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WYVERN TALES
A Newsletter for the Alumni Community
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REUNION IS ALMOST HERE!
When Reunion Weekend collides with Hewett Day, good times are sure to follow!
With opportunities to take classes from your favorite teachers, a pep rally for students and alumni, a ceremony to honor alumni who are making a difference, and a dinner party to finish off the weekend, there's something for everybody!
See the schedule for all the activities, and click below to register!
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CARE BEYOND SELF:
A CONVOCATION MESSAGE
With great anticipation, Kingswood Oxford opened its doors to 501 students for the 2022-2023 school year with its celebrated Convocation on Monday, August 29. This year started on an upbeat, virtually maskless note, a positive change from the Covid-disruptions in the years prior. The sea of beaming faces of the full student body of Middle and Upper Schoolers assembled in the Roberts Theater was a harbinger for an exuberant year ahead.
Head of School Tom Dillow discussed the school’s core value of “care beyond self.” He believes that the core value involves doing - not just feeling concerned about impoverished communities around the world and in this country, the plight of others, racial inequities, and anti-Semitism. The core value asks us to do something and provide help.
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In a tradition that is becoming a favorite part of the opening of the school year, the new students who are children of alumni gathered with their parents to look at old yearbooks, giggle at outdated fashions, and reminisce over shared experiences.
Front Row: Athena Lentini McAlenney '97, Charles McAlenney '29, (not pictured, John McAlenney '95), Brendan Cahill '96, Mackenzie Cahill '29, Mallory Shea '29, Emily Marziali Shea '00.
Back Row: Jennifer Conrad Wedeles '94, James Wedeles '29, Tom Wedeles '94, Alexis Weinstein Hersh '91, Hadley Hersh '26.
(Missing: Jessica Ritter '97 with Jacob Schwartz '29, and Chad Zahner '97, Carla DoNascimento Zahner '97 with Colton Zahner '28 and Chadly Zahner '29)
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KO Big Thinkers Blog
KO Faculty, Administrators, and Staff are passionate about helping students to succeed and become stronger, more confident individuals. The KO Big Thinkers Blog shares their thoughts on how they navigate that path with their students.
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HOW WAS YOUR SUMMER?
Faculty and Alumni Adventures
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Williams College-bound Nate Welsh ’22 shared his Outward Bound experience in Oregon this June as the latest recipient of the Perry S. Levy Outward Bound Scholarship, an endowed fund that provides an annual grant for a Kingswood Oxford student to attend a two-week Outward Bound program.
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Broadway Bound
“KO is always raising the bar for teachers,” Director of Theater Kyle Reynolds said. “The school recognizes the importance of professional development. I had the incredible fortune to attend the Broadway Teachers Workshop in New York City for four days.”
Over the course of Reynold's visit, he worked with Broadway professionals from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., learning the latest innovations in theater production Some of it was very technical - the newest lighting and the newest sound system, the use of various mics, and projecting through light. After the daily workshops, the teachers would attend the theater performances that those teacher-actors would perform in that evening. Reynolds took in shows and inspiration from Beetlejuice, Michael Jackson: The Musical, Jukebox: The Musical, Funny Girl, and Strange Loop, the Tony-award winner for Best Musical which Reynolds described as “incredible.” In one full-circle moment for Reynolds, while attending a private performance of Alex Brightman, the opening act was a former student of Reynolds who invited him onto the stage.
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Standing in almost frigid waters catching a three-inch fish might not be everyone’s idea of a good time. Then again, you might not know Upper School science teacher Graham Hegeman, who has a deep fascination for the stickleback fish. This particular fish, Hegeman described, is known as a supermodel organism because of its use in understanding several questions in biology, including evolution health/parasitology, genetics, and ecology. “The stickleback is a really interesting species because we have a great understanding of how they evolved, and we also have their gene sequence,” Hegeman said. “We know much about how their genes are related to human genes, and they are really easy to keep in the laboratory.” Stickleback can be found in the tidal part of the Connecticut River, as well as in Long Island Sound. In Alaska, Maine, Canada, and Europe, sticklebacks live in freshwater lakes and ponds. | | |
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Living History
Upper School history teacher Steph Sperber’s professional development this summer was a blast from the past as she visited Virginia for a one-week intensive at the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute with 20 other teachers from around the country, studying the development of the American identity from 1607 to the 1800s.
The mission of the institute is to cultivate better teachers and to help them enjoy the act of teaching history. During the week, spaces were created for approaching difficult or controversial subject matter. Sperber said that depending on the location of where the teacher taught impacted the openness to taking on challenging topics. “I’m lucky my colleagues and students crave a well-rounded and full narrative of our country’s past. I'm encouraged to think out of the box. There are a lot of teachers who struggle with how to phrase things while honoring the truth of the past and those peoples’ realities.”
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ARCHIVISTS CORNER
with Brenda Semmelrock
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House 1 Celebrating 100 years on the Upper Campus!
Welcome back! Hope you all had a great summer. We start the new school year with a 100 year celebration of the Upper School campus.
After only a couple of years holding classes at the Mark Twain house (1920), Kingswood enrollment had grown considerably and it was time to look for a permanent place for a school to be built. Mr. Niles G. White’s farm, in West Hartford, had great potential, with even enough space for playing fields and a gym. Twenty acres of the White farm were purchased by Dr. & Mrs. Jacobus and deeded to Kingswood. In appreciation, Headmaster Nicholson named the first playing field Jacobus Field. Funding for the new school came from members of the Kingswood community and a small number of benefactors. By the end of the summer of 1921, enough pledges, along with generous gifts from Mrs. James J. Goodwin and Mr. Edward Peck, made the dream of a new school come to fruition.
Kingswood renewed its lease of the Mark Twain house for the 1921-22 school year. The move to West Hartford was eagerly anticipated. Construction was completed the summer of 1922 and the new campus welcomed students that September.
There was still a need for many facilities, yet the new campus served students, faculty and staff well in the beginning. Five buildings stood on barren ground, yet the four houses (cottages) were the pride of the school. They offered cozy classrooms with fireplaces that not only were decorative, but were a source of heat. As there were no big boilers on campus yet for all-campus heating, each house functioned on hot air from a coal furnace. Mr. Nicholson named house #2 Peck House, and #4, Goodwin House. The largest building was the Chapel, known as the Main Building. Eventually, that building would become Seaverns Hall, which opened in 1929.
I had the privilege of teaching in house #4 for over 20 years. Despite the loud clanking of the pipes when the heat was on, my classroom was a very special place to teach. House #2 came down in 1970 to make room for the Roberts Center. Houses #3 and #4 came down in 2008 to make room for the Chase Tallwood Center. House #1 still stands proudly next to the Nicholson building, celebrating 100 years! Happy Birthday to the Kingswood Oxford campus!
(Information from KO Archive Collection, Kingswood Fifty Years 1916-1966)
Brenda
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KO Applications for Fall 2023 are live! Help us spread the word about our Open House on Sunday, October 23. Middle School from 1:00 - 3:00 PM, and Upper School from 2:00 - 4:00 PM. A registration link can be found on our events page as well as other upcoming fall events.
You can also Refer a Wyvern to us here in this form!
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