On Tuesday, December 4, over 60 Trinity-Pawling alumni, parents, and friends came together for a night of celebration in Boston. Thanks to the wonderful generosity of Peggy and Phil Haughey ’53, the gathering was held at the Harvard Club. Some of the highlights included a mini Class of ’53 reunion (featuring Phil Haughey ’53, Chris Wren ’53, and Tom Crowley ’53) and the presence of representatives from the student body (Alumni Ambassadors) who shared their perspective with the group.
The following week, on Monday, December 10, over 90 members of the Trinity-Pawling community came together in New York City for a holiday party hosted by Jean Doyen de Montaillou and Michael Kovner ’58 at the Union Club. Both New York and Boston had near record high attendance due to the consistent generosity of our hosts, who have hosted our holiday receptions for a number of successive years. A huge Trinity-Pawling thank you to Peggy, Phil, Jean, and Michael! We are extremely grateful for your kindness and support.
Following our New York reception, Trinity-Pawling hosted its annual community Candlelight Service in All Saints’ Chapel on Sunday, December 9, followed by a warm reception at Gamage House, hosted by Bill and Jennifer Taylor. The yearly event continues to be one of the distinctive traditions of Trinity-Pawling.
Our next reception will be in Delray Beach in March — more details to come. And, save the date for our reception in Washington D.C. at the University Club on Thursday, May 2, 2019. Stay tuned for more details!
Tradition stands strong at Trinity-Pawling—the School community gathered to celebrate the Candlelight Festival of Lessons and Carols on December 11 at 5:00 PM in All Saints’ Chapel. This Episcopal Christmas Festival has been a part of the Trinity-Pawling community since 1938. Modeled after the traditional service at King’s College, Cambridge. Glowing candlelight, brilliant poinsettias, and greenery filled All Saints’ Chapel, as the choir led the congregation in age-old carols of the season. The yearly event was followed by a family-style Christmas dinner, which sent the boys to their holiday break on a high note.
Watch the beautiful evening here.
Scott Seckel ’84 graduated from Trinity-Pawling with a class that is so tight they have a nickname: Big Blue Crew. “We get together outside of reunions often. Whenever we get together, it’s like being 17 again, at least for me,” he says.
Seckel is currently a science writer for the in-house news bureau of Arizona State University. He goes into the field with scientists conducting research at the school. “I sometimes say I write about the world 20 years from now, because I write about things which have just made it into proof of concept, like controlling drones with your brain or a white laser which is going to give your TV 70 percent more color than it has now.”
Before landing where he is now, Seckel’s work as a journalist brought him all around the world, reporting in such places as Hong Kong, Mexico, and New Zealand. “I’ve been in forest fires, riots, murder scenes, and war ships, and I’ve met ALL kinds of people, from peasants and serial killers to soldiers and presidents,” he says. After graduating from college, Seckel spent some time covering crime for the South China Morning Post. “On day one I had to figure out how to get around, deal with a foreign police force, interview witnesses, and so on. When I walked down Nathan Road in Kowloon one morning and saw my byline on the front page at a newsstand, I knew I had it all down.”
Seckel says going to Trinity-Pawling gave him “the confidence and skills to thrive anywhere, doing anything.” But two literature teachers in particular had a powerful influence on him: Ted Kneeland and John Lloyd Owen. “Their classes were divine. As an American writer you need to know and understand the literature so you can build on it and run with it, and that’s what Mr. Kneeland gave to me. He drew a tornado shape on the blackboard one afternoon and said, ‘That’s Moby Dick,’ ” recalls Seckel. About Mr. Owen, who taught AP European Literature, he says: “The first day he told us, ‘I’m not going to teach you to take this . . . test. We are going to study pears on a windowsill under a lace curtain.’ Mr. Owen taught truth and beauty.”
The two teachers had such an impact on Seckel’s writing that his first novel, Arizona Time, published earlier this year, is dedicated to them. “Writing a novel is the loneliest thing in the world. No one’s holding your hand or pointing the way ahead, but those two teachers were there with me in the darkness.”
Arizona Time, A Novel and Five Shorts is described as being set in “the post-frontier American West, in a landscape shaped by Larry McMurtry, Breaking Bad, Sam Shepard, and Leslie Marmon Silko. It is a classic Western, but like no other Western before.” The novel is available on Amazon.
by Lisa M. Kelsey
Darren Palmer ’10 relies on a cocktail of tenacity and confidence he believes was fostered during his time at Trinity-Pawling. “The mentality of ‘I need to eliminate the things I don’t need to focus on right now’ is a pure representation of determination,” he says. Palmer’s fortitude was put to the test when he broke his wrist during his freshman year, but was still required to go to hockey practice. “I couldn’t play, but I’d skate. During games I ran the clock. My senior year, I coached fourth soccer.” But Palmer also appreciated the many mentors he had at Trinity-Pawling that kept checking in with him and kept him on track. “When I was able to push through those difficult times, I knew I could push through whatever would be placed in front of me.”
