This story originally appeared in Harker News in May, 2004
by Sue Smith, Harker Archivist
From the Harker School’s earliest beginnings, dance has played an important role. The 1903 catalog features dance instruction, offered to the girls for $20 per term. By the ’20s, dance became part of the curriculum, and one period a week was devoted to natural [interpretive] dancing and folk dancing. The dance curriculum was expanded to include clogging in the ’30s, which was thought to increase flexibility and a sense of rhythm. In the ’40s, creative, interpretive and social dancing were recognized as integral to the curriculum.
As the Miss Harker School expanded to include K-12 in the 50s, dance was introduced into the primary school curriculum. Kindergarteners practiced folk dancing every day, and additional dance instruction was available after school. Intermediate students learned interpretive dance, and the upper school students were exposed to a variety of dance traditions. Through the merger of the Palo Alto Military Academy with the Harker Day School in the early 1960s, dance was always part of the summer programs and of their annual Maypole celebrations. In the early days of Harker Academy, spring musicals provided the main venue for dance performances. However, when dance teacher Laura Rae came to Harker in 1982, the dance program really began to flourish! Laura’s earliest memories are of the spring musicals, in which all 7th and 8th graders participated, and each P.E. class selected dancers for specific routines. Rae recalls, “My first year, the musical was the ‘Wizard of Oz,’ and I choreographed the leads as well as the large group numbers. At the same time, I started making up little routines for students to perform at the awards assemblies. The first dance routine was ‘Shake It Up’ by the Cars.” So impressive was the performance that dance performances soon became part of every school assembly, as well as the annual Holiday Show and Spring Musical.
The after-school dance program began in 1983 with 50 students of various grade levels and skills. Dancers performed in a recital at the end of the school year. In the early years Dan Gelineau worked on sound, Mike Bassoni on lights, and Jack Bither was master of ceremonies. Within three years, the program grew to include 150 students who participated in the after-school program, parent/child dances and a faculty routine with a mother/faculty dance. By the late ’80s, Harker Academy dancers had developed a solid base of skills. Parents helped build sets and costumes were ordered through professional catalogs. Dance became a hit at Harker!
By now Rae was teaching dance full-time, and the dance program now included a required course in the K-8th grade P.E. program, the annual spring musical (required for MS students) and an after-school elective for performance in the dance show. Dance was taught in a small room which had an open dance deck attached (these rooms now function as Laura Lang-Ree’s room/Mr. Micek’s computer room). Rae remembers “first position feet” painted on the floor, flowers and a heater on the dance deck, and being part of the life of the boarding students. She remembers, “Many of the boarders danced in the program, since we were just downstairs. This opened the doors to ethnic dances and boys entering the program.” Student participation after school increased and Rae began to contract with outside choreographers to assist with the dance numbers. The annual show began to have standard routines that included jazz, ballet/lyrical, modern and a new style known as hip-hop. “At this point, I was still working with a phonograph and those big CDs known as vinyl records,” Rae laughed. “By the late ’80s I couldn’t keep up with the demand of student interest.” So the dance program further expanded in the 1990s as Gail Palmer came aboard. Rae and Palmer became a team that made the program what it is today.
Rae said the program has flourished as a result of the creativity and support of many, and she feels a special indebtedness to Howard and Diana Nichols: “I am amazed that the dance program has become such an integral part of the Harker community. Howard and Diana have always been advocates of the performing arts. To be able to work with wonderful, bright students, hire outside choreographers and collaborate with the Performing Arts staff has been a dream come true.”
The tradition continues as we celebrated our 21st annual dance production, “Let’s Show ‘Em,” this year. Lucky indeed are the Harker dancers, who as part of their legacy have created lifelong memories for all and experienced the thrill of performing at Harker!
This story originally appeared in the June 2002 issue of Harker News
The Harker Boarding Program, which moved to the Saratoga campus in 1972, officially closed on Thurs., June 6, 2002, due to the continuing space needs of Harker’s expanding K-12 program. The decision almost two years ago to close the program at the end of this school year was extremely difficult for President Howard Nichols who was once a Harker boarding student himself.
