-pancy was obtained for the building. The fact that theArts Center was open for the first weeks of school isimpressive when the obstacles to construction are takeninto consideration—including a snowier than averagewinter and heavy rains and flooding throughout thespring and summer.

There is no doubt that faculty and students alike lovethe new building. As John McGiff said, “the space isimmediately magnificent—the studios are spacious andlight-filled and the architect’s love of windows allowsone, indeed, invites one, to peer into many different,enticing spaces at once.”

While eagerly taking in the appearance of the buildingand admiring its design features, students were mostlyjust excited to move in and begin to use the building.

The dedication of the O’Brien Arts Center will takeplace at noon on October 15, 2004.

O’Brien Arts Center and Amos Hall near completion for students’ return

CAMPUS UPDATE

By late summer, construction work on the O’Brien Arts Center neared its final phase.

ST. ANDREW’S MAGAZINE 7

Founders’ Hall doors and woodwork restored

Visitors to St. Andrew’s this fall will find the meticulouslycrafted doors and the floor-to-ceiling wood paneling in theMain Common Room restored to their original splendor.Master craftsmen spent hours this summer removing the orig-inal hardware from the solid oak exterior doors, sanding andrefinishing the wood and polishing it to a high finish. The orig-inal hardware was cleaned and restored. In the Main CommonRoom, the wood paneling that surrounds Felix duPont’s guncollection and the hearth was stripped and refinished, addinga new sparkle to the most used room on campus.

Infrastructure work rolls into second year

At the close of the summer, underground fire sprinklerwater lines had been run to all buildings on campus, includingthe boathouse, gym, dormitory buildings and classroom build-ings. Over the summer, automatic fire sprinkler systems wereinstalled in Gaul East, Gaul West and North Hall. As construc-tion on the childcare center and Edith Pell Student Center iscompleted, these facilities will have sprinklers as well. Nextsummer and the following summers, sprinkler systems will beinstalled in Founders’ Hall, Moss Hall, Amos Hall and theCameron Gym.

The rear façade of Amos Hall underwent a significant transformation. The Strand bridge connects the Arts Center to Amos Hall.

Following a summer restoration, the doors of Founders’ Halllook just like they did in 1930.

8 FALL 2004

Infrastructure work rolls into second year(continued)

A major roof and building envelope project was initi-ated in July and will last for the next several years. Inthe first phase, completed this summer, several flat roofsaround campus were repaired. Leaks had become aproblem, particularly in Founders’ Hall, during theextraordinarily rainy weather experienced in Delawareover the last year. Brick masons also rebuilt several ofFounders’ Hall’s massive chimneys to accommodate theexhaust systems for the new boilers. Over the next sev-eral years, other roofs, including Founders’ Hall’s slateroofs, will be rebuilt.

Three new boilers were installed in Founders’ Hall,and new boilers were installed in Pell and Moss, theEdith Pell Student Center, and the burners of the boilerin the Cameron Gym were retrofitted to burn a moreefficient grade of oil. The new boilers are dual fuel burn-ers, able to use both oil and natural gas. Natural gas lineswere therefore brought into campus in July, and shouldbe on line by the heating season.

Aspects of the electrical systems on campus were alsooverhauled this summer. Two new primary electricallines were brought into campus. The main electricalvault will also be overhauled during the year. The entiresystem needed extensive work to meet the presentneeds of the campus. Dorm, classroom and laboratoryelectrical equipment and appliances have increaseddemands for electricity on campus since the currentelectrical systems on campus were installed decadesago. Another major improvement in campus electric isthe installation of a new generator, capable of keepingall of Founders’ Hall and the houses on the main driveup and running for three days during an emergency. Ona day-to-day basis the generator will provide backupelectricity during short or minor power failures.

McKinstry Garth looking beautiful again

Cranes, trucks, dumpsters and huge piles of rock werea constant presence on the front lawn this summer asstone masons worked to refurbish McKinstry Garth,which had been the victim of decades of water andweather damage.

There was no sign of the construction when Schoolopened in early September. The stonework was repaired

and limestone caps installed to improve the stability andappearance of the area that has become a central archi-tectural feature of the School.

While the floor of the upper level of the Garth was notre-installed, the courtyard floor was completely refur-bished. The courtyard area was also updated with freshlandscaping and new lighting.

Initial phase of campus lighting projectcompleted

Thirty-five custom-made streetlights wereinstalled in the central area of campus overthe summer, on the main drive, aroundFounders’ Hall and near the O’Brien ArtsCenter. The lights are designed for safety,offering better lighting with no dark areas.

The lights are modeled after lightsappearing elsewhere on campus, on theexterior of Founders’ Hall and other originalSchool buildings. The metal armatureattaching the lanterns to the lampposts isdesigned in the shape of a St. Andrew’scross.

CAMPUS UPDATE

In addition to capping the stone arches of the Garth, the flag-stones of the courtyard were refurbished and the underlyingdrainage structures were repaired.

From internships to community service to foreign trav-el, St. Andrew’s students filled the three months of thesummer with engaging opportunities.

Allison Prevatt ’05 traveled with other St. Andreans toSt. Mark’s College in Jane Furse, South Africa and thenspent a month in Paris taking creative writing coursesand working as a benevole (volunteer) in a geriatric wardat L’Hôpital Vaugiraud. Allison helped during an exerciseperiod that focused on patients’ physical disabilities,played games battling the effects of memory loss or oftensimply engaged them in conversation to liven their after-noons. She also managed to fit in some coxing at theNortheastern Rowing Camp in Maine.

Allison Stewart ’07 worked towards earning herCongressional Award, a program that recognizes excel-lence in initiative, achievement and service amongyoung persons, age 14-23. Candidates pursue the awardthrough voluntary public service, personal development,and physical fitness and then undertake an expedition orexploration. Allison took Spanish, learned how to row ascull and volunteered for over 100 hours, 80 spent withLandmark Volunteers and Scenic Hudson cleaning up theHudson riverside to help create an eco-friendly park.

Adam Mantha ’07 conducted a small-scale study on theprevalence and management of diabetes in a suburbanfamily practice setting, examining more than a hundredcharts to familiarize himself with various demographicsof the disease in this setting. He also found time to com-pete with the Riptide swim team.

Ashley Hart ’07 spent time in Spain enjoying the muse-ums of Madrid and the horse country of El Escorial andproving once again that the world is never too big for St. Andreans to find each other. In the small town ofTarifa, Ashley and her family were walking the streetswhen they stumbled across faculty members Darcy andPeter Caldwell and their three children.

Ashley Holbrook ’05 spent a month living in Tanzaniaworking in the horse stables on a reserve called Sasakwa,exploring the land on horseback and contributing to adiverse community of people who each traded village,anti-poaching, construction work or other skills in returnfor room and board. Ashley also spent time in the vil-lages surrounding the Serengeti Plain. “Not only did itcause me to be grateful for what I have, but I also felt anadmiration for the good-nature of the Africans and theirdedication to supporting themselves and their culture,despite the immense hardships that are a part of their

everyday lives,” said Ashley. “Never once did I meet anAfrican without a smile from ear to ear.” Ashley was ableto learn a small amount of Swahili—just enough to carryon a brief conversation—but is very interested in the lan-guage and hopes to pursue it further.

Chad Shahan ’05 spent his fifth straight summer work-ing as a volunteer at the Mount Vernon Estate just out-side Alexandria, Va. This summer, Chad worked in theHands on History tent, an exhibit for children and fami-lies near the mansion. The exhibit included activitiessuch as building a bucket 18th-century style, trying oncolonial attire and mending pottery shards like an archaeologist.

Christina Conell ’05 traveled to Segovia, Spain, a smallcity about one hour southeast of Madrid. Christina hadthe opportunity to see the Roman aqueduct and theAlcazar Castilla, which is the castle that Disney imitatedwhen building Disneyland. While in Segovia, Christinatook Spanish classes every morning, focusing on gram-mar, literature that included works by Gabriel GarcíaMarquez and Octavio Paz and the culture and history ofSpain as taught by a local historian.

Dana Daugherty ’05 was part of a leadership develop-ment program in New Hampshire where candidates par-ticipated in physically demanding activities, helped at acamp for ability-challenged kids, built part of a house forHabitat for Humanity, learned how to be a counselor in acabin for a week, spent 10 days on a canoe trip along theChibougamau River in Canada and spent 48 hours alonein the middle of the woods with nothing but a tarp, a


UP FRONT

Students spend summers in service and learning

Ashley Holbrook ’05spent the summer inTanzania, working nearthe Serengeti Plain.

sleeping bag, two bottles of water and a pen and paper.Duncan Kirby ’05 visited Tibet for six weeks, back-

packing, doing community service and a seven-dayhomestay, as well as looking at numerous monastariesand studying Tibetan Buddhism.

David Agia ’06 spent time in Europe giving concerttours in two separate trips. The first was a trip to Spainfor 10 days at the end of June. The orchestra consistedof about 12 Americans playing violin, viola, cello andbass. The group gave four concerts around northernSpain, including Madrid. In August, David spent timeat a strings festival in Italy. For this tour, the orchestrawas more international, with students from America,Italy and a few other European countries. There werealso a number of professionals in the group. The mainfocus for this tour was not giving concerts, but rehears-ing and learning through those rehearsals. Studentsreceived private lessons every morning, followed by achamber music rehearsal, then orchestra practice. Thegroups performed nine concerts around central Italy.

J. J. Geewax ’05 volunteered in Sharp Laboratory atthe University of Delaware, working under physicistsGeorge Hadjipinayis and Mike Bonder, currently doingresearch on magnetic nano-particles. J. J. performed

computer analysis of data from a transmission electronmicroscope (TEM), which magnified surfaces up to200,000 times. He created graphs and models of howdifferent particles reacted when they were “sputtered”at different temperatures and pressures. Sputtering is away of shooting a thin film of silver particles onto apiece of metal, usually silicon.

Dexter Walcott ’05 spent the first months of summerworking in construction, renovating an old truckingterminal into an office building. Before returning tocampus, Dexter plunged into the political arena for afew weeks when he volunteered with his localDemocratic Party office, helping to register voters andconducting telephone research. Of the experience,Dexter reported, “I am especially excited about theinvolvement and interest of young people in America.”Optimistically he added, “I believe that we may get tosee the majority of 18- to 24-year-olds out at the polls—which is very exciting.”

During a month in Chile, Manaami Ransom ’05 livedwith a host in the town of La Serena/Coquimbo, per-formed community service at the Hogar de Cristo(House of Christ), a home for senior citizens of Chilethat were abandoned, ill and homeless, and Hogar de

10 FALL 2004

UP FRONT

This summer I had an internship at a local public radio sta-tion—WXPN 88.5 FM in Philadelphia. I worked specificallywith the staff of a show called “The World Cafe.” This is ashow which is programmed and directed from WXPN, but isthen sent out to about 160 other public radio stations in theUnited States. The World Cafe is a two-hour program which ishosted by longtime music connoisseur David Dye and everyday features a different live performance by an artist or band,ranging from the likes of Warren Hayes to Alanis Morissette toLucinda Williams to lesser known artists such as the ClumsyLovers or Jem. The artists donate an hour of music to the sta-tion—they are not paid to come in to WXPN but do it as a wayof promoting themselves. They are also artists who do notnormally receive much airplay on commercial radio. I had theexperience of meeting a lot of artists this summer while Iworked for the World Cafe, including the Indigo Girls, theFrank and Joe Show, Rachael Yamagata and many others.

However, for my internship I was working on updating data-bases, cataloging copies of past World Cafe shows, sendingfiles to the RIAA (which described exactly how many listenerstuned in per hour and exactly what songs were played in eachshow), and contacting artists’ labels about updated contactinformation and to confirm bookings. This may sound like asmall amount of work, but in a station that is funded com-pletely by member donations, the need for work is incrediblyhigh, and I actually found myself going beyond these dutiesmany times. For example, one Friday I was able to help theon-air DJ take request calls and set up the show for two hoursof “Crazy Requests,” a time period of playing just what peopleare requesting, no matter how obscure the song.

The internship was incredible because I had the opportuni-ty to make relationships with so many of the interns and hiredworkers at the radio station. I was expecting to be pushed tothe side and not really needed because I was an intern, but I

Enjoying the summer—on the airwavesby Peter Zimmerman ’05


quickly found this was not the case.The energy from working there wasamazing. I came to work everyThursday and Friday morning at9:00 a.m., after two long hours of com-muting, but I was quickly jolted out ofmy tiredness and into a whirlwind ofmusic and excitement about music. Idid not meet one person who workedthere that did not love exactly whatthey did. Another part of the intern-ship which made it great for me was the exposure to suchgood new music. While commercial radio plays to the trendsand spins songs that sometimes are indistinguishable fromothers, it was such a relief to hear fresh new music fromartists that would not normally be heard. I was introduced tomany different types of music with which I was not familiar,

such as bluegrass, Celtic musicand funk. WXPN plays such aneclectic mix of songs that onecannot get tired of the musicquickly. I do think it helped thatWXPN also plays my favoritemusic, but I still found myselffaced with such different kindsof music and artists that I reallyfelt I was learning somethingevery day. After this internship I

have really become interested in communications, and wantto return next summer and work there again, but perhaps thistime in a different section of the station, producing a differentshow, or maybe even programming the shows. During a sum-mer chock full of college trips, SAT prep, summer work andapplications, this was an invigorating breath of fresh air.

Peter with the Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers.

Vida (House of Life), an orphanage for suicidal, aban-doned, homeless and sexually abused children. Atboth homes Manaami spent many hours playinggames and engaging the residents with dominoes andEl Gato y El Ratón (the Cat and the Mouse). She alsocleaned, painted and helped build walls at both estab-lishments. The trip called upon Manaami to sharpenher language skills, speaking only Spanish and attending La Universidad de La Serena a few timeseach week.

Paul Harland-White ’06 spent a portion of his sum-mer working at a local theater camp for elementaryand middle-school kids. The camp put on a differentshow every two weeks—first Peter Pan and thenAnything Goes. Paul then took to the stage himself ina third show for students his own age. The cast did arevue of four different shows as well as a few of thedirector’s favorite numbers from numerous othershows. Throughout the production, Paul played Tonyin Westside Story, Pawnee Bill in Annie Get your Gun,Billy Flynn in Chicago, Rademeis in Aida, and a wait-er in Hello Dolly.

Faculty enjoy enrichingsummers

St. Andrew’s endowment contains several fundsestablished to support faculty to pursue advanceddegrees and acquire new skills and information intheir subject areas. Funding is available to all faculty,and each summer faculty who receive grants gener-ate new classes and programs for St. Andrew’s cur-riculum. This summer was no exception.

Donald Duffy worked on designing and setting upan Internet-based language lab. The system allowsstudents to complete assignments on the Web andreceive immediate feedback. Donald also worked toincorporate teacher-authored multimedia files, suchas Quicktime movies, for listening and reading.Donald is hoping to include recording capabilities forthe students in the language lab. As he described thesystem, “This is a chug and plug language lab withself-authored tools for the teachers, not a packagedlab given that confines teachers without pedagogicalflexibility.”

12 FALL 2004

UP FRONT

Diahann Johnson spent a month studyingat the Sorbonne in Paris. The advanced sem-inar entitled ‘Cours de Civilisation Françaisede la Sorbonne’ was specifically designed forFrench teachers and language students. Thetopics ranged from art to history to interna-tional relations and urban studies. Diahannespecially enjoyed the music and literatureconferences given by noted professors fromthe Sorbonne and professionals in special-ized fields of study.

Emily Pressman was a Fellow at theKlingenstein Summer Institute, a two-weekprogram at Columbia Teachers College. TheSummer Institute is specifically for inde-pendent school teachers who are in theirfirst two to five years of teaching.Participants spent the weeks learning aboutand discussing educational theory, cognitivedevelopment, issues of diversity and dis-cussing the teaching of our disciplines. St. Andrew’s faculty member Nigel Furlongewas one of the lead teachers for the historydiscipline group.

Kevin Schroedter spent two weeks inFrance leading a group of 25 high school students from California. The group stayedwith host families in Lyon and then traveledaround the southeastern part of the country.Kevin also attended the Advanced PlacementNational Conference in Orlando, Fl. in July.

Nathan Costa continued his work in a mas-ter’s program at St. John’s University Schoolof Theology in Collegeville, Minn. St. John’sis a Benedictine university, secondary schooland monastery centered on intellectualendeavor, daily prayer and a nurturing life ina community bound by tradition, faith, open-ness, respect and hospitality. This summer,Nathan’s second, he took courses in earlyliturgy, Gregorian chant, the development ofpsalmody and hymnody and Christian the-ologies of salvation. He also worked in theliturgical music department taking lessons inorgan and voice.

Cresson Prize - AthleticsEdwin Cuervo ’04 Elizabeth Hardwick ’04

Art PrizeBianca Brown ’04Julia Donaldson ’04Tarlton Long ’04

Purchase PrizeMarten Elder ’04Tarlton Long ’04

Larry L. Walker Band PrizeEdwin Cuervo ’04Laney Smith ’04

Choir PrizeEdwin Cuervo ’04

Drama PrizePeyton Coles ’04Laney Smith ’04

Hoover C. Sutton Drama Prize - TechnicalAshby Hardesty ’04Carl Hayden ’04

Keri J. Advocat Photography PrizeAnstes Agnew ’05Chloe Arthurs ’05Jane-Paige D’Huyvetter ’04

Chester E. Baum Prize for EnglishMaggie Bryan ’04Matthew Roach ’04Natalie Stewart ’04

Charles H. Welling Jr. Prize for WritingBianca Brown ’04Will Blue ’04Sydnor Scholer ’04

Amanda C. Leyon Prize for Creative WritingBetty Cox ’05Allison Prevatt ’05

Louis C. Mandes Jr. Library PrizeShayna Alleyne ’05

Sherman Webb Prize for History Elizabeth Hardwick ’04Laney Smith ’04Matthew Roach ’04

W. Lewis Fleming Prize for French Sarah Unger ’04

Joseph L. Hargove Prize for SpanishMaggie Bryan ’04

Chinese PrizeStephanie Pfeiffer ’04

G. Coerte Voorhees Prize for Classical LanguagesKate Whitesell ’04

Walter L. Harrison Prize for MathematicsJ. J. Geewax ’05Peter Salas ’05

William Day Scott Prize for Science Hugo Beekman ’04Laney Smith ’04

William H. Amos Prize for the Life SciencesCory duPont ’04Elizabeth Hardwick ’04

Virginia Layton Orr PrizeNia Chaney ’04Marten Elder ’04

Walden Pell Prize for Religious StudiesAshby Hardesty ’04Claire Teigland ’04

Francis L. Spalding AwardArkadiusz Adamczyk ’06Marti Dumas ’06

Harry C. Parker PrizeCory duPont ’04Mary-Carson Saunders ’04Scott Willey ’04

Peer Tutoring AwardLaney Smith ’04Kate Whitesell ’04

Community Service AwardJanet Daniels ’04

Calder PrizeAndrew Forsthoefel ’07Hadley Roach ’07

J. Thompson Brown AwardAntonia Clark ’05Mark Kavulich ’06

Malcolm Ford AwardElizabeth Burns ’05Dana Daugherty ’06Tyler Montgomery ’05

Robert H. Stegeman Jr. AwardMonique McDermoth ’05Peter Zimmerman ’05

Awards Night 2004

In addition to the prizes awarded at Commencement, students are also acknowledged for theirachievements in specific disciplines. Recognition was given to the following students at the Awards Night ceremony, the evening prior to Commencement Exercises.

Faculty summerscontinued

When I boarded the plane for South Africa, the only thing Iknew about my destination was from what I had seen in thenews or studied in Colonial History class. I was expecting acountry in political upheaval, blatant racism and hatred, pover-ty, misfortune, and an undercurrent of resentment against thedominating institutions of religion and government. The more Ilearned about the injustice of their past, however, the more con-vinced I was that the black South Africans should feel victim-ized, wronged, and logically (almost rationally) respond withanger and violence, living up to the expectation the rest of theworld seems to hold. This perception, however, this ignorance,was soon to be corrected by our stay at St. Mark’s College wherethe overwhelming energy of hope and faith of the students andschool's founding principles would complicate, challenge andfulfill every gap of understanding.

