School Ties: 2009, Spring Issue - St. Michaels University School

Transcription

SPRING 2009 • ST. MICHAELS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL
School
To Learn, to Lead, to Serve
Capturing the spirit of SMUS in our
new vision
“This is Air Force One”
Marvin Nicholson ’89 phones home
David Anderson ’44-’47 remembers
Fenwick Lansdowne ’48-’52
VICTORIA, BC, CANADA
BRAIN
STORM
At St. Michaels University School, we believe many
of the most important lessons — both intellectual
and personal — challenge students to go beyond
Admissions travels
throughout the year and
Welcomes Alumni
their comfort zone. We enable students to discover
at our events.
not only who they are as individuals but who they
Check our website at www.smus.bc.ca
have the potential to become.
for information on our travel schedule or
our webinars. Contact Admissions at
Boarding Students Grade 8 to 12
Scholarships & Financial Assistance Available
admissions@smus.bc.ca or at
1-800-661-5199 if you would like
to be notified when we visit your area.
School Ties is distributed to more than
5,700 members of the St. Michaels
University School community, including
current families, friends, and current
and past staff and students. The goal
of the publication is to communicate
current activities and initiatives and
provide articles and reports on the
alumni community. If you have any
comments or suggestions regarding
this publication, please contact Louise
Winter at (250) 370-6176 or email:
louise.winter@smus.bc.ca
Published by the Advancement Office
St. Michaels University School
3400 Richmond Road
Victoria, British Columbia
Canada V8P 4P5
Telephone: (250) 592-2411
Admissions: 1-800-661-5199
Email: info@smus.bc.ca
Contents
2 Certainty and Uncertainty
Head of School Bob Snowden contemplates
optimism in uncertain times.
3 The SMUS Review
News stories from all three campuses
published on our web forum, The SMUS
Review.
20 Feature: From There to Here
A short history of our evolving vision
22 To Learn, to Lead, to Serve
Bob Snowden on the journey to put our
vision into words.
24 Book Exerpt
A preview of the much-anticipated history
of St. Michaels University School.
26 Tribute: Fenwick
Lansdowne ’48-’52
School Ties magazine and archive copies
can be found in the publications section
of the school website: www.smus.bc.ca
David Anderson ’44-’47
writes about the life
and work of the
famous and
exacting artist.
If you are interested in attending
school events, call (250) 592-2411 for
further details, or visit the school’s
website Calendar of Events:
www.smus.bc.ca
Editors: Erin Anderson, Laura Authier,
Peter Gardiner, Louise Winter
Contributors (in no particular order):
Robert Snowden, Robert Wilson, Peter
Gardiner, Laura Authier, Kent Leahy-Trill,
Erin Anderson, Brenda Waksel, Louise
Winter, Nick Grant ’84, Ian Mugridge,
David Anderson ’44-’47, Jake Humphries,
Gillian Donald ’85, Evan Effa and SMUS
community members. We apologize for
any omissions.
9 Athletics Highlights
Photos: Evan Effa, Kent Leahy-Trill, Erin
Anderson, Peter Gardiner, Gordon Chan,
Diana Nason, Lindsay Brooke, Jake
Humphries, Lindsay Ross
18 Leaving an Artistic Legacy
Design and Layout: Reber Creative
Sports highlights from September 2008 to
January 2009.
14 Arts Highlights
Arts highlights and news featuring our
students and alumni.
28 Q&A with Alumni
Interviews with Marvin Nicholson ’89,
Marianne Anderson ’80 and Collin
Yong ’76. Also, Manoj Sood ’81 and
James Ellis ’79.
34 Golf Invitational
Emcee Nick Grant recaps this year’s event.
Student artist Shun Kinoshita talks about
his fundraising achievements; parent
Evan Effa shares his favourite SMUS
photographic moments.
Printed in Canada W
by Hillside Printing Ltd., Victoria, BC
New York, Kelowna, Edmonton, Calgary,
Toronto, Vancouver and Edinburgh
37 Alumni Weekend Preview
Your planning guide for this year’s Alumni
Weekend and Community Celebration.
38 Alumni Updates
News from our alumni around the world.
School Ties - Spring 2009 • 35 Alumni Receptions
head of school
Certainty and uncertainty
As the school launches its new vision statement, Bob Snowden
considers the power of youth and hope, and the difference between
fate and destiny.
D
eath and taxes.
Thus, with ominous brevity, Benjamin Franklin asserted that
these were the only two certainties. These days, if we personally
are not buffeted by uncertainty, we probably know people who
are. Therefore, the detached intellect, sobered by dismal news
and its repercussions, acknowledges the truth of this reflection.
Caution, frugality and prudence construct our futures.
Nevertheless, humans do seem to expend a lot of effort
trying to put off death and taxes. Nor is the contemplation
of life’s end necessarily pessimistic: a philosophical tendency
would encourage one to resort to the existential paradox that it
is this very awareness of mortality that compels us to consider
more thoughtfully what to do with our lives. Moreover, this
• School Ties - Spring 2009
The presiding spirits of a school
are optimism and promise.
philosophy would wander into considerations of fate and
destiny, and the nuances that differentiate these two ideas. On
the one hand, fate is something that happens to us, imposed by
unseen forces: thus, the blind furies of Greek mythology spin
their thread and at arbitrary moments choose to “slit the thinspun life.” Destiny, on the other hand, is something we fulfill:
it is the result of our being in a certain place at a certain point
in history, and we adjust the sails of our lives to arrive at it. In
Biblical history, for instance, the crucifixion of Jesus is not his
fate, but his destiny, a moment of fulfillment rather than loss.
Thus, from the brink of despair, comes not just hope, but a
plan for the future directed by authentic principles.
When I look out my office window at the students on
the quad (or in the gym, or on stage, or at the crosswalk, or
anywhere else around the school) I see they don’t fit within
this frame. I see these boys and girls, young men and women
darting, laughing, huddling and dividing irrepressibly. The
detached intellectualizing of death and taxes blows by like a
ragged scrap of paper unworthy of the energy and promise that
animate these adolescent faces.
The presiding spirits of a school are optimism and promise.
The behaviour of everyone in a school – students, parents,
teachers, alumni, visitors – is shaped by hope and the belief
that the future will be better. In fact, at SMUS we explicitly
believe in trying to make the world a better place. Any setbacks
are temporary. In a school, optimism is an article of faith. And
if any reader needs some, come by the school for a dose.
Sitting on an airplane, one sometimes can’t avoid an
extroverted conversationalist, a garrulous friend-maker. I met
such a person on a flight this week, while I was re-reading
Turgenev’s A Sportsman’s Notebook. My new-found friend hadn’t
heard of Turgenev. When I told him the book was a description –
true, no less – of the author’s wanderings from district to
district in rural Russia with his dog and his rifle, shooting fowl
of different types, my new friend wondered why I would be
reading – let alone re-reading – such a book. His poor opinion
deepened when I told him how for the most part the author
sketched encounters with people who barely scraped together
a living, peasants and serfs, rather than the landowners and
nobility who “owned” them. What was the point of escaping
like this to the middle of the 1800s? I hardly knew where to
begin. To try to convey the pleasure of Turgenev’s pastoral
renderings, his sympathy for the poor people among whom he
moved with affection and respect – to convey these qualities at
that moment, holed up in the fuselage of a 767, seemed futile. I
simply said that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat
it, and took out my computer with a smile, to begin writing
this article. I had been getting myself into a frame of mind, you
see, thinking that in a school, which is all about the future, the
past exists in order to build on it.
Elsewhere in this issue of School Ties readers will learn about
the process we undertook in the past year to formulate the
School’s vision. Those of us who were involved in the process
loved it. It unfolded a lot like my thoughts about the students
in the quad: we observed the school’s infinite variety, and tried,
after the fact, to find words that reflect the future our current
reality points to. Therefore the vision doesn’t reflect a new
direction, but an evolution. Again they weren’t “our” words;
they are “the” words, which sprung from the many, many
people who contributed. Especially in these unsettled times,
clarity about what our School plans to be in the future provides
us with purpose, and with the possibility of fulfilling the
School’s potential and by extension the potential of everyone
who chooses to be a part of it. It is a certainty that we want to
build a place, and that we are building a place, where we will
have the opportunity to fulfill our destiny – to learn, to lead, to
serve, discovering the promise in our selves and the world.
Vivat.
Visit http://blogs.smus.bc.ca/head/
T
he SMUS Review publishes weekly on our website (www.smus.bc.ca) and covers school news from all three campuses. The following
highlights were taken from stories published from September, 2008 to February, 2009. You can read more about these stories by going to
our home page and selecting “SMUS Review” from the News and Calendar menu.
September
■Junior School students who
participated in the summer reading
programme were recognized in a special
assembly. Thirty-eight children reached
their summer reading goals and each
received a gold medal and bookmark from
Head of School Bob Snowden, who spoke
about the importance of reading and the
joy he finds in books. Librarian Diana
Nason had provided the young readers
with a suggested summer reading list in
June that was partially based on feedback
from last year’s group of book-lovers.
Grade 4 reader Joshua Litton gets into a
novel at the Junior School library.
■Soon after 14 SMUS students
arrived in Bangkok to participate in the
third annual Harvard Model Congress,
they found themselves in the midst of
political turmoil when riots broke out
and the conference was cancelled. The
students used the opportunity to discuss
the problems the Thai government
faced and the government’s options. The
students also visited a
drop off supplies and
adventures, including
through a jungle and
natural hot spring.
School News
Highlights from the SMUS Review
remote village to
went on cultural
riding elephants
boiling eggs in a
■As the incoming president of the
SMUS Parents’ Auxiliary, Cathy Dixon’s
goal was to increase parent involvement
and create new community events. So far,
the Parents’ Auxiliary has expanded their
annual Christmas Celebration to include
all boarding students as well as hosting a
wildly successful quiz night. “My focus
is to try to cast the net a little wider,
to get more parents involved, with a
focus on fun,” says Ms. Dixon. “I want
to support this school and contribute
something of value.”
■Five of our finest debaters visited
Washington, DC, to watch the World
Schools Debating Championships.
During their visit, the students met
up with David Chmiel ’91, who has
supported debate at SMUS for several
years, and Anthony Quainton ’42-’44,
who is a Distinguished Diplomat in
Residence at American University. “The
trip was a great learning experience,” says
debate coach Sean Hayden. “The richness
of seeing the different styles of debate,
the variety of strategies and the cultural
diversity made it very worthwhile.”
Grade 6 student Simon Gray and his
Barnacle housemate Max Gallant.
Harvard Model Congress trip leader Tony
Goodman, with the help of his students,
presents uniforms, school supplies and
computers to the headmaster of the Ban
Toon Luang Elementary School for Karen
People in Chaingmai Province, Thailand.
School Ties - Spring 2009 • ■The Middle School staged a big
welcome for its new students, including
a barbeque and an afternoon of cooperative games. Every Middle School
student joins one of four houses
(Barnacle, Bolton, Wenman or Winslow)
when they enter the Middle School. For
Middle School Colours Day, students
wear the colour of the house to which
they belong and compete to win points
for their houses, through games ranging
from three-legged races to creating a
house cheer. The Grade 8 students play
a large role in the games, leading some
of the activities and making sure the
games are a proper welcome for their
younger peers.
School News
September (continued)
■A few of our students joined over
3,000 young people from all over the world
in Los Angeles for the PeaceJam Global
Call to Action Conference. Six Nobel
laureates took part in the conference, which
launched The Global Call to Action, an
initiative to challenge youth to complete
one billion service projects within the
next ten years. A project may be on any
one of the 11 global issues considered
the most pressing by the laureates, such
as the availability of fresh water and the
proliferation of weapons. The SMUS
delegates gave a presentation on poverty
to Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Lauren Kipp, Ceilidh Macleod, April Hall
and Anna Fretz with youth outreach
worker Rudy Balles at the PeaceJam
conference in Los Angeles.
October
■Middle School students met Arctic
explorer Ian Sterling, who has spent over
30 years tracking polar bears through the
Arctic. The only species of marine bears,
polar bears are uniquely able to alter their
own metabolism to conserve energy and
to walk on thin ice with their large paws
acting like snowshoes. Throughout his
career, Mr. Sterling and his colleagues
have caught several thousand polar bears
and applied satellite collars in order to
track their movements and to see the kind
of conditions polar bears are drawn to.
Currently, there are around 25,000 polar
bears in the world.
■The International Council held the
first in a series of culture weeks, focusing
on the different countries represented at
SMUS. Beginning with Japanese week,
which featured martial arts and flower
arranging demonstrations, the council
also devoted a week each to Germany, the
Caribbean and China. During the culture
weeks, Brown Hall prepared a special meal
from the featured culture, and students
put on lunch-time activities and decorated
the campus with posters.
Grade 10 student Mue I demonstrates
Japanese flower-arranging for Japanese
culture week.
■The Grade 2 students learned
about conflict resolution in the hope of
becoming the peacemakers of the Junior
School. As peacemakers, the students are
taught to work in pairs and to approach
a conflict in a non-judgmental way by
asking questions and listening to each side
of the conflict, before suggesting possible
solutions and finding one that everyone
can agree on. The SMUSosaurus has
become the peace-making mascot.
Grade 2 teacher Karen Dicks with
her peace-making students and the
SMUSosaurus.
■Spirit Week – a chance for day and
boarding students to show off their house
pride – came early this year as the Senior
School councils took turns planning and
hosting events. The Athletics Council
hosted a water relay race, featuring a slip’n-slide. The Student and Service Councils
put on an Amazing Race, where house
teams had to work through challenges
such as human knots and puzzles, and the
Arts council provided spirit accessories.
The Academic council hosted “Are you
Smarter than a Staff Member?” in which
teams of four students tested their trivia
smarts against a group of teachers. In the
end, the students lost out to the faculty
with a score of 34–18.
■The Tour de Rock returned this year,
inspiring many students to part with
both hair and cash in the name of a great
cause. Numerous students sacrificed hair
from their heads, legs, chests and even
armpits to raise funds for cancer research.
Students happily bid for the right to
wield the electric razor and cheered on
their brave schoolmates. Faculty member
Richard Primrose and Brown Hall
manager Bassanio Tsang both went bald
and raised over $3000.
School News
Maddy Goodman and Priya Mulgaonkar show their colours during Spirit Week.
■Our first Scholar in Residence
was New York Times best-selling author
Rosalind Wiseman, whose writing
inspired the movie Mean Girls. Ms.
Wiseman spoke to Middle and Senior
students about everything from dealing
with cliques to media awareness. Ms.
Wiseman shared emails written to her by
students needing advice on everything
from how to tell a friend that you find
their behaviour to others cruel to how
to deal with someone insulting you. She
also spoke about the different pressures
placed on each gender by the media.
■Moved by the plight of people on
the streets, Grade 8 student Richard
Cunningham held a silent auction to
raise money for the Victoria homeless
shelter Our Place. After planning the
event and collecting goods to auction off,
Richard raised over $150 with the help
of his classmates and teachers, who bid
generously on auction items.
Caryn Dooner takes a moment before
losing the rest of her hair for Tour de
Rock.
November
■Memory Mdyetseni, Director of
APU Secondary School for Girls in
Malawi, spoke to students about the
challenges girls face in pursuing education
in her country and the action she and
■Our two Grade 5 classes learned
about the Underground Railroad, a
system through which slaves escaped to
Canada, through the novel Underground
to Canada by Barbara Smucker, which is
set in the United States in the early 1800s.
During the novel study, Mrs. Newsome
and Mrs. Pam Yorath organized many
wonderful activities for their students,
including reader’s theatre and lanternmaking. This year they also had a guest
speaker, Spencer Robinson, who spoke
about the origins of slavery as well as the
history of African slaves.
■Our Middle School raised awareness
about two important issues, diabetes
and bullying, by dedicating a day to
each. Middle School staff and students
wore pink for International Stand
Up to Bullying Day and SMUS was
the only school in Victoria to mark
World Diabetes Day. Grade 6 student
Nicholas Loughton, who organized the
SMUS Diabetes Day event, spoke to his
schoolmates in assembly to kick off a
Visit the SMUS Review www.smus.bc.ca
School Ties - Spring 2009 • Memory Mdyetseni and former Middle
and Senior School teacher Christie
Johnson started a school in Malawi.
others are taking to help more girls
become self-sufficient. Accompanied by
former Middle and Senior School teacher
Christie Johnson, Memory recounted
her life journey from being orphaned
at a young age to co-founding with Ms.