Caring, capable staff have taken care of the health, academics and social lives of approximately 1,377 school year boarding students over the years and approximately 2,100 summer boarding students. Study hall, meals, recreation, shopping, haircuts—all the daily needs—were met by the enthusiastic, dedicated dorm staff.
There are only two current staff who have been here since the boarding program began on this campus, Howard Nichols and Dan Gelineau.
Cindy Kerr and Pat Walsh come pretty close to the 30 year mark! Other current staff who have lived and/or worked in the dorm, and the number of years they were dorm staff are Terry Walsh, 24 yrs.; Joe Rosenthal, 20 yrs.; Pam Dickinson (who lived in the family staff apartment with her husband, John Near, and daughter, Casey Near), 11 yrs; Pat Walsh, 10 yrs.; Cindy Kerr, 6 yrs.; Jack Bither, 6 yrs.; J.R. Del Alto, 3 yrs.; and Andrew Hansen, 2 yrs. Many of the dorm staff were coaches, teachers and bus drivers by day, and dorm staff by night! Some staff started out at the Harker dorm and went on to be Harker teachers.
The dorm provided a family element to the school over the years, and with breakfast and dinner served each day to the boarding students, Harker encouraged faculty to come early or stay late and spend time with the boarders. The boarders always enjoyed seeing teachers outside of the classroom, and many of the teachers developed special bonds with this “extended family.”
“There will be a void when the dorms are not here starting next school year,” said Terry Walsh, dorm manager this past final year. “Plus, teachers have become accustomed to coming over for irons, candles, batteries, light bulbs, dice, decks of cards and other various items that the dorm always seemed to have on hand,” she laughed.
We asked former dorm staff to share some of their favorite memories:
“I remember that we would play capture the flag before study hall when daylight-saving time commenced in the spring. We had a great time.”—Howard Nichols, Harker president
“Drive-in movies on the lawn where Dobbins is, big pool parties and whale watching with 24 sick kids and three sick staffers. And I’ve got a million more!!!” —Pat Walsh, Gr. 5 teacher
“One of my fondest memories when I was a houseparent in the dorm was the Major’s dog Dutch, a 140 lb mastiff. Dutch was the unofficial school mascot, and as such, had the run of the dorms and the campus.”—Dan Gelineau, former asst. head of school and current summer camps consultant
“Staying up all night with the kids reading fairy tales after an earthquake; hiking through the hills to cut down the perfect Christmas tree and then having a party to decorate it with handmade ornaments; making bag lunches for the girls so they could have “home” lunch; sewing on untold numbers of patches on sweaters; knowing that kids like Marta, Theresa, Jessica and many others felt like they were ‘home.’ “ —Cindy Kerr, MS math teacher and dept. chair
“I’ll never know who really had more fun in the weekend boarding program —me or the kids!”—Pam Dickinson, director of communications
“Sitting in the dorm office with a bowl of fruit on my desk and having boarders stop by after school for a snack and a chat. The younger kids would plop down on my lap for a little TLC. It will be strange after 23 years not to have children asking me for a key to their room or a dollar or two to buy snacks.”
—Terry Walsh, boarding manager
“I have the greatest respect for the boarding students. Boarders become independent and self-reliant and remember the kindnesses shown to them and know how important kindness is in their lives. I am a much better person because of what I have seen these children do and the expressions of friendship and kindnesses shown to each other. Only if one lived it would one be able to know how meaningful and important the boarders have been to each other.” —Joe Rosenthal, exec. director of advancement & residential life
A special thanks to Terry Walsh, who managed the program this past year, and to this year’s dorm staff who cared for our last batch of wonderful boarding students: houseparents Margaret McGovern, Mary Kay Olks and Tim Butler; and dorm assistants Lynda Sutton, Lee Trotter, Adam Gill and Anthony Wood.
The boarding program has contributed greatly to the fascinating history of The Harker School. Warm memories of boarding students, staff and dorm activities will remain in the hearts of all those touched by this great program.
Sara D. Harker will forever be known as the younger sister of Catherine, who founded a private girls’ school in Palo Alto, Calif., in 1902. Catherine was, no doubt, the intellectual of the three sisters born to Sarah E. and James Harker of Portland, Ore. She graduated from Vassar College in 1889 and taught Latin at Mills College before opening her school.
