WORKS by POTTER - The Taft School

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Works by
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Housing Haiti
j World Trade Center
j Endurance Rides
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Fall 2010
in this issue
16
Housing Haiti
Bruce Johnson ’67 designs
homes that fit the culture.
By Brady Dennis
h The light-blue team at tug-of-war
on Super Sunday…the traditional
get-to-know-everyone event at the
start of the year. Blake Joblin ’13
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Fall 2010
20
Endurance Rides
An extreme equine sport becomes
one vet’s laboratory.
By Kenneth L. Marcella ’75, DVM
24
Rising from Ground Zero
As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 nears,
three alumni work to rebuild
the World Trade Center.
By Ryan Nerz ’92
Departments
2
3
4
10
28
From the Editor
Taft Trivia
Alumni Spotlight
Around the Pond
Tales of a Taftie:
Actor James Franciscus ’53
29 From the Archives
from the EDITOR
Small World
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It has become a tradition for Tafties to
document the large number of schoolmates present at their weddings and to
share those photos with the Bulletin, so
I am always pleased but rarely surprised
to receive one. This fall, I was pleasantly
surprised, however, to open an email from
the mother of a current student. Attached
was a photo of ten Taft alumni she met
recently at a wedding in Colorado.
This mom, Pauline Hudson, is a good
friend of the mother of the groom. All but
one of the Tafties in her photo are descended from the great-great-grandmother of the
bride. I love small-world stories, and in this
case, a chance encounter in 2010 connects
us back to 1890 as well.
A photograph of Mary Grace
Witherbee Black (great-great-grandmother
of the bride) from 1875, in her wedding
gown, graced the cover of the program—
which Pauline was kind enough to share
with me. Despite 20 years of poking
around in the school archives, it’s the first
likeness of Mrs. Black I have ever seen.
Love it? Hate it?
Read it? Tell us!
We’d love to hear what you think
about the stories in this Bulletin.
We may edit your letters for
length, clarity and content, but
please write!
Julie Reiff, editor
Taft Bulletin
110 Woodbury Road
Watertown, CT 06795-2100
or Reiff J@TaftSchool.org
Fall 2010
Volume 81, Number 1
Bulletin Staff
Director of Development:
Chris Latham
It was Mrs. Black who owned the
“Red House” in which our school began
and who helped finance Horace Taft’s
new endeavor with an inheritance from
her father. Her sons were among Taft’s
very first students. Together those alumni relatives at the wedding (see page 30)
represent three branches of the Black
family tree, whose roots go back to the
school’s founding.
So, yes, the rest of the world may have
six degrees of separation, but at Taft it’s
often far, far fewer. We’re connected in so
many ways, with our history and through
our friendships. We have roots here, and,
yes, we also have wings. In these pages
you will certainly find evidence of both.
Now, let’s hear your stories.
WWW
—Julie Reiff
Taft on the Web
Find a friend’s address or
look up back issues of the Bulletin
at www.TaftAlumni.com
Visit us on your phone with
our mobile-friendly site www.
www.TaftSchool.org/m
What happened at this
afternoon’s game?
Visit www.TaftSports.com
Don’t forget you can shop
online at www.TaftStore.com
800-995-8238 or 860-945-7736
Cert no. SW-COC-002556
Please recycle this Bulletin.
2 Taft Bulletin Fall 2010
Editor: Julie Reiff
Alumni Notes: Linda Beyus
Design: Good Design, LLC
www.gooddesignusa.com
Proofreader: Nina Maynard
Mail letters to:
Julie Reiff, Editor
Taft Bulletin
The Taft School
Watertown, CT 06795-2100 U.S.A.
ReiffJ@TaftSchool.org
Send alumni news to:
Linda Beyus
Alumni Office
The Taft School
Watertown, CT 06795-2100 U.S.A.
TaftBulletin@TaftSchool.org
Deadlines for Alumni Notes:
Winter–November 15
Spring–February 15
Summer–May 15
Fall–August 30
Send address corrections to:
Sally Membrino
Alumni Records
The Taft School
Watertown, CT 06795-2100 U.S.A.
TaftRhino@TaftSchool.org
1-860-945-7777
www.TaftAlumni.com
The Taft Bulletin (ISSN 0148-0855)
is published quarterly, in February,
May, August and November, by The
Taft School, 110 Woodbury Road,
Watertown, CT 06795-2100, and is
distributed free of charge to alumni,
parents, grandparents and friends of
the school. All rights reserved.
???
On the Cover
Taft Trivia
v Two Days Before
Who is the only faculty member to have lived in the
Wade House, the senior house named for Howard V.
Wade (the first alumnus killed in WWII) that has since
served as a day care and now my office? The photo
should give you a clue.
A stainless steel Taft travel mug will be sent to the
winner, whose name will be drawn from all correct entries
received. Email your guess to Reiff J@TaftSchool.org
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Works by
Potter
Housing Haiti
World Trade Center
Endurance Rides
Fall 2010
Christmas, Judson
Farm, Washington,
Conn. (detail),
Mark W. Potter ’48.
Watercolor, 10 in.
by 22 in.; one of 38
paintings recently donated to the school’s
permanent collection. See page 11.
Join Taft’s Collegium Musicum on
their June 2011 trip to Italy.
For more information, turn to page 52,
or contact Collegium Director Bruce Fifer.
alumni Spotlight
By Julie Reiff
n Larger than life in Times Square: ECOtality president and CEO Jonathan Read ’74, right, with son
and VP Colin Read ’02 and board member Slade Mead ’80 as ECTY goes public in July. www.NASDAQ.COM
Plug It In
Some experts predict that by 2020 about
10 percent of new cars will be either entirely battery driven or plug-in hybrids.
The two major hurdles electric cars face
today are range and ease of recharging.
Jonathan Read ’74, CEO and president of ECOtality, has a solution for
both problems.
This fall, the company began rollout
of its flagship electric vehicle charging
stations, Blink. ECOtality will install
approximately 15,000 of the charging stations in 16 cities across six U.S.
states as part of the EV Project—the
4 Taft Bulletin Fall 2010
world’s largest deployment of electric
vehicle infrastructure. The $230 million public-private initiative is funded
in part with a $114.8 million grant from
the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE),
under the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
Blink will be available in two
models—one, an in-home residential
wall-mount unit and the second, a commercial stand-alone charger. They are the
centerpiece of an infrastructure system
designed to pave the way for long-term
success in the adoption of electric
vehicles in the United States and abroad.
“Blink is more than a place to plug
in a car—it is the fulcrum between the
driver, car, home and utility,” says Read.
“This high level of interactivity built
into our system sets Blink chargers apart
from anything else on the market and is
key to driving consumer EV adoption.
Never before has consumer demand
been so high and the market potential so
large for EVs. By introducing a charger
that is simply smarter and really connected, ECOtality and our partners are
setting a new industry standard.”
At home, drivers will pull up to their
garage or carport, plug in their car—and
walk away. Blink delivers a full charge in
two to six hours, can be programmed to
charge the car when electricity rates are the
lowest and will link to participating utilities
and be controlled remotely through smart
phone and web applications.
An extensive amount of consumer
behavior analysis and market research
guided both the design and location decisions for the commercial chargers. EV
drivers will simply travel to their normal
destinations—movie theaters, shopping
malls, coffee shops and retailers—pull
up and charge.
Both the home and commercial chargers are connected to 240V AC circuits
and Underwriters Laboratories (UL), a
partner in the EV Project, is testing the
units to certify them to UL’s uncompromising safety requirements.
ECOtality, which went public in July,
is headquartered in San Francisco. Its
chargers offer significant improvements
over previous options and are well positioned in a market that is expected to
grow to $1.5 billion by 2015, according
to a recent Pike Research report.
Read is an entrepreneur and experienced brand manager. Prior to founding
ECOtality, he was the founder, former chairman and CEO of Park Plaza
International. He grew the chain from
just four hotels to a leading global hotel
group with operations in 32 countries.
In 2003, he sold the companies to
Carlson Hospitality and Golden Wall
Investments. He served as chairman
and CEO of Shakey’s International from
1984 to 1989, expanding the business
into a worldwide franchise and licensing group with operations in the United
States, Southeast Asia, South America,
Mexico, Europe and the Caribbean.
Jonathan’s son, Colin Read ’02, is the
vice president of corporate development
at ECOtality with the responsibility of
overseeing strategic corporate initiatives,
international expansion and business
development. Slade Mead ’80 is also a
member of the board.
Helping Families
Jeff Baxter ’67 performed at a benefit
for families of CIA officers killed in
the line of duty. The gathering, sponsored by the CIA Officers Memorial
Foundation and the Intelligence
and National Security Alliance
(INSA) and held at the Ritz Carlton
in Pentagon City, Virginia, was a
sellout. Some 400 distinguished
members of the intelligence community attended.