Johnson the Girls on the Move school.
The school was built by its first students
and their families, and the students
continue to contribute by working in the
community.
School News
November (continued)
bursaries and funds projects that expand
opportunities for all SMUS students.
Tessa Owens, Sage Friswell, Amy Bodine, Jack Sherrod, Steven Piazza and Rylee
Boyle show off their hula hoop skills on World Diabetes Day.
hula hoop competition, since the symbol
for World Diabetes Day is a blue circle.
November 14 was an appropriate day to
mark the occasion as it is the anniversary
of the birth of Canadian Sir Frederick G.
Banting, who co-discovered insulin. The
demonstration attracted the attention of
local news crews.
■This year’s Annual Fund campaign
kicked off with banners going up at both
campuses and a new group of parent
representatives being welcomed to the
Annual Fund team. Board member Kathy
Jawl, along with her alumnus husband
Mike, helped to spark some excitement
when they generously hosted the parents
to celebrate their growing involvement
in the school’s fundraising efforts. Lori
Adam, who joined the school as Director
of Annual Fund last year, is excited to
have parents involved because they play a
key role in the growth and development
of the school. The Annual Fund creates
■Teachers Kirsten Davel and Cheryl
Murtland received the Award of Excellence
from ESRI Canada in recognition of their
work integrating geographic information
systems (GIS) into our school’s academic
programmes. Both believe GIS, which
allows users to attach data to a series
of locations, provides an excellent
opportunity for students to interact with
information in a new way. Senior School
students have used the software to study
geography, geology and history while the
AP Human Geography students have
used it to examine global issues.
Alex Miller, President of ESRI Canada;
Kirsten Davel, Head of Geography; Cheryl
Murtland, Assistant Director of Student
Life; Bob Snowden, Head of School. Photo
used with permission of ESRI Canada.
December
■Grade 6 students hosted two snakes
from the Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary,
who came with their handlers to educate
the students on the many unique features
of the snake. Students had a chance
to meet “Peach Pits,” a Royal or Ball
Python that is four feet long and enjoys
life in savannas, as well as her friend
“Checkers,” who vibrates his tail when
Owen Sudul, Grant Nicholson and Flora
Manson-Blair get close to Checkers, a
corn snake from the Swan Lake Nature
Sanctuary.
he gets nervous. Along with the living
snakes, the guests brought snake bones,
skins and a life-size replica of the longest
snake ever found, which was as long as all
students in the room standing shoulder
to shoulder. Students learned about
the different kinds of snakes found on
Vancouver Island and in BC, as well as
how habitat and geography dictate where
snakes are found around the world.
■Our Grade 4 students visited the
Senior School to spend their morning
geocaching with the Grade 9 Geography
students using global positioning system
(GPS) technology. Head of Geography
Kirsten Davel hid caches of small toys and
trinkets around the campus, which the
students could find only by using their
GPS to lead them to specific locations. To
prepare the children for their search, Mrs.
Davel visited the Junior School to teach
the children how to use GPS, and how
to set their own waypoints – coordinates
that pinpoint a physical place. Mrs.
Davel had the Grade 4 students donate
items for the food bank in exchange for
the small toys they were allowed to take
from each cache that they found.
Grade 9 students Michael Muirhead
and Marcel Sanati team up with a group
of Grade 4 students for a geocaching
exercise.
December (continued)
Jamie Boyle, Emma Loughton, Kasey
Boyle, Sarah Loughton and Rylee Boyle
at the Parents’ Auxiliary Christmas dinner.
■Over 700 guests enjoyed the
Parents’ Auxiliary Christmas Evening
Celebration, which included Christmas
carols, a silent auction and a fabulous
meal, followed by dancing. This was the
first year that all the boarding students
attended the annual event. Mr. Ian Farish
acted as emcee for the evening, which
included a build-your-own dessert bar
for the children and a group rendition of
“The 12 Days of Christmas.” Soon after
dinner, the floor was filled with dancers
from many generations.
Grade 9 student Daniel Cameron points
out a female salmon guarding her nest to
his classmates.
■At this year’s all-school assembly,
students from kindergarten to Grade 12
celebrated the season with songs and skits.
The staff performance centred around
three school directors who struggled to
get rid of a gift of fruitcake from Head of
School Bob Snowden, while the student
skit followed the adventures of Head Girl
Emily Reid, who is stranded at the school
for Christmas and relies on a variety of
Christmas characters to help her find
Santa Claus. The kindergarten students
delivered a truly original tune, a rewritten
version of The Village People’s “YMCA”
called “SMUS” which quickly had some
of the older students singing and moving
along with our smallest students.
School News
■Students from all three schools
visited Goldstream Park to witness the
salmon run, a natural phenomenon in
which an estimated 40,000 salmon swim
up river to spawn. The kindergarten class
along with Grade 1, Grade 7 and Grade 9
students learned about the lifecycle of
the salmon, the spawning process and
the role they play in the ecosystem of
the park. Grade 9 students were able to
see the internal workings of a salmon, as
their guide dissected a recently deceased
male chum salmon. The kindergarten
and Grade 1 students prepared for the
trip by making their own salmon nest,
which female salmon make by lying on
their sides and hitting the river bottom
to make a shallow hole.
Devon Mills, Graham Hall and their
kindergarten classmates spell out S-M-U-S
at the all-school Christmas assembly.
January
■Over the winter break, eight students
travelled to the Dominican Republic,
taking part in the annual service trip to
the Hope for the Child orphanage where
SMUS students have been volunteering
for four years. The Senior School students
brought stockings made by the Grade 5
classes and books (courtesy of last year’s
Latin Fiesta fundraiser) to the children.
Grade 11 students Samantha Green and
Giuliana Bianco reported on the trip,
which has become a core part of SMUS
international service.
focusing on the Earth, particularly how
it relates in size and distance to other
cosmic objects, such as the sun and
the moon, as well as how the Earth’s
movement through space affects life on
its surface.
Director of Annual Fund Lori Adam
attended the Free the Children gala with
her son Brett (Grade 12) and daughter
Kelly (Grade 10).
Visit the SMUS Review www.smus.bc.ca
School Ties - Spring 2009 • ■The Grade 3 students continued their
study of space with a visit to the Centre
of the Universe, an educational centre at
the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics.
The centre features interactive exhibits
and educational experiences, including a
behind-the-scenes tour of the Dominion
Astrophysical Observatory. The young
students had been studying space by
Elise Lincoln and Lindsay Hannah at the
Centre of the Universe.
■This year’s Free the Children Gala
included almost 300 guests, who came to
support the Adopt a Village campaign,
which raises funds to repair the devastation
caused by the tsunami that hit Southeast
Asia in 2004. The evening featured
performances by students Vaughn Stokes,
Emily Reid, Jake McCloskey, Will Jevne,
Brian Christensen, Andrew Taylor,
Oliver Brooks, as well as parent Daniel
Lapp. The event raised over $10,000.
School News
January (continued)
■Grade 7 student Jill Ding took
first place at the Victoria Chess
Championship, winning every match
she played. Jill is the top chess player in
Grades 4-7 and the first girl to win the
Howard Wu trophy, which is named
for the city of Victoria’s grandmaster.
Jill also competed in the national chess
championship in Quebec last year and
is currently ranked 8th in the country,
out of all female players under 12 years
of age. Currently, she’s preparing for the
provincial championships. “Last year I
did pretty well and this year I plan to get
a medal,” says Jill. “I’m on a great lead.”
■As the Year of the Ox began, SMUS
kicked off its first Chinese culture week.
Brown Hall prepared an authentic
Chinese meal which included dumplings,
sweet and sour pork, napa cabbage and
tapioca with dried fruit. Students played
mah-jong, a tile game similar to rummy
and the SMUS campus became a parade
route, as performers from Vancouver
put on a traditional Chinese New Year
display, featuring two lion figures. The
visitors also demonstrated different
forms of martial arts, including Tai Chi.
Students Emily Feng and Tom Zheng
spoke about China in chapel, and Tom’s
mother, a professional opera singer, sang
at the chapel service.
The Crothall quad was the scene of a
traditional Chinese New Year parade
during Chinese culture week.
February
■At the 27th Annual Student
Commonwealth Conference, students
represented different countries in teams
of two and discussed issues of global
concern. Students argued for and against
bills on gender rights, the abolishment of
landmines, and water privatization. New
gender rights and water management
policies were adopted, but the
controversial landmine policy proved
to be an example of the difficulties
of resolving international disputes.
Participant Kirsten Macleod wrote
of the event: “Although negotiations
between countries were often strained
and sputtered, the learning curve was
huge, with all representatives coming
away with a deep sense of respect for
those making the big decisions on the
real Commonwealth Committee.”
Grade 11 students Leo Marchand
and Ross Prager act as Ghana in the
Commonwealth Conference.
■The Junior School Environment
Club had a special guest from the Greater
Victoria Compost Education Centre.
Compost educator Nashira Birch visited
the inquisitive Grade 4 and 5 students
during their lunch break to talk about
how composting works and why it’s
important. About one third of garbage
comes from food and plant wastes and
composting reduces the amount of
garbage sent to landfills while producing
nutrient-rich soil, which can be used to
grow more food. Ms. Birch also spoke
to the students about the different ways
food can be composted, such as using
worms, and gave the students compost
collectors for each classroom and the
staff room.
You can read more about these stories by visiting our website at www.smus.bc.ca and choosing “SMUS Review” from the News and
Calendar menu.
September
SPORTS
Highlights from the Athletics Week in Review
■The Junior Girls A volleyball squad
started their season on a high note,
winning five out of six games in exhibition
play. In their first game against Lambrick
Park, the girls narrowly lost, but came
on strong in the second game and won.
After that, the girls went undefeated
against Parkland and Spencer, with
consistent serving and passing ensuring
their success.
Annie Pike and the Junior Girls A
volleyball squad at the ISAs in October.
October
■The Senior Cross-Country team
competed in the Lower Island
championships. In the Grade 10 boys
race, Austin Smith finished in 11th place
and in the Grade 10 girls race, Jocelyn
Stedman took 3rd place, with Laura
Simandl not far behind in 10th place.
On the Senior boys’ side, Leo Marchand
finished in 8th place.
The Grade 10 Boys Rugby team go head to head with Oak Bay at the City Finals
in November.
return of Zach Austin and Eali Hopper,
rejuvenated the side as they prepared for
an Island semi-final match against Oak
Bay. An excellent defensive performance
and a sound kicking game earned the
boys a victory and a berth in the final
versus Shawnigan Lake. Unfortunately,
a win was not in the cards on the day as
the side’s gutsy match against Oak Bay
had taken too great a toll. Nonetheless, a
second-place Island finish was just reward
for a determined group of players.
Visit the Athletics Review www.smus.bc.ca
School Ties - Spring 2009 • Kristijan Gjorgjevich at the Lower Island
championships.
■Overall, the Grade 10 Boys Rugby
programme enjoyed another successful
season. Battling injuries and a changing
line-up for many of the fixtures, the team
performed inconsistently throughout
league play. Fortunately, the boys saved
their best for the end of the season. After
advancing to the Island championships
by finishing second in the city behind
perennial rival Oak Bay, the squad once
again re-jigged its lineup by moving
powerhouse centre Joe Furness into the
forward pack. This, coupled with the
SPORTS
November
■The Senior Boys A soccer team began
the Island Championship tournament
after finishing third in the city finals.
Despite an early loss to Shawnigan, the
SMUS team came out flying against
Reynolds, winning a shootout after a draw
match and going on to face the team from
the Gulf Islands. With Beau Parker scoring
in the first half of the game and SMUS
keeping steady possession throughout
the second half, the Blue Jaguars won
their final match, qualifying for the BC
Provincial AA championships, where they
took 5th place.
■The Senior Boys basketball team
placed third at the Vancouver Island
Classic Tournament, competing against
16 A to AAA teams. After an easy win
against Woodlands, the boys took on
AAA powerhouse Ballenas and ran away
with the victory 80-46. In their semifinal match, three hours after defeating
Ballenas, the boys lost to Cedar by five
points, despite tying the game in the
final minute. In the bronze-medal match
against Wellington, the Blue Jaguars came
out firing on all cylinders and pummelled
Wellington 67-25. Seniors Bryan Sun
and Tom Bridger led the team offensively
all weekend and Luke McCloskey was
named to the All-Defensive team for the
tournament.
■The
Senior
Girls
volleyball
team captured bronze at the Island
Championships. After easily beating St.
Andrews in two sets, the team struggled
against Shawnigan Lake and Brentwood
College. In their cross-over match against
Ladysmith, the girls came out firing and
outplayed their opponents with tough
serving and aggressive attacking, winning
Jordan Souc, backed by Beau Parker, aims for a goal against Esquimalt in October.
in two sets. In their second match against
Brentwood, the girls lost after three sets
before going on to defeat PCS and taking
third place in three steady sets. Shelby
Boehm was named a First Team AllStar and the standout performances in a
strong team came from Kelsey Harbord,
Marlise Nussbaumer, Kristen Porrelli and
Heather Roseblade.
■After a month of training, our 24athlete squash team showed off their
potential in the Vancouver Island Open,
the Victoria Women’s Weekend and the
Alberta Jesters in Calgary, where Tyler Olson
finished 7th in the boys’ Under 19 division
and Nicole Bunyan finished in the 9-11
section of the girls Under 19 division. At the
Victoria Men’s weekend Kristijan Gjorgjevik
won the 3rd division. Tyler Olson and
Nicole Bunyan went on to play in the BC
championships and the Canadian Open in
Niagara, where Samantha Hennings ’08
played in the Under 19 quarter-finals. Tyler
also competed in the Scottish and British
Junior Opens.
10 • School Ties - Spring 2009
Senior Novice Girls 8 at the 23rd Annual 2nd Regatta at Elk Lake in October
■SMUS finished in first place overall
at the City Rowing championships. The
52 SMUS rowers entered 22 of the 24
events and competed against 22 other
high schools, making 19 finals and taking
first place in nine events and second place
in seven events.
City Rowing Championship Results
Event
Senior Girls 1X
Senior Girls 2X
Senior Girls 4X
Senior Girls 8+
Senior Novice Girls 4X
Senior Novice Girls 8+
Senior Boys 2X
Senior Boys 4X
Senior Boys 8+
Senior Novice Boys 8+
Junior Girls 4X
Junior Girls 8+
Junior Novice Girls 8+
Junior Boys 2X
Junior Boys 8+
Junior Boys 4X
Junior Novice Boys 4X
Junior Novice Boys 8+
Middle School Boys 4X
Result
1st
1st, 3rd
1st
1st
2nd
1st
1st
2nd
2nd
2nd
6th
2nd
1st
2nd
2nd
4th
1st
5th
1st
December
■Rowing coach Susanne Walker
Curry was named the Female Coach
of the Year by Rowing Canada Aviron,
the national governing body for the
sport of rowing in Canada. The awards
committee recognized her in part because
of her success with her SMUS rowers,
who won gold at both the Canadian
Secondary Schools Rowing Association
championships and the CanAmMex
Regatta. After beginning rowing when
she was 12, Mrs. Walker Curry went on
to row for both the Junior and Senior
national teams and competed in the
world championships. In 2007, she was
the Canadian Women’s Head Coach for
the CanAmMex regatta, where her team
SPORTS
■The Senior Girls basketball team
won four of their first five games. The
girls were holding a 2-1 record when
they faced and defeated PCS, with
Shelby Boehm scoring 16 points. The
game against Crofton House was a closer
call, as the Blue Jaguars found themselves
down three points after the first half, but
SMUS rebounded and held Crofton to
just 14 points in the second half, while
executing their offensive plan, and won
57-47. Sydney Stockus led all SMUS
scorers with 12 points, followed by
Lauren Kipp (11 points) and Ciara Glen
(10 points).
Female Coach of the Year Susanne Walker
Curry with rowers Liz Fenje and Derek
Stedman.
won five gold medals and the overall team
title. “This award is really an honour,”
says Mrs. Walker Curry. “It’s a reflection
of the kids I work with.”
January
■In the Cedar Tournament in
Nanaimo, the Junior Girls basketball
team was determined to bring some
hardware home. The team defeated
Ballenas (39-35) and in their game
against Wellington, the girls exploded
right from the start and won 48-29. In
the tournament final, the girls quickly
defeated the Robert Bateman team, 3323, to take first place at the tournament.
