On Campus
Spring 2001

Let it Snow!

And snow it did this past winter, often at the rate of a storm a week, blanketing the campus in several feet of snow. Here, Liz Closmore ’01 (left) and Tei Carpenter ’01 (right) get caught in some snowy crossfire on the Academy quad.

 

 

 

Justice for All: Rhodes Scholar Luke Bronin ’97 to Study Crime
and Punishment at Oxford

Luke Bronin ’97, now a Phi Beta Kappa senior at Yale, was one of just 32 Americans selected for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship program this year.

Next year at this time, Luke Bronin ’97 will be ensconced in the hallowed halls of Oxford University as one of just 32 Americans selected for a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. But Bronin, now finishing up his senior year at Yale, has spent part of his undergraduate career inside a very different sort of institution: the New Haven Correctional Center (NHCC), helping inmates earn high school diplomas.

Bronin first became interested in the issue of prison reform during his sophomore year, when he read a New York Times article describing the crisis condition of the country’s juvenile correction system. “I was appalled by what I read and wanted to find out for myself firsthand if this was what really went on in our prisons,” says Bronin. “So I called the warden of the New Haven Correctional Center and asked if there was any way I could get in as a volunteer.”

Soon thereafter, Bronin began volunteering at the correctional facility and recruited approximately 20 other Yalies for a student tutoring program, preparing inmates for the Graduate Equivalency Degree. He later organized and led poetry and writing workshops for inmates at NHCC.

Additionally, Bronin has also become a board member for The Better Way Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates treating drug abuse as a matter of public health rather than a criminal justice issue, and an active member of the Student Legal Action Movement (SLAM), where he petitions for prison reform and changes in existing drug policies. An accomplished singer and songwriter, Bronin also fronts a country band called Old No. 7 (one of their songs has aired on the TV show “Dawson’s Creek”); he also helped found the Eli Whitney Folk Festival in New Haven.

Bronin, who will graduate Phi Beta Kappa from Yale with a degree in philosophy, plans to spend his time at Oxford researching and writing on definitions of criminality and philosophical justifications for punishment. “I think that our current sentencing laws betray a very confused and often inconsistent understanding of the role of punishment in our society,” he says. “I want to examine crime and punishment from a theoretical perspective first, before working to promote practical reforms.”

Lift Every Voice and Sing

Members of the PEA Concert Choir, both past and present, and the West African Drum Ensemble helped raise the rafters of the Portsmouth Music Hall this winter when they took part in a sold-out concert with renowned Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji. Here, choir alumni perform with one of the concert’s featured guests, South African vocalist Dorothy Masuka: (front row, left to right) Karl Erdmann ’98, Sasha Diaz-Almaral ’99, Matt Robbins ’00, Nick Singer ’98, Eve Biddle ’00, Mary Tuomanen ’99, Jacy Bird ’99; (back row) Sam Bradford ’98, Emi Lizama ’98, Kary Kelly ’98, Andy Singer ’98, Mike Breen ’98, Reid Angwin ’98, Ethel Machi ’99, Scott Richmond ’98 and Alex Rappaport ’98. Portsmouth’s Atlantic Media, Ltd. filmed the concert; footage from the concert will be featured in a documentary on Olatunji called The Rhythm of Healing, produced by Dorothy Ahlgren.

Exeter Transformed by ‘Tibet Transcendent’

Geshe Lobzang Tsetan (right), respected master of Tibetan Buddhism, meets with students (left to right) Edgar Valdez ’01, Carlos Lloreda, ’02, Savannah Sachs ’04 and Elspeth Flemings ’01 as part of the exhibition Tibet Transcendent.

The Academy showcased Tibetan art and religion this winter with a major exhibition in Lamont Gallery and complementary events in the Class of 1945 Library and Phillips Church. The exhibition, Tibet Transcendent: Where the World Meets the Sky, brought the Buddhist ideals of universal peace and harmony to New England during its coldest season and offered the Academy community a new perspective on the nation’s struggle for cultural survival. Instrumental in organizing the events were the Exeter chapter of Students for a Free Tibet and gallery director Sam Heath ’72.

