Mercersburg Magazine - Spring 2015

A magazine for Mercersburg Academy family and friends V O L U M E 4 1 N O . 2 S P R I N G 2 0 1 5

Mercersburg

Faces of Mercersburg

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V O L U M E 4 1 N O . 2 S P R I N G 2 0 1 5 A magazine for Mercersburg Academy family and friends

Mercersburg

From the Head of School 2 Via Mercersburg 3Arts 30Athletics 34Class Notes 37

Faces of Mercersburg

Irving-Marshall WeekCall it a comeback. Page 8

Mercersburg on the MapSee where Mercersburg’s students call home, and where recent alumni are giving it the old college try. Page 10

Faces of MercersburgMeet a handful of Academy students of different ages, backgrounds, and birth orders, and get an inside look at the Mercersburg experience of today. Page 12

Mercersburg magazine is published three times annually by the Office of Strategic Marketing and Commu-nications.

Mercersburg Academy 300 East Seminary Street Mercersburg, Pennsylvania 17236

Magazine correspondence: [email protected]

Class Notes correspondence: [email protected]

Alumni correspondence/ change of address: [email protected] 800-588-2550

Read us online: www.mercersburg.edu/magazine

Editor: Lee Owen

Class Notes Editor: Tyler Miller

Contributors: Jillian Kesner, Zally Price, Wallace Whitworth

Art Direction: Aldrich Design

Head of School: Douglas Hale

Director of Strategic Marketing and Communications: Wallace Whitworth

Assistant Head for Enrollment: Tommy Adams

Assistant Head for Advancement: Brian Hargrove

© Copyright 2015 Mercersburg Academy. All rights reserved. No content from this publication may be reproduced or reprinted in any form without the express written consent of Mercersburg Academy.

Mercersburg Academy abides by both the spirit and the letter of the law in all its employment and admission policies. The school does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, or national or ethnic origin.

Photo credits: Photo credits: p. 2 Chris Crisman; p. 3 Ryan Smith, p. 5 Jillian Kesner, p. 6 (Richter/Obama) Ryan K. Morris/The National Science and Technology Medals Founda-tion, (Cum Laude) Kesner, p. 7 Bill Green, p. 8–9 Green, p. 13–15 (all photos) courtesy Lucas Lu, p. 16–17 Green, p. 18–19 Kesner, p. 21 Green, p. 22–23 Kesner, p. 25 Smith, p. 26 Jim Brinson, p. 27 Kesner, p. 28 Green, p. 30 (Urinetown) Green, (lower left) Kevin Gilbert, (lower right) Green, p. 31 (all photos) Smith, p. 32 (Octet/Magalia/Chorale) Green, (String Ensemble) Kesner, p. 33 (Jazz Band/Band) Green, (headshots) Stacey Talbot Grasa, p. 34 (cross country) Bob Stoler, (field hockey) Green, p. 35 (football/soccer) Green, (golf) Kesner, p. 36 (soccer) Stoler, (tennis/volleyball) Smith.Cover illustration: David M. Brinley from photos by Stacey Talbot Grasa (clockwise from top left: Tatiana Purnell ’15, Reed Widdoes ’15, Roland Morris ’16, Chris Adusei-Poku ’16, Kate Frimet ’18, Stella Ryou ’16, Bridget Scott ’16, Lucas Lu ’16).

You Should KnowMercersburg won its first Mid-Atlantic Prep League cham-pionship in boys’ soccer last fall, finishing with an 18–1–1 overall record, a No. 3 final ranking in TopDrawerSoccer.com’s prep-school poll, and a trip to the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association state championship game. The season included an emotion-filled battle against rival and eventual state-champion Hill on Alumni Weekend (crowd pictured) that finished in a 2–2 draw. For a full season recap, turn to page 35. Photo by Bill Green.

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Green Inks

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Counting the Uncountable

From the Head of School

One of my all-time favorite New Yorker cartoons shows a busi-nessman, sitting at home on the edge of his easy chair watch-

ing the evening news, dumbfounded by the television reporter who is enthusiastically reporting, “And meaningless statistics were up 1.5 percent this month over last month.” Sometimes I feel as over-whelmed as the man in the cartoon by the reams of data flowing into my daily life from every imaginable direction. And I cannot help but believe that many others feel similarly. At times, the point seems to be simply providing more and more data rather than attempting to find any meaning in all that information. Now more than ever, we must be discerning enough to recognize that which is useful and has meaning and that which does not. Otherwise, we are simply clobbered by the voluminous amounts of available data without any framework for understanding why it matters or how to process even a fraction of it.

The field of education is awash today with attempts to count and measure most everything, with some of these attempts being clearly sound and helpful and others being a fool’s folly. Make no mistake, attempting to measure what we accomplish in education does matter. Consider grades, which are nothing more than numerical assessments of each student’s achievement. These measurements have some real meaning, yet they also have their limits: they count what they count, but they do not and cannot ever be seen as a perfect representation of all that a student has learned. Any current or former Mercersburg student knows that an enormous amount of personal and intellectual growth occurs both inside and outside the formal classroom, which then begs the age-old question: how does one precisely measure intel-lectual growth and development or, better yet, does one ever find a completely reliable quantitative tool for that purpose?

William Bruce Cameron, who minted the quote at the top of this column, understood the difficulty in attempting to place a numeri-cal value on the intangible stuff of life. Another sociologist, Dr. Saul Geiser of Cal Berkeley, understood the same thing, only Geiser focused on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). The SAT began in 1926 under the premise that it could measure a student’s capacity for learning. But Geiser found that it did no such thing. Based on an investigation into almost 125,000 students entering the University of California between 1996 and 2001, Geiser concluded that, “The SAT is a relatively poor predictor of student performance, whereas admissions criteria that tap mastery of curriculum content, such as high-school grades and achievement tests, are more valid indicators of how students are likely to perform in college.”

A similar breach occurs with the premise behind college rank-ings data found in U.S. News, Forbes, and the Princeton Review, accord-ing to Dr. Alexander McCormick of Indiana University, who directs the National Survey of Student Engagement. To paraphrase Dr. McCormick, these kinds of rankings are based on inputs—reputa-

tion, endowment, and admission rates—rather than outputs, such as student performance, personal satisfaction, etc. The rankings are constructed in such a fashion, because it would make no sense to the consuming public if the most selective colleges and universities were no better or worse than less selective schools when it comes to out-comes. Yet according to McCormick’s comprehensive data, the quality of student engagement—that is, the quality of the students’ total edu-cational experience—did not necessarily correlate with the reputation or selectivity of a college, except for a very few elite schools.

I’ve said many times before that some of the most important teach-ing and learning that occurs at Mercersburg is often “in the creases” of the school rather than in the classrooms themselves. How does one calculate what happens to a young person in an important conversa-tion around the dining hall table or on a walk across campus with a teacher or friend or even in a conversation on the bus to an away game? What does it mean when a Mercersburg faculty member sits with a student after learning that the student’s parent has just been diag-nosed with a potentially fatal disease or that a student has not gotten into the preferred college or that the student is extremely concerned about the personal choices being made by a good friend? How does one count or measure the emotional, psychological, and intellectual growth experienced by each of our students who come from 40 differ-ent nations, 30 American states, and 430 families? Even if we could perfect such a measurement, would we then actually emerge with a greater understanding of all that has occurred here? Software consul-tant Saul Shofield puts it this way: “Measurement is not new… to the world. [But what] about the motivation for measuring? Bigger is not always better. More is not always superior. And faster may sometimes make us slower. Even ‘good’ numbers can lead to bad decisions, and the psychology of decision-making can actually foster poorer results. Perfect measures are not our goal.”

Great boarding schools like Mercersburg provide both an academic experience and a sociological experience, a milieu where teaching and learning occur 24/7. Surely certain outcomes surrounding being a student at Mercersburg can and should be measured, counted, and tracked. But I hope we never feel tempted to try to put an absolute numeric value on the essence of the experience at this place where so much happens all the time and everywhere. The sacred nature of the particular journey students take here and the goodness and grace-fulness and hopefulness at the heart of the enterprise here defy being counted or measured in any perfect way.

Douglas Hale, Head of School

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.—William Bruce Cameron

M E R C E R S B U R G M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 5 3

MercersburgA roundup of what’s news, what’s new, and what Mercersburg people are talking about.

Dates to Remember

Jun 4-7 Reunion Weekend

Sep 6 2015–2016 Opening Convocation

Sep 25-27 Family Weekend

Oct 16-18 Alumni Weekend

Schedule subject to change; for a full and updated schedule of events, visit www.mercersburg.edu

continued on page 4

Douglas Hale, Mercersburg’s head of school since 1997, has announced that he will retire at the end of the 2015–2016 school year.

Hale came to Mercersburg after 24 years at Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he had been a teacher, associate headmaster, and eventually head-master. When he retires, he will have been head of school at Mercersburg for 19 years. He is just the sixth head of school in Mercersburg’s 122 years as a college pre-paratory school.

To set the stage for a smooth and efficient transition, Hale informed the Academy’s Board of Regents last summer that he intended to retire in June 2016, thereby providing time for him to assist with the completion of the school’s $300-million Daring to Lead Campaign, and set the stage for completing the remaining ini-tiatives in the strategic plan, in addition to

Head of School Douglas Hale to Retire in 2016

4 M E R C E R S B U R G M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 5

giving the Board ample notice to locate and hire the next head of school.

David O. Frantz ’60, president of the Board of Regents, said that he and the Board have already formed a search committee

The school’s endowment has grown from $64 million in 1997 to $247 million in February 2015.

The faculty is the largest in the school’s history, with 76 percent holding advanced degrees.

Faculty salaries and benefits are now within the top third of Mercersburg’s peer institu-tions that are also members of the Association of Business Officers of Preparatory Schools (ABOPS).

The school created a Writing Center and Learning Services Program.

The school’s curriculum has expanded to 170 courses.

Mercersburg joined the Mid-Atlantic Prep League (MAPL), which has enabled consis-tent athletic competitions with many longtime rival institutions.

and have engaged the services of Storbeck/Pimentel & Associates to assist the school in finding Hale’s successor.

“ D o u g H a l e ’ s c o n t r i b u t i o n s t o Mercersburg are manifold, and the posi-tive impact of his leadership, creativity, and

Douglas Hale at MercersburgMAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS TO DATE

In 2008, Hale asked the faculty to embark on a two-year, top-to-bottom review of the school’s academic and residential pro-grams, which resulted in some of the following:• The infusion of experiential

learning throughout all disciplines.

• Visionary marriage of the academic and residential programs so critical to the boarding experience, including a revision of the daily schedule.

• The adoption of the iPad and its wireless capabilities as the school’s universal digital platform for all students and faculty.

• New graduation requirements that include innovative cap-stone academic experiences for all seniors.

• An official set of 21st-century skills that all Mercersburg students must master.

• The creation of more than 20 e-book textbooks written by Mercersburg faculty, which are free of charge to Mercersburg students.

Hale added Chinese to the language department and greatly expanded Mercersburg’s international programs, which encompass not only international study and travel, but also the establishment of relationships with exchange schools in Germany, Chile, France, and China.

The school’s curriculum has expanded to 170 courses.

Hale created the school’s Office of Strategic Marketing & Communications, Office of Summer and Extended Programs, and Office of Counseling Services. He expanded and modernized the Office of Advancement and Alumni Relations.

Daring to Lead, the largest capital campaign in Mercersburg’s history, pub-licly launched in October 2013 with a goal of $300 million along with the public announcement of a $100-million gift to the

Campaign—the single largest gift in the school’s history—by Board of Regents member Deborah Joy Simon ’74 and her foundation.

Numerous new and renovated facilities:• All dormitories renovated

with new/expanded faculty apartments

• Smoyer Tennis Center (2001)

• Davenport Squash Center (2004)

• Masinter Outdoor Education Center (2004)

• Burgin Center for the Arts (2006)

• Prentiss-Zimmerman Quad (2009)

• Regents’ Field (2009)• Nolde Gymnasium

renovation (2010)• Simon Student Center

(2013)• 1893 House (2013) • New on-campus faculty

residences (2015)• Future: Prentiss Alumni

& Parent Center, athletic field house/aquatic center

Head of School Douglas Hale to Retire in 2016

continued from page 3


progressive vision will resonate here for decades to come,” said Frantz. “During his tenure, Doug has accomplished some-thing quite remarkable: he has transformed every aspect of this campus and its curric-ulum, while sustaining and embellishing the longstanding character of who we are and what we stand for as one of the nation’s premier independent secondary schools. His caring and indomitable spirit has ener-gized all of us who have been fortunate enough to be part of the Mercersburg family during his tenure.”

Reflecting on his nearly two decades as head of school, Hale said, “There are wonderful people virtually everywhere, but none any more wonderful than those at Mercersburg. Nothing I have accom-plished as head of school could have come to pass without the extraordinarily intel-ligent, talented, dedicated, and loving people who comprise Mercersburg’s extended family.

“I have every confidence that the search committee will find an outstanding new head of school. While I am looking forward to retirement, I am also genuinely looking forward to my remaining time here, during which I plan to continue to work hard on behalf of the school, savor every minute, and thank as many people as possible for all they have done for me and continue to do for this great school.”

Hale was the valedictorian of his high-school graduating class at McMinnville Central High School in McMinnville, Tennessee. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (where he played basket-ball and earned the Dale May Award as the varsity athlete with the highest aca-demic average) and a master’s degree from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English.

He and his wife, Peggy, live in 1893 House on campus and have two grown children, Douglas and Lauren, and two grandchildren, Zoe and Susannah.

Mia Wang ’17 at work during the symposium

Approximately 60 students from nine schools in eight countries spent a week at Mercersburg in March for the Student Leadership Symposium 2015: Renewable Energy. The event was the seventh of its kind attended by Mercersburg students since 2007, and the second in that span to be hosted on the school’s campus.

Six Mercersburg students—Nathan Abel ’17, Kaufman Butler ’17, Emma Shapiro ’17, Carol Tang ’17, C.J. Walker ’17, and Mia Wang ’17—represented the host school. Other participating schools included ABA (Muscat, Oman); Caistor Yarborough Academy (Lincolnshire, United Kingdom); Colegio Carmen Arriola de Marín (Buenos Aires, Argentina); Gauss Gymnasium (Worms, Germany); The International School of Brussels (Brussels, Belgium); Nanjing Foreign Language School (Nanjing, China); Uplands College (White River, South Africa); and Westlake Academy (Westlake, Texas).