Dan Aykroyd served as keynote
speaker, and Baxter was joined by
fellow musicians, Lee Dotson, Jeff
Bean, Sean Peak and Linc Bloomfield.
Aykroyd and Baxter were also joined
on stage by INSA’s Senior Intelligence
Advisor and longtime intelligence
professional, Charlie Allen, for an
unforgettable performance.
“The focal point of the evening,”
writes McKim Symington ’66, who
attended the event, “was a reprise
of the Blues Brothers’ jam, starring
our Baxter, original Blues Brother
Dan Aykroyd, and that most distinguished intelligence analyst, Charlie
Allen, as brother Jake. Baxter was on
guitar. Aykroyd was on harmonica.
Allen danced. And all sang. They
were rewarded by a standing ovation
that went on for at least a minute.
Personally, having danced at numerous mid-’60s mixers to the sound of
Jeff Baxter and Brooks Barnett ’67, I
was never prouder to be a Taftie as I
was at the fundraiser.”
This event benefited the CIA
Officers Memorial Foundation,
founded in 2001, which provides
educational support to the families
of fallen CIA officers. The band
played to a packed house.
Baxter, former guitarist for
Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan
who has two Grammy Awards and
numerous gold and platinum records, now chairs a Congressional
Advisory Board on missile defense.
For more information visit
www.insaonline.org, or watch a clip from
the event at www.youtube.com/watch?v
=29Uhm8NUGtg&feature=related
, “Skunk” Baxter ’67 performing at the CIA
Officers Memorial Foundation charity dinner on July 8, hosted by the Intelligence and
National Security Alliance. www.insaonline.org
Taft Bulletin Fall 2010 5
alumni Spotlight
Optimism on Tour
Five-time Grammy winner Mary Chapin
Carpenter ’76 has been on tour with her
new album, Age of Miracles, her first since
a pulmonary embolism put a stop to her
last tour in 2007.
“I have always made albums with the
idea that each one is a snapshot of where
you are in your life,” says Carpenter. “The
Age of Miracles is a personal exploration
of regret and resilience but also a larger,
more universal expression of wonder
at the times that we are living in. The
title song ties together my own personal
need to invest in optimism and hope
with what I see as the world’s weary yet
unwavering ability to teach us lessons of
humility and grace.”
Starting with a summer tour in the
U.S., she spent the month of October performing in Ireland, Scotland and England.
In September, Carpenter also received
the Spirit of Americana Free Speech
in Music Award, presented by the First
Amendment Center. For more information, visit www.marychapincarpenter.com.
h Mary Chapin Carpenter
on tour in Ridgefield,
Connecticut, last August.
Brad Joblin ’73
New
Trustee
E. Marc
Pinto ’79
After Taft, Marc
received a B.A.
from Yale in 1983
and an M.B.A. with distinction
from Harvard Business School in
1987. Marc is a portfolio manager
with Janus Capital Management
in Denver, where he manages
the Janus Growth & Income
Fund and co-manages the Janus
Balanced Fund.
In addition to Janus, which he
joined in 1994, Marc has worked at
a number of securities firms including Goldman Sachs & Co. and Fred
Alger Management, Inc. Marc is
also a chartered financial analyst.
Marc is active in several
schools and other educationoriented organizations in Denver
and New York and has an interest in
issues related to diversity. He currently lives in Cherry Hills Village,
Colorado, with his wife, Margot,
and their four children, Hannah,
Adam, Matthew and William.
6 Taft Bulletin Fall 2010
Faces of Fundraising
Building the school’s endowment
beyond its current level of $180 million is no small task. Last year alone,
the school raised more than $7 million in capital funds (and another
$3.5 million in annual support).
Two new faces have joined that
effort—Edward Roberts, who came
to Taft in 2009, and Paul Parvis, who
joined the team in October.
“We are most pleased to welcome
Paul as the newest member of the
Alumni/Development team. Paul assumes the position most recently held
by Lindsay Tarasuk Aroesty ’99. After
seven very productive years at Taft,
Lindsay and her husband, Michael,
relocated to Pittsburgh to pursue new
careers in development and finance,”
says Chris Latham, director of development, who came to Taft in 2007.
Edward came to Taft from
Northwestern University in Chicago
and has also worked in development
at George Washington University and
at Yale. Paul served most recently as
the director of planned giving at the
New York Botanical Garden.
Also on the road for Taft are longtime Admissions Director Ferdie
Wandelt ’66, Ben Pastor ’97, who
joined the office in 2007, and Chip
Spencer ’56, Taft’s former director of
development who now consults on
planned giving.
, New development officers Edward
Roberts and Paul Parvis. Julie Reiff
x NurturMe
co-founder
Caroline Murphy
Freedman ’96
with daughter and
company spokestoddler Audrey.
Shana Berenzweig
Photography
Nurture Me
Caroline Murphy Freedman ’96 had the
idea for a better way to feed her little
one when still pregnant with current
NurturMe spokes-toddler Audrey.
“I realized very little had changed
since I was a baby getting puréed foods
in bulky glass containers. As a busy new
mom I need a little extra convenience
in my life,” says Freedman, “but I don’t
want to sacrifice quality and nutrition
when it comes to feeding my baby.”
After sharing that notion with longtime friend Lauren McCullough, the
two fed off each other’s complementary
skill sets and got the ball rolling. But,
they say, they couldn’t have taken their
idea this far, this fast without the help of
an ever-increasing network of nothing
less than Wonder Women. Working with
a pediatrician, a nutritionist, a graphic
designer, a photographer, a web developer and other forward-thinking women
(and a token male copywriter and dad)
they created a more nutrient-rich,
delicious, earth-friendly and convenient
way to nurture babies everywhere.
A messy first run of dehydrating foods
in the kitchen of Freedman’s condo—an
experience that quickly convinced both
of them to seek assistance—led them to
seek out drum- and freeze-drying experts
in the organic farming community.
Nearly two years later, NurturMe offers a line of dried fruits and veggies that
parents can mix with water, formula or
breast milk.
“It’s actually the exact same concept
as rice cereals,” adds Freedman, “only
we’ve applied the processing/preparation method to fruits and veggies. Our
product appeals to organic- and greenminded consumers as well as raw food
and breastfeeding advocates.”
The benefits are higher nutritional
value than jarred foods due to less exposure to heat, the option to rehydrate
using breast milk, formula or water as
well as the convenience of lightweight
and earth-friendly packaging (less wasteful than jars).
“I was thrilled to collaborate with
Caroline,” says Alison Sauter ’96, a
friend of more than 15 years who serves
as brand director. “I’ve spent the last
year building the brand. From the logo
to the packaging, I focused on targeting
smart moms on the go who appreciate clean, functional and iconic design.
Even though she is in Texas and I’m in
California, thanks to Caroline’s text updates on sales meetings and snapshots
of the initial unveiling at Whole Foods,
I’ve been able to partake in every phase
of its success.”
“I’ve really enjoyed seeing this idea
take shape through the collective efforts of friends and colleagues,” says
Freedman. “What we’ve developed is
exactly what I’d envisioned all those
years ago. I couldn’t be prouder of it!”
Their products are now available
at Whole Foods stores in Texas and
soon in Manhattan and through
www.Amazon.com. For more information, visit www.Nurturme.com.
Taft Bulletin Fall 2010 7
In Print
Arm Candy
Jill Kopelman Kargman ’92
For two decades, 39-year-old Eden Clyde has
been enjoying wealth and glamour as the muse
and lover of Otto Clyde, the ultrafamous and
much older king of the art world. Genetically,
she hit the lottery, but Eden is unlucky in love:
18 years ago she put aside her dream of true love
and marriage and turned a blind eye to Otto’s
philandering in exchange for a life without want.
In her younger days this seemed like a fair bargain, but as 40 looms—and as the beauty for
which she’s known begins to fade—she feels the
cost of the arrangement finally taking its toll on
her happiness.
“I grew up next door to Andy Warhol on
East 66th Street and saw him almost every day
until he died,” Kargman told the Philadelphia
Enquirer about the inspiration for her character
Otto Clyde. “I was so intrigued with the cadre
of people around him and the whole milieu of
the artist’s studio as a mini universe orbiting
around them.”
Poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, and
written with heart and humor, Arm Candy
shows that although 40 may sometimes feel
like the ultimate F word, its never too late to
find true love.
The Washington Post has dubbed Kargman—
author of The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund, Momzillas and
The Right Address—“queen of the beach read.”
She is currently working on a book of essays
about growing up in New York City.