Opening with a blessing by Geshe Lobzang Tsetan, a master of Tibetan Buddhism, and ending a month later with the symbolic sweeping up of a sand mandala, the celebration blended the aesthetic with the spiritual. The Lamont Gallery exhibition included photographs of contemporary Tibet by New York photographer Ellen Kaplowitz, as well as Buddhist paintings, mandalas, statues, ritual objects and ceremonial costumes dating from the 14th to the 20th centuries (including a robe acquired from the family of the Dalai Lama, loaned by Stephen McGuinness, father of Pema McGuinness ’02). Religious items used during the opening ceremony were authentic pieces from Tibetan monasteries given to or bought by Peter Vorkink, instructor of religion, during his travels in Tibet.

During their five-day visit to campus, monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery created a sand mandala in Rockefeller Hall, the library’s soaring atrium. Students, staff and area residents stopped by to watch the monks at work and at their daily public prayers for peace. On February 28 in Phillips Church, the monks enacted the legend of Milarepa, a sacred ritual that included costumed dances and harmonic overtone chanting, accompanied by temple instruments—horns, flutes, bells and drums.

This ravishing 17 th- century portrait was once banished from the Academy Library because it was believed to be the Duchess of Portsmouth, the “disreputable mistress” of King Charles II.

The story of the Duchess of Portsmouth is a tale of mystery and mistaken identity involving a beautiful courtesan; a lovely young woman; a king of England; a famous American author; and painters of the 17 ^th-century English court. Add to the mix a librarian keen on stewarding her library’s assets and art experts from coast to coast, and you have the makings of one fascinating story.

A painting entitled The Duchess of Portsmouth came to the attention of Jacquelyn Thomas, James H. Ottaway, Jr. ’55 Professor and Academy Librarian, in 1997. That was the year the Academy transferred its management of the Inn at Exeter to an outside firm, and an assortment of Academy-owned objects were turned over to the art gallery—including a portrait of a beautiful woman that had hung for several decades in the inn’s foyer. Thomas, in an effort to assess the painting’s value and with a librarian’s characteristic penchant for research, unearthed a case of mistaken identity.

Based on her research and conversations with former Academy librarian Rodney Armstrong, Thomas has concluded that the painting was donated to the library by author Booth Tarkington, PEA class of 1889. Believed to be a portrait of the infamous Duchess of Portsmouth painted by 17 ^th-century English court painter Sir Peter Lely, it hung in the old Davis Library until it was banished by Armstrong. In a 1968 memo, Armstrong wrote that he planned to hang a newly cleaned portrait of Daniel Webster in its place: “I think a local boy is more appropriate than the disreputable mistress of an English king, regardless of how attractive she might be.”

The “disreputable mistress” is Louise-Renee de Keroualle, French companion of King Charles II of England, who, among her many titles, held that of the Duchess of Portsmouth. However, after consulting a number of art experts, Thomas is convinced that our lady is not the Duchess of Portsmouth, nor was she painted by Lely.

Thomas’ first call was to John Walsh ’55, then director of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, which has a collection of Lely’s portraits. The staff there quickly determined that the painting was not a Lely, and referred Thomas to Dr. Julia Alexander, an assistant curator at the Yale Center for British Art. After consulting with Professor J. Douglas Stewart, Alexander notified Thomas that she and Stewart believed that the painting was the early work of another English court painter, Godfrey Kneller. Stewart is an expert on Kneller’s work.

But there was more: The experts doubted the sitter was the Duchess of Portsmouth. They pointed to inconsistencies in hair and eye color, as well as more sensitive matters: “Your sitter’s face accords in no way with [the Duchess of Portsmouth’s] appearance circa 1680,” Alexander noted, “one of the most notable differences being your sitter’s svelte young figure at a time when Louise had become renowned for her chubby face—in honor of which Charles II nicknamed her ‘Fubbs’.”