When a concussion sustained during a lacrosse game forced Palmer to once again redirect his participation during his first year in college, he drew on the strength he gained from his experience at Trinity-Pawling. Instead of dropping out altogether, he found new ways to be involved in the things he loved—filming lacrosse games, attending games in other sports, even becoming Alfred University’s first mascot. “That mentality of sticking with the team just transferred with me to college.” He graduated from Alfred in 2014 with a Saxon 6 Award, an accolade given to the six most influential seniors.
During his time at Trinity-Pawling he was inspired by faculty members’ stories of backpacking adventures, sailing, fishing in Alaska, and also his own experiences doing ropes course adventures as a junior. “That experience with friends in the outdoors made me want to continue to make memories like that,” Palmer recalls.
Done with school but not yet done with challenges, Palmer set his sights on completing the grueling 2200 mile Appalachian Trail. He was attracted to the simplicity of life on the trail. “Wake up, eat, walk, eat, sleep, repeat,” he says. Over the course of the trail he experienced both physical changes, losing almost twenty pounds and gaining a shoe size, and spiritual growth as well. “I learned to talk to myself the way I want others to. I became my own best friend.” Meeting hundreds of people from all over the world, Palmer was encouraged to become more open and trusting. “There is a primal connection we get from conversing with people through stories and thoughts,” he explains. “I hitchhiked into towns with complete strangers and heard some of the most interesting stories. I hiked with soldiers, amputees, a blind man, and a few dogs. Everyone added to my journey to paint such a beautiful memory.”
by Lisa M. Kelsey
“Moving Trinity-Pawling to a new academic schedule was a big job,” begins Brandon Wilson. Over the course of the 2017-2018 School year, a dedicated committee of faculty and staff, appointed by Bill Taylor, worked to strike a balance between tradition and innovation, aiming to create a new academic schedule that would reduce student stress and create time for co-curricular initiatives without taking time away from class meetings, athletic pursuits, or student organizations. “Rather than starting from a blank slate, it was important for us to craft something that alumni would recognize as a logical progression of the schedule they remembered, meeting the needs of the present while keeping traditions of the School alive,” says Wilson.
To that end, each standard day incorporates a morning Chapel service or all-school meeting, as well as a family-style lunch for the whole community. “The flexibility that this creates during evening cafeteria-style meals, which can be taken any time from 5:00-7:00 PM, has befitted both faculty and students. Students now experience a larger unscheduled block of time from the end of their athletic practices until 7:50 PM,” explains Wilson.
Moving Saturday morning classes into the Monday-through-Friday schedule creates more time to pursue new and existing initiatives on Saturday mornings alongside the traditional curriculum. Wilson embraced the opportunity to take the lead in developing a day of learning like no other. “Each Saturday in the fall brought something new—a renewed focus on study-skills for underclassmen, the Senior Independent Projects for the 12th grade, and health and wellness for all students, among other activities,” says Wilson. “This term, most Saturdays will be devoted to Winter Projects and Global Collaborative Challenge efforts as we find time to incorporate these initiatives more closely with the students’ core academic commitments,” he continues.
The Scheduling Committee that brought about these changes included members from each academic department, athletics, admissions, and the administration. Wilson served as the “implementor” of this group, taking ideas and suggestions from everyone and arranging draft schedules showing possible arrangements and meeting times for each element of the Trinity-Pawling week. “Last winter we implemented a trial version of this schedule in order to solicit feedback from the students and faculty. Constructive comments from this week-long test proved invaluable in crafting the final schedule for this year,” he says.
While the major schedule changes are now in place, the committee still exists in a supervisory role, suggesting tweaks and adjustments that can fine-tune the new schedule for the benefit of the boys.
“A significant aspect of the vision of advancing Trinity-Pawling is to create opportunities for innovation that are grounded in the secure footings of tradition. I commend the scheduling committee for creating a structure that honors tradition while also creating more time for creativity,” adds Bill Taylor.
When Nolan Laplante ’19 tells people he’s from California, many assume he means Los Angeles. But Laplante actually makes his home up in the mountains near Lake Tahoe, surrounded by a veritable wonderland of winter sports. “I’m actually one of the few people you might meet from Northern California who isn’t from San Francisco,” he says.
Laplante came to Trinity-Pawling thinking he would devote his time solely to playing hockey. “Coach Ferraris played a significant part in bringing me to the School. A mutual friend got us in contact; he watched a few of my games and welcomed me in.” But once Laplante got here, he soon realized there were many more benefits that suited his work ethic and ambitions. In particular, Trinity-Pawling’s effort system has allowed him to excel in his studies.
Last year, Laplante was named a prefect. After learning about the function of the “Prefect of Zeal,” he knew it was the role for him. But being tasked with drawing students out of their dorms wasn’t as easy as Laplante expected. Undeterred, he enlisted the help of Ms. Chapman in putting together fan buses to away games, and also upped the attendance at home games. Growing into the position led him to understand his natural infectious enthusiasm had its own effect. “Just me being full of energy and outgoing has allowed some students to feel more welcomed at the School.”
