Page 47 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 4 Summer 2013

Images from my last 14 years
of pinhole photos taken while
vacationing inMontana were on
display, along with the work of
eight photographers associated
with Gruber Photographers.”
Peter Oliver is on the mend:
“Mostly recovered from the
broken jaw I suffered after a
fall in December from a freak
blackout unrelated to the mild
stroke I experienced three years
ago. My slightly misaligned bite
may require braces to repair,
presenting the opportunity of
feeling again like a 14-year-old
with a mouthful of hardware.
Youth springs eternal.”
Curtis Karnow brings us
up to date: “I am fortunate to
be living not far from David
Baldwin et ux., so I am able to
show off my SPS T-shirts to
him every now and then. He is
not impressed. I am handling
so-called complex civil cases
for the SF Superior Court and
doing a lot of judicial teaching,
writing, and editing, mostly in
the legal world…and dreaming
of SPS, the fields of praise.”
Rodney Place contributes
this: “Thanks to the efforts of
one of our formmates, M-m
(The South African Multimedia
Arts Foundation) has now es-
tablished an American Friends
Fund at the King Baudouin
Foundation United States. I set
up M-m in 2009, before em-
barking on a three-year R&D
program in Europe, working
with institutions like V2_ Rot-
terdam, pioneers of the applica-
tion of new technologies in the
arts. While I was working in The
Hague, Lisa and MarkWheeler
and I had dinner together. It
was 40 years later, but it felt
like continuing a conversa-
tion we’d interrupted at SPS
because we had to graduate.
M-m stimulates the entry of
young disadvantaged South
Africans into careers in digital
media and the creative and
fashion industries. Its focus
is on townships, which were
conceived during apartheid as
racially segregated dormitory
ghettos, but are now the largest
and most vibrant urban popu-
lation centers in South Africa.
The first 20 years have been a
remarkable achievement on the
part of the government, deliv-
ering basic services to the vast
majority of South Africans. Now
it’s time for the “born frees” to
be productive; South Africans
don’t take kindly to being wards
of the state. Mandela’s tim-
ing, as usual, was impeccable.
He refused to be patronized
and was damned if he should
become a patron saint himself.
Freedomwas his mantra; it was
available on earth, not as a gift
but as a continuing obligation.”
Gil Parsons reports that he
has just purchased a particularly
insignificant copy of the Dec-
laration of Independence, un-
signed by any of the framers, and
not printed by any of the recog-
nized houses consigned to fame
in this context. It is, however, the
smallest object ever handled by
his firm, being a complete ver-
sion of the document executed at
a scale of almost exactly a penny,
the more remarkable for being
completely legible (though not
by himwithout optical enhance-
ment, which pretty much sums
up the current state of play as
the dreaded 6-0 crashes down
upon his head…).
Kit Morgan: “We were very
excited to greet our first grand-
child, Margot Paris Spiller, in
January. She is named for my
mom, who celebrated her 100th
birthdaywith her namesake and
some 27 of us in April.”
Byam Stevens: “Ramping
up for our 25th-anniversa-
ry season at Chester Theatre
Company, I’ve been in and out
of New York a lot lately, casting
for our season and working
at American Ballet Theatre,
where, under the auspices of an
Annenberg Foundation Grant,
I mentor a rising soloist in
the company each year. Over
the years, I’ve developed a
curriculum for teaching act-
ing and performance skills in
non-verbal forms, in this case,
dance. I’ve been doing this for
a number of years, and my first
mentee, Misty Copeland, who’s
gained a lot of national attention
in the last year or so, will be
performing her first Swan Lake
in the next year. I’m currently
working with Isabella Boylston,
who will be doing her first New
York Giselle at the Metropolitan
Opera House this week. I also
teach in workshop setting for
companies and colleges. My
first gig was at Adelphi Univer-
sity, for the late RebeccaWright,
whom you might remember
from the Joffrey Ballet’s visit to
SPS (she later headed the SPS
Dance Program), a recent gig
for ABT’s Studio Company, and
an upcoming gig at the North
Carolina School of the Arts.
It’s tremendously rewarding to
cross back and forth between
dance and theatre.”
Mark Wheeler concludes
with: “And lastly, while nos-
talgically browsing a website
about rowing some months ago,
I stumbled across a news item
on Gregg Stone. Gregg had first
won the men’s singles sculls at
the Head of the Charles Regatta
all the way back in 1977 (fol-
lowed by Tiff Wood, who won
it from 1979 to 1981). Incred-
ibly, last fall, Gregg chalked up
his second win – a full 36 years
later. Ponder that....this time
Gregg won in the ‘Veterans’
class, which is, I presume, a
polite way of referring to aging
baby boomers. Anyway, hats off
to Gregg. Terrific to see.”
Bill Craumer ’70 and John Eld-
ridge ’70 attended the April
nuptials of formmate Scott
Johnson and Anna Jobsis.
Jeffrey Keith ’72 and Linda Fair-
child ’73 at an April reception
in San Francisco for designer
Liza Evans.
Memories from 1972: A photo taken by Halsted Wheeler and sub-
mitted by Jeffrey Keith (l to r.): Sandy Schwartz, Matt Mandeville,
Joe Donovan, Jeffrey, Norty Knox.
47