Thomas continues her efforts to identify the sitter, and to raise funds to have the portrait cleaned. It will hang in the special collections room of the library replacing two portraits, one of John Phillips and one of the man who once supplanted her, Daniel Webster.

Making His Case

Claude Brown’s impassioned oration at the February 9 assembly protesting the Supreme Court’s intervention in the presidential elections had his audience cheering and booing, often at the same time. Here, Brown (right), author of the acclaimed memoir Manchild in the Promised Land, talks with John Stern ’01, Hassan Adams ’01 and Melvin Felton ’01.

 

Table Talk with Alessandro Nivola ’90  |  by Bill Ewing

Actor Alessandro Nivola ’90 has worked with an impressive list of Hollywood’s brightest marquee names over the past few years, but none quite measure up—literally—to the protagonist of his next film, Jurassic Park III. Playing Billy Brennan, an idealistic young paleontologist, Nivola shares considerable screen time with arguably the biggest star in Hollywood: “a huge, animotronic dinosaur that’s even more horrifying than a T-Rex,” says Nivola. And no, he doesn’t get eaten.

Due out this July, Jurassic Park III represents Nivola’s highest-profile acting job to date and his first foray into the realm of what he calls “big, commercial Hollywood movies.” To qualify this statement, it’s worth noting that Nivola has had prominent roles in a number of films that would be considered “big” by most standards, including Face/Off (1997), Mansfield Park (1998) and Love’s Labour’s Lost (2000). From each, he has earned increasing critical recognition and established himself in Hollywood as a serious, versatile young actor on the rise.

Which brings us to Jurassic Park, the franchise. Both the original Jurassic Park and its sequel, Lost World, are firmly rooted in the top-10 list of the all-time highest-grossing films ever made, and JP III will likely do similar business. Spin-off merchandising efforts include toys, video games, clothing, trading cards and comic books, so by summer’s end, be sure to watch for the Alessandro Nivola action figure (“it looks nothing like me,” says Nivola proudly).

Shooting over a six-month period on location in Hawaii and on the soundstages of Universal Studios in Los Angeles, Nivola describes the whole JP III experience as “a bit surreal.” “There were a good number of times when we were reacting to dinosaurs that weren’t really there. They don’t get added until later on the computer,” says Nivola. “There was one scene when we were running spastically through a field in Hawaii, supposedly reacting to dinosaurs all around us, that looked a lot like a Benny Hill sketch in the raw footage.” Nivola says the filming process was also characterized by considerable amounts of downtime. “Action movies are slow going. There were days when I’d shoot a scene for 10 minutes and then wait four hours until I was needed again.” To pass the time, Nivola and actor Sam Neill would amuse themselves by playing duets on the guitar and ukulele respectively.

“As an actor, I have always wanted to do as many different types of jobs as possible,” says Nivola. “That’s what interested me most about Jurassic Park III—it was the complete opposite of what I had been doing. As an actor, your job is to commit to whatever role you are in and make it as real as possible. The best actors are those who are able to do a huge variety of work—from smaller, independent films to big commercial movies. They’re up for any challenge.”

Nivola says he became interested in acting early on in life. Growing up in Vermont and Massachusetts, he attended drama camp during the summers and was an intern at the Eugene O’Neill Theater in Waterford, CT. While at Exeter, his interest in theater blossomed even further, and he performed in numerous productions, directed and was head of the student drama club. “The plays at Exeter were sometimes amazingly realized,” recalls Nivola. “I remember Molière’s The Miser as being one of the best. The costumes were incredible and the sets were of professional design. I frequently played old men—it seems like I was always hobbling around with missing teeth.”

From Exeter, Nivola moved on to Yale University where he earned a B.A. in English literature in 1994; he was one of the few students to secure an agent and start getting stage work well before graduation. “My agent was insistent upon having me develop my skills in the theater and moving up the ranks,” says Nivola. “I was driving in to New York City three times a week to do auditions, and by the time I graduated, I had already done two regional theater performances.”