The defining moment for me, and I believe the rest of thegroup would agree, was the first morning we went to theirchapel to celebrate Youth Day. What we learned was that theinfectious love for their country, school, each other and us wasbut a fraction of the passion that they tirelessly poured into theirfaith. Lunga, their school president, showed me this faith. Onthe morning of Youth Day, he gave an eloquent and movingdescription of how children led the revolt against apartheid andhow their generation is blessed by God with opportunity andability to lead the new, free, South Africa. In a country that hasbeen going through years of cultural assimilation, they haveevery reason to feel victimized and to reject Christianity, butinstead he embraced his faith and encouraged his peers to dothe same. He encouraged his classmates to be assertive, confi-dent and passionate towards their studies, to act as the childrenrevolting against apartheid had, trusting in the change theirpower can create rather than falling into a pattern of submis-sion. Lunga has no desire to leave for study in America becausehe sees hope in God’s plan for the future of his country, and hehas faith in the life he will live as an educated South African.

Lunga’s spirituality that permeated every conversationbecame clear to me the first night Ms. Duprey and I attendedLCF, a student-run religious group that meets early in the morn-ing before classes and chapel. Before 8 a.m., praise songs andvocal prayers, booming in three or four of their own languages,filled the old missionary church with a steady, proud pulse ofdivinity and respect for each other’s interpretations and expres-sions of God’s word. I wanted to sing along, to step and clapalong, to feel the depth of the faith that hung in the air andpounded into the earth as they prayed together, to understandwhat faith that strong even felt like. Still dizzy on this passionfor song and prayer, in chapel that morning when an 8th graderpreached “God is African,” we laughed at the thought amongstourselves, but to tell the truth, from what I had seen and heard,I believed it.

The South Africa I didn’t expectby Allison Prevatt ’05


14 FALL 2004

Eight new faculty members join the St. Andrew’s com-munity this fall, filling positions in academics,advancement, arts and college counseling.

Demond Baine teaches ceramics and coaches football.Originally from Chicago, Demond attended Truman StateUniversity in Kirksville, Missouri, and earned a B.F.A. inpainting in 1996. His art focuses on the peculiar nature ofthe human figure, borne out of direct relation to himselfand his perceived experiences. Currently attending theUniversity of the Arts in Philadelphia, Demond is workingon his M.F.A. in ceramics. As a ceramicist, he is currentlyconcerned with understanding his culture from a visualperspective and working toward a thesis that covers therange of perception for African Americans and their cultur-al heritage.

At Truman State, Demond earned an athletic scholarshipand received the Derringer Cade Inspiration Award in foot-ball. He was selected to the National All-Star Game inMinnesota in 1996. After college, Demond worked inadministrative education as well as teaching art. His inter-est in education involves influencing youth to thinkpositively and to understand their true worth.

After 14 years of teaching high school and communitycollege students in northern Virginia, Margaret Coffeyjoined the St. Andrew’s mathematics department.Margaret grew up in Gary, Indiana, graduated fromBerkeley (Calif.) High School and attended StanfordUniversity, where she earned an A.B. in German studies.During her years as a stay-at-home mom, she decided topursue her love of mathematics and returned to school.Her study led to an M.S. in statistical science from GeorgeMason University in 1998.

Margaret enjoys writing about teaching mathematics,and her articles have appeared in Mathematics Teacher andVirginia Mathematics Teacher. An active member of theNorthern Virginia Council of Teachers of Mathematics,Margaret served as that group’s secretary and president.Last year she field-tested curricula developed for the Young

Epidemiology Scholars program. She has also worked as afreelancer for PBS Mathline.

Wes Goldsberry teaches religious studies, coaches bas-ketball and serves as a corridor parent for IV Form boys.Born and raised in North Carolina, Wes is a graduate ofWilliam G. Enloe High School in Raleigh. He completedhis undergraduate studies at Davidson College, obtainingan A.B. cum laude in music and philosophy with honors inmusic. Wes served as concertmaster of the DavidsonCollege Symphony Orchestra for two years, earning multi-ple awards from the music department for outstandingscholarship and service. Wes received a Tate MinisterialChallenge Scholarship in the spring of 2001, sending him toColumbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga., for oneyear. He has completed his Masters of Divinity atPrinceton Theological Seminary and is pursuing ordinationin the Presbyterian Church.

Wes has served as a teaching assistant at the PhillipsAcademy Summer Session and at Columbia TheologicalSeminary, teaching courses in geometry, journalism andbiblical Greek, as well as directing choral ensembles ateach institution.

Gretchen Bensinger Hurtt ’90 returned to St. Andrew’s toteach English and coach field hockey and lacrosse.Gretchen grew up in Pottstown, Pa., on the campus of TheHill School. While attending St. Andrew’s, Gretchenplayed field hockey, basketball and lacrosse, was an editorof the Cardinal, played flute in the band and was a residen-tial leader.

At Princeton, Gretchen majored in English, played fieldhockey and lacrosse and managed Tiger Pizza, a student-run company. During her summers she taught at theSalisbury Summer School in Connecticut and The HillSchool Summer Program. After graduating, Gretchentaught upper school English at the Severn School inAnnapolis, Md. She also coached field hockey and lacrosseand served as the faculty advisor to the literary magazineand yearbook.

Eight new faculty join St. Andrew’s community

Demond BaineCeramics

Margaret CoffeyMathematics

Wes GoldsberryReligious Studies

Gretchen Hurtt ’90English

UP FRONT


After earning her master’s degree from Harvard,Gretchen taught at Harvard-Westlake School in LosAngeles and at the Kent Denver School in Denver,Colorado. In recent summers, Gretchen has studied at theKlingenstein Summer Fellowship through ColumbiaUniversity, Berkeley Summer Study at Oxford University,and The Curriculum Initiative at Princeton University.

Callen Hurtt ’90 joins his wife, Gretchen, in returning toSt. Andrew’s. Callen serves as the Director of AnnualGiving and coaches soccer and squash. As a student at St. Andrew’s, Callen captained the soccer team, playedsquash, and stroked the varsity eight. He served as Wardenof the Vestry, was a residential leader, and won the HenryPrize for athletics.

Callen studied anthropology at Harvard, where he rowedvarsity lightweight crew. While at Harvard, he worked atthe Kennedy School of Government and served as ateacher in Boston Public Schools through the HarvardProgram for International Education.

Immediately after his Harvard graduation, Callen movedto Alabama to work for a family oil and gas company.From 1995 to 1998 he pursued his B.S. in petroleum engi-neering at the University of Alabama while working fulltime in the field. Callen received Alabama’s OutstandingStudent in Mineral Engineering Award each year heattended. He also coached and helped develop theUniversity of Alabama club crew program.

Rebecca James returned to the faculty in her own right this fall, having joined last January as a mid-yearmaternity-leave replacement for Kim Klecan. Betsy grewup in Birmingham, Ala., and attended Vestavia Hills HighSchool, where she played soccer and tennis, was a mem-ber of the math team, president of the French HonorSociety, and chaplain of the National Honor Society.

Betsy graduated cum laude from Auburn University witha B.S. in mathematics and a B.A. in French. While atAuburn, Betsy was a member of the freshman forum in thestudent government association, and eventually a senator

for the College of Sciences & Mathematics. She receivedFreshman Academic and John & Rosemary Brown scholar-ships and spent two summers abroad studying French.Betsy also played club soccer and flag football and was a Tiger Tutor, helping student athletes. Betsy attendedUCLA for graduate work and completed her M.A. in math-ematics.

Heidi Pearce ’00 serves as the Assistant Director ofAthletics, in addition to coaching field hockey, basketballand lacrosse. A native of Chestertown, Md., Heidi earneddistinction as one of the most accomplished athletes in thehistory of St. Andrew’s School. She was twice named thestate lacrosse player of the year, was part of the School’sfirst state champion team, and continued to play lacrosseon a scholarship to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore,Md. In 2002, Heidi was named to the First Team All-Conference and was the college’s midfielder of the year in2001 and 2002 and rookie of the year in 2001.

At Johns Hopkins, Heidi completed the major require-ments for her B.A. in sociology by the spring of her junioryear. She spent her final semesters fulfilling the prerequi-site coursework for nursing school, which she willcontinue this fall at the University of Delaware.

Before joining the college counseling office at St. Andrew’s, Alix Ross worked as an assistant directorof admissions for Kenyon College. While in admissions,Alix was part of their multicultural recruitment team, aswell as a committee analyzing Kenyon’s resources forstudents with learning disabilities. She managed thestudent volunteers and was responsible for coordinatingtransfer student admissions in addition to her regularadmissions responsibilities.

While attending Kenyon, Alix majored in English, hada weekly radio show, was very involved with the CraftCenter, where she took quilting classes, and tutored atthe local elementary school. In addition, Alix was veryinvolved with costume design and backstage crew forthe drama department.

Callen Hurtt ’90Annual Giving

Betsy JamesMathematics

Heidi Pearce ’00Athletics

Alix RossCollege Counseling

16 FALL 2004

UP FRONT

Dave McKelveyDirector of FacilitiesServices

SAM: What are your priorities this year, as we enter abusy school year with new buildings and facilities to carefor?

Dave: My priority this year is continuing to improvethe facilities department’s structure, with the goal ofestablishing the best facilities department among allboarding schools. This is a big job, but our facilitiesgroup has the talent to achieve that goal. We are aim-ing to better utilize people’s talents and reconfiguringto cover the new territory and equipment in theO’Brien Arts Center and new infrastructure aroundcampus. We are also more frequently using outsidevendors to broaden our in-house expertise. Anotherchief goal is to be more safety conscious, fully compli-ant with OSHA, and increasingly attentive to healthissues.

SAM: Given how large our campus is, and the fact thatyou only have 30 full time people, how does FacilitiesServices care for a 2,200-acre campus every day?

Dave: Teamwork is how we get the work done. Wehave a lot of people who show initiative every day, usetheir own ideas and demonstrate great leadership inthe department. I am fortunate to be working withthese people every day, along with a supportive groupof Trustees and the School’s administration. Theyunderstand the scope of what we’re trying to get doneand have provided us with the resources to do it.

SAM: What can you tell us about the new computerizedwork order request system?

Dave: The computerized system on the campusintranet is working well because it helps us track whenwork orders are assigned and completed. Its presenceon the network provides better information for the fac-ulty who have submitted the work orders. It alsoallows for analysis of the projects coming in the door—we can easily identify patterns and become more effi-cient in our preventative maintenance.

SAM: What are you looking forward to in the year ahead?

Dave: After 75 years, we are taking action to renew thecampus and in the next 10 years we hope everythingwill be to the point where it will be good for anotherhalf century. Before, on this campus, we always heardabout deferred maintenance; now we are going to hearmore about preventative maintenance. We areinstalling new equipment with a view to maintainingit, rather than letting it deteriorate to the point thatour tradesmen have to put it back together again. Westill have another two years of growth before we are afine-tuned machine.

I am most excited about the teambuilding andchanges in staffing. We just brought in a new facilitiescare supervisor, Eric Sharp, who will supervise house-keeping, light groundswork and minor maintenance.This part of our work is important, keeping people onthe campus happy with their environment and theirsurroundings.

SAM: What is your favorite part of your job?

Dave: The St. Andrew’s community itself. People comeforward and help—students and faculty try to makeour work as easy as possible. They share their ideas,and are patient and understanding of the work wehave to do. I’m excited to work with these people dur-ing the year coming up. It will be a time of excitingchanges and progress.

Staff ProfilesEditor’s Note: Beginning this year, the St. Andrew’s Magazine will feature a regular profile of a member or members of the staff.Since its founding, St. Andrew’s has been fortunate to have a staff composed of men and women who are essential to theSchool’s success. We hope these profiles reassure you that this tradition of dedication is alive and well.


Bill SoukupDirector of FacilitiesManagement and Planning

SAM: How would you describe your job at St. Andrew’s?

Bill: I am the project manager for all capital projects,and I lead strategic planning for the facilities part ofthe School. Dave McKelvey deals with all operationsissues in our facilities, and we work closely together.He knows the School’s buildings well and thereforehelps with planning, and we communicate frequentlyduring projects because he takes them over for mainte-nance when they are completed.

SAM: With the O’Brien Arts Center, Amos Hall renova-tion, Pell Student Center and campus infrastructure proj-ects nearing completion, what are you looking to accom-plish this year?

Bill: My priority is to get the work we did this summeron-line, operating to specifications and doing so effi-ciently. I will also be very busy training and helpingthe operations side use all the new equipment andkeep track of it.

There are a lot of complicated issues with the ArtsCenter that I’ll stay involved in throughout the year.Foremost in my mind is the fact that we need to useall the investment we made in the building—arts facul-ty and building staff will have to learn new systems,for example, the complicated audio-visual systems,HVAC, blackout screens for the windows in EngelhardHall. A critical mass of faculty and students need tolearn to use all that equipment so that we get the mostuse out of it. In addition, there will be landscaping andfollow-up work to be done around the buildingthroughout the year.

I’ll be continuing to work on long-range planning forFounders’ Hall. We are going to close Founders’ Hall toall occupants and offices next summer to install sprin-klers, all new HVAC, new wiring, new fire detectionsystems and new data lines. Like all renovations, thisis a major project with many complicated steps.

I will also continue our review of the long-rangecampus plan, which includes a review of the athleticfacilities, academic program facilities, lighting, safety,the health facilities and our outdoor gathering spaces.We are looking at the status of these areas over thenext 10 years.

SAM: What’s your favorite part of your job here at St. Andrew’s?

Bill: Actually, that’s a tough question to answer. It’sexciting to be involved in projects in general. Thereare certainly not many places that do projects on thescale we do here. The best part really is to be part ofthe community—part of a wonderful team and to bepart of this whole new start in the department. The“rejuvenation of the campus” has really been acrossthe board. When I came I just thought I’d be building acouple of buildings, but here we are looking across 25years and making some great long-term decisions forSt. Andrew’s.

The other thing is that the kids are great. That’s thebest thing about this place. I was kind of scared when Ifirst arrived—I don’t have kids. But I’ve been workingon the jazz program with Fred [Geiersbach] to developmore structure for a more determined approachtowards improvisation in the jazz ensemble. My workwith the students on improv was fun—they were reallynice and seemed to enjoy their interactions with memore than I thought they would. I was always pleas-antly surprised when they and their parents told methat I made a big difference!

At my age the involvement with kids is something Inever expected. When they offered me the job, theyoffered me the opportunity to become involved inmusic here. I thought it would be a little faculty band,not anything at the level that I’ve been able to do. Thisyear, I hope to play with orchestra more; I have beenplaying some bass clarinet or second clarinet withthem. I was trained classically first and later in jazz.When you get older, though, it’s hard to play in anorchestra; the day job takes over from the routine ofpractice and discipline. My involvement here in thearts has given me a whole new perspective to theO’Brien Arts Center project, and it’s been very helpful.

18 FALL 2004

When Walden Pell II read in thenews that A. Felix duPont and hissister Irene were to generouslyendow a new school, he recalls hisinitial reaction as one of skepticism,even derision. As he wrote in hishistory of St. Andrew’s, he thought,“a school to be born with the silverspoon of a huge endowment in itsmouth? Preposterous!”

Within a month Mr. duPont and

his friend Allan J. Henry werestanding in Pell’s Latin class at theLenox Hill School. That meeting, in which two of the foundersdescribed their plans for the School,softened Pell’s attitude and wouldeventually lead to his agreement tohead the new church school.

This fall, as St. Andrew’s begins tocelebrate the seventy-fifth anniver-sary of its founding in 1929, the

School will of course celebrate thegreat vision of the Founder. His gen-erosity and vision for the School stillsustains and guides it today, three-quarters of a century later.

His gift was indeed splendid, asPell would learn, and he endowedthe School with much more thanmoney—he gave it a mission, lead-ership and lifelong devotion.

The Cornerstones Campaign and

The Foundation of a DreamCompiled and written by Hope McGrath ’01 and Joy McGrath ’92


the upcoming anniversary celebra-tions this fall present something of aquandary—they ask friends of theSchool to do a difficult, even para-doxical thing—to look back while atthe same time looking to the future.We try to look back to a moment 75years ago when the founders—forFelix had friends and help in thisendeavor—were indeed lookingahead.

One constant and familiar imageof the founders’ vision is N.C.Wyeth’s mural in the School DiningHall. Commissioned in 1936 byIrene duPont and completed in late1938, the mural is not only a finefocal point for the dining hall, it is agroup of accomplished portraits by agreat American painter.

The mural captures precisely themoment the St. Andrew’s communi-ty celebrates this fall—the Foundingof the School. While the Trusteesmuse over blueprints, the youngheadmaster hovers nearby. BishopCook directs Felix’s gaze toward therealization of his vision. The Englishcathedrals, dream-like in the back-ground, suggest the Anglican tradi-tion so important to the Founderand the School’s character.

Unlike the left-hand side of themural, with its clear-eyed boys andstolid Alma Mater with symbols ofchurch and country, the right-handside of the mural leaves its viewerswith a sense of the imagined unde-fined. Wyeth’s feathery brushstrokesand airy coloring convey to onlook-ers that these men are dreaming,imagining and envisioning a new

kind of school. At the same time,the perplexed and intense expres-sions on their faces communicatethe outer signs of the inner work-ings of passionate, intelligent andintentional men.

Walden Pell II testified in his his-tory of St. Andrew’s that Wyethdepicted the founders very realisti-cally. But who were these men, andhow did they support Felix and St. Andrew’s School, not only whenthe idea was initially proposed, butwell into the School’s first decades?

We often hear of Felix’s desire tofound a school “of definitelyChristian character,” and his inten-tion to endow the School so that itwould educate boys from families ofmodest means. What is perhaps lesswell known is the story of his pre-liminary work and research as heformulated in detail his plans forthis School. Some of the men in themural, particularly Allan J. Henryand Bishop Cook, were intimatelyinvolved in this process well beforethe cornerstone was laid in 1929.

Moving from dream to reality

In the fall of 1928, Felix startedquietly to move forward on hisplans for St. Andrew’s (yetunnamed). He and his close friend,Allan J. Henry, a former classmatefrom the University of Pennsylvaniaand a stockbroker in Wilmington,met with Bishop Cook and Mr.Theodore Denslow. The latter manwas the former headmaster of the

Donaldson School near Baltimore. Much in the way today’s philan-

thropists hire consultants to assesscommunity needs, they commis-sioned Denslow to investigate “cer-tain prominent citizens of theChurch and State” and get theiropinion on founding such a school.He also was to survey “the bestknown church schools of the East”and gather information about theirprograms and how the relationshipbetween church and school worked.He reported his findings to duPont,Henry, and the Bishop in November,1928, according to Bishop Cook’s1934 account of the School’s found-ing.

Felix duPont and Henry also trav-eled to independent schoolsthroughout New England and themid-Atlantic to learn how otherschools were administered. Theytraveled to Washington, D.C., at theBishop’s suggestion to speak withyoung clergy to acquaint themselveswith the type of men who might beinterested in working at theirSchool.

At about the same time, Mr.Henry bought the Comegys Farmfor $150 per acre for 360 acres. Thefarm was obtained through a “strawpurchase” so that locals who imag-ined that Felix duPont had infiniteresources would not attempt to prof-it unfairly from the deal.

The first official announcement ofFelix’s project appeared in theWilmington Morning News onDecember 22, 1928. Mr. duPont,Allan J. Henry, Walter J. Laird and

Bishop Cook were the “originalincorporators.” In January of thenext year, these men met andagreed that the School needed toexpand its Board.

Several names were chosen, andthen these men were contacted tosee if they would consent to serve asTrustees. Later that month, the fol-lowing were formally elected toserve on the Board of Trustees: Mr.J. Thompson Brown, Mr. Caleb S.Layton, Judge Richard S. Rodney, allcitizens of Delaware, and Mr. JohnO. Platt, of Philadelphia. Thisgroup’s first order of business was tochoose the new headmaster.

DuPont and Henry choose a headmaster

In his introduction to A History ofSt. Andrew’s School, ReverendWalden Pell II writes about his firstencounter with the School’sFounder. He was drilling his Latin IIclass for the College Board exam atthe Lenox Hill School when twomen entered; they were FelixduPont and Allan Henry, secretary-treasurer of the Episcopal ChurchSchool Foundation, Inc., the corpo-rate body that would organize, buildand oversee the new school. Pell

notes, “Both these men were accom-plished classicists and they musthave suffered agonies as my classbutchered the passages fromCaesar’s Gallic Wars.” Pell said theirideas for an Episcopal boys’ school“sounded interesting, even exciting.”

Shortly thereafter Pell received aletter from duPont, asking him tohead the School. He and his wifeEdith then traveled to Delaware tosee the site for the School. The cou-ple toured the site on NoxontownPond with duPont and Henry.

At that point the “site” was simplyat one end of a wheat field. Pellwrites, “The grain was too wet towalk through, so we rented a boatfrom one Bill Ellison, and Mr. Henrywrapped his straw hat in his hand-kerchief, laid it carefully on a seat,and rowed us up to the Pond to thepoint where St. Andrew’s Schoolnow stands.”

