Mid-Term Report Card - Winter 2009-2010

To the Great Class of 1969:

Within hours of dismissal for winter recess, a fire broke out in the laundry room below the south "bubble" in the Dining Hall which filled the entire building with smoke and required the assistance of local fire departments to subdue. For those of you who attended the Reunion, the affected area is where a number of us had breakfast on Sunday. For those who weren't there, the photo to the left from The Library of Congress may refresh your memory. In my mind, the alcove is one of the most pleasing architectural features of the room.

Although the extent of the damage was not immediately known, the Academy has indicated that it expects to be back in service when the students return on January 4th. You can see photos of the fire by going to Flickr.

I seem to have underestimated the extent to which Deerfield had been spared the H1N1 flu when I last wrote. Although the Academy is reporting on its website that Deerfield has had just a handful of students per week experiencing flu-like illness, the numbers seem to be adding up with The Scroll reporting on December 15th that 122 students had been infected with “swine ’09” 25 days before Thanksgiving vacation.

Another development since I last wrote is the controversy surrounding an article in the November 11th issue of The Scroll entitled “Why We’d Rather Be Here Than Choate” which, I infer from the reaction it generated, touched a raw nerve among some, including no less than Mr. Merriam '43 who took the time to write a Letter to the Editor. I haven't seen the offending text, however, at least two mea culpas have appeared online.

Todd Stone had a showing of his post 9-11 art in New York earlier this month on the coldest night of the year but Peter Bernstein, Tom O'Gara and I all attended and were very impressed with his work. You can see some of what he had on display by going to Downtown Rising and Boomtown.

Nearly a year has passed since the world as we know it nearly ended. This would be a good time to acknowledge that worse did not come to worst and help my successor Tom Ehrgood with a gift to Annual Support before year-end.

Best wishes to all for 2010.

DWS

Fall Term Report Card - 2009

To the Great Class of 1969:

News of the Academy

The Academy opened its doors this fall with more girls than boys for the first time since co-education was reintroduced twenty years ago. Over the summer, a construction crew reconfigured the dorms in order to accommodate 650 students due to a higher than anticipated yield. The expectation is that the Academy will work down the size of the school through the admissions process over the next couple of years.

Despite the somewhat overcrowded conditions in the dorms, the Academy experienced only a handful of swine flu cases during the fall term. This might not have been so remarkable except that Andover, Exeter, St. Paul's, Choate and Hotchkiss each had between 85 and 100 cases according to The Scroll.

A healthy and record student body was not sufficient to deter Deerfield's principal rivals on the lower level. After two winning seasons, each of which culminated in lopsided wins over Choate, Deerfield football finished the year with a 3-5 record by losing to Choate at Deerfield in heavy rain. That there was only a three game swing in the won lost record was fortunate since this year's team gave up 14 more points and scored 11 fewer points per game than last year's team. You don't need to be a math major to know that a 25 point swing per game is a tough hurdle to overcome.

Those who attended the Reunion this year had their first chance to tour the Koch Center which went into service in 2007. The construction of such a complicated building led to disputes between the Academy and both the construction company and the architectural firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The construction company settled with the Academy last year, and in August the Academy received an undisclosed amount from the architects in an out-of-court settlement following a four year lawsuit.

Hoping for a better result this time, the Academy will begin construction of a new Health & Fitness Center where the old squash courts are located and a substantial expansion of the adjoining school store, now known as "The Greer" in March. The new facilities were funded by the parents of the past two graduating classes, which Steve Sheresky P'08 and I headed successively, and friends of the Academy.

News of the Class

This June I returned to Deerfield to attend graduation for the first time since 1969. Although most of the Great Class of 1969 decided that one march down Albany Road was sufficient, I suspect that even the most hardened among us would feel moved wondering where all the time had gone since standing in that same spot years ago. Whether or not you agree, I wanted to share this link to the Graduation Procession which another '09 parent was kind enough to post on YouTube. A few highlights: Head of School Margarita Curtis (0:10), Mr. Morsman (0:15), our own Frank Henry (1:07) and my legatee Nick (2:58-3:01). You also will notice a number of very (apologies BVL, but I had McGlynn and never sat at table 49) attractive alumnae who weren't eligible for the procession 40 years ago. I think that's what Howie Carr must have had in mind when he said, after revisiting Deerfield, that at least half the class was more attractive than he remembered.

Robert Clough e-mailed me after reading my report on the Reunion while in a cyber cafe in Stockholm to say that he was off to Russia in search of salmon. As you may know, Robert is an avid outdoorsman, like many in Maine, and is also a member of the Atlantic Salmon Federation. I instructed Robert to catch every last salmon in Russia, and he wound up with nine. When I asked him about the cost per fish, he told me, "You don't want to 'amortize' your salmon fishing as there is so much more to it than numbers of fish". He indicated that it was "ridiculously expensive" but less than the cost of a shrink. As for the quality of the salmon, he said that it was "the same species as in Canada and Maine, but the setting was much wilder. The only comparison would be the George River in Ungava Bay, Quebec".

If you look closely at the photo you will see that Robert is wearing his Deerfield Reunion cap with the Doors from John Williams.

Also sporting Deerfield apparel is Tee Johnson who is now within 12 lbs. of his graduation weight after weight loss surgery. Tee and his wife are departing Argentina after five years and heading for Knoxville, Tennessee where Tee will run a new office. On the side, he and the executive producer of the documentary Evita just signed a deal to do eight half hour films for PBS in 2010.

AC Starkey will retire at yearend after 40 years with PNC and predecessor companies. AC is on various charities and non-profit boards in New Jersey and maintains a house in St. Barts where he seems to spend half his time.