Living in New York after graduation, Nivola concentrated his attention on live theater, performing in six more regional productions and landing a role on Broadway in A Month in the Country. Soon thereafter, Hollywood beckoned and he moved to Los Angeles to work on Face/Off. “Face/Off really pushed me into the consciousness of people making movies,” says Nivola. “Each movie since has helped me get a little bit better known. It has been a slow but steady progression.” Other than a performance opposite Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare’s As You Like It at the prestigious Williamstown Theater Festival in Williamstown, MA, in the summer of 1999, Nivola has focused exclusively on film work.

Now, anticipating the impending Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild strikes that will likely put most film productions on ice this summer, Nivola is planning to move back to New York City and ride out the storm. “I’m going to improvise for the next year or so, maybe do some traveling,” he says.

Helping Parents Prep for College

The college admissions process is one of self-discovery, with students taking stock of their ambitions, strengths and challenges as they contemplate their future education. But what of their parents? How do they find their way through the maze of tests, interviews and applications to give their children the support they need?

This year, the college office presented the school’s first College Admissions Weekend, a two-day event intended to help parents better understand the college admissions process. On February 23 and 24, parents of the class of 2002 traveled to campus to attend lectures and workshops designed to introduce them to “the issues considered by college admissions officers when they select a class,” said Director of College Counseling Mark Davis.

Highlighting the agenda were the Saturday morning case study workshops in which nine college admissions officers reviewed a number of sample applications to a fictitious college and explained to parents how they made their decisions. One participant was Dan Parish, a former PEA college counselor who is now senior associate director of admissions at Dartmouth College. “These workshops have always struck me as tremendously useful and productive experiences,” he said. “They can be a tool for parents to utilize as they watch their son or daughter progress through the remainder of upper year and into senior year.”

Because not every student heads directly to college, the Academy also hosted representatives from a dozen nonacademic programs accepting students for an interim year of work or study, including Action Quest, National Outdoor Leadership Training, Rustic Pathways, Visions Service Adventures and World Horizons International.

The Trustees of the Academy met January 25 to 27, 2001. On the agenda: building and grounds projects, review of budget items for the 2002-2003 budget that will be set at the trustee’s May meeting, and the setting of tuition for 2002-2003.

The Buildings and Grounds Committee made a number of decisions. The committee, and then the trustee body, approved installing a chairlift in the Academy Building and Fisher Theater to make them fully accessible to the physically challenged. There are tentative plans to extend the ADA accessibility to Phillips Hall in the summer of 2002. Trustees also authorized funds to complete the restoration of Phillips Church. This project will begin this summer and require the closing of the church through November 2001. The Trustees reviewed a presentation of the landscape master plan favorably, although no specific allocations were made to this initiative at this time.

The above projects join the completion of the Phelps Science Center and planning for renovation of Thompson Science Center on the horizon. Additionally, the Academy, like the rest of the nation, has experienced a year of extraordinary price increases in a number of items beyond our control, including electricity costs (a 30 percent increase), fuel (46 percent), medical insurance costs (35 percent) and taxes (34 percent). All these combine to challenge our resources. In light of these circumstances, the trustees supported a tuition increase to $27,000 for boarders and $20,500 for day students. This increase still keeps Exeter in the middle of the price range of our peer schools.

A considerable portion of the meeting was devoted to reports by the Academic Master Plan (AMP) task forces on the current state of their deliberations. The Faculty, Administration and Staff Task Force, the Student Recruitment and Enrollment Task Force, and the Academy Life Task Force all reported on their ongoing work.

Throughout their deliberations, the Trustees remained supportive of the efforts of the faculty and administration in carrying out the mission of the school. Trustee visits to classes, dinner with the student council, and visits to dorms only strengthened their sense of the quality of students, faculty, and learning at the Academy.

