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Happy Summer – Good health, good cheer, good friends Summer 2017 Volume 2017, No. 2 Midwood High School Alumni Newsletter Hornets’ Nest CONTENTS President’s Message Dear “Mid-Kids” – based entry) high schools in the city. • President’s Message ..........................1 Alumni of the Blue and White: On a personal level, as Association This past year has been an exciting president, I have been honored • Alumni Archive ....................................2 and important one for Midwood to have been able to reconnect in High School and our Alumni a more professional context with • Alumni News .........................3-4, 9-10 Association. Celebrating the 75th the school with which I have been Anniversary of the school’s founding so closely associated over time. • Alumni Ballot Insert .......................5-8 in 1941 was a major highlight of Having attended Midwood for 3 our history, bringing together a years (deprived of a 4th by the • Membership Form ...........................11 representation of “Mid-Kids” from introduction of junior high schools), over the school’s seven decades returned for 22 years more as a • Contributions .....................................12 – a thrilling tribute to the school’s member of the faculty, and in more endurance. Midwood is not only recent years as alumni liaison for a traditional large, comprehensive my own class’ (’57) reunions (which high school, it is a successful and always included a component at the highly sought-after school at a time school as a centerpiece – as all proud when many others of its high-ranking alumni should do!), these past three peers have faded into history, their years as president of the Alumni buildings now real estate in which Association have beautifully rounded several smaller schools now operate. out the sixty-three years of a lifetime This year, Midwood ranked highest in love affair with Midwood. the number of applications received Continued on page 2 among the non-specialized (exam- Dr. Mattuck, (‘47) Makes Generous Donation to Midwood Your Alumni Association gratefully science annex, Dr. Mattuck specifically acknowledges a generous gift asked that this gift be used for other made by Dr. Arthur Mattuck (’47) subject areas which gave him and his for the express use by the principal siblings enriched experiences during of Midwood High School to use as their Midwood days. Announcing our official he deems appropriate for a subject Michael McDonnell, the principal, Midwood shop with items or subjects across the curriculum. has asked that the funds be used to In the past, Dr. Mattuck has purchase a “Google Classroom” set of celebrating the Hornets, SING, generously supported Midwood’s laptop computers and a secure cart and more! Shop to show your physical sciences program through for moving and storing them. These school spirit and support the “earmarked” gifts for that purpose. At computers would allow students in Alumni Association. that time it had come to Dr. Mattuck’s virtually any subject area to produce Is there another design or attention that support was needed in and send their work-in-progress to product you’d like? Let us know! that area to bring the program up to their teachers for immediate and http://www.cafepress.com/ modern standards. With the advent ongoing feedback. They would also midwood of Midwood’s new state-of-the-art Continued on page 10 Midwood Alumni Association 1 Midwood High School Alumni Newsletter President’s Message Continued from page 1 Now, however, it’s time to pass the and both a Ballot, to be brought and baton to new leadership, focused on submitted at the meeting by those who strengthening the Association with attend, and a Proxy for those unable to a view to assuring its viability in the attend. From the many years ahead, service to the alumni community, and to the school we love. I thank you for the opportunity you Alumni Archive Elsewhere in this issue, you will find a have afforded me to lead the Association, “Notice of Special Meeting of Members” and for your continuing support for • In February, we received from to be held on September 14, 2017, Midwood High School and the Alumni Mindy Berlin Turkenitz (’73) SING booklets and song lyric sheets. “Proposed Amendments to the bylaws of Association. Thank you for saving those old blue the Association,” the slate of Nominees to mimeographed pages, Mindy! Our be elected to a new Board of Directors, Sincerely, Harris students today have no idea what a mimeograph machine is. Remember how students who were about to Midwood’s take a test would sniff the pages as they handed them back in each 104th Commencement row? Midwood High School’s 104th • A big MHSAA thank you goes out Commencement took place on Friday to Dr. Lois Roth-Johnson, class of morning, June 23rd at Brooklyn’s 1971, for