The event brought together student ambassadors from five continents to engage in leadership training and understand the complexities of social justice, particularly in relation to the effects of climate change, through hands-on renewable energy proj-ects. Faculty members Will Willis and Renee Hicks organized the event.

Bringing the World Together


Burton Richter ’48 received the National Medal of Science from President Barack Obama at a White House ceremony in November. The award is the nation’s highest honor for achievement in the fields of science and engineering. Richter shared the 1976 Nobel Prize with Samuel Ting for the discovery of the psi particle.

A total of 24 members of the senior class were inducted into Mercersburg’s chapter of the Cum Laude Society. Front row (sitting, L–R): Linh Nguyen, Max Furigay, Rebecca Glass, Alex Jackson, Yulia Lomakina, Camille Gotera. Second row (standing, L–R): Clara Edwards, AnnaBeth Thomas, Emily Schoenberger, Erica Borger, Kate Kistler, Hugh Kim, Allen Ren. Third row (standing, L–R): Alec Jones, Alisher Yerzhanov, Charles Thao, Seth Caplan, Nathan Marincic, Sam Strauss, Danny Shapiro, Andy Mangham, Rachael Ditzler, Lillian Wilkins, Newell Woodworth.

The 2015 Class of Cum Laude

Nobel Laureate Honored at White House


The Prentiss Alumni and Parent Center at North Cottage will be named for longtime Mercersburg Regent John A. Prentiss ’65 in honor of his family, who has sent students to Mercersburg over four generations. Prentiss joined the Board of Regents in 1990 and has served as the head of the Board’s Building and Grounds Committee since 1994. He is also co-chair of the Daring to Lead Campaign.

The Center will reinvent the purpose of historic North Cottage by creating a com-fortable social environment for alumni, parents, and friends. It will include indoor and outdoor spaces for entertaining, relax-ing, and meetings; some overnight accom-modations; and critical administrative office and work space. Completion is anticipated during the 2015–2016 academic year.

“It is particularly fitting that the Board

(L–R): White Key Co-chairs Mark and Kim Siner, Daring to Lead Campaign Co-chairs Deborah Simon ’74 and John Prentiss ’65, Alumni Council Vice President Molly Jones Mancini ’79, Head of School Douglas Hale, Carol Prentiss, Board of Regents President David Frantz ’60, Student Council President Tatiana Purnell ’15.

DARING TO LEAD CAMPAIGN UPDATE

Five of the six living presidents emeriti of the Mercersburg Board of Regents with current Board President David O. Frantz ’60. Seated (L–R): H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest ’49, Nicholas F. Taubman ’53. Standing (L–R): Edgar M. Masinter ’48, William B. Zimmerman ’67, Denise M. Dupré ’76, Frantz. (Not pictured: fellow President Emeritus W. Carroll Coyne ’50.)

Alumni and Parent Center Named for John Prentiss ’65

has chosen to recognize John Prentiss and his family by naming this new Center in their honor,” said Board President David O. Frantz ’60. “John himself has commit-ted countless hours of extraordinary service to Mercersburg as a Regent. He and all of his remarkable family occupy indeed a very special place in the greater Mercersburg

Academy community.” “My family and I are deeply touched

and appreciative,” Prentiss said. “There is no other institution that has played a more central role in our family than Mercersburg. That the Prentiss Center name will forever be the official campus crossroads for future alumni and parents is both humbling and thrilling.”

Built in 1838, North Cottage dates back to the time when the campus belonged to Marshall College. Because the house holds such a revered place in the history of Mercersburg, the school is taking extreme care to preserve the architectural integrity of the original portion of North Cottage while creating new space at the back of the house to meet administrative needs.


Marshall 900

Irving-Marshall Week 2015FINAL SCORE

Irving 1100

Irving declaimers (standing, L–R): Katherine Reber ’17, Julia Gledhill ’15, third-place winner Nikki DeParis ’15, first-place winner Jan Smilek ’16. Sitting: second-place winner Tatiana Purnell ’15.

Marshall declaimers (standing, L–R): Bridget Scott ’16, Eli Wenzel ’16, Andy Mangham ’15, Emma Claire Geitner ’17. Sitting: Emily Schoenberger ’15.


First-place declaimer/Scoblionko Declamation Cup winner Jan Smilek ’16

Mercersburg On the Map

The blue dots on this map—and the flags of nations that surround it—represent the hometowns or homes of at least one student who enrolled at Mercersburg for the 2014–2015 academic year. (Multiple students from a city or town share an icon.)

The red dots represent the location of a college or university to which a Mercersburg student has matriculated in the past four years. (Multiple institutions in the same city—for example, Georgetown University and George Washington University in Washington, D.C.—share an icon.)

On the following pages, read the stories of just some of the faces of Mercersburg today.


Mercersburg On the Map

The blue dots on this map—and the flags of nations that surround it—represent the hometowns or homes of at least one student who enrolled at Mercersburg for the 2014–2015 academic year. (Multiple students from a city or town share an icon.)

The red dots represent the location of a college or university to which a Mercersburg student has matriculated in the past four years. (Multiple institutions in the same city—for example, Georgetown University and George Washington University in Washington, D.C.—share an icon.)

On the following pages, read the stories of just some of the faces of Mercersburg today.

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Traveling thousands of miles is better than reading thousands of books.

—CHINESE PROVERB

IT’S SAFE TO SAY that Lucas Lu ’16 and Allen Ren ’15 have both caught the travel bug—and not just because they’ve chosen to attend Mercersburg, a school more than 7,500 miles from their homes in different regions of China.

Their passports prove it.Since enrolling at Mercersburg, Lu and Ren have visited Turkey, Costa Rica, Panama,

and Jordan together during breaks in the academic calendar. All of the trips have been by themselves—with the lone exception of the journey to Turkey, which also included Vincent Hsu ’14 (now a freshman at UCLA) among the passenger manifest.

“Since we’re studying in the U.S.—which, of course, is a foreign country if you’re from China—traveling is not intimidating for us,” says Lu, who grew up in the city of Lanzhou in northwest China. “For me it’s exciting to go places that are new and unfamiliar. I’m not afraid of being lost. The process of familiarizing myself with new places is really fun.”

“I love traveling,” adds Ren, who is from Jiangyin (about 100 miles northwest of Shanghai on the Yangtze River). “Ever since I was about 7 years old, I’ve gone with my grandparents every summer to a different place in China, and every spring, I’ve gone abroad with my family for about a week. And since I’m studying in the U.S. now, we have Thanksgiving, Christmas, and spring breaks in addition to the summer. Going home about once a year is enough for me. So I have time to travel around.”

After starting out as a wrestler and track & field athlete during his ninth-grade year at Mercersburg, Lu has fully immersed himself in Mercersburg Outdoor Education activities. He started with rock climbing and then moved into Endeavor, which is MOE’s outdoor lead-ership program that includes winter camping, ice climbing, and backcountry expeditions.

“I’ve always been interested in the outdoors,” says Lu, who has received academic prizes in algebra and chemistry during his Mercersburg career. “I can remember reading lots of stories when I was younger, and in those stories the environment is always perfect and beau-tiful. But where I’m from, there are lots of factories and people everywhere so it’s difficult to get out into nature. When I’m in MOE, I get a chance to put myself into the stories. I can enjoy nature more here.”

the World Travelers

LUCAS LU ’16 & ALLEN REN ’15

By Lee Owen


Lucas Lu and Allen Ren in Jordan


Ren came to Mercersburg after a year at Saddle River Day School in northern New Jersey, where he lived with a Chinese host family. He arrived at Mercersburg as an 11th-grade student and quickly made his mark in the classroom, earning the Rensselaer Medal and the AP Physics Prize in 2014 and membership in the school’s chapter of the Cum Laude Society as a senior. He has been involved in soccer, bas-ketball, and track & field in addition to his interest in outdoor pursuits.

“I’ve really become interested in things like physics and robotics and mechan-ics since I came to Mercersburg,” Ren says. “I took an independent study with Mr. [Dave] Holzwarth ’78 on airplanes, and the robotics classes I’ve taken here have been very interesting. Had I stayed in China I never would have had these kinds of opportunities.”

Lu and Ren joined Hsu for their first international excursion to Turkey during Mercersburg’s 2014 spring vacation. Their visit was brief—a single week—because Lu and Hsu spent the first half of the break on MOE trips to the Grand Canyon and the South Carolina coast, respectively.

“It was really fun to see palaces from the Ottoman Empire and a city like Istanbul, which we learned a lot about in AP World History,” Lu says. “It was almost like history was coming alive for me.”

The trip whetted their appetites for ensuing journeys. Ren spent two weeks building houses over the summer in Sri Lanka with Habitat for Humanity, and when Thanksgiving break (the first major school vacation of the 2014–2015 academic year) arrived, Lu and Ren headed south for an adventure in Costa Rica and Panama. After the duo saw the Panama Canal and hiked, rafted, and ziplined through the mountains, they faced a bit of an ordeal getting to their next destination across the border in Costa Rica.

“It was quite an adventure,” Ren says. “We went through customs, made it to the bus station, and took a local bus to another town, but missed the stop where we should have gotten off to get on a boat to our des-tination. We both speak some Spanish but had forgotten how to say the name of the harbor where we were going in Spanish. Luckily, we met a taxi driver who spoke English and helped us find the right boat to get to Puerto Jiménez, where we were going.”

Finally, they made it to their ultimate destination, Corcovado National Park, which National Geographic has called

“ I’m not afraid of being lost.”

— LUCAS LU ’16, ON TRAVELING TO UNFAMILIAR LOCALES


(There was also a “business” component to the trip—Ren fin-ished many of his college applications in a hotel room in the Jordanian capital of Amman.)

The travelers went their separate ways over spring break 2015, when Lu participated in a MOE Adventure Series trip to Moab, Utah, and Ren made his first completely solo journey to Morocco. This summer, Lu will be part of MOE’s inaugural trip outside the Americas: a 12-day backpacking excursion to his home nation. He will join nine other students and faculty members Sue Malone and Brett Potash on the journey to China’s Yunnan Province, in the southwestern part of the country.

“It’s been amazing to experience all the different places,” Ren says. “I love to talk to the local people, try the local food, experi-ence the local culture and traditions, and just immerse myself. There are so many amazing places and cultures in the world that most people never get to experience.”

“the most biologically intense place on earth.” They hiked along the coast into the rain forest, where they saw howler monkeys and tapirs—“animals we’d never seen before,” Ren says. The trip closed with a flight to the Costa Rican capital of San Jose on what Ren termed “the smallest plane I’ve ever been on. I could see right into the cockpit from my seat, which was a little scary.”

Over the Christmas break, Lu and Ren spent two and a half weeks in Jordan, where they camped in the Wadi Rum desert, rode camels (the first time for Ren, not the first time for Lu), climbed the highest mountain in Jordan (elevation 6,000 feet) visited the ancient city of Petra, and floated in the Dead Sea.

“The desert, especially, was so interesting,” Ren says. “It was almost a combination of what you think of as a traditional desert and rock formations. And camels are really big. When you’re riding a camel and it starts to stand up, you feel like you’re being ejected into the air.”

Lucas Lu and Allen Ren in Jordan


ONE CAN FIND Tatiana Purnell ’15 in many different locations on campus: the classroom, the track, on stage as a performer or a declaimer, working with younger students as a Peer Group Leader, or making a speech or announcement as president of the Student Council. Wherever she goes, though, the place she seems to be most often is toward the front.

“Tatiana is a natural leader,” says faculty member David Grady, who works with Purnell as Mercersburg’s head indoor track & field coach. “She steps up when her teammates need her. I think people are willing to follow her lead because she is kind to them and she backs it up by holding herself to a high standard.”

Purnell holds Mercersburg school records in five different track & field events (the indoor 55-meter hurdles, 60-meter hurdles, and triple jump, as well as the outdoor 100-meter and 300-meter hurdles). She has qualified for a track & field state-championship meet in each of the past three years (including as a 10th-grade student at Dallastown Area High School near York, Pennsylvania, where she attended before coming to Mercersburg in the 11th grade).

Purnell has also placed at Declamation in both of her years at the Academy, earning second place for the Irving Society as an upper middler and as a senior; in 2015, she and Irving teammates Jan Smilek ’16 (first place), Nikki DeParis ’15 (third place) and Julia Gledhill ’15 and Katherine Reber ’17 (who joined the other three as the judges’ choice for the strongest Declamation team) helped Irving sweep all 700 points at the event to win Mercersburg’s Irving-Marshall competition.

Tatiana Purnell at Declamation 2015

By Lee Owen

the Leader TATIANA PURNELL ’15


“It’s such a rush,” Purnell says of Declamation night, which is one of the most anticipated moments of the year on campus. “You have all these emotions. You’re getting ready and you’re so nervous and so excited that you almost want to scream. But it’s an awesome experience to be up there in that big light; and the experience of this year when we swept is hard to put into words. I was so happy to be able to help our team.”

Purnell’s schedule is jammed with meetings, athletic events, and performances, in addition to classwork (and college appli-cations—she applied to 17 different schools, many of which she said she never would have never known about had she not come to Mercersburg).

“You really have to plan your time when you’re here,” she says. “But I’m honored to be able to do the things I do and to represent the student body. It’s a lot of hard work but it pays off in the end.

And I’m lucky to have two really great Student Council officers to work with in Leah Cook ’15 [vice president] and Seth Caplan ’15 [director of student activities].”

Purnell has worked with faculty children in the nursery during weekly Chapel worship services, played varsity field hockey, and been involved with dance and the African American Student Union. She has sung in the Chapel Choir, performed at the Governor’s Mansion in Harrisburg in the Poetry Out Loud state finals, and even attended Mercersburg’s Adventure Camp and Teen Adventure Camp before enrolling at the school. And through it all, she says, her biggest inspiration has remained the same: her mother, Tahitia Martin.