Centerpiece of the new science center will be the skeleton of a 28-foot humpback whale that will hang in the atrium. This winter, preps Samantha Tackeff (left), Kim Strovink (center) and Elizabeth He (right), all students in teacher Anne Rankin’s intro biology course, helped wash and bleach the whale bones and coat them with a preservative.

Work on the new Phelps Science Center continues to progress toward an October 27, 2001 opening. But even as the structure and infrastructure are being completed, faculty and students are working on some of the features that will define our state-of-the-art building, both inside and out.

• Instructor in science Townley Chisholm is overseeing the articulation of a 28-foot humpback whale skeleton slated to hang in the atrium of the new science center. Students studying physiology and evolution have joined researchers from Maine’s College of the Atlantic to wash and bleach the bones. Next they will coat the skeleton with abitron, a preservative, then carefully number the bones. Meanwhile, two full-scale models constructed from foam and steel will be temporarily hung in the atrium to help determine how to position the finished product.

• Like many other gardeners, Dr. Sydnee Goddard and Anne Rankin, both science teachers, have been looking through early plant and seed catalogues. They are preparing to create a teaching garden, which will be located between the new building and Fisher Theater and will feature native plantings arranged in habitats. The key element will be a freshwater marsh that will be crossed by a footbridge. Students will work with faculty in the coming years to add diverse species and new habitats to the garden. In addition to the marsh, initial habitats will include a meadow, a brush border and plantings of mixed and deciduous trees.

• Science faculty member Richard Aaronian has begun construction of a nine-foot-tall saltwater aquarium. It will be home to a coral reef and the fishes and other sea life from that habitat. The tank will be installed at the first turn of the stairwell on the ground floor, just outside the auditorium.

Exeter Academy and its alumni, faculty, students and staff appear in the press on a regular, if not daily, basis. From local papers to national television, mainstream magazines and even digital publications, Exeter maintains a very high profile in the mass media. Listed here are some of the recent press notices.

The innovative new online workspace created by PEA’s College Counseling Office, which allows students to access statistical information on colleges and universities as well as their own academic history, was the subject of an article, “Applying to College? Piece of Cake” in the New York Times, January 7, 2001, Education Life supplement. The Boston Globe also covered this new cyber tool on January 14, 2001, in a lengthy piece entitled, “Helpful counsel for college-bound.”

Exeter student Eddie Caron ’01 of Hudson, NH, has been garnering some serious attention from both the media and talent scouts for his prowess on the ice as one of PEA’s all-time leading scorers. Caron was named the “Old Spice Student Athlete of the Month” in the November 6, 2000, issue of Sports Illustrated. Local newspapers and television stations have also been keeping a close eye on Caron’s career, and will likely continue to do so when he moves on to play for UNH next year.

The New York Times ran a lengthy cover story in its November 12, 2000, Education Life supplement entitled “Today, Less Austerity, More Diversity at Prep School.” Focusing on Phillips Exeter Academy and Groton, the article examines how the prep school experience has changed over the past 50 years.

PEA’s recruitment efforts in Alabama resulted in a news item on Fox 6 News, WBRC-TV (Birmingham) that aired on November 1, 2000. The piece featured a short interview with admissions representative Kimberly Willis, who was visiting high schools in the region.

The Class of 1945 Library, designed by architect Louis Kahn, was the subject of a segment on Chronicle, WCVB-TV (Boston) on September 29, 2000, and also a news item on Prime Time New England News on New England Cable News, on November 1, 2000.

Strength in Numbers
The PEA Math Team is Coming on Strong.

They do the math: the PEA Math Team celebrates at the end of a recent competition.

The team gathers to practice twice a week, a mix of seasoned competitors and promising newcomers, including a prep who came out of nowhere last year to capture a national title. Many of them are there expressly for the chance to train with their coach, who has worked with the Olympic team. Together they have their sights set on the spring season, which builds to a climax in May with the national championships.