Pell accepted the job in July of1929. He was twenty-seven yearsold.

Soon after that, on November 30,1929, St. Andrew’s Day in the

First Headmaster Walden Pell II writes at his desk.

This article, describing the cornerstone ceremony—and amply demonstrating the challengesof grammar and spelling in the days of manual typesetting—appeared in theWilmington papers.

liturgical calendar, the cornerstonewas laid. This cornerstone, which isbeneath the Headmaster’s Office,contains: a Bible, a copy of the new(at that time) Prayer Book, a copy ofthe Journal of the diocese ofDelaware for 1929, in which appearsthe Bishop’s address, with anaccount of the School’s founding; acopy of the incorporation and thebylaws of the Episcopal ChurchSchool Foundation; names of theTrustees; copies of several newspa-per accounts of the School’s found-ing; a photograph of those who hadgathered for the ceremony; a state-ment by the Founder; a brief outlineof the plans for the School by theFounder; a statement by BishopCook about Felix duPont; architec-tural drawings for Founders’ Hall;one dollar bill and coins.

About the men in the mural

At this point in its history, all themen depicted on the mural wereformally involved with St. Andrew’sSchool. Who were they?

The mural features the followingpeople: Allan J. Henry, Walter J.Laird, Hon. Richard S. Rodney, Rev.Walden Pell II, John O. Platt, A.Felix duPont, J. Thompson Brown,Rt. Rev. Philip Cook, Henry BelinduPont, Caleb S. Layton.

Allan Henry, a classmate of FelixduPont at the University ofPennsylvania, was a trusted adviserto Felix from the moment he decid-ed to found a school. Henry wasinvolved in the day-to-day workingsof St. Andrew’s from the beginning,described by Walden Pell as his

“chief pointof contactwith theTrustees.” Infact, Henry’soffice origi-nally con-tained all ofthe EpiscopalChurch SchoolFoundation’s files.

Henry’s perfectionism benefitedSt. Andrew’s for many years. Withno children of his own, Pell recount-ed in his History, Henry and hiswife Sarah “gladly poured outparental guidance and affection onthe members of the St. Andrew’sSchool family, beginning with theHeadmaster.” Henry was even theeditor of the School’s first catalogue.

His name is familiar to many

Allan J. Henry, foundingTrustee and friend of

Felix duPont.

The men behind the founding efforts, as depicted by N. C. Wyeth—L to r, Allan J. Henry, Walter J. Laird, Hon. Richard S. Rodney, Rev. Walden Pell II, John O. Platt, A. Felix duPont, J. Thompson Brown, Rt. Rev. Philip Cook, Henry Belin duPont and Caleb S. Layton.

22 FALL 2004

St. Andreans because of its associa-tion with the Henry Prize, given outeach year at commencement to theathlete who has given the greatestservice to athletics at St. Andrew’s.Henry was himself an outstandingathlete, and throughout his life heplayed baseball, cricket, squash andtennis and was an enthusiasticrower.

Walter J. Laird was a trust officerof the Wilmington Trust Company.He and Henry, a stockbroker, bal-anced out the conservative andadventurous temperaments of eachother. Pell wrote that, “The friendly

tension between these two men pro-duced a well balanced portfoliowhich was not only increased by thecontinuous munificence of theFounder and the Donor but alsounderwent substantial appreciationas the country emerged from the1929 depression.”

Richard S. Rodney was an associ-ate judge in the Delaware SupremeCourt for 24 years, and during thattime he was asked to serve on St. Andrew’s Board. He later servedas a judge in the U.S. District Court,District of Delaware (he wasappointed by Harry S. Truman in

1946), and he was the mayor of NewCastle, Delaware, for six years. Aself-educated man, he was an avidhistorian and the author of EarlyRelations of Delaware andPennsylvania and The CollectedEssays of Richard S. Rodney on EarlyDelaware. According to the history ofthe Delaware Supreme Court,“Rodney was universally acknowl-edged to be one of the most respect-ed and loved judges in Delaware his-tory.”

Little is known of John O. Platt,except that both Walden Pell II andFelix duPont considered him a dedi-

N. C.Wyeth quotes liberally from

Anglican church architecture in his com-

position of the right side of the mural in

the Dining Hall. Hovering in the clouds

behind the Trustees and Headmaster

planning the School, several familiar

English cathedrals appear, emerging from

the façade of Founders’ Hall portrayed in the back-

ground of the left side of the mural.

The architecture tells us something about the

Founder and original Trustees.Wyeth meant the cathe-

drals to represent the Anglican Church tradition from

which boarding schools emerged, but also to allude to

the British church and school roots of Walden Pell II, as

well as Felix duPont’s admiration for British institutions

of learning, particularly their emphasis on classical learn-

ing and the importance of the church.

The dome in the foreground belongs to the current

St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, designed by Sir

Christopher Wren and completed in 1710. St. Paul’s

Cathedral School was founded in 1509 and has operat-

ed continuously to the present day near the present

Cathedral.

InspiredDesignArchitecture in the Mural


cated servant of the School. He wasalso a disciplined rower. In 1932, hestroked a crew of Allan Henry, FelixduPont and Walden Pell, with Mrs.Sherwood as the coxswain. WithPlatt’s steady oarsmanship, theyhandily defeated the best crew thestudents could assemble.

The Right Reverend Philip Cook,D.D., Bishop of Delaware, is theman whose name is mentionedmost closely with Walden Pell II andA. Felix duPont in the School’s histo-ries. In fact, it was Cook who, in1934, wrote the original account ofthe School’s founding, modestly

excluding much reference to hisown involvement. Felix duPont firstfloated the idea of founding achurch school in Delaware to BishopCook in August 1927.

From that moment, the Bishopwas intimately involved in the newschool. It was Cook who took thematter to the gatherings ofEpiscopal clergy, confirming his andFelix’s notion that if a new churchschool were founded, it should beopen to boys of all means and back-grounds. In 1928, when duPont andhis trusted advisors applied forincorporation so they could begin

the process of funding the develop-ment of St. Andrew’s, it was BishopCook who recommended the nameEpiscopal Church SchoolFoundation, so that, in time, themoney invested could be used toestablish additional schools. Theoriginal incorporators were FelixduPont, Bishop Cook, Allan J.Henry and Walter J. Laird. Cook celebrated his last service at St. Andrew’s at Commencement in1937, though he did attend Lessonsand Carols the next winter. He diedon March 25, 1938 and was buriedin Old St. Anne’s Cemetery.

The square tower appearing the upper left is that of

Canterbury Cathedral, in Canterbury, Kent, England, one

of the most important pilgrimage sites of the Anglican

church. Its archbishops include eight saints of the church,

including its first Archbishop, St.Augustine, and St.Thomas

Becket, who was martyred in the cathedral.

The smaller church, on the left, with “pepperpots” sur-

rounding its steeple, is Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford,

England.This architectural landmark must have been

included for two reasons: its place in church and educa-

tional history and its association with Walden Pell II, the

first headmaster. Pell left Princeton after three years to

attend Christ Church, a college of Oxford University, as a

Rhodes Scholar. He received his Oxford B.A. in the

Honour School of Theology in 1926. He was ordained

into the deaconate in 1927, ordained a priest in 1928 and

received his M.A. Oxon in the spring of 1930.

Dating to the twelfth century, this church inhabits a

privileged position in the Anglican world.The only church

in the world to be both a cathedral and a college chapel,

it also serves as the chapel for Christ Church, the

wealthiest and largest college of Oxford University and

the cathedral of the diocese of Oxford.The cathedral is

one of the oldest buildings in Oxford, and one of the

smallest Anglican cathedrals in England.

The tall, thin spire, in the center of the background is

Salisbury Cathedral.The spire pictured here was com-

pleted in 1258, and at 404 feet remains the tallest church

spire in England as well as the tallest Medieval structure

in the world. Its chapter house contains the Magna Carta.

The tower appearing to the right of St. Paul’s dome is

the spire of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, in Trafalgar Square,

London. (The church was originally located in fields out-

side the city, thus its now inappropriate name.)

As the Founder and Trustees below these spires

imagine the possibilities of a new school, duPont and

Cook together look back to the history of Anglican

scholarship and faith, and observers of the mural today

see a moment in the past that informs their vision of

St.Andrew’s future.

Nan Mein’s keen memory and knowledge of British architecture contributedimmeasurably to this article.

24 FALL 2004

J. Thompson Brown was theDuPont Company vice-presidentand served as vice-president of theEpiscopal Church School Foundationfrom 1938 until his death in 1953. A 1902 graduate of VirginiaPolytechnic Institute (VirginiaTech), he later served as the Rectorof their Board of Visitors. A respect-ed educator, Brown had donated artworks by Frank Schoonover to hisalma mater. In 1933, Brown donatedto St. Andrew’s the eight Schoonoverpaintings of Ivanhoe that had beencreated for Harper’s publishinghouse. Most important to St. Andrew’s, Brown possessed akeen and expansive mind.

Henry Belin duPont was a youngman of about 30 years when hebecame involved with St. Andrew’s.He was an executive and engineerfor the duPont Company inWilmington, holding a bachelor’sdegree in history from Yale and abachelor of science degree in aeronautical engineering from theMassachusetts Institute ofTechnology. He worked in internalcombustion laboratories throughoutthe 1920s, and after the discovery ofnylon in 1937, he was involved inthe company’s development of relat-ed textiles such as polyester andacrylic fibers and plastics.

Caleb S. Layton, an attorney inWilmington, performed all the legalwork of examining the deed for theSchool property, making the con-tract and completing the sale in allof its details. He was an active mem-ber of the Board’s building commit-tee and was very involved in theconstruction of Founders’ Hall andthe other original school buildings.

Early involvement in anew school

In September of 1930, the doors ofSt. Andrew’s School opened to 35boys.

Correspondence between Pell, J.Thompson Brown and Allan J.Henry particularly shows how, evendecades after the School’s founding,these Trustees were intimatelyinvolved in the inner workings of

School life and administration asthis new phase of St. Andrew’s history began. While Pell was aknowledgeable (if fairly young) edu-cator, the other trustees were largelynew to education and running aschool. They were business peopleand used their business experiencein administering the School, butthey were new to the idea of puttingtogether and organizing a facultyand staff and group of students.

The first faculty—L to r, Granville H. Sherwood, John N. MacInnes, Rev. Walden Pell II, Martin Curtlerand William H. Cameron, Jr., who arrived in January of 1931. Absent from this picture is the

first Chaplain, Rev. James C. King, Jr., who tragically perished in a sailing accident on Noxontown Pond in November of 1930.

Together this group worked tomake St. Andrew’s a successfulendeavor. Questions were debatedopenly, the men shouldering muchof the responsibility of the day-to-day operation of the School. In theseearly letters they discussed every-thing from salaries and wages tofacilities and maintenance issues tovarious questions of School life. Thefirst Trustees were also in near con-stant communication with theHeadmaster.

At one point the three consideredwhether the maintenance employ-ees’ request for higher wages shouldbe granted. The liberal Brown wroteto Pell that, “It would be highlydesirable and actually good econo-my to preserve the present mainte-nance force intact, since they are apicked group, well trained for theirpresent jobs and a very flexibleorganization.”

Other letters discuss whether adivorced faculty member whoremarried was desirable for the fac-ulty, whether faculty should be paidaccording to the size of their house-hold (as Pell believed) or according

to the requirements of their job (as Brown believed) and tuition dis-putes raised by dismissed students.

Without a doubt, these Trusteeswere deeply invested in this newSchool, which for them may wellhave seemed risky, even an experi-ment. They were doing somethingnew to themselves at least, and per-haps new in American education.Their excitement for the project waspalpable.

The Founder and first Trustees look back

on the first year

In June of 1931, the first year ofSt. Andrew’s behind him, WaldenPell II issued his first headmaster’sreport. The correspondencebetween J. Thompson Brown andAllan J. Henry at that time express-es these men’s delight at his goodnews—and perhaps even some


J. Thompson Brown and Allan J. Henry regularly corresponded regarding the

operations of the School.

The first student body at St. Andrew’s—32 boys, and one faculty dog, in 1930.

26 FALL 2004

relief. Brown’s note to Henry uponreceipt of Pell’s report to thetrustees takes us back to the excite-ment of these first years. He writes:

Dear Henry,

Many thanks for sending meMr. Pell’s report of June 8th! It ismost interesting, comprehensive,and satisfactory, and I feel that allof us Trustees should be veryhappy over the results achieved inthis first year, and eminently satis-fied with our selection of aHeadmaster.

Sincerely yours,J. Thompson Brown.

This note is part of the archives atSt. Andrew’s. At the bottom of thisletter is a note hand-written in pen-cil from Henry to Pell; presumablyhe passed along Brown’s words ofpraise with the following note:

WP II: This epitomizes the feel-ings of the Trustees. Send it backwhen you can. AJH. June 16,1931.

Indeed, Pell’s report to theTrustees was one full of energy,pleasure and optimism for theSchool’s future. They had comethrough the first year largely with-out a hitch; the forecast for thefuture looked bright and clear.

Pell discussed every aspect of theSchool: the physical plant andgrounds of the new campus; thecross-section of students and their

various capabilities; the academiccurriculum and athletic program;the job system and the chapel pro-gram; the finances and tuitionplans; and the faculty.

Even in the School’s first year, Pellwrestled with how the endowmentwould bear upon the School life—both its obvious benefits and possi-ble challenges.

In the first place, he wasimmensely pleased with what hecalled the “cross section” of studentsthey were able to enroll. Twenty-one

of the 35 boys enrolled the first yearreceived a scholarship. Pell wrote inhis first Headmaster’s Report thatthey had “a few boys from humbleand a few boys from wealthyhomes, with a preponderance of thesons of professional men. This hasgiven diversity and breadth to thetone, and a solid and loyal spirit,content with hard work and simplepleasures.”

Yet this document makes clearthat his anxiety over the comfortimposed by the endowment still

The first Headmaster’s Report to the Trustees included this statement of financial figures from the first year of operation at St. Andrew’s School.


occupied his mind. The job system,a fixture of School life since its firstdays, was meant not only to savemoney but also to instill in the boysa sense of stewardship. He wrote inhis 1931 report to the Trustees that,“Where so much has been given toboys in the way of equipment andtheir surroundings are so fine, it isof extra importance that they shouldbe brought up to care for it them-selves.”

A vision for a bright future

The men in the mural—and at thispoint, a skeleton faculty and staffalong with a handful of boys—hadbrought St. Andrew’s safely through

its founding and first year. However,the vision they beheld in Wyeth’smural would continue to evolve andgrow over the next 75 years, perhapsin ways they could not have fore-seen.

There is no question that the lead-ership and vision the founders pro-vided launched St. Andrew’s on anhistoric path. Wyeth’s mural pro-vides an appropriately symbolicimage for a school of faith and learn-ing: while the founders cannot seethe School itself, they imagine itsmodels in the academic institutionsof England, presented as a sort ofcity on a hill in the distance, thusleaving the interpretation of theSchool’s core mission open to latergenerations of leaders.

Wyeth’s mural expresses to allwho see it that these men’s visionwas meant to be changed, improvedupon. The “silver spoon” of theendowment, as Pell called it,allowed these men and leaders whofollowed them the luxury of dream-ing. The legacy of their engagement,support and imagination inspires St. Andreans still today.

Generations of St. Andrew’s stu-dents, eating meals before themural, have, no doubt, continued toamaze those founders, who watchthe students come and go, changingin their composition and appear-ance, living up to and surpassingtheir original, daring vision for St. Andrew’s School.

Headmaster Walden Pell II strongly believed that the students should share in the stewardship of the campus and its operations. In the photo at left, boys take their turn washing silverware in the kitchen.

At right, boys clean desks in one of the original classrooms on the Main Hall, with a view to the farm through the window.

Living Diversity

Former headmaster Robert A.Moss once described St. Andrew’sSchool as “a living experiment, awork of art which is never finished.”His vision of St. Andrew’s as a mal-leable institution, even in the face ofresistance or mere indifference,helped guide his work as the head-master who oversaw—thankfully—the integration and co-education ofthe School. Today, Moss’ poeticdescription of the School poses achallenge to St. Andrew’s and ourcurrent students and faculty involvedin “the living experiment.” If, asMoss suggests, St. Andrew’s is anunfinished work of art, a place thatconstantly is evolving, what does thisfluidness mean? In particular, whatare the implications of this contextfor diversity initiatives at the Schooltoday? What is our educationalresponsibility now to diversity?Moss’ words resonate with our cur-rent approach to diversity, for diver-sity at St. Andrew’s is an excitingprocess, an ever-evolving and perpet-ually incomplete endeavor. In otherwords, we are living diversity.

What drew us to St. Andrew’sSchool five years ago was largely TadRoach’s vision of the School as “aplace that refuses to play by the rulesof the indifferent, often distrustfuloutside world” with regards to socialequality and justice. We were struck,then and now, with the institution’swillingness to think actively and con-tinually about how the School con-siders the socialization of its student

body in general, but more particular-ly in terms of race, gender, class andreligious differences. Diversity effortscertainly involve, for example,recruiting students, faculty and staffmembers of color and internationalstudents, supporting non-traditionalboarding school students and theirfamilies during their tenure at theSchool, and practicing need-blindadmissions to create a socio-economi-cally diverse student body. But equal-ly important to “recruiting diversity,”St. Andrew’s is becoming morethoughtful about communicating thevalues connected to diversity to anypotential member of this community.A prospective student, family, or fac-ulty member must understand thatwhen choosing St. Andrew’s, theyare choosing to live diversity as well.This is critical because St. Andrew’sis a school whose culture wrestlesactively with issues of difference andthrives because of its willingness todo so. Ideally, diversity permeates theentire life of the School. It is thisapproach to diversity as processrather than product that distinguish-es St. Andrew’s from other schools.

Diversity is Community

Here at St. Andrew’s, we aimevery day to recognize this importantidea: that diversity is about strength-ening and building communitythrough the thoughtful, constant and imaginative questioning of it.Further, while “diversity” and “com-munity” are often thought of asmutually exclusive, in actuality, the

existence of a healthy and vibrantcommunity is contingent upon diver-sity. As James Baldwin asserts con-vincingly in “A Talk to Teachers”(1963), “The purpose of education,finally, is to create in a person theability to look at the world for him-self…. To ask questions of the uni-verse, and then learn to live withthose questions, is the way heachieves his own identity.” ForBaldwin, the very absence of suchquestioning ultimately leads to a soci-ety’s demise. Baldwin concludes,“The obligation of anyone who

28 FALL 2004

“A Living Experiment”Diversity at St. Andrew’s Schoolby Nicole and Nigel Furlonge

thinks of himself as responsible is toexamine society and try to change itand to fight it—at no matter whatrisk. This is the only hope societyhas. This is the only way societieschange.” We may apply thesethoughts more readily to the worldsbeyond our campus, our community,but Baldwin’s call for a citizenry prepared to enact change applies toSt. Andrew’s as an educational insti-tution as well. While we educate andencourage our students to consumeactively, to think critically and globally, and to serve openly, we

must also cultivate in them a willing-ness to use those skills locally, in thevery community in which they live,work and play every day. This is, inpart, what our diversity initiativestoday aim to accomplish.

Changing Faces of St. Andrew’s

While socio-economic diversity hasbeen a cornerstone of St. Andrew’sphilosophy since the School’s incep-tion, the same has not always beentrue for racial diversity. Walden Pell

lamented, “When the history of St. Andrew’s School is written, thechapter on desegregation will not beglorious.” And, when offered theheadmastership in 1958, RobertMoss responded, “I believe that St. Andrew’s will be in dire jeopardyif it excludes blacks. It has to change.If I come, I want you to know thiswill be very near the top of the agen-da; you must expect to hear from meabout this. If you do not wish to con-sider integration, please do notemploy me.”

According to Bill Amos in his his-tory of St. Andrew’s, A Time toRemember, the School saw the firstapplication from a black student in1952. Applications and inquiries fol-lowed thereafter from 1954-1958, allwithout positive result. For manyreasons, including the trustees’ posi-tion on integrating the School, theSchool’s geographical location in thesouth, and the large southern con-stituency many of whom were alsopro-segregationist at the time, theSchool did not confront the issue ofintegration.

St. Andrew’s is clearly a differentplace today. Over the past fewdecades, the School has changed andgrown significantly from a single-sexschool into a leading co-educationalinstitution. The faculty, staff, andstudent body represent a marked dif-ference from a time when they werevirtually homogeneous. Of course,the concerns articulated by Moss’pioneering vision would seemabsolutely anachronistic in our cur-rent climate where any leader within


St. Andrew’s School Concert Choir, 2004.

