The faculty gathered one Saturday evening in early May to bid adieu to Howard Saltzman, who is retiring after 31 years of training young minds, adding levity to e-mail chains, his classes, faculty meetings, tough moments and bright moments alike. To say he will be missed is an understatement.
Attended by about 160 well-wishers, the party extraordinaire was moved to the Saratoga gym to accommodate the crowd. Friend Pat Walsh, LS teacher, ran the show and Brian Larsen of the performing arts department emceed the evening. Chris Nikoloff, head of school, spoke briefly to open the festivities and the parade of well-wishers and gifts, both gag and other, began.
“Howard himself was incredibly touched by the whole evening,” said fellow teacher Elise Schwartz, who helped organize the event. “He was just thrilled from the beginning to have everyone there together in one room. Then, he was overwhelmed by the speeches and the gifts. There were tears in his eyes at many points during the evening. His wife, Susan, was also enormously touched,” Schwartz said.
An amazing slideshow was created by colleague Lisa Diffenderfer. “She collected quite an array of pictures of Howard from over the years and had a running slideshow going along with music that he picked out,” Schwartz added. “There were hilarious pictures of Howard from the beginning of his career up to today. It was a beautiful slideshow and they even showed it again at the next faculty meeting.” No party is complete without food and, as usual, executive chef Steve Martin outdid himself. “Chef Steve, as always, put on an amazing spread,” said Schwartz. “Howard has nothing but high praise for him and is always amazed by Chef Steve and his crew.
“Great love for Howard was felt everywhere in the room. He was thankful to the school for hosting this event and for allowing not only his colleagues but also all of his family and close friends to attend as well. Howard’s roast was so funny and the presentation of the memorial urinal left everyone in hysterics!”’
Saltzman ended the evening with a gracious speech. His gratitude was apparent and he was overwhelmed by the love in the room.
Parent and former Harker employee Mary Jo Townzen sent this accolade: “I am fortunate to be able to say that Howard has taught all three of my children, Ryan MS ’02, Troy MS ’04 and Samantha, Gr. 3. Samantha has had the opportunity to have Mr. Saltzman as a homeroom teacher in this, his last year of teaching. Howard’s timing is impeccable. I choose to believe he waited until now to retire in order to make sure he personally shuttled all of the Townzen children through. Howard will always hold a place in my heart for all he’s done over the years for me and for my family and Samantha wants Howard to know, ‘He’s the best teacher ever!’”
Nichols Hall was alive to the sounds of music on April 30 and May 1, when all the US vocal ensembles presented their final performances of the year.
“Seniors and Friends” was the theme on the first night for the groups directed by Susan Nace. Camerata completed its inaugural year in fine fashion, presenting an 18th-century American piece, a Hebrew song with guest instrumentalists Cindy Tay, Gr. 9, Diana Lai, Gr. 12, and Sammi Werthen, Gr. 11, and a very difficult portion of a mass by Renaissance composer Josquin des Pres. Seniors Elena Madan, Emma Blickenstaff, Kartik Venkatraman (with a cameo by teacher Anthony Silk) and Sammi Lowe performed musical theater and popular songs, and Lowe was joined by her buddies Shubha Guha and Natasha Jeswani, also seniors, for a beautiful trio version of Johnny Mercer’s “Dream” that brought to mind the Lennon Sisters.
The boisterous boys of Guys’ Gig, a club for aficionados of a cappella doo-wop music, stormed the stage and performed four songs, two of which were also arranged by the senior Guy who took the lead solo: Amaresh Shukla’s “Earth Angel,” and Venkatraman’s “Aïcha.” Shukla also performed a classical solo, and Ida Gorshteyn reprised her Senior Showcase performance of the “Habañera” from “Carmen.”