In the final match, Cliona Quail-Bradley
led the team with 10 points, followed
by Annie Pike with 9 points. Rebounds
were collected by Sophie Yeates (11),
Montana Sawyer (7), Hannah Furness
(7) and Mary Fry (6). The team went
on to take the silver medal at the ISA
championships.
Squash
Junior B/Novice Squash Tournament Results
Winner: Samantha Dark
Runner-up: Lisa Evans
5th: Celine Lo
Boys U19 3/4th: Kristijan Gjorgjevik
5th: Justus Koenigs
6th: Colin Sedgewick
Boys U17 4th: Oliver Brooks
6th: Lachlan Glenn
7th: Miklos Tusz
8th: Cole Turner
■SMUS students Samantha Dark
and Lisa Evans found themselves
battling at the Junior B/Novice Squash
tournament in three tough sets with
Samantha prevailing. Strong serving
helped tip the scale in Samantha’s favour
and she took control of the rallies in set
#3. Oliver Brooks, despite a good effort,
encountered a strong opponent from
Shawnigan who had more experience
and better skill. Lachlan Glenn had an
epic battle with his opponent and lost by
one point in the fifth set. Lachlan played
well all weekend and really improved his
match toughness.
Other Squash Results
Canadian Junior Open - Niagara
Girls Under 17
4th: Nicole Bunyan
Scottish Junior Open - Edinburgh
Boys Under 17
3rd: Tyler Olson
Comfort Inn Open - Vancouver
Men’s Open
Runner-up:
Tyler Olson
Women’s B
Runner-up:
Nicole Bunyan
Visit the Athletics Review www.smus.bc.ca
School Ties - Spring 2009 • 11
Girls
Under
17/19
Teryl Noble and the Junior Girls took silver at the ISA championships in January.
SPORTS
February
■Both the Senior Girls and Grade 9
Boys basketball teams won the Island
championships. After finishing first in
the Victoria AA league, the Senior Girls
defeated an unpredictable Woodlands
squad and an aggressive Gulf Islands
team before taking on Carihi. Hungry
for their first AA Island championship
since 1986, the Blue Jags defeated Carihi
55-40 and Sydney Stockus was named
the tournament’s MVP. For the Grade 9
Boys, an Island title came after a heated
final match against Oak Bay. After SMUS
took an early lead, Oak Bay caught up
and tied the game with four seconds left,
but a shot from Liam MacLure saved
the game and earned the boys a place in
provincials.
Coach and Athletics Director Lindsay Brooke congratulates the Senior Girls after
a win against PCS in December.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Something for Everyone!
There are many great ways to get involved! Please contact:
Mary Pollen
Patti MacIntyre-Gray
250-818-5859 mary.pollen@shaw.ca 250-598-2509 drjasongray@shaw.ca
SMUS players go international at USA Sevens
SPORTS
On February 15, San Diego played host to an international match-up between the BC
U-18 men’s rugby squad and the USA national U-18 squad. Bolstered by Vancouver
Island players, including four from SMUS, the BC team defeated the American team
22-16. Key players for the BC side included Tom Bridger in the backs and Johnny
Humphries in the forward pack. Both players have significant experience in rep
rugby, Bridger having played for the BC U-16 team and Humphries having played
both BC U-16 and Canada U-17. Sasha Gray and Chad Margolus enjoyed their
first rep rugby experience, Gray getting 20 minutes of play in the second half of the
game as the starting scrum half went out injured. Beau Parker did not accompany
the team, being on the injured list.
SMUS junior house parent Nanyak Dala played with the Canadian Men’s
Sevens Rugby side, who won their consolation division by beating both Mexico and
Uruguay. SMUS was also represented by a strong contingent of parents and alumni
who made the trip to San Diego to cheer our players on.
Tom Bridger gets a hold of the ball.
SMUS was well represented at the USA Sevens in San Diego in February, on the
field and off: (Back row, l-r) John Davies, Jake Humphries, Jason Gray, Ian Bridger,
Chris Talbot ’87 (front row l-r) Nikki Bridger, Eric Heffernan ’73, Brian Graves ’42,
Simon Gray, Patti McIntyre-Gray
SMUS rugby players win provincial club final
Chad Margolus, Johnny Humphries, Sasha Gray, Tom Bridger, Beau Parker,
Mike Fuailefau, Masaki Kunimoto and Kevin Lin helped the Castaway
Wanderers take the provincial cup in December.
Victoria’s Castaway Wanderers U-19 rugby squad
played in the provincial club final against the team
from Abbotsford. As many as twelve SMUS rugby
players have played with the U-19 CW team this
year and were central to its superb season. Posting
winning margins of up to 50 points, the CW engine
was well prepared for their championship match. In
the final game, Johnny Humphries, #8, and frontrow stalwart Masaki Kunimoto demonstrated skill
and grit, while scrum-half Sasha Gray was quick
and accurate. In the first half, Mike Fuailefau scored
a try and some sure-handed work on the back line
by Tom Bridger, Fuailefau, and Beau Parker led
to a Clayton Thornber try, successfully converted
by Bridger. Chad Margolus replaced an injured
Humphries and played well. Beau Parker made
a game-saving tackle and followed up by stealing
the ball for a quick turn-around. Fuailefau tallied
again for CW, and as an Abbotsford knock-on in
their half set up the final whistle, Gray kicked the
ball into touch and the provincial cup was on the
mantle. Final score: 17-12. Notable performances
by Kevin Lin, Connor McKenzie and Brendan
Thomson throughout the season helped the team to
gain its berth in the final.
ARTS
Arts Highlights
Our singers, musicians, actors and artists continued to do our school proud on stage and canvas. Of the many creative triumphs from
current students and alumni in the last six months, here are a few of our favourites.
September
■The Film Club debuted this year,
with Grade 11 student Sophia BryantScott giving students a chance to learn
about both the creative and technical
elements of movie-making. The group
learned how to operate video equipment,
arrange lighting and edit footage using a
video editing programme.
■Ceramics and sculpture students
took a trip to the garden, gallery and
studio of world-renowned ceramic artists
Judi Dyelle and Robin Hopper. The
Grade 11 and 12 artists enjoyed a tour
of the grounds and gallery, and learned
much about the techniques used to create
individual pieces. Ms. Dyelle showed the
students her bisque-firing and glaze-firing
kilns and explained the differences between
the two. The young artists also learned a
bit of the science behind sculpture, as Ms.
Dyelle showed them how to infuse clay
with cobalt and the techniques used to
achieve different effects.
October
Andy Erasmus and Kathryn Humphries ’03 in Pacific Opera’s Thaïs. Photo by Emily
Cooper Photography.
■Current and former SMUS students
took the stage for Pacific Opera’s
production of Thaïs. Grade 11 student
Andy Erasmus and alumnus Kathryn
Humphries ’03 both played a role in
the performance, which tells the tale of a
wealthy courtesan converted to religion by
a monk who is passionately in love with
her. This is Andy’s second appearance
in a Pacific Opera production and the
tenth production he’s been involved in
since he performed in his first opera in
Grade 7. Kathryn graduated from Acadia
University last year with a BMus in vocal
performance and attended summer vocal
academies in Italy and France. She’s now
in her second season singing with Pacific
Opera Victoria’s chorus. Her father, Jake
Humphries, is Andy’s grade advisor.
■English literature and creative
writing students were thrilled by a visit
from performance artist Baba Brinkman,
who has toured his combination of rap
and medieval literature around Europe,
where it has won several awards. Mr.
Brinkman performed three stories from
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, giving a new
twist on the stories, which are hundreds
of years old, by performing them with a
hip-hop edge. He also led a workshop
with some of the students and taught
them how to use the natural stresses of
words to create a beat and to develop
multiple-syllable rhyme patterns.
Guest speaker Baba Brinkman with newfound fans Claire Jackson, Katrina Gong, Laura
Dale and Mina Phaisaltantiwongs.
November
ARTS
Oliver Brooks as one half of faux-band
Pterodactyl Sneak Attack.
Brian Yam plays a solo in the Grade 7/8
Strings concert.
■The Grade 7/8 Strings Ensemble
amazed the audience with their
professional playing at their first concert,
only two months into the school year.
Teacher and conductor Mary Smith
led students in a fiddle tune medley,
a Baroque piece, and J.S. Bach’s “Ave
Maria,” among others. For “The Swan,”
Brian Yam and Candice Ip performed
on the cello and piano, respectively.
Grade 7 student Viviam Lam played an
astonishing piano solo by Chopin and
a movement of the Violin Concerto in
A Minor by Vivaldi was delivered with
aplomb by Ella Hayashi.
■Drama Night, which features both
experienced and amateur performers,
returned to much applause and more than
a little laughter. This year’s event focused
on comedic and musical performances,
many taken from contemporary culture.
Students performed skits from television
shows “Saturday Night Live” and “Flight
of the Conchords” as well as classic
monologues from the likes of Woody
Allen. Eric Protzer and William Jevne
acted out a scene from After Juliet and
Scott Dallen and Oliver Brooks added
some music to the evening with their
portrayal of a nervous duo playing a song
about teen angst.
William Jevne and Eric Protzer play
Shakespearan thugs in After Juliet.
■The student production After Juliet
garnered much acclaim from students,
staff and faculty. Set in Verona after
the death of Shakespeare’s most famous
characters, the young people who remain
behind are struggling to maintain a
truce between their feuding families.
With a cast of strong performers, the
play tells the story of the rough and
passionate Roseline, a pining Benvolio,
Mercutio’s twin brother and many other
young Montagues and Capulets. Jake
McCloskey and Jasmine Yan, assisted
by Jillian Neckar, directed this truly
professional production, which made
excellent use of lighting and sound.
Adam Weech and Cecelia Shang perform
in the Grade 7/8 Strings concert.
■Students launched a new literary
magazine, The Brier, for all the creative
writers at SMUS. Daniela Loggia
and Linda Yu assembled submissions
and planned a website for the new
publication, which is named for a prickly
plant and pulled from the Robert Burns
poem “Bonny Barbara Allen.” The Brier’s
website, which was designed by Grade 12
student Kabir Daswani, includes a
student event calendar, a forum to get
homework help and allows students to
submit their pieces anonymously. The
website is also another place for students
to read The Brier, which is only available
in print at the library and at the studentrun café The Daily Grind as well on the
school website. In its second issue, The
Brier included submissions from the
Middle School.
ARTS
November (continued)
■Junior School had a very musical
November, as the Grade 5 and Grade 4
Strings ensembles played their first
concerts and the Senior School Swing
Band visited the students to teach them
a bit about the Big Band era, performing
swing music, ballads and light jazz as well
as demonstrating different instruments.
The students also loved the interactive
portion of the morning, where they
used their hands as instruments to
create music. Not to be outdone by their
Senior counterparts, the Junior School
musicians performed exceptionally well
to full audiences of parents, grandparents
and teachers.
■Many of this year’s Senior School
recitation evening performances brought
laughter to the audience of parents,
teachers, students and staff, with witty
takes on blind dates, bullies, and weightlifting. Modern poetry inspired the more
serious pieces, as did classic works from
T.S. Eliot and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
For the multi-lingual portions of the
evening, Grade 11 student Tom Zheng
performed an excerpt of a speech by
Chinese leader Chairman Mao Tse-Tung in
both Mandarin and English and Dorothee
Stieber performed an excerpt from Faust
by Goethe in German and English.
Sam Simons performs at the Senior
School Recitations Evening.
December
■At the annual Small Ensembles
concert, SMUS students showed the range
of their vocal and instrumental talents,
playing an impressive array of classic
pieces and new medleys. The Chamber
Choir began the night with a version
of “Jerusalem” arranged and conducted
by Grade 10 student Brandon Chow.
The Vocal Jazz Ensemble performance
featured some impressive scatting and
stellar instrumentals and the Jazz Band
dazzled in both large and small versions.
The Swing Band sent the audience on
their way in the spirit of the season, as
the performers capped off the concert
with “Dashing Through the Snow.”
Brandon Chow conducts the Chamber
Choir in his arrangement of “Jerusalem.”
January
■AP Studio Art and Grade 10 Art
students had the opportunity to work
with acclaimed pastel artist Nancy
Slaght. The former University of Victoria
instructor came to SMUS to share her
expertise on this rare medium, which
uses chalk-like soft pastels to create
pieces similar to paintings. Artists can use
sticks, their hands or other tools to blend
the colors to form an image. Ms. Slaght,
whose pieces have sold around the world,
says that part of what makes the method
unique is that it’s quite different from
holding a brush, yet resembles painting.
AP Studio Art student Talina Barsalou gets
some guidance from visiting instructor
Nancy Slaght.
■Two of our Middle School students
performed in Kaleidoscope Theatre’s
production of Silverwing, a play based
on the multiple award-winning novel by
Kenneth Oppel ’85 about a young bat
who is separated from his colony and
journeys to find them. Throughout the
play, Alexander Simson and schoolmate
Athena Kerins, portray silverwing bats,
rats and “banded bats,” a cultish group
who believes the tracking bands they have
are signs that they are destined to become
human. The play was a great success, and
the entire Junior School attended the final
performance. Kenneth Oppel has won the
Governor General’s Award for children’s
literature and wrote his first novel while
attending SMUS.
January (continued)
ARTS
■Three hundred student musicians
and vocalists performed in the annual
Large Ensembles Concert, including
special guests from the Grades 1, 2 and
3 Choir. The youngest singers joined
the String Orchestra for the piece “The
Syncopated Clock,” while the Full
Orchestra opened the evening and played
selections from West Side Story. The
Senior Concert Choir sang “Northwest
Passage,” which has been called Canada’s
alternative national anthem. Under the
guidance of Mr. John Reid, the Grade 10
Concert Band and the Grade 9 Concert
Band played contemporary pieces,
while the Senior Concert Band closed
the concert with selections from the
challenging, layered score of the movie
The Chronicles of Narnia.
Brendan Chywl performs with the String Orchestra for the Large Ensembles concert.
February
Grade 7 students used black paper,
white glue and a range of chalk pastels
to create images of fish and reptiles and
designed city scenes to demonstrate their
understanding of spatial relationships.
The Grade 6 students did triptych
drawings, creating three pieces depicting
the same image in different ways.
For “Project Scales,” Grade 7 students
used chalk pastels and glue to create
images of scaled creatures.
■40 students were featured in the
Middle School Art Show at the Cedar Hill
Recreation Centre. Each grade worked in
different mediums. The Grade 8 students
crafted cartoons of Canadian politicians.
■Scholar in Residence and theatre
performer Sara Topham conducted
a two-hour workshop with 10 lucky
students and featured them in her
evening presentation. The young
actors approached four Shakespearean
monologues by miming the different
parts and interpreting the metaphors
through movement. Ms. Topham, a
successful Canadian actress, also shared
stories from her work in the Stratford
Theatre Festival as well as her thoughts
on acting.
■The SMUS production of West
Side Story debuted at the McPherson
Playhouse and students astounded
audiences with their mastery of complex
choreography, vocals, acting skills
and musical precision. Accompanied
flawlessly by our student orchestra, the
cast gave a compelling performance of a
heart-wrenching tale. Vaughn Stokes and
Emily Reid played star-crossed lovers Tony
and Maria, who are caught between rival
gangs. The entire cast delivered excellent
performances, including some incredibly
intricate choreography and challenging
vocal numbers. Also deserving of much
praise is our student orchestra, who
played an extremely challenging score to
near perfection.
The cast of West Side Story.
ARTS
Leaving an
Artistic Legacy
Two creative contributors to our community are moving to “alumni” status this June.
Shun Kinoshita – whose t-shirt designs have raised thousands for school service projects –
graduates, while parent Evan Effa – whose photographs have been a mainstay of our
gallery – becomes a past parent as the last of his children leaves the school.
Shun Kinoshita
by Erin Anderson
If you received a Christmas card from SMUS this year, admired
the poster for the musical West Side Story, or caught sight of
a student wearing a philanthropy-themed t-shirt, you’ve seen
the artwork of Shun Kinoshita. Now in Grade 12, Shun has
completed the AP Studio Art programme and in the process
made a huge contribution to the school, both in terms of the
paintings hanging in the School House foyer and in terms of
students’ fundraising efforts. Last year, Shun designed a “Give
Big” t-shirt for the Service Council’s cystic fibrosis service day.