Sara arrived in Palo Alto in 1907, along with her mother and aunt, to help Catherine. Since she was a trained musician (she played the violin and piano), her first job was director of the music program. Sara expanded this music program and her own interests to the Palo Alto community, becoming a champion of the Fortnightly Music Club, which brought great artists to the community.
Sara’s other main interests were business, humanitarian works and traveling. During World War I, she was in charge of the California state office for the Commission of Relief of Belgium. Later, she traveled in Australia and studied in Boston at the Prince School, affiliated with the graduate school of education at Harvard. After further studying business, she traveled to Europe in 1931 and upon her return became principal of the lower school at Miss Harker’s.
In one newspaper account, Sara is about to embark for a European tour with four girls from the school. The item includes a charming detail of the trip: “There will be motor trips out from Nice and Rome, an excursion to Capri and Pompeii, swimming and tea at the Lido, a lake trip to the castle of Chillon, attendance at plays in Interlaken, and Munich trips to the Isle of Marken and its famous cheese market, a day on the Rhine and an airplane journey from Heidelberg to Paris.” (The article is undated, but this trip took place when a “5 room modern bungalow” rented in Palo Alto for $60 a month.)
In an undated brochure published after Catherine Harker’s death in 1938 showing Sara as headmistress, the first aim of the school is thus stated: “The first objective is to inspire every pupil with high ideals, not only of scholarship, but of character, and to awaken the desire to make the greatest possible use of life and talents.”
According to her pupils and colleagues, she succeeded in this endeavor. During the 50th celebration of the opening of the Harker School for Girls, an associate wrote of Sara: “Her leadership is one of enthusiasm, sincerity, and high ideals. Always she is interested in the individual, with her talents and potentials … She places strong emphasis upon high academic standards, but above all, she values the building of character.”
Sara Harker might always be known as Catherine’s younger sister, but she stands just as tall in the history of our school. Upon Catherine’s death in 1938, Sara took on the responsibility of running the school until her retirement at the age of 84 in 1951.
Miss Harker died in a Mountain View rest home. Hospitalized after a series of strokes for nearly three years, she was 89 years old when she died.
Gloria Brown, a 1945 Harker high school graduate, has called Sara Harker “the most influential person in my life.” She was a dedicated educator who filled her students’ heads with the love of music, learning and good works. Not bad for a little sister!
Sources: “Miss Harker’s School.” Brochure. No date, but after 1938; Newspaper item, n.d.; “Palo Alto Times,” 4/24/56; “Palo Alto Times,” 1951; “San Jose Mercury News,” 12/31/76.
So much has changed over the six decades the picnic has been held! It began in Palo Alto in the 1950s, and even then dedication made the difference. “Picnic” at Harker has a meaning all its own. It’s not just a picnic … it’s so much more!
The first family picnic was held at the Palo Alto Military Academy in 1951 on a sunny Sunday in October. The school kitchen provided lunch, and activities included a tug-of-war, the ever-popular (and often messy) family egg toss, awards ceremony and military parade. In the 1960s “Alumni Day Exercises” included the Presentation of the Colors, a bugle competition, physical exercises and the colorful bicycle drill, led by Cadet Captain Dan Gelineau (middle school teacher Mark Gelineau’s father).
In 1972, Palo Alto Academy and Harker Day School became Harker Academy and moved to Saratoga Avenue. Picnic tradition continued under headmaster Howard Nichols and the Dads’ Club, and the first Saratoga picnic was on what is now Davis Field. In 1975, the Dads’ Club, under the leadership of Harker dads Marty Scarpace (father of elementary school head Kristin Giammona), Bob Sparkman and Wally Briefs, decided to use the picnic to fund a swimming pool. Scarpace purchased pool blueprints, Sparkman added carnival games to the picnic and Briefs built the Plinko game himself – and it is still used today. The pool was built the very next year. In 1978, the Sparkman family donated a trip for two to Hawaii and the family picnic raffle was born.