30 FALL 2004

the School must actively position diversity at thecore of their thinking. Just a glance at our currentcommunity, however, reflects much of the changethat has occurred over the School’s 75-year history in terms of diversifying the School. Today,St. Andrew’s enrollment is 23 percent students ofcolor and international students. But this percentageis a small part of the story, for it does not answerthe most important questions about our studentcommunity: Are students of color thriving here aca-demically, athletically, socially? Do they hold leader-ship positions? Are they recognized for their contri-butions to the life of the School? Are they leavingpositive legacies at the School? The answer to all ofthese questions is “yes.” Especially in the last fiveyears, students of color have held major leadershippositions at the School, including heads of honorand disciplinary committees, residential leaders,peer tutors, heads of the Student ActivitiesCommittee (SAC), and active in the Chapel program.They have served as captains of varsity sports teams,played important roles in theatre productions and

The Class of 1934 and, 70 years later, the Class of 2004.


mentored younger students. They areacademically, athletically and artistical-ly talented and successful. They earnnumerous awards presented duringawards night and graduation. In short,our students of color and internationalstudents by and large hold a stake intheir performance at this School and,increasingly, in the School itself.

Diversity in the Classroom

Ideally, we strive to create an envi-ronment in which diversity permeatesthe culture of this School. The ulti-mate signifier of this change is bestmeasured in our academic curriculum.The curricular changes are far toonumerous to chronicle here, but amere sampling of the dynamic, excitingchanges includes Will Speers and hispioneering work on African Americanliterature in the English Departmentand Diahann Johnson’s creation of afrancophone literature course thatexplodes notions of what stands asFrench literature. The foundationthese established educators laid makesit possible for someone like EmilyPressman, a second-year teacher at St. Andrew’s, to offer a new historycourse in 2004 focusing on social jus-tice and reform on a global scale.

In reflecting on the value of adiverse classroom, Darcy Caldwell, anEnglish teacher here at St. Andrew’sand mother of two IV Formers, writes,“Having a diverse classroom gives meenormous energy; it keeps me frombeing complacent and it nudges me toteach beyond what I already know. Itpushes me to learn and keep learning.When I first entered the profession, Ithought teaching English was about

reading and writing skills, and it isthat, but it is so much more. I havecome to understand that my greatestresponsibility is to teach kids how toembrace the world around them, andone way they can do that is by readingdiverse literature.”

While one might suppose that, of alldisciplines in a curriculum, those thatfall under the category “the humani-ties” are the quintessential and mostlikely site of diversity initiatives, MarkHammond debunks the notion that thesciences are disconnected from thisconversation. Hammond, a physicsteacher at St. Andrew’s, explains, “Idon’t teach American science, orAfrican or European science, Christianor Buddhist science. I teach science,the process of questioning, observingand experimenting in order to developuseful models for how the worldworks.”

Hammond goes on to remark:

One key to creating a broad and usefulunderstanding of the physical world isthe mastery of the ‘rules’ and the ‘lan-guage’ of science. The mastery of the‘rules of the game’ for science is just onepart of the ‘rules of the culture of power,’that set of linguistic forms, communica-tive strategies and presentation of selfthat middle- and upper-class childrenlearn by default and non-white, poor,immigrant or otherwise marginalizedstudents must be explicitly taught….[T]oo often science is taught on a levelthat presupposes proficiency in the rulesof the culture of power. Having a diversestudent body forces me to confront theneed for clear and direct explication ofthe assumptions, rules and norms of thescientific enterprise. Just as I cannotassume that all of my students already

know how to present themselves withinthe culture of power, I cannot assumethat all of my students have alreadyassimilated the culture of science.

More importantly, a diverse curricu-lum benefits students because it chal-lenges them to see the richness notonly of thinking critically, which theSt. Andrew’s curriculum has alwaysdone well, but also of thinking contex-tually. Many of the courses here nolonger are driven by content first, butrather by the essential questions thatdrive both engagement and enduringunderstanding.

For instance, a recent English coursefocusing on Moby-Dick highlighted thetensions emerging in the 19th centuryaround defining a distinct Americanidentity and nation. Central toMelville’s concerns as he wrote thisinterdisciplinary, intercultural textwere poignant questions around raceand social difference as it figured inemerging notions of American-nessand American literary tradition. Asthe students studied the chapters ofthe novel concerning scientific catego-rization and organizations of knowl-edge in the 19th century, DanO’Connell, the AP biology teacher, metwith these literary scholars. Duringthat class meeting, O’Connell assistedstudents with walking through thethick discussion Melville provided con-cerning whales, and shifted to talkabout the connections Melville wasdrawing between his whales and socialhierarchical difference. He concludedthe class with a discussion of currentnotions of race in biology—accordingto biology, racial distinctions do notexist. The following class day saw stu-

32 FALL 2004

dents discussing the different ques-tions one can pose concerning race.

As Tarlton Long ’04, a student inthe class, reflected, “Before that classmeeting, I did not know that scien-tists thought about race, or that peo-ple studying English would be con-cerned about what scientists thoughtabout this [issue]. Our study ofMelville has helped me see that eachdiscipline brings something unique tothe conversation and, when theycome together, they help complicatewhat is possible about thinking aboutrace. While science says it does notexist, society leaves us to grapple withthe meanings we have given this cate-gory.” Such collaborations broadenconversations about difference forour students and allow them to thinkboth critically and contextually.

Diversity beyond the Classroom

Another way to measure a school’sinvolvement in issues of diversity isto consider programming aroundmajor moments and special programsthroughout the year. At most schools,public and private, lower through college, the Martin Luther King, Jr.Holiday is an occasion to highlightissues regarding racial equality and to perform community service. St. Andrew’s also has specialized programming that takes the studentsand faculty beyond the exigencies ofthe daily academic curriculum, butthese programs occur throughout theyear. Some of these specializedmoments that qualify as diversity pro-gramming come from the studentsthemselves and student organizations

like Spectrum. Others come from stu-dents through the Student ActivitiesCommittee (SAC). Over the past fewyears, the Diversity Core Group,which Tad Roach started four yearsago, was charged with thinking aboutdiversity in the broadest sense. And,this committee constantly changes,much like St. Andrew’s itself. Whilesomeone like Ana Ramìrez, head ofGirls’ Residential Life, has served onthis committee all four years, NathanCosta, Director of Studies, is new tothe group this year.

Perhaps the most visible legacy ofthis group is the planning of work-shops, held on one Saturday morningeach year, geared towards engagingissues of social justice and celebratingcultural difference and equality. Someof the workshops offered over thepast five years to students and faculty

Students enjoy the academic exchange in the English classroom of Allison Thomas-Rose ’96.


include Dean of Athletics BobColburn’s workshop on JackieRobinson and his courageous integra-tion of Major League Baseball andDean of Students Brad Bates’ work-shop on gender and racial imagery inthe film, “Gone with the Wind.” Insome years, faculty offered the work-shops, while other times leaders from around the country came to St. Andrew’s to facilitate the event.Speakers always come to speak to theSchool on Friday night to set thestage for the Saturday morning work-shops. During April 2004, forinstance, the School focused on theintersections between service, servicelearning and diversity work.Cultivating in our students and adultcommunity the importance of anactive dedication to service—whether through a School-sponsoredprogram or on one’s own—is integral to our educational process at St. Andrew’s.

Conversations that are encouragedand engaged on a daily basis areanother sign of a school’s successeswith regards to diversity. It is incredi-bly important to provide spaceswhere true dialogue can take place.

One example of this is theHeadmaster’s Forum, which NanMein began and the HistoryDepartment continues to organize.This past year discussions consideredthe War in Iraq, the 50th anniversaryof the Brown v. Board of Educationdecision, and consumerism inAmerica. These forums illustrate aschool environment in which opendialogue around cultural and socialissues of justice exist. These forums

provide venues for all students tovoice their opinions and to listenactively, respectfully and in challeng-ing ways to one another. Educationalinstitutions have the responsibility offostering dialogue that not onlyengages students where they are, butalso, and perhaps most importantly,pushes them in ways they could nothave imagined.

To Where from Here?Towards the 100th

Anniversary of St. Andrew’s

At our opening meeting thisAugust, Tad Roach urged the facultyto take seriously the power of imagi-nation, of envisioning the Schoolbeyond what it is now. After readingthe 9/11 Report this summer, one ofthe Commission’s conclusions struckTad in particular: that part of thefailure to anticipate such an attackstemmed from a lack of imaginationon the part of policy makers, securityadvisors and our national leaders. Hecautioned the faculty against ourown failures of imagination. “Wemust challenge the blind embrace ofold ideas and paradigms,” Tad said,“for a failure of imagination leads toa blind, mechanical embrace of oldideas and ways. Failure of imagina-tion leads to faculty complacency,indifference to high standards, a cur-ricular unresponsiveness to worldhappenings, an embrace of homo-geneity, a resistance to change and toentitlement.” It is this challenge thatframes our work in this, the 75thyear of the School’s existence.

Being institutionally imaginativeentails acknowledging St. Andrew’spast, recognizing where it is situatedcurrently, and envisioning creativelyits myriad possibilities. Further,being imaginative involves a willing-ness to enact and embrace change, asdifficult and as daunting as thatchange might seem to us. As we cele-brate the School’s 75th anniversary,our Headmaster’s charge to re-imag-ine St. Andrew’s now points to theSchool’s future. What do we envisionas our continued educational respon-sibility to issues of diversity? Wheredo we hope these current imaginingsfind the School in the near future?How will the next 25 years find St. Andrew’s ‘living diversity’?

Over the next 25 years, we imaginea St. Andrew’s School that chooses toremain as committed as it is current-ly to creating and maintaining asocio-economically diverse studentbody. This commitment has, overtime, resulted in an increasinglydiverse student body. The wider wecast our admissions net, attractingmore families from all racial, ethnicand international backgrounds, thestronger a community St. Andrew’swill be. Likewise, we imagine a St. Andrew’s that continues its com-mitment to assembling a talented anddiverse faculty, and that remainscommitted to providing to the facultyprofessional development opportuni-ties that focus on issues of diversity.

We imagine a St. Andrew’s that is more actively involved in creating a community that supports gay students and faculty. Although St. Andrew’s diversity initiatives

34 FALL 2004

mainly have focused on issues of race and socio-economic class, aseducators, it is our professionalresponsibility to be concerned with amultitude of important differencesthat impact our students’ individualand world-views. An increasedawareness and engagement of thesedifferences, we believe, allow us toprovide more nurturing, safer envi-ronments for students. We must con-front and deal with our fear, discom-fort or disagreement with the need toacknowledge sexual orientation atthis boarding school. We need tomove beyond the idea that, if wedon’t talk about difference—particu-larly this difference—it will somehowdisappear. As Howard Stevenson, aUniversity of Pennsylvania psycholo-gist, argued during a winter in-serv-ice day with the faculty, “Schools aresocializing environments…whetherthey are active or passive about thissocializing process. How schoolssocialize is the question.” How canwe ensure that we are socializing ourstudents to be inclusive thinkers, notonly with regards to race, class andgender, but also with regards to sexu-al orientation? We need to confrontthis issue, and collaborate with otherindependent schools that can providemodels for how we might insure thatwe are creating an open communitywith regards to sexual orientation.

We imagine a St. Andrew’s whosealumni, regardless of background,assume more of an active role in theSchool’s diversity initiatives. Weimagine a St. Andrew’s whose alum-ni of color claim more of a stake intheir alma mater, that they recognize

the importance of their involvementin this community, for themselvesand for current students strugglingwith issues of difference. As JillianBlack ’03 remarked during her senioryear, it is very important for alumniof color to return to St. Andrew’s andtalk to current students of color.During an exit interview, Jillianrecounted, “I especially remember[St. Andrew’s trustee and 1970 grad-uate] Mr. Tom Hooper and how healways showed a genuine interest inme and how I was feeling here at St. Andrew’s. It was really nice tohave someone who had gone throughthe School before me reach out tome.” It is our hope, also, that alumniof color understand how important itis for current students to benefitfrom their involvement in School life.

We imagine a St. Andrew’s thatcontinues in creative ways to reachout to alumni of color and encour-ages them to reconnect with theirhigh school. Independent schoolsoften struggle with ways to increasealumni of color interest in currentschool matters. But, those schoolsthat have experienced success in thisarea all point to one commonapproach: the schools accepted that itis important to acknowledge the diffi-culties these alumni experiencedwhile at the school around issues ofdifference, oftentimes even to openlyacknowledge the school’s complicityin that difficulty. Again, failing to dis-cuss issues of difference and injusticeon our campuses, even if they existedin the past, does not make them goaway. It mainly creates a gap betweenthe past St. Andrew’s and the present

St. Andrew’s, a gap that grows moreand more difficult to surmount astime passes and memories calcify.Over the past several years, alumni ofcolor increasingly have returned toSt. Andrew’s to reconnect with facul-ty, attend alumni functions, andsome even to inquire about workinghere. It is important for St. Andrew’sto re-connect with alumni of colorwho have not been associated active-ly with the School since their gradua-tions. Building an active alumni ofcolor constituency not only helps tocreate a richer dialogue among thealumni body around issues of differ-ence, but also affirms St. Andrew’scommitment to creating a diversecommunity, not only within its cur-rent student, faculty and staff bodies,but also in the community that existsbeyond the boundaries of campus.

We imagine a St. Andrew’s thatcontinues to build and draw from thereligious diversity in America and in the world. One recent alumna,Kyu-Bin Lee ’04, noted: “I hope thatthe School becomes not only tolerant,but promoting of religious diversity.Right now, I cannot picture a Muslimstudent in the School. Since religionis often related to geography, this lackof religious diversity is a loss for theSchool. I am confident that more reli-gious diversity would add much tothe dynamics of the School.”

We imagine a St. Andrew’s thatdevelops a systematic approach toservice learning. As we explored inthe Diversity and Service workshopslast spring, service work is diversitywork. Service work allows individu-als to stretch themselves beyond what


is familiar, to share resources withothers and to become active in socialjustice matters. Also, in order to sup-port our dedication to service learn-ing, we might consider creating afund for students who are invested indoing service work over the summerbut cannot afford to spend their vaca-tion working without pay.

Lastly, we imagine a St. Andrew’sthat engages willingly and constantlythe complex, challenging local andglobal community. As a private insti-tution, St. Andrew’s could very wellopt out of diversity initiatives. Itcould avoid the complications thatarise in the face of diversity. Butdoing so would put St. Andrew’s inthe business of exclusive education,an education far removed from the

School’s mission. As Deborah Meierwrites in The Power of Their Ideas,“Schools dependent on private clien-teles…not only can avoid the demo-cratic arts of compromise and toler-ance but also implicitly foster lessonsabout the power of money and privi-lege, a lesson already only too wellknown by every adolescent inAmerica.” As a private, privilegedinstitution, however, St. Andrew’ssuggests a different model of inde-pendent education, one that seeksnot to avoid democratic engagement,but to foster it in the very ways itlives communal diversity. In order tocontinue to be a “counter-cultural”independent school, we must buildand maintain a willingness to con-stantly lean into discomfort. Meier

again writes, “Difference makesthings complicated. But dealing withthe complicated is what training forgood citizenship is all about. Ideas—the way we organize knowledge—arethe medium of exchange in demo-cratic life, just as money is in the marketplace.” St. Andrew’s is intelli-gently aware of the benefits of lean-ing into discomfort. Most important-ly, this School is and can continue tobe a model for the students it edu-cates, a model that encourages every-one associated with the School to, asDon Saliers suggests, “experiencehumanity at full stretch.” This is theSt. Andrew’s we want our childrento know and claim as their own tochange even further.

As Seniors Graduate…

For the past three years, faculty members of the Diversity Core Group at St.Andrew’s—a committee dedicated to facilitatingdiversity initiatives at the School—have conducted exit interviews with seniors of color and students who have been especiallyinterested and active in issues of difference during their tenure at the School. One of the interview questions asks,“When/ifyou return to the campus for your 5 year reunion, what changes do you want to see implemented at the School with regardsto diversity and community development?” Here are some of their hopes for their alma mater:

“There are more students of color at the School every year, but I wish the School would make moves to look fordiversity in the white student population. I mean, I wish there were more white students here who were more opento issues of diversity, who didn’t feel indifferent or who would rather not hear about it.”

—Grace Awantang, ’02

“I would send more students to the NAIS/Student Leadership Conference or to other conferences that teach stu-dents how to be leaders for change at their schools. If I could pick one of the single most important moments in mycareer at this school, it would be going to that conference.There I learned again that the only way to improve diver-sity is to live it. I would also like to see more male students of color.There are only three guys of color in my class.”

—Angel Gonzalez, ’03

“A lot of people think about diversity and recognize it as an issue, but they don’t think it is their issue. I do thinkmore white students here need to know that diversity is everyone’s issue. My friends, for example, don’t understandwhy I care about these issues. I’d like to see this change. I also think St.Andrew’s could help this change happen byincluding diversity issues in the orientation program.We should talk about these issues starting on the first day wearrive here, every year.”

—Alex Pfeiffer, ’02

36 FALL 2004

In the spring of 2003, the American arthistorian Kirk Varnedoe accepted the

title of head coach of a football teamcalled the Giant Metrozoids, which prac-ticed then every week in Central Park. Itwas a busy time for him. He had justbecome a member of the Institute forAdvanced Study, in Princeton, after thir-teen years as the chief curator of paintingand sculpture at the Museum of ModernArt in New York, and he was preparingthe Mellon lectures for the NationalGallery of Art in Washington—a seriesof six lectures on abstract art that he wassupposed to deliver that spring. He wasalso dying, with a metastasis in his lungof a colon cancer that had been discov-ered in 1996, and, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in New York,he was running through all the possiblevarieties of chemotherapy, none of whichdid much good, at least not for verylong.

The Giant Metrozoids were not, onthe face of it, much of a challenge forhim. They began with a group of eight-year-olds in my son Luke’s second-gradeclass. Football had replaced Yu-Gi-Ohcards and the sinister water yo-yo (poi-sonous) as a preoccupation and a craze.The boys had become wrapped up in theTampa Bay Buccaneers’ march to victoryin the Super Bowl that winter, and theyhad made up their minds to be footballplayers. They wanted a team—“a realteam that practices and has T-shirts andknows plays and everything”—thatcould play flag football, against an as yet

unknown opponent, and I set about try-ing to organize it. (The name was a com-promise: some of the boys had wanted tobe called the Giants, while cool opinionhad landed on the Freakazoids;Metrozoids was arrived at by some diplo-matic back formation with“Metropolitan.”)

Once I had the T-shirts, white andblue, we needed a coach, and Kirk,Luke’s godfather, was the only choice;during one of his chemotherapy sessions,I suggested, a little tentatively, that hemight try it. He had been a defensive-backfield coach at Williams College for ayear after graduation, before he went toStanford to do art history, and I knewthat he had thought of taking up coach-ing as a full-time profession, only todecide, as he said once, “If you’re goingto spend your life coaching football, youhave to be smart enough to do it welland dumb enough to think it matters.”But he said yes, eagerly. He gave meinstructions on what he would need, andmade a date with the boys.

On the first Friday afternoon, I tookthe red cones he had asked for andarranged them carefully on our chosenfield, at the corner of Fifth Avenue andSeventy-ninth Street. I looked over myshoulder at the pseudo-Renaissancemansion that houses N.Y.U.’s Instituteof Fine Arts, right across the street. Wehad met there, twenty-three years earlier,his first year at the Institute of Fine Arts,and mine, too. He had arrived fromStanford and Paris and Columbia, a

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

LAST OF THE METROZOIDS

A teacher’s final lessons.

BY ADAM GOPNIK

Kirk Varnedoe ’63, renowned art historian, passed away in August of 2003. This article appeared in the May10, 2004 issue of The New Yorker, and is reprinted with the kind permissions of Adam Gopnik, Steve Brodner andCondé Nast Publications.

For Kirk, football was a set of steps, art a set of actions. The mysterious things—modern art, the zone defense—weren’t so mysterious if you broke them down.


et of actions. The mysterious things—modern art, the zone defense—weren’t so mysterious if you broke them down.

38 FALL 2004

young scholar, just thirty-four, who hadmade his reputation by cleaning up oneof the messier stalls in the art-historicalstable, the question of the authenticRodin drawings. Then he had helpedrevive some unfairly forgotten reputa-tions, particularly that of the misunder-stood “academic” Impressionist GustaveCaillebotte.