Below C Level:
How American Education
Encourages Mediocrity and
What We Can Do About It
John Merrow ’59
“American public education is failing our children,” says John Merrow, “but not because we
are aiming too high and falling short. On the
contrary, we’re aiming too low—and, unfortunately, we’re succeeding.”
8 Taft Bulletin Fall 2010
American education, he argues, often
encourages and rewards mediocrity. School
reforms are destined to fail until that changes.
Step one, he says, is identifying those who actually benefit from mediocrity. And he does just
that in this book. He also provides a road map
for success. It won’t be easy, Merrow adds, but
America has no choice if we want our democracy to survive.
“No one has done as much for in-depth TV
coverage of education as John Merrow,” writes
Jay Mathews in the Washington Post. “Now here
he comes with an exciting, upsetting, galvanizing book, an angry look at how little many of
our kids are learning, and identifying what he
sees as the villains in this drama. You won’t
agree with everything he says, but it will force
you to think harder about our schools than any
of us have done in some time.”
Merrow began his career as an education
reporter with National Public Radio in 1974
with the weekly series, “Options in Education,”
for which he received the George Polk Award
in 1982. He is president of Learning Matters, an
independent media production company, and
recently served as scholar in residence at the
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching at Stanford.
Competing Ideologies and Children’s
Literature in Russia, 1918–1935
Jacqueline Olich ’88
After the October Revolution of 1917, the
impetus to control authorship, the potential
of children’s literature as a creative medium,
and the desire to communicate their visions
to child-readers and their parents drew many
ideologues to children’s literature. Political
figures, pedagogues, bureaucrats, authors and
illustrators entered into a public debate about
what form a Soviet children’s literature should
assume. This interdisciplinary study integrates
original Russian archival research, scholarship
in Russian cultural and social history, and theoretical studies of children’s literature to show
how the process of creating children’s literature
in Soviet Russia was a contested one. Adults
entered into a symbolic discussion about the
meaning of their past, present and future by
authoring and contesting children’s literature.
Ideas in Food:
Great Recipes and Why They Work
Alex Talbot ’92 and Aki Kamozawa
The husband-and-wife chefs and the forces
behind Ideas in Food have made a living out
of being inquisitive in the kitchen. Their book
shares the knowledge they have gleaned from
numerous cooking adventures, from why tapioca
flour makes a silkier chocolate pudding than the
traditional cornstarch or flour to how to coldsmoke just about any ingredient you can think
of to impart a new savory dimension to everyday
dishes. Ideas in Food is the ideal handbook for
unleashing creativity, intensifying flavors, and
pushing one’s cooking to new heights.
This guide, which includes 100 recipes,
explores questions both simple and complex
to find the best way to make food as delicious
as possible. For home cooks, Aki and Alex
look at everyday ingredients and techniques in
new ways—from toasting dried pasta to lend
a deeper, richer taste to making quick “micro
stocks” or even using water to intensify the
flavor of soups instead of turning to longsimmered stocks.
They also explore topics, such as working
with liquid nitrogen and carbon dioxide—
techniques that are geared toward professional
cooks but are interesting and instructive for passionate foodies as well. They show how to apply
their findings in unique and appealing recipes
such as Potato Chip Pasta, Root Beer-Braised
Short Ribs and Gingerbread Soufflé. With Ideas
in Food, anyone curious about food will find
revelatory information, surprising techniques
and helpful tools for cooking more cleverly and
creatively at home.
Aki and Alex met in the kitchen at Clio in
Boston in 1997 and have been cooking together
ever since. Ideas in Food is also the name of
their consulting business based in Levittown,
Pennsylvania. They have worked with individual
chefs as well as with companies such as
No. 9 Group in Boston, Fourth Wall Restaurants
in New York City, Frito-Lay, and Unilever.
Together they wrote an online column called
“Kitchen Alchemy” for Popular Science. Visit
them at www.ideasinfood.com
Lion of Liberty
Patrick Henry and the Call
to a New Nation
Harlow Giles Unger ’49
In this action-packed history, award-winning
author Harlow Giles Unger unfolds the epic
story of Patrick Henry, who roused Americans
to fight government tyranny—both British and
American. Remembered largely for his cry for
“liberty or death,” Henry was actually the first
(and most colorful) of America’s Founding
Fathers—first to call Americans to arms
against Britain, first to demand a bill of rights
and first to fight the growth of big government
after the Revolution.
As quick with a rifle as he was with his
tongue, Henry was America’s greatest orator and
courtroom lawyer, who mixed histrionics and
hilarity to provoke tears or laughter from judges
and jurors alike. Henry’s passion for liberty (as
well as his very large family) suggested to many
Americans that he, not Washington, was the real
father of his country.
Unger, a graduate of Yale University with
a master’s from California State University,
is the author of sixteen books, including the
biographies of America’s Founding Fathers:
Noah Webster, John Hancock, the awardwinning Lafayette, and The Unexpected George
Washington: His Private Life.
Taft Bulletin Fall 2010 9
For the latest news
on campus events,
please visit
TaftSchool.org.
around the Pond
By Julie Reiff
and Maggie Dietrich
“There are learnable, teachable strategies
that facilitate self-control,” explained
Dr. Angela Duckworth in her all-school
presentation in September. Detailing
and explaining various strategies, she
emphasized her point that “hard work
can be learned.”
Dr. Duckworth spent a full day on
campus in lively discussions, with faculty in particular, exploring the strong
connection between self-discipline and
achievement. A professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania,
she is one of the nation’s leading experts
on impulse control and perseverance in
children and adolescents.
With research to back up her assertions, she helped break through the
common assumption that pure talent
and raw intelligence are the most important markers for academic success.
“Of course, talent and effort both
matter to a student’s success,” she explained, but her research demonstrates
that students with a high degree of selfdiscipline are most likely to achieve.
A guest speaker normally addresses
faculty at their opening meeting, before
classes begin, but in this case, Headmaster
Willy MacMullen ’78 felt her message
would be useful for students as well.
Dr. Duckworth has had a distinguished career as a teacher, researcher
and scholar. She graduated from Harvard
and received an M.Sc. with Distinction
in Neuroscience from Oxford University
and a Ph.D. in psychology from the
University of Pennsylvania.
10 Taft Bulletin Fall 2010
Yee-Fun Yen
On Perseverance
New Acquisitions
Striking Gold
The Moorhead Wing project (see
Summer 2010) presented the school
with a unique opportunity to reduce
its environmental impact and “take
the LEED”—gold, that is.
The school anticipates a gold
rating for the project from the U.S.
Green Building Council (USGBC).
USGBC created the Leadership in
Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) certification process to
advise architects and builders in the
process of “greening” to help estimate
environmental impact in such areas
as sustainable sites, water efficiency,
energy and atmosphere, materials
and resources and indoor environmental quality.
The school worked closely with
architects at Gund Partnership in
the course of design, using LEED
checklists to inform the decisionmaking process.
Renovating a historic building that
is in constant use created challenges
not seen in completely new construction, but there was never a question
about whether the school would
build a LEED-certified building—
only whether we’d strike “Gold.”
Taft’s multiyear, $30 million construction project runs through the
heart of campus and addresses several
campus needs in one bold sweep.
Torrington-based O&G
Construction, owned by Greg
Oneglia ’65, sourced 30% of the
building materials within 500 miles
of the site, reducing the environmental impact of transporting materials,
and also helping the local economy.
Among the project’s other environmental gains:
• More than 92% of the construction
waste was recycled instead of being
sent to a landfill.
• 93% reduction in wastewater
through low-flow fixtures and use
of captured rainwater.
• More than 90% of the wood used
in the project was sourced from
sustainably managed forestry operations and is certified by the Forest
Stewardship Council.
• Five preferred parking spaces have
been reserved for drivers of high
efficient, low-emitting vehicles.
• Bike racks were added to encourage cycling to campus
• A large rainwater collection system
captures an estimated 110,000
gallons annually, reducing the burden on the municipal stormwater
system, and reduces potable water
demand by more than 90%.
• Task lights are provided at all work
stations, reducing the need for
large-scale lighting.
• Multiple controls allow users to
tailor lighting levels for specific
uses and conserve energy—none
or minimal lighting when there
is plenty of daylight through the
windows, and brighter light when
students are taking exams.
• By building compactly, at the
heart of campus instead of sprawling into virgin territory, the
project has protected an area of
vegetated open space adjacent
to the building that is twice the
building footprint (earning an exemplary point).
The Mark W. Potter ’48 Gallery recently received an extraordinary,
anonymous gift of 38 paintings and
drawings by prominent artists of
Litchfield County, which were on display for the month of October.
The new acquisitions, which become
part of the school’s permanent collection, include works by such artists as
Clare Leighton, Peter Poskas, David
Merrill, Wendell Minor and by the late
Mark Potter, who taught at the school
for many years.
