Indian Springs Is About Providing Opportunities for Students to Discover Their Passions
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INDIANA MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF INDIANSPRINGS SPRINGS SCHOOL WINTER 2019 The Gift of OPPORTUNITY For alumnus parent and grandparent HAL ABROMS, giving to Indian Springs is about providing opportunities for students to discover their passions. Page 20 DYLAN LE ’20 I Page 10 MODERN MUSIC MUSE I Page 14 ANNUAL REPORT I Page 30 SPRINGS MAYORS I Page 60 INDIAN SPRINGS MAGAZINE INTERIM HEAD OF SCHOOL MISSION STATEMENT Guided by our motto, Learning through Living, DONALD C. NORTH Indian Springs School fosters a love of learning and creativity, a sense of integrity and moral courage, and an ethic of participatory citizenship with respect for individuality and independent thought. ASSISTANT HEAD OF SCHOOL FOR ADVANCEMENT AND EXTERNAL AFFAIRS James Simon EDITOR DIRECTOR OF FINANCE AND OPERATIONS Rachel Wallace Tanya Yeager GRAPHIC DESIGNER DIRECTOR OF STRATEGY AND SPECIAL PROJECTS Ellen S. Padgett Lauren Wainwright ’88 CONTRIBUTORS DIRECTOR OF ADMISSION AND FINANCIAL AID Christine Copeland Gary Clark DEAN OF ACADEMICS Kathryn D’Arcy Dr. Tanya Hyatt Quez Shipman DEAN OF STUDENTS William Blackerby ’05 James Simon DIRECTOR OF COLLEGE ADVISING Eric Velasco P ’23 Amelia Johnson Graham Yelton DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS Greg Van Horn COVER PHOTO Graham Yelton DEAN OF FACULTY Dr. Bob Cooper BOARD OF GOVERNORS 2019-2020 Alan Engel ’73, P ’03, ’12, Chair Robert Aland ’80 Janet Perry Book P ’04, ’09 Myla Calhoun P ’11, ’13 Joe Farley ’81, P ’14, ’16 Jerolyn Ferrari P ’20 Clara Chung Fleisig P ’13, ’16 Braxton Goodrich ’93 Kyung Han ’85 Ben Hunt ’82 Leo Kayser, III ’62 Jimmy Lewis ’75, P ’11, ’11 Ellen McElroy ’78 Catherine McLean P ’03, ’06, ’11 Randall Minor ’99 Eli Phillips Scott Pulliam ’85, P ’16, ’17 Lia Rushton P ’09, ’11 INDIAN SPRINGS SCHOOL publishes Indian Springs magazine twice a year, in fall/winter and John Simmons ’65, P ’96 spring/summer. Printed by Craftsman Printing, Birmingham, Alabama. Hanson Slaughter ’90, P ’20, ’22 Elizabeth Goodrich P ’20, ’23, Ex Officio, Parents CLASS NOTES Association [email protected] Callen Bair Thistle ’01, Ex Officio, Alumni Council ADDRESS CHANGES [email protected] At Indian Springs School, we are committed to reducing our carbon footprint. If you would prefer ©2019 Indian Springs School. All rights reserved. to receive Indian Springs magazine or other school 190 Woodward Drive, Indian Springs, AL 35124 communications electronically, please let us know Phone: 205.988.3350 | Website: www.indiansprings.org via email at [email protected]. NOTICE OF NONDISCIMINATORY POLICY AS TO STUDENTS Indian Springs School, an independent school nationally recognized as a leader in boarding and day education for grades 8-12, serves a talented and diverse student body and offers its admission to qualified students regardless of race, gender, religion, national origin, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Located in Indian Springs, Alabama, just south of Birmingham, the school does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, national origin, ethnicity, or sexual orientation in administration of its educational policies, admission policies, scholarship and loan programs, or athletic and other school-administered programs. INDIAN SPRINGS {CONTENTS} WINTER 2019 I VOLUME EIGHTEEN, ISSUE ONE 20 The Gift of Opportunity COVER STORY Hal Abroms and his late wife, Judy, established the Andy Abroms Memorial Scholarship Fund in 1997 in memory of their son, Andy Abroms ’77. Over the past 20 years, the endowed fund has enabled over 300 Indian Springs scholars to attend meaningful and challenging summer experiences across the United States and around the world. Photos by Graham Yelton FEATURED IN EVERY ISSUE 2 10 14 30 60 WELCOME LETTERS Cutting Edge Modern Music Muse Annual Report Springs Mayors Indian Springs senior Indian Springs students Thank you for your We reached out to 6 CAMPUS NEWS Dylan Le ’20 tackles form bands playing support during the 2018– Indian Springs alumni ‘big data’ and artificial rock songs, learn sound 2019 fiscal year. Over from different decades 62 intelligence in class, recording, and create 700 alumni, parents, who have one thing NOTEWORTHY while building a sonic experiments under faculty, and friends in common: they all computer keyboard the tutelage of a music contributed nearly $1.7 served as Mayors during from scratch out professional turned million to capital projects their respective times of curiosity. instructor. and to the Annual Fund. at the school. WELCOME FROM CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD ALAN ENGEL s this issue of the magazine goes to press, I write with great excitement about the current school year. This fall we saw the addition of new faces