But, as with Lawrence Taylor’s firstseason with the Giants, though weknew he was supposed to be good,nobody was this good. He would comeinto the lecture room, in turtleneck andsports jacket, professor-wear, and, star-ing at his shoes, and without any pre-liminaries, wait for the lights to dim,demand, “First slide, please,” and, pac-ing back and forth, look up at theimage, no text in his hand but a list ofslides. “Last time, we left off looking atCezanne in the eighties, when the con-versation between his code, registered inthe deliberately crippled, dot-dot-dash,telegraphic repetition of brushstrokes,and his construction, built up in theblocky, stage-set recessional spaces, setout like flats on a theatre,” he wouldbegin, improvising, spitballing, seeingmeaning in everything. A Judd box wasas alive for him as a Rodin bronze, andhis natural mode was to talk in terms oftension rather than harmony. What wasweird about the pictures was exactlywhat there was to prize about them,and, his style implied, all the nettledand querulous critics who tried tohomogenize the pictures into a singlestory undervalued them, because, in asense, they undervalued life, which wasnever going to be harmonized, either.

It was football that made us friends.In that first fall, he had me typed as aclever guy, and his attitude was that inthe professions of the mind clever guysfinish nowhere at all. Then, that spring,

we organized a touch-football game atthe institute, and although I am themost flat-footed, least gifted touch-foot-ball player in the whole history of theworld, I somehow managed to play init. A bunch of us persuaded our youngprofessor to come out and join in oneSunday. The game was meant to be agentle, co-ed touch game. But Kirkaltered it by his presence. He was slam-ming so many bodies and dominatingso much that a wary, alarmed circle ofcaution formed around him.

Finally, I insisted to John Wilson, theTexan Renaissance scholar in the hud-dle, that if he faked a short pass, andeverybody made a lot of noise—”I gotit!” “There it is!,” and so on—Kirkwould react instantly and run towardthe sound, and I could sneak behindhim for the touchdown.

Well, the play worked, and, perhapsrecognizing that it was an entirely verbalconstruction, he spotted its author andcame right over, narrow-eyed andalmost angry. “Smart play,” he saidshortly, with the unspoken words“Smart-ass play” resonating in the leavesabove our heads. But then he shook hisfist happily, a sign meaning O.K., niceone. He turned away. He sees rightthrough me, I thought; he knows exact-ly what I’m up to. I began workingharder, and we became friends.

A quarter-century later, he was com-ing to the same field from the hospital.He was a handsome man, in a big-screen way, with the deep-set eyes andboyish smile and even the lumpy, inter-esting complexion of a Harrison Ford ora Robert Redford. The bull-like consti-tution that had kept him alive for sevenyears, as the doctors poured drugs intohim like Drano into a clogged sink,might have explained why the chemo,which thinned and balded almost

everyone else, had somehow made himgain weight and grow hair, so, thoughhe was a little stocky now, and a littlegray, his step was solid and his eyes wererimmed with oddly long Egyptian lash-es.

The boys came running from school,excited to have been wearing theirMetrozoid T-shirts all day, waiting forpractice: Eric and Derek and Ken, goodathletes, determined and knowing andnodding brief, been-there-before nodsas they chucked the ball around; Jacoband Charlie and Garrett talking a littletoo quickly and uncertainly about howmany downs you had and how manyyards you had to go; Will and Luke andMatthew very verbal, evangelizing for agame, please, can’t we, like, have a gamewith another team, right away, we’reready; and Gabriel just eager for achance to get the ball and roll joyfully inthe mud. I was curious to see what Kirkwould do with them. He was, first andforemost, a teacher, and his lectures stillresonated in the halls of the institute.But how would he teach these eight-year-olds to play football? Orate atthem? Motivate them? Dazzle themwith plays and schemes?

“O.K.,” he said, very gently, as theboys gathered around him in an atten-tive, slightly wary circle. “Let’s break itdown. First thing is how you stand.Everybody get down in a three-pointstance.”

The boys dropped to their haunchesconfidently.

Kirk frowned. He walked up anddown the line, shoving each one lightlyon a shoulder or a knee, and showinghow a three-point stance could be aweak or strong tripod, a launching pador a stopping place, one that let youpush off strongly or one that held youback. At last, he got everybody’s stance

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT


correct. “O.K., let’s run,” he said. “Justrun the length of the field, from thesecones to those cones, and then turnback. Last guy does fifteen pushups.”Luke stumbled and was the last guy, andKirk had him do fifteen pushups. Thepoint was made: No favorites.

Right around then, a young parkworker came up in one of those officiouslittle green carts the park people ridearound in. “I’m sorry,” he said, “youcan’t play here. It’s ruled off for games.”

I was ready to get mad—I mean, hey,who was making these rules? We hadbeen playing touch football here foryears—when Kirk stepped in.

“We-ell,” Kirk said, and the Southernaccent he brought with him from hisyouth in Savannah was suddenly moreintense, an airplane captain’s accent.“Well, uh, we got ten young men hereeager to play football. Where can wetake them to play?”

To my surprise, the park worker wasthere for the enlisting. “Let me see—I’llcome back,” he said. We went on withthe drills, and ten minutes later the guyscooted up again in his cart.

“I think I’ve found just the place,” hesaid. “If you go off there, right over theroad, and take the left fork, you’ll findthis field that’s hidden there behind theparking lot.” He added, almost confi-dentially, “It’s just opposite the toiletsnear the Ramble, but it’s flat and large,and I think it’s perfect.”

“Much obliged,” Kirk said, and hegestured to the boys, a big arm-sweepinggesture, and led them off in search of thepromised field. They followed him likeIsraelites. We walked across the road,took the left, and went down a hill, andthere it was—a little glade that I hadnever seen before, flat and fringed by talltrees, offering shade to the waitingmoms and dads. It had a slightly derelict

look—I could imagine that in a livelierera this field might have been a FrancisBacon mural, men struggling in thegrass—but today it was perfect.

“Gentlemen,” Kirk said clearly to theboys as they straggled on, lookingaround a little dubiously at the tufts ofgrass and the facing bathrooms.“Welcome to Metrozoid Field. This isthe place we have been looking for.” Heset out the red cones again around thefringes.

“O.K., let’s scrimmage,” he ordered.He divided the guys in half with a firm,cutting gesture, and they began anintense, slightly nervous touch-footballgame. Kirk watched them, smiling andsilent.

“Shouldn’t we teach them a play?” Isuggested.

“No,” he said. “They’re off to a goodstart. Running and standing is a goodstart.”

The scrimmage ended, and the win-ning team began to hurrah and high-five.

“Hey,” he said, stepping forward, andfor the first time I heard his classroomvoice, his full-out voice, a combinationof Southern drawl and acquired NewEngland sharpness.

“No celebrations,” he said, arriving atthe middle of the field. “This is a scrim-mage. It’s just the first step. We’re all oneteam. We are the Giant Metrozoids.” Hesaid the ridiculous name as though itwere Fighting Irish, or RamblingWrecks, an old and hallowed name inthe American pigskin tradition. The kidsstopped, subdued and puzzled. “Handstogether,” he said, and stretched his out,and solemnly the boys laid their handson his, one after another. “One, two,three, together!” and all the handssprang up. He had replaced a ritual ofcelebration with one of solidarity—and

the boys sensed that solidarity was some-how at once more solemn and more funthan any passing victory could be.

He had, I realized on the way home,accomplished a lot of things. He hadtaught them how to stand and how tokneel—not just how to do these thingsbut that there was a right way to do thesethings. He had taught them that playingwas a form of learning—that a scrim-mage was a step somewhere on the waytoward a goal. And he had taught themthat they were the Giant Metrozoids. Itwas actually a lot for one hour.

When I say that I began workingharder, I can barely begin to

explain what his idea of working hardmeant: it was Bear Bryant’s idea of hardwork circa 1955, it was General Patton’sidea of being driven, only more military.It was coupled with a complete opennessand equality, a vulnerability to his stu-dents’ criticisms so great that it wasalmost alarming. He was working thathard, and was as eager to have you spothis weights as he was to spot yours. Inwhat now seems like the halcyon days of1984, a Saturday morning in winterwould begin with a phone call and avoice booming, breaking right throughthe diaphanous protection of theanswering machine, “Hey, folks, it’sKirk. I got up early to walk the poochand I think I got some progress made onthis here problem. What say we meet ateleven and trade papers?” I would curse,get out of bed, get to work, and be readythree hours later, with a new draft ofwhatever the hell I was supposed to beworking on. We would meet at the littleisland that separates SoHo, where welived, and Tribeca, where he and hiswife, the artist Elyn Zimmerman, hadtheir loft, and, standing there, he wouldturn the pages, and I would turn the

40 FALL 2004

pages, and he would show me all theways in which I had missed the boat.Above all, he would insist, break itdown: Who were the artists? What werethe pictures? Give me the dates.Compile lists, make them inclusive,walk through it. You break it down inorder to build it back up. What does itmean, why does it matter, for this artist,for art history, for the development ofhuman consciousness? I would go backto work and the phone would ring againat three. “Hey, folks, it’s Kirk. What doyou say we meet and go over this newdraft I’ve done and then maybe get somedinner?” And we would meet, and allfour—or six or eight or ten—peoplewould come together around him, andhave dinner, and drink a good bottle ofwhite wine and a good bottle of redwine and finally, exhausted, I would getto bed.

And then the phone would ring again.“Hey, folks, it’s Kirk. I got to walk thepooch one last time, and I was justthinking that I may finally have sortedout the locomotive from the caboose inthis thing. What do you say. . .” And Iwould put a coat on over my pajamasand go out one last time, in the whip-ping cold of midnight, and he wouldopen the envelope right there and startreading, signalling to me to do the same,while his black Chow raced around, andwe would try one more time to clarifyexactly why Picasso looked at African artor why Gauguin went to Tahiti, while ageneration walked by us in Astor Placehaircuts and long vintage coats on theirway to the Odeon.

He gave football all the credit. He haddiscovered himself playing football, firstat his prep school, St. Andrew’s inDelaware, as an overweight and, by allreports, unimpressive adolescent, andthen at Williams, where, improbably, hebecame a starting defensive end. Theappeal of football wasn’t that it “built

character”—he knew just how cruddy acharacter a football player could have. Itwas that it allowed you to make a self.You were one kind of person with onekind of body and one set of possibilities,and then you worked at it and you wereanother. This model was so simple andso powerful that you could apply it toanything. It was ordinary magic: youworked harder than the next guy, andyou were better than the next guy. It putyour fate in your own hands.

I had always loved football, too, andwe watched it together on Saturdayafternoons and Monday nights for years.We saw a lot of good games, but wemissed the big one. In 1984, we went upto New England to celebrateThanksgiving, and we were supposed towatch what promised to be the greatestcollege football game of all time, BostonCollege-Miami, Doug Flutie versusBernie Kosar. But our wives wanted todo something else—go look at things ata Shaker fair, I think—and we camehome to find that we’d skipped thegreatest college football game of all time,which Flutie had won by a Hail Mary, along, desperation heave, on the last playof the game. We stared at each other indisbelief—we missed that?—and for thenext twenty years “Boston College-Miami” was code between us for some-thing you really, really wanted to do butcouldn’t, because your wife wanted to dosomething else. “You want to try andgrab a burger at six?” “Uh—BostonCollege-Miami.” It was code between usalso for the ironies of life, our great,overlooked game, the one that got away.

Ithink I’m going to make the motiva-tional speech,” I said to Luke as we

walked over to Metrozoid Field the nextFriday. I had been working on the moti-vational speech for several days. I didn’tsee a role for myself on the Metrozoidsas a leader, and I thought I might make

a contribution as the Tommy Lasordatype, raising everyone’s spirits and bleed-ing Metrozoid blue.

“O.K.,” he said, relenting for themoment. “Tell it to me again.”

“We’re here to separate the men fromthe boys,” I said, stopping at the Miner’sGate entrance to the Park, at Seventy-ninth Street, and trying to growl likeGary Busey as the Bear, “and then we’regoing to separate the warriors from themen.” I paused to let this sink in. “Andthen we’re going to separate the heroesfrom the warriors—and then we’regoing to separate the legends from theheroes. And then, at last, we’re going toseparate the gods from the legends. So, ifyou’re not ready to be a football god, youdon’t want to be a Metrozoid.” Longpause. “Now, won’t that make the guysmotivated?”

He reflected. “I don’t know if they’llbe motivated. They’ll certainly be nause-ated. Nobody wants to be motivated toplay football, Dad. They want to playfootball.”

Kirk ran another minimalist practiceon this second week, and he missed thenext because he was too sick from thechemo. I ran the session, and I thought,ambitiously, that it would be good to trya play at last, so I set about teachingthem a simple stop-and-go. I got themto line up and run short, stop, and thengo long. They ran it one by one, butnone of them could get the timing quiteright, and the boy who was supposed tobe quarterbacking the thing couldn’t getthe right zip on the ball. Everyone wasmore annoyed than motivated, so Istopped after ten minutes, and sentthem back to scrimmaging. They wererestless for their coach.

It wasn’t any surprise that he missed apractice; the surprise was that he madeas many as he did. The chemo he wasgetting was so caustic that it had to beinfused gradually, over sessions lasting

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

“


three or four hours. Years of chemother-apy had left the veins in his arms so col-lapsed that sometimes it took half anhour for a nurse just to find an entry. Hewould grimace while being poked atwith the needle, and then go on talking.He had the chemotherapy at one of themidtown extensions of the hospital,where the walls were earnestly decoratedwith Impressionist posters, Manet andMonet and Renoir—the art that he hadtaught a generation to relish for itsspring-coiled internal contradictions andtensions there as something soothing fordying patients to look at.

He would talk, for hours. Sometimeshe talked about the Metrozoids, andsometimes about Dylan or Elvis, butmostly he tried to talk through theMellon lectures he was to give inWashington. He was, he said, going tospeak without a text, just with a slide list.This was partly a bravura performer’sdesire to do one last bravura perform-ance. It was also because he had come tobelieve that in art history description wasall the theory you needed; if you coulddescribe what was there, and what itmeant (to the painter, to his time, toyou), you didn’t need a deeper support-ing theory. Art wasn’t meaningfulbecause, after you looked at it, someoneexplained it; art explained itself by beingthere to look at.

He thought that modern art was apart of modern life: not a reactionagainst it, or a subversion of it, but setwithin its values and contradictions, assurely as Renaissance art was set in itstime. His book on the origins of mod-ernism, “A Fine Disregard,” used ananalogy from the history of rugby to illu-minate the moment of artistic innova-tion: during a soccer game at the RugbySchool, in England, an unknown youngman named William Webb Ellis pickedup the ball and ran with it, and a newgame came into being. A lot of people

thought that Kirk was celebrating aRomantic view of invention. But his wasa liberal, not a Romantic, view of art. Itbegan with an individual and extendedto a community. What fascinated himwas the circumstances that let someoneact creatively and other people applaudinstead of blowing the whistle.

That was what he loved to talk aboutwhen he talked about Elvis. He reveredthe moment when, in 1954, Elviswalked into a studio and played withScotty and Bill and Sam, and everythingsuddenly came together. Had any of theelements been absent, as they easilymight have been, as they usually are—had the guitarist Scotty Moore been lessadaptable, the producer Sam Phillips lesspatient—then Elvis would have croonedhis songs, no one would have cared, andnothing would have happened. Thereadiness was all. These moments werehis faith, his stations: Picasso and Braquein their studios cutting the headlinesright out of the newspapers and pastingthem on the pictures to make collage,Richard Serra (first among Kirk’s con-temporary heroes) throwing hot lead ina studio corner and finding art in itsrococo patterns.

Toward the end of one chemotherapysession, as he worried his way throughhis themes, a young man wearing theusual wool cap on his head came aroundthe usually inviolable barrier of draperythat separated one “suite” from the next.

“You are professor?” he asked shyly,with a Russian accent, and Kirk shookhis head.

“No, you are professor. I know. Wehave treatment at same time, every week.Same three hours,” and he gesturedtoward his cap, with a short, we’re-in-this-together smile. “I used to bringbook, but now I just listen to you.”

That Sunday of the first Mellon lec-ture, Kirk walked to the lectern

after an introduction. The room wassold out, and the overflow had been sentto another lecture room. “Can I have thelights down, please,” he said, and I sawthat he had kept his word: he had notext, no notes, just a list of slides. Hebegan to show and describe objects fromsixties American minimalism—plywoodboxes and laid-out bricks and stripedpaintings. He didn’t offer a “theory,” or ahistorical point. He tried, instead, toexplain that a landscape that looked simple—there had been AbstractExpressionist splashes, and then therewere all these boxes—was actuallyextraordinarily complex: there was a bigdifference between the boxes of DonaldJudd, elegizing New York Canal Streetculture, and the gleaming, body-shopboxes of the West Coast minimalists,glorifying California car culture.

“The less there is to look at,” he said,pacing, as he always did, “the moreimportant it is that we look at it closelyand carefully. Small differences make allthe difference. So, for example, the nexttime somebody tries to sell you on themechanical exactitude of Frank Stella’sstripes, think again about the beautiful,delicate breathing space in these stripes,the incredible feathered edge of thetouch of the picture, which has every-thing to do with its kind of espresso-grounds, Beat Generation blackness thatgives the picture its particular relation-ship to its epoch and time.”

So he walked people through it. Therewere the bright, Matissean stripes ofEllsworth Kelly, made from the tracedshapes of Parisian shadows, and thosedark, espresso-bar simplicities of Stella.There was the tradition of the Bauhausdiaspora, all those German refugeeartists who had been forced to go toSouth America, and who had prosely-tized for a kind of utopian, geometricabstraction—which had then appearedin New York just as New York artists

42 FALL 2004

were using geometric forms to indicatea cool-guy stoical distaste for utopianaspirations, creating a comedy of mis-understanding and crossbreeding. Anart that had seemed like a group ofquadratic equations set by a joylessteacher had been revealed as a sequenceof inventions thought up by people.Where there seemed to be things, therewere stories. The audience, at the end ofthe hour, was riveted. Someone wasbreaking it down, and then was going tobuild it back up. You didn’t want tomiss it.

O.K., we’re going to learn a play,”he said, the next Friday at

Metrozoid practice. The boys were standing on

Metrozoid Field in their Metrozoidshirts in a semicircle around him. Heshowed them the play he had in mind,tracing it in the dirt with a stick: thequarterback takes the ball from the cen-ter and laterals to the halfback, wholooks for one of three downfieldreceivers, who go in overlapping pathsdown the right sideline—one long, onemedium, one short. The boys clappedhands and ran to the center of the field,terrier-quick and terrier-eager.

“No, no. Don’t run. Just walkthrough it the first few times.”

The boys then ostentatiously walkedthrough the play, clowning around abit, as though in slow motion. Helaughed at that. But he had them do itanyway, five or six times, at a walk.

“Now let’s just amble through it,same thing.” The play took on a court-ly quality, like a seventeenth-centurydance. The boys did it at that pace,again and again: hike and pitch andlook and throw.

“Now let’s just run easy.” The boystrotted through their pattern, and

Garrett, the chosen quarterback, keptoverthrowing the ball. Gently but firm-ly, Kirk changed the running back withthe quarterback, Ken for Garrett, sothat Garrett had the honor of beingofficial quarterback but wouldn’t haveto throw, and then had them trotthrough it again. Ken threw hard, andthe ball was caught.

After twenty minutes, Kirk clappedhis hands. “Full speed. Everybody run.”The boys got in their stances, and tookoff—really zoomed. The ball camenervously back, the quarterback tossedit to the halfback, he turned and threwit to the short receiver.

“Great!” At top eight-year-old speed,the ball had been thrown for a comple-tion. The Metrozoids had mastered aplay.

“Now let’s do it again,” Kirk said. Iheard him whisper to Matthew, theshort receiver, as he lined up, “Falldown!” They started the play, Garrett toKen. Matthew fell down. Ken’s eyesshowed a moment of panic, but then helooked up, and saw the next boy, themiddle receiver, Luke, waiting right inline, and he threw there. Complete.

“Nice read,” Kirk said, clapping hishands. “Nice read, nice throw, nicecatch. Well-executed play.”

The boys beamed at each other. “You break it down, and then you

build it back up,” Kirk said as they metat the center of the field to do the pile ofhands. “The hardest play you learn isjust steps put together.”

By the fourth and fifth weeks of theMellons, the scene at the National

Gallery was almost absurd. People werelining up at nine in the morning for thetwo-o’clock lecture; I met a womanwho had driven down from Maine to bethere. The overflow room had to be

supplied with its own overflow room,and the museum finally printed a slight-ly short-tempered handout. (“But whatif I need to use the restroom whilestanding in line?” “If you need to usethe restroom while in line, ask yourneighbor to save your place.”)