“While Taft brings together students
from across the country and around the
world, we remember that we are specifically New England, a culture composed
of weather, architecture, landscape and
habit of mind reflected in these works
of art,” says gallery director Loueta
Chickadaunce. “Our particular history
makes us the school we are today, and
this generous gift to the school’s permanent collection strengthens a collective
memory of muted colors under hard
frosts and muddy late springs.”
The collection also includes three
wood engravings by Clare Leighton, the
artist who did the engravings for the
school’s series of Wedgwood plates in
the 1950s. (See page 76.)
, Cattle in a late winter field, oil by Curtis W.
Hanson, one of 38 works recently donated to
the school’s permanent collection.
Taft Bulletin Fall 2010 11
around the POND
Historic Preservation
It’s official. The school has acquired
Christ Church on the Green from the
Missionary Society of the Diocese of
Connecticut. The Diocese closed the
church in July 2009 due to the reduced
size of the congregation, which could
not sustain the cost of maintenance.
The property includes not only the
church, but also the Green across the street
as well as the Rectory next door and the
historic Academy building. Its acquisition
was made possible by generous support,
led by the Woodward Foundation.
The Woodward Foundation has supported the school in the past as well,
establishing a scholarship fund for local
students and donating the Woodward
Black Box Theater. Marion Woodward
Ottley (who was a member of Christ
Church) established the foundation in
1975 in loving memory of her parents and
in her words, “to carry out their wishes
and mine in attempting to make this a
better world for those who come after us.”
The school received approval from the
town Planning and Zoning Commission.
“I am very pleased that Taft is going
h Christ Church on
the Green, along
with the neighboring
Rectory and historic
Academy building,
sits at the heart of
the town’s historic
district. Watertown
Historical Society
to be the new owner of what is an important core property in the middle of our
historic district,” commented Jean King,
chair of the Watertown Historic District
Commission. “Taft has an impressive
record of careful attention to the care
of its properties including many in the
historic district. Having these buildings
and spaces used in the community while
maintaining their historic character is
important to our entire town.”
The exact use of the buildings has yet to
be determined, and much renovation will
need to be done.
“This is a historic and fortunate
acquisition,” says Headmaster Willy
MacMullen ’78, “all the more so because
we were able to have the purchase funded entirely through gifts. This was a rare
opportunity to acquire open space that
is contiguous to the campus and to preserve a historic and beautiful property
that is important to the town and which
figured prominently in the memories of
Tafties when church attendance was still
required and for many years, the site of
the Service of Remembrance.”
Remembering Marina
The Marina C.
Petersen ’06
Scholarship is
designated in
remembrance
of Marina, who spent four years as an
active and happy member of the Taft
community. Marina cherished her
time at Taft, where she developed and
nourished strong friendships with day
students, boarding students, faculty and
staff. This scholarship is to be awarded
to an incoming day student girl, with
demonstrated need, from Watertown.
Marina, who died tragically in a
car accident in 2009, attributed much
12 Taft Bulletin Fall 2010
of her success and happiness in life
to the lessons she learned at Taft. A
bright, warm and caring girl from
the start, Marina firmly believed that
her growth, self-actualization and
development into a mature young
woman were all made possible by the
firm foundation of support from her
teachers and friends at Taft. Through
her contributions to social, artistic
and academic life, Marina exemplified
the school’s motto: Not to be served,
but to serve.
Blessed with a large, loving family, Marina was always quick to win
friends. “Her greatest priorities in
life were always her family and her
friends,” says her mother Toni, who
has worked in the school’s library for
many years. “Her warmth, compassion
and sense of humor naturally drew
people to her. She loved Watertown,
she loved Taft, and she loved life. It
is our hope that the recipient of this
scholarship will love her time here as
well and embrace many wonderful
friendships and life experiences along
the way.”
At the family’s request, a portion
of the fund will also go to purchase
books for The Hulbert Taft, Jr., Library
in Marina’s name.
New Faculty
• Winnie Adrien, Science Fellow
• Jonathan Bender, Spanish
• Chris Chung, Math Fellow
• Nikki Glazer ’05, Spanish Fellow
• Jessica Hayward, Math
• Gary Kan ’03, Chinese, Physics
• Jennifer Bogue Kenerson, Math
• David Kievet, Arts, Technical Theater
• Jamella Lee, Global Service and
Scholarship Department Chair
• Simón Ponce, Carpenter Fellow, Spanish
• Jessie Ramos-Willey, College
Counseling
• Sarah Sanborn, Admissions, English
• Claire Sheldon, Mailliard Fellow, Math n New faculty, from left, Valenti, Kenerson, Lee, Ponce, Adrien, Sheldon, Glazer, Kievet,
• Megan Valenti, History
Ramos-Willey, Kan, Hayward, Sanborn, Chung (Bender not pictured). Peter Frew ’75
Independent School Gender Project
When English teacher Linda Saarnijoki
first worked on gender issues at
Taft in the 1980s, along with Robin
(Blackburn) Osborn and others, the
issues were pretty obvious. So many
previously boys’ schools had become
co-ed in the last decade, as Taft had,
and needed to figure out how to change
their cultures and educational programs
to welcome girls and women and how
to address issues of equity. This was the
time when Taft did important work with
Carol Gilligan, whose ground-breaking
research on the moral development of
girls informs so much of the research
and thinking about girls today.
Saarnijoki and 11 other faculty and
three students revisited those issues at
the Independent School Gender Project
(ISGP) conference held for three days at
Hotchkiss in June.
Some of the ISGP leaders now are
women Saarnijoki worked with on gender issues in the 1980s.
“The work needed in our schools
today—and in society at large—is more
subtle,” says Saarnijoki. “Gender equity
is not so much an issue of numbers and
rights and privileges anymore as much
as it is cultural and attitudinal. I enjoyed looking at these issues again and
hearing about important work at other
schools who are helping girls find their
identities as leaders.
“Today we need to help girls figure out
how to become leaders,” Saarnijoki adds,
“to help society figure out how to value
female leadership, and to help girls and
women have a voice in a society and culture that tends too often to hear men’s and
boys’ voices more loudly and clearly.”
It was even more special for her to
have daughter Eliza Davis ’12 at the
conference, to watch her grow in her
perspective and “to develop her voice as
a leader just as I did as a young woman.
She has a head start.”
“Even though I didn’t originally want
to go,” Eliza quickly adds, “the conference
ended up being one of the best things I’ve
ever done. I really enjoyed talking to all
different types of people and discussing
similar problems even though we seemed
so different. I feel that I benefited in so
many different ways. It illuminated some
of the gender-difference problems that we
have in our society and that I deal with
on a daily basis even though I don’t really
think about them. I became a lot more
aware of the work that needs to be done
in the Taft community to improve the
gender divide.”
“The conference was very productive,” says Andi Orben, who coordinated
the Taft contingent, “in that it brought
some existing gender issues to the
forefront and raised the possibility of
establishing a gender committee at Taft.”
, At the ISGP conference, front, Shannon
Lenz, Dani Lewis ’11, Eliza Davis ’12, Ellen
Hinman, Dena Torino, Kendall Adams; back,
Kash Griffith ’13, Linda Saarnijoki, Andi Orben,
Shannon Tarrant, Edie Traina, Allison Carlson,
Rachael Ryan, and Alexandra Kelly. Nikki Willis
Taft Bulletin Fall 2010 13
around the POND
Global Learning
“I hope their artwork will nullify the
8,000-miles distance and share a lesson
that I wholeheartedly learned from this
trip: creating art is creating a visual language which is better understood than
any verbal language.”
Her trip was sponsored in part by a
Poole Fellowship. Other Poole fellows
were seniors Jack Beller, John Boyd, Lucas
Gottlieb and middler Cassie Willson.
Through the Meg Page ’74
Fellowship, senior Neve Schadler attended Brown University’s Leadership
Institute, where she took a course on
leadership and global health and studied
with students from all around the world
who are devoted to finding solutions to
global health issues.
Brandon Sousa ’12 received the
newly created William W. Hatfield ’32
Grant to help fund a trip to South Africa
and Botswana.
v Poole fellow Cassie Willson ’13 worked
in Nicaragua with El Campo International’s
Globetrotter program to provide clean drinking
water and good sanitation to those in need.
Jasmine Oh ’11 was scheduled to arrive in Uganda in July, not long after
a terrorist bombing in the capital city
killed 74 people and the U.S. State
Department issued a travel alert. She
postponed her trip for a few weeks, arriving in Kampala in August.
“A month later, security was still
tight,” says Jasmine. Traveling six hours,
with her father and two nuns, she arrived
at the town of Jinja to teach drawing and
painting at St. Benedict’s School.