Cantilena has focused on pieces by French composers this year, and gave the audience a wonderful variety, including a traditional French-Canadian folk song, and pieces by Debussy, Bizet and Duruflé. They closed the concert with a piece by the same American composer who wrote Camerata’s opening piece. They also performed their theme song with which they close every concert, the beautiful “How Can I Keep from Singing,” which featured soloists Jeswani, Guha and Lexi Ross, Gr. 12.
Nace honored her seniors, she and her girls welcomed next year’s Cantilenans with sweatshirts, and goodbyes and hugs were shared all around.
The next evening was Bel Canto’s and Downbeat’s turn to wow their friends and families in their annual closer, “Songs into Summer.” Bel Canto, directed by Catherine Snider, opened the concert by processing into the auditorium from the back, playing percussion instruments and singing an a cappella Macedonian folk song. After that exciting start they moved through several genres, with the Duke Ellington favorite “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got that Swing,” a sacred Latin piece, a rousing spiritual and a Spanish folk-style song. This group, mostly freshmen, was impressive in its sound and sonority.
Downbeat, directed by Snider and Laura Lang-Ree, took the second half of the concert, also showing off their wide range of styles. A scat-filled “Jada Jazz” started them off, followed by a doo-wop version of the Beatles’ “In My Life.” A spiritual and a song from the hit musical “Spring Awakening,” both with choreography, were included, as was a beautiful Irish lullaby, accompanied by Snider on piano and Jacqueline Son, Gr. 11, on flute. The group also reprised their Freeze Frame Fashion Show hit ’60s medley, sans runway, on the small stage of the auditorium.
The evening’s program was sprinkled with soloists from both groups. Bel Canto’s Noel Witcosky, Lauren Pinzás, Ashima Agrawal, all Gr. 9 and Clara Blickenstaff, Gr. 10, sang pieces from the Great American Songbook and musicals. Downbeat was represented in solos by Christina Li, Gr. 10 and Neha Sabharwal, Gr. 12, who each sang a torch song, Michelle Holt and Daniel Cho, both Gr. 10, who were adorable doing the duet “You’re Just in Love,” and D.J. Blickenstaff, Gr. 12 and John Ammatuna, Gr. 10, who closed the show with a dramatic, tour de force performance of “Lily’s Eyes” from “The Secret Garden.” Getting laughs and some nostalgic grins were real-life sisters Ananya and Namrata Anand (Gr. 12 and Gr. 11), who sang “Sisters” from “White Christmas” – their last chance to perform together at Harker.
Downbeat also acknowledged its seniors and the newbies joining them next year.
The US Conservatory is justifiably proud of all its vocal groups, and the two evenings made for an exciting, moving and musical transition into the summer.
The Harker faculty continued their softball winning streak with a third consecutive win, 7-3, against the US varsity team in the annual faculty/student game. Recently graduated Sarah Christiano, Shelby Drabman, Sammi Lowe, Candace Silva-Martin and Andrea Thomas returned to play in an attempt to break the faculty’s streak, and faculty and staff players came from all divisions and many departments.
Following the game, Drabman was recognized as team MVP and as first team all-league for the third year in a row. She was not only Harker’s starting pitcher, but had the highest batting average in the WBAL. Thomas was recognized for her selection to the second team all-league for the second year in a row, and honorable mentions for all-league went to Christiano and Silva-Martin. Amal Asghar was the team’s most improved player.
In April, a group of teachers and students from the Biology Club set about planting a vegetable garden on the Saratoga campus. With the students’ help, environmental science teacher Jeff Sutton, English teacher Ben Spencer-Cooke, biology teacher Kate Schafer, physics teachers Miriam Allersma and Mark Brada, and US community service director Kerry Enzensperger planted the garden that Enzensperger hopes will be maintained by the gardening club she plans to establish during the 2009-10 school year.
“I think we all would like to have students have the experience of knowing where their food is coming from,” Schafer said. “Also, there are so many environmental problems around the way that we are currently growing and raising our food that even the small amount of produce that we can provide to the kitchen will make a small contribution to reducing our environmental footprint.”