Then came the 1980s. Picnic attractions changed and none was more exciting than skydivers landing in the picnic field after lunch! Briefs, chair in the early 80s, even rallied the Mothers’ Club by speaking at the annual Mothers’ Dinner, actually dressed as a mother! Enter the incomparable Morici family, with volunteer extraordinaire Becky and Sausage Sandwich King Tony (who inherited the job from Scarpace) and the picnic was on its way to new heights. In 1985, as a Harker parent at that time, I became chair of the family picnic and in 1986 teamed up with then recreation director Kelly Espinosa (now director of summer programs).
Over the years the team and many wonderful volunteers, staff and students have made picnic history.
While the ’80s saw the addition of memorable themes, more games, more entertainment and more fun, the ’90s proved to be a decade of growth and change for the school as well as the picnic. In 1991, a new kindergarten complex was built and in 1993, we honored the school’s 100th birthday with a Centennial Celebration picnic, featuring a turn-of the- century schoolhouse, an aerial banner across the sky and a giant birthday cake. In 1994, Dobbins Hall was completed with beautiful glass doors that opened out to a perfect patio stage for student performances, so the family picnic was reborn on spacious Rosenthal Field (adjacent to Nichols Hall).
In the midst of all the changes, a dynamic group of fantastic parent volunteers kept the picnic fresh. The great Dan Zanotto graciously accepted the title of Sausage Sandwich King from Tony Morici, and “reigned” through the ‘90s. Yet, the search was on for someone to fill in for Harker super-moms Maryanne Wilson, Jorja Smith, Sue French and Shirley Mortenson, who were retiring from picnic central as their children were graduating. Along came the dynamic duo, Nancy Claunch and Melody Moyer, two talented, funloving, hard-working Harker moms. With the help of their friends Sherry and Louis Ammatuna, Sharon and Harris Meyers, Ken Azebu and Dede Ogami, Amanda Lundie, Ni Denari, Fred and Candy Carr, Fumiko Kimura, Chidori Okubo, Alice Schwartz, Judy Stapleton, Smita and Nayana Patel, the Kawahara family, Linda Sabeh, Robyn Peetz, Kathy and Steve Polzin and many more, the picnic thrived as never before!
The “Curbside Crazies” reigned supreme, especially in 1998 when the picnic became a springtime event. With many weeks available to promote the Harker Goes Hollywood picnic, accepting donations on the curb in elaborate costumes while giving Oscar-worthy performances became the order of the day. “My Fair Lady” Week and “Titanic” Week were legendary! Even Howard and Diana Nichols made a grand entrance at the volunteer breakfast dressed as a movie director and starlet. Then, at the picnic, the Santa Clara Aquamaids provided entrancing synchronized swim performances. Super supporters John and Christine Davis arrived on the scene with kindergartner Cole (who graduated this May), decked out in their NASCAR gear, as they set up their 14- foot spaceship Messenger II along with a selection of NASCAR racecars. What a team! Family picnic organizers promoted the 1999 spring event with a parade, rallies, elaborate door decorating, and spirit, spirit, spirit! The picnic was bigger than ever!
The new millennium arrived with a splash, literally, with FantaSEA 2000. With two days to go, it had been raining off and on most of the week and organizers made the call to move the event indoors for the first time. It came to be known as “Plan B” and the whole crew worked around the clock to move everything into the gym, hallways, classrooms, the library – wherever there as space. When all was said and done, Harker families and friends came in droves to enjoy a fabulous day “at sea.”
Fast forward to 2010! In the coming months, we’ll be sharing more picnic stories, including moving the family picnic back to the fall in 2003 (two picnics in one year) and finally heading to our new home at the Blackford campus. We all love this special day at Harker; whether it’s indoors or out, rain or shine, in the spring or in the fall, it’s a time for us to come together each year and appreciate how lucky we all are to be a part of the Harker family.
Partially compiled from the Harker Archives (parent Debbie Dawkins, contributor)
Before The Harker School there was Harker Academy. And before Harker Academy, there was Mother Butler, the school that preceded Harker on this site.
On the site of the present upper school, Mother Butler Memorial High School educated high school-aged girls through the 1950s, ‘60s and until 1972, when they vacated and Harker moved in. Founded and operated by the order Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, Mother Butler began much the same way Harker’s upper school did – with a few teachers and a freshmen class. One principal, two teachers and a class of about 70, to be exact. Those two teachers, Mother Benedict and Mother Lawrence, were among a small group of former Mother Butler educators who visited campus on April 26.