His 150 shirts sold out in 10 minutes and raised over $2500
for the cause.
“My goal is to raise over $10,000 this year,” says Shun, who
began designing t-shirts when he was in Grade 9. So far this
year, Shun has produced “Give More” t-shirts in support of the
Mines Action Treaty, which raised about $3500, and a Canada/
Kenya t-shirt to help two students raise money for their service
trip this Spring Break, which brought the two girls $1000 closer
to their goal.
“I try to make the coolest design I can make at the moment,”
he says of his shirts. “I like it simple and bold.”
“My goal is to raise over
$10,000 this year.”
Shun Kinoshita’s artwork and t-shirt designs have attracted
a lot of attention at SMUS.
Laura Gilmore, Ashley Hawes and Olivia de Goede model
Shun’s t-shirts.
The same philosophy can be seen in the poster Shun
submitted for West Side Story. His design is a combination of
two photos, with an emphasis on red, which Shun says is “the
perfect color for the play” because of its violent and romantic
nature. The poster was a special accomplishment, as it was the
first time he used Adobe Photoshop; when he completed his
AP Studio Art portfolio, he did no digital design and painted
in acrylics.
“I have a wall in my room full of paintings,” says Shun. “It’s
still my thing – but I’m more into t-shirt designs right now.”
Shun’s designs have even spread beyond his school – he
recently established his own brand and began selling his work
online. Shun will be reviving his “Give Big” idea for the Service
Council in his final term at SMUS. After graduation, he plans
to study business, and may turn his brand into a full-fledged
company.
1
Evan Effa by Laura Authier
School Ties has benefitted immensely
over the years by dazzling photography
shared with us by faculty members like
Mike Jackson and Craig Farish as well
as talented parents such as Eric Onasick
and Evan Effa.
A SMUS parent since 1998 when his
eldest children Elizabeth and Jonathon
started in Grade 8 and Grade 5,
respectively, Evan Effa will mark a
transition to past parent this June when
Ben graduates from Grade 12. Over the
years he has been a familiar presence at
concerts, closing ceremonies and theatre
performances, where he has built up a
large body of work that reveals his passion
for the school and for photography.
“There’s something very compelling
about an unposed expression as someone
is going through the moment,” he says.
Clearly he’s compelled – on average Evan
takes more than 400 shots at events, then
spends a further eight hours processing
and selecting the photos that are eventually
uploaded to the SMUS online gallery.
Photographing the musical productions
is something he particularly enjoys: “the
dramatic lighting, interesting characters,
the low light levels, the movement” all
make for what he calls “a fantastically
challenging” environment.
Evan has been interested in
photography since a young age and recalls
that his first major purchase was a good
single-lens reflex camera. Ever since, he’s
found real satisfaction in learning and
refining his techniques to better capture
the moments he witnesses.
Evan describes some of his favourites (clockwise):
1.Our very own John Reid captured in a moment
of relief and gratitude – the end of a challenging
performance of Grand Hotel.
2.Teamwork curve - Setting up for Grand Hotel.
I think that we are often attracted to patterns
that suggest movement or shapes. The curve
of people around this 90 degree wood structure
draws the eye and suggests some other level of
meaning or interest.
2
3
3.Technically, this image has motion artifact and
is a little noisy at high ISO but it conveys the
motion and a sort of feminine softness that is
very much in character for the young ladies of
the Pirates of Penzance.
4.This image is one of a series of seven to ten
images from the Jesus Christ Superstar scourging
scene. Each shows the victim in agony but what is
so remarkable to me are the fleeting and dynamic
expressions on the faces in the background
crowd: mocking, derisive, hateful. Powerful stuff.
5.Juno Award Winning Composer, pianist, leader and
Toronto’s National Jazz Awards 2008 Trombonist
of the Year and SMUS alumnus, Hugh Fraser ’76
playing at Jazz Night. I think this image manages
to capture a hint of the intensity and dynamism of
Hugh’s playing.
6.Ben and I on the summit of Mount Arrowsmith.
I always prefer the viewfinder side of the camera
for obvious reasons...
6
5
4
FEATURE
From there to here: a short history of our evolving
Vision
As the school launches its new vision statement, Rob Wilson looks back at the
visionaries who brought us to where we are today.
I
have been asked to write about people of vision who have
influenced the School in its history of what is now nearly 103
years. After assisting part-time in the Archives since my retirement
in 1999, it has been an interesting experience to learn more
about people and events since 1906. With the word “vision” in
mind, this is my list of those who have influenced the policies,
ethos and, hopefully, the well-being of the school. People who
have been in the position to make such an impact are mainly
founders, heads of School, Board chairs and benefactors.
Our founders are by definition, men of vision, and
J.C. Barnacle, W.W. Bolton, R.V. Harvey and K.C. Symons
head the list.
St. Michael’s School’s beginnings in 1910 were incredibly
modest, but Kyrle C. Symons − by virtue of faith, determination,
and a little luck − kept the school going through some stormy
times; notably World War I, the Great Depression and World War
II. He was not a great businessman, nor were the buildings at his
original Windsor Road Campus very impressive. Kyrle C. Symons
was first and foremost an educator, and quite a number of young
boys from St. Michael’s School went on to some highly impressive
careers in many different areas. St. Michael’s School was a small
preparatory school for boys and Kyrle C. Symons, later assisted by
his sons Kyrle W. and E.J. (Ned), was the founder, Headmaster
and the major presence there until his death in 1966.
University School saw its venture get off to a magnificent
start, particularly when the impressive new campus on
Richmond Road was occupied in February 1909. The three
founders – J.C. Barnacle, W.W. Bolton and R.V. Harvey −
1906 University School founded
1920 becomes
1910 St Michael’s University
School founded
Military School
were all educated in England, and their vision was to establish
a British-style boarding school to offer the finest education
in Western Canada. All three founders were involved in the
day-to-day functions of the school and each had brought boys
from their previous schools. W.W. Bolton was a clergyman, a
teacher, an athlete and a man of great presence and probably
the most influential of the three. R.V. Harvey joined the school
from Queens School in Vancouver and he took a strong role
in establishing the School’s Cadet Corps and Scout Troop, in
addition to his teaching responsibilities. Messrs. Bolton and
Harvey were wardens in the new school and it was J.C. Barnacle
who took the role of Headmaster. He was a fine mathematics
teacher, a talented sportsman and had the reputation of being
a firm disciplinarian.
University School’s successful beginnings were shortlived, for at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Captain
R.V. Harvey enlisted immediately and died of wounds in
Europe in 1915. By this time, W.W. Bolton was in poor health
and the effects of the war were such that enrolment started to
dwindle. J.C. Barnacle carried the school through the war years
and then became part of a venture which can only be described
as failed vision. In 1920, University School became a military
school and was renamed University Military School, with J.C.
Barnacle as President. W.W. Bolton, at this time, retired to the
South Seas. To establish a military school immediately after “the
war to end all wars” was not a success, and in 1923 the concept
was abandoned; J.C. Barnacle departed and the reconstituted
University School was now in poor shape. Enrolment − which
1920s-1940s under
Bolton, Scarrett
and Winslow
1946 Timmis era
1923 reverts
back to
University
School
J.C. Barnacle
J.J. Timmis
Kyrle C. Symons
Gerry Bolton
‘06-’08
R.V. Harvey
Stanley Barker
George
Scarrett
W.W. Bolton
R.A. Brown ’32
The amalgamation was unusual in that it was the small but
secure preparatory school which was the major player in joining
with the larger, senior and foundering University School.
The two St. Michael’s School people who brought about this
key event were Board chairman John Nation ’28-’33 and
Headmaster Peter Caleb, roles they assumed in the newly formed
St. Michaels University School. John Nation and his board had
the foresight to make this brave and momentous decision. John
Nation was the right man for the time: a chartered accountant
by profession as well as a man who commanded the deepest
respect and admiration from those who knew him. To me, he is
the father of amalgamation.
Amalgamation took place in an efficient manner and Peter
Caleb should take a lot of credit in making the two separate and
disparate schools into one entity. “Young and old united – now
in one joyful throng” to quote from the added and florid verse
of the new (SMUS) school song. Peter Caleb, a man of great
energy and ideas can also add another string to his visionary
bow; for while a teacher at University School (1960-1964) it
was he who was the main inspiration in the building of the
School Chapel.
From 1977 to 1988, the school, under the leadership of
John Schaffter, made a quantum leap forward and St. Michaels
University School became a school of outstanding achievement
and reputation. John Schaffter’s vision was well-crafted and
proven, for he came to St. Michaels University School from
St. John’s Ravenscourt in Winnipeg where he had presided
over a highly successful transformation similar to the one he
would make at our school. The most important and historic
change of this era was the introduction of co-education in
1978. The BCTV Scholarship programme brought some
outstanding young people to the school, many of them from
smaller communities across the province. BCTV provided an
awareness of the school province-wide and the response was
very positive. It was advertising at its best.
While Bob Snowden’s tenure is still a work in progress,
there is no denying that the school has continued to make
Feature
had started to decline in 1914 − was still well below the 191314 level and it did not reach pre-war levels again until 1963.
University School suffered some very lean times in the 1920s
to the 1940s and the three major characters of those years were
Gerard Bolton 1906-08, George Scarrett and F.E. Winslow.
Gerard Bolton, son of W.W., was the major shareholder and
Managing Director of University School in the 1920s and early
1930s. To protect his diminished investment he wielded a lot of
influence over everything and everyone, including the headmasters
of the time. Ian Mugridge, in his soon-to-be-published history of
the School, has provided a very good description of the role of
Gerry Bolton during these times. At that time, Bolton was also
the Secretary of the Union Club in Victoria. George Scarrett was
Headmaster of University School from 1932-1948 and he guided
the school through years of bankruptcy, while F.E. Winslow,
Manager of the Royal Trust and Chairman of the School’s Board
of Governors, kept a close eye on the meagre-to-negligible
financial resources. George Scarrett had the reputation of being a
harsh disciplinarian and there are many stories of his Draconian
laws. He did also have the reputation of being consistent and
University School in those years was no place for the faint of
heart. During these years the vision of Gerard Bolton, George
Scarrett and F.E. Winslow can be described in one word: survival!
Despite the acute adversity of this era, some very fine young men
attended the School.
University School’s fortunes changed when J.J. Timmis
became Headmaster in 1948. He was an energetic and
enterprising man, and under his guidance the enrolment,
buildings, finances and general spirit made a welcome
improvement. In the early 1960s the student-inspired building
of the School Chapel was successfully completed. The Chapel
project of 1961-62 is fondly and proudly remembered by
students of that time, for it was they who raised the money
and participated in much of the construction work with the
guidance of a group of young teachers. Unfortunately, the
last years of John Timmis’ tenure (1948-1970) brought about
another downturn and by 1971 the crisis could only be solved
by amalgamation.
continued on page 25
1971 St Michael’s and
University School amalgamate
1977-1988
John Schaffter
2002 – present
Benefactors
Graeme Crothall
John Nation
Bill Monkman ‘62
John Schaffter
Peter Caleb
Brian Graves ’42
Hugh McGillivray ‘64
To Learn, to Lead, to Serve
FEATURE
by Bob Snowden
How do you articulate the spirit of a school? How do you voice the hopes of a
community? Our Head of School discusses the journey to put our vision into words.
T
he words “vision process” usually don’t conjure up images
of men and women sitting around on a ferry on their way to
Vancouver, engaged in an intense exchange around notions
of leadership and learning. Perhaps because we began this way,
though, the entire SMUS process preserved this character of
passion and engagement: to articulate a future for a great school.
In the November 2007 report of the Canadian Educational
Standards Institute (CESI), the School was described as a model
in strategic implementation. We adopted our first strategic plan
in 2000 and in it we emphasized two significant priorities: the
pursuit of academic success for all students, and the education
of the whole student.
On the academic success side, our strategic
initiatives have incorporated the wealth of new
research on the brain and how students learn –
new research that is transforming education
everywhere. On the whole student side, our
initiatives have reflected our evolving belief
that the growth of character is in many ways
about leadership, and that it should touch
every student in the school. In other words,
leadership development is not simply an
opportunity for some, but an experience for
all students, that will be embedded into the
School’s broader curriculum. All students
should develop their capacity to learn, and
their capacity to make the world a better
place.
These two broad themes, of leadership
and learning, were the subject matter of
a presentation by the directors of our
schools to the Board of Governors at
their annual retreat in October, 2007.
The Board members were struck by the power of these
ideas and on the ferry over to Vancouver, they arrived at the
following conclusions: first, the School’s mission is strong and
pervasive in the life of the school; second, the strategic plan
is a living document that has kept us on a path of strong
positive evolution. However, the strength of these two strategic
foundations seemed to underscore the weakness of our third
building block: a clear and potent vision that defines the St.
Michaels University School of the future. Then and there, the
Board decided to strike a committee that would undertake a
process of consultation and reflection and return a year later
with such a vision.
So the work began. The steering committee for the vision
process consisted of two Board members, David Edwards
and Lynn Forbes, along with four staff: me, Nancy Richards
(Director of Junior School), Becky Anderson (Director of
Leadership), and Keven Fletcher (Chaplain). We developed
a plan of consultation that included meetings with alumni,
parents, Board, staff and students.
In setting out our plan, we agreed that the vision would
avoid any focus on status or ranking; that we would steer away
from questions of how we wanted to be perceived in favour
of “identifying the imaginative conception” that would drive
our activities and inspire our future. We borrowed six criteria
from the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS),
which describes an effective vision in this way:
• It is a vivid description of a desired future that is a dramatic
stretch from where the school is today.
• It is clear, understandable, and memorable.
• It inspires passion, compels action, and serves as a rallying
call.
• It is consistent with school values and mission.
• It sets a clear direction and creates alignment in decisionmaking across the institution.
• When realized, it will resolve the school’s strategic issues.
In total, more than 300 people were involved in discussions
of varying detail and depth, all of which focused on the goals,
strengths and challenges of executing a vision around the two
ideas of leadership and learning. What became clear in each
FEATURE
discussion was that the themes of leadership and learning, as
we were articulating them, resonated with every constituency
of the School. Each constituency did have a different emphasis
in their feedback, however.
Alumni, depending on their vintage, talked about past
strengths that had to be preserved, and past deficiencies
that should be remedied. They felt our current thinking
was appropriate to the world our students are entering, and
especially liked the emphasis on pursuing the potential of all
students. Parents were very responsive to the notion that all
students were going to receive the same attention, and have
equal expectations about their capacity to develop, each student
according to his or her potential. Students were very positive,
and almost impatient, as if to say these notions are pretty selfevident, so what is the hold-up? Staff were very excited about
the prospect of this kind of learning environment, but also very
conscious of the practical challenges of implementation – what
it might mean, in other words, to exactly how they do their
jobs in future.
All in all, we came away with a great sense of communal
understanding and commitment to the future of the school,
and an impressive collection of memorable words and phrases
that would help us when we got around to the final wording
that would distil these concepts.
That final step, of finding the right words, was in many ways
the most difficult one – especially when it is a committee that
is trying to behave as if it possesses a single imagination. After
all, one doesn’t want to leave out a favourite phrase, or idea,
for fear of its being lost when the vision is outlined at greater
length over subsequent years. We did find, for instance, that to
temper the meaning of the word “leadership,” which too often
conjured up the image of the charismatic individual who can
sway crowds, it was important to include the word “service,”
which we hoped would convey the element of selflessness that
is part of our definition of leadership.
On a similar note, we clearly needed to remember the fact
that our students come from all over the world, and that, once
they are finished at SMUS, they are going to have a role in
the world. Also, it was evident that many people held dear the
notion that the SMUS experience is about discovering potential
and creating opportunities for that potential to flourish. Many
words and phrases were included, tried out, rejected, and
replaced over a period of several weeks. It was a trial, but also a
labour of love, to be sure.
Finally the committee presented the final results of their
work to the Board at its retreat at the end of October 2008. It
would be fair to say that the Board enthusiastically embraced
the results of all this work, and the input of so many people.
We now have a vision for the future that we can contemplate
and follow, as we have a mission that guides us in our day-today and week-to-week life at the school, as we have a strategic
plan that sets our priorities for the immediate future. The Board
decided that it was appropriate
and important to communicate
the vision far and wide among
the School’s constituencies, and
to do so with clarity, energy and
passion.