“My mom is my biggest fan and supporter, and I’m so apprecia-tive of everything she’s done for me,” Purnell says. “She’s always there for me. Without her, I don’t know if I’d be here today.”

Tatiana Purnell on the track


AS TEACHERS, COACHES, AND DORMITORY FACULTY (and now as newly appointed heads of two of the school’s academic departments), Jennifer Miller Smith ’97 and Nate Jacklin ’96 can relate pretty easily to the students they teach.

After all, they were Mercersburg students once themselves.

Smith first arrived at the school as a 10th-grade student from Gettysburg (just one Pennsylvania county over from Mercersburg). She studied at the Academy for three years and graduated as the valedic-torian of the Class of 1997. Jacklin came to Mercersburg as a postgraduate student (during Smith’s 11th-grade year) after grad-uating from Mount Vernon High School in central Ohio.

Today, Smith is head of Mercersburg’s science department, the school’s head diving coach, and works with Mercersburg Outdoor Education. Jacklin is Mercersburg’s history department head, the head wrestling coach, and has team-taught a Springboard course in entrepreneurship for each of the past two years.

Both joined the Mercersburg faculty in 2008, and each lives on campus as a resident dormitory-faculty member; in fact, Smith’s husband, fellow faculty member and school archivist Doug Smith, is the dorm dean in Keil Hall (as well as the Blue Storm’s head golf coach).

Jennifer Smith

the Department Heads/ Head Coaches NATE JACKLIN ’96 &

JENNIFER MILLER SMITH ’97

By Lee Owen


“I had a great experience here as a student, and that’s why I decided to come back,” says Jacklin, who earned bache-lor’s and master’s degrees from Columbia University, where he wrestled for four years. “I had so many great teachers here that really prepared me for college—Sue Wootton, Phil Post, Gene Sancho, Dave Holzwarth ’78, Brent Gift—it was a really good experience overall.”

FROM WALL STREET TO EAST SEMINARY STREETJacklin worked for a New York brokerage firm after graduating from Columbia, and had always thought he wanted to go into finance or medicine. “But I found that Wall Street wasn’t the world I had envisioned or hoped it would be,” he says. “I felt like I wasn’t really making an impact on anyone. When I was at Columbia, I had worked with inner-city kids through a program called Athletes in Action, where we’d take them to sporting events or the zoo. It was a lot of fun and I noticed how the kids responded when somebody took an interest in them.”

So Jacklin leaned for advice on his Mercersburg wrestling coach, Rick Hendrickson, who is now the school’s ath-letic director. “I’d call Coach Hendrickson

Nate Jacklin

every week or two,” Jacklin says. “I’d say, ‘I’m not happy. Is this normal?’ He told me that I needed to find something I was passionate about and that I enjoyed doing; otherwise, it’s not worth it, no matter how much money you’re making.”

Jacklin went back to Columbia to com-plete his master’s and spent the next six years teaching history and coaching wres-tling and soccer at high schools in Stafford County in northern Virginia. In 2008, Mercersburg had an opening for a wres-tling coach when Hendrickson became the school’s athletic director. Then a posi-tion opened up in the history department

when faculty member Quentin McDowell moved from the classroom to oversee the Office of Summer and Extended Programs.

“It was another fortunate turn of events,” says Jacklin, for whom timing has been pretty important in life. Jacklin attended the 2004 wedding of Chad Cooke, his friend and co-worker at both North Stafford High School and Mountain View High School; at the ceremony, he met Lindsay Beers, the sister of the bride. They married in 2006 and have three children: Hailey, Ella, and Matthew.

“Mercersburg has affected everything I’ve done since,” Jacklin says. “Instead of


Columbia, I probably would have gone to a small college in Ohio had I not come here. I might not have ever left Ohio, and I don’t know if I would have had the world experiences I’ve had. Mercersburg opened up Columbia, which opened the world to me.”

FROM HEAD OF THE CLASS TO DEPARTMENT HEADLike Jacklin, Smith didn’t enter college with the intent of return-ing to the classroom as a teacher. But as she approached gradu-ation from the University of Richmond, she attended a job fair that landed her a teaching job at an area school. After graduate school at the University of Chicago, Smith was teaching at the community-college level when faculty member Jim Malone told her (while she was visiting Mercersburg for her 10-year reunion) of a vacancy in the science department.

“Doug and I talked when we were here for the reunion about how nice it would be to raise our kids [Cole and Nora] here,” Smith says. She started at Mercersburg in 2008 in the science and mathematics departments, and suddenly found herself on a first-name basis with many of the faculty members she once had in class. “After seven years, it’s pretty normal at this point, but I do remember Renee Hicks sending me an email welcoming me here,

and she signed it ‘Renee – time for first names.’ It did take me a long time before I could refer to Karl Reisner by his first name.”

Smith teamed with fellow mathematics faculty member Amy Kelley to create one of the school’s first electronic textbooks for student use on the iPad. Their book (for Algebra II courses), has since been joined by more than 20 other e-book titles authored by other Mercersburg faculty.

“So much of what we do here comes down to trying to get students to be able to work through hard problems,” Smith says. “The challenges are everywhere—certainly in AP chemistry, but also in rock climbing or diving or even dorm life. We want to give students scaffolding but we also want to help them get to a place where they can work through difficulties on their own, even ones that might at first seem impossible. And there’s really no way to do this without challenging them.”

Jacklin agrees.“I stress the same things,” he says, “with my advisees and the

guys in the dorm and in kids in classes as I do with our wrestlers: hard work. Your name is attached to everything you do. If you’re not putting in your best effort or producing quality work, people will notice. It really comes down to personal responsibility.”

In the FamilySmith’s great aunt, Miriam Witherow, spent 41 years at the Academy as executive sec-retary to three headmasters: Charles S. Tippetts (1912), William C. Fowle, and Walter H. Burgin Jr. ’53. She retired in 1982 and died in 1992.

Additionally, Smith’s sister (Emily Miller Joyner ’99) and four of her cousins (Amanda Harris ’97, Sarah Harris ’99, Ryan Harris ’01, and Stephanie Harris ’04) also attended Mercersburg.


the Up-and-Coming Performer AVA PAUL ’18

IT DIDN’T TAKE AVA PAUL ’18 long to find the spotlight in her first year at Mercersburg.Paul, who lives in nearby Hagerstown, Maryland, and is one of approximately 60 day students

attending Mercersburg this year, made two varsity athletic teams (volleyball and softball) and played the lead female role of Hope Cladwell in Stony Batter Players’ production of Urinetown: The Musical during the winter.

“Everything has gone really well here—even better than I had hoped it would,” Paul says. “It’s been amazing. I wanted to come here because I knew the arts center was so nice, and when I found out more about the school and all the productions, I thought, ‘This is perfect. This is where I could become myself.’”

As a child, Paul was a regular in music camps and productions of the Barbara Ingram School of the Arts and the Walker Performing Arts program in Hagerstown. She was in a production of Peter Pan that also featured her future Urinetown co-star Zach McDonald ’17 as Captain Hook. But when she arrived at Mercersburg, Paul says she certainly didn’t expect to land a leading role in a Stony Batter show so early in her high-school career.

“I went into the auditions [for Urinetown] thinking I would take it slow and work my way up, since it was my first year,” she says. “Then I auditioned and they asked me if I was interested in playing Hope. Of course, I was interested, but it’s so competitive and I still didn’t think I would get the part. But it worked out and it was so much fun being in a show with and getting to know so many other people that love to do the same things I do.”

Paul has been a lead performer in the classroom as well; she has yet to earn a grade below 90 in any of her courses, earning her distinguished-scholar status in each of her first two academic terms. Naturally, she is enthusiastic about what the next three years of her Mercersburg career might hold.

“There are so many things I want to try that I haven’t had a chance to yet,” Paul says. “I didn’t try out for Magalia this year—I thought I might have too much on my plate. I hope to be able to fit Chorale into my schedule. Maybe I’ll audition for Shakespeare Scenes. I want to pursue a career as an actress, and I’m so excited about the future.”

Ava Paul

By Lee Owen


ALL NEW BOARDING STUDENTS at Mercersburg are assigned a roommate for their first year on campus. In subsequent years, students can choose a roommate for themselves.

For Sarabeth Henne ’15 and AnnaBeth Thomas ’15, this selection process has been easy (and identical) in each of their four years at the school. Two girls who share the second half of a first name are also sharing the same dormitory room—first in Fowle Hall, and now in South Cottage—from Inbound through graduation.

“She’s like my sister,” Thomas says.“We just click,” Henne says.The initial roommate assignment is not completely random; Mercersburg strives to

place compatible personalities together during each student’s first year living in a dormi-tory. The Henne-Thomas tandem has been a smashing success from the beginning, even if at least one half of the pair thought there might be some sort of typographical error after arriving in Fowle for the first time in August 2011.

“I saw the names ‘Sarabeth’ and ‘AnnaBeth’ on the same door, and I thought it was some kind of joke,” Henne says. “It was such a weird coincidence. I even went and found the prefects on my floor and asked them if I was in the right room, or if maybe something had gotten mixed up.”

But everything, of course, was in order.“There have been times,” Thomas says, “where I’ve been talking to some of my friends

who have had one or two different roommates while they’ve been here. They’ll say, ‘Maybe so-and-so and I will room together next year.’ I’ve never had to have that conversation. Sarabeth and I don’t fight. We’re almost like an old married couple.

“I was about to leave the dorm the other day and I didn’t have a coat on. And she said, ‘Don’t you want a coat? It’s really cold outside.’ She kind of nagged me about it, but she knows I get cold easily and I really did need a coat. We just work for each other. It’s a little weird.”

Henne (of the Philadelphia suburb of Downingtown, Pennsylvania) and Thomas (of Amarillo, Texas) are one of three four-year roommate pairings in the Mercersburg student body. The others are Jordan Allen ’15 and Morgan Matsuda ’15 (who have lived in Tippetts Hall, Culbertson House, and Main Hall) and Megan Lafferty ’15 and Lillian Wilkins ’15 (who spent two years in Fowle and a year in South before returning to Fowle as seniors).

the Four-Year Roommates

SARABETH HENNE ’15 AND ANNABETH THOMAS ’15

By Lee Owen


AnnaBeth Thomas and Sarabeth Henne

“We have a symbiotic relationship [as roommates and friends],” Thomas says. “If one of us is having a crisis and we don’t know how to deal with it, we’ll talk to each other about it. We have such a strong bond—I’ve honestly never had a bond this strong with anyone else except my mom.”

Both of the “Beths” (as their door is labeled on the third floor of South) are not the first members of their respective clans to attend Mercersburg. Henne’s mother, Beth Baxter Henne ’84, preceded her at the Academy as a student (and like Sarabeth, captained the girls’ cross country

team), while Thomas’ grandfather, George Mitchell ’59, and her great uncle, Budd Mitchell ’66, both graduated from the school as well.

The family ties will continue even after Mercersburg’s 2015 commencement exer-cises. Henne’s younger sister, Abby ’17, is in her second year at the Academy, and their brother, Grant ’19, is enrolling in the fall.

“It’s been really great to have Abby here at school with me,” Sarabeth Henne says. “Abby and I have never actually gone to the same school together until now. In many ways, I look up to her just as much as she

looks up to me. We’ve been able to see each other a lot more and we’ve definitely gotten closer in the past two years.”

Though Henne and Thomas did apply (coincidentally) to a handful of the same colleges, they ultimately chose different paths and thus will have new roommates in the fall. Thomas plans to double-major in French and chemistry at Austin College, a highly rated liberal-arts college in her home state of Texas, while Henne will study journalism and mass communica-tion in the honors college at Arizona State University.


THIS SUMMER, before returning to Mercersburg for her senior year, Gabby Fraser ’16 will represent her home country of Guyana at two international events: the 2015 Caribbean Junior Squash Championships July 18–25 in Barbados, and the highly anticipated 2015 World Junior Squash Championships July 31–August 4 in Cairo, Egypt.

Fraser, who was born in Guyana and now lives in Toronto, has six years of experience for Team Guyana, which has won 10 consecutive Caribbean Area Squash Association championships. The tournament in Egypt will be her first event outside the Americas.

“I’m so proud to have this opportunity,” says Fraser, who has compiled a 34–6 record in two years with Mercersburg’s varsity and won the top flight at the 2014 Mid-Atlantic Prep League Championships. “Of course it will be great to represent my country, and this will be my first chance to play on the world circuit.”

Guyana, a South American nation of 735,000, is a bit of an unlikely Caribbean squash powerhouse; Fraser says that just four years ago, the entire nation had just three squash courts. “Luckily, more courts have been built since I moved to Canada,” she adds. “Everything we do is with limited facilities—but we have good coaching and lots of heart.” (Guyana is bordered by Brazil to the south, Venezuela to the west, and Suriname to the east.)

“Gabby is a very talented, smart squash player who anticipates her opponents very well during match play,” says Wells Gray, Mercersburg’s head girls’ varsity squash coach. “She gets to almost every shot with a reciprocating quality return that makes her a real challenge to defeat.”

the National-Team Member GABBY FRASER ’16

By Lee Owen

“ It will be great to represent my country, and this will be my first chance to play on the world circuit.”

—GABBY FRASER ’16


Gabby Fraser in the Davenport Squash Center


To see a video of Staisiunas at the organ, scan this QR code with your mobile device or visit https://vimeo.com/125183309.

IF YOU WALK INTO the Irvine Memorial Chapel and hear the majestic organ ringing throughout that magnificent space, it’s likely that Mercersburg faculty member, organist, and carillonneur James Brinson is at the console.

It’s also possible that the person behind the keys and pedals is a Mercersburg student.Luke Staisiunas ’15, of the Philadelphia suburb of Yardley, Pennsylvania, has been

obsessed with organs ever since he can remember. He began playing piano at age 4, and took his first organ lessons at age 5. A year before he arrived at Mercersburg as a ninth-grade student, he received a spinet organ, which is a small electronic organ (Staisiunas says that spinets even outsold pianos during their heyday in the 1960s and 1970s). He came to Mercersburg with the hope of studying organ, and four years and countless lessons and per-formances later, he is headed to the University of Oklahoma after his Mercersburg gradu-ation to major in organ technology.