Foods planted in the garden include cucumbers, melons, peppers, tomatoes, beans, lettuce and sunflowers. When the garden is ready for harvest, Schafer said, they will likely be donated to the kitchen staff.
The Japanese National Honors Society presented two unique entertainers in late May at the Nichols Hall auditorium. The first was Nuyoku-ya Sento (also known by his real name, Tsuyoshi Minamoto), a former Jazz singer who currently lives and performs in New York. Sento used his finely-tuned voice and ukulele to take the audience on a globe-hopping musical journey. Singing songs in English, Brazilian, French, Italian, Korean and his native Japanese, he segued between each tune with a series of amusing jokes.
Next up was Tokyo’s Sanyutei Kyouraku, a performer in the centuries-old art of rakugo, which features a lone storyteller who spins various yarns by inhabiting the roles of every character in the story. Despite the language barrier, the audience was able to follow the story thanks to the English translation projected onto the stage. Kyouraku kept the audience fascinated with his convincing impersonations of everything from doctors and children to dogs and cockroaches. The highlight was a multi-faceted, heart-warming tale about the triumph of the human spirit during the aftermath of the 1995 Kobe earthquake.
In a late season win against Mercy San Francisco (10-1) seniors Andy Thomas and Shelby Drabman hit back-to-back home runs! Our softball girls finished their season with a victory on senior day defeating ICA 15- 0. Drabman had 12 strikeouts and we had hits from Thomas and fellow seniors Candace Silva-Martin, Sammi Lowe and Sarah Christiano. The girls ended up 9-13 overall and 7-9 in league. For the third year in a row, Drabman made first team All League, finishing with the best batting average in the league of .540. With five home runs, she tied for first in the league; she also pitched eight wins this year. Thomas, who according to coach Raul Rios, “developed into one of the best, if not the best, shortstops in our league,” made second team All League. Christiano and Silva-Martin received honorable mentions.
Golf
The boys golf team completed its league season with a 7-3 record. The team finished in third place in league finals, narrowly losing to Menlo School by eight points (out of over 400 scored by each team). Juniors James Feng and Yash Khandwala qualified for the CCS tournament in Carmel, where they gained some valuable experience and represented Harker admirably. Congratulations on a great season, boys!
Lacrosse
The girls lacrosse team was 3-15 this year, winning their third game with a 16-9 victory over Woodside High School. The team set a goal for winning at least two games this season and surpassed that goal with previous wins over Notre Dame and an earlier win against Woodside. Coach Dawn Clark was pleased with the tremendous progress the team has made in the past few years.
Leading scorers for the season were Clara Lyashevsky, Gr. 12, with 33 goals and Monisha Appalaraju, Gr. 10, with 18 goals. Michelle Lin, Gr. 12, had 15 goals, Elaine Song, Gr. 11, had 11, and Alyssa Boyle, Gr. 12 and Julia Shim, Gr. 11, each had nine goals. Additional scorers were Priya Thumma, Gr. 12, with three goals; Shreya Nathan, Gr. 10 and juniors Manasa Reddy, Connie Lu and Tamara Kawadri with one goal each.
In goal, Pratusha Erraballi, Gr. 12, had 94 goalie saves and Ruhi Kumbhani, Gr. 10, had 95. Leading defenders at mid-field were Kelly Chen, Gr. 11 and Lu; at low defense were Prachi Sharma, Gr. 12, Carissa Jansen, Gr. 11 and Reddy.
Girls Swimming
The girls ended the season 8-0 in league, and won the league championship meet held at Harker, therefore becoming league champions outright. Dan Molin, athletic director reported, “Despite an early relay team disqualification in Wednesday’s trials, our girls swim team was able to overcome and win their first league championship. The title was in question until the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay.” The girls not only won the event, but smashed the league record by three seconds with a time of 3:46.68.