The fifth lecture would, he thought,be the toughest to put over. He found iteasy to make an audience feel the vari-ety, the humanity, of abstract art, evenan art as refined and obstinate as the artof Judd or the young Frank Stella. Butit was harder to make people accept,and relish, that art’s perversity, andharder still to make them see that itsperversity was exactly the humanism itoffered. In the lecture hall, he explainedthat, as E. H. Gombrich had shown halfa century ago in his Mellon lectures,representational artists were alwaysmaking forms and then matchingthem—taking inherited stereotypes and“correcting” them in the light of newthings seen. Leonardo, for instance, hadinherited the heraldic image of a horse,and he had bent it and reshaped it untilit looked like an actual animal. Abstractartists were always making forms andthen trying to unmatch them, to makesure that their art didn’t look like thingsin the world. Sooner or later, though,they always did, and this meant that,alongside abstraction, there was a kindof sardonic running commentary,which jumped on it anytime that it didlook like some banal familiar thing.

Pop art was the most obvious sourceand form of this mockery: RoyLichtenstein made fun of the abstractOp artist Victor Vasarely for makingpictures that looked like the bottom ofa sneaker, and Andy Warhol thumbedhis nose at Barnett Newman for makingpictures that looked like matchbookcovers, and so on. But this counter-tra-

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

“


dition wasn’t mere jeering. It was gener-ative, too: it forced and inspired newart. It kept abstraction from wallowingcomplacently in a vague mysticalhumanism. In the parody and satire ofabstraction, its apparent negation, layits renewal.

This process, Kirk explained, easilyvisible in the dialogue of minimalismand Pop, was just as vital, if less obvious,in the relationship between JacksonPollock and Cy Twombly, two of hisheroes. Twombly’s squiggles and scrib-bles were not dutifully inspired by butactually parodied Pollock’s method:“Everything that Twombly achieves heachieves by the ironic distancing ofhimself from Pollock. Everything that isliquid is turned dry. Everything that islight is turned dark. Everything that issimple and spontaneous and athletic isturned obsessive, repetitive, self-con-scious in Twombly. By this kind ofnegation, he re-realizes, on a completelydifferent scale and completely differentterms, the exact immediacy of energyconveyed to canvas that Pollock has.”Negation and parody were forms ofinfluence as powerful as any solemn“transmission” of received icons. Doubtled to argument; argument made art.

That Friday, out on Metrozoid Field,Kirk divided the boys into two

teams. “A team runs the play and Bteam defends,” he said.

“But they’ll know what we’re gonnado,” someone on the A team com-plained. “That’s O.K. Most of the time,the other team knows what you’regonna do. That’s called your tendency.The key is to do it anyway.”

“But if they know—” “Just run the play. Most of the time,

the other team knows. The hard part isdoing it right even when you knowexactly what’s coming.”

The offense boys ran their one play,the flea-flicker, and the defense boys ranaround trying to stop it. Standing onthe sidelines, I was amazed to see howhard it was to stop the play even if youdid know it was coming. The boys ondefense ran around, nettled, convergingon the wrong receiver and waving theirhands blindly at the ball. The boys onoffense looked a little smug.

He called them together. “You knowwhat they’re going to do. Why can’t youstop it?”

The boys on the B team, slightly outof breath, shrugged. “You can’t stop itbecause they know what they’re goingto do but you don’t know what you’regoing to do against it. One team has aplan and the other team doesn’t. Oneteam knows what it’s doing, and theother team knows what they’re doingbut it doesn’t know what it’s doing.Now let’s figure out what you’re goingto do.”

He went to work. Who’s the fastestkid they have? O.K., let’s put the fastestkid we have on him. Or, better, what ifeach guy takes a part of the field andjust stays there and knocks the balldown if it comes near him? Don’t movenow; just stay there and knock it down.They tried both ways—man-to-manand zone and found that both waysworked. The play lost its lustre. Theboys on the B team now seemed smug,and the boys on the A team lost.

“Maybe you need another wrinkle,”he said to the A team. “Let’s work onit.”

Watching him on Metrozoid Field,you could see what made him a greatteacher on bigger questions for biggerkids. Football was a set of steps, art a setof actions. The mysterious, bafflingthings—modern art, the zonedefense—weren’t so mysterious or baf-fling if you broke them down. By the

end of the spring practice, the eight-year-olds were instinctively rotating outof man-to-man into a zone and theoffense audibling out of a spread forma-tion into a halfback option, just as thegrownups in Washington were sudden-ly seeing the differences and similaritiesbetween Pollock’s drips and Twombly’sscrawls.

One particularly bright kid, Jacob,was scared of the ball, the onrushingobject and the thousand intricateadjustments you had to make to catchit. He would throw his arms out andlook away, instead of bringing his handstogether. Kirk worked with him. Hestood nearby and threw him the ball,underhanded, and then got him to doone thing right. When he caught it Kirkwasn’t too encouraging; when hedropped one he wasn’t too hard. He didnot make him think it was easy. He didnot make him think that he had done itwhen he hadn’t. He made him thinkthat he could do it if he chose.

It is said sometimes that the greatteachers and mentors, the rabbis andgurus, achieve their ends by inductingthe disciple into a kind of secret circle ofknowledge and belief, make of theircharisma a kind of gift. The more Ithink about it, though, the more I sus-pect that the best teachers—and, forthat matter, the truly long-term win-ning coaches, the Walshes andWoodens and Weavers—do somethingelse. They don’t mystify the work andoffer themselves as a model of rabbini-cal authority, a practice that nearlyalways lapses into a history of acolytesand excommunications. The real teach-ers and coaches may offer a charismaticmodel—they probably have to—butthen they insist that all the magic theyhave to offer is a commitment to repeti-tion and perseverance. The great oraclesmay enthrall, but the really great teach-

44 FALL 2004

ers demystify. They make particlephysics into a series of diagrams thatanyone can follow, football into a seriesof steps that anyone can master, and artinto a series of slides that anyone cansee. A guru gives us himself and then hissystem; a teacher gives us his subject,and then ourselves.

If this story was the made-for-televi-sion movie that every story about

early death threatens to become, wewould have arranged one fiery gamebetween the Giant Metrozoids andanother team, a bigger, faster, slightlyevil team, and the Metrozoids wouldwin it for their coach. It didn’t happenlike that. Not that the Metrozoids did-n’t want a game. As their self-confidenceincreased, they kept urging us to findsome other team of eight-year-olds thatthey could test themselves against. I wasall for it, but Kirk, I sensed, was not.Whenever the boys raised the possibili-ty, he would say, diffidently, “Let’s waittill the fall,” knowing, of course, thatthe fall, his fall, would never come.

I understood the hold he had on theMetrozoids. But when I thought abouthis hesitation I started to understandthe hold that the Metrozoids had onhim. I had once said something fatuousto him about enjoying tonight’s sunset,whatever tomorrow would bring, andhe had replied that when you know youare dying you cannot simply “live in themoment.” You loved a fine sunsetbecause it slipped so easily into a histo-ry, yours and the world’s; part of thepleasure lay in knowing that it was onein a stream of sunsets you had loved,each good, some better, one or two per-fect, moving forward in an open series.Once you knew that this one could be

the last, it filled you with a sense ofdread; what was the point of collectingpaintings in a museum you knew wasdoomed to burn down?

But there were pleasures in life thatwere meaningful in themselves, that didnot depend on their place in an ongoingstory, now interrupted. These pleasureswere not “aesthetic” thrills—not thehang gliding you had never done or thetrip to Maui you had never taken—butthings that existed outside the passageof time, things that were beyond com-parison, or, rather, beside comparison,off to one side of it. He loved theMetrozoid practices, I came to see,because for him they weren’t really prac-ticing. The game would never come,and the game didn’t matter. What mat-tered was doing it.

At the last practice of the school year,the boys ran their plays and scrim-maged, and the familiar forms of foot-ball, of protection and pass routes andcoverages, were all there, almost magi-cally emerging from the chaos of eight-year-olds in motion. At the end, theboys came running up to him, and hestood in place, and low-fived each oneof them. “See you in September,” thekids cried, and Kirk let the small handsslap his broad one, and smiled. “We’llwork again in the fall,” he said, and Iknew he meant that someone would.

That Sunday, he did something thatsurprised me. It was the last lecture ofthe Mellons, and he talked about death.Until then, I had never heard him men-tion it in public. He had dealt with it byrefusing to describe it—from Kirk theultimate insult. Now, in this last lecture,he turned on the audience and quoted aline from a favorite movie, “BladeRunner,” in which the android leader

says, “Time to die,” and at the very endhe showed them one of his favoriteworks, a Richard Serra “TorquedEllipse,” and he showed them how thework itself, in the physical experiences itoffered—inside and outside, safe andprecarious, cold and warm—made allthe case that needed to be made for thecomplexity, the emotional urgency, ofabstract art. Then he began to talkabout his faith. “But what kind offaith?” he asked. “Not a faith inabsolutes. Not a religious kind of faith.A faith only in possibility, a faith notthat we will know something, finally,but a faith in not knowing, a faith inour ignorance, a faith in our being con-founded and dumbfounded, as some-thing fertile with possible meaning andgrowth. . . . Because it can be done, itwill be done. And now I am done.” Theapplause, when it came, was stadiumapplause, and it went on a long time.

By July, the doctors had passed himright out of even the compassionate

trials, and were into the world of guess-es and radiation. “It’s a Hail Mary,” hesaid of a new radiation therapy that theywere proposing. “But, who knows,maybe I’ll get the Doug Flutie of radiol-ogists. “Then a slight ache in his backwhich he thought was a disk he’d hurtwater-skiing turned out to be a largetumor in his spine, and the end camequickly.

His wife, Elyn, had to be out of thecity, and I spent the last Saturday after-noon of his life with him. In the oldway, I went into his office to work onsomething I was writing. Kirk went tosee what was on television. He had, Inoticed, a team photograph of theMetrozoids at their last practice

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT


propped up on the coffee table. Bythen, he could hardly walk, and hisbreath came hard.

But he called out, “Yo. You got tocome here.”

“What?” “You won’t believe this. Boston

College-Miami.” Damned if it wasn’t. ESPN Classics

had a ‘Hail Mary’ Saturday, all the greatgames decided on the last play, andnow, twenty years later, they were show-ing the game from beginning to end:the whole game, with the old graphicsand the announcer’s promos, exactly asit had first been shown.

So we finally got to watch the game.And it was 1984 again, and the gamewas still thrilling, even though youknew what the outcome would be, andhow it would happen. Kirk’s brother,Sam, came around, and he watched,too, the three of us just enjoying a goodgame, until at last here we were, at thatfamous, miraculous, final Hail Mary,Doug Flutie dropping back and rollingout, to heave the ball desperately down-field.

“Look at that!” Kirk cried, and theball was still in midair out of view, upabove the television screen.

“What?” I asked, as the ball made itsarc and fell into the hands of GerardPhelan and the announcers went wild.

“That’s no Hail Mary. Watch it againand you’ll see. That’s a coverage break-down.” The old defensive-backfield

coach spoke evenly, as, twenty yearsbefore, the crowd jumped andscreamed. “Safety steps up too soonbecause he doesn’t think Flutie canmake that throw on the run. What hedoesn’t see is that Flutie has time tosquare around and get his feet set on therollout, which adds fifteen yards to hisrange. Safety steps up too soon, Phelanruns a standard post route, and that’s it.That safety sees Flutie get his feet set,makes the right read, and there’s nocompletion.” Turning to us, he said,“That is no Hail Mary, friends. That’sno miracle. That is just the play youmake. That is one gentleman makingthe right read and running the rightpattern and the other gentleman mak-ing the wrong read.” And for onemoment he looked as happy as I hadever known him: one more piece of theworld’s mysteries demystified withoutbeing debunked, a thing legendary andhallowed broken down into the real pat-tern of human initiative and humanweakness and human action that hadmade it happen. We had been waitingtwenty years to see a miracle, and whatwe saw—what he saw, once again, andshowed us—was one more work of art,a pattern made by people out of thepossibilities the moment offered to aready mind. It was no Hail Mary,friends; it was a play you made.

He turned to me and Sam, and, stillelated by the revelation of what hadreally happened all those years ago, we

began to talk about Ralph Emerson andRichard Serra. And then Kirk said,heavily, “There is nothing in the worldI would rather be doing than takingpart in this conversation. But I have tolie down.” He died four days afterward,late at night, having spent the day talk-ing about Hitchcock films and eigh-teenth-century hospital architecture.

Luke and Elyn and I went up to thefootball field at Williams last fall and,with some other friends, spread hisashes in the end zone, under the goal-posts. At his memorial, at theMetropolitan Museum of Art, ReneeFleming sang and the violinist ArnoldSteinhardt played and the art world ofNew York turned out and listened andrecalled him. I think a lot of them musthave been puzzled in the slide show thatElyn had prepared to begin the evening,and which recapitulated his career, fromSavannah to Princeton, to see towardthe end a separate section gravely enti-tled “The Giant Metrozoids,” with thebig figure surrounded by small boys.But I’m sure he would have been glad tosee them there. The Metrozoids are get-ting back in business again, with aninadequate coach. I’ve thought aboutfinally making the motivational speech,but I don’t think I need to. TheMetrozoids don’t need to learn how toseparate the men from the heroes. Theyknow.

46 FALL 2004

One day in college, Isaw a flyer on a bulletinboard advertising a studyabroad program that hadboth a study and a workservice component. Thetypes of work includedworking in poor hospi-tals, community develop-ment activities and con-struction. I was so interested inthis program that I took down theflyer and immediately wrote awayfor more information.

Since that summer in 1989 whenI worked with malnourished chil-dren in an urban slum outside ofGuayaquil, Ecuador, as a communi-ty activist for the non-governmen-tal organization, ChildrenInternational, I knew that this waswhat I wanted to do. The chal-lenges met my skills—how to helpempower people with very fewresources and how to raise aware-ness of those who have so muchless than we do was extremelyrewarding.

That first summer led to anothersemester abroad in Bogotá,Colombia, which then led to aPeace Corps assignment in TheGambia, West Africa. I graduatedwith a double major in math andLatin American Studies, so I fig-ured I would be a shoo-in for a jobas a math teacher in LatinAmerica, but that was not the case!

That was my first les-son: if you have tech-nical skills, thenthose skills should betransferable to any-where in the world.In fact, that hasstayed true untiltoday, where I amagain posted in a

country where I have no experi-ence at all.

While a Peace Corps Volunteer, I knew that I wanted to make acareer out of this type of work, so when I came back to the United States, I did a master’s

degree at Johns Hopkins School ofAdvanced International Studies inWashington, D.C. They have avery interesting program on socialchange and development, wherewe looked at how to effect changefrom the grassroots level. Wetalked a lot about how change insocieties occurs and how changediffers from place to place.

Since then, I have worked inCambodia, England, Somalia,Azerbaijan and now Sudan. All ofmy work has been to work on proj-ects—a specific activity that a non-governmental organization getsmoney to implement—with the

Working for change in Sudanby Lainie Thomas ’88

ALUMNI PERSPECTIVE

St. Andrew’s alumna Lainie Thomas ’88 talked with us about her work in Sudan for a relief agency, Mercy Corps. This is the first in an ongoing series of articles from or about St. Andreans working for change around the globe.

A typical Sudanese house, called a tukul. It is nice and very cool inside all day long. One thing thatbaffles me is that the doors are very low, but the Sudanese are very tall!


aim of helping poor people makechanges in their own lives.

I am a little hesitant to discusstoo many specifics about Sudan, asmy experience in this job barelyspans two months. I work with alot of Sudanese in Nairobi, butthey are generally better educatedand better off than those still inSudan. I can say that the generalpolitical situation is hopeful.People feel like peace is imminentand that it will bring meaningfulchange to their lives. For example,people will be able to return totheir homelands after decadesaway, the availability of goods willmultiply enormously and thesecurity will improve dramatically.

As for the economic situation inSudan, it is very basic. I havebeen to many very rural parts ofAfrica, but I have never seen this

much poverty. Inthe town whereMercy Corps works,Wunrok, in TwicCounty, Bahr elGhazal region, thereis no infrastructureto speak of: there areno roads, just dirt ormud tracks. Butthen, the roads arenot that importantsince there are nocars—in a week Isaw only two vehi-cles, bothowned by aidagencies.

Likewise, there are no gas sta-tions, so even if one did havea car, getting gas would be aproblem. The aid agencieshave to send barrels of gas byair to the villages to fuel theircars. This is in a countrywhose civil war is fueled bythe need to control the coun-try’s vast oil reserves! Thereis no electricity at all, any-where, even in the govern-ment buildings or homes ofimportant officials. At themarkets, there is very little tobuy—I saw soap, salt, sugar,tea leaves, cigarettes andlighters, batteries, flip-flopsand bicycle parts. I couldn’t believe that youcould not buy food! There areno telephones; while I did notexpect to see telephone

booths at each hut, I was surprisedthat the bigger towns do not havetelephone access in this modernworld. The village where I livedas a Peace Corps volunteer 12years ago had a single telephonethat was as heavy as a cinderblock, but it was available. It wasfour days until I saw a permanentbuilding—everything was made ofmud and thatch until I saw a brickprimary school. There is one hos-pital in south Sudan.

On a day-to-day basis, we areworking to help out farmers. We

A stall where fish is sold. This market is unique. It'scalled a Peace Market, because under a specialagreement, the Arabs from the north can leave theirweapons at the north-south border and come andtrade at the market without being attacked by thesoutherners. They bring goods available from thenorth like salt and sugar, and they buy cattle from thesoutherners.

A fair number of people have bikes, and they always decorate themwith plastic flowers like these!

48 FALL 2004

do this in several different ways.First, we are helping some farmerswho are willing to try new methodsto train their oxen to pull a plow.Plowing in our area is all done byhand, and this is extremely timeconsuming and hard work. A pairof oxen can plow six fields in thetime a man can do one. Somefarmers resist this, as they thinkthat animals should not be used forthis hard work. However, some seethe big differences that it makesand are interested to find out more.Likewise, we are designing donkeycarts for farmers to use to transporttheir goods to the markets. MercyCorps has introduced some newseeds to the farmers that willincrease their productivity and pro-duce more nutritious varieties. We

are also repairing roads that lead tothe markets so that people—sellersand buyers—have better access.One of the most interesting parts ofour work is that we work with aSudanese organization from thisarea called SUPRAID, SudanProduction Aid. They have beendrilling boreholes for people toaccess clean water for many years,and they have established a smallagricultural research center wherethey are planting crops to demon-strate to other farmers.

In the near future, we are plan-ning to have money available forgroups from this area to apply for agrant from us. They can make aplan on what they want to use itfor, and if it will benefit the com-munity, then Mercy Corps will give

the money to the communitygroups. For example, a women’sgroup may buy a grinding mill togrind their sorghum, or some busi-nessmen may want to build a newshop at the market.

I was very inspired by people’sfaith in the impending peace.Already, thousands of people aremaking the trek back to their home-lands—by bus from Khartoum, thecapital in the north, and from thereby foot. In Sudanese English, theycall this “footing.” People makingthe trip are harassed by police whosuspect that they may be going toDarfur to help the rebels. They fre-quently get malaria, have no foodand suffer extreme fatigue fromwalking so many days in very, veryhot temperatures. The peace is the

ALUMNI PERSPECTIVE

This is why most people don't have cars! This is the main road to the capital of the countyin Twic County, Bahr El Ghazal.

This person is getting clean, safe water from a borehole. Ionly saw two of these during my entire stay.


An airplane arrives with supplies to rehabilitate roads to improve access to markets. The plane has landed in a field. If there are cows or goats on therunway, then the pilot flies very low to scare them away, and then comes back for the landing!

first step in making change inSudan. Without it, people cannottravel, the general populace doesnot have access to goods in themarket and infrastructure and com-munications cannot be built.There is so much room forimprovement that I cannot believethat the future is not brighter forthe Sudanese.

The Sudanese whom I met areboth hopeful and realistic. They,too, realize that peace is essentialto the future of the country.However, there have been manyother peace talks earlier that have

failed, and that is discouraging.They are just trying to get by dayto day and make life better onesmall step at a time.

For those who want to help theSudan cause, political pressure hasbeen extremely powerful here. Iread in The Economist that GeorgeBush is more popular in Sudanthan anywhere on earth! Peoplecan write their members of con-gress and senators and make surethat they understand the impor-tance of putting strong pressure onall sides in the Sudanese conflict tokeep their promises, by tying finan-

cial assistance to keeping thepeace. For those who want to domore, there are many agencies likeMercy Corps who are working inSudan now. They always need sup-port, and operating in Sudan whereall supplies have to be flown in, isvery expensive. In particular, theseorganizations need unrestrictedfunds, money that is not allocatedfor a specific cause. That givesorganizations the ability to respondvery quickly to changing situations,to emergencies and to help themost vulnerable people of all.