No longer teachers, the nuns use their given names now, Sister Eileen Tuohy and Sister Laura Siebert. They, Sister Theresa Cunningham and Sister Gabriel McCauley came up from Southern California for a reunion of that first class of freshmen – the class of 1963 – an impressive 50 or so of whom attended the reunion. Proximity to their old stomping grounds prompted a visit to Harker. They were joined by Philomena Lynch, who lived at Mother Butler while she taught at nearby St. Martin’s and Queen of Apostles schools. Lynch still lives locally and taught at Palo Alto Military Academy and The Harker School for 26 years (she was Miss Killarney to her students then), thus linking the schools together in more than just location.
Walking through the Office of Communication sparked many memories for the teachers, who lived in that very hallway while they taught at the school. A trip into the Bistro Café, which used to be their chapel, invited a wonderful piece of trivia. The two electrical outlets over the kitchen doorway held the lights to the confessional, one to signal vacancy on the priest’s side, and one for the penitent’s. Sister Eileen also pointed out that highway 280 didn’t exist, and the entrance to the school was on Moorpark Ave., allowing the girls to pick fruit from the orchards that surrounded the campus.
School archivist Terry Walsh produced three albums of Mother Butler photos, which she presented to the group. The sisters recollected wearing full habits at the school until Vatican II relaxed their dress code, and Sister Eileen most fondly remembered the song contest held annually, when the students wrote and performed songs for judges.
Harker shares more than just the site in Mother Butler’s history. The school had a proud academic tradition, and Sister Eileen commented that their classes gave their students “a great foundation” for college. Lynch concurred, saying they left “so well prepared” for further study. The sisters themselves all hold advanced degrees from various schools, including USC and Loyola Marymount, making it no surprise that their pupils were so well taught.
Sister Eileen was struck by how befitting it was to celebrate their reunion the week of the 70th anniversary of Mother Butler’s death. Those who met the teachers on their visit were likewise struck that even though the schools do not directly share a history, a shared love of learning and intellectual values has been taking place on these grounds for decades.
Sustainable site development? Check. Water savings? Check. Energy efficiency and materials selection? Check and check. How about indoor environmental quality? Also check. With attention paid to these criteria established by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) guidelines, plus an extra push by Harker students, Nichols Hall earned its gold LEED certification in July 2009.
Originally designed for silver certification, the building was put over the top by the initiative of students in Jeff Sutton’s AP Environmental Science classes. Eight groups of students designed displays for each of the eight LEED categories, and the two additional LEED points for displays and the education of visitors put the building in the gold category.
Not only is Harker the first school in Santa Clara County to earn gold LEED certification, but the building was named a runner-up at the 2009 Structures Awards held by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal, making it one of only two finalists in the Green Project of the Year – Private category.
“[Sustainability on campus] instills a sense of stewardship in the students who are going to inherit this planet,” said Mike Bassoni, facility manager, when asked about Harker’s green commitment. “We’re hoping to instill a sense of preservation in our students, so we practice what we preach and teach these kids firsthand what it means to be sustainable, and hopefully that will carry … throughout their lives ….”
Nichols Hall is only the latest in a long history of greening efforts at Harker. In the late 1980s, Howard and Diana Nichols (former president and head of school, respectively) had an electric car built, which Diana Nichols’ environmental science classes studied and rode in. “We were told that we wouldn’t get enough charge from the sun to use it for mileage….They were wrong. We drove it to school every day for about three or four years,” said Nichols.
She said they got about 12 miles a day on sunshine, the car went 65- 70 mph, was silent and required no maintenance except battery water. Nichols, who directed Harker’s efforts at the City of San Jose’s Earth Day Celebration in the early 1990s, displayed the car at several functions and was eager to disseminate the idea of solar energy for cars.
Diana Nichols’ green efforts also led to the initiation of the Our Trees Project, the goal of which “was to have students from different parts of the world work on the same problems,” said Nichols. Nichols wrote the program with then-technology director Sharon Meyers and brought in five public schools and the Tamagawa Gakuen school in Japan, Harker’s sister school to this day.