Harker event winners were: 50 & 100 free – Jessica Khojasteh, Gr. 10; 100 breaststroke – Vivian Wong, Gr. 11; 200 free relay – Katie Siegel, Gr. 9, Tiffany Wong, Gr. 9, V. Wong and Khojasteh; and 400 free relay – Khojasteh, Siegel, V. Wong and Tina Ma, Gr. 11. All were won in league record time except the 100 free. New CCS qualifications were achieved by T. Wong (200 IM and 100 backstroke) and Lucy Cheng, Gr. 9 (200 IM).
Earlier in the season, in a 109-54 defeat of Mills, Khojasteh set a new school record in the 100 backstroke of 1:02.37.
At CCS the girls had their best finish ever, placing tenth with 75 points. Harker was led by Khojasteh, who placed sixth in both the 50 and 100 freestyle, earning All-American honors. Also earning All-American honors was the 200 medley relay team of Siegel, Ma, V. Wong and Khojasteh, which placed eighth. Other points were scored by Siegel placing 11th in the 100 fly (just missing All-American), Wong placing 11th in the 100 breaststroke, Sabrina Paseman, Gr. 12, placing 10th in the 1-meter diving, and the 200 freestyle relay that placed 13th.
Boys Swimming
The boys were 3-1 in league and came in second in the league championship meet. In that meet, event winners were: 50 & 100 free – Cole Davis, Gr. 11; 100 butterfly – Andrew Chin, Gr. 12; 200 IM – Kevin Khojasteh, Gr. 9; 200 free relay – Khojasteh, Chin, Daryl Neubieser, Gr. 9 and Davis. CCS qualifiers were Chin, Davis, Michael Clifford, Gr. 11, Stefan Schwartz, Gr. 11, Darren Syu, Gr. 11, Hassaan Ebrahim, Gr. 10, Khojasteh and Neubieser.
On senior day for Chin, he finished his high school dual meet career winning both of his individual events and both of his relays.
At the CCS match, despite being disqualified in the opening relay of the meet, which was by far their strongest relay, the boys swim team also had its best finish in the history of the team, placing sixth with 104 points. The team was led by Chin, Davis and Khojasteh, all of whom had two top-eight performances and two All-American selections. Chin placed seventh in the 200 IM and, despite an extremely fast field this year, placed fourth in the 100 fly. Davis placed third in the 50 free and fourth in the 100 free. Khojasteh took eighth in the 200 IM, and in the last individual event of the meet, led from the start but got touched out by two tenths of a second in the 100 breaststroke, finishing second. The Harker 200 free relay team of Khojasteh, Chin, Neubieser and Davis also earned All-American honors, placing ninth.
Track and Field
Coach Terrell Davis reported that the track and field team has been making strong improvements in every event this season. For the boys we have had standout performances by Vladimir Sepetov, Gr. 10, Kevin Fu, Gr. 11, Proteek Biswas, Gr. 9, Charles Levine, Gr. 9, Thomas Enzminger, Gr. 11, Kevin Xu, Gr. 12, and the 4 x 400 meter relay team of Biswas, Levine, Bogdan Botcharov, Gr. 11 and Sepetov. On the girls’ side, Kristie Sanchez, Gr. 10, Tara Hansen, Gr. 11, Sonya Chalaka, Gr. 9, Priyanka Mody, Gr. 9 and the crew of lady throwers have laid the foundations for success for many years to come.
In an early season meet at Leland High, several of our runners set personal records in their events. Sepetov set a personal record of 2:05.77 in the 800 meters, Chalaka ran a record 14.02 in the 100 meters, Tanya Rai, Gr. 10, ran the 100 in a personal best 14.62, and Fu ran the 100 in 11.72.
Although they didn’t qualify for CCS, the young Harker track team showed impressive results at the track and field league championship on May 14. Results were highlighted with new personal records for Sanchez (2:33.10) and Sepetov (2:04.46) both in the 800 meter; Biswas (55.18) in the 400 meter, and the 4 x 400 meter relay team (3:44.06).