“Since English is Uganda’s official
language, communication was not a
problem, but art education is almost
nonexistent. Most students had never
touched paint or crayons, never mind
mixing colors on a palette.”
She brought back some of the students’ work and mounted a fundraising
show called “Art4Uganda” in the Mark
W. Potter ’48 Gallery in September.
Artistic Endeavors
Taking full advantage of Taft’s
Kilbourne Summer Enrichment
Fund, a number of students pursued
their artistic passions last summer.
Michelle Chang ’12 traveled to
the Casalmaggiore Festival in Italy
to study violin. Andre Li ’11 studied architecture at Cornell. Taylor
Majewski ’11 studied painting at the
UCLA Summer Art Institute. Jake
Cohen ’11 took a creative writing
course at Columbia, and Lexi Rogers
’12 studied dance at the Bates Dance
Festival in Maine.
x Andre Li ’11 was one of five students to
take advantage of the Kilbourne Summer
Enrichment Fund to pursue programs in
the arts.
Harrington. Taft moved into its space on
September 12.
Rowing at Taft started in 1991, with
a secondhand shells, a co-ed squad and
Al Reiff ’80 as the only coach. Today
Taft offers varsity rowing for both boys
and girls, fielding more than 50 athletes,
coached by five faculty members. Both
teams compete in the New England
Interscholastic Rowing Association.
“The completion of the boathouse helps
show how far rowing has come at Taft,”
said girls’ coach Brendan Baran.
Taft will officially open the boathouse
at its first home race in early April.
Walker Hall Series
The Walker Hall series, Music
for a While, opened once again
with a visit from Ralph Lee ’53
and his Mettawee River Theater
Company, who performed The
Woman Who Fell From the Sky.
Sam Lardner and Barcelona returned in October to a packed
house, and Brass City Brass was
scheduled for November 5. Terry
Waldo performs on December 3,
and the semester concludes on
December 14 with the Annual
Service of Lessons and Carols.
For more information, visit
www.TaftSchool.org/arts/walkerhall.
Brendan Baran
After years of planning, Taft Crew has a
new home. The new boathouse, built by
Litchfield Hills Rowing Club and Taft, is
a three-bay, two-story facility located on
the north end of Bantam Lake.
In recent years, Taft has outgrown its
original space: a cobbled together shed
with dirt floors. The new boathouse has
ample storage for Taft’s ten rowing shells,
launches, ergs, and other equipment.
Additionally, it is fully powered through
solar electricity, and not connected to
the grid. “The boathouse marks a significant upgrade in the quality of our
facilities,” said boys’ coach Michael
Kaitlyn Squires
New Boathouse at Bantam
Good Works in Guatemala
Twelve students successfully completed
Taft’s third service trip to Guatemala
in June. Led by faculty members David
Dethlefs, Carly Borken and Robert
Ganung, the group built three houses
through the God’s Child Project based
in Antigua. They also helped distribute
food and volunteered at a homeless
shelter and helped out at an orphanage. In addition they visited Lake
Atitlan, Chichicastenango and the
Mayan ruins at Ixitlan. David Dethlets
South Africa
The World Cup was only the beginning for 32 Tafties and their six faculty
chaperones who explored the Rainbow
Nation in June. From the Apartheid
Museum and Nelson Mandela’s home
in Johannesburg to Robben Island and
District Six in Cape Town, the group
had an unprecedented introduction to
the fledgling democracy in action. And
yes, they also attended the Denmark
vs. Netherlands match in the opening
round at Soccer City Stadium.
Carmen Pullella ’12
Taft Bulletin Fall 2010 15
Housin
F
©www.iStockphoto.com/Claudia Dewald
rom his perch in the Blue Ridge
Mountains of North Carolina,
Bruce Johnson ’67 has spent
decades designing utterly enchanting homes for utterly wealthy clients.
His projects are both awe-inspiring and inviting, with splendid stone fireplaces and
magnificent wood beams, soaring open spaces
and endless rustic charm.
But these days, the successful 61-year-old
architect spends much of his time—and most
of his energy—devoted to an entirely different
undertaking in an entirely different corner of
the globe: Haiti.
“For 35 years, I’ve
been doing houses
for the wealthiest
people in the world,”
he said, “and now I’m
doing them for the
poorest people in
the world. And that’s
pretty exciting.”
ng Haiti
Bruce Johnson ’67
designs homes that
fit the culture
By Brady Dennis
n Bruce Johnson ’67 and
Pastor Michel Morisset
The source of that excitement is a new
venture aimed at producing low-cost,
sustainable houses using local labor
and local materials. Johnson and two
partners—a Canadian developer and a
mining engineer from the Dominican
Republic—hope the burgeoning business
will turn a profit. But more important,
they hope it will allow Haitians to build
their own homes—better and sturdier
homes—and to break the cycle of dependency on donations from foreigners.
How exactly did a sought-after architect wind up dedicating so many of
his waking hours to this troubled island
nation, designing homes that are smaller
than the walk-in closets of his clients
back in America?
That story begins years ago. Some
people might call it chance. Johnson calls
it divine intervention.
H
e grew up in western
Pennsylvania, the
son and brother of
Taft graduates. His
grandfather, father and brother each
attended Yale University, but this particular Johnson boy headed south.
“I broke the cycle,” he said.
He wound up studying fine arts at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill. Later, he earned a master’s degree
in architecture down the road at North
Carolina State University, where he
wrote his thesis on energy conservation,
a preface to a career-long focus on using
alternative energy.
Fast forward nearly three decades to
2002. Johnson had built a successful business as an architect based in Asheville,
a jewel of a town in the western North
Carolina mountains, not far from the
Tennessee border. He has a wife, two children and a comfortable career.
The athletic director at his children’s
private school, a native Haitian, was organizing a mission trip to rebuild houses
in the country. His son and daughter
weren’t yet old enough to make the trip,
but after some urging from the athletic
director and some early reluctance,
Johnson decided to tag along.
“Almost at the last minute, I decided
I needed to go,” Johnson said. “I wasn’t
going down there on any great altruistic venture ... I didn’t know the first
thing about Haiti. My experience in the
Caribbean was going to Club Med.”
The group flew to Port-au-Prince,
which already was rife with political
unrest under President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide. The next day, they boarded
an open-air bus for the long, hot ride
north to the port city of Gonaïves. Along
the way, Johnson smelled the stench of
open sewers and saw people living amid
garbage heaps—a depth of poverty he
barely could fathom.
“It was a pretty eye-opening experience,” he said. “You just couldn’t believe
that anybody was living like that ... My
sheltered life in the U.S. was shattered.”
The group spent a week at the EbenEzer Mission, where Johnson struck up
an instant friendship with Pastor Michel
Morisset, who had founded the effort
decades earlier and built it into an organization that provided local citizens with
schools, medical clinics, credit unions,
churches and farm land.
“I’d just never encountered a person
who was that devoted to his religion and
to helping his country; I couldn’t get
over that. I had never encountered that
anywhere,” Johnson recalled. “He basically started a mission on the front porch
of his house to help these people and
has never strayed from that. To see this
guy do that and to just hit it off with him
almost immediately was an experience
that made me want to get involved.”
That’s precisely what he did.
As Haiti endured floods and
hurricanes and political upheaval,
Johnson became one of Morisset’s
closest advisers. He returned again
and again, offering his time, his money
and his architectural expertise, such
as designing a prototype open-air
public shelter that could withstand an
earthquake.
In addition, he has traveled as far as
Paris to help Morisset try to fundraise for
the mission. The two men have stayed
in each other’s homes, have offered each
other repeated advice and support.
“We come from two
different cultures;
we are two different
colors. But I feel like
he is a brother to me,”
Morisset said in an
interview. “Usually,
Americans pity us,
and we sense it ... We
feel we are not being
treated as equals. It’s
different with Bruce.
He challenged us.”
Morisset said that over the years, as
problems have arisen, he always could
turn to Johnson.
“I can pick up the phone and call
him,” he said. “He will answer my call.”
This past January, when a series of
earthquakes brought yet another wave of
death and destruction to Haiti, the call
came once again.
And again, Bruce Johnson answered.
I
n the chaotic aftermath
of the disaster, Johnson
caught a flight to Santo
Domingo, Dominican
Republic. He found himself on another
bus ride to Gonaïves, this one 10 hours
long, past crumbling buildings and tent
cities brimming with refugees.
“It is worse than the TV can show or
anyone can describe,” he wrote later.
On that same bus was Roberto
Vargas, a native Argentinian living in the
Dominican Republic, a mining engineer
and longtime contractor who shared
Johnson’s desire to build a better Haiti.
They began talking about starting a
company to build housing for the local
population. Not just any housing—and
certainly not the plastic domes, converted
shipping containers and other lackluster materials that so often get carted in
to house displaced people—but rather
something more permanent, homes made
by Haitians and for Haitians, structures
that would instill pride in their owners
and respect local culture.