“When you’re playing the organ, once you get into it, you almost forget everyone else [in the Chapel] is there,” says Staisiunas, who has studied with Brinson for four years and has performed for weekly chapel services, school meetings, American Guild of Organists meet-ings, and Christmas Candlelight Services. “I’m proud to be able to contribute. The organ is different from the piano, and it’s demanding in different ways. You can’t get expression just by hitting keys with force or softly; you have to control the sound with pedals and stops. You can play sounds which range from almost inaudible to almost deafening, and almost

any tone color you want.”Staisiunas has also been involved in the school’s Tech

Crew all four years, giving him a hands-on knowledge of how things work behind the scenes in the arts. Brinson, who says only a handful of students have consistently studied organ with him in his 12 years at Mercersburg, envisions Staisiunas running a specialized organ-repair business or even building organs one day.

“I’m really glad I came to Mercersburg,” Staisiunas says. “It’s been good and I’ve been able to discover a lot of things I’m not sure I would have been interested in oth-erwise. And I still keep in touch with friends that gradu-ated two and three years ago.”

The Irvine Memorial Chapel organ was installed in 1926 by the Skinner Organ Company of Boston, and was completely renovated in 2004 by the Lawless Organ Company of Greencastle, Pennsylvania. The organ has 55 stops, 27 couplers, 33 adjustable combination pistons, and nearly 4,000 pipes ranging in size from 18 feet to the size of a pencil.

Luke Staisiunas at the organ

By Lee Owen

the Organist LUKE STAISIUNAS ’15


OF THE 437 STUDENTS enrolled at Mercersburg during the 2014–2015 academic year, 59 have a sibling attending the school this year as well. They include students from all four classes—and from near (Mia Patterson ’15, Dean Patterson ’16, and Kat Patterson ’18 all maintain their permanent residence in Tippetts Hall on campus with their parents, faculty members Laura and Chip Patterson) and far (students from Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam are included among the siblings).

Identical twin sisters Ryan Geitner ’17 and Emma Claire Geitner ’17 arrived at Mercersburg at the same time (though, for the record, Ryan was born 30 seconds earlier). Reed Widdoes ’15 and his younger sister, Molly ’17, did not, owing to the fact that when Reed enrolled, Molly was entering the seventh grade back in their hometown of Pittsburgh.

“For me, it’s been nice to have my brother here,” Molly Widdoes says. “But after he graduates, I’ll have had two years with him here and then will have two years here on my own.”

The Geitners are one of two sets of twins in the Mercersburg student body; the other pair includes Wumi Andrew ’15 and her brother, Deji ’15. Ryan and Emma Claire are not the first Geitners to attend the Academy, but they are the first in more than five decades. Their grandfather, Clem Geitner ’59, still lives a block away from their home in Hickory,

the Siblings (FEATURING) EMMA CLAIRE GEITNER ’17 & RYAN GEITNER ’17

AND REED WIDDOES ’15 & MOLLY WIDDOES ’17

Ryan and Emma Claire Geitner

By Lee Owen


Reed and Molly Widdoes

North Carolina, and Clem’s late father (the twins’ great-grandfa-ther, R. Walker Geitner ’28) preceded him on campus.

Clem Geitner is a former member of the school’s Alumni Council, while Walker Geitner served on the Academy’s Board of Regents for several years during the 1960s and 1970s. The twins call their grandfather “Guy” (two of the explanations for this are that “Guy” is the first syllable of “Geitner,” and, according to Emma Claire, “he’s also a funny guy”).

“I was so excited about going to Mercersburg that I always carried around the [admission viewbook] they give you when you’re on campus to visit,” Ryan remembers. “Right before we left home [to enroll at Mercersburg], I was a little upset to leave my friends. But then we got here and everything was just like the pictures in the book.”

Both Geitners have immersed themselves into the fabric of Mercersburg quickly; they both play lacrosse and work as co-editors of the Hustle & Bustle section of the Mercersburg News.


Individually, Emma Claire is a headwaiter in the dining hall, is involved with Mercersburg Outdoor Education, and has served as president of the Class of 2017 during her ninth- and 10th-grade years. Next year, her successor as class president will be none other than… Ryan. (Emma Claire chose to not seek a third term as class president but was re-elected as an officer; she will hold the position of director of finance for the rising 11th-grade class.)

Ryan has been a three-sport varsity athlete (soccer, indoor track & field, and lacrosse) since arriving on campus, and has served as a student representative to the Conduct Review Committee. In addi-tion to her presidential duties, she will also serve as one of three new 11th-grade prefects on campus next year.

“I know we both really appreciate the opportunity we’ve been given to be here, and we both really like it here,” Ryan says. “There really isn’t any other place we’d rather be, and it’s something the two of us get to share.”

Though the twins are not roommates, they do live on the same floor in Fowle Hall. Emma Claire’s roommate also knows what it’s like to have a sibling on campus; Abby Henne ’17 is the younger sister of Sarabeth Henne ’15 (and will become an older Mercersburg sibling in the fall when her younger brother, Grant Henne ’19, arrives). “It was great for me when I got here to have someone here already that I knew and trusted,” Abby Henne says. “I’m really excited to have my brother here, and hopefully I can do for him what my sister did for me.”

One floor above in Fowle Hall lives Molly Widdoes, who is the top player on Mercersburg’s girls’ varsity tennis team and earned All-Mid-Atlantic Prep League honors in that sport last fall. She has also played varsity squash, sung in the Chapel Choir, and sold advertisements for the KARUX yearbook.

A tennis ball’s throw away from Fowle is Tippetts Hall, which is home to first-floor prefect Reed Widdoes—a former president of his class. The elder Widdoes will graduate as a member of the inaugu-ral group of students enrolled in MAPS (Mercersburg’s Advanced Program for Global Studies, which is a new capstone experience for seniors) and as a member of the Fifteen.

“In terms of academics, residential life, and social life, Mercersburg has been great for getting a feel for what I assume college will be like,” he says. “I was lucky to attend a great grade school, but Mercersburg has been another step up and has really prepared me for the next step.

“This is such a great place. Why would you not want your sibling to be here with you?”

“ There really isn’t any other place we’d rather be, and it’s something the two of us get to share.”

— RYAN GEITNER ’17, ON ATTENDING MERCERSBURG WITH HER TWIN SISTER, EMMA CLAIRE ’17


Dates to Remember

Arts


May 15–25 Senior Art Show Cofrin Gallery, Burgin Center for the Arts May 22 Senior Music Recital 3:30 p.m., Boone Recital Hall, Burgin Center for the Arts

Sep 25–27 Stony Batter Players: The Real Inspector Hound Burgin Center for the Arts (Family Weekend)

Stony Batter Players directors: Laurie Mufson, Matt Maurer, Steve Crick

The cast of Urinetown: The Musical

Fiona Flanagan ’17, Alex Jackson ’15, and Nikki DeParis’15 in Taking Breath

Kate Kistler ’15 in Urinetown: The Musical

Ava Paul ’18 and Zach McDonald ’17in Urinetown: The Musical

Danny Booth ’17, Mark Moehrle ’16, Tancy Rooffener ’16, and Tommy Sliskovich ’18 in The Perfect Match


Dance director: Denise Dalton

“Bangerz” (L–R: Tatiana Purnell ’15, Summer Zhang ’18, Rebecca Glass ’15, Kate Vela ’16, Emily Bell ’18, Lexi Richards ’17; choreography by Robin Fisher ’14)

“The Space Between Words” (L–R: Yuna Yamamoto ’17, Chelsea Miao ’17,

Glass, Brianna Howland ’15, Lillian Wilkins ’15; choreography by Dalton;

staged as a trio for 2015 Regional High School Dance Festival)

“Echoes” (L–R: Bell, Miao, Howland, Emma Maurer ’18, Wilkins, Ellie Gregg ’18, Zhang; choreography by Katie Vickers ’06 and Albert Quesada)


Octet

Music directors: Richard Rotz, Jim Brinson, Jack Hawbaker, Michael Cameron

Magalia

Chorale

String Ensemble


Alec Jones ’15 (French horn)All-Eastern Honors BandAll-State OrchestraRegion OrchestraDistrict OrchestraDistrict Band

Victor Burgess ’16 (tenor saxophone)District Orchestra

Rachael Ditzler ’15 (violin)District Orchestra

Rebecca Li ’17 (flute)Regional BandDistrict Band

Jazz Band

Ryan Geitner ’17 (chosen for 2015 National K–12 Ceramic Exhibition in Providence, R.I.)

Henry Asher ’15 (Scholastic Art & Writing Awards honorable mention)

Andy Mangham ’15 (Scholastic Art & Writing Awards honorable mention)

Annabel Taylor ’15 (Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Gold Key)

Band

Visual Art faculty: Wells Gray, Sydney Caretti, Kristen Pixler


Boys’ Cross CountryCaptains: Gabriel Allgayer ’16, Max Furigay ’15, Newell Woodworth ’15James D. Fallon Jr. Award (most outstanding contributions): AllgayerMost Improved Runner Award: Chris Doyle ’17Head coach: David Grady (8th season)MAPL/IPSL finish: 4th/1stHighlights: Allgayer won the individual crown at the Mid-Atlantic Prep League Championships; he is the first Blue Storm runner to earn the title since 2009 (Neb Osman ’10)… Jan Smilek ’16 joined Allgayer as an All-MAPL selection after finishing fourth at the MAPL meet… Allgayer took fifth and Smilek was 17th at the Pennsylvania Independent Schools State Championships, helping Mercersburg to a fifth-place team finish… Allgayer and Smilek swept the top two spots at the Independent-Parochial School League Championships to lead Mercersburg to a successful IPSL title defense; Furigay was eighth and Woodworth and Ray Xiao ’18 took 11th and 12th, respectively… Allgayer also captured individual titles at the Paul Short Invitational, the Hagerstown 5K Run, and the Mercersburg Invitational (he became the first Storm runner to win the latter event); he was also an Academic All-MAPL selection.

Girls’ Cross CountryCaptains: Sarabeth Henne ’15, Maddie Nelson ’15, Carlie Stettler ’15Most Outstanding Contributions Award: NelsonMost Improved Runner Award: HenneHead coach: Betsy Cunningham (12th season)MAPL/IPSL finish: 5th/2ndHighlights: Kate Hastings ’16 earned All-MAPL honors after finishing sixth at the MAPL Championships, while Ally Armbruster ’18 finished in the top 10 with a ninth-place effort at the season-ending meet, which saw more than half the team

post personal records… the Storm grabbed second place at the IPSL Championships, with Hastings (2nd), Armbruster (3rd), and Michaela White ’15 (7th) earning All-IPSL honors for top-seven finishes; Nelson placed 11th… Armbruster led the way for Mercersburg in a team-high four meets this year; she and Sofia Makarova ’18 both earned varsity letters as ninth graders… Vicky Freiin von Rheinbaben ’17 was named Academic All-MAPL.

Fall 2014 VarsityAthletics Roundup

Dates to Remember

Athletics


Aug 24 Preseason football registration

Aug 31 All other fall athletic practices begin

Sep 25–27 Family Weekend (most varsity teams at home)

Oct 16–18 Alumni Weekend (most varsity teams at home)

Field HockeyCaptains: game captains selectedCarol Anderson Field Hockey Coach’s Award (most outstanding player): Caroline Brown ’16Shelley Beck ’72 Award (most improved player): Bridget Scott ’16Rebecca “Becki” Peace ’75 Award (most inspirational player): Ria Giannaris ’16Head coach: Alicia Hawk (5th season)Record: 2–13 (0–5 MAPL)Highlights: The team had no seniors on its roster and started four ninth graders, including All-MAPL selection and [Chambersburg] Public Opinion second-team Area All-Star Lauren Jones ’18… the youthful Storm posted wins over Middleburg Academy and Southern Huntingdon… Jones led the team with in scoring (eight goals) and tied for the team lead in assists (2, with Scott); Alyssa Magazine ’17 chipped in three goals… in addition to Jones, four other ninth graders earned varsity letters: Addie Dumm ’18, Elizabeth Fitzgerald ’18, Lauren Ingram ’18, and Rachel Marsh ’18… Maya Miller ’16 made 160 saves in goal… Brown and Emily Hong ’16 were chosen Academic All-MAPL.


FootballCaptains: game captains selectedMost Outstanding Contributions Award: Boo Jordan ’15Most Improved Player Award: Addison Viener ’15Head coach: Dan Walker (12th season)Record: 1–7 (1–4 MAPL)Highlights: Jordan led the team in tackles for the second-straight year, finishing his senior campaign with 86 stops and 6.5 sacks (also a team high); he was named first-team All-MAPL and a first-team Public Opinion Area All-Star and will play at Davidson… Brice Sydnor ’15 (honorable-mention All-MAPL) was the squad’s leading rusher (663 yards) and receiver (176 yards), averaging 3.48 yards per carry and 12.5 yards per catch; he also grabbed a team-leading four interceptions on defense and is headed to Bucknell… Thomas Vallano ’15 earned first-team All-MAPL honors and Kourtney Blanding ’15 was named to the honorable-mention All-MAPL squad… Kam Undieh ’15 made the Public Opinion’s honorable mention Area All-Star team… though it was a difficult season overall, the Blue Storm did have a victory to remember—a 16–14 triumph over Hill on Alumni Weekend… Viener and Sam Hutabarat ’15 earned Academic All-MAPL honors… Conner Chang ’18, Slater Laird ’18, Beau Lowery ’18, Lamont Lucas ’18, and Nicholas Rubino ’18 all received varsity letters as ninth-graders.

GolfCaptains: Gabriella Bucci ’15, Liv Wallace ’15Most Outstanding Contributions Award: Roland Morris ’16Most Improved Player Award: Ross Brown ’16Head coach: Doug Smith (2nd season)Match record: 12–6IPSL finish: championHighlights: The Blue Storm won its fourth-consecutive IPSL title behind individual medalist Ruichi Zhou ’16, who shot 40 over nine holes; he was joined by teammates Morris and Mitchell Smith ’16 on the All-IPSL team… Morris fired the team’s low round of the season, a nine-hole 34 in a head-to-head win over Middleburg Academy…

he notched the team’s best round on eight different occasions; others to earn that distinction at least once during the season were Brown, Wallace, Zhou, and Meg Hwang ’16… the team placed eighth at the Pennsylvania Independent Schools State Championships… in addition to his on-course success, Morris earned special academic recognition as well.