50 FALL 2004

Of all the strange forms ofnationhood that fill the worldtoday, none stands out like SaudiArabia. It is the only countrynamed after a family—the Sauds,who have ruled in the Peninsulasince the 18th century. In a worldof competing ideologies, it is theonly state that abjures them all, infavor of its version of Sunni Islam.And as for a constitution? TheSaudis would reply, “Ours is theKoran, a constitution granted byGod himself.”

Outside viewers, even critics,might agree that Saudi Arabiaseems, up to now, a successfulanomaly. In a particularly con-flict-prone region of the world, ithas survived intact the destabiliz-ing inrush of untold wealth andthe challenge of ideologies.Communism, Baathism, Arabnationalism—all have come andgone. But today, Saudi Arabia,which controls two-thirds of theworld’s oil, is threatened fromwithin by jihadist Islam, themovement that includes al Qaeda.So a serious question for the U.S.is: How much help can we expectfrom Saudi Arabia against a com-mon threat which is, however,Muslim?

Strange People

For much of the last century,U.S.-Saudi relations were mostlyof interest to specialists. In the1930s, American oil developers—no cross-cultural specialists they—got the U.S. off on the right footwith a strange people in a strangeland. When I arrived in 1972 asdeputy chief of mission of theembassy in Jiddah, FDR’s andKing Abdul Aziz’s 1945 meetingaboard the USS Quincy seemedalmost a current affair. The coun-try was deeply conservative, butin a way that seemed almost fric-tionless. Foreign diplomats andbusinessmen could live asWesterners in their compoundsand enjoy folkloric forays into thetown and countryside. By the timeI left in 1977, Jiddah had becomea city of cranes, as the U.S. Corpsof Engineers went about its job ofterraforming Saudi Arabia, thenew El Dorado. Oil prices hadquadrupled after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Arab oil boy-cott.

My Saudi friends were smug.The true faith had—no surprise—bested “godless communism.”Friends would ask: How could an

ideology produced by a GermanJew (Marx) or another by someArab Christian (Baath Partyfounder Michel Aflak) hold itsown against God’s revelation? Nordid they believe Saudi societyneeded lessons in democracyfrom the morally ambiguous West.It was no accident that God hadrevealed his Koran in Arabia andafterwards had blessed theKingdom with such economic andsocial justification. Per capitaincome was close to rivaling thatof the U.S. Many Saudi friendssaw the Kingdom as a theodicy,“an end of history.” Some wereastonished that I, who had exten-sive knowledge of their culture,did not become a Muslim. Theminister of defense, Prince Sultan,passed word that if I converted,he would give my son, born in1975, Saudi citizenship. (I thankedhim for his offer, but explainedthat I—however misguidedly—could not part with the faith ofmy fathers.)

The Saudis were not altogethermistaken in their self-congratula-tion. Their ideology had in factshown remarkable resilience. Aforeign ministry friend onceexplained that Westerners werewrong in supposing that there

ALUMNI PERSPECTIVE

Our Enemy’s EnemyBy Hume Horan ’51

Hume Horan ’51 passed away on July 22, 2004, after a battle with cancer (see obituary, p.59). During his diplomatic career, Hume served the United States as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia(1987-88), Sudan (1983-86), Equatorial Guinea (1980-82), and Cameroon (1980-83). He wasregarded by colleagues and observers as one of most knowledgeable Arabists to ever serve in theState Department. In the final year of his life, Hume worked as a senior counselor to the CoalitionProvisional Authority in Iraq.

On August 6, 2004, the Wall Street Journal published some of Hume’s final thoughts on SaudiArabia, excerpted from his writings for the American Enterprise Institute. Hume’s essay is reprint-ed here with the kind permission of the Wall Street Journal and the American Enterprise Institute.A fuller volume of Hume’s writings are available on-line at www.aei.org.


were no political parties in SaudiArabia. There was a single, all-powerful party, one that operatedfar, far better than Nasser’s comic-opera “Arab Socialist Union” or thecommunism of the U.S.S.R. Thatparty was the royal family. Itcould count on the loyalty—ensured by blood ties, not ideolo-gy—of 10,000 princes. “Call themcadres if you wish.” All were fur-ther knit together by the knowl-edge that they sat atop the great-est source of geologic wealth evervouchsafed to mankind—and byknowing that, should they fall outamongst themselves, their envi-ous neighbors would snap up thepieces. “The result,” I was told, “isa super-conductive network ofcommand and control withoutparallel in the Arab world.” ButSaudi rulers could also be wise.“Not like that animal Saddam.”King Faisal had restored to favor adissident intellectual, after yearsof imprisonment. During thoseyears, Faisal had continued to paythe man’s salary to his family—thus linking control with forbear-ance.

The extremists’ seizure of theMosque of Mecca in 1979, howev-er, might have warned the Saudigovernment of problems inherentin making Islam a formal pillar ofthe state. But when the Sovietsinvaded Afghanistan in the sameyear, the Saudis pushed aheadeven more vigorously with theirIslamic “public diplomacy.” Theystuck with what in their eyes wasa winner.

In 1987, when I returned aschief of mission, the Saudi govern-ment was proud to stand at thehead of an anticommunist crusadefor the liberation of Afghanistan,fueled by Saudi (and American)

money and more than a few Saudivolunteers. I recall a visit toRiyadh in which CIA DirectorWilliam Casey presented KingFahd with a Kalashnikov. Its stockfeatured a brass plaque explainingthat the weapon had been takenfrom the body of a Russian officer.Mr. Casey might as well havebeen giving the keys to theKingdom of God itself. The Kingrose, flourished the weapon, andstruck a martial pose. The lastSoviet forces left Afghanistan in1989. The Kingdom could rightlyshare in the triumph.

In 1991, operations “DesertShield” and “Desert Storm” againgave Saudis reason to see them-selves as uniquely favored byGod. We had (of course) dis-patched a mighty army to rescuethem from Saddam Hussein. Ourmilitary officers in Arabiaobserved that our sacrifices werereceived by the Saudis as no lessthan their due.

By the ’90s, however, internalpressures on the regime grew.Saudi Arabia’s population hadbegun to double every 17 years.But these additions to the workforce had neither marketableskills nor a significant work ethic.Per capita incomes slumped. Classdivisions were rising and thehomogeneity of public life waswaning. Millions of young men—isolated from any normal contactwith women—seethed with sexualfrustration. Saudi wives, mured upin nasty bungalows, suffered fromdepression. The tragedies of someAmerican women married toSaudis gave the embassy occasion-al but instructive insights into thepathology of Saudi folkways. TheU.S. was rarely of help to thesewomen.

Until recently, criticism of SaudiArabia was deflected by Americanapologists who would refer to“Saudi exceptionalism.” Isn’t SaudiArabia undemocratic? Doesn’t itlack a constitution, deny religiousfreedom to other faiths, have aweak human rights record? Nomatter, Saudis would say. In theKoran, God Himself had dictatedthe final word concerning otherreligions, human rights and everyaspect of life on earth.

U.S. discussions with Saudis atthe highest levels often dealt withsecurity, military sales, economiccooperation and sometimes intel-ligence exchanges. But in the backof the King’s mind was the beliefthat, so long as the Kingdomremained helpful in oil productionand pricing (20 percent of U.S. oilimports come from Saudi Arabia)and in purchasing billions of dol-lars of U.S. military equipmentand training, he could deflect ourrequests on domestically sensitiveissues (such as kidnappedAmerican children) to an always-later time. The record has shownthe Saudis to be right.

Saudi Arabia and the U.S. arenow forced to confront a newcommon enemy: Islamic radical-ism. The Saudis were at first slowin recognizing jihadist Islam as athreat. For years they practiceddenial. Their reaction to the 1996Khobar Towers attack, in which 19U.S. soldiers were killed, was todelay, obfuscate and deny. So wastheir first reaction to 9/11: It’sinconceivable that 15 of the 19hijackers might have been Saudis!More recent events, such as thequadruple bombings in Riyadh inMay 2003 and the suicide bomb-ing of a security forces building inApril last year—not to mention

52 FALL 2004

attacks on Western workers—arechanging the regime’s attitude.Concerning the May 2003 attacks,Crown Prince Abdullah declared“there is no place for terror” in hiscountry, and vowed to “destroy”the group responsible. But theMay 2004 attack on Al Khobar,with 22 deaths, and the murder ofPaul Johnson showed the Saudigovernment and the U.S. that thethreat from Islamic terror was stillactive.

What can we say about theSaudi government’s response?Intelligence cooperation will benothing new. For decades that hasbeen a key element in our strate-gic partnership. But the Saudi gov-ernment always preferred toshield domestic developments,particularly those that involvedthe ruling family, from foreigneyes. If they let the U.S. followthe big money trail, it would sure-ly lead to some Saudis of highdegree, who for various reasonsgave money to al Qaeda. The con-tributors might have done so outof habit, like buying a ticket to thepolicemen’s ball. Or to buy protec-tion, or because they actually sup-ported al Qaeda’s mission. Forsure, some Saudis, like manyother Arabs, felt a certainSchädenfreude over 9/11.

There are three reasons why theSaudi government is likely to stopstonewalling on terrorist financingand other common actions againstthe jihadists. First, the threat tothe royal family itself from alQaeda, and jihadist Islam in gen-eral, is now direct. Second, theU.S. interventions in Afghanistanand Iraq have made it equally

clear that terrorism is one issuefor which Uncle Sam will not takeno for an answer. Third, one getsthe impression that the entrée ofthe Saudi ambassador inWashington is no longer what itwas in the days of Bush 41. TheSaudi government’s June decisionto place charitable fund-givingunder central control may helpcauterize some of this suspectdonor activity.

Saudi cooperation on matters ofsecurity interest to us is feasible—especially if that cooperation pro-ceeds “with muffled oars.” But wewill have to keep up steady pres-sure on the Saudis and showuncommon consistency of pur-pose at all levels of our govern-ment. The president himself mustbe tough and persistent. Years ofU.S. deference to the royal familyhave made the Saudis uncommon-ly resistant to requests by ambas-sadors and the State Department.

Ruthless Cadre

It’s possible that the Saudi gov-ernment will work with us in thefight against international jihadistIslam, while becoming a moreovertly repressive police state thatrules not on the basis of socialcovenant, but via a ruthless cadre.There will be gestures towardreform—Crown Prince Abdullah’scabinet of 1995 looked good in theshop window: 14 Ph.D.s among 17non-royal cabinet members!Those foreign-trained Ph.D.s, how-ever, have no power base and arebound to the regime by personalinterests. That power will remain,for the near future, in the same

practiced hands that it has fordecades. And when today’sprinces finally give way to succes-sors, we can expect the domesticpolicies of the past—apart from awindow dressing of democratiza-tion—not to change much. Neithershould one look for change fromthe Arab disposition to “mitosis.”The Saudi Royal Family, Inc. hasits factions: The powerful, full-brother “Sudairy Seven” princeshave little love for their half-broth-er, Crown Prince Abdullah, whohas reformist tendencies and pos-sesses popular authenticity.Nonetheless, the royal family hasshown a unique ability in theArab World to avoid division—andhence to avoid being overthrowneither from without or within.

It may well be that the Saudiswill continue to find utility intheir policies of the past 40years—that is, to cooperate withthe U.S. on common strategic andsecurity concerns while keepingus at arm’s length on a wide rangeof American “druthers.” Thiswould include many domesticsocial, political and religiousissues, where the Saudi positionwill remain contrary to what theU.S. stands for. Such a govern-ment would resemble some of itsdespotic neighbors. Will we con-tinue to show forbearance to SaudiArabia’s domestic policies becauseof its oil and, now, its importanceto us in the battle against Osamabin Laden and jihadist Islam? Itwill be interesting to see how theUnited States reacts if SaudiArabia pursues a governing styleat home similar to Hafez al-Asad’sSyria.

ALUMNI PERSPECTIVE

54 FALL 2004

Anne Rhodes Amos ’78Desiree E. Bliss ’95

E. Buck Brinton Jr. ’61James J. Bruin ’89

Taylor F. Cameron ’90, SecretaryLawrance M. Court ’62Francis W. Crawley ’93

John B. Fiedler ’51Jerry Fogle ’67

Richard E. Hall ’89Garrett J. Hart ’78, President

Norris S. Haselton Jr. ’54John D. Hukill ’50

P. Churchill Hutton III ’54David N. Levinson ’53

Jackie Paradee Mette ’83Ian B. Montgomery ’85

John F. Morton ’65William C. Mott, Jr. ’78

Jennifer Hurtt Mullins ’88John M. Pinney ’61

Catherine S. Pomeroy ’89Franchesa M. Profaci ’80, ex officioTomas A. Puky ’89, Vice President

Karen Pupke ’87W. Barrett Register ’51

Andrew L. Seymour ’82Charles H. Shorley ’71

William Sibley ’88William B. Smith ’69William B. Spire ’89

Charlton M. Theus, Jr. ’45Dionne A. Thomas ’94

Earl E. Walker, Jr. ’90L. Herndon Werth ’52

Randolph L. Williams ’61Matthew E. Wolinski ’00

AC BAlumni Corporation Board

The mission of the Alumni Corporation Board is to nurture stewardship of the St.Andrew’s community, making possiblethe total involvement of all members of the St.Andrew’s family, to facilitate communications within the St.Andrew’s

community, to plan and participate in events and to support the experience of current students. Board members are electedfrom within the greater Alumni Corporation, the association of all St.Andrew’s graduates and former students.

ALUMNI NEWS

Over 600 alumni (22%) returned the spring 2004 alumnisurvey, updating their contact and professional information forthe forthcoming Alumni Directory. More than half of thoseexpressed interest in participating in events and professionalnetworking.

Many people said they would attend and even co-host anevent thereby giving the ACB Regional Events committee a cadre of volunteers and venues into previously untried locations. By thinking creatively and assessing these responses,we plan to expand our offerings and involve a larger segmentof the alumni body.

Of great importance and interest is the professional net-working aspect of the survey. Efforts at networking promise to connect alums of all ages, and to connect them to currentstudents—further emphasizing the relationship between

alumni and the School today, and advancing our goal of “St.Andrew’s as a lifelong experience.”

At the fall Alumni Volunteers Weekend at St.Andrew’s inOctober, the ACB Regional Events, the Resource Networkingand Communications Committees invited Class Agents,Correspondents and other alumni volunteers to join them todiscuss the implications of the survey. The groups createdaction plans for capitalizing on this interest.

ACB President Garrett Hart said,“We are trying to build acontinuing relationship with the alumni on the strong founda-tion Tad Roach and the School has laid. Alums must knowthat St.Andrew’s commitment to them doesn’t end at gradua-tion, just as St.Andrew’s hopes their commitment to theSchool, fellow St.Andreans and the St.Andrew’s ethos will notonly continue, but grow stronger.”

And the survey says……

At the beginning of this past summer, I found myself in aposition which many of my classmates may find familiar: I wasunemployed, living with my parents and basically clueless as tomy future plans. I had just graduated, and I was lacking notonly a clear idea of what I wanted to do, but information andinsight into the vague possibilities floating around in my head.

During my ensuing job search, St.Andrew’s became oneof my most valuable resources. I used the St.Andrew’s alumniWeb site to search the alumni body by career field, and Ifound that there are thousands of St.Andreans in many differ-ent fields around the world. I called or emailed several peoplewho worked in non-profit organizations and asked if theycould offer me any advice. I got many responses, from peoplewhom I had never met, giving me tips on the best onlineemployment sites, the “hot spots” within the field and even anoffer for an interview.

When the time came to apply for jobs, I found that myconnection with St.Andrew’s was even more valuable. Mywork and experience as a Class Agent was suddenly a sought-after career skill. Former teachers and the St.Andrew’s alumnioffice provided enthusiastic references. After sorting throughseveral offers, I accepted a great job in Washington, D.C.

Beginning or changing a career are challenges we all face.Being able to take advantage of the connections and knowl-edge of thousands of St.Andrew’s alumni is a tremendous, eas-ily accessible resource for us all. So don’t hesitate to asksomeone in the St.Andrew’s community for help or advice inyour job search—our shared experience of St.Andrew’s is abond that never stops paying off.

St.Andrew’s Career Networking:

How St.Andrew’s helped me find the right jobby Matt Wolinski ’00


Well, it worked.We began.As a local alumni body, about a year ago, we decided to do

more than raise money for the School and have cocktail parties.We decided, in the spirit of St.Andrew’s School, to try to findways to serve our community.

I remembered an article which had run in the Episcopal NewYorker two years ago about the Harlem Episcopal School (HES).It told of St. Luke’s Church in Harlem offering its facility as ahome for the school, but beyond that, I couldn’t remembermuch. I mentioned it to the National Association of EpiscopalSchools Executive Director, Fr. Peter Cheney, and he put me intouch with Mr.Vinny Dotoli, the founding headmaster of HES.

We kicked off our commitment to begin finding ways toserve the community with a St.Andrew’s alumni service ofevening prayer with sermon and choir at Saint Mary the Virginlast March. St.Andrew’s headmaster,Tad Roach, came up tospeak, the School Concert Choir just back from an Italian tourcame and sang, and over 100 gathered on a Wednesday night toworship, reunite, and hear about the Harlem Episcopal School.

The school opened on Monday, September 13, for its firstday in the Hamilton Terrace section of Harlem in temporary

digs while construction is done on St. Luke’s Church to make it their permanent home. On the Wednesday prior, a group ofSt.Andrew’s alumni went up to help them move into their newclassroom and generally get the place in shape.

It was only a start and we only helped for a few hours, but itwas a start, nonetheless.We look forward to continued andincreased involvement with the school as their construction getsunderway this fall and winter, and maybe even to a day in thefuture (about six years from now) when we can start telling 7th-grade students from the Harlem Episcopal School about a placethey might consider on a pond in Delaware!

St.Andrew’s Regional Group Activities:

Extending the reach of faith and learningby Ian Montgomery ’85

Ian Montgomery ’85, Alan Washington, John Chamberlin ’88, Herndon Werth ’52and Vincent Dotoli at the Harlem Episcopal School.

Every year for the last 14, the Howard M. Smith Diamond State MastersRegatta has spread the word that all St.Andrew’s alumni rowers already know:Noxontown Pond is the best race course in America. Over 1,000 competitorssampled the fine waters this past July, racing in all masters’ categories, from sin-gle sculls to eights, from ages 27+ to 80+. Races started at 8:20 a.m. and plowedthrough to the day’s last event at 6:33 p.m., with all rowers racing nearly 1,100meters to a finish line near the Rodney Point pavilion.

A number of St.Andrew’s alumni were among the competitors and attendees,as is the case every year. Behind the scenes, and also on the water, wasWilmington Rowing Center’s John Schoonover ’63. Schoonover was instrumen-tal in the creation of the Diamond States, and helped transform the regatta intothe premiere masters’ racing event in the United States. Molly Higgins ’93 serveson one of the regatta planning committees, and was also vending her customblade artwork. George Shuster ’63 made his annual appearance on the waters,competing for the Occoquan Boat Club. Henry Hauptfuhrer ’74wore the colors of Philadelphia’s Bachelors’ Barge Club, whileDebbie Davis ’77 pulled oars for the Chester River Rowing Club.Andy Washburn ’71 sculled for Narragansett Boat Club, winning themen’s lightweight single. The Noxontown Rowing Association wasrepresented by faculty member and crew coach Greg Doyle ’87.Among the crowd of spectators was J.P. Blandin ’88.

With the Regatta going strong, several of the St.Andrew’s alumnipresent agreed it’s time to make the push for some alumni entries.If you’re interested in pulling oars together with other St.Andreans,contact Greg Doyle at [email protected].

56 FALL 2004

ALUMNI NEWS

Attention,Go!

J.P. Blandin ’88, Henry Hauptfuhrer ’74, John Schoonover ’63.

1963 classmates George Shuster and John Schoonover.

Crews align at the starting platforms during the 2004 Diamond State Masters Regatta.

By tradition, a bagpiper signals the start of the day’s events.

Jackie Paradee Mette ’83

I am into a second term with the ACB, after a hiatus, and I am

thrilled to be back and working with fellow alums who are

so dedicated to St. Andrew’s. There is something truly magical

about spending your formative years in a boarding school,

and that experience connects you to the school, even when you

don’t realize it. It is that connection, among others,

that inspires many of us to work on the Resource Networking

Committee of the ACB, to facilitate contacts among our many

alums for both professional and personal reasons.

The class of ’83, of which I am a proud member, has a

special relationship with Tad Roach and Will Speers who came

to SAS when we were Third Formers. It is a privilege to

work with them through the ACB, and to see first-hand

their outstanding leadership. The ACB will continue to benefit all

St. Andreans as it strives to find new resources and innovative

ways to reinforce connections among alums.