Back in October of last year, the subject of a water shortage in South Africa briefly came up during Laplante’s weekly FaceTime with his grandfather. He didn’t think much more about it, but when in March of this year Laplante travelled to South Africa on spring break, he came to experience the crisis firsthand. It seemed like a natural idea to research solutions for his Senior Independent Project. He chose to focus on the process of desalination. “I called my grandpa the moment I got stateside to recap my experience,” says Laplante. “He put me in contact with a man who was once the vice president of a desalination company.” Laplante also reached out to Trinity-Pawling alum, Claire Brown Lyons, senior strategist with Water.org. Through these contacts Laplante learned this potentially world-changing process still had a long way to go. “Desalination is a really good idea, but it won’t be successful until new technology emerges to make it more effective.” Nonetheless, Nolan sees the science — and business — of desalination and the effort of solving water scarcity as something he will pursue in the future.
by Lisa M. Kelsey
“When it was finally time for me to produce a video project on my own in Ms. Rafferty’s Filmmaking and Broadcast Journalism class, I knew immediately I wanted to make a video about the dogs of Trinity-Pawling,” said Stephen Perez ’19.
Students in the class first learn the basics of digital storytelling by mastering storyboarding, shooting video with DSLR cameras, and ultimately, editing their projects in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Perez is a founding member of the Dog Walking Club at Trinity-Pawling, and is without question an outspoken dog-lover. “I love getting to know all the dogs that belong to the faculty here. They are a huge part of the community. They add so much to the lives of the students, because they make you feel like you are home.”
Perez was thrilled to hear his video would be featured in The Quad, “All I wanted was to create a video that makes everyone feel ‘warm and fuzzy’. I hope I succeeded.”
Watch The Dogs of Trinity-Pawling by Stephen Perez ’19.
A Trinity-Pawling education changes everything.
Boys come in with potential and leave with passion, purpose, and a work ethic that will serve them the rest of their lives. They are shaped by the experiences that are distinctly Trinity-Pawling. Every day offers a new lesson in becoming all that they can be.
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Alumni, share your good news with the Trinity-Pawling family!
Please send in your Class Notes for the Spring 2019 Trinity-Pawling Magazine. The submission deadline has been extended to January 10, 2019!
Have you recently gotten married, entered retirement, welcomed a new baby into the family, embarked on a great trip, received a promotion at work, or won a community award? Let us know!
You can submit your news online at www.trinitypawling.org/classnotes
Questions? Email us at alumni@trinitypawling.org
The varsity basketball team started the season with four wins and two losses. Victories came against Westminster, Salisbury, Brunswick, and St. Paul’s. Newcomers Mike Koch ’19, Bryce Nash ’19, Sam Fechner ’20, and Truth Harris ’20 have been the most consistent performers for the Pride thus far. Harris has led the team in scoring in most games and was named the Pride Athlete of the Week.
JV basketball began the season with a win over Westminster and a loss to Salisbury. In the loss, Marquese Ward-Morning ’21 scored 33 points—he will be counted on to provide instant offense for the squad.
The 3rd basketball team defeated Canterbury in their one contest prior to Christmas break.
Varsity hockey has gotten off to a slow start. They played some very good teams and have yet to find consistent scoring. The games have all been close due to the solid goaltending of senior Evan Ruschil. The defense corp has played well, led by Phip Waugh ’19 and Gabe Blanchard ’19. The team looks to improve their offensive production after the New Year.
JV hockey has a win against Salisbury and a hard-fought loss to Avon to begin their season. CK Giancola ’20 scored two goals in the victory and goalies Jack Sawyer ’20 and Jacob Provost ’22 have played very well in both games.
Third hockey has a mixture of experienced players and some who are totally new to the game. The Pride began the season with losses to Salisbury and Avon. Joey Doyle ’20 played well in goal in the two games.
The wrestling team is off to a good start. They had one duel match and traveled to three different tournaments. The coaches are very excited with the potential that this team has. This year’s squad is a nice mix of newcomers and veterans. Thus far, these wrestlers have performed quite well: freshmen Kyle Lee, Marcus Duell, Robbie Accomando; juniors Zack Conlan, David Bancroft, Kyle Hammel, Lucas Hughes; and seniors Peter Murray and Jake Conlan.
JV squash defeated Salisbury in their first match with a very inexperienced team. Tommy Li ’21, Kevin Li ’21, Nick Phillips ’21, and Peter Claro ’21 won their matches in that contest for the Pride.
The third squash team had one match before the break and they were defeated by Salisbury 3-4. CJ Mezzatesta ’20, Matt Bologna ’21, and Cole Governale ’22 were victorious in the matches.
Tune in to watch the winter season live!
by Brian Foster ’79
Parents and boys entering grades 7 and 8 are invited to our Middle School Night. Join us on January 15, 2019 at 7:00 PM at Gamage House and hear about how Trinity-Pawling creates experiential learning opportunities that engage boys on a journey of discovery.
The Trinity-Pawling Middle School curriculum is built on five themes that help students gain a deeper understanding of their self-awareness, creativity, character and honor, and their place in an ever-changing world.
During this evening of information, you’ll meet Headmaster Bill Taylor, Middle School Coordinator Debbie Coratti, Director of Admissions JP Burlington ’95, and Trinity-Pawling students.