Boys’ SoccerCaptains: David Coly ’15, Nathan Marincic ’15, T.J. Powers ’15Most Outstanding Contributions Award: ColyMost Improved Player Award: Elliot Hicks ’16Schweizer Soccer Cup (hard work/determination): MarincicHead coach: Quentin McDowell (7th season)Record: 18–1–1 (4–0–1 MAPL)MAPL/IPSL finish: champion/champion

Highlights: The team, which finished the year No. 3 in the TopDrawerSoccer.com prep-school rankings, shattered the previous school record for victories in a season (13), outscored its opponents 122–10, and suffered its lone defeat of the year in the Pennsylvania Independent Schools State Championship game, when it fell 1–0 in overtime to Hill… the Blue Storm’s MAPL championship was the first in program history… Coly was the Public Opinion’s co-player of the year after scoring 36 goals and adding 18 assists; he finished his three-year Mercersburg career with 68 goals and 27 assists… Powers, Pedro Mello ’15, and Ugochukwu Okolie ’15 joined Coly on the All-MAPL first team, while Gustavo Farina ’15 was named honorable mention… Coly, Farina, and Marincic were named to the Public Opinion’s All-Star first team, and Kane Doyle ’16 and Matt Athanas-Linden ’16 were honorable-mention selections… Colin Klaff ’18

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and Mikale Williams ’18 earned varsity letters as ninth graders… Hicks and Marincic were chosen Academic All-MAPL.

Girls’ SoccerCaptains: Madi Johnson ’16, Katie Miller ’15, Emily Schoenberger ’15, Teal Tasker ’15Mary Curtis ’86/John VerStandig ’66 Award: SchoenbergerMost Improved Player Award: Maddie Surmacz ’17Hendrickson-Hoffman Coaches’ Award (spirit): MillerHead coach: Jason Bershatsky (7th season)Record: 7–9–1 (0–5 MAPL)IPSL finish: championHighlights: Miller, Schoenberger, and Tasker earned varsity letters all four years… Miller was an All-MAPL selection her final two years and finished her career as the program’s all-time leading scorer (56 goals); she scored 12 goals and tallied six assists in 2014… Miller and Tasker were named first-team All-MAPL and All-IPSL and to the Public Opinion’s All-Star first team, while Schoenberger garnered second-team All-Star honors and Johnson, Sarah Lyman ’16, and Wumi Andrew ’15 were chosen as honorable-mention All-Stars… Andrew and Schoenberger also made the All-IPSL squad… the Blue Storm won its third IPSL title in four years by shutting out St. Maria Goretti in the league championship game… Lyman led the team with 13 goals, and Schoenberger posted a team-best 12 assists… Tasker had three shutouts in goal…

Johnson and Tasker were Academic All-MAPL selections.

Girls’ TennisCaptains: Celine Hylton-Dei ’15, Quirina Keller ’15Most Outstanding Contributions Award: Molly Widdoes ’17Most Improved Player Award: KellerHead coach: Mike Sweeney (11th season)Record: 2–7 (0–5 MAPL)IPSL finish: 2ndHighlights: Widdoes was a first-team All-MAPL selection as the team’s No. 1 singles player; she teamed with Allyson Chae ’17 to form the squad’s top doubles tandem… Keller won a team-high five singles matches, while Hylton-Dei, Molly Taylor ’16, and Eliza Smith ’18 (who was a varsity letterwinner as a ninth grader) were victorious in three singles matches apiece… the team placed second in the 2014 IPSL Championships, which was held in the spring… at the MAPL Championships, Keller placed fourth in the C flight and Widdoes took fifth in the A flight… Hylton-Dei garnered Academic All-MAPL honors.

VolleyballCaptains: Danessa Martin ’17, Sydney Reath ’15Erin Carey ’91 Memorial Volleyball Award (most outstanding player): ReathMost Improved Player Award: Jessica Courtney ’17Head coach: Cindel Hollenshead (2nd season)Record: 8–8Highlights: The team qualified for the Pennsylvania Independent Schools State Tournament for the first

time, but dropped its first-round match to host Springside Chestnut Hill… Martin was named All-IPSL; she led the team in aces (44), tied for the team lead in kills (78, with Reath), and added 95 assists… Reath was tops on the team in assists (110) and added 59 digs… Kari Anderson ’16 recorded a team-high 103 digs and Hannah Hassoun ’17 notched a team-leading 30 blocks… included among the Storm’s eight victories was a win over MAPL foe Blair (in the first-ever volleyball meeting between the teams)… Ava Paul ’18 earned a varsity letter as a ninth grader… Reath garnered special academic recognition.


Class Notes

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Class notes are also available online at www.mercersburg.edu/classnotes.

’42Harold Bushman’s wife, Ruth, passed away March 27, 2014.

Richard Schellhase was appointed Davis Visiting Pro-fessor of Judeo-Christian Values at his alma mater, Ur-sinus College. In January 2013, he delivered a lecture titled “Some Thoughts about Being at Home in the Universe,” and the following January he learned that one of his former students endowed the Richard T. Schellhase Ethics Essay Prize at Ursinus in his honor. “Apparently, there are some friends who are trying to help me compensate for my lifelong ethical lapses!” Richard quips. “Old age, after all, has some advan-tages: They also receive who simply sit and wait.”

’51Bill Clutz has launched a new personal website, www.williamclutz.com. The site features his artwork, which hangs in the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as well as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, and in many other museums and corpo-rate and private collections.

’57Bob Mertz was honored by the Elks Club of Sunbury, Pennsylvania, for service to his community and for philanthropy through his family business, Sunbury Motor Company.

’66William Goodfellow’s mother, Edith, passed away July 28, 2014. She was also the widow of the late Chester Goodfellow ’37.

Howard Neumann has been a member of the Caro-lina Panthers’ chain crew since the team’s inaugural NFL season 20 years ago. “I take great pride in the accomplishment of having participated in the NFL in this significant capacity and for such a long time,” Howard says. “Together with my nearly 40 years of of-ficiating football, I also feel truly blessed.”

’67Dorothy Allen, mother of Harold Allen, Ethan Al-len ’70, and the late Earl Allen ’68, passed away Au-gust 12, 2014. She was also the daughter of the late Earl Douglass (1909) and the sister of the late Elisha Douglass ’35.

Former faculty member Tom Graffagnino has written a book, Wilderness to Water—a Gospel presentation through the use of poetry, prose, drawings, and pho-tographs that weaves Christian apologetics with scrip-ture reflections.

David M. Rahauser, father of David W. Rahauser, Chuck Rahauser ’70, and faculty member Tom Rahauser ’74, died January 4, 2015. He was also the father-in-law of faculty member Susan Rahauser and grandfather of Eric ’05, Chas ’06, Tim ’07, and Laura ’12.

’69Dean Taylor, who has spent the past eight years as vice president of baseball operations and assistant general manager of the Kansas City Royals, retired from that post in January. He is spending 2015—his 40th year working in professional baseball—as a consultant for the Royals, who are the defending American League champions. Dean served three years (1999–2002) as general manager of the Milwaukee Brewers and nine years as assistant GM of the Atlanta Braves (1991–1999). He has also worked for the Cincinnati Reds and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

’72Scott Christopher and his wife, Elizabeth, presented a fine art exhibition titled “Art Is Wings” in Mercers-burg’s Cofrin Gallery in the Burgin Center for the Arts in April and May. Scott and Elizabeth live in Santa Fe, New Mexico; his website is www.scottchristopherart.com.

’74Chris Everhart is owner of The Chili Cowboy LLC, which sells his personal-recipe hot sauces.

’75Allen VanNoppen lives in Morganton, North Carolina. He worked as a physics instructor at Virginia Com-monwealth University, as a newspaper reporter, and as a sales and marketing executive before founding VanNoppen Marketing LLC.

’76Douglas Comer’s mother, Lois, passed away March 20, 2014.

’78Mark Talbott [Mercersburg, fall 2014] was named to Squash Magazine’s Top 50 Most Intriguing, Interest-ing, and Influential People of 2014.

’81Carol Lewis Turner, mother of Joshua Turner and Charles Turner ’84 and grandmother of Bennett Turner ’15, passed away July 11, 2014.

Board of Regents member Barrett Burns ’63 with his grandson, Colin Davis. “Getting a future Mercersburg student into the proper dress code at each stage of life,” Barrett says.

Harvey Kirk ’64 (right) and Meg Hwang ’16 (center) at a screening of Fading Away, a documentary film on Korean War refugees, in Washington, D.C. Harvey’s father, Lt. Col. Lewis H. Kirk Jr., was an officer managing the U.S. Army’s programs on South Korean refugees and North Korean prisoners of war and rebuilding the industrial fabric of the war-torn country. Harvey contributed many of his father’s personal photographs for the film to director Christopher H.K. Lee (pictured at left). Meg worked as an intern on the film in summer 2014.


’83Mark Pyper completed the P2P race—75 miles of single track—in and around Park City, Utah, in Au-gust. He ran into classmate Sue Blaschak Mironov at Bucknell University in October. Sue was visiting her son and daughter, who are Bucknell undergraduates, and Mark was visiting his daughter, who was perform-ing in a play with fellow Bucknell student Lane deCor-dova ’12. Mark also ran into Bill Powers, who was visiting his daughter as well.

’85Benicio Del Toro received the Donostia Award for life-time achievement at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in October. Denzel Washington was the other winner this year; previous recipients have in-cluded Robert De Niro, Lauren Bacall, Dustin Hoff-man, Meryl Streep, and Michael Douglas.

’87Susan Gottlieb’s husband, Jack, passed away November 2, 2014.

’88Nick Sagalkin has been promoted to regional super-visor of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s Westward Region, which includes the top three fishing ports by volume in the United States: Dutch Harbor, Akutan, and Kodiak. Nick, who was born and raised in Alaska, has spent 15 years with the department.

’90Maremi Hooff Andreozzi’s artwork was featured in a solo exhibition in October at the Ritz-Carlton George-town in Washington.

’91Christopher Holbert was a cast member of R+J: Star-Cross’d Death Match at DC Reynolds in Washington in summer 2014.

’92After years working as a senior attorney at The Nature Conservancy, Lakshmi Sarma Ramani is now general counsel at the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

’95Meredith Glah Coors and her family have moved from Denver, Colorado, to Charlottesville, Virginia, for her husband Peter’s job.

’97Jordan Blackman is a mobile and online engagement and monetization consultant. He has collaborated with clients that include Nickelodeon, EA Sports, and Capcom on brands such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Smurfs, and SpongeBob SquarePants.

Learning to Drive, produced by Gabriel Hammond’s Broad Green Pictures, won the 2014 Toronto Film Fes-tival’s audience runner-up award. The film stars Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson; it will be part of the company’s distribution slate coming to theaters this spring along with 99 Homes (which stars Andrew Gar-field and Michael Shannon) and two additional film acquisitions from the festival.

’99After a number of years with Bloomberg TV in London and Hong Kong, Ambika Behal has set up her own corporate strategy consultancy and is blogging for Forbes.com, as well as writing for a number of pub-lications on economic, political and social develop-ment issues. She splits her time between New Delhi and Hong Kong.

’00In October, Jeremy McGarvey received the C. Walton Lillehei Young Investigator Award at the European As-sociation for Cardiothoracic Surgery’s annual meeting in Milan, Italy. The award was presented for his work on “Left Ventricular 4-Dimensional Flow Changes Fol-lowing Undersized Mitral Annuloplasty.” Now a chief resident in general surgery at the University of Penn-sylvania, Jeremy begins his cardiac surgery fellowship at Penn in July 2015 with plans to further specialize in advanced aortic surgery.

’03Kolb Ettenger shares that he is channeling his inner Tom Thorne and is in his second year teaching Latin at BASIS Oro Valley, a charter school just outside

Tucson, Arizona, which was recently ranked the No. 5 public high school in the country by Newsweek/The Daily Beast.

Nate Fochtman was named to the Central Penn Busi-ness Journal’s “Forty Under 40” list.

Katie Fox married Chris Burns June 14, 2014, in Am-herst, Massachusetts. Guests at the ceremony in-cluded classmates Eve Cahill and Andrea Gunadi. Katie and Chris live in Washington, D.C., where Katie completed a master’s degree this past summer and Chris works at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Jenn Hendrickson earned a master’s degree in global security studies from Johns Hopkins University. She is continuing to work as a risk-policy analyst with Binera Inc.

Morgan Higby-Flowers’ media projection art was featured in the January 2015 issue of the Nashville magazine Native. Morgan is an assistant professor at Watkins College of Art, Design & Film in Nashville.

Classmates Mark Pyper ’83 and Sue Blaschak Mironov ’83 at Bucknell University.

Kim Lloyd ’90 (right) ran into Lindley Peterson Fleury ’77 at the 2014 FINA World Masters Swimming Championships in Montreal. Both women won the 200-meter backstroke and 100m backstroke for their respective age groups, and Lindley won the 50m backstroke as well. After five years at Colby-Sawyer College in New Hampshire, Kim has moved to Granville, Ohio, where she is assistant men’s and women’s swimming coach at Denison University.

After three years in Florida and six months in Myrtle Beach campaigning for congressional candidate Gloria Bromell-Tinubu, Janelle Denny Cwik ’91 and her husband, Chris, are building a custom log home on 10 acres in Lake Lure, North Carolina. Janelle is working as a marketing manager for Wallace & Company and Chris is at Hyundai of Asheville. “As we wave goodbye to the beach and prepare to make the mountains home, we couldn’t be more excited,” says Janelle. “[Faculty emeriti] Kristy Higby and Mark Flowers (near Asheville), and April Geoghegan ’91 in Johnson City, Tennessee, make three Mercersburg families in the same Blue Ridge/Appalachian Mountain area!” Janelle also writes that she, Chris, and Ryan McCormack ’91 connected for dinner in Asheville in December.