her donation of 6 medals landmark crown jewel, the newly and pins she received as a Midwood senior. restored Brooklyn (formerly Loews) KINGS THEATER on Flatbush Avenue. The Class of 2017, consisting of 866 students became new alumni when they were declared “graduates” by Principal Michael McDonnell. Your Alumni Association presented four scholarship awards at the ceremonies, Clifford Young and Former NY First Lady each amounting to $1,000. The Alumni Matilda Cuomo (‘49). • The Midwood Football Alumni, let by Mike Ventura (’65) and Bill Association Scholarship awards went to attending Washington University in St. Higgins (’61), have generously Sabrina Slutzky and Jasleen Kaur who will Louis this fall. donated items from their fundraising be attending Carnegie-Mellon and SUNY projects, including t-shirts, a scarf Stony Brook University respectively. College acceptances were predominantly and a mug. We admire and support The Dorothy Salwen Rabinoff award, to among the City (CUNY) and State their ongoing involvement with a student attending Brooklyn College Midwood’s football team! University (SUNY) systems, as well who will pursue a career in teaching, was as a broad number of colleges and • We gratefully received 2 record given to Leila Assif. universities across the country. albums (SING and Spring Concert) from Nancy Biren Castino (‘68) Admissions to NYU, now among the Mrs. Matilda Cuomo (’49), who received most competitive schools in the country, • Michael Halbreich (’74) surprised the Association’s new Humanitarian numbered 23. Also included were Boston us with a treasure trove of SING Award created in her name at the albums which will be digitized and University, Brandeis, Carnegie-Mellon, made available for a donation on our 75th Anniversary “Jubilee” celebration, Columbia, Fordham, George Washington website www.MidwoodAlumni.org attended the graduation to present the U., Georgetown, Howard, Emory, U. award for the first time to a graduating Michigan, Mt. Holyoke, Northeastern, senior. The recipient was Clifford Young, Vassar, Washington University in St. Louis, If you would like to donate any this year’s Mayor of Midwood and a to name only a few. (Note: students at Midwood memorabilia to the Alumni member of the team which initiated Archive, please contact Wendy Guida Midwood are no longer limited in the at [email protected] or the New York State Mentoring Program number of college applications they my 718-724-8562 or at the MHSAA (which Mrs. Cuomo spearheads) at file as they were in the school’s earlier address. Midwood this year. Clifford will be decades.) 2 Donate Midwood Memorabilia Midwood High School Alumni Newsletter Alumni News 1943 1946 Mimi Solomon Sheraton Falcone Joe McManus was recently mentioned in a NY Times obituary for Rao’s wrote to tell us of the passing of his friend Harold P. restaurant owner, Frank Pellegrino, Sr.. Author Sam Roberts Archinal who had, in 1954, started working for Walt Disney wrote, “In 1977, Mimi Sheraton, then the restaurant critic Productions as clerk in the Buena Vista Department. By for The New York Times, awarded Rao’s (pronounced RAY- 1972, he was named President of Buena Vista International ohs) three stars for its “wonderfully simple, honest and and held that position until his retirement in 1988. In 2009 completely delicious Italian food.” The review sealed the he was the recipient of the Disney Legends Award. reputation of Rao’s as New York’s most exclusive restaurant (and, according to the writer Norman Mailer, Ms. Sheraton’s reputation as “the woman who ruined Rao’s”). 1948 A message from Leila Israel Weisberg Beverly Cooper Cohen: writes: I’m still here! What memories flashed back when I saw my name along with that of Marion Broome on page 8 “I live in Peoria, Arizona. I was married to Howard Cohen, of the last issue of the Hornets’ Nest. I remember the incident the same young man who took me to my senior prom. well, as Miss Bradshaw and Mr. Dent immediately put us My sister, Norma L. Cooper is also a Midwood graduate, to work. When classes started, I worked for Miss Bradshaw and she gave me a lifetime subscription to The Hornets’ during my free period and also manned the switchboard. Nest. I am now widowed, sadly. I have 2 daughters, four grandchildren and 2 and 1/2 great grandchildren. I was in I left Brooklyn in 1951 when I got married and have lived Miss Miller’s Major Art class where I received a scholarship in the South since then, but when people ask me where to the Fashion Institute of Technology. I also learned a lot of I’m from, I still say Brooklyn. I can tell you that when I meet Spanish in Miss Shore’s Spanish class. Living here in Arizona, people here who are from the NYC area, they are always I am obliged to speak some Spanish which I fortunately still impressed when I tell them that I am a graduate of Midwood remember.