Saturday, March 10, 2012

Winter Term Report Card - 2012

To the Great Class of 1969:

News of the Academy

The unusually mild Winter Term came to an end yesterday, and the students are free for the next two weeks.

On the academic front, The Scroll reported that stress levels hit a new high as measured by student visits to the counseling office.  As a result of the ongoing escalation in grades, it now takes an average of 90, up from 87 where it had been for a number of years, to make the Honor Roll.  Further contributing to the stress, 84% of the Class of 2012 elected to apply early decision to college.

In sports, girls squash was again the pride of the school.  The girls varsity team had a repeat of 2011, finishing first in New England and second nationally.  The swimming program and alpine skiing also had noteworthy seasons.  This year, both the boys and the girls varsity teams moved up one spot to finish second in the Division 1 New England championships.  The alpine ski team finished first in both the boys and girls New England championships.

The Scroll announced that the Memorial Building is scheduled for its first major renovation in the last 50 years.  Given the description of the project, it is hard to know how much different it will look at our next Reunion since much of the money will be spent on infrastructure improvements.  Here’s a link to the story.

Imagine Deerfield, the school’s capital campaign, continued to make progress, and is now at $105 million, up $20 million from my last report.  Neil Jacobs is one of only three Major Gift Leaders for Boston.

Class News

Bob Ashton is President and General Manager of Ragged Mountain Resort in Danbury, New Hampshire where he is heading up expansion.  Prior to assuming his current position, Bob spent 10 years as President and CEO of the four-season Wintergreen Resort in central Virginia.

John Mills retired in 2011 after nearly 32 years of government service and formed Patent Group Counsel with a handful of other attorneys to provide patent law services to inventors, entrepreneurs and technology companies.  Given the investor focus on the patent portfolios of technologies and the interest in protecting intellectual capital in the age of globalization, it seems as if John and his partners will have no shortage of work.

Macmillan published Hard Knocks, Howie Carr’s first novel in January.  Howie’s website describes the book as “a gritty noir mystery about the intertwining worlds of crime and politics in Boston”, a subject he previously has explored in two non-fiction works.

Rich Berkowitz was elected chairman of the board of the Community Foundation of Broward in January.  A public nonprofit organization with more than 400 charitable funds and agency endowments totaling $100 million, the Community Foundation of Broward has distributed $55 million to support community solutions since its founding in 1984.

Jonathan Carter continues to take the industrial wind developers to task and has devoted the entire January issue of The Maine Woods to the topic.  In a nutshell, King’s contention is that “mountain-top wind development is both an ecological disaster and an economic boondoggle”.  You can read more about it here.

Hank and Kachina
In his spare time, Hank Minor practices the ancient art of falconry on his farm in upstate New York with Kachina, a red-tailed hawk.  For those who may not know, the red-tailed hawk is probably the most common hawk in North America.  Several years ago, a member of the species named Pale Male became the subject of worldwide media attention when the board of one of the swishest co-ops on Fifth Avenue attempted to dislodge him from the penthouse nest he had been sharing rent free with a series of companions over the years.

Best wishes to all.

DWS