Chris Love ’67 (pictured here giving his newest granddaughter her first group swim lesson in Seattle) retired after 30 years as a high-school psychologist in Albemarle County, Virginia. “Along with travel to see my four grandchildren, I have been enjoying my time with biking, big mountain skiing, and golf, including a recent pilgrimage to the Old Course,” Chris says.


Births/Adoptions

1. Kyle Davis Brown, son of Lindsey Coates Brown ’99 and her husband, Alex, born September 27, 2014. (Kyle joins big brother Wyatt.)

2. Aidan Stone Danziger, son of Matt Danziger ’99 and his wife, Kate, born March 21, 2014.

3. Luise Müller, daughter of Pia Streicher Müller ’00 and her husband, Andreas, born August 28, 2014.

To former faculty member Chris Thoren ’90 and his wife, Sarah: a daughter, Isabelle, May 11, 2012.

To Laura Linderman Barker ’91 and her husband, Andrew: a daughter, Margaret “Maggie” Rose Eugenia Barker, February 21, 2014.

To Emily Adams (widow of Brian Adams ’97): a daughter, Sophia Lynn Adams, March 30, 2015.

To Liz Curry Watkins ’98 and her husband, Pete ’97: a son, Connor David, August 10, 2014.

To Meghan D’Amelio Watson ’99 and her husband, William: a son, Keeler Lawton, November 7, 2014.

To Victoria Leontieva Blackburn ’03 and her husband, Jamie Blackburn ’03: a son, James B. Blackburn V, December 15, 2014.

To Ian McClintick ’04 and his wife, Katie: a son, Lucas Ian, January 26, 2015.

To Curtis Feigt ’09 and his wife, Katelyn: a son, Odin Gerhart, January 2, 2015.

Last summer, Jessica Malone spent three weeks in Chingola, Zambia, where she participated in an acid tar remediation project as part of her work with AMEC. Jessica ran in the 2014 New York City Marathon for the charity Every Mother Counts.

’04Brett Gallaway has been named a partner at McLaugh-lin & Stern, a law firm in New York City.

Will Scott married Glenda Cabral October 2, 2014. Will works in Mumbai, India, for Trafigura, a Dutch multinational commodity trading and logistics firm specializing in energy and base metals. He maintains a blog of his adventures at teamscotttour.com.

’05Tammy McBeth Armstrong has launched a Tumblr page, technicalady.tumblr.com, to chronicle her ad-ventures in graduate school at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

Elliott Van Ness is director of research and portfolio manager at Rinehart Wealth Management and has earned a CFA charter.

’06Vincent Rey [Mercersburg, fall 2014] led the Cincinnati Bengals with 121 tackles (good for 12th in the NFL) during the 2014 season. He started 13 games, was named the Bengals’ defensive player of the year, and was elected the team’s NFL Players Association repre-sentative in addition to being nominated for the NFL Man of the Year Award for his service off the field. The Bengals made the playoffs for the fourth-straight year for the first time in the team’s history.

Veronica Sisson married Blair Connell Kirkpatrick June 14, 2014, at Culzean Castle and Country Park in South Ayrshire, Scotland. Alumni in attendance included Tara Brendle Owens ’91, whose two daughters were flower girls. Veronica’s husband is Scottish—the cou-ple met while playing for the University of Glasgow’s basketball teams after Veronica moved there in 2008 to study zoology. Veronica and Blair live in Fife, Scot-land; she is studying veterinary medicine at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies in Edinburgh, and he is in his final year of a Ph.D. program in photonics at the University of St. Andrews.

Haven Barnes ’96 (right) met up with his old Main Hall roommate and fellow Irving Society member, Patrick Tansor ’96, on a visit to Tennessee. Haven is a guide for Backroads and has been traveling the world in between training for marathons and triathlons. Patrick lives and works at Baylor School in Chattanooga with his wife, Allison, and their children, Maggie (7) and Oliver (1). Patrick teaches theater to sixth through 12th graders and is a dorm parent. After being best friends for 20 years, Haven and Patrick reminisced about how, still to this day, Mercersburg plays an important role in every aspect of their lives. They are forever grateful to the faculty and staff for supporting (and tolerating) them during their time at school.

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’07Jessica Stojak married Brook Schafer on August 16, 2014, in Hagerstown, Maryland. Jessica is assistant director of special education at West Nottingham Academy in Colora, Maryland; she holds a bach-elor’s degree in elementary and special education from Saint Francis University and a master’s degree in special education/learning disabilities from Ameri-can University. Brook is a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps and is stationed at the White House Communi-cations Agency in Washington.

’10Britta Sherman has returned to the D.C. area after liv-ing in Louisiana for a year. She completed her first se-mester of graduate school at Northeastern University and has a new position as a GIS analyst with Chester Engineers.

’11Wade Burelbach graduated cum laude from Bard Col-lege at Simon’s Rock in Massachusetts in May 2014.

Nikki Hyrkas received the assignment of Navy pilot in the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 2015’s service selection.

’12Sarah Allen studied at the University of Freiburg in Germany during the fall 2014 semester and con-nected with several alumni throughout Germany, in-cluding Cora Brandau ’14, Becca Galey ’09, Carolin Oetzbach ’10, and Fritzi Wentz ’09. “All of the other Americans in my program were always asking me how I knew so many people in Germany,” Sarah says. “It was so cool!” Sarah is studying in London this spring

40 M E R C E R S B U R G M A G A Z I N E FA L L 2 0 1 4

Marriages

1. Aaron Chiu ’99 married Kai Chen June 28, 2014, in Falls Church, Virginia. Byron Chiu ’01 (pictured to Aaron’s immediate right) served as the senior best man and Adrian Fang ’99 (far right) was a groomsman. Edward Bou ’48 was also in attendance.

2. The wedding of Jonathan Palmer ’99 and Dominic Vaiana, August 31, 2014, in Tabernash, Colorado. (L–R: Tom Dugan ’99, Natalie Wingrove Scott ’00, Jonathan and Dominic, Emily Peterson Karottki ’97, Matt Palmer ’96.)

3. Mike Flanagan ’01 and Rachel Larsen on their wedding day, July 12, 2014.

4. Eve Cahill ’03, Katie Fox ’03, and Andrea Gunadi ’03 at Katie’s wedding to Chris Burns, June 14, 2014.

5. Abigail Thomas ’04 and Robert Andrew Powell on their wedding day, December 6, 2014, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. (Guests included Abigail’s brother, Joshua ’97.)

6. The wedding of Veronica Sisson ’06 and Blair Connell Kirkpatrick, June 14, 2014, in South Ayrshire, Scotland.

7. The wedding of Katie Vickers ’06 and Albert Quesada, September 13, 2014, in Winchester, Virginia. (L–R: Sarah Timoney ’06, Katie, Sami Saghafi ’06, Hilary Gridley ’06.)

8. Jacquelyn Ross ’07 and Jeffrey Grace Jr. on their wedding day, August 23, 2014, in Welsh Run, Pennsylvania. (Faculty member Paul Galey officiated.)

9. Jessica Stojak ’07 and Brook Schafer on their wedding day, August 16, 2014, in Hagerstown, Maryland.

Nichole Barbuzanes ’02 and Dimitrios Komninos, September 6, 2014.

Will Scott ’04 and Glenda Cabral, October 2, 2014.

Cord Heine ’07 and Haley Kirsch, August 30, 2014.

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and will return to George Washington University in the fall, where she is majoring in English.

John-Eric Bell helped the Madison Rugby Club (which is affiliated with James Madison University) to an

undefeated regular season. The Dukes won the Car-dinal Conference and advanced to the semifinals of the USA Rugby Division II National College Champi-onships in December, where they lost a semifinal to eventual national-champion Minnesota-Duluth. John-Eric is in his third year at JMU, where he is majoring in intelligence analysis with a minor in Russian studies.

’13Phoebe Moore, a junior cross country runner at Wil-liam Smith College, has created a program called

During the summer break between her junior and senior years at Boston College, Laken Lynch ’11 (above right) spent time shadowing 39th Judicial District Court of Common Pleas Judge Shawn Meyers ’86 during a day of family law hearings at the Franklin County Courthouse in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Boston College in 2015, Laken intends to enroll in law school and pursue a career focused on child advocacy issues. Laken and Shawn enjoyed the time between hearings sharing observations of growing up in the Mercersburg area and attending Mercersburg. One of the many things they agreed upon is that Mercersburg gave them a great foundation for future endeavors.

Gerverus Flagg ’12, faculty member Matthew Caretti, and A.J. Firestone ’10 after the Georgetown/Wagner football game in August. Gerverus was the starting center for Georgetown and A.J. was the punter and holder for Wagner in 2014. “These are two of the last (and best!) players I coached at Mercersburg, and it was fun to hear them call me ‘Coach,’” Matthew says.

Athletes and Adoptions that matches the school’s athletic teams with children in the community battling cancer. As part of the program, teams hold a signing party for their new “teammate” and invite him or her to practices and games.

Lauren Reilly is studying at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

’14Agata Foryciarz is a freshman at Princeton University. She connected over the summer with a group of Mer-cersburg students who traveled to her home country of Poland.

Phillip McGloin plays on Vanderbilt University’s men’s basketball team. He saw his first action as a Commodore in a win over Purdue in December.

Kathleen Mills is a freshman at the U.S. Naval Acad-emy and a member of Navy’s women’s lacrosse team.

Former FacultyVictor Cahn, who taught English at Mercersburg from 1969 to 1971, published Walking Distance: Remember-ing Classic Episodes from Classic Television. The book provides background on memorable episodes from 11 television shows. Victor is a professor of English at Skidmore College.

For more information and to enroll visit www.mercersburgsummer.com

Discovery Day Camp (ages 8-12)

Adventure Camps (ages 7-16)

Young Writers Camp (ages 11-16)

Theatre Workshop (ages 11-16)

Dance Workshop (ages 11-16)

Swim Clinics (ages 9-17)

It’s not just CAMP...

It’s not just CAMP...

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CAMP...

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NOMINEES FOR ELECTION TO THE BOARD OF REGENTS

The Committee on Regents also seeks nominations for membership on the Board of Regents. To nominate an individual, please complete the following:

Name: __________________________________________________________________________ Class Year: ______________

Rationale for Nomination (e.g., longtime class volunteer): ___________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Your Name: ______________________________________________________________________ Class Year: ______________

MAIL TO: Brian Hargrove, Secretary to the Board of Regents EMAIL: [email protected] Mercersburg Academy 300 East Seminary Street Mercersburg, PA 17236

Ballot for Election of Alumni Representatives to the Board of Regents

Steven Wagshal ’90Thomas Hadzor ’72

Under the bylaws of Mercersburg’s Board of Regents, two alumni may be elected annually by the alumni-at-large to a three-year term. The Board recommends Thomas Hadzor ’72 and Steven Wagshal ’90 as alumni representatives. This ballot is hereby circulated to all Mercersburg alumni to encourage their participation in the election.

Thomas Hadzor ’72Durham, North CarolinaTom has worked at Duke University since 1996 and currently serves as the as-sociate university librarian for development for the Duke University Libraries. He received his bachelor’s degree from Muhlenberg College and master’s degree from Michigan State University. While at Mercersburg, Tom was a dorm prefect and a member of the football, basketball, and baseball teams. He has been a class agent since 2000 and a member of the Board of Regents since 2012. Tom also served on the Alumni Council for six years. He and his wife, Susan Ross, have six children.

Steven Wagshal ’90New York, New YorkSteven is the chief operating officer at Samlyn Capital LLC, a New York-based hedge fund. He received his bachelor’s degree in economics from the Whar-ton School at the University of Pennsylvania. While at Mercersburg, Steven was a member of the soccer, squash, and baseball teams and sports editor of The Mercersburg News. He is a former member of the Alumni Council and has been a member of the Board of Regents since 2012. Steven’s sisters, Julie ’91 and Amy ’00, and his brother-in-law, David Brennan ’00, are also Mercersburg alumni. Steven and his wife, Emily, have two daughters.

Obituaries


’32James M. Gilland Jr., March 5, 2013. (Laucks, Irving, track & field, cross country, class officer, News) Jim attended Lafayette College, served in the U.S. Coast Guard, and worked for many years in the insurance industry. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Margaret, and his second wife, Eleanor. Survivors include two daughters, a son, and numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and cousins.

’34Franklin A. Lucard, April 30, 2013. (Marshall, soccer, baseball) Frank graduated from Lehigh University, served with the Seabees during World War II, and spent most of his career in sales management and executive positions with Pennwalt Chemical Company. He was pre-ceded in death by his wife, Catharine. Survivors include three sons and four grandchildren.

’36Robert G. Fleagle, April 20, 2013. (’Eighty-eight, Marshall, News Board, Lit Board, Chemistry Club, soccer) Bob attended Johns Hopkins Uni-versity and served in the Civilian Public Service and Army Air Corps. He taught high school math, earned a Ph.D. in meteorology from New York University, and spent 40 years as a professor at the Univer-sity of Washington, where he chaired the department of atmospheric sciences for a time. He also held many related posts throughout his career, including the presidency of the American Meteorological Soci-ety. Bob was preceded in death by his first wife, Marianne, a sister, and a grandson. Survivors include his second wife, Rosemary; two sons and three grandchildren; and a sister.

Harold H. Martz, August 22, 2014. (Irving, Glee Club) Hal graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and worked at Westinghouse Electric Corporation, where he was a sales specialist in the international divi-sion. He was preceded in death by his wife, Gladys, and is survived by a daughter, two granddaughters, seven great-grandchildren, and a great-great-grandson.

’38Harry W. Jones, December 21, 2012. (Main, Irving, Chemistry Club, Glee Club, News Board, Press Club) Harry graduated from Lehigh

University and the New Haven College School of Executive Develop-ment. He served in the Army during World War II, was awarded the Croix de Guerre at the liberation of Luxembourg, and continued to serve in the Army Reserve until he retired with the rank of major in 1955. He was president of Trans-Lite from 1957 to 1991. Harry was preceded in death by a son. Survivors include his wife, Jean; a son; and four grandchildren.