In finishing off this work,
many of us have realized that it
wasn’t to create a vision that was
lacking, but simply to articulate
an existing spirit in words and
phrases that are common to us
all in the School community.
Vivat.
FEATURE
Book Excerpt:
A History of St. Michaels University School
The foundations of our school’s history are the subject of Ian Mugridge’s forthcoming
book. In this excerpt, he discusses the challenges of narrating our past.
B
oth the founding schools were established in the first
decade of the twentieth century and were part of a conscious and
determined attempt to bring to the growing province of British
Columbia the benefits of an English public (i.e., private) school
education. The three founders of University School, W.W.
Bolton, J.C. Barnacle and R.V. Harvey, were all immigrants
who had themselves attended English public (private) schools.
The founder of St. Michael’s School, K.C. Symons, had also
attended such a school and went so far as to adopt the crest and
motto of his own school,
Dulwich College, for
the Canadian school
he established. The
emphasis on an Englishtype schooling was quite
explicit, clearly set out
in the statements of all
four individuals and in
the published materials
associated with each
school as well as in
external commentaries.
The English context
of the two founding
schools, as well as the
many others that developed in British Columbia at the same
time, has been described in the only comprehensive study of
this phenomenon, Jean Barman’s book, Growing Up British
in British Columbia: Boys in Private Schools. The title sets the
theme for the book. The schools were explicitly British and
they were for boys: the idea of coeducation in such schools or
even of similar schools for girls was many years in the future.
Dr. Barman shows clearly the overwhelmingly British influence
on the two founding schools. Following the announcement in
June, 1907 that an attempt was to be made to set up a “Great
School of the West” by establishing in Victoria “a large boarding
school modeled after those which are common in England,”
an institution that would “maintain the best traditions of the
English Public Schools at the same time keeping in mind the
special needs of colonial life.”1
While the context for each school was the same, the history
of each of them will be seen to be quite different. University
School was intended, from the outset, to be primarily a boarding
1
2
school with day boys seen as a not-always appreciated addition.
In his reminiscences of his early days there, W.R.G. Wenman
noted that day boys, “of which I was one, were the lowest form
of life,” though there were consolations like the fact that, when
others were obliged to take a cold shower after games, “I myself
very wisely postponed this activity until my return home.”2
St. Michael’s, on the other hand, was primarily a day school,
often appearing to be almost a neighbourhood school in Oak
Bay, with a small, sometimes non-existent, boarding house.
St. Michael’s was the
creation of its first
headmaster and one
might argue that the
history of this school
until 1969 was that
of the Symons family.
University
School,
however, was set up as a
limited company with
shares owned by the
three founders and was
managed – though not
always successfully –
as much more of a
business enterprise than
St. Michael’s. This largely explains what may seem to be
something of an imbalance in the treatment of the two schools
in the pages that follow: while frequently beset by similar
threats and crises, St. Michael’s remained under the control
of K.C. Symons as University School went through frequent
changes of administration. To illustrate this simply, by the time
he retired in 1949, K.C. Symons had been St. Michael’s only
headmaster while, in the same period, University School had
had seven headmasters, one of them twice.
Both schools were afflicted regularly by major and
unavoidable crises that affected their enrolments and hence
their stability. The first of these was the First World War that
arrived before either school had become firmly established; the
second was the Great Depression that followed the financial
collapse of 1929 and simply nullified the recovery that had
begun after the war; and the third was the Second World War
that, once again, occurred as both institutions were seeing
concrete signs of recovery after the Depression. It is difficult to
Jean Barman, Growing up British in British Columbia: Boys in Private School, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1984, p. 24.
W.R.G. Wenman, “University School As It was In The Beginning, Is Not, and Never Shall Be,” Heritage, Fall, 1987, p. 6.
post of head of the junior school. The offer was a remarkably
generous one but Symons apparently turned it down (although
the offer exists in writing, no response does). Later, in January,
1915, Symons was made another offer: “he [Bolton] did me
the great honour of suggesting that I take hold of his junior
school. But I had my own and even for the privilege of working
for him I could not leave it.”3 The time between then and
amalgamation was filled, as noted earlier, with crises, often
financial in nature. Amalgamation itself was precipitated by a
major financial crisis at the University School that would have
taken it into bankruptcy but there had been other occasions
over the years when either institution could have gone under.
The history of the combined schools, while not without its
crises and uncertainties, has, by contrast, been a much calmer
and more stable one.
FEATURE
avoid the conclusion, however, that St. Michael’s was the more
stable institution, not merely through the twenties and thirties
but also into the forties simply because its fortunes were guided
by its founder who, whatever his defects, provided a continuing,
consistent and firm form of governance. University School, on
the other hand, while going through the same external crises,
endured a period of uncertain and fragmented leadership that
came close to ruining it completely.
In considering the history of both institutions, one
frequently suspects that the truly surprising feature of their preamalgamation existence is that, by 1971 when they merged,
there were two schools left to combine. In the early years, there
was at least a possibility that the schools would have ceased to
exist separately. In 1911, W.W. Bolton, perhaps in an attempt to
eliminate the potential competition, offered K.C. Symons the
Watch for Ian Mugridge’s history of St. Michaels University School, to be published later this year.
3
Kyrle C. Symons, That Amazing Institution, (Victoria: privately published, nd), p.25. The date of this offer makes sense in light of R.V.
Harvey’s departure the previous year. In Symons’ scrapbook, however, there appears a letter, dated 15th July, 1911, offering Symons a post
taking “charge of the Preparatory Classes and … my place in the Teaching.” The offer was for “$120 a month the year round,” remarkably
high for the time. I have been unable to discover any written response to this offer but that is the case with all the Symons correspondence.
These two offers seem to have been quite separate and, in the second case at least, Bolton was, though its terms are unknown, presumably
trying to fill a major gap in the school’s staffing caused by Harvey’s departure.
From there to here
continued from page 21
major benefactors associated with buildings are Elsie Reynolds,
Russ Challoner ’53 and Brian Graves ’42.
Another form of donation is that which goes to the
endowment fund and those who give to this are directing their
vision and money to the future, in assisting promising students
to attend the school. The endowment fund has been given an
enormous and welcome boost by the late Bill Redpath ’43 as well
as by Hugh McGillivray ’64. I knew, taught and coached Hugh
McGillivray when he was a student here and it is so gratifying to
see him give back to the school in such a positive and generous
way. He continues to live up to his nickname of “Leader” as Hugh
does more than provide financial assistance – he also shows an
active interest in the students he supports. Support through
endowment is a most worthy cause at any time and particularly
so in light of present economic uncertainty.
A hundred years ago the school’s founders put their vision
to work. Others have continued to make this school into the
fine institution that it is today. While we must respect and learn
from the past, it is vital that we continue to put our vision
to work in order to meet the challenges which the future will
surely bring. The past and the future are indelibly blended. I
heard this quote recently: “If we throw away the past, then we
have no future.”
commendable progress; and one aspect which will be associated
with him is the physical change to the Senior Campus. Visitors
cannot but be impressed by the renovated Senior Campus and
Library, the Crothall Centre, John and Anne Schaffter Hall, and
the Monkman Athletic Centre which are the recent additions.
On this subject I would like to express admiration of the work
of the School’s architect, Paul Merrick, who has successfully
blended the original and traditional into the new buildings.
Impressive building programmes need impressive
benefactors, and in recent years the vision and generosity of
Graeme Crothall can only generate both admiration and
grateful thanks. He is the doyen of benefactors. The history
of St. Michael’s School mentions two notable donors. The first
was Mrs. Redpath, referred to by K.C. Symons as “the fairy
godmother” and the second was Princess Chikhmatoff (née
Butchart), who at the time of the move to Victoria Avenue
in 1959, donated the site for what is now the Junior School
Campus. In the Timmis era, University School’s two major
benefactors were the Brown family (R.A. Brown ’32) and
Stanley Barker who donated, respectively, Brown Hall and the
Barker Library. In recent years, in addition to Graeme Crothall,
Bill Monkman ’62, a student in my early years at University
School, has donated the Monkman Athletic Centre. Other
ALUMNI News
Tribute: Fenwick Lansdowne ’48-’52
Often described as the successor to John James Audubon, Fenwick Lansdowne was
renowned for his vivid depictions of nature, particularly birds. Environmentalist and
former politician David Anderson ’44-’47, a life-long friend, recalls “Fen’s” early years.
F
en was born in Hong Kong on August 8, 1937. Before his first
birthday he contracted a serious case of polio, leading to health
problems throughout his childhood and adult life, and ultimately
to his heart failure from post-polio syndrome on July 26 of
last year. The effects of the polio required Fen to use
crutches to get about, and later in his life he was
confined to a wheelchair.
Fen’s mother, Edith, brought Fen
to Victoria in 1941, shortly before
the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong
in December of that year. My
mother, sister, brother (Malcolm
’42-’47) and I had been evacuated
from Hong Kong a few months
before. Our mothers had been close
friends in Hong Kong long before
we were born, and the friendship
continued in Victoria. Fen’s father
Jim, who worked for the SinoBritish trading company Jardine
Matheson, remained in China
and was interned in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in North
China, while my father remained in Hong Kong and became a
prisoner of war in Hong Kong.
Edith was a gifted artist. She had been
born in North China and up to the
war had spent almost all of her life
there. Her paintings of Chinese
scenes and the ceramic birds that
she specialized in later in life are
collectors’ items. She was a major
influence on Fen’s development as
an artist. Edith both taught and
encouraged Fen to paint and she
was instrumental, when he was 12
or 13, in connecting his interest in
birds with his interest in painting.
Fen’s talent as an artist of birds was well
recognized by the time we attended Victoria High
School together in the early 1950s. Dr. Clifford
Carl, curator of the Provincial Museum, gave him a
job during his high school summers working with the
Pygmy Owl with Prey, painted in 1990 by Fenwick Lansdowne.
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.
ALUMNI NEWS
One of Fenwick’s early art projects while a student at
St. Michael’s School. From the collection of Michael Symons.
Despite world-wide fame, Fen lived a relatively quiet life
in Oak Bay with his wife Helen, daughter Emma and his son
Tristram, also an artist. Many mornings he would take a break
from painting in his studio cottage and take tea at the Blethering
Place Tea Room on Oak Bay Avenue. He was always elegantly
dressed, and was somewhat old-fashioned in appearance. In
fact, Fen appeared to be part of an earlier and more civil era
than the twentieth century. He was deeply troubled by the
destruction of so much of the natural world that had occurred
in his lifetime, and while he was loathe to lend his name to
causes, he sometimes remarked that he hoped his art would
help increase appreciation of nature.
museum’s collections of animals and birds. Amateur falconer
Frank Beebe and biologist Charlie Guiget were both working
there at the time and both gave Fen great encouragement and
help. It was here that Fen acquired his knowledge of the anatomy
of birds, the structure of the muscles, and the bones and
ligaments that lay beneath the feathered surface – a knowledge
which made his paintings extraordinarily true to life.
The Provincial Museum mounted an exhibition of his
paintings – his first – when Fen was 15 or 16 years old. This
exhibition resulted in John Livingston, then the executive
director of the Audubon Society of Canada, to learn of his
work, and Livingston arranged for an exhibition of Fen’s work
in Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum in 1956, when Fen was
19. Reviews of this exhibition were glowing. T. M. Short, a
noted wildlife artist of the era, described Fen as the most
amazing discovery in wildlife art of a generation. Melville
(Bud) Feheley, a Toronto art dealer, saw the exhibition, and
subsequently traveled to Victoria to sign Fen up for a five-year
exclusive contract, under which Feheley purchased all Fen’s
work, allowing Fen to concentrate entirely on painting.
Exhibitions in New York, London, Edinburgh, and
Washington followed. Five major fine art books organized by
Feheley – Birds of the Northern Forest, the two-volume Birds
of the Eastern Forest, and finally the two-volume Birds of the
West Coast – extended Fen’s reputation to an even wider
audience. Bud Feheley’s substantial collection was left to the
University of Victoria, where it is hoped they will be put on
permanent display.
Fen frequently downplayed the description of himself as
an artist, and sometimes would instead describe himself as an
illustrator of birds, or as a portrait painter of birds. Technical
accuracy and detailed representation were hallmarks of his work.
These factors no doubt influenced the choice of Fen to illustrate
Dillon Ripley’ book Rails of the World. Fen’s illustrations and
Ripley’s text were a spectacular match. The paintings led to
another round of high-level exhibitions throughout the United
States. Some of the originals of these paintings hang in a thirdfloor corridor of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa.
Another major project was the Rare Birds of China, sponsored
by another wartime refugee to Victoria and St. Michael’s old boy,
David Newbigging ’41-’45, who joined his (and Fen’s) father’s old
company and became in time the managing director of Jardine
Matheson in Hong Kong. Jardine’s sponsored the project, which
included paintings of some 32 birds. The limited portfolios of
reproductions were superbly produced, and are now in museums
and art galleries world-wide. It was a return for Fen to his China
roots, and involved extensive and tiring travel through China to
visit bird habitats and museums. Incidentally, a half-dozen of
Fen’s watercolours are to be found on the main staircase of the
Legislative Buildings in Hong Kong.
Q&A with ALUMNI
Q&A
Marvin Nicholson ’89
Over the past few years, Marvin Nicholson
’89 has transitioned from golf caddy to
presidential candidate “chief of stuff” to
President Obama’s trip director; Laura
Authier asks how he landed himself on
Air Force One.
The day that US President Barack Obama
signed the stimulus bill in Denver, I was at my
desk, slogging through a pile of emails. The
phone rang – a number I didn’t recognize –
and I answered it with suspicion. When
I heard the hiss of dead air normally
signalling telemarketers, my hang-up reflex
twitched, but then a voice greeted me with:
“This is Air Force One, please stand by.”
I would have definitely hung up at that
point, had I not been attempting to connect
with White House trip director Marvin
Nicholson ’89. For those who don’t know
his story, Marvin (or Marv, as he likes to
Marv Nicholson confers with his boss President Barack Obama.
be called), fell into politics long after he
left SMUS, some time after completing
his degree in geography at the University of Western Ontario,
When Marv called, Air Force One had just left Denver
and a brief interval after following a girlfriend to Cambridge,
and they were heading for a stop in Phoenix before
Massachusetts. He was working at a surf and snowboard shop
going to Ottawa for Obama’s first foreign visit. As our
when he met John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee
conversation shows, he has an easy-going temperament
in the 2004 US election, and the rest has been made history by
and self-deprecating sense of humour central to the media
profiles in publications like the New York Times and the Boston
profiles that have depicted him as an engaging oddity in the
Globe, as well as a stint on a reality show that followed 2004
polarized world of US politics.
campaign staffers.
Q
Your career path
seemed to follow a very
different trajectory than
most SMUS grads. Are
you surprised by
where that path
has taken you?
Q
In your yearbook you quoted Ferris Bueller’s
famous line: “life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop
and look around once in a while, you might miss it.”
That still seems really appropriate for you – would
you agree?
To make the world
A I’m a big believer in not taking yourself too seriously.
can get pretty crazy but I think it’s important to take
a better place ... it’s going A Yes I am, very Life
the time to appreciate the world around you.
surprised. I’ve
to require the skills and
Q How have your ideas about life changed from
been extremely
talents of people from all l u c k y. I w a s your high school days?
certainly not at
A For better or worse my ideas on life haven’t changed a
over the world working
the top of SMUS’
great deal since school. I think it’s important to be good to
graduating class
and to always try new and interesting things. So far
together in a cooperative of 1989 and after people
it’s worked out okay. Of course, some things have changed –
university I spent
I don’t find driving up and down Mount Tolmie at high
global effort.
several years working
speeds as awesome as I did back then.
a number of odd jobs –
bartender, surf shop sales
dude and golf caddy to name a
few. Where I am now is the result of being in the right place at
the right time and always practicing what I learned from my days
at SMUS – work hard, be nice and treat people with respect.
Q What qualities did you see in John Kerry and later
Barack Obama that made you want to work for them?
A
They’re extraordinary. They are both very caring,
extremely intelligent and highly driven people who share
Q&A with ALUMNI
Q&A
Marianne Anderson ’80
Thirty years ago, the face of St. Michaels University School
changed forever as the first girls entered Grades 10 through
12. Marianne Anderson ’80, who started that year in
Grade 11, would go on to mark another SMUS milestone
as our first head girl. Gillian Donald ’85 caught up with
her recently for a conversation.