Qualifiers for the league championships included the girls 4 x 100 meter relay team of Neha Kumar, Gr. 9, Hansen, Rai and Chalaka; Hansen also qualified for the 100 meter high hurdles, as did Sarah Teplitsky, Gr. 11. The 4 x 400 girls team of Rai, Sanchez, Jennifer Dai, Gr. 10 and Chalaka, as well as the boys 4 x 400 team and boys 4 x 100 team of Fu, Botcharov, Angad Randhawa, Gr. 9 and Sean Morgan, Gr. 11, also qualified. In addition, Sanchez qualified in the 800 meter for the girls, and Sepetov in the same event for the boys; Levine and Biswas qualified in the 400 meter; discus qualifiers included Carolyn Kuo, Gr. 12, Enzminger, Patrick Campbell, Gr. 11 and Mark Roh, Gr. 11. Enzminger also participated in the shot put. Longer distance runners Xu and Anne West, Gr. 10, competed in the boys and girls 3,200 meter, respectively, while Xu also ran the 1,600 meter. In addition to her relay teams, Chalaka also jumped in both the long jump and triple jump. Fu also ran the 100 meter for the boys.
This track and field team has a very bright future!
Boys Volleyball
The boys varsity volleyball team finished the season 26-8 overall and 10-2 in league play. In their last regular-season game, the team defeated fourth-ranked Homestead 16-25, 28-26, 25-22, 25-23 in front of a large, supportive senior night crowd. The win earned Harker a second place league finish, a #3 CCS seed, and the right to host a CCS quarterfinal game on May 14 at Blackford vs. Sacred Heart Cathedral. Earlier in the season, they took first place in the silver division at the Aptos Tournament and lost an intense, close match to Leigh in the finals of the Harker Tournament. The team was led by seniors Matt Gehm and Daniel Tien; juniors Chad Gordon, Eugene Huang, Kevin Liu, Jeffrey Tan and sophomore Jacob Chappell. The JV squad made the gold bracket in a tournament for the first time ever at Los Gatos in April.
After the boys volleyball team won their CCS quarterfinal match in front of more than 300 fans at Blackford in three short games of 25-12, 25-12 and 25-21, they moved on to the semifinals against Willow Glen. Unfortunately, they lost that match in four games, 25-17, 22-25, 23- 25, 25-27. Coach and US athletic director Dan Molin stated, “The team would like to thank everyone for their support during the playoffs and the entire season.” He added proudly, “The boys represented our school admirably.”
Boys Tennis
The tennis team finished their regular season with a loss to league champion Menlo School. Since the team graduated seven seniors from last year’s squad, it was a rebuilding year for the program. Despite the loss of last year’s leadership, the boys finished with a 12-6 record, third place in the WBAL, and made a record sixth straight CCS tournament appearance! They lost their first round CCS match to Monta Vista 4-3. Congratulations on a great season.
The team was led this year by captain Aadithya Prakash, Gr. 12 (ranked first in doubles and singles), along with sophomores Karthik Dhore (first in singles), Adarsh Ranganathan (second and third in singles), and senior Harry Schwartz (number one in doubles and singles). Since the team is only losing two seniors this year, look for them to continue as one of the top CCS teams in the future.
Players who participated in the WBAL tournament at Menlo School were Schwartz, Dhore, Nikhil Parthasarathy, Gr. 10 and Ranganathan, and freshmen Sam Gurevich and Nikhil Narayen.
Baseball
The varsity baseball team had big wins against Willow Glen, Evergreen, Cuper tino and Washington. The team has been led by the strong play of seniors Barrett Glasauer and Taylor Martin, who lead the team in most of the offensive categories, and have contributed six pitching victories between them. Junior Greg Plauck has five wins pitching, and a .340 hitting average; junior Stefan Eckhardt has an average over .400 with 19 RBI, plus outstanding defense at shor tstop. Both juniors have been key players this year. Senior Evan Maynard and junior Alex Ringold have been excellent role players in helping Harker to its best season.