Taylor F. Cameron ’90

The most rewarding part of participation with the ACB

is the opportunity to support and contribute to the School’s

unique mission. Undoubtedly, the crown-jewel of this mission

is St. Andrew’s commitment to a robust financial aid program.

As Co-Chair of both the Scholarship Golf Tournament and the

Annual Fund, I see how the alumni's efforts directly impact the

School's ability to meet this commitment. I am also afforded

the opportunity to remain actively engaged with a dynamic and

inspiring community and I feel included in

the Cchool’s development and success.

“

”

“

”

ACB Quick Quips


“

Jonathan S.Wilford, Jr. ’41Reprinted from the Star Democrat, Easton, Maryland:Jonathan Seltzer Wilford Jr. of Slipper’s Cove on Island

Creek, Oxford, died on Saturday, July 24, 2004. He was 81.Born in Philadelphia, March 18, 1923, he was the son of

the late Jonathan S., Sr. and Grace Christine Geiger Wilford.Mr.Wilford, or “Bus” as he preferred to be called, attend-

ed the Easton High School and graduated in 1941 from St.Andrew’s School in Middletown, Del.

In the fall of 1941, he entered Williams College inWilliamstown, Mass., and in 1942 enlisted in the U.S.Marine Corps Reserve. His Marine Corps service took himto Guam and Iwo Jima. Following his release from activeduty in 1946, he rejoined his class at Williams College andgraduated as a member of the class of 1945.

After his return to Talbot County, he started farming athome and later became extensively engaged in continuousgrain farming. On rented land, he increased his activity toover 2,000 acres, including his own grain drying and storagefacility, which at the time was the largest such operation inthe county.

In 1968, he entered the real estate business and laterfounded and operated the Wilford Land Company, licensedin both Maryland and Virginia, brokering exclusively boat-yards and marinas around the Chesapeake Bay.

A lifetime member of the Tred Avon Yacht Club, he wasthe last living member directly descended from a founder ofthe Club, his father. He served on the Alumni Council of St.Andrew’s School and was, for many years, his class repre-sentative in the SAS Alumni Association.

Mr. Wilford served for nine years as a trustee at theCountry School in Easton, where all four of his childrengraduated, and was a member of the committee that drewthe first plans for the beginning of the brick building that isthe present school. A lifelong member of Christ Church inEaston, he attended Sunday School and was confirmed in1937. Mr.Wilford served the church as an usher, Vestrymanand Senior Warden.

A daughter, Grace Cordo Wilford, died in 1977. A sister,Grace W. Myers, died in 2002. Mr.Wilford is survived by hiswife, the former Beatriz LeBaron Zar of Oxford; two daugh-ters, Kate Spencer Wilford Carraher and her husband, Dick,and Evelyn Seltzer Wilford Lippincott and her husband,Richard, all of Oxford; a son, Charles Curry Wilford and his

wife, Susan, of Oxford; asister, Jean W. Ewing ofEaston; and six grand-children.

Jon’s daughter, KateWilford Carraher, readthe following remarks atthe funeral services:

Thank you all forcoming today. Dadwould have been gen-uinely pleased. He loved everything about Talbot County:the people, the geography and the customs.

I would like to share some of my memories of growingup and living with Bus. Many of you took some part in theseevents. I am certain everyone here has at least one “BusWilford” story.

He was my Dad, and he was a farmer. In the spring andthe fall, he farmed—so I learned to farm. He “let” me helphim plant and harvest corn, wheat and soy beans; but we alsohad some cows and pigs.

In the early summers, we sailed on the Captain Bray andlater the Glass Slipper. We spent many weekends in TrappeCreek, Dun’s Cover, Poplar Island, Cambridge, the MilesRiver, the Corsica River, Rock Hall, the Tred Avon,Chestertown,West River, and on special occasions, we wentall the way to Annapolis. Once, we circumnavigated theDelmarva Peninsula. I think the most important thing Dadtaught us in all that was to steer for the stern of freighters aswe crossed the Bay. The Captain Bray was never going tocross the bow of one.

During the summers when we were not sailing, we wereprobably crabbing in Boone Creek. He taught us how tocatch and steam crabs and to sit at the dining room table forhours: eating crabs and corn and tomatoes. I assumed every-body lived like this.

In the winter, we would plan one ski trip to Vermont afterChristmas.We had to be in shape: so we ran down the roadmost every day. Pucky, Cordo and I only had to go to theBig Tree. Curry went much further. As it got closer toDecember,we even did the Marine Corps duck walk aroundthe dining room table. By the time that trip rolled around,we were ready.

Dogs were a vital part of my father’s life. I don’t think hewas ever without one. Horses and cats were tolerated.

Jonathan S. Wilford, Jr. ’41

IN MEMORY

58 FALL 2004

Bus liked short hair.Travel: Dad did not like to go “east of Trappe.” In the

early years, he did go to Guam and Iwo Jima. He made onetrip to England and one to the Caribbean, but mostly hestayed in Talbot County.

Dad was not big on sports but he would go to St. Andrew’s almost every year in the fall to watch at leastone football game and probably relive his experiences at thatschool.We went to St.Andrew’s faithfully every year until webegan having our own Thanksgiving football game at BooneCrest. For a non-sports guy, he moved that cornfield enthu-siastically in preparation for “the game.” One year there wereactually two separate and complete games going on at thesame time. Often times, three generations of a family wouldcome to the game.You had the current players, the futureplayers, and the spectators or the past players. It is fun toknow it still goes on today. It was a highlight of the fall socialseason for Dad. In the last two years, Dad returned to St.Andrew’s to watch once again home football games.

Politics was one of my father’s favorite topics. During the’60s, we were the only registered Democrats at the CountrySchool. After Jimmy Carter, Dad moved to the Republicanside and lately he has been faithfully listening to RushLimbaugh.

Family has always been important to my father. Growingup, we spent time with his parents fishing, skiing, travelingand visiting them. Later Dad seemed pleased to have histhree grown children and their families living in such closeproximity. Some of you may have heard of this part of theworld referred to as the “Wilford Triangle.” Most of all, Busadored his grandchildren. He followed them faithfullythroughout school, on the stage, on the playing field and onthe race course. Wherever those grandchildren were,Granddad was cheering them on.

My father believed in discipline. He was not bashful.Whathe did not understand was why everyone did not thinkexactly the way he did. I think we all looked forward tothose Letters to the Editor in the Star Democrat. Finally, whatyou saw was what you got with Bus: Dad showed up and heparticipated in life because of his love of Talbot County, theTred Avon Yacht Club, St. Andrew’s, sailing, farming, hismarinas, his family and his friends.

Hume Horan ’51The following obituary is reprinted from The Washington

Post, Sunday, July 25, 2004.Written by Washington Post staffwriter Patricia Sullivan.

Hume Alexander Horan, 69, an American ambassador tofive countries who was recalled from Saudi Arabia in 1988because of King Fahd’s wrath, died of prostate cancer July 22at Inova Fairfax Hospital. He was an Annandale resident.

Mr. Horan, widely described as a quiet and conscientiousman who spoke excellent Arabic, spent six months in 2003as a senior counselor with the Coalition ProvisionalAuthority in Baghdad, dealing with religious and tribalaffairs.

Fifteen years earlier, he was recalled from his ambassado-rial post in Riyadh, nine months after his arrival. In thespring of 1988, the United States discovered that SaudiArabia had bought and accepted delivery of medium-rangeballistic missiles from China. Mr. Horan was instructed tomake a strong demarche to King Fahd about the unaccept-ability of the missiles.

Mr. Horan served as the second-ranking officer in theembassy from 1972 to 1977 and had wide-ranging contactsin Saudi society, which annoyed the ruling family. So hecalled Washington to be sure officials understood howoffended the king would be by the verbal rebuke. He wasordered to deliver the message.When he returned from car-rying out his task, he received a new telegram fromWashington saying “a message different in tone and sub-stance” had also been communicated to the Saudi Embassyin Washington. “My goose was cooked,” he told TheWashington Post in 2002.

In an unusual move, Philip Habib, a retired undersecretaryof state, tried to mend fences with the king. But Fahd askedHabib, in the presence of Mr. Horan, to have him replaced.The State Department then asked Mr. Horan to seek Saudiapproval for the next ambassador, a request that humiliatedthe career diplomat.

“They made us kowtow,” he said.“The American ambas-sador’s influence ended in Riyadh” and from then on, theSaudi ambassador in Washington dominated the U.S.-Saudirelationship.

Mr. Horan’s parentage didn’t help the situation. He was anative Washingtonian whose mother, Margaret RobinsonHume, was from a prominent family and whose father wasAbdollah Entezam, an Iranian diplomat who served as for-eign minister long before the 1979 downfall of the shah.


They divorced whenMr. Horan was 3, and hismother remarriedHarold Horan, a newspa-perman. But the Saudisdisliked the Iranians, andby extension, Mr. Horan.

Mr. Horan served inthe Army from 1954 to1956, graduated from

Harvard College in 1960 and joined the Foreign Service. Hereceived a master’s degree from Harvard’s Center for MiddleEastern Studies in 1963.

Mr. Horan requested a first assignment in Baghdad, achoice unusual enough that the undersecretary for manage-ment remarked,“I don’t get many volunteers for Baghdad.”Mr. Horan studied Arabic in Beirut and later in Libya. From1966 to 1970, he served as Libyan desk officer in Washingtonduring Moammar Gaddafi’s coup and congressional fellowto Rep. Brad Morse (R-Mass.) and Sen. Edmund S. Muskie(D-Maine).

In 1970, Mr. Horan was assigned to be a political officerin Amman, Jordan, and from 1972 to 1977, he was deputychief of mission in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. After a stint inWashington, culminating in an assignment as principaldeputy assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, Mr.Horan was named ambassador to the Republic of Cameroonin 1980 and non-resident ambassador to Equatorial Guinea.

He became ambassador to Sudan in 1983, a time thatincluded the rescue of Ethiopian Jews and their transport toIsrael, terror attacks against the embassy and the overthrowof President Nimeiri. He spent 1987 as a diplomat-in-resi-dence at Georgetown University and then was assigned toSaudi Arabia.After the incident in Riyadh, he was recalled toWashington.

In 1992, Mr. Horan was named ambassador to IvoryCoast, which he described as “a pleasant and stable country,at least until the death of the country’s founder.” Uponreturning to the United States, Mr. Horan spent a year atHoward University as diplomat-in-residence, directed theAfrican training program at the Foreign Service Institute andretired in 1998.

Mr. Horan retained an optimism and idealism about thediplomatic corps. In a 1992 article for The Washington Post’seducation issue of Book World, he wrote that ForeignService officers “are the infantry of American diplomacy.We’ll never be able to dispense with them. Consistently towork at our national purposes, someone has to be on the

scene, speak the language, meet with the leaders, make theargument and report back — saying what he or she thinkswe should do.”

For his work with the Coalition Provisional Authority inBaghdad in 2003, he received the Department of Defense’sDistinguished Public Service Award, the Pentagon’s highesthonorary award for private citizens.

Mr. Horan was an enthusiastic cyclist, having toured inFrance, New Zealand and many parts of the United States.His other interests included French, German, Spanish andArabic literature — he translated a novel and several shortstories from Arabic into English. He was the author of anovel about the Foreign Service,“To the Happy Few.”

He was a longtime member of Chevy Chase PresbyterianChurch and was deacon and elder more recently atGeorgetown Presbyterian Church.

His marriage to Nancy Reinert Horan ended in divorce.Survivors include his wife, Lori Shoemaker of Annandale;

two children from his second marriage, Michael HarryHoran and Elizabeth Hume Horan, both of Annandale; threeadult children from his first marriage, Alexander HumeHoran of San Diego, Margaret Bond Horan of Annandaleand Jonathan Theodore Horan of Boston; a sister; and fourgrandchildren.

Classmate Jack Fiedler wrote the following recollection:The Class of 1951 has lost one of its most accomplished

members with the passing of Hume Horan. His professionalcareer as one of the State Department’s leading Arabists wasappropriately crowned by his service in Iraq. We shall missour friend, his erudite wit, his exotic tales of the MiddleEast.

I knew two Hume Horans.The first was an engaging andfriendly young fellow, always helpful, always interested andalways interesting. Hume was a good listener and a goodanalyst of teenage trials and tribulations. I valued his friend-ship and his judgement.

At SAS, I chased Hume academically, both of us reachingfor the elusive stratosphere of First Group. I remember longconversations with him, often trying to second-guess thenext day’s encounters with Messrs.Hillier or Baum. I learnedfrom him more about snapping turtles than I ever wished toknow. I bested him only once, in a swap of sport coats—mine a sickly yellow garment from a local clothing store inmy home town, his a lovely, soft herringbone tweed fromBrooks Bros.Wore it for years.

When Hume reappeared at our reunions 40-50 yearslater, he was still the same nice guy, but with an impressivelist of credentials and a deep knowledge of Islam and Middle

Hume Horan ’51

IN MEMORY

60 FALL 2004

East geopolitics. His views on Islam, developed throughstrong cultural ties and decades of diplomatic experience,were particularly enlightening. Few were surprised thatAmbassador Bremer coaxed him out of retirement to act ashis senior advisor in the Coalition Provisional Authority inIraq.When Bremer finally writes of his Iraq experiences, weshall learn more of what our classmate did for our countryand for the world.

Many of us were in touch with Hume during hisBaghdad days. He was terribly busy, living in a trailer, endur-ing great hardships, shouldering great burdens, yet he unfail-ingly answered emails from his old schoolmates, alwaysenlightening us and amusing us on events both serious andmundane during the first six months of occupation. Iremember one email recounting a hairy ride down themedian strip of a Baghdad highway at 60 mph in an armoredSUV with Bremer, protected on each side by an escort ofMarine Humvees, enroute to the U.N. Headquarters. whichhad just been blown up and Hume’s friend, U.N.Ambassador Sergio de Mello, killed. Another, a day trip tothe ruins of Babylon. He was equally at ease in the past, thepresent and the future.

Hume was a old school Christian gentleman. Unfailinglygracious, courteous, and considerate, an accomplished lin-guist and educated diplomat, he would have been perfectlyat home in Renaissance Italy.To his wife, Lori, and their chil-dren, and to his first wife and their children, go our deepestsympathies.

It is fitting that he rests at Arlington, among so many oth-ers who also spent their lives serving their country in wayswe cannot always know.

W. Fell Davis, Jr. ’55The following obituary is reprinted from The Baltimore

Sun:Wilmer Fell Davis Jr. of Federalsburg passed away Sunday,

June 6, 2004, at home surrounded by his family. He was 67.Born in Baltimore on June 15, 1936, he was the son of the

late Sen.Wilmer Fell and Maud Ford Davis.He received his elementary education at Federalsburg

Elementary School and graduated from St.Andrew’s Schoolin Middletown, Del., in 1955 and from Lycoming College,Williamsport, Pa. He joined in December 1959 the U.S.Army Reserve Battery “A” 7th Holister Battalion 6th

Artillery 79th InfantryDivision of Seaford andserved on active dutyfrom Feb. 29, 1960, toAug. 29, 1960, at FortWill, Lawton, Okla. Hereturned to Federalsburgto work for his father atthe W. Fell Davis Egg andFeed Co. until June1964, when he joinedPrudential Insurance Co., where he retired with 32 years ofservice in June 1996. Since his retirement, he was a courierfor Provident State Bank. While at Prudential, he was aLUTCF and a member of the National Association of LifeUnderwriters and the Delmarva Life UnderwritersAssociation, for which he was president from 1974 to 1975.Prior to moving back to Federalsburg in 1977, he and hisfamily had made their homes in Dover and Salisbury, wherehe was actively involved in many community affairs.

He was a member of Union United Methodist Church inFederalsburg, a member and past president of the IdlewoodRuritan Club, a member of Nanticoke Lodge 172 A.F. &A.M., a founding member and treasurer of the Men’sAuxiliary of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5246 and a for-mer member and past president of the Caroline CountryClub. He was a member and past president of HillcrestCemetary, president of the L.D. Club and member and treas-urer of the Black Water Honga Game Dinner. He was alsothe president of the David-Noble-Kinder Family Reunionfor many years and also a past member of Caroline CountyDucks Unlimited, where he served on the committee formany years.

In addition to his wife, the former Barbara Kay Pusey,whom he married Nov. 17, 1962, he is survived by one son,Wilmer Fell “Chip” Davis III of Federalsburg; and twodaughters Renee Davis Smith and her husband, Dean, ofFederalsburg and Laura Davis Walters and her husband,Craig, of Preston. He is also survived by three grandchildren,Mitchell Davis Smith, Mallory Renee Smith of Federalsburgand Chandler Alan Walters of Preston; one sister, Alice JaneDavis Jenkins and her husband, Paul, of Pittsburgh; and threenephews, Paul Davis Jenkins of Chicago, Edward RieberJenkins of Andover, Mass., and Walter Ford Jenkins ofPittsburgh.

W. Fell Davis, Jr. ’55


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80 FALL 2004

Within the pages of this issue are twoarticles that truly reveal the won-derful institution that St.Andrew’s

has become during its 75 years of existence.Hope ’01 and Joy McGrath ’92 have compileda stunning look into efforts of the foundingTrustees, while faculty members Nicole andNigel Furlonge have provided remarkableinsights into the past, present and future of cul-tural diversity at the School.

What I hope you will acquire from thesearticles is definitive confirmation of what most of us already believe to be true—that St.Andrew’s is simply the best school in thenation. Make no mistake—there is no otherschool that so affirmatively undertakes such apurposefully inclusive mission. Felix duPontwanted St.Andrew’s to break the mold ofboarding schools.We stand 75 years later stillaligned with that founding vision.

You can be sure that over the course ofthose many years that the journey held obsta-cles and challenges. Many of them former oars-men, the founding Trustees knew full well thatno ship moves forward without an occasionaltap of the rudder to correct course. From theirselection of Walden Pell as the first headmasterto the present Board’s appointment of TadRoach as the fourth, that ship has been guidedby skilled helmsmen.

The celebrations that we will hold this yearin honor of those 75 years and the individualswho helped the School traverse them are thusa milestone in every sense of the word.Theyare significant moments indeed, when we pauseand reflect on the experiences to date, yet theymark merely another leg of the journey wecontinue to make.

In the fall of 1980, Robert A. Moss, theSchool’s second headmaster (1958-1976),returned for 50th Anniversary celebrations and,standing in front of the Founders Mural, spokethe following words:

St.Andrew’s is made for these times, timeswhen we seem to hover between being bored todeath and blown to bits. Made for these times?After all, as you have heard, St.Andrew’s wasfounded in the dark days of the depression andnurtured in the desperate days of war.

The way ahead of us is murky. Many guide-posts that were here when this School wasfounded have been painted over, the peoples’leaders stumble and falter. It is a fierce andfrightening world outside these thick walls.Thenations are disoriented, groping in the dark.Disaster is never far away.

For us, the St.Andrew’s family, the lesson isclear.The future has always belonged to thosewho trusted the best in the worst of times.St.Andrew’s must not fail the future.

Moss had a clear picture of the outside worldand St.Andrew’s place in it. Sadly his words stilleasily apply today. And unfortunately with-standing the efforts of St.Andreans who havecharged headlong into its murkiness, the worldis still a dangerous place—and the guideposts ofsociety are still subject to the whims of politicalconvenience. But we’re only 75 years young.

As we watch two alumni of other boardingschools jockey for the highest office in theland, I dream of the day when a candidate hasa deeply personal appreciation of the motto,‘faith and learning.’ I’m not sure the presentpolitical machinations could accept those twoterms in the same sentence. Let’s hope some-one taps the rudder.

FROM THE EDITOR

clothes closet \’klo(th)z kloz et \ n An alumni-student clothing exchange, wherebyalums donate their gently-used, outgrown, or no-longer-used items of clothing thatmeet SAS Dress Code: blazers, suits, ties, sportcoats, women’s sportswear, semi/for-mal dresses and other business attire. All students have the opportunity to purchaseitems several times a year (as inventory allows) from “the Closet” in TrapnellAlumni House using their SAS debit card. Prices range from $1-25. Several thingsare accomplished: students have well fitting clothes in good repair, their parents arenot bankrupt clothing their children’s growing bodies, and alums have another wayof directly supporting the experience of current SAS students while students knowthere is a tradition of “giving back” to others.

Donations of clean clothing in good repair can be dropped byTrapnell House or UPS’d throughout the year.

Contact Chesa Profaci at 302-285-4260.

ST. ANDREW’SM A G A Z I N E

350 Noxontown RoadMiddletown, DE 19709-1605ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

NON-PROFIT ORG.U.S. POSTAGE

PAIDPERMIT NO. 5

PHILADELPHIA, PA

Thanks to the Class of 1978, a brand new T-dock graces the School’s recreational waterfront.

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