Q
You joined the school in the first year of coeducation. What was it like when you started? It has been
said there was a strong old boys culture at the school in
those years. Did you see that? Was it tough to fit in?
A
I came to SMUS in Grade 11 from a public school so
I was used to the co-educational environment. What was
different was the ratio of girls to boys – there were only
30-odd girls and about 300 boys in the senior school. It was
more a question of easily standing out than trying to fit in. I
think the boys had more adjusting to do as the old boys culture
was still pretty strong, but for the most part, I felt the boys were
pretty happy to have girls in the classrooms (and the dances!)
Q What made you want to attend the school in the first
year of co-education?
A
I was very keen to change schools as I felt that I wasn’t
being challenged in my previous school (a defining moment
was when I was painting my fingernails in my math class out
of boredom). I became interested in SMUS after seeing their
advertisements for the BCTV scholarships. As well, my dad
[Malcolm Anderson ’42-’47] had gone to St. Michael’s when
he was a boy. As soon as I started at SMUS, my parents and I
both knew it had been a great decision. I was being challenged
and pushed in a way that I had not been before (by comparison
to painting my nails, I was now in the top quartile math class
Marianne with her husband Andrew and daughter Olivia.
with about 20 other students, most of whom were much better
at math than me – it was a great wake-up call.)
Q
When you started at SMUS, and later, when you
became the first head girl, did you have a sense that you
were participating in something ground-breaking?
A
At the time, nothing seemed particularly groundbreaking. Later, however, I did feel that SMUS was really a
critical juncture in my education. I became really engaged in
school and more ambitious about the future.
Q
What are the most valuable lessons you learned at
the school?
A
I credit SMUS with having some excellent teachers who
could impart their knowledge while maintaining a long-term
bond with a school and its students, and keep their sense of
humour. SMUS also had a real community spirit and you
knew most of the students not only in your year, but in the
years above and below.
John Schaffter, right, with SMUS’ first girls, 1979.
Q&A with ALUMNI
Marianne Anderson ’80
Q
What have been the most important lessons you’ve
learned since leaving SMUS?
A
The best lessons I have learned are to work hard, take
advantage of opportunities in career and travel and stay in
touch with the interesting people you meet, especially those
from outside Canada.
Q
You graduated from Queen’s with a degree in
computer science and went on to earn an MBA at
Western and make a career in investment banking. How
did your ambitions and career plans change as you went
through university?
A
Like most kids in the early 80s, I really had no idea about
career plans when I started university. I took computing science
because I was good at maths (but not smart enough to stick
to pure maths – I liked the more applied side that computing
science brought). My first job after my undergraduate degree
was in computer programming and I only lasted a year – it was
not for me long-term, but it meant that I went back to school
to get a MBA where my career outlook broadened dramatically.
In the 1980s, everyone was quite taken with money and so the
investment banking career was very popular – demanding, fastpaced, well compensated and full of ambitious young people.
Q
You have continued your involvement with the
school over the years in many capacities, including
serving as a governor on our board. What’s motivated
you to maintain your connections with the school?
A
I have always felt indebted to SMUS for making my
final high school years so rich and for encouraging me to
apply to universities further afield. As well, my parents still
live in Victoria (in the same house as I grew up in) and I love
to visit them.
Q
A few years ago, you told us you were thinking
of going back to school to study education. Is that
something you pursued? Why the shift in careers? How
had your thinking or world view changed in that time to
make you want to pursue something different?
A
Last year, I completed my master’s of education at U of
Toronto. It was great to be a student again, although I was
woefully behind the times in terms of accessing technology
and research methods. I am still “retired” but I hope to get
involved in some initiatives that can combine my interest in
education with the business skills I developed through my
investment banking days.
Q
The school is pursuing a vision of developing its
students with a sense of themselves as citizens of the
world and a sense of their obligation to use their skills
and education to make the world a better place. What do
you think of that? Is that very different from the education
you remember when you were a student at SMUS?
A
The concept of being a “global citizen” didn’t exist when
I was at SMUS. I think it is wonderful that students today
incorporate subjects like leadership, environmental stewardship
and international issues into their education. Without a doubt,
this outlook will place SMUS grads in a better position, both
personally and professionally, for the future.
The best lessons I
have learned are to work
hard, take advantage of
opportunities in career
and travel and stay in
touch with the interesting
people you meet, especially
those from outside
Canada.
Q&A with ALUMNI
Q&A
Collin Yong ’76
Despite graduating more than three decades ago, Collin
Yong ‘76 could be the poster boy for our new vision.
He has spent much of his time in the last few years
working on humanitarian projects around the world.
Gillian Donald ’85 chatted with this doctor and musician
by email.
Q
Can you give us the broad strokes of where your
career has taken you since you left SMUS?
A
Q
You’ve been involved in a lot of international efforts.
How did that start?
A
I was offered a medical exchange scholarship by the
Charles Loh Foundation and, in 2000, I set off on my first
international medical mission to remote parts of China. This
mission was to foster international fellowship and medical
Since his first international medical mission in 2000, Collin Yong
has been all over the world with a number of non-governmental
health organizations.
exchange. Thereafter I joined the Rotary Club of Vancouver
Chinatown through which I went to the Philippines to set up
a pediatric unit in a small city in the outer provinces.
Q Tell us about your involvement with Rose Charities.
A In 2003, when the devastating tsunami hit Southeast
Asia and South Asia, I received an urgent phone call from the
Association of Medical Doctors of Asia and Rose Charities
saying that pediatricians with international experience were
needed. I left with a team for the most eastern part of Sri
Lanka, where the Tsunami had hit the hardest.
Seeing the destructive force of nature and the devastation, I
was left with a sense of helplessness. It was clear that the world
is a vulnerable place. But I also saw the resiliency and humility
of the human population in times of need. This was a lifechanging experience. On my return to Canada I was recruited
to be one of the directors of Rose Charities.
As my work continued at BC Children’s, I was soon known
in NGO circles for international health. I was then recruited
by Rotaplast International, a cleft lip and palate group which
travels around the world doing cleft lip and palate repairs. My
involvement with Rose Charities, Rotary club and Rotaplast
International has taken me all over the world.
Q
What have you learned about international aid
during your travels?
A
Working with NGOs throughout the world and having
travelled to places where no governmental agencies would go,
I realize there are two aspects to international health: medical
relief and education.
Medical relief allows teams to enter areas of disasters either
from war or natural disasters to quickly provide medical aid or
relief. This kind of work can be done by local teams and can be
mobilized quickly, but not necessarily easily or safely, as we saw
with the tsunami and the Szechuan earthquake. Unfortunately
this kind of work is short-lived and usually unsustainable in the
long run.
I left SMUS in 1976 and then enrolled in UVic where
I became very interested in international culture and human
behaviour. I went on to obtain a BSc in neuropsychology, an
area that made me want to learn more about the human mind
and body.
An opportunity came up at UBC for a research associate
position in physiology. I took the job and managed to publish
a couple of papers in kidney research. My supervisor was so
impressed by my enthusiasm that I was recommended to attend
Cambridge University to pursue a PhD. I jumped on the plane
with no hesitation and was totally mesmerized by Cambridge
University.
I visited not only one of the greatest historical universities
in the world, but was able to appreciate the cultural and
historical aspects of how the British Empire had shaped and
influenced the world. There I read about physicians who had
traveled to Africa, China, India, and Southeast Asia to do
medical work. I also had the opportunity to visit the London
School of Tropical Medicine which has archives of work done
by physicians, naturalists and scientists. It was during this time
that I decided medicine was what I really wanted to do. Nine
years later I returned to Vancouver with renewed jubilation and
enthusiasm.
I wanted to work with children as I felt that this group
remains the most vulnerable to diseases and disasters so I
enrolled at UBC for pediatrics training. Five years later with a
sub-specialty in biochemical diseases, I was offered a position to
pursue further training at Boston Children’s and Massachusetts
General Hospital in Boston. However with a very young and
growing family (a son, Elliot and a daughter, Charlotte), I felt
that it was time to settle down and to make a living! I was offered
a position at BC Children’s Hospital and have been there since.
I am presently a Clinical Assistant Professor at UBC.
Q&A with ALUMNI
Marvin Nicholson ’89
a desire to make the world a better place. I feel very lucky to
have been able to work so closely with both of them.
Q
How has your job changed now that you’re in the
White House instead of on the campaign trail?
A
Overall, the job is very much the same but now I have
a lot more support. During the campaign because of the
hectic daily schedule I would find myself pitching in and
doing a number of different jobs to make sure everything
worked. Now with the support of the White House and the
United States military things are more regimented and my
role is much more supervisory. Probably one of the biggest
differences will be the international travel. In addition
to traveling on the trips with the President I will visit
those countries in advance and negotiate with their governments
to make sure the President’s visits are as successful as possible.
Q
The school is pursuing a vision of developing its
students to have a sense of themselves as citizens of the
world with an obligation to use their skills and education
to make the world a better place. What do you think
of that? Is that very different from the education you
remember when you were a student at SMUS?
interconnected world I think it’s crucial they emphasize it even
more today. To make the world a better place we are going to
have to find solutions to very complicated problems like global
warming, poverty or nuclear proliferation and it’s going to
require the skills and talents of people from all over the world
working together in a cooperative global effort. People need to
understand that we are all in this together.
Q What happened to your weather channel aspirations?
A That aspiration is merely on hold. One of my dream jobs is
still to be a weather man in a place like San Diego or Hawaii –
“It’s going to be 75 and sunny – forever.” How great of a job
would that be?!
Q
In an interview with the Boston Globe in 2004, you
said about the people around Kerry: “you can say that
John Kerry likes to surround himself with all kinds of
people. There are career politicians, there are experts,
there are academics. And then there’s me.” Is there a word
that describes you?
A Is there one word that describes me? Sure – tall.
A
SMUS certainly instilled that belief in me when I was
there and now in an ever-shrinking, more competitive and
Collin Yong ’76
Education itself allows long-term
management of problems or situations,
but it takes an enormous amount of
personnel, time and organization.
This is the hardest part of
international mission whether
in health or other aspects of aid.
Billions of dollars go towards
international aid – but are we
really making a difference?
Perhaps the only way is through
education, whether it is in health
or just basic schooling.
Children around the world
continue to die in unacceptable
high numbers each day. Advances
in science, medicine, healthcare and technology
have made no difference. More than 3 million children go
without food and medical care each day. As a pediatrician living
in a great country like Canada, how can I turn a blind eye to these
facts? How can these issues be ignored? I feel compelled to
provide my skills and expertise to make a difference
in individual lives. I believe that helping one child
or one family to overcome an impoverishing
situation will make a difference in humanity.
I believe that helping
one child or one
Q What role did your time at SMUS
family to overcome an play in setting you on the path you’re
on today?
impoverishing situation A SMUS has given me an enquiring
the tools to seek and embrace
will make a difference life.mindTheandexposure
to a broad education and
the time spent with students from all over the
in humanity.
world only fueled my desire to see humanity.
I have set off along the path of humanity and
I am still travelling. I will conclude with this
quote from Andy Warhol:
They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to
change them yourself.
by Gillian Donald ’85
M
anoj Sood ’81 is a well-known Canadian actor and
comedian. Currently, he stars as Baber in “Little Mosque on
the Prairie,” an award-winning television series on the CBC.
Manoj has appeared in more than 40 television and feature
film productions, including Human Cargo and Meltdown, both
of which also star fellow alumnus Leslie Hope ’82. He also
appears in the recent big screen production The Watchmen, for
which Tim Williams ’83, yet another fellow alumnus, who
orchestrated and conducted the score.
Manoj entered SMUS as a Grade 10 student in 1978,
having come from a junior high school in Calgary that at the
time was not a great place for a kid who was a visible minority.
When he arrived at SMUS he was particularly impressed by the
diversity of the student body, which consisted of students from
all over the world. Manoj remembers David Penaluna and Peter
Gardiner fondly as teachers who inspired him and influenced
his life choices. “I remember Mr. Penaluna really sparked my
interest in English and writing and I really enjoyed my classes
in Biology with Peter Gardiner.”
Through his work as an actor, Manoj has had the
opportunity to travel extensively. For him, the ability to see the
world through the eyes of someone else and experience diverse
cultures and values has been a large part of his success as an actor.
Manoj landed his first
role, an American
movie-of-the-week, in
1994. Previously his
only acting experience
was through classes – and a part in the SMUS production of A
Midsummer Night’s Dream. “Acting was something I had always
been interested in but only got into 15 years ago. Initially I
didn’t have the courage to pursue it and also doubted if I could
find any success at it. Finally, in the early 90s I thought it was
time to start doing what truly interested me. I took some lessons
and after my first audition was offered the part, now many years
later... here I am.”
He has been a passionate fly fisherman and amateur
astronomer since he was a child and when he is not acting you
will find him fly fishing or gazing into the universe with his
son. In fact Manoj recently reconnected with SMUS classmate
Willem “Wim” Vanderspek ’79 through their mutual interest
in fly fishing, and Manoj was recently interviewed by Outdoor
Canada magazine about his passion for the sport. Parents
Canada also recently featured Manoj in a cover story.
“Little Mosque on the Prairie” airs Mondays at 8:00 p.m.
on CBC Television.
FOCUS on ALUMNI
In the News: Manoj Sood ’81
In the News: James Ellis ’79
by Peter Gardiner and Erin Anderson
A
“Once the iPS cells have been
generated from patients with
heart abnormalities, cystic fibrosis,
autism or other diseases, they can
be used to model the disease,”
explains James. “These studies will
facilitate a better understanding of
the disease process, and allow the James Ellis ’79
expansion of limitless numbers of
patient-specific cells to use for drug screens to identify novel
therapeutics and treatments.”
As part of the research section of The Hospital for
Sick Children, the Ellis Lab is working towards treatment
for several specific disorders, including Rett Syndrome, a
neurodevelopmental disorder that affects girls. The team is also
working on using viruses to treat Sickle Cell Anemia through
gene therapy.
James completed his undergraduate degree in microbiology
and immunology at McGill University and his PhD at both
Mount Sinai Hospital and the Department of Medical Genetics
at the University of Toronto. After a post-doctoral fellowship at
the National Institute for Medical Research in London, James
joined the Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics at the
University of Toronto, where he is currently Associate Professor
as well as Senior Scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children.
lumnus James Ellis ’79 was in the news recently for his
collaborative work on stem cells, which have been heralded as
a potential cure-all for many kinds of damage and disease, but
whose development has been controversial due to their sources,
namely human embryos. In 2007, scientists discovered a way to
alter human skin cells so that they act as embryonic cells, which
are capable of becoming any human tissue, which has opened
up a realm of possibility.
“It is now possible to reprogram human skin cells into
stem cells that can generate any cell type of the body,” explains
James, who is co-scientific director of the Ontario (iPS) Induced
Pluripotent Stem Cell Facility.
iPS cells are created through retroviruses, which operate by
incorporating their DNA into a host cell’s DNA. Researchers
splice specific genomes into the viruses, which then carry the
desired DNA into the human cells.
This winter, James and his colleagues teamed up with
researchers in Japan who pioneered this reprogramming
method, first in mice cells and then in human cells. Now,
the two groups collaborate, sharing their research results and
methods. Their goal is to discover more about iPS cells and
find practical applications for the adaptive cells, such as how
they can be used to treat patients and learn more about how
different diseases progress.
Bob Snowden
and Steve Martin
The 3rd Annual SMUS Alumni & Friends Golf Invitational
Victoria Golf Club, September 18, 2008
by Nick Grant ’84
O
Andrew Maxwell, Mark Ely,
Damian Grant and Nick Grant
Alec Johnston, Steve Tate,
Chris Noel, Rob Connolly
The Angus Foursome:
David, Sasha, Jennifer
and David
n September 18, 2008, over 130 members of the SMUS family
gathered at the majestic Victoria Golf Course for the third annual
Alumni and Friends Golf Tournament. By any measure, the day was a
tremendous success.
All players certainly enjoyed the beautiful Victoria course and its
testing layout along the Oak Bay waterfront. While the day did offer
the challenge of some windy weather by the ocean, it was mitigated by a
friendly and forgiving scramble format, and by a nice barbeque treat from
Sodexho awaiting players on the 13th tee. Plenty of on course prizes and
a souvenir bag full of goodies for every player also added to the fun.