The team defeated Crystal Springs 10-3 to secure their first ever co-league championship! The win also gave Harker the automatic league berth to the CCS tournament where they lost their first-round game against a tough Soquel High School team on May 20. All-League recipients were Glasauer, league MVP; Mar tin, Plauck and Eckhardt, first team; Jeff Mandell, Sean Mandell, both Gr. 12, Maynard, and Ringold, second team. Congratulations on a great season!
Berkeley-Bound Shah to Junior Olympics
Ankita Shah, Gr. 12, recently participated in the Junior Olympics (JOs) National Gymnastics competition in Seattle. According to her father, Nilesh Shah, Shah was one of seven to qualify based on her all-around score of 37.2.
She represented region one, which includes the states of California, Arizona, Nevada and Utah. Region one and five are among the most competitive in the nation. At the event, Shah earned 9.325 on the vault, 8.8 on bars, 8.9 on beam and 9.475 on the floor.
Competing in the JOs was, according to Mr. Shah, “one of her dreams.” Congratulations, and good luck at Cal!
Would you like to have lunch at school served to you by Harker royalty? Lunch is served…by Chris Nikoloff, head of school; Jennifer Gargano, assistant head of school for academic affairs; and Cindy Ellis, MS division head, to six Gr. 6 girls on a delightful spring day on the Blackford campus! Under the cool shade of a gazebo, the girls had a memorable dining experience. Madi Bourquin’s parents bought her the teacher auction package offered by English teacher Kate Murphy. While their classmates waited in line for lunch, the girls relaxed at the table in the open-air gazebo at a table adorned by soft linens, silver candelabra and beautiful flowers. They sipped apple juice and ice water from cobalt blue goblets as their wait staff served them a multicourse lunch. The auction package will again be offered at the next family picnic!
Two Harker teams placed among the top ten finishers in the 2009 national J8 competition. All together, 32 Harker students in eight teams of four students each submitted applications to this year’s J8 contest – the winners of which are invited to attend the annual G8 Summit with world leaders, to be held in Italy this year.
Applications included nine separate essays, three of which address global issues discussed at the G8 Summit. Over 50 applications were submitted from 14 states. Harker earned the distinction of having the greatest number of applications and of being the only school to advance more than one team to the final round, including one group that was named second runner up to the winning Nor th Miami Beach High School team.
Team Paritas et Pax was awarded third place and included juniors Connie Lu, Brandon Araki, Vishesh Jain and Andrew Zhou. Making the top ten was Team 2.2 Billion, composed of juniors Shefali Netke, Elaine Song, Curran Kaushik and Carissa Jansen. Other participants included freshmen Rohan Bopardikar, Jaya Chandra, Frederic Enea and Katie Marcus Reker; sophomores Appu Bhaskar, Jacob Chappell, Tyler Koteskey, Justine Liu, Kristi Liu, Isaac Madan, Shreya Nathan and Olivia Zhu; and juniors Ankur Ahuja, Namrata Anand, Nathaniel Edwards, Kelsey Hilbrich, Andrea Lincoln, Arjun Mody, Kendra Moss and Haran Sivakumar. Carol Zink, history teacher, and Lauri Vaughan, librarian, acted as co-facilitators for the students.
In 2007, a team of eight Harker students won the event and attended the G8 Summit in Wismar, Germany, as U.S. representatives. Significant portions of all eight applications have been posted on the GEO Club’s Web site and are available for your reading pleasure at http://web.harker.org/geo/j8/j8.html.
Graduating seniors gathered in late May for the annual Senior Brick Ceremony, where several seniors and their parents gathered to place bricks bearing their names and graduation years into the sidewalk leading into Graduates’ Grove. Seniors Alyssa Donovan, Ananya Anand, Christine Emery, Nirupama Gadagottu, Chetan Vakkalagadda, Kartik Venkatraman, Amanda Wong and Hanh Dang were present at the ceremony to place their bricks in the grove.