Sandy Weissent wrote that he had sustained an injury while helping the "National Pastime" baseball team win the World Series title recently in Arizona for the sixth time in twenty years in advancing age brackets. As a result of the injury, Sandy had to skip the Roy Hobbs Tournament in Florida where he regularly plays for the "Windy City Fire".

Earlier this month, a number of us convened in New York for our first dinner together in two years. The group included Tom Ehrgood, my successor as chief fundraiser who was able to join us for the first time in several years, and Will Colwell, who made it for the first time. Faces you will recognize from the 2007 dinner included Peter Bernstein, John Lacey, John Kjorlien P '13, Rusty Young and Todd Stone. Tom O'Gara missed the photo op again but joined us at the restaurant where the conversation went on unabated for three hours.

Photo Trivia

According to BusinessWeek, our mystery classmate has over 24 years of management experience in the pharmaceutical industry across multiple disciplines including R&D, Regulatory Affairs, Operations, and Business Development. He is currently President and CEO of Cytochroma, a specialty pharmaceutical company. From September 1987 to June 2005, he held various positions, including President, at Bone Care International Inc., a public company which was acquired by Genzyme. He completed a four-year National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship in Vitamin D Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received his Ph.D. degree in Nutritional Biochemistry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, after earning an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the University of Virginia. Do you know who he is?

In closing, I wanted to highlight that I have redone the links on the right side of the blog to include the Deerfield Channel on YouTube as well as photos from our 40th Reunion. Hope you like it.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

DWS

June 2009 - 40th Reunion

To the Great Class of 1969:

We just concluded our eighth Reunion and the weather, while not perfect, was far better than had been forecast. For those of you who were unable - or not ready - to join the 30 of us who braved the changeable New England weather, you missed an opportunity to experience a meeting of the minds and now must wait, like us, another five years.

Our Class has always been made up of contrarians, and this year was no exception. In the worst attended reunion in memory, our Class turned out more than it ever had. While not everyone came back dewy-eyed about their Deerfield years, I had the feeling that those who came more out of a sense of curiosity left feeling glad they had come. There were moments this weekend when Tom O’Gara’s words resonated in my mind. Following a dinner several years ago with some of us in New York he wrote, “I am still amazed how people could seemingly pick up conversations that started decades ago”. There were signs of what Tom was referring to in our Class meeting such as when Jamie Rawles and Mark Ewing recalled John Shanholt's near disastrous experimentation with explosives or when members of the undefeated soccer team couldn’t agree on whether the team had one tie or two. There were also conversations over dinner that shed new light on the Deerfield Experience such as when Ben Walbridge humored us recounting how Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Dils caught him the night before graduation a bit worse for wear and wished they had the power to expel him.

This weekend confirmed what I believed five years ago when I stepped into the vacuum and assumed responsibility as chief friendraiser, e.g. (1) we have more that unites us than whatever may once have divided us; (2) there is something therapeutic about returning to this beautiful spot and seeing those with whom we shared our formative years; and (3) Deerfield remains for many, as Neil Jacobs said to me several years ago, the “greatest community living experience” of their lives.

Since our last reunion, I have had a chance to relive Deerfield through the lens on our son who graduated three weeks ago. As John Shanholt wrote when his daughter graduated in 2005, “Deerfield, while appearing to be the same school in the same place, is in so many ways a substantially different and better institution than the one I left in 1969”. With my son’s graduation, I can attest that it has adapted without losing its distinctive identity. In our Class meeting (which was scheduled for an hour but ran for two), I asked Frank Henry why the kids seemed so happy, and his simple answer was “co-education”.

While a variety of views were expressed in our Class meeting about our years at Deerfield, I square the circle as follows: (1) the turmoil in the larger society contributed to a sense of rebelliousness no matter where you were at the time; (2) the regimented lifestyle at Deerfield was probably not that much different from peer schools which had no better grip on how to deal with our generation; (3) the absence of girls was not unique to our Class and, in fact, was not resolved at Deerfield for another twenty years; and (4) the typical adolescent growing pains we experienced had more to do with us and less to do with Deerfield.

I learned some largely useless trivia this weekend such as (1) the benefits of volunteering for Mrs. Boyden’s Tea Committee from John Shanholt; (2) the circumstances under which the Quid eventually stepped down from David Suitor; and (3) the existence of the “17 Points” which, while they had slipped my mind, were still fresh in the memory of Frank Henry and others. I also visited for the first time the cemetery where many former faculty members are laid to rest and noticed, oddly, that my son was born on the 19th anniversary of the Headmaster’s death.

On a drizzly Sunday morning, five of us trekked over to the Brick Church for the Memorial Service. Judging from the sparse attendance, I think our Class was better represented than any other except, possibly, the Class of ’64 which included the Minister. All the names of members of the ’04 and ’09 Classes who had passed away since the last reunion were solemnly read by two members of the Class of ’04. Our Class lost four members and, with the exception of the Class of ’64, every Class before us had lost more. That’s the math that allows the life insurance companies to stay in business as well as a reason for returning.

With the unanimous support by voice vote of the attendees at the Class meeting on Saturday and by the power that is vested in me as Reunion Chair, I have appointed Tom Ehrgood, who attended his first Deerfield Reunion this year, as Program Chair for 2014. Mark your calendars for the weekend of June 13-15, 2014 and contribute to the collective memory of the Great Class of 1969. I will be looking for you under the Great Tent.

For pictures of the weekend, go to Reunion 2009.

Best wishes.

DWS