A lively dinner in the stately clubhouse followed the golf. It was a great
evening of excellent food and drink, plentiful prizes, a silent auction and
a raucous “heads or tails” competition for a flat screen television. Photos
and video of the day’s play shown during the dinner were well received and
nobody seemed to want to miss his or her swing being shown on the big
screen. But of course the real activity of the evening was the conversation:
great remembrances and tales about lives and times at the old school. It truly
was an excellent opportunity to connect with current parents, old friends
and share experiences with alumni from across different eras. The added
bonus was that all proceeds raised were donated to a bursary programme to
support deserving children and grandchildren of alumni.
Many thanks go to Cliff Yorath, who continued to work on this
project into the first few months of his retirement, the event sponsors,
the Golf Club staff, and the many faculty and staff of the school who
helped make the day a success.
It is clear that the Alumni and Friends Golf Tournament is quickly
becoming a must on the SMUS calendar. The 2009 Tournament will
again be held at Victoria Golf Club on September 17 and registration
details will be available on the SMUS website by May 2009. Sign up early
to reserve your place as this event is sure to sell out.
Mieke Wizinsky
Mark Murr
Class of ’66: Colin Dykes, John
McIntyre, Jim Wenman, David Helm
Attendees
New York, October 2008
New York, October 2008
Michelle Pollard ‘89 and Michelle (Greene)
Jones ‘86 with Bob Snowden
Doug Easdon ‘88, Stephen Elliott ‘83,
Jong-Tek Ban ‘95
Toronto, October 2008
Toronto, October 2008
Bert Archer ‘86, Greg Nicholson ‘05 and
Wes Thorpe ‘86
Joan Snowden, Marianne Anderson ’80,
Linda (Matuga) McCulloch ’79 and Warren
Yu ’79
Edmonton, November 2008
Toronto attendees:
Wes Thorpe, Alex Austin, Greg
Nicholson, Linda (Matuga) McCulloch,
Marianne Anderson, Michael Code,
Bert Archer, David Kim, Keir Wilmut,
Warren Yu, Simon Ibell
Edmonton attendees:
John Hyndman ’74, Zandre Clarke
(guest), David Angus ’62, George
Clark ’59, Christopher Dixon ’96,
Susan Angus (guest), Frank van
Staalduinen ’84, Spencer Goodale ’84,
Jessie Patrick ’04, Joe Sheldrake ’85,
Nick Faryna ’03, Richard Schutte ’86,
Roger Silcox ’63, Laura Miller ’08,
Nicholas Pawluck ’08, Michael Strocel
’06, Randy Schafer ’79
Calgary attendees:
Ryan Jennings ’99, Katherine Hill
’99, Rob Oswald ’76, John Campbell
’02, Joanne Wynn ’02, Lorraine Nault
(parent), Alastair Handley ’81, Lara
Gaede, Lex Bailey ’82, Brian Pullman
’86, Corrina Mick ’01, Keith Rogers
’88, Kathleen Jones ’01, Merlin Ho,
Natasha Schorb ’96, Megan (Barnett)
Smith ’96, Patrick Mitchell ’94,
Vanessa Lah ’07, Eddy Cooper ’01,
Lauren Douglas (guest), Sebastian
Elawny ’95, Elizabeth Weir ’07
Calgary, November 2008
New York attendees:
Sally Chang, Jennie Tsai, Kevin Sun,
Scott Cale, John Phillips, Christian
Baldia, Jong-Taek Ban, Jong-Huyn Ban,
Michelle Pollard, Douglas Freeman,
Connie Freeman, Michelle (Greene)
Jones, Doug Easdon, Brett Jones, Salim
Ramji, Winnie Poon, Stephen Elliott
ALUMNI NEWS
Alumni Receptions
ALUMNI News
Alumni Receptions
Vancouver, February 2008
Attendees
Vancouver, February 2008
Marta Salgado, Jeanne Lee, Sean Chen,
Sarah Frew, all class of ‘92
Kelowna, November 2008
Henry Boas ‘54 and Albert Goward ‘63
Vancouver attendees:
Jong-Hyun Ban, Andrew Barry, Marcus Bell, Michael
Bell, Emma Brownlee, Hugh Burnett, Leo Caffaro, Reid
Chambers, Sean Chen, Stephen Cheung, Alisa Cooper,
Adam Dowhy, Victor Drohomirecki, Joanna Forbes,
Rory Forbes, Jen Ford, Mike Ford, Sarah Frew, Rachel
Gardiner, Peter Genge, Olivier Gervais-Harreman, Mary
Ellen Glover, Dirk Gombos, Helen Gosniak, Brian
Graves, Ted Hardy, George and Arleigh Hayhoe, Eric
Kerr, Neil Klompas, Jeanne Lee, Pete Leekha, Catherine
Loiacono, Duncan & Haleh Magnus, Jennifer Matchett,
Andrea McDonald, Andew McVie, Kyle Michael, Alex
Millar, Parker Moore, Ian Mugridge, Bassim Nahhas,
Byron Nutting, Tony Osachoff, Jason Owen, Warren
Pears, Jon Preston, Mike Preston, Gareth Rees, Laurie
Richards, Marta Salgado, Catherine Sas, Graham
Snowden, Manoj Sood, Nigel Stoodley, Steve Tate,
John Taylor, Takaya Ueda, John Upton, Adrienne
Watt, Mike Wilson, Tony & Mary Jane Wilson, Alan
Yong, Collin Yong, Derek Yule.
Kelowna attendees:
Henry Boas ’54, Heather Buckingham ’08, Bruce
Falkins ’70, David Finnis ’72-’75, Albert Goward
’63, Jeremy Harris ’92, Eric Heffernan ’73, Kathy
Heffernan, Bob Lawrie ’54-’60, Lynn Scott, Peter
Rochfort ’56-’60, Krys Rochfort, Ron Solmer, Susan
Stewart, Kelly Brown (Guest)
Edinburgh attendees:
Brittney Martin ’08, Quentin Bregg ’98, Kimberly
Bregg (guest), Jessica Harvey ’08, Dani Ward ’08,
David Wingrove ’81, James MacDonald Reid ’67,
Donald MacLean ’90
Edinburgh, January 2008
SMUS Alumni & Community Celebration May 1–3, 2009
Friday, May 1
6:00 pm
Unveiling of the statue honouring
Reg Wenman at the Wenman Cricket Pavilion
(everyone welcome)
After unveiling (approximately 6:30 pm)
Reception at Reynolds House for all alumni
from the Class of ‘69 and earlier
Reception for all other alumni in the
main marquee with complimentary
appetizers and drinks
8:00 pm
Class reunion gatherings in various locations
Saturday, May 2
10:30 am
Alumni Association Annual General Meeting
(Copeland Lecture Theatre)
11:30 am
Complimentary brunch in Brown Hall for
all attending AGM and/or chapel
1:00 pm
Alumni and grad class chapel service
After chapel service
Presentation by Gareth Rees ‘85, President of
the SMUS Alumni Association of grad bears
(Heritage Walk - Crothall Quad)
1:30 – 5:00 pm
Campus guided tours
Campus store and archives open
1:30 – 4:00 pm
SMUS International Students’ Cultural
Extravaganza: ethnic arts, activities and
entertainment featuring students from India,
Korea, Japan, Mexico, the Caribbean, China and
Germany, international food and tea garden
1:45 pm
Squash tournament
(Brian Graves Squash Courts)
Billy G Alumni Basketball Classic (Double Gym)
Cash bar and snacks at Wenman Pavilion
3:30 pm
1st XV rugby vs Oak Bay
5:00 pm
Complimentary barbeque and cash bar in
main marquee featuring music from Nova
Sunday, May 3
1:00 pm
Cricket match (students vs. alumni)
Alumni Girls Basketball Classic (Double Gym)
We look forward to seeing you!
alumni
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
The Alumni Updates section is a very
important part of our School Ties
magazine. It is a fabulous way to keep in
touch with your former classmates and
teachers, and also a great forum to share
the interesting and enriching experiences
of your lives after SMUS.
Please take a moment to tell us about
your studies, travels, careers, weddings
and additions to your family.
We also encourage you to register on our
alumni email directory. It’s simple! Visit
the SMUS Alumni website to register
(http://alumni.smus.bc.ca/).
If you would prefer to give us a call,
Louise Winter can be reached at
250-370-6176. Many thanks for keeping
in touch!
Louise Winter
Alumni Relations
(louise.winter@smus.bc.ca)
updates
The ’50s
David Huntley ’53 has finally let go of
his physics laboratory at Simon Fraser
University. He is the longest serving
member of the SFU community, having
arrived in July of 1965 before the University
opened – everyone who was there then
has since departed one way or another.
Although formal retirement occurred in
2002, that simply gave him more time for
research and family. He is probably best
known for the invention of optical dating,
a method of determining how much
time has elapsed since sand or silt was last
exposed to sunlight. The method is used
worldwide in Quaternary geology.
David is now spending most of
his time helping with the campaign to
get people to vote for the BC Single
Transferable Vote (BC-STV) electoral
system in the referendum in May. When
the BC Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral
Reform recommended it, he studied it and
quickly realized that it was the electoral
system that serves the people the best.
Russ Fulton ’58 took “mandatory”
retirement from his job as President of
Howe Sound Pulp and Paper in 2005 (all
employees must retire at age 65) but he
was asked to stay on in that position for
another year and a half. After that, Russ
took full retirement for the next eight
months, but feeling restless, he started
to do some consulting work in China,
USA and here in Canada. Russ is now
involved with a company in Oregon that
keeps him occupied a few days a month,
which is just right!
for many years in theatre (off-off-off
Broadway and a touring company in
Ireland) and then switched to journalism.
Venturing out to what was then the ‘Wild
East,’ I somehow landed a job as a radio
news presenter in Bucharest, Romania. If
you’ve ever passed through the Balkans
and heard a familiar voice... that was
probably me.
“Life is a bit more tranquil now. For
the past decade or so, I’ve been living
in Edinburgh with my partner of 15
years. We both teach literature and film
at Edinburgh University. I write in my
spare time, not that I have a great deal.
SMUS seems a long way away, but it’s
always great to hear from old friends. I’ve
concluded that the aim of education is
to teach you what you don’t know – and
send you out to look for it. So if you’ve
just graduated and are asking yourself
a lot of questions, you can count your
education a success.”
Congratulations to Maureen Gordon
’88 and her husband, Kevin Smith,
whose company Maple Leaf Adventures,
based in Victoria, was recently named
by National Geographic magazine as
one of the world’s top adventure travel
companies. Maple Leaf Adventures
takes about 150 guests a year (only
eight at a time) on wildlife and cultural
cruises to remote coastline areas in BC
and Alaska. In the National Geographic
survey, Maple Leaf scored 94.2 points
out of 100 overall, including a perfect
100 score in a customer satisfaction
category after interviews with several
The ’80s
David Wingrove ’81 attended our first
Edinburgh alumni reception in January,
and provided this update: “How long has
it been? I’m starting to lose count. Anyway,
it’s definitely time for an update.
“Life since school and university has
been an adventure. Having no aptitude
for a stable and well-organised career, I’ve
compromised and had several. I worked
Maple Leaf Adventures, the eco-tourism
business run by Maureen Gordon ‘88 and
her husband Kevin Smith, has caught the
notice of National Geographic magazine.
Last May’s 20-year reunion inspired the
class of ’88 to make a donation that will be
appreciated any SMUS student who ever
ventured up MountTolmie. Craig Elder ’88
told us the story in a recent email:
“Mt. Tolmie was a frequent gathering
place for our class. During our 20 year
reunion a few of us felt nostalgic and
ventured up the mount and gathered
at ‘our spot.’ We noticed that one of
the picnic tables had been replaced and
was donated in memory of someone.
We also noticed that there were others
that needed replacing. I brought up the
idea to fellow classmates and contacted
Saanich Parks and Rec and looked into a
table of our own. Almost a year later we
have our table and a legacy not only for
our benefit but also to benefit a place that
gave us so many fond memories.”
If this hill could talk: Mount Tolmie gets a
new bench courtesy of the class of 1988.
The ’90s
Laura Bradbury ’90 sent this update in
February:
“I haven’t written in to give an update
in many years, but even here in France
I receive my issues of School Ties and
devour it immediately to find out the latest
news of SMUS and my alumni friends.
I remember fondly when Rob Wilson
came over to visit SMUS students
studying at Oxford University, where I
completed a Bachelor of Jurisprudence
between 1996 and 1998. No, I never did
end up practicing law, but I have been
keeping busy!
In 2004, my husband Franck and I
moved back to Burgundy, to the village
nestled amongst the vineyards where
Franck grew up, along with our daughters
Charlotte (now 9) and Camille (now 7).
We now have four fully-restored
and charming vacation rentals in and
around the stunning medieval town of
Beaune that we rent out to guests from
all over the world. In the past year we
have redesigned and launched our new
ALUMNI UPDATES
past guests. It was also the top BC travel
company on the overall list and fourth
best of all Canadian-based companies.
For more information, and to view some
wonderful photos, visit their website at
www.mapleleafadventures.com.
St. Michael’s Centennial Notice 2010
Nihil Magnum Nisi Bonum
February 2009
Dear St. Michael’s Old Boys,
Next year will mark the 100th Anniversary of my grandfather’s dream of
having his own school. From an extremely modest beginning in 1910 he was
able to build a school that not only was he proud of but the boys who went
there were very proud of as well.
1910
2010
The family of students from a small school like St. Michael’s are a close-knit group with some very common bonds
that transcend what years they attended. In the case of St. Michael’s it was the magic of my grandfather (K.C. Symons)
my Uncle Kyrle (K.W. Symons) and my dad (Mr. Ned), their families and members of the staff. I was fortunate enough
to be raised in the school and the boarding house and thus was able to meet and get to know many of you as well as
know a side of the staff members that you didn’t see.
Next year, 2010, there is going to be a celebratory weekend marking the centennial of the founding of St. Michael’s
School. Discussions are under way as to exactly when it will be and what form the weekend will take.
Sincerely,
Michael E. Symons
Phone 250-598-1550
Email: mikes951@shaw.ca
I would ask that as many of the Old Boys who attended St. Michael’s School prior to amalgamation attend to renew
friendships, create new ties and in some cases become reacquainted with what is now the very vibrant and strong
St Michaels University School. If you were at the school for a year or were a ‘lifer’ we would love to see you. If you
have any memorabilia you could share with the school for the archives (dig through those old trunks or photo albums)
this would be greatly appreciated. Please contact any of your St. Michael’s friends who may not be in contact with
the School and have them get their information to either the School or myself. I am looking forward to a wonderful
weekend and hope to see as many of you as possible.
ALUMNI UPDATES
website www.graperentals.com, gathered
a dedicated following for my blog at
www.grapejournal.blogspot.com which
chronicles our life here in Burgundy, and
last but not least, had our third daughter,
baby Clémentine!
2009 promises to be just as full. My
husband Franck has launched Grape
Trips, which are week-long biking, wine
tasting, and culinary adventures for
guests staying at our properties. We are
also putting the finishing touches on the
13th-century stone wine cellar that we
have been restoring under the streets of
Beaune. Many of our repeat guests wanted
a place to properly store their precious
bottles of Burgundy wine, and now we
will be able to provide that for them, as
well as provide them with the ideal spot to
enjoy a true Burgundian wine tasting.
I have been delighted to host some
SMUS alumni here in Burgundy: Tanya
Hubbard ’90, Scott Sullivan ’90, my
sisters Jayne ’98 and Suzanne Bradbury
’88 as well as my brother-in-law Greg
Damant ’88. We are proud to say that
Joan and Bob Snowden were among our
very first guests!
Please feel free to email me at
laura@graperentals.com to ask me any
questions at all about travelling to either
France or Burgundy, or just to say a quick
“bonjour!”
Systems until the middle of 2008. At that
time Leif joined WABCO Automotive
as head of their Swedish legal entity. On
the private side, after 8 years together
Leif and Kathrin Callegari married at a
sunrise ceremony in the Namib Desert
in 2005. Both spent their years together
travelling extensively in Europe, the US,
various parts of Africa and Southeast
Asia. In May 2007 they were blessed
with the arrival of their son Thys Connor.