Many of the proposals coming from the
United States and other countries, Johnson
and Vargas felt, did not adhere to—or even
recognize—Haitian cultural values. “Putting a family in a permanent
home is more than providing adequate
shelter, regardless of the location, cost
or income level. Importing a prefabricated product that has no relation to
the people or culture does little to build
self-esteem,” Johnson said, describing
a driving motivation behind the effort.
“Haitians have the God-given right to
deserve better and should get it, without
costing more and taking longer.”
Johnson and Vargas decided their
varied skills and their vision made a
“good recipe,” Vargas said. The pair soon
teamed with Jim Collishaw, a veteran
urban planner from Canada who also
had come to Haiti looking to help. After months of research—talking
to native Haitians, meeting with government officials, reading architectural
journals, surfing the Web, studying
various housing options proposed by
groups from the United Nations—the
trio formed a company called Karivian.
Based in the Dominican Republic, it
features a simple construction system
that can be used to build homes, schools
and other community structures. The
typical family home Johnson has been
designing measures about 420 square
feet, with a large outdoor common area,
indoor plumbing and the ability to withstand earthquakes and hurricanes. The
idea is for a Haitian construction crew
to be able to build a house in less than a
week for less than $10,000, using local
labor and materials.
Ideally, Johnson said, Haitians would
create entire new villages comprised of
Karivian homes as the country’s population decentralizes and builds outside
major cities such as Port-au-Prince. The
larger goal: To erect safer structures to
house the 1.6 million people in Haiti
currently without a home, and simultaneously to instill pride of ownership.
“We are seeking to come up with a solution to the problem that is meaningful
to the economy of Haiti,” Collishaw said.
“People all around the world have a basic
need for dignity, and housing is a very
important aspect of that. Pride of ownership and the dignity that goes with it is
the glue that holds a society together.”
The group currently is building
the first prototype houses and hopes
to start on two schools later this year
near the Eben-Ezer Mission. They have
encountered predictable obstacles—
government corruption, cultural
differences, competing proposals—but
also have found promising opportunities, given the amount of public and
private aid flowing into Haiti. Should the
project succeed, Johnson and his partners hope to expand into other countries
in need of similar low-cost housing.
For now, however, their focus remains
on Haiti.
“Not only are they building homes
here, they are our partners,” said
Morisset, the pastor at Eben-Ezer. “It’s
a great blessing. Haiti will ultimately be
the beneficiary.”
That’s certainly the hope for Johnson,
whose unlikely passion for this place
blossomed nearly a decade ago and has
only grown over time.
“I’m guardedly optimistic,” he said.
“I think this is the best chance ever for
something to happen in Haiti that is more
than just a Band-Aid. If you get enough
people thinking like that, that’s a start.” j
Brady Dennis is a staff writer at the
Washington Post. He has previously
written about Oliver Spencer ’85 and
Justine Landegger ’00 for the Bulletin.
An Extreme Equine Sport Becomes
One Vet’s Laboratory
By Kenneth L. Marcella ’75, DVM
Endurance
I
t is nearly 6 a.m., and it always begins this way. All around me, barely
visible in the early morning mist, are horse-rider teams that will soon
begin a 100-mile endurance race over the rugged mountains of the Big
South Fork National Forest in Tennessee. Some of the horses are barely
contained energy, so intent on getting started that they spin and rear and
dance wildly as their riders try to control them. Other teams stand quietly,
horses eager but reserved, game-faced riders seriously intent on trail
strategy or decisions concerning pace.
20 Taft Bulletin Fall 2010
The official timers bark out the minutes
remaining and check the numbers that
we drew on each horse’s hip at the medical inspection the night before. They
must verify rider and horse identification. The veterinary staff has previously
examined each horse to determine its
fitness for competition, and officials
now check to see that only those horses
are starting and to get an accurate list
of everyone who will be riding. There
Helicopters have occasionally been
needed for rescue efforts and some
horses that have fallen and become
separated from their rider have simply
disappeared in the wilderness.
Similar to mushers and their dogs
in the Iditarod, the horse-rider team is
a special unit with a bond of trust and
respect forged by miles and miles of trail.
Each depends on, and encourages the
other because there are places on some
trails where all you have is each other. I
have seen many instances where riders
have saved fallen or lost horses on trail
and been present late at night when a
horse brought a feverish and disoriented
rider back to camp. “I trusted my partner
and he got me home,” was all he could
manage later when we talked while he
fed and groomed his horse.
Some people have questioned the
humane nature of endurance riding, but
through my involvement with the sport I
have come to see it as a partnership and
been reassured by the nature of the relationship between most riders and their
horses. So that is why I am here.
I try to keep problems from happening. The American Endurance Ride
Conference (AERC) keeps detailed re-
Rides
are remote sections of the trail that will
be inaccessible to vets or emergency
personnel so keeping track of horses and
humans is crucial.
This is an extreme sport. The world
record for 100 miles is 6 hours 28 minutes 28 seconds, though rides lasting
20 hours are also common. Variations
in terrain, obstacles and weather challenge the participants. Horses and
humans have died out on the trail.
techniques and more so that we can
push to the edge of what is possible in
equine performance.
It is my job to keep everyone on
the right side of that edge so I am here
to insure the safety of these horses, to
provide care for them if problems arise
and to investigate issues related to sports
medicine and equine physiology.
I am a kid from the city, Waterbury
actually, and I never owned a horse or
rode as a boy. While in veterinary school
I became interested in the things that
horses could do and the amazing physiology of this tremendous athlete. I found
that I somehow understood how they
moved, the way their muscles and joints
interacted and that for some reason I
could slow down their complex motion
in my head and see the altered step, the
disconnected muscle movement and
the lameness that turns an elite jumper
or racehorse into merely an animal with
a limp. I found that I enjoyed trying to
put them back together—the examinations, the diagnostics (we have digital
ultrasound, digital radiography, endoscopy and thermography—all types of
high-tech equipment that goes farm to
farm and allows for sophisticated field
This is an extreme sport. The world
record for 100 miles is 6 hours 28
minutes 28 seconds, though rides lasting
20 hours are also common.
cords from all rides occurring across the
country. Every problem, every incident,
every fatality (and there are fortunately
few) is investigated and reviewed. The
veterinary committee, the research
committee, the education committee,
all meet and go over problems. They investigate new ideas, test new strategies,
and educate riders on issues as diverse
as nutrition, fluid and electrolyte balance, foot care, conditioning/training
work-ups), the rehabilitation and that exhilarating feeling when an injured equine
athlete makes it back to the track, the
dressage or jumping arena, the working
cow pen or an endurance race.
Though I run a regular equine
practice where my days are filled with
the more routine parts of veterinary
work—vaccinating, deworming, dental
care, reproductive work (collecting stallions, breeding mares and foaling out),
Taft Bulletin Fall 2010 21
lameness and so forth my association
with sport horses and the ability to conduct field research on these elite athletes
always gives me something to think
about as I make my daily rounds.
“Burn out” is a serious problem in
all medical fields and my involvement
with equine sporting events, from the
PanAms to the Olympics and the World
Equestrian Games has helped me stay
enthused and passionate about what I do.
It is a shame that there currently
is a crisis in large animal veterinary
practice in the United States. There are
fewer and fewer large animal oriented
students entering school to replace the
dwindling number of cattle, goat, pig,
sheep and horse vets still in practice.
I look around at rides such as this and
there are few new veterinary faces. We
are no longer an agrarian society, and
the legions of farm boys and girls who
wanted to grow up and become veterinarians servicing their communities
are all but gone. The educational debt
incurred for a DVM degree, the rigors
of practice, the physicality of large animal work and the time demands of this
career have taken a toll.
So serious is the lack of vets in some
areas of the country that the profession and the federal government have
gotten together to make large animal
veterinary practice more appealing. A number of special non-taxable
educational loan programs have been
proposed and repayment or nonpayment of loans is being discussed as a
way to get students to look at a career
in large animal medicine. I’ve even seen
situations where a community has gone
to veterinary schools offering to pay
tuition, a living stipend, and to give a
student a house, land and guaranteed
work in exchange for a number of years
of practice in a rural location.
Through all of the economic ups and
downs, vets generally stay very busy. The
profession is a place for independent
thinkers and doers. It is an outdoor career where you are afforded the respect
and salary of a professional but where
you can be your own boss, play the truck
radio as loud as you want and spend a
“Four…Three…Two…One, the trail is yours, ride safely,” yells the official
timer but his words are lost amid the dust and thundering hooves as 100 horses
and riders charge off down the trail.