’39Joseph S. Harrington, December 26, 2014. (Main, Marshall, Press Club, Glee Club) Joe graduated from Duke University and served in the Army during World War II. He worked in the finance department at DuPont for 36 years. Survivors include his wife, Deborah; a son and a daughter; and four grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

’40John H. Hoke, September 1, 2014. (Marshall, soccer, Chemistry Club) John earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Pennsylvania State College (now University) and served in the Army Air Force Reserve during World War II. He received a doctorate in engineering from Johns Hopkins University and worked as a metallurgist for the Babcock and Wilcox Company and the Crucible Steel Company. Later he taught in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences at Penn State. He was pre-ceded in death by his first wife, Cora, and his second wife, Betty, as well as three sisters, a brother, and a stepson. Survivors include five children, two stepdaughters, nine grandchildren, four great-grandchil-dren, five step-grandchildren, and several step-great-grandchildren.

Richard A. Oaksford, December 12, 2004. (wrestling, baseball) Dick was a Marine Corps veteran of World War II and worked as a bus driver for the city of Aurora, New York. Survivors include his wife, Gladys, two daughters, three grandchildren, a great-granddaughter, and sev-eral nieces, nephews, and cousins.

’41Daniel R. Spicer, September 14, 2014. (’Eighty-eight, Marshall, foot-ball, track & field, band) Daniel played football for and graduated from Colgate University and received a master’s degree from New York Uni-versity. He served in the Army during World War II and worked for Mobil Oil, retiring in 1986. He was preceded in death by his wife, Joan, as well as two brothers—including Kerby (1916)—and three sisters.


Survivors include two sons, two daughters, three stepchildren, four grandchildren, and a great-granddaughter.

Minor J. Stein, April 2, 2014. (Irving, baseball) Minor graduated from Bucknell University and earned a degree from Columbus University toward his commission in the Navy. He served in World War II and was awarded the American Theater Ribbon and the World War II Vic-tory Medal. Minor was a professional mechanical engineer with West-inghouse Electric Corporation for 40 years. He was preceded in death by his wife, Martha, and a son. Survivors include a son, two grandchil-dren, and a sister.

’42Walter H. Bartlett, August 13, 2014. (Keil, Marshall, baseball) Walter served in the Navy during World War II. He worked as a pilot for United Airlines and later served as a sheriff in Washoe County, Nevada. He was preceded in death by Julia, his wife of 63 years. Survivors include a nephew and several nieces.

Alvin Benedict, June 7, 2014. (Marshall, swimming) Al served in the U.S. Merchant Marine and graduated from Rutgers University with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He was a two-time college All-America swimmer and was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Al spent his career in the hotel industry, including time as director of hotel operations for Hughes Properties and as president of the MGM hotels in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada. He was preceded in death by his wife, Jayne, and a sister. Survivors include two sons, a daughter, and four grandchildren.

Marshall G. Gregory Jr., October 19, 2014. (Irving, track & field, Blue and White Melodians) Marshall attended Franklin & Marshall College and was a technical sergeant in the Army infantry during World War II, earning several medals and Bronze Stars. He retired as a financial consultant and was preceded in death by his wife, Peggy, as well as a brother and a great-grandson. Survivors include two daughters and a son, six grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, two step-great-grandchildren, a sister, and a brother (John ’49).

William T. Rodenbach II, July 24, 2010. (Marshall, swimming) Bill attended Ohio State University and served in the Air Force. He lived in Riverside, California.

Roger V. Rowe, December 14, 2014. (South Cottage, Marshall, choir, Les Copains, Glee Club, News Board, swimming, track & field, Chem-istry Club, Class Orator) Roger graduated from Harvard College and served as an officer in the Navy during World War II. He worked for W.R. Grace & Company during his entire professional career and retired as a corporate vice president and president of one of the company’s international divisions. Roger was preceded in death by a brother, Malcolm ’38. Survivors include his wife, Sarah; two sons (including Peter ’69); and two granddaughters.

Henry I. Stahr Jr., March 11, 2014. (Keil, Marshall, Cum Laude, soccer, French Club) Hank attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy, received an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh, and served in the Navy. He spent his career as a quality-assurance manager with Westinghouse. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Florence, and two sisters. Survivors include his wife, Jane; seven children; 13 grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.

Henry A. Steiger, October 18, 2014. (Marshall, Chapel Choir, Concert Band, Stamp Club, track & field) Henry, the son of the late Lee Steiger (1911) and cousin of the late Lee Daub ’38, served in the Army during World War II. He graduated from the Bliss Electrical School of Wash-ington, D.C., and worked for Allegheny Power Company as a high-volt-age line foreman. He also worked for the Cumberland Valley Electric Company and Potomac Edison in addition to spending 15 years as the Academy’s director of buildings and grounds. Henry was mayor of Mercersburg from 1986 to 1993, and is one of four Academy alumni to serve as the borough’s mayor. He installed the borough’s first traffic light at the intersection of North Main and Oregon streets in the late 1950s, and could often be found at the school’s McFadden Model Rail-road Museum, which he helped oversee. Survivors include his wife, Janice (whose brother, the late Lynn Heinbaugh ’57, also attended Mercersburg); sons John ’77 and Bill ’80; and five grandchildren.

’43Harry D. Baldwin, November 6, 2014. (South Cottage, Irving, Laticla-vii, wrestling, tennis) Harry served in the Navy during World War II. He attended the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and graduated from Williams College and Andover Newton Theological Seminary, after which he was ordained in the United Church of Christ. Harry served congregations in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Connecti-cut. He was predeceased by two brothers (including Thomas ’46) and a niece. Survivors include a cousin (Donald Jones ’44) and five nieces and nephews.

Bruce P. Berlind, November 1, 2014. (Main, Marshall, The Fifteen, News Board, Lit Board, Stamp Club, Camera Club, Press Club, Les Copains, Laticlavii, tennis, Chemistry Club, Class Ode Committee) Bruce graduated from Princeton University and Johns Hopkins Uni-versity and served in the Army during World War II. He was chair of the English department at Colgate University, where he published poems and translations in a variety of collections and literary journals. Survi-vors include his wife, Jo Anne; three daughters and two sons; and 10 grandchildren.

Z. William Colson Jr., July 10, 2014. (Main, Irving, choir, Glee Club, KARUX Board, Les Copains, Stony Batter, Marshal of the Field, Class Orator, Class Ode Committee) Bill served in the Army during World War II and graduated from Yale University and Chicago Theological Seminary. He also received an honorary doctorate from Olivet College. Bill spent his career as a minister in the United Church of Christ, serv-ing churches in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Illinois, and Michi-gan. Survivors include his wife of 55 years, B.D.; a daughter and son; and six grandchildren.

Harry H. Esbenshade Jr., August 1, 2014. (Main, Marshall, El Cir-culo Español, Chemistry Club, basketball) Harry graduated from Yale University and served in the Navy. He spent his career with the Mountain Company and its operations that included Tri-State Roof-ing & Sheet Metal Company. Harry continued to operate Ohio Valley Land Company, a real-estate investment venture, until his death. Survivors include three sons and a daughter; 11 grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.

Robert A. Groh, October 8, 2014. (Main Annex, Irving, Camera Club, Gun Club, Marshal of the Field, track & field, soccer, baseball) Bob served in the Army Air Corps and graduated from Franklin & Marshall College. He began his career as a used-car salesman before working at


Lebanon Valley General Hospital (formerly the Lebanon Sanatorium), where he became the administrator. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Dorothy. Survivors include his wife, Dottie; three sons (including John ’69); and six grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.

’44Webster J. McCormack, July 20, 2014. (South Cottage, Irving, Cum Laude, News Board, Press Club, Senate, class president, football, baseball, El Circulo Español) Web served in the Army and earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan. He held management positions at Allis Chalmers Corpora-tion and Campbell Chain Company and co-founded Wilmac Corpo-ration, eventually serving as president and CEO of McWil Group, a senior health-care and residential services provider. Web also started a chain of institutional pharmacies in the mid-Atlantic, an addictive disorders treatment hospital, a home health-care service for seniors, and a country club. He was preceded in death by his wife, Delores, and is survived by two daughters, including Patricia McCormack Dodd ’73; five grandchildren, including Andrew Reynolds ’09; and a great-grand-daughter, a sister, and a brother (Daniel “Jim” McCormack ’46).

’45Thomas B. Ake Jr., June 3, 2013. (’Eighty-eight, Irving, football, basket-ball, baseball, Stony Batter) Thomas served in the Navy during World War II and worked for Morgan Sash and Door Company for 45 years. Survivors include his wife, Edna; five children, 10 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren; and a brother (John ’51) and sister.

Edgar C. Pickard, December 9, 2014. (Main, Irving, basketball, foot-ball, Gun Club) Edgar attended the University of Pittsburgh and Cornell University and served in the Navy during World War II. He worked for U.S. Steel and later founded Varied Products in Valparaiso, Indiana. Survivors include his wife, Norma Lee; two daughters; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

’46Basil A. Needham Jr., December 10, 2014. (’Eighty-eight, Irving, foot-ball, basketball) “Boomer” graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and spent his career with the U.S. Department of Labor, including service as a regional director of OSHA. He was preceded in death by a sister and is survived by his wife, Doerthe; three sons and a daughter; seven grandchildren and a great-grandchild; and two brothers.

’47Thomas H. Edelblute Jr., November 24, 2014. (Colonial Cottage, Mar-shall) Thomas attended Lehigh University and received an engineer-ing degree from Duke University. He was a Navy veteran of World War II. Thomas worked as an engineer for U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh and was later president of Kuhn Construction Company. He also worked for the State Department for many years, building embassies around the world. Survivors include his wife, Margaret; two sons, T.H. Edelblute III ’78 and David Edelblute ’82; a brother; several nieces and nephews, including Dede LaFollette Arbogast ’77 and Cal LaFollette ’85; and sev-eral step-grandsons.

Benjamin L. Eisenberger Jr., September 3, 2014. (’Eighty-eight, Mar-shall, Dance Committee, track & field, baseball, football) Benjamin

attended Rutgers University. He worked as a major equipment buyer for Fairchild Aircraft Company and later as a contract engineer and president and CEO of the Walter Kidde Company. He was preceded in death by a son. Survivors include his wife, Luana; three children, 13 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

John B. Hemphill, November 7, 2014. (’Eighty-eight, Irving, baseball) John is survived by his wife of 57 years, Betsy; three children; nine grandchildren; and 11 great grandchildren.

Richard D. Hileman, May 24, 2014. (South Cottage, Marshall, El Cir-culo Español, Chess Club, Glee Club, Radio Club, track & field) Richard was an Army veteran and worked as a corporate real-estate director for Lockheed Martin. He was preceded in death by his wife, Margaret, and is survived by two sons (including Kent ’74), three grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

Louis M. MacGregor, September 16, 2014. (Main Annex, Irving, Rau-chrunde, Stamp Club, Radio Club) Mac graduated from Lehigh Uni-versity with a bachelor’s degree in geology and served in the Army. He worked as a materials research engineer for the Pennsylvania Department of Highways and spent nearly 30 years with the National Academy of Sciences. Mac also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and flew around the world longitudinally in a modified seaplane equipped with skis.

Hardwig P. Posert Jr., October 3, 2014. (Main, Marshall, Les Copains, Chess Club, Stamp Club) Harvey, the son of the late Hardwig Posert (1914), earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and studied at Southern Law University and the University of Chicago Law School. He served in the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps and later headed the New York branch of the Daniel J. Edelman PR Agency. He also was public relations director for the Wine Institute in California, joined the Robert Mondavi Winery in the Napa Valley, and founded Harvey Posert Public Relations. Survivors include his first wife, Myra; three sons; and three grandsons and two granddaughters.

’48Arnold L. Bauer, November 9, 2014. (Irving, News, Caducean Club, Press Club) Arnold graduated from Rutgers University and Rutgers Law School. He was a veteran of the U.S. military and spent 30 years as an attorney. He was preceded in death by a son and a stepdaughter. Survivors include his wife, Marilyn; two children, four stepchildren, four grandchildren, 11 step-grandchildren, and six great-grandchil-dren; and three sisters.

Neal F. Layser, September 16, 2014. (Maple Cottage, Irving president, class officer, Senate, Rauchrunde, Chapel Choir, Glee Club, YMCA Cabinet, Dance Committee, cross country, swimming, Stony Batter) Neal, the son of the late Earle Layser ’22, was a Navy veteran of World War II and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Franklin & Marshall College. He taught high-school English and German and later became the speech and hearing therapist for schools in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. Neal also worked for Josten’s American Year-book Company in a sales and advisory role and opened and operated the Layser Family Bookstore and Gift Shop in Hershey. He was pre-ceded in death by two brothers. Survivors include his wife, Ann; two sons, a daughter, five grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren; and a sister.


James M. Mock, March 6, 2014. (Marshall, wrestling, football) James, who was the son of the late George Mock (1916), worked for Lee Industries in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. He was preceded in death by his wife, Joella, as well as two daughters and a granddaughter.

John C. Spadone, July 10, 2014. (South Cottage, Irving, Les Copains, tennis, cheerleader) John was a veteran of the Korean War and attended Colgate University and Harvard Business School. He was president of Spadone Inc., a machinery design firm for the tire indus-try based in Norwalk, Connecticut. John also served on the board of trustees for Norwalk Hospital. Survivors include his wife, Ellin; three children; and five grandchildren.

’49John T. Sebald Jr., February 11, 2014. (Marshall, News) John lived in Newark, Ohio. He was preceded in death by his wife, Patricia; a sister; and a great-grandson. Survivors include five children, eight grandchil-dren, seven great-grandchildren, and a sister.

’50Paul N. Barna Jr., September 2, 2014. (South Cottage, Irving, News Board, Stamp Club, Radio Club, Projection Crew, wrestling, Juris-prudence Society, golf) Paul served in the Army during the Korean War and attended Dickinson College and Dickinson Law School. He practiced law for 44 years at Barna and Barna in Washington County, Pennsylvania. Paul was preceded in death by his wife, Peggy Anne. Survivors include three daughters.

Vincent W. Campbell, October 5, 2014. (Main, Irving, Concert Band, football) Vincent graduated from Yale University and received a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Following two years in private practice, he joined Westinghouse Electric Company. He is survived by his wife, Mary Jane, and a son and daughter.

