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.
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.
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| 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