In time the project involved just Harker and Tamagawa until 2002, when the Neerja Modi School in Jaipur, India, joined in. “We wanted to model a new kind of education using the Internet to connect people in different locations and socioeconomic brackets …. We wanted to … increase our students’ understanding of environmental problems and empower them to face those problems,” Nichols said of the initiative. Today the Our Trees Project is going strong, taught as part of the Gr. 6 environmental science and computer science curricula.
Bassoni was well aware of Harker’s green history when Nichols Hall was begun. “Harker has had a strong support of environmental awareness and green thinking, so from day one … it was always our intent to design a building that supported our philosophy and had the potential to be LEED-certified,” he said.
Current students have joined the movement as well, and the school has accomplished phenomenal feats with its young activists leading the way. Inspired by a visit from photographer/environmentalist Rick Smolan, middle school students formed Blue Planet Group to raise money for clean drinking water awareness.
Population Studies and computer science classes have woven the cause into their curricula. The students’ efforts reached the ears of the nonprofit organization charity: water, whose founder, Scott Harrison, came to Harker to thank the students personally. In November of this year the upper school raised $10,000 for charity: water to build two wells in African villages with no clean water source.
Olivia Zhu, Gr. 11, was one of four students selected by UNICEF USA to participate in the first-ever Children’s Climate Forum, held together with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, Denmark, in early December. Zhu’s application emphasized incentivizing investment in sustainable energies such as solar, wind and geothermal power, and modernizing electricity grids worldwide. “It’s important to get as much information about climate change policy out there as possible, as it has a major impact now and will have an even bigger one on future generations,” said Zhu.
Priya Bhikha, Gr. 12, and a team of upper school students are preparing a segment for Harker’s 2010 fashion show, with clothes made out of recycled materials. Bhikha has put out a call to all three campuses to help supply her with plastic bags, soda can tabs, paper clips, coffee filters, CDs, drinking straws and more to make her recycled fashions.
Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, both Gr.10, took it upon themselves to apply for a grant to improve Harker’s energy efficiency. The girls, with the help of Valence Energy, successfully earned a $5,500 environmental grant, allowing Valance to install smart meters, devices for monitoring energy use, at the lower school campus. They also hope to apply some of the grant money towards an organic garden and window-insulating film at the upper school, and plans are underway to install smart meters at that campus, as well.
This fall the pair attended the Governors’ Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles as two of 25 climate youth leaders; they presented their findings to the assembly and enjoyed an audience with Gov. Schwarzenegger. UNICEF picked up on the girls’ story from there, and sent a camera crew from New York in October to interview them for a documentary on youth activism.
“If we don’t do anything about [global warming] now, we’ll really regret it in the future and history will label us as the generation who sat back and watched the world go up in flames. People will either be part of the problem or part of the solution, and it will take an extremely grueling period of effort by a lot of people to come up with even a fraction of a solution, but every contribution counts. We know the work is hard, and it does seem rather intimidating, but we’re just taking it one baby step at a time,” said Lapidous.
A gold, green building? Students ready to effect change? A strong history of environmental awareness that will continue long into the future? Check.
This article was originally published in the December 2009 issue of Harker Quarterly
In addition to the fashion show, which began in 2004, Harker has had a number of different fundraising events through the decades.
In the 1970s, along with the annual family picnic, the Harker Father’s and Mother’s Clubs sponsored spaghetti dinners, holiday dances, boutiques and candy and bake sales to support the costs of building the sports and recreation center. The spaghetti dinners were completely prepared and served by parents, organized by Marty and Dorothy Scarpace, parents of Marty ’76 and Kristin Giammona ’81, and Earl and Margarita Parsons, parents of Jon ’76. The evening included a raffle with prizes such as a 10-speed bike, a Sony battery-operated TV and signed footballs and basketballs. Live entertainment was provided by then dean of students Dan Gelineau on accordion and former boarding director Jeff Haugaard on banjo. Through the combined efforts of Harker parents, these fundraising projects helped provide students with a first-class facility.