T
My lab is now open.
he World Equestrian Games were held in Lexington, Kentucky, this
fall, the first time since the games began in 1990 that they have been
hosted outside of Europe. With nearly 800 horses representing 60
countries, this year’s games will be the largest equestrian spectator event ever
held in the U.S. and the largest sporting event of any kind held in Kentucky.
Ken Marcella ’75 was part of the endurance veterinary crew for the 2010 games,
hosted by the Fédération Equestre
Internationale (FEI), and has been
an FEI official for more than 18 years.
He was the head treatment vet for the
2004 Pan American Games and the
head veterinarian for the 2008 National
Championships. In 1996, he moved to
Atlanta to be a part of the veterinary
support for the Olympic Equestrian
Competition and remains there in private equine practice today.
“Known for his fairness, humor and
clinical skills, Ken’s presence as head veterinarian, line veterinarian, or treatment
veterinarian at national and international
championships is immensely reassuring to competitors,” says Dr. Olin Balch,
chair of the 5,000-member America
Endurance Ride Conference’s Research
Committee. “His contribution to the
endurance horse community is significant; he serves enthusiastically and ably
on AERC’s educational, research and
veterinary committees.”
Marcella also writes a monthly veterinary column for Thoroughbred Times
magazine and another monthly column
for DVM News Magazine. He has been a
frequent contributor to other breed specific or discipline specific magazines such
as the Quarter Horse Journal, Dressage,
Endurance News. In 2010, he became
board certified in veterinary thermal
imaging by the American Academy of
good deal of time in the middle of nowhere, monitoring horses as they race
over landscape that is rougher and more
wild in its general inaccessibility than
most people ever see.
I use these rides as a laboratory.
Along with other vets, we will use the
100 to 150 horses at each ride as our test
subjects and we have investigated issues
as diverse as weight/water/electrolyte
loss during extreme exercise, thermographic (infrared) muscle changes due to
imbalance issues (there are 80,000 foot
falls in a 100-mile race so little problems
are amplified) and changes in the urine
color of endurance horses.
Today we are collecting ticks from
horses for the United States Department
of Agriculture (USDA). There is a new
variant of Lyme disease called Southern
Tick-Associated Rash Illness or STARI
that is affecting humans in the Southeast.
It is believed to be caused by a different tick than the one that carries Lyme
disease, and we need to know how prevalent that tick is, what its range is and
Thermology. There are currently only six
similarly certified veterinary thermographers in the United States.
An English and biology double major
at Dartmouth College, Marcella received
a DVM from Cornell University. While
an associate professor at the University
of Virginia, he provided anesthesia and
surgical support to animal research
projects and was also team veterinarian
to the UVa polo team. He soon started
a mixed-animal practice in Lexington,
Virginia, and worked at the Virginia
Horse Center.
He operates Seldom Seen Farm with
his wife, Elfriede, who is an American
Association of Riding Instructors certified trainer. Together they provide equine
rehabilitation services for their area and
work with the College of Veterinary
Medicine at the University of Georgia.
They have a 4-year-old son, Sevario.
whether it is indeed spreading STARI.
Most of the time our research projects
provide info for horses that lead to a
better training technique or method to
handle a performance issue.
Obviously what we learn may carry
over to human issues and every once in
a while we uncover something that can
really make a difference to many species.
This research can be done in no other
way, since riders and horses at many of
these competitions represent the elite
of the sport and the stressors and physiological forces affecting them exist no
where else. So that is why I am here. That
is why I became hooked.
“Four…Three…Two…One, the trail
is yours, ride safely,” yells the official timer but his words are lost amid the dust
and thundering hooves as 100 horses
and riders charge off down the trail.
My lab is now open. j
Rising from
Ground Zero
As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 nears,
three alumni work to rebuild the World Trade Center
By Ryan Nerz ’92
24 Taft Bulletin Fall 2010
W
e are underground, countless
stories beneath downtown
Manhattan, navigating through a
labyrinth of concrete corridors. I hear
drilling and hammering in the distance.
Our dusty path is lined with piles of
rebar, and machines are everywhere—
forklifts and backhoes and cranes. Ten
feet above my head is a ventilation duct
so huge I swear I could walk through it.
These are the internal organs of what will
soon be the National September 11th
Memorial and Museum.
We pass a group of construction
workers who are dressed like us—
helmets and neon yellow safety vests.
I feel like an adventurous kid in some
subterranean sci-fi parallel universe.
The path leads us to a concrete wall;
we have to turn around. I don’t hold it
against my guide. Without him, I would
be hopelessly lost. And besides, he’s a
Taftie. Doug Blais graduated in 1990,
the year before I arrived as an uppermid.
Now he’s a program manager on the
World Trade Center site. For him to be
momentarily disoriented down here is a
testament to the vastness of this space.
“Okay, we’re coming up on the central chiller plant,” Doug says. Sounds
like a place where the cool kids hang
out. Turns out it’s a $200 million
bit of infrastructure that will deliver
river water—up to 30,000 gallons per
minute—from the Hudson, cooling and
dehumidifying the air in the museum’s
exhibition halls.
We walk on. Up ahead, past orange
safety netting, we come upon an opening
that looks into a truly massive room. In
In the center of the
room is a giant
rectangular box covered
by a tarp and bathed
from above with a
shock of sunlight. The
box holds what is
known as “the last
column.”
v In addition to a
towering spire of 1776
feet, the World Trade
Center complex rebuilding program calls for the
construction of a memorial with waterfalls, an
underground museum, a
visitor center, retail space,
a world-class transit hub
and four office towers
that spiral in height.
The Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey.
x Jay Hector ’74, Doug
Blais ’90 and Dave Tweedy
’68, who each work for
the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey’s
World Trade Center redevelopment project.
Joseph J. Lawton
Taft Bulletin Fall 2010 25
the center of the room is a giant rectangular box covered by a tarp and bathed
from above with a shock of sunlight. The
box holds what is known as “the last column,” Doug explains—the symbolic last
original steel column that was removed
from the site during the recovery. The
box protects it from construction-related
activities, such as equipment bumping
into it, until the museum is completely
closed in.
Nearing the spot where the escalators will one day carry visitors down
to the museum, Doug points out the
tridents—the seven-story steel structures that once formed the distinctive
Gothic arch motif on the original façade
of the Twin Towers. The steel icons were
recovered from the World Trade Center
site during the recovery effort, and two
of them were installed in their new locations in September.
From here, we can only see the lower
half of the tridents; the forking tops remain aboveground. They will be enclosed
by the glass walls of the Museum Pavilion
building. As with the last column, the
tridents are so large that the pavilion is
being built around them. I remember
seeing photos of them jutting out of the
rubble in the days after 9/11, symbols of
resilience and hope. I remember reading
that they had been disassembled and kept
in a hangar at JFK airport.
We go back through the maze and ascend to the surface. But I’m on auto pilot
now, moved to real sadness by these architectural ghosts. Only when we reach
the sunlit surface does my mood begin
to lift. Aboveground, the progress is truly
dynamic. Off to our right I can see one
of the memorial’s reflective pools, made
from 50,000 cubic yards of concrete and
soon to feature the biggest man-made
x The master plan for the 16-acre
World Trade Center site shows the
locations of the planned commercial
towers, transportation hub and cultural facility that will surround the
museum and memorial plaza planted
with hundreds of oak trees. The Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey.
26 Taft Bulletin Fall 2010
waterfalls in the hemisphere. Just ahead,
Doug points out the already constructed
7 World Trade Center, a gleaming glass
52-story rectangular prism skyscraper.
Its neighbor, One World Trade Center—
originally known as the Freedom
Tower—is already 44 stories tall, and
growing like a teenager. It rises by a floor
each week now, Doug says, and there’s a
Subway restaurant that follows the construction using the tower’s crane.
Though we’re surrounded by all these
high-profile projects, Doug wants to
show me a tree. It’s a swamp white oak,
Doug explains, chosen because they
grow naturally in all the major 9/11
sites—New York, Pennsylvania and
Washington, D.C. We are walking on
the plaza that will eventually include
400 trees, creating a leafy canopy about
40 feet above street level. The workers
to our left are building structures to
hold individual trees, the dimensions of
“…there are a lot of
stakeholders who
are trying to reach the best
outcome that everyone will
feel good about.”
which were determined four years ago.
“A lot of this construction takes the coordination of a symphony,” Doug explains.
j j j
“When they decided to put those trees
there—which was an emotional decision—it cost the Port Authority significant
amounts of money to strengthen the structural underpinning of the memorial,” says
Dave Tweedy ’68.
