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The Thacher School Nonprofit Org. 5025 Thacher Road U.S. Postage Ojai, CA 93023 PAID Oxnard, CA Address Service Requested Permit No. 110 Overview Six months of life at Thacher are chronicled in this Fall/Winter issue of In every issue The Thacher News. From the opening of School to a spring trip focusing on the Antebellum South, it has been another busy half-year at The Ranch. 3 From the Head of School The Campaign for Thacher by Michael K. Mulligan 5 From the Editor Profiles: Alumni Returneth ALUMNI 34 Molly T. Perry, CdeP ’85 Friendship Runs Deep 22 Laurin H. Healy, CdeP ’31 Still the Perfect Place 36 Mark A.T. Holman, CdeP ’86 In this issue Thacher As a Retreat 24 George G. Pfau, CdeP ’42 Three Stints at Thacher 38 Diana Garcia, CdeP ’95 Campus Life Mary H. Everett, CdeP ’94 campus life 26 Bruce N. Oxley, CdeP ’54 Friendship Blossoms Despite Roles 6 Family Weekend Student and Teacher TRUSTEE 8 Cultural and 28 Michael S. Milligan, CdeP ’62 Departmental Weekends Teaching: 40 John G. Lewis, Jr., CdeP ’59 An Exhilarating Experience Holding Thacher As a Beacon 9 Architectural Review Committee 30 Stephen Van B. Griggs, CdeP ’63 BOOK SHELF 10 Plays Three Times and Counting by Rod M. “Jake” Jacobsen 42 David G. Lavender, CdeP ’51 32 Paul Gavin, CdeP ’71 What’s in a Name? 12 Fall and Winter Sports Recap Dreams and Excellence Are Worth Pursuing 14 Guest Professors 15 Tidbits, Numeracy Puzzle 16 A Southern Sojourn by Thomas A.H. Scarborough 18 Thacher’s Historical Society by John A. Davenport, CdeP ’21 HER C S A C Alumni H H T alumni O O 45 Class Notes E The Thacher News L H T Fall 2000 / Winter 2001 55 Annual Fund Report Corrections Volume XIII, Number 1 1 9 56 Obituaries 88 59 Calendar Editor The Thacher News magazine is published twice a Jane D. McCarthy year by The Thacher School, and is sent free of charge to alumni, parents, and friends of the School. Design In preparing this report, every effort was made to Tim Ditch, Jane D. McCarthy, and J. Bert Mahoney. ensure that it is accurate and complete. If there is an Contributors omission or an error in spelling, please accept our David V. Babbott, Camilla Evans-Hensey, Jake Jacobsen, apologies and notify the Head of School’s Office at Alexander F. Lurie ’02, Richard J. Mazzola, Jane D. McCarthy, The Thacher School, 5025 Thacher Road, Ojai, Kurt R. Meyer, Joy Sawyer-Mulligan, Michael K. Mulligan, and California 93023, call (805) 646-4377, or e-mail Thomas A.H. Scarborough [email protected]. Sports Section Third Class postage is paid at the Oxnard Post Office. Joy Sawyer-Mulligan Class Notes POSTMASTER: Jane D. McCarthy Please send form 3579 to the preceding address. Cover Photo Photography NAIS During this winter’s Departmental Weekend, Dawn M. Phillip Channing, Eugene F. Lally, J. Bert Mahoney, Jane D. MEMBER Cleveland ’03, Charmiane S. Lieu ’03, and John L. Babbott McCarthy, Kasiana J.P. McLenaghan ’04, Joy Sawyer-Mulligan, ’03, participated in the Equine Drawing class. Thomas A.H. Scarborough, and Timothy O Teague Printed by Ventura Printing with soy-based inks. From the Head of School The Campaign for Thacher Do the Best Work in This World by Michael K. Mulligan ritish philosopher and essayist Thacher and to address our weaknesses. Our Francis Bacon once quipped, goals as outlined in the Plan: B“Money is like muck. Not good Headexcept it be spread.” Now here is one • Recruit and retain students who exhibit the truism that bespeaks the Thacher highest standards of character, academic apti- ethic. Thacher horse muck has en- tude and skill, emotional health, and a desire riched, for many years now, the citrus for the distinctive experience of a Thacher ed- and avocado orchards of this Valley. ucation; Practically speaking, muck spread on fields promotes fecundity in the soil; • Recruit, retain, and develop faculty who ex- metaphorically speaking, fecundity is hibit the highest standards of character, teach- also defined by that which is marked ing skill, and emotional health, as well as the by “intellectual productivity.” My commitment and ability to contribute to the not-so-subtle point: Money for a extra-curricular program; school, when that school is based upon a sound and inspirational mis- • Develop each student’s mind, body, and spirit sion and philosophy (and a sane ad- in preparation for life as well as for college; ministration), produces a fruitful environment for its students. It allows • Provide excellent, well-maintained facilities deserving students to attend who most that support and enhance all aspects of certainly would not otherwise be able Thacher’s program; and to enroll. It