Just recently, the family relocated to
Gothenburg, Sweden to a “nice place
overlooking the bay.” Leif can be reached
at leif.reinhold@wabco-auto.com.
Leif Reinhold ’90 attended the University
of Waterloo where he earned an honours
BSc in mechanical engineering in 1995.
Work-wise, after having spent the
summer of 1995 travelling throughout
Europe, Leif joined Siemens Automotive
in Germany. After numerous postings
both in Germany and France, Leif ended
up as vice president, Electronics for Diesel
Sam Millar ’94 recently completed a
trans-Africa motorcycle ride with a college
friend, Peter Loewen. From July to August
2008, they raced from Cairo, Egypt to
Cape Town, South Africa. As part of the
trip, Sam and Peter raised almost $20,000
for Spread the Net, an organisation that
supports Unicef in their quest to distribute
anti-malarial bed nets in Africa. Such
nets have been responsible for marked
decreases in rates of infection in target
communities. To read more about the
trip or to donate to Spread the Net, visit
www.cairotothecape.blogspot.com.
Sam met Peter when they were both
students at Mount Allison University
and they have been pursuing adventures
together ever since. Their next trip, in
summer 2009, will be a canoe journey
on the George River in northern Quebec
into the Arctic Ungava Bay. They are
planning to motorcycle across South
America in 2010.
Sam is based in Ottawa and works for
the federal government as the Director
of Policy at the Canadian International
Development Agency’s Afghanistan
Laura Bradbur y ’90 with daughters
Charlotte, Camille and Clémentine.
Leif Reinhold ’90 with wife Kathrin and
son Thys.
Program. In this role, he was seconded
to support the Manley Panel and
completed a four-month assignment
at Canada’s military base in Kandahar
in order to conduct a strategic review
of CIDA’s programming. Since leaving
SMUS, Sam graduated from Insead and
Harvard University.
James Townley ’96 left computer
engineering at UVic to pursue his love
of music and sound. After receiving his
diploma in audio engineering technology,
he went on to work in animation doing
post-production sound. Finding the
industry demoralizing, he returned to his
first love of computers. He now works as
the director of product development for
Point2 Technologies in Saskatoon. On the
home front, James was married to Janet
French on August 30, 2008.
Congratulations to Chris Mavrikos ’97,
who raised over $23,000 this year for
breast cancer research through the
CIBC Run for the Cure and through
his fundraising initiative – Think Pink –
an event he planned at Romeo’s Place
on Hillside Avenue in Victoria, where
he is the general manager. Chris lost his
mom, Lynn, to breast cancer just after he
graduated from SMUS. Since then, he’s
been a man with a mission. Over the past
decade, Chris has raised $58,320 towards
this worthwhile cause and has plans to
increase his goal next year. “I’m not sure
where to set my next goal from here, either
$75,000 or $100,000, but either way the
fight is still strong.”
On a personal note, Chris would like
to express his sincere gratitude to those
SMUS community members who kindly
offered silent auction prizes and made
cash donations.
Sam Millar ’94
Jason Owen ’99 was engaged last fall to
Maggie Jackson.
The ’00s
Bronwen Bell ’00 wrote to us in January:
“After graduating from SMUS, I moved
to Vancouver to pursue a bachelor’s degree
in English literature at UBC. I attended
the Arts One program in my first year,
which proved both challenging and
rewarding. In the second year, I entered
the honours English program and began
to pursue a minor in philosophy.
In 2004, I graduated from UBC
and was accepted to the UBC Faculty
of Law. However, I decided to postpone
law school to devote some time to my
first love, traveling. In September of
2004, I traveled to South America and
spent the next six months backpacking
through Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina,
Uruguay, Brazil, and Bolivia. When I
returned, I was ready for the next stage
of my education.
In 2005, I entered law school at UBC,
where my studies focused on women’s
issues and alternative dispute resolution.
I worked for the Law Students’ Legal
Advice Program, providing legal advice
to low-income clients in the lower
mainland, and volunteered with the
Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s
Shelter, assisting them in launching a
revolutionary women’s forum on policing
male violence against women.
After law school, I relocated to Victoria,
BC, where I am currently articling with
Crease Harman & Company. My legal
practice focuses on the areas of general
civil litigation and family law. In future, I
will be expanding my practice to include
mediation and collaborative law as well.
I look forward to establishing my legal
career in Victoria and reconnecting with
the SMUS community.”
The following students owe
Mr. Gardiner detention time for
various offenses, including touching
his car, loitering on Mount Tolmie
and being poor correspondents. If
you know the current whereabouts
of any of these delinquent alumni,
please contact the alumni office at
alumni@smus.bc.ca
R.I. Boon
Dean Brinton
T.S.G. Chan
J. Chung
C.K. Faught
W.H. Hempill
J.D. Howard
John Johanson
J. Lai
W. Lee
M. Lee
D. Li
Donald McLean
D.B. Mundell
C. Poon
D.L. Seibert
K. Shao
K.L. Wong
A. Yue
Matthew Celuszak ’01 sent this update
in January: “Hi SMUS! It’s been a while
since being in Victoria. Thanks for
reaching out and asking about life after
SMUS. Simply put, I spent four years
at UBC, graduating with a bachelor
of human kinetics, with a minor in
commerce. Upon finishing I interned
with the sports agency IMG, where I
wrote a business plan for the introduction
of a North American market research
department under the direction of my
supervisor. After graduation, IMG asked
me to help start up that department as an
Jason Owen ‘99 and his fiancée Maggie
Jackson with former classmate Nick Isaac
‘99 and his wife, Catalina Calle Isaac.
Elke Herb, Ilja Herb ‘89, Andrew Rippington ‘93, Rory Forbes ‘90, Chris Ford ‘93,
Declan Wolfe, Jen Ford ‘97, Alison (Rippington) Ford ‘90.
SMUS Moo
ALUMNI UPDATES
It took nearly 10 years to make it
happen, but last October Jen Ford ’97
and Chris Ford ’93 were lucky enough
to travel on a private 21-day rafting
adventure through the Grand Canyon
on the Colorado River. They were joined
by 22 great friends and family including
many SMUS alumni, including Alison
(Rippington) Ford ’90, Rory Forbes ’90,
Andrew Rippington ’93, Ilja Herb ’93,
and Kristina Kerr ’97, along with some
SMUS alumni parents – Dick and Donna
Ford and Elke Herb. Jen described the
adventure: “It was the trip of a lifetime
with fantastic weather and the scenery
was out of this world! We’re super lucky
to still be connected with these great
people after all these years!!”
ALUMNI UPDATES
extension of their global market research
department based out of London, UK.
My time there was great allowing
for exposure to managing teams,
implementing new products, and
consulting on athlete, team, and sporting
league equity. After reaching the position
of research manager and relocating to
Toronto (to make the weekly travel
a little easier on time), it was time to
take a look into refining the business
development skills. At this point Angus
Reid was looking for someone with a
research background to assist in business
development. So, I joined Angus’
company Vision Critical and Angus Reid
Strategies. After seven months here, I
have been assisting companies in four
sectors (financial institutions, utilities,
automotive, and travel) as well as with
a focused wealth management product
for the Canadian marketplace. The job
is quite interesting and what I really
enjoy about the world of market research
is that we are always the first to know
the public’s direction and reception to
current events.”
Katherine Guy ’03 distinguished herself as
one of our top Geography students during
her Grade 11 and 12 years at SMUS. In
2007, she graduated with an honours
degree in geography from the University
of Victoria. After working for a year in
environmental consulting in Vancouver,
Katherine recently started a master’s
degree in environment and development
at the London School of Economics and
Political Science in London, England.
Clare Tweedie ‘03 and fellow classmate
Katherine Guy ’03.
Andrew Bekes ’81 and his daughters
Annelies ’08 and Portia (Grade 11)
have been hard at work on a project to
support the Opalagilagi Primary School
in Olderkesi, a 6-hour drive from Nairobi,
Kenya. Greg Hellyer, who owns a safari
camp nearby, wrote to the school to tell
us about the work the Bekes’ family has
been doing.
“Portia wrote to me last summer
asking how she could help in our Kenyan
community. I told her that the local school
needed help desperately: the school had no
desks/books/posters/maps/computers –
the children sat on a mud floor and had
no supplies or teaching aids.
Portia took up the challenge and last
fall the students of SMUS raised $1200
through a school service day. Portia then
went further and devised a “Sponsor a
Desk” fundraiser and raised an additional
$2800 through private donations.
In the meantime Andrew Bekes and
daughter Annelies arrived in Nairobi on
January 10th and we took the donated
monies to the “Text Book Center” where
a large portion of the funds were used to
purchase school supplies such as exercise
books, wall maps, world globe, rulers,
pencils, soccer balls, etc.
The balance of the money was put
to good use: our camp staff had been
busy building school desks, soccer goal
posts, purchasing paint for the classroom
walls, building shutters and doors for the
classrooms. (Portia was adamant that we
use some of the funds for soccer balls and
posts, as the children only had a plastic bag
stuffed with paper as a ball for recreation).
Annelies met Jennifer, the head teacher
who got her into the school routine right
away. In no time, Annelies was teaching
her own class. As well, through Dr. Judy
Mclean, an international nutritionist
who teaches at UBC, Annelies did a
food survey with the local families.
Dr. Judy Mclean was working on behalf
of the WHO (United Nations World
Health Organization). The results of this
survey will determine the nutritional
requirements of the children. Finally,
Annelies also helped a local doctor do
a mobile medical clinic at the school.
Annelies will be returning in March to
continue helping the Maasai.
Andrew, in the meantime was teaching
computer skills to the medical clinic lab
technician and Jennifer. Andrew spent
many hours teaching often into the late
night. So, as you can see a lot was done
in a very short 13 days.
I wish to conclude with my deep
thanks to SMUS for their efforts in
making the Service Day possible and
for encouraging such commitment and
compassion in their students, especially
Annelies and Portia – their efforts are a
credit to your school.”
There were bells...
David Margison ’88 married Olga
Mureshko on September 19, 2008, in
Moscow. Guests from five continents
enjoyed a two-day extravaganza combining
Russian and Canadian traditions. The
newlyweds honeymooned in Egypt.
Helen Lamla ’96 married Peter Gosniak
on July 26, 2008.
James Townley ’96 was married to Janet
French on August 30, 2008. The wedding
was attended by Ben Young ’96 who
served as a groomsperson and played the
guitar for the ceremony.
Kelsy Mowat ’99 married David
Garnham on October 4, 2008, in Sidney,
BC. It was a beautiful stormy day with
lots of wind and rain that cleared up just
David Margison ’88 and Olga Mureshko
James Townley ’96 and Janet French
Haley Hankins ’01 and Tim Street ’99
were married on August 16, 2008 at
her family home in Washington State.
The wedding party consisted of three
other SMUS alumni including Heather
Sortland ’01, Jonathan Preston ’99 and
Reid Chambers ’99. After having lived in
both San Francisco and Seattle together
over the past three years, the high school
sweethearts have now moved to Ann
Arbor, MI. Haley works in advertising
and Tim works in venture capital.
Hilary Flanagan ’01 married Ken Faulkner
on May 8, 2008 in Edmonton, Alberta.
The bride’s brother, Sean Flanagan ’04
was part of the wedding party.
New on the scene
Ilana Porzecanski ’89 and her husband,
Darrel Timpany, are thrilled to announce
the birth of their twin boys. Oz and Zev
were born on January 7, 2008.
Laura (Bradbury) Germain ’90 and
her husband, Franck, are delighted to
announce the arrival of Clémentine
Agathe Germain on January 23, 2008
in Beaune, France. She is a wonderful
baby sister for Charlotte and Camille,
and came into the world in an operating
room that looked out to the sun rising
over the Burgundian vineyards. Quelle
chance!
ALUMNI UPDATES
in time for the photos. The only SMUS
alumnus in attendance was David’s
uncle, Graeme Cunningham ’75.
Kelsy’s brothers, Richard and Jacob
Boness, walked her down the aisle.
Richard is in Grade 11 and Jacob is in
Grade 10 at SMUS.
Dave Guernsey ’90 and his wife, Nancy,
welcome their second son. Nolan was
born on September 23, 2008.
Jeff Hunt ’91 and his wife, Janelle,
are pleased to welcome Cooper John
Hunt to their family. He was born on
October 4, 2008.
Andrew Mitchell ’92 and his wife,
Marissa, announce the arrival of Maya
Elizabeth Mitchell. She was born on July
16, 2008, in Santa Monica, California.
Kelsy Mowat ’99 and David Garnham
Cooper Hunt
Oz and Zev Timpany (Porzecanski)
Hilary Flanagan ’01 and Ken Faulkner
Clémentine Germain
Maya Mitchell
Haley Hankins ’01 and Tim Street ’99
and their wedding party, which included
Heather Sortland ’01, Jonathan Preston
’99 and Reid Chambers ’99.
ALUMNI UPDATES
Jeffrey Blumberg ’94 and his wife,
Claudia, welcomed their first child on
September 2, 2008. Samuel George
Blumberg was born in London, England,
where Jeff works for Goldman Sachs.
Michael Welwood ’94 and his wife,
Sarah, welcomed their first child, a boy.
Dylan Michael was born July 29, 2008,
in Austin, Texas.
Lindsay (Gordon) McIntyre ’96 and
her husband Geoff McIntyre welcomed
their baby boy, James Allan McIntyre, on
June 15, 2008.
Samuel Blumberg
Dylan Welwood
James McIntyre
Passages
Peter Hinton ’28-’32 died peacefully on
December 19, 2008, in Victoria. After
leaving St. Michael’s School he attended
Brentwood College and in 1941 joined
the Canadian Navy for the remainder of
World War II. In 1951, he rejoined the
Navy as a career officer, and retired in
1976 after a distinguished career with the
rank of Captain (N). In 1976, he became
Executive Director of the Victoria Branch
of the Canadian Red Cross and was later
involved with and became Chairman
of the Board of the Victoria Hospice
Society. Peter Hinton had strong family
links with the school, for he was related
to two legendary teachers: his brother,
Leslie, taught science at University
School from 1951-73 while his brotherin-law, Eric Quainton, was on staff at
University School, St. Michael’s School
and St. Michaels University School
between 1927 and 1973. In addition,
Peter’s nephew Jeremy graduated from
University School in 1961.
Philip Tulk ’28-’32 passed away on
October 22, 2008, in Delta BC, at the
age of 92. He was the second of three
Tulk brothers who attended University
School between 1924 and 1933. Philip’s
career was in accounting and insurance,
and he eventually owned his own
insurance company, which expanded
from Vancouver to include branches in
Calgary and Toronto. Philip enjoyed
nearly twenty years of retirement in the
Okanagan Valley, where he was also a key
fundraiser for the BC Cancer Society. In
1999, he became a widower and moved
to Tsawwassen to be nearer to his family.
Lewis Knott ’49-’50 died May 18, 2008,
in Victoria. Lewis attended University
School for one year only – his final school
year. He was a member of that year’s 1st
XV rugby team. Lewis was a businessman
and lifelong resident of Victoria.
Peter Beatty (Nicholson) ’96 and his older
brother, Marvin Nicholson ’89.
Peter Beatty (Nicholson) ’96. Peter
later reverted to his birth surname:
Nicholson.
Peter passed away suddenly on
February 20, 2009, at the age of 30. He
spent six years at the school and was a tall,
accomplished athlete. Most of his working
life was in property development and this
had taken him to such far-flung places
as Toronto, Bali, Singapore, Hawaii,
Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. It is
always sad to learn of the loss of someone
so young, but it is particularly so for
Peter’s mother, Liz Beatty, and his brother
Marvin Nicholson ’89, who is featured in
this School Ties issue in connection with
the happiest of occasions in Washington,
DC, less than a month earlier.
Publications
Mail Agreement
#40063624
Mark your calendars
May 1-2, 2009
Alumni Weekend
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Spring Fair
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Ice Cream Day
Thursday, July 2, 2009
UK Alumni & Friends Reception
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Alumni Adventures - West Coast Fishing
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Alumni & Friends Golf Invitational
Friday, October 9, 2009
New York Alumni & Friends, Reception
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
St. Michaels University School
3400 Richmond Road
Victoria, BC, CANADA V8P 4P5
If undeliverable, return to
Toronto Alumni & Friends Reception
Register at
alumni.smus.bc.ca/events

School Ties: 2009, Spring Issue - St. Michaels University School

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