on campus in the form of the arrival of our Interim Head, Don North, as well as many new students, faculty, and staff. These newest members of Aour community have already made a positive impact and it’s been my great pleasure to work with and get to know Don North. I hope you viewed our video greeting earlier this fall and could feel the purpose and clarity Don has brought to campus. Don and all our newest community members have quickly embraced all that is so special about the Indian Springs family. Equally if not more exciting was the recent conclusion of our search for a permanent Head of School which yielded Scott Schamberger, current Assistant Head for Admission and College Counseling at Woodberry Forest, who will join us in July, 2020 as Indian Springs’ seventh Head of School. You will hear more about Scott in the spring/summer issue of the magazine, but know that I speak for the Board, faculty, students, and parents when I say how excited we are to have Scott join us and how grateful we are to Search Chair Lia Rushton P ’09, ’11, the search committee and all who participated in this process. If opportunity is the theme of this magazine, then the year Springs has had thus far—and all that we have to look forward to—make this theme very fitting. Some of the alumni who had the honor and privilege to serve as Mayor during their time at Springs will reinforce that theme with their recollections in the pages of this magazine and share how their experience in student government shaped future opportunities. ALAN ENGEL ’73 P ’03, ’12 As an alumnus and parent of alumni, I remain thankful for the opportunities that my own experience at Chairman, Indian Springs made possible for me. Parents and alumni not only understand the importance of our mission Indian Springs School and the value of but can themselves recognize that our learning never stops and that Board of Governors Learning through Living Indian Springs will always provide the foundation for that lifelong endeavor. Photos by Graham Yelton and Quez Shipman and Quez Yelton Graham by Photos Winter 2019 Winter 2 FROM INTERIM HEAD OF SCHOOL DON NORTH hen I was a beginning teacher, the father of one of my students offered me words of advice that stung at the time but have resonated with me ever since. The man’s son was struggling in my English class, and I judged the boy unmotivated. As a young teacher, I had limited skillsW to reach him, and perhaps out of frustration, I took refuge in a lame metaphor. “You can lead a horse to water,” I said to the father, “but you cannot make him drink.” The father looked at me for a few seconds and said, “Your job, Mr. North, is to make him thirsty.” That boy’s father was right, and what I came to understand was that it was my responsibility to try different approaches with that boy, use different skills, and to provide him sufficient opportunities to connect with the literature and the writing that he would develop a thirst for the work. Opportunities. That is the key to so much of growth, isn’t it? I remember another boy at another school. A sixth-grader, he was required as part of the middle school’s art rotation to take instrumental music for a nine-week period, and the instrument he picked up, completely at random, was the cello. He fell in love with the cello, developed impressive skill, and, six years later, made his college choice based on the university’s cello teacher. The opportunities Indian Springs School offers its students, inside and outside the classroom, are extraordinary. Several seniors are taking eight courses, which is intriguing since Springs has a seven-period day. The eighth course for some is a Malone Scholars course via the internet; for others, it is a Marine Biology DON NORTH elective that meets on campus on Thursday and Sunday afternoons. Interim Head of School, Every year the Abroms Scholarships, established and funded by Mr. and Mrs. Hal Abroms in 1997 in Indian Springs School memory of their son, Andrew David Abroms, Indian Springs School Class of 1977, provide two dozen or so Springs students generous financial support for summer study and enrichment. You will read about their experiences in this edition of the Indian Springs School magazine. With the help of Springs history teacher Dr. Colin Davis, senior Rebecca House applied for and won a scholarship from the Albert H. Small Normandy Institute for summer study at George Washington University and then a trip to Normandy, France, following the trail of an Alabama paratrooper killed shortly after D-Day in 1944 (their story was featured in the Summer 2019 magazine). Rebecca and Dr. Davis stopped by my office recently, and her comments about this experience were inspiring. A school with a limited collection of opportunities to offer its students is like that inexperienced teacher long years ago. If the opportunities it can offer don’t fit that student, too bad.