Girls crew? Boys tennis? Try the PEA Math Team, two dozen students who meet not on the playing fields but around a Harkness table to consider such problems as this: Edgar has six pairs of shoes under his bed. If Edgar draws six shoes randomly from these 12, what is the probability he has exactly one correct pair of shoes from the six he has drawn? (The answer, as you no doubt guessed, is 40/77.) Don’t they get enough math during their regular classes? “The problems we do in Math Club are more varied and more interesting than in a regular class,” says Tiankai Liu, the prep from Saratoga, CA, who won the American Regional Math League competition last year. Co-captain Emily Garrison ’01, a day student from Exeter, agrees: “Often they require less math and more thought,” she says.

There was plenty of thought in evidence at a recent Wednesday morning practice session, as team members worked in pairs to solve a set of geometry problems given to them by their coach, math instructor Dr. Zuming Feng. There was also plenty of laughter. Gazing at a solution he had scrawled on the blackboard, Will Deringer ’02, an upper from Fly Creek, NY, declared, “It’s brilliant! And cumbersome and clunky! All at the same time!” When several students clamored to answer a question, Feng cut them off good-naturedly: “This sounds like my daughter’s preschool. I don’t care who got it first; who got it right?”

That there are often different ways to “get it right” is one of the lessons co-captain Rob Cioffi ’01, a day student from Barrington, NH, has learned during his three years on the team. “With the possible exception of Mr. Feng, Tiankai is the best mathematician I’ve ever met,” he says. “He has this ability to know where he’s going in a problem before he actually gets there. Will is also very good, but in a different way than Tiankai is. Will is able to make it through almost any problem no matter how messy the approach is. They also happen to be two of the funniest kids I know.”

The Math Team has grown, if not exponentially, then at least geometrically during the past five years. The “biggest draw,” according to Cioffi, is Feng himself, who joined the Exeter faculty in 1995 and who received a Charles Ryberg Teaching Fund award last year (and who does indeed help coach the U.S. Math Olympiad). “Mr. Feng has a great sense of humor,” adds Tiankai Liu, “but he’s also very serious about math.”

'Ask an Exonian'
PEA’s website allows prospective students to chat online with current students.

“Will I have a social life?” “What’s it like on Saturday night?” “How’s the food?” “Will I fit in?” Such are the pressing questions that students exploring the possibility of an Exeter education want answered—preferably by someone their own age with firsthand experience. “Ask an Exonian,” a new feature developed by the admissions office and found on the Academy’s ever-interactive website, offers a venue for such questions to be asked and answered. Prospective students now have direct access to current Exonians and the insider perspective only they can offer.

“We developed the idea for ‘Ask an Exonian’ because we have seen an explosion in the number of prospective students using the web as a resource for getting information on the Academy,” explains Tom Hassan, dean of admissions. “We have also been working very hard to personalize the admissions process as much as we can, and the web allows us to provide unique, one-on-one interaction.”

The “Ask an Exonian” website features a photograph and short bio for each of Exeter’s 15 student admissions representatives and a hot link to their email address. Based on the student profiles, prospective students can select someone with whom they share common interests or background, and seek their personal insights on life at the Academy.

Hassan notes that the admissions office has been employing the interactive capabilities of the Internet for some time. “We have been offering a chat room for accepted candidates during the spring decision-making period for a number of years now,” says Hassan. “‘Ask an Exonian’ is really just an expansion of this concept, allowing kids to connect with other kids.”

Exoniana
Do You Remember?

When do the bells toll at Phillips Exeter Academy?
Circle the correct answer or answers:

• a) every hour on the hour
• b) breakfast bell
• c) first warning bell for first class
• d) second and final warning bell for first class of day
• e) class-ending bell
• f) last class of the day
• g) start of Assembly
• h) end of Assembly
• i) lower warning check-in
• j) upper and senior warning
• k) end of faculty meeting
• l) all of the above

The first person that sends (via U.S. mail only) the correct answer(s) will win a wonderful prize. Mail to: Exoniana, c/o The Bulletin, Phillips Exeter Academy, 20 Main Street, Exeter, NH 03833.