William R. Damsel, September 12, 2014. (South Cottage, Marshall, football) William was an Army veteran and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Ohio State University. He taught high-school history, physical education, and German, and was a high-school and college football coach. Survivors include his wife, Mary; two sons; three grandchildren and a great-grandson; and a sister.

Robert H. Duffus, August 9, 2014. (Keil, Irving, basketball, swimming, KARUX Board, Press Club, Laticlavii, Chemistry Club, Chapel usher, Chess Club, Varsity Club, swimming, tennis, Marshal of the Field) Robert received a mechanical engineering degree from Carnegie Insti-tute of Technology and served in the Army. He worked for Pittsburgh Plate Glass for more than four decades. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Janet, a sister, and a nephew. Survivors include his wife, Barbara; two sons and a daughter; 10 grandchildren; and three stepdaughters.

Rohn Engh, August 4, 2014. (’Eighty-eight, Marshall, News Board, KARUX Board, Lit Board, El Circulo Español, choir, Glee Club, Stony Batter, football, baseball, Marshal of the Field, Paideia) Rohn gradu-ated from the Maryland Institute of Art and served in the Army. He was a widely published photographer and operated Photosource Interna-tional with his wife, Jeri, for more than 35 years. Rohn was preceded in death by two brothers. In addition to his wife, survivors include two sons; a brother (Fred ’54) and two sisters; and several nieces and nephews (including Andrew ’81).

Thomas E. Williams Jr., March 26, 2011. (South Cottage, Irving, Stony Batter) Tom earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Tri-State University. He worked as a contractor and county building inspector and also owned a concrete company. He was preceded in death by a sister and is survived by his wife, Marlee; three sons; seven grandchildren; and a sister.

’51John R. Kissinger, September 22, 2014. (Marshall, football, baseball) John attended Case Western Reserve University, Juniata College, and Shippensburg University. He served in the Army during the Korean War and worked as a land surveyor. John was preceded in death by a brother and a granddaughter. Survivors include his wife, Jeanne; eight children; 25 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.

’52J. Dennis Whitley, June 22, 2012. (Irving, football, basketball, baseball) “Jack” was a retired sales representative and lived in West Richland, Washington. Survivors include his wife, Kathy.

’53Thomas A. Jenkins, March 1, 2014. (Keil, Marshall, Student Council, Chemistry Club, Class Day Committee, choir, Glee Club, Octet, foot-ball, wrestling) Tom played football at the University of Pittsburgh and worked as a consultant. He lived in Sparta, New Jersey. Survivors include his wife, Pat, and two daughters.

Richard C. Pfoutz, August 26, 2014. (’Eighty-eight, football band, Gun Club) Richard was a veteran of the Air Force and worked for many years for AT&T. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Patricia, his second wife, Patricia, and a brother. Survivors include four daughters, 13 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren, five great-great-grandchil-dren, a brother, and several nieces and nephews.

Walter A. Saling Jr., November 28, 2014. (South Cottage, Marshall, football) Walt served in the Army and earned an accounting degree from Waynesburg University. He spent 44 years as a stockbroker, retir-ing from Janney Montgomery Scott. Survivors include his wife, Phyllis, and a daughter.

’54Peter A. Evans, November 30, 2014. (Keil, Irving, valedictorian, Cum Laude, News Board, Press Club, Student Council, The Fifteen, Les Copains, Chemistry Club, Caducean Club, Class Day Committee, Chapel usher, entertainment usher) Peter graduated from Harvard College and earned a doctorate of medicine from Harvard Medical School. He served in the Navy and spent 35 years in medicine, includ-ing as an internist, chief of medicine, and director of intensive care at various facilities. His father was the late M. Albert Evans ’22. In addi-tion to his wife, Betty, he is survived by three children, five stepchil-dren, three brothers (James Evans ’49, Bruce Evans ’52, and former faculty member Geoffrey Evans ’57), 15 grandchildren, 20 great-grand-children, two nieces (Stacy Evans ’83 and Kirsten Evans-Orville ’85), and his first wife, Susan.

John T. Lockard, May 8, 2014. (’Eighty-eight, Marshall, Gun Club) John and his wife, Ann, lived in Vero Beach, Florida.


’55William I. Hecht, September 7, 2014. (South Cottage, Irving, Student Council, Les Copains, Blue and White Melodians, Assembly Band, Christian Service Group, Chapel usher, Gun Club, football, wrestling, track & field) William served in the Army and graduated from Miami University. He was the owner of William Hecht Appraisal Company and was also a realtor. He was preceded in death by a daughter and is survived by his wife, Lexa; two daughters and two sons; eight grand-children and 16 great-grandchildren; and a brother (Robert ’59).

’57David L. Kinsey, February 6, 2014. (Main, Irving, Gun Club) David graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and served as president of Kinsey Electric. He was also an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church and spent 25 years as rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. He was later appointed priest-in-charge of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. Sur-vivors include his wife, Peg; three children and six grandchildren; and a sister.

G. Richard Standen, April 17, 2014. (’Eighty-eight, Marshall, football, baseball) Richard attended Penn State University and worked as the head golf professional at Medal of Honor Golf Course in Quantico, Virginia.

’58Thomas C. Lytle, February 12, 2014. (Irving, football band, Blue and White Melodians) Thomas graduated from Lehigh University with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and served in the Army Reserve. He worked for Corning Glass Works and retired as a plant accoun-tant with SKF Industries. Survivors include three daughters, a son, a brother and sister, and nine grandchildren.

’60Richard M. Bauman Jr., January 28, 2005. (Marshall, football, swim-ming) Richard was a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War. He was a licensed realtor and worked in sales for El-Mor Chevrolet in Morgantown, Pennsylvania. Survivors include his wife, Linda; a son and two daughters; and a brother and a sister.

William M. Fisher, December 3, 2008. (South Cottage, Marshall, Lati-clavii, Jurisprudence Society, Caducean Club, Stony Batter, KARUX, Varsity Club, football, wrestling, golf) Bill attended C.W. Post College and the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Survivors include his wife, Susan, and a son and daughter.

Alexander T. Getty, August 4, 2014. (’Eighty-eight, Marshall, Student Council, Laticlavii, News, tennis) Alexander, the son of the late Rodman Getty ’29, attended Lafayette College and served as a captain in the Army. He pursued a career in college administration and education, most recently as a science teacher. Survivors include his wife, Desly; a brother, Bill ’64; two sons and a stepson; and two grandchildren.

Richard A. Hamilton, February 3, 2012. (’Eighty-eight, Marshall, El Circulo Español, Caducean Club, choir, football, WMER, Ode Com-mittee) Rich received a Ph.D. from Kent State University and was a professor of marketing and statistics for 36 years at the University

of Missouri-Kansas City’s Bloch School of Business, where he also served as associate dean. He is survived by his life partner, Ruth Ann, and a sister.

James H. Pidgeon, March 2, 2014. (Main, Marshall, football, wres-tling) Jim, the son of the late James A. Pidgeon ’33, was a lifelong beef, dairy, and crop farmer as well as co-owner and operator of the Church Budget Monthly Mail Company. He was preceded in death by his wife, Wanda, and lived in East Rochester, Ohio. Survivors include four chil-dren, two brothers, eight grandchildren, and 12 nieces and nephews.

’61Jack W. Blair Jr., August 13, 2014. (Main, Marshall, Rauchrunde, Juris-prudence Society, Caducean Club, Christian Service Group, Stamp Club, Electronics Club, Projection Crew, Varsity Club, football) Jack attended West Virginia University and retired with the rank of colonel in the Air Force Reserve. He lived in Destin, Florida. Survivors include his wife, Donna; three children and seven grandchildren; and two sisters.

William S. Helton Jr., November 26, 2014. (Marshall, Chapel Choir, Glee Club, Stony Batter, News) Bill earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Florida Southern College and a graduate degree from Xavier University. Survivors include four children.

’62Harry K. Allison, September 10, 2013. (Irving, cross country, track & field, Music Appreciation Group) Kent graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and spent 27 years in the Navy. He earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University and a doctorate in public administration from the University of Southern California. He lived in Monterey, California. Survivors include his wife, Beverly, as well as a brother, two nieces, a great-niece, and a great-grandnephew.

James F. Blackmer, February 28, 2012. (Laucks, Irving, Student Coun-cil, Laticlavii, Caducean Club, News Board, Lit Board, Press Club, Var-sity Club, wrestling, WMER) Jim graduated from Colorado College and the University of New Mexico School of Law and served in the Army, earning the rank of captain. He spent 14 years as a state and U.S. prosecutor and 19 years as a district judge in New Mexico. Jim was a licensed pilot and often commuted by bicycle approximately 30 miles to work from Eldorado to Santa Fe, New Mexico. He and his wife, Connie, had retired to Sedona, Arizona.

’65Thomas G. White, May 18, 2012. (swimming, soccer, baseball, Gun Club) Thomas graduated from the Layton School of Art and also stud-ied at the Corcoran School of Design. He was a sculptor and lived in St. Augustine, Florida. Survivors include his wife, Marianne Lerbs.

’69Craig F. Dolan, February 2, 2014. (’Eighty-eight, Marshall, Blue Key, French Club, Chapel Choir, proctor, football, wrestling, baseball) Craig attended Ohio State University and lived in Pinellas Park, Florida.


’70Peter Stapleton, March 22, 2009. (cross country) Peter attended Penn State University and served in the Air Force. He lived in Beaumont, Texas. Survivors include his wife, Melissa, as well as his mother and a brother.

’73Vincent J. Vare, September 14, 2014. (Blue Key, proctor, KARUX, News, Caducean Club, Stony Batter, Glee Club, Chapel Choir, Cho-rale, Camera Club, soccer, basketball, wrestling, baseball, lacrosse, Varsity Club) Vince earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Pittsburgh. He was a licensed securities and insurance broker and held several sales and executive positions in the Hous-ton area during his career. Survivors include three siblings and nine nieces and nephews.

’74Wm. David Ratliff, August 1, 2014. (Caducean Club, Chess Club, Film Club, soccer, Varsity Club, fencing, proctor) Dave lived in the Balti-more area and was preceded in death by a brother. Survivors include his father, a brother and sister, several nieces and nephews, and a cousin, Ken Shelton ’75.

’76Donald J. Dinegar, September 9, 2014. (Blue Review, football, Blue Key, Stony Batter, Chess Club) Don attended Johns Hopkins Univer-sity and Nova Southeastern University. He worked in sales for Gold-star USA (later known as LG) and Samsung and as a consultant for Turner Consulting Services in Dunedin, Florida. Survivors include his wife, Debra; a brother, three nephews, and a niece; and three step-sons and seven grandchildren.

’80David A. Ray, January 26, 2011. (News, football, soccer, wrestling, baseball, Archaeology Club, Chapel usher, Political Science Club, Film Club, library proctor) Dave attended Rice University and worked in financial services for Margolis Phipps & Wright in Houston. He lived in Canton, Ohio.

’97Brian P. Adams, January 24, 2015. (Fowle, Cum Laude, soccer, squash, skiing) Brian was a pastor at Grace United Church of Christ in Greencastle, Pennsylvania; he previously served as pastor of Mt. Rainier Christian Church in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and also worked with churches in Indiana, Kentucky, and elsewhere in Maryland. He served as minister for justice education at the Disciple Center for Public Witness. Brian grew up in Hagerstown, Maryland, and graduated from Haverford College and Lexington Theological Seminary. He is survived by his wife, Emily, and daughter, Sophia (who was born in March 2015). Other survivors include his parents and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins.

’03Bryan J.L. Springer, January 29, 2015. (Main, Irving, cross country) Bryan graduated from Carnegie Mellon University and worked at Carnegie Mellon’s Software Engineering Institute.

’08Taylor M. Landis, December 18, 2014. (Fowle/Main, Irving, Stony Batter, News, KARUX, Peer Group Leader, Burgin Center proctor, Asian Club, Green Team, Model UN) Taylor was enrolled in the honors pro-gram for international relations at American University. He lived in Fairfax, Virginia. Survivors include his parents, three brothers, and his grandmothers.

Former faculty/staff/friendsJosephine Ammerman, November 7, 2014. She was a member of Mercersburg’s McDowell Society; co-sponsored the school’s annual Ammerman Family Lecture Series with her son, Regent Emeritus Andrew R. Ammerman ’68; and was the widow of H. Max Ammer-man, a real-estate developer who was involved in the development of some of the Washington region’s most preeminent shopping malls, including Tysons Corner. She and Andrew also established the Ammerman Distinguished Teaching Award for Religious and Inter-disciplinary Studies, which is presented to a Mercersburg faculty member on an annual basis.

Robert P. Keller, former faculty member, December 19, 2014. Robert earned three Purple Hearts while serving in the Marine Corps during World War II and the Korean War. He graduated from the University of Maryland, Shippensburg State College, and Pepperdine University. Robert taught history and coached football, wrestling, and weightlift-ing at Mercersburg from 1964 to 1970, and later served as headmas-ter of Beaufort Academy and as a history professor at the University of South Carolina Beaufort. He was preceded in death by a brother, a sister, and his first wife, Sarah. Survivors include his wife, Marion; three daughters; and several grandchildren, great-grandchildren, stepchildren, and step-grandchildren.

Karen Post, wife of faculty emeritus Phil Post and stepmother of Elizabeth ’82 and Rebecca ’87, August 10, 2014.

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All together. An egalitarian spirit, sense of place, and relationships that stand the test of time continueto define our community of learning.

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www.mercersburg.edu/daringtolead

All together. An egalitarian spirit, sense of place, and relationships that stand the test of time continueto define our community of learning.

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Reunion WeekendJune 4-7, 2015

Visit www.mercersburg.edu/reunionweekend for details and to register.

All alumni are invited back to campus to celebrate class years ending in 0 and 5.

Mercersburg Academy

300 East Seminary Street

Mercersburg, PA 17236-1551

C H A N G E S E R V I C E R E Q U E S T E D

Nonprofit OrgU.S. Postage

P A I DHagerstown, MD

Permit #93

Mercersburg Magazine - Spring 2015

Documents

Transcript of Mercersburg Magazine - Spring 2015