allows a school to attract, pay, house, and professionally develop • Inspire the enthusiastic support of its entire top-notch faculty—the backbone of constituency for the implementation of its school excellence—and it allows those strategic agenda. teachers to teach manageable numbers of students—perhaps the single most We know that when we have to deny admis- important criterion in school excel- sion to deserving students because they can not lence. It makes it possible for a school afford to attend Thacher; when we can’t hire to build and maintain facilities that promising experienced faculty because they are support and enrich student learning, being paid significantly more at other national both in and out of the classroom. It boarding schools; when we can’t gather inside protects a school from being subject as a School community—parents, students, to economic vicissitudes. In short, and teachers—in the auditorium simply be- money—like muck spread on a field— cause we cannot all fit; when we cannot all sit enriches, protects, and assists the down as a faculty and student community in growth of the crop. Money, when our Dining Room; when we are unable to spread, is vital for promoting and protecting house all of our teaching faculty on the campus school excellence. because we do not have enough homes; when our horses stand on unforgiving adobe brick in I raise this topic of money because at Thacher, the heat or in mud to their hocks in the rain be- money is the means and not the end. We are, cause of poor drainage and incomplete covers after all, interested most passionately and over their stalls, then I say it is time for us to pointedly in insuring that the Thacher educa- think about money. tion is the very best that it can be. At this point in our history, however, money is what we Furthermore, our boarding school peers, nearly need to excel. Money, says our curmudgeon of all more heavily endowed by significant mar- Walden Pond, buys not one necessity of the gins than Thacher, are able to weather the soul. This, I think, is true. Our soul is well storms of the economy with far greater ease taken care of here at Thacher—and most of us than are we. To quote another Englishman, “a spend much of our time thinking about chal- heavy purse makes a light heart.” lenges other than those of fundraising. But we are at that point in our history when it is time At Thacher, our hearts, while not burdened per to pursue increasing the School’s resources in se, are decidedly not light either. We have much order to achieve that level of excellence which work to do, but it is work that is well- we have defined as our goal in the School’s re- researched and carefully considered, work that cent Strategic Plan. In fact, we are now in a this faculty and administration and Board has perfect position to affirm what is strong at taken on because we wish to leave the Thacher Fall 2000 / Winter 2001 page 3 of tomorrow stronger than the Thacher of for a comprehensive Campaign. This Cam- today. You have, I hope, all heard about and paign for Thacher will be our gift to this pres- read Thacher’s Strategic Plan. This is the skele- ent faculty and to future generations of tal structure and research from which we are Thacher students. It will be our way of pro- about to launch our next agenda. tecting Thacher against the vagaries of the economy and protecting ourselves from tu- The Plan has provided the underpinnings of ition-dependency—this coming for the School our administrative work now for three years which is already one of the nation’s most ex- and has been the means by which we deter- pensive boarding schools. You will hear from mine how we should expend our energies. It is all of us about how this Campaign will unfold, now the job of this administration and Board this letter being the first in a series of commu- to find the resources by which we can bring to nications to all our friends. fruition the vision of the School Community that we have arrived at by asking all of us: So we are off—and now writing—a very ex- “How we can be a better school?” citing chapter in Thacher’s history. This is our opportunity to give back to this School in full I have answered that question already twice measure, and more, than that which we have above, but I will reiterate it nonetheless here. taken. And the time is just right. As the great economist John Maynard Keynes wrote: “Ma- • One, by creating an endowment such that terial Poverty provides the incentive to change we are able to recruit, pay, and retain an out- precisely in situations where there is little mar- standing faculty and house them adequately gin for experiments.