Answer to Last Issue:
The picturesque Hill Bridge crosses the Exeter River, connecting two sections of Phillips Exeter Academy’s athletic fields. The bridge was given to the school by George Hill of the Class of 1865.

 

And the Winner Is:

Edward S. Acton ’33
The bridge crosses the Exeter River connecting the new playing fields with the old ones on the Academy side. I fell into the river while skating on thin ice each of my four years at the Academy. The last time, I was way upriver and it was a long way back to my dorm room, as I had fallen in up to my neck and it was very very cold! I also canoed up the river as far as one could go to some rapids near Route 125. I still look at them today, when driving down Route 125.

Edward “Ted” Acton ’33
Freedom, NH

Memories and Responses from the Previous Issue:

Secret Papers
This is the Hill Bridge across the Exeter River joining the playing fields to what in the 1920s were called the “fields beyond.” As a child (living in the Principal’s House) I frequently crossed this bridge on my pony, Cricket, to ride around the big empty field and occasionally to check on my “secret papers,” which were hidden in a tin tobacco box in a hole in the great tree that is a significant part of the plot of John Knowles’ novel A Separate Peace.

Lewis Perry Jr. '32
Colorado Springs, CO

Freshwater Jump
The bridge used to be called the “grand” bridge—the landmark of our so-called “swimming pool.” Swimmers used to jump off it into the river.

Robert “Bob” Rathbone ’35
Brunswick, ME

'A Modern Miracle'
On the far side of the river, there was the old (circa 1931) football stadium with a running track and other playing fields. When I was back for our 50 ^th (or was it our 45^th ?), our classmates stood at the top of the stands and looked down at the Exeter-Andover lacrosse game. The Andover coach emeritus was the late Bob Hulburd, Exeter ’38, son of Phil Hulburd ’13, who taught math at Exeter for many years. Bob was my roommate in our upper middle year.

My fondest, and maybe saddest, memory of the playing fields beyond was the 1937 Exeter-Andover football game, which was played during a driving rain. The Andover student body had come by special train and there had been the traditional cheering standoff between the two student bodies on Front Street. Andover came back from 15-7 halftime deficit to score two touchdowns and win. I recall Don Bowersox ’39 kicking a field goal through the driving rain. The Boston Herald referred to it as “a modern miracle.”

Proctor H. “Proc” Page Jr. ’38
Burlington, VT

Hammy to the Rescue
I vaguely recall a small plane landing next to the stadium one day in the mid-1930s to visit Hammy Bissell. Upon departure, the plane failed to gain sufficient altitude to clear the trees and crashed. Fortunately, the occupants were unhurt, but the sight of Hammy racing down the field in his ’34 convertible at flank speed for the rescue was the climax of an exciting afternoon.

F. Sherburne Carter ’39
Duxbury, MA

Breaking the Winless Jinx
I remember in particular three contests with Andover, two of which were accessed by the bridge.

1. Fall 1937 football: Andover 20, Exeter 15. It poured down rain. Andover won on a disputed fourth-quarter pass which we thought touched the ground before it was caught.

2. Spring 1939 baseball: Exeter 9, Andover 7. The night before we had painted the fenced backstop “Beat Andover” in red letters. The maintenance crew covered it up with brown wrapping paper the morning before the game. We tore off the paper after the final out!

3. Fall 1939 football: Exeter 12, Andover 6. My class was in its senior year, and we were proud that both the football and soccer teams were undefeated and untied for the season. The soccer team finally broke the winless jinx in the series with Royal Blue when it won the game at Andover, 1-0.

Col. Beverly C. Snow Jr.’40
Fripp Island, SC

A Mother does not Forget
I am taking a big chance, but I think the bridge in your mystery photo crosses the Exeter River and connects two sports areas leading to the stadium. My son, Robert C. Lyster ’62, played on the varsity football team because of his specialty, place kicking. The 1961 football team beat Brewster 7-6 because of Bob’s kick. A mother, although 87 now, does not forget!