Following the ceremony, the students, parents and teachers present turned their attention to the future site of the new US library, where library director Enid Davis said a few words about the bumpy road that led to this momentous occasion. “When the seniors here today were only two years old,” she said, “Mr. (Howard) Nichols asked me on my first day of work to design a new library on this very site.” Factors such as the opening of a high school, the dot-com bubble and the recent economic hardship delayed the building of the new facility.
Following the reading of her amusingly titled poem “Ode to the Wrecking Ball,” Davis, with the help of the senior class officers, planted a golden shovel into the ground to officially kick off the construction of the new library, which is scheduled for completion in January 2010. Davis and the entire 2009 senior class then posed for a photograph at the newly broken ground. As a keepsake, Davis was bestowed the golden shovel to commemorate the occasion.
– Alumna Lauren Ammatuna ’08 has been volunteering in the alumni office for several weeks. She is required to complete a three-unit community service activity for the University of Redlands and elected to help out the Harker alumni program. Terry Sweeney Walsh, alumni director, will be involving Ammatuna in alumni-related projects, tasks and planning.
– The Office of Communication has the good fortune to have Jessica Liu ’04 and Laena Keyashian ’04 helping out in between college and grad/med school. Those on campus will see them taking photographs, helping with interviews, etc. Please extend a warm Harker welcome to these two young women if you see them – it’s truly a “K through Life” experience to have some of our alumnae back in the fold for a while!
– Bucknall kitchen staffer Lupe Gonzalez delivered Daniela Gonzalez at 6 pounds, 4 ounces, 18 ½ inches long in the early afternoon of May 5. Congratulations!
– Soraya Alcantar will be stepping in as administrative assistant to Cindy Ellis, MS school division head, and Lana Morrison, MS dean of students, while Kelly Schlernitzauer, the current assistant, goes through some special training. “Soraya is very excited to join Harker and I know everyone will welcome her warmly,” said Ellis.
– Teacher Ruth Meyer is contributing a chapter, titled “Chronos vs. Kairos: A Plea for Restoration of Empathy and Imagination in History Teaching,” to “Reimagining Education: Essays on Reviving the Soul of Learning,” edited by Dennis Patrick Slattery and Jennifer Leigh Selig. Meyer, a US history teacher, noted the chapter will be a re-work of the education section of her Ph.D. dissertation and that the book is the publishing imprint of “Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture,” the oldest Jungian psychology journal in the world.
– Mark Gelineau, MS English teacher, will be per forming in the Shakespeare on the Square Festival in Arclight Repertory Theatre’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” this June. He plays the role of Bottom, one of the great Shakespearean comic roles. The show runs June 11-27 at the Theater on San Pedro Square; see www.arclightrep.org for details. In addition, Gelineau is volunteering as the educational outreach coordinator for Arclight and brought on Harker alumna Emily Stapleton MS ’93 as one of the teaching artists running the classes and assisting with the program.
“Arclight is a theater organization dedicated to bringing theater to audiences who might not traditionally be exposed to it,” said Gelineau. “They specialize in Shakespeare, but also focus on literary adaptations and suppor ting new and upcoming playwrights. They do work with schools, at-risk youth groups, community centers, etc. They started the Shakespeare on the Square Festival a few years ago, and it is the only Shakespeare festival in the city of San Jose. They are an amazing organization.”
– Congratulations to Katie Chou Hollier ’95 and husband Brian Hollier, on the birth of Louis Samuel Ming Shi Hollier the Fifth. The lad, called Sam, was born at 10 p.m. EDT, at 8 ½ pounds and 20 inches, and at the same moment Carol Zink, US history teacher, became a grandmother.
– Welcome Maya Esther Biton, who could not wait until after finals! Little Maya arrived on Friday, May 22 at 4:19 p.m. Congratulations to parents Lisa Biton-Rozakis, Latin teacher, and husband Yehiel Biton, on this new addition to their family!