The Harker Academy’s Gala Spring Auction began in April 1984 with elaborate, fun items and adventures that were put up for bid by an auctioneer. Prizes included the opportunity to ride shotgun with the county sheriff for a day, a ride in a 1949 Dodge Coronet Coupe, a private plane ride to The Nut Tree in Vacaville for lunch and a 1986 49’ers football signed by Joe Montana and Bill Walsh. These were just some of the creative items offered during the 1980s at the Harker Academy auctions. With themes like New York, New York (1986) and Jukebox Saturday Night (1987), the staff who worked the events usually dressed for the theme of the evening, and these events brought the entire Harker community together for the cause.
Current picnic coordinator and board member Lynette Stapleton was a parent at Harker when the first Gala Spring Auction was held in 1984. Tony and Becky Morici, parents of David Hare ’82, Tony ’89 and Alexia ’90, made Italian food, and the Harker staff were waiters in the gym. Stapleton laughed, “I remember the Morici kitchen lined with over a dozen pans of pasta.” The Parent Guild assembled hundreds of items, and each classroom made homeroom packages that were themed for both a silent and live auction. “Each year the gala became grander until it finally moved off campus in 1986,” said Kelly Espinosa, summer programs director.
The annual auctions were part of a long tradition of having fun and raising money for the school. Proceeds went to a specific project each year. They included the scholarship fund in 1984, the fine arts program in 1986 and the computer science facility in 1987 and 1988. The auctions were sometimes held as a stand-alone event or coupled with a wine tasting, as in 1985, and they eventually became an important part of the annual family picnic celebrations in 1989.
In 2004, Harker introduced the fashion show as its main fundraiser, featuring students, faculty and staff as its models and incorporating an auction into its festivities. Each year the event features a different theme.
The Harker Family and Alumni Picnic is a tradition stretching back nearly 60 years. Today, it is one of the most popular events for Harker families and other members of the community.
• 1950s
The family picnic began in the 1950s when Palo Alto Military Academy held the annual family picnic in October at the end of the first full month of school. The Father’s Club sponsored the event, and proceeds funded the cost of monthly awards and trophies. Fried chicken was the traditional fare in the early days, and the picnic included a father-son softball game, the mothers’ 50-yard dash, an egg toss and a tug-of-war. The bike drills were a memorable part of the picnic, as each cadet decorated his bicycle for the event.
During this time, Miss Harker’s School had a May Festival and French Fete. The girls performed French songs, danced the Virginia Reel, and participated in a baton-twirling exhibition, followed by an “aquacade” performed in the school swimming pool.
• 1960s – 1970s
In the ’60s the tradition continued at the PAMA parade grounds, and the 1968 program advertises the $2.50 admission fee, adding, “Children under 5 and over 80 will be admitted free!” In the 1970s, the two schools merged and moved to San Jose as Harker Academy. The Father’s Club still planned the event, and in 1975 the picnic proceeds provided a major source of funding for the new swimming pool, which was completed in 1976. The raffle began in 1978, with a family donating a trip to Hawaii for two.
• 1980s
The 1980s brought the picnic to new heights, with rides and live entertainment, and it became the primary fundraiser for the school. During the ’80s, the picnic also began the tradition of having a new theme each year. The picnic featured a circus theme in 1985, a bicentennial theme in 1987, and a harvest theme in both 1988 and 1989.
• 1990s
As the school became The Harker School in the 1990s, the picnic changed as well. The now-famous Grand Auction from the annual black-tie dinner was combined with the picnic, and a silent auction was added. In 1997 and ’98, the picnic took place in the spring instead of the usual fall. Themes included Blast from the Past, The Beach Party and Starship Harker.
• 2000s
Harker’s expansion continued with the addition of two more campuses, and the picnic followed suit. In 2001, Harker celebrated the picnic’s 50th anniversary by donating all the proceeds from the event to the Harker Teacher’s Fund, which helped them offset the rising high cost of Bay Area housing. The 2006 “Picnic Down Under” allowed visitors to pet both a kangaroo and an alligator. A big change for the picnic came in 2007 when the event location changed from the Saratoga Avenue campus to Harker’s new middle school campus on Blackford Avenue, largely to accommodate the capital expansion project underway on the upper school campus. Appropriately themed “Blackford or Bust!” the wagon-wheeled, way out west theme – and the new, spacious location – was a huge hit, and it has remained on that campus ever since.