Amy C. Lyster WI’29, P’62
Fairfield, CT

A River Geomorphologist
Regarding the lovely picture in the Bulletin, I know the spot well! The bridge crosses the Exeter River from a location near the physical plant and connecting to the Exeter Woods—best loved for the wreath of blueberries there in the summer. I still vividly recall one March day when I paused on the bridge, feeling leisurely, keenly observant and philosophical.

While I watched, melting water from the snowy landscape caused the water to rise and commence flowing on the top of the icy river surface. As the water wetted numerous leaves that were embedded in the ice, they exuded a brown stain, much like tea steeping. After a short time, the increasingly deep flow caused the entire ice sheet to tug its way downriver, sheering off a few branches from shrubs along the bank.

I often visited the river to observe and ponder the dynamic and complex physical, chemical, and biological environment there. Surely this spot has played a key role in my current profession as a river geomorphologist and water-quality scientist. It is a delight to now be assisting the Academy with the design of a stormwater-treatment wetland system for the new science facility. Not only will this help to manage and improve the condition of the Exeter River watershed, but it will, I hope, help a few other students gain at least a passing understanding and respect for how every roof, road, forest or meadow impacts (for better or worse) our rivers.

Wendi Goldsmith ’83
Salem, MA

A Cool Dip
My cross-country running races for PEA always passed that bridge, always on our right. Occasionally students would leap over the edges of the bridge for a cool dip.

Fiona Bayly ’85
New York, NY

The Flood of April 1987

A bridge over troubled waters: Faculty member emeritus Frank Gutmann took this photo of the Hill Bridge during the flooding of 1987.

Steady rain brought serious flooding to southern New Hampshire during the first week of April 1987. In Exeter outer Court Street was flooded, Linden Street was closed and several low-lying sections of town were evacuated. The school athletic fields were still partly flooded about a week after the start of spring term, when I took the above photograph of the Hill Bridge.

Frank Gutmann, Faculty Emeritus
Exeter, NH

Thank you for all the wonderful reminiscences.

Alice Ann Gray

Shine a Little Light

Shine a Little Light Jay Verrill ’01, Hazel Cipolle ’04 and Elisa Chen ’04 were among the PEA students, faculty and staff members who took part in Exeter’s 12th annual candlelight vigil for the homeless on January 31. Every years students and local churches and businesses join together to help raise funds for Rockingham Community Action, which provides support services to homeless people in the seacoast area, whose numbers are estimated at 700, including more than 200 children.

Building with Books — and Cookies

Dance instructor Linda Luca (second from left) bestows her “faculty favor”—a batch of homemade cookies—on Seisei Tatebe-Goddu ’01 (second from right), one of the winners of the Building with Books raffle organized by Bobbi Martinez-Hernandez ’03 (left) and Lixian Hantover ’03 (right). Proceeds from the raffle will be used to help build a grade school in Haiti.

A candle-lit dinner for four at Principal Ty Tingley’s home. A load of laundry washed, dried and neatly folded by the former dean of faculty. A batch of cookies baked from scratch once a week for a month. These were just some of the “faculty favors” raffled off this winter to benefit Building with Books, a nonprofit organization that partners students in American schools with “sister schoolhouses” in developing countries. In all, the PEA chapter raised more than $1,500, which will be used to aid in construction of an elementary school in Haiti.

The foundation for the Exeter Building with Books chapter was laid last fall by two lowers, Lixian Hantover and Bobbi Martinez-Hernandez, both of whom liked the organization’s focus on students helping students and on using education as a way to change lives. They recruited close to 30 other students to their cause, and set about organizing their first fundraiser. In addition to the “faculty favors,” students got local businesses and restaurants to donate gift certificates; Hantover’s father, an executive with the Gap, sweetened the pot further by contributing a dozen $50 gift certificates to the Gap and Old Navy.

Hantover and Martinez-Hernandez see the raffle as just the ground floor for the group. Later this year, the chapter will be partnered with its own sister school; Hantover also hopes they can do some work closer to home, joining with members of the community to help refurbish an area children’s center.

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