It’s three days after my tour, and I’m
talking with another alumnus on the
project, who’s got his own take on those
trees. Dave is the chief of capital planning for the Port Authority of New York
and New Jersey, and it just so happens
that Doug reports to him (though, prior
to this article, they hadn’t made the Taft
connection). Dave’s department oversees
a capital program worth roughly $25
billion over ten years, so he’s intimately
acquainted with the project’s bottom
line. And though he liked the idea of
adding trees, he knew it wasn’t just about
trees. It was about emotions, money and
infrastructure.
“So when that decision was made,
not by the Port Authority, but by other
stakeholders in the city, to make the site
less dour and more spiritually uplifting…the weight of those trees forced the
Port Authority to fortify our hub project
to the tune of $40 million…because
the ceiling of the wonderful Santiago
Calatrava-built hub is also the floor of
the memorial.”
And therein lies the key word:
stakeholders. The burning question on
the minds of many an impatient New
Yorker—why has the redevelopment
taken so long?—actually has a one-word
answer. Stakeholders. There’s the Port
Authority. There’s Larry Silverstein, the
real estate developer who inked a 99-year
lease on the World Trade Center just
seven weeks before 9/11. There’s the city,
the state. There’s the Durst Organization,
a private development group that plans
to invest $100 million in a joint venture
with the Port Authority under which it
will market, lease and manage One World
Trade Center. There’s the Metropolitan
Transit Authority, because the subway
runs through the site. There are so many
hands in this 16-acre cookie jar that it’s a
wonder a single brick has been laid.
“There are a lot of entities that have
opinions,” explains Jay Hector ’74, yet
another Taftie working on the site. Jay’s
on the business side of things—he
manages development finance for the
site—but that doesn’t shield him from the
stakeholders. “There are the downtown
community boards. There is the city of
New York. There are the 9/11 families.
So there are a lot of stakeholders who
are trying to reach the best outcome that
everyone will feel good about. And that’s
a hard context in which to overlay these
development agreements.”
The most difficult part of working on
the project, Jay says, is that while they
were feverishly trying to reach these
agreements, which were further slowed
by the economic trauma of the 2008
stock market collapse, none of that behind-the-scenes progress was visible to
outsiders. “Even though, when you have
been working on the project, you can tell
that progress is happening, it’s been very
hard to convey that to the public.”
Dave Tweedy shares Jay’s frustrations
about perceived progress (and they’ve
known each other for years, because
Jay was friends with Dave’s brother, Jim
Tweedy ’73, while at Taft)…albeit for a
slightly different reason. “People couldn’t
understand the progress that was being
made, because it was all underground.
There’s something on the order of a
7,000-square-foot underground city,
supporting the plumbing and the heating and the air distribution systems for
the memorial and the Vehicle Security
Center and the hub project.”
I can confirm the existence of said
underground city, having gotten lost in
its immensity on my tour. I can likewise
confirm my sympathy for these three
hard-working Tafties, who have faced the
unenviable task of getting things done on
this complicated, emotion-soaked site,
despite the often conflicting interests of
all those stakeholders. And having been
in New York on 9/11, and thus having
a genuine desire to see the World Trade
Center site reemerge with even greater
splendor, I share Dave’s optimism that
that day is forthcoming.
The memorial is scheduled to open
this fall, in time for the 10th anniversary. The pools and waterfalls will be operational, as well as the parapets surrounding
the pools, which will display the names of
the victims of the 1993 and 2001 World
Trade Center attacks as well as the victims
from Washington and Pennsylvania. The
museum is scheduled to open in 2012,
exactly one year after the memorial.
“New York never stops rebuilding itself,” says Dave, “and I’m sure the World
Trade Center will change over time. But
it’s a great feeling to be part of actually
getting it done, which is fortunately
where we’re at now.” j
For the latest progress photos or
for more information, please visit
www.national911memorial.org or
www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress.
Ryan Nerz ’92 is a freelance writer in
Brooklyn, New York, and the author of Eat
This Book. His next book, about American
marijuana culture, will be published by
Abrams in 2011.
“New York never stops
rebuilding itself…I’m
sure the World Trade
Center will change over
time. But it’s a great
feeling to be part of
actually getting
it done.”
tales of a TAFTIE
James Grover Franciscus, Class of 1953
Television and Movie Actor
Sources:
Internet Movie Database
(www.imdb.com)
Turner Classic Movies
(www.tcm.com)
Wikipedia
(www.wikipedia.com)
PHOTOS:
On the set of Beneath The
Planet of Apes,
actor James Franciscus
and actresses Linda
Harrison and Kim Hunter.
© Cat’s Collection/Corbis
James Franciscus, as his
character John Novak,
from the TV series
Mr. Novak (1963-65)
© Bettmann/Corbis
28 Taft Bulletin FALL 2010
Starring in five different series, James Franciscus
was the “blonde, handsome, golden boy TV
star of the 1960s and 70s,” writes Turner
Classic Movies. After a number of smaller roles,
Franciscus got his first big break as Detective Jim
Halloran on ABC’s the Naked City television series in 1958.
He starred briefly in The Investigators, the New
York-based detective series on CBS, in 1961, but
is perhaps best known for his title roles in NBC’s
Mr. Novak and Longstreet on ABC. He was offered
the title role of Dr. Kildare, but was already committed to another project so the role eventually
went to Richard Chamberlain.
Moving to the big screen, Franciscus played
the title character in Youngblood Hawke in 1964
and was chosen for the lead in Beneath the Planet
of the Apes, (many believe, for his resemblance to
Charlton Heston, who starred in the original).
“His favorite movie was probably Gwangi, at
least it was a favorite of his children and mine,”
says his brother John ’50. Although “it was
Beneath the Planet of the Apes that gave a big boost
to his career. He had to promise to make four
more movies with the same producers, which he
was glad to do. Goey was a good guy. I had a great
affection for him. Always did.”
Franciscus’s classic good looks also likely earned
him two JFK-inspired roles, in 1978’s The Greek
Tycoon and 1981’s Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.
In 1973 he became the voice of Jonathan
Livingston Seagull in the movie version of the
hugely popular novella by Richard Bach (which
received two Academy-award nominations).
When the number of good roles coming his
way diminished he tried his hand at script writing
(29th Street, staring Danny Aiello and Anthony
LaPaglia) and then founding a production company that focused on such classic novels as Jane
Eyre (starring George C. Scott), A Girl Named
Sooner, The Red Pony, Kidnapped and Heidi.
Although he played varsity football, hockey
and track at Taft, Franciscus helped popularize
the sport of tennis with two appearances on the
series Celebrity Tennis and by founding the James
Franciscus Celebrity Tennis Tournament to help
victims of multiple sclerosis (a disease afflicting
his mother) in the 1970s.
Franciscus was a magna cum laude Yale graduate and produced and scripted three plays while
at Yale Drama School. He had four children with
his first wife, Kathleen Wellman, daughter of
famed director William Wellman.
After his death in 1991, the James G.
Franciscus Theater Fund was established in his
memory, which supports a stage production at
Taft each year. j
—Julie Reiff
from the Archives
—continued from page 76
Scenic Wedgwood
How many of you have a set of these in your family? If your father or grandfather
went to Taft, perhaps you grew up eating from this series of Wedgwood transferware
dinner plates. Commissioned by the Alumni Association in 1953, they were made
from four drawings by the artist Clare Leighton (1898–1989). Perhaps you’ve even
seen one on eBay.
Known primarily for her superb woodcuts depicting finely detailed, unsentimental scenes of agrarian life, Leighton also made bookplates, mosaics and stained glass.
British by birth, she illustrated editions of Emily Brontë and Thomas Hardy novels,
and wrote and illustrated seven books of her own, including A Gardener’s Chronicle,
documenting the transformation of her meadow to a garden. Leighton lived much of
her life in the U.S., including many years in nearby Woodbury.
Leighton’s prints and engravings are held by major museums and private art collections throughout the U.S. and U.K. A recent gift to the school of 38 works by local
artists includes three Leighton prints to be added to the several already in the permanent collection of the Mark W. Potter ’48 Gallery (see page 11). The school owns two
sets of the plates, one of which was given by the family of the late John Rogan ’37.
In her designs for these emblematic scenes, Leighton clearly delighted in illustrating the shifting effects of sun, wind and clouds on the campus landscape.
—Alison Gilchrist, The Leslie D. Manning Archives
Have any stories? We look forward to hearing from you!
The plates were offered for $12
a set (at cost) in the Bulletin
throughout the 1950s and ’60s,
“as a sentimental and useful
memento of the School.” Printed
on the back of each plate is the
following inscription:
“This series of plates
is dedicated to the
two Headmasters who
have served The Taft
School—Horace Taft,
the School’s Founder
and its Headmaster
for 46 years, and
Paul Cruikshank, who
succeeded to the
Headmastership in
1936 upon Mr. Taft’s
retirement…”
Taft Bulletin Fall 2010 29
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