On May 8, 2003, the Harker history committee escorted then president Howard Nichols and former secretary and board member Phyllis Carley on a walking tour of Harker’s roots to identify the sites of the original campuses of Palo Alto Military Academy (PAMA) and Miss Harker’s/The Harker Day School.
The tour, organized by History Committee chair Enid Davis, began at the Palo Alto Children’s Library, which was frequented by the neighboring PAMA cadets in the 1940s and ’50s. From the library, the group walked the neighborhood, strolling around what would have been the perimeter of the grounds of PAMA and Miss Harker’s/The Harker Day School. Nichols pointed out where the original Manzanita Hall was located and identified the locations where open fields, band cabins, rifle sheds, school buildings, admission buildings and dorms had previously stood. Nichols reminisced about bike drills, formations, sports and, most importantly, friendships made during the years he attended PAMA between 1949 and 1956.
Major Donald Nichols, Howard’s father and the owner of PAMA, lived directly across the street from the PAMA campus on Parkinson Street from 1950 to 1966. Howard noted that the house looks the same as it did during the PAMA years, as do several other houses the school owned at the time. Many of the houses that stand along the perimeter of the campus can be seen in the photos in Harker’s archives. One of the highlights was identifying a stately palm tree that graced the front lawn of the Academy as far back as the 1920s and is still standing in what is now a residential neighborhood that was developed by the famous architect Joseph Eichler when the school property was sold in 1972.
In 1966 Major Nichols moved from Parkinson to a home he built on the Harker school property on the corner of Harker and Melville. He lived there until the schools were moved to San Jose in 1972. At that time, he sold the home at 814 Melville and then re-purchased it a few years later after returning to Palo Alto. That house still stands today surrounded by the same fence and yellow rose bushes that Howard Nichols remembered were his dad’s favorites.
On the corner of Harriet and Harker Streets, diagonally across from PAMA, stood Miss Harker’s School/The Harker Day school campus. Carley, who was employed there in 1952, described the location of the main building at 1050 Greenwood Street, whose grounds were the scene of many annual Maypole celebrations. Carley recalled how Major Nichols, after purchasing the school, would change out of his military uniform into a business suit before going to Miss Harker’s. Major Nichols transformed the school from a girls’ boarding school to a coed day school in the mid-1950s and eventually merged Harker Day School with PAMA, moving the school to the present site on Saratoga Avenue in San Jose in 1972.
Sara D. Harker arrived in Palo Alto in 1907, along with her mother and aunt, to help her sister Catherine run the school she had just opened. A trained musician who played violin and piano, Sara Harker’s first job was director of the music program. She expanded the program and her own interests to the Palo Alto community, becoming a champion of the Fortnightly Music Club, which exists to this day and regularly performs free concerts in Palo Alto.
Sara’s other main interests were business, humanitarian works and traveling. During World War I, she was in charge of the California state office for the Commission of Relief of Belgium. Later, she traveled to Australia and studied in Boston at the Prince School, affiliated with the graduate school of education at Harvard. After further studying business, she traveled to Europe in 1931 and upon her return became principal of the lower school at Miss Harker’s.
One newspaper article featured Sara as she was about to embark on a European tour with four girls from the school. “There will be motor trips out from Nice and Rome, an excursion to Capri and Pompeii, swimming and tea at the Lido, a lake trip to the castle of Chillon, attendance at plays in Interlaken, and Munich trips to the Isle of Marken and its famous cheese market, a day on the Rhine and an airplane journey from Heidelberg to Paris,” the story reads. The article is undated, but the trip took place when a “5 room modern bungalow” rented in Palo Alto for $60 a month.
In an undated brochure published after Catherine Harker’s death in 1938 showing Sara as headmistress, the first aim of the school is thus stated: “The first objective is to inspire every pupil with high ideals, not only of scholarship, but of character, and to awaken the desire to make the greatest possible use of life and talents.”
During the 50th celebration of the opening of the Harker School for Girls, an associate wrote of Sara: “Her leadership is one of enthusiasm, sincerity, and high ideals. Always she is interested in the individual, with her talents and potentials … She places strong emphasis upon high academic standards, but above all, she values the building of character.”
Sara Harker ran the school until her retirement in 1951, at the age of 84. Hospitalized after a series of strokes for nearly three years, she was 89 years old at the time of her death.