Honor a Teacher Reflections

Donors to the 2008-09 Annual Fund have the opportunity to remember a teacher, adviser, coach or other special person - past or present - with their gift to the Annual Fund. Below you will find recollections, memories and/or messages from alumni which accompanied their gifts.

An anonymous alumnus honors James Dinsmore
3/25/2009
By example Jim Dinsmore taught the meaning of ethical behavior, high integrity and empathy - the best a man can be. With profound thanks from one member of the class of 1970.

Gerry Katz '63 honors Allan Wise
3/25/2009
So many excellent teachers, but I have to recognize English teacher Allan Wise, who taught me how to write concisely and with purpose. I still cringe when colleagues use Mr. Wise's most vilified phrase, "Due to the fact that ..."

Steven Sargalski '83 honors Dick Venable
3/19/2009
He inspired me to go into teaching (biology and chemistry).

John Fenniman '61 honors Don Joffray, George Hickok, George Adams and Mr. Campeau
3/9/2009
All fine teachers -- even if I did have a horrible time with English, it was not their fault.

Matt Barber '95 honors Andrew Watson
3/3/2009
He inspired me to become an English teacher.

Susan Tracy Moore '74 honors Evelyn Smith, Danielle Tzeutschler, Barbara Erickson and Elizabeth Speirs
3/3/2009
Miss Smith, Mrs. Erickson, Mrs. Tzeutschler, Miss Speirs. And all the wonderful teachers who took such good care of my daughters

David Grinnell '45 honors Nathaniel Batchelder, Norris Orchard, Jim and Ruth Henderson and Charles Pratt
2/27/2009
Mr. B: faith in and kindness to me, friendship in the years following; Hendersons: compassion when I lost my dad; Charles Pratt: patience with a physics nerd (me); NEO: teaching excellence, insistence on quality effort!

Tom Shea '69 honors Spencer Grey
2/24/2009
This leadership gift for my 40th reunion specifically honors Spencer Grey for generously sharing his English Composition gifts and serving as a caring advisor.

An anonymous alumna honors James Rugen and Faith Miller
2/18/2009
You shared what you loved, encouraged me to pursue what I loved, and, in the process, nurtured my self-esteem and self-expression. These gifts still help me in my present life. Thank you!

Christina Calcagni Stack '99 honors Jeff Scanlon
2/11/2009
Mr. Scanlon always pushed me to write better and to think more analytically. I am so thankful to have had him in my life.

Jackie Mooney '04 honors Bobbi Moran
2/11/2009
Bobbi's guidance and support always extended beyond the field hockey field and has stayed with me throughout the years

An anonymous alumnus honors Bert and Louise Howard
2/6/2009
Bert: an inspiring advanced Math teacher; enthusiastic leader of the ski club; longtime club football and baseball coach; grower of bountious vegetable harvests. Louise: organizer of teas for visiing teams; arranger of flowers, sympathetic dorm mother.

Lee Burton '70 honors Morris Brown
2/4/2009
Mr. Brown took a special interest in my writing that turned it around. His influence lasts to this day.

Claire Galiette '07 honors Jeff Scanlon
2/2/2009
Great teacher and great friend.

Diane Tutherly Resly '68 honors Edie Treadway
2/2/2009
She made language learning fun!

Elizabeth Byrne '03 honors Bobbi Moran
2/2/2009
Thanks for everything, coach!

Jacqueline Mitchell '05 honors Nancy Cleary
2/2/2009
I miss her!

Michael Olds '57 honors Brayton Porter
2/2/2009
He was my first advisor

Anne Evans '05 honors Julie Hinchman and Pete Gwyn
1/30/2009
They were my family away from home!

Brian Daigle '79 honors Bill Eaton
1/30/2009
Thanks for the memories.

Sarah Snelling Powers '50 honors Evelyn Smith
1/30/2009
Our most loyal and enthusiastic classmate

Sean Wheeler '84 honors John Ratte
1/30/2009
A great teacher and mentor to me.

Chris Zizza '07 honors Lilian Hutchinson
1/29/2009
Great teacher, even better person!

Doug Carnrick '69 honors Jim Wilson
1/29/2009
Thank you for making my three years of playing hockey at Loomis such a thrill.

Jane Mackay Howe '49 honors Barbara Erickson, Mildred Finley, Edie Treadway
1/29/2009
Our Chaffee faculty members were caring and nurturing as well as excellent teachers. We were encouraged to be our own selves as well as to work as a group--to cooperate and compromise.

Mary Collins '79 honors Evelyn Smith, Mark Williams, Bill Eaton
1/29/2009
Many thanks for their sincere caring and engagment during 4 crucial years in my life.

Brooke Diamond '99 honors Chuck Vernon
1/26/2009
Still educating me to this day...

David Green '43 honors Knower Mills
1/26/2009
Knower Mills was a kind, critically perceptive but encouraging adviser to the Loom

Eric Chen '07 honors Sean Hanlon
1/26/2009
Thank you very much for my interest and solid foundation in calculus and for your witty math jokes!

Holly Hanbury-Brown '08 honors David Newell
1/26/2009
For a teacher who inspired and helped guide me through my time at Loomis.

Stephen Kaplan '05 honors Fred Seebeck
1/26/2009
A great teacher, coach and mentor.

Megan Montante '01 honors Anne Sbarge
1/16/2009
As I took "le' rouge et le noir" off my bookshelf this winter to read, I was reminded of your generosity in feeding my love of French literature. I hope retirement is treating you well!

Darrell Zlotnick '01 honors Fred Seebeck
1/13/2009
Fred was an extremely positive influence on my life when I was a student at LC.

Catherine Bortz Palmer '85 honors Alice Baxter
1/9/2009
Alice was an inspiring teacher and is a life-long friend to me. I hope my daughters will have educators in their lives who are a positively influential!

Edith-Ann Bell Gameau '44 honors Helen Parker
1/9/2009
Patiently & persistently she strove to help us appreciate and even enjoy Latin, not an easy task for 13 teen-age girls! Years later, a more worldly person, I realize what a gift she gave me. I don't read Latin now, but use it entymologically almost daily.

Glover Howe '48 honors Charles Pratt, Thomas Finley, Nathaniel Batchelder, Bert Howard, Bill Carr
1/9/2009
These men especially love working with young people! Without their help and guidance, many of us would have ended our educational struggle right then and there! These were very special teachers!

James Scott '02 honors Jeff Scanlon
1/9/2009
Great dorm head and coach.

Jessica Paindiris '01 honors Curt Robison, Abby Byerly , Tom Gray and Karen Parsons
1/9/2009
Thank you for changing the way I think and learn -- lessons that live long past exams and papers.

Paul Travis '67 honors Glover Howe
1/9/2009
Thank you for not expelling me for flooding out the Admissions Office in Founders Hall.

An anonymous alumnus honors Don Joffray
1/8/2009
Mr. Joffray was a teacher with character and intelligence that taught students how to live life with passion.

Edward Shortliffe '65 honors Alan Wise
1/8/2009
Transformative -- he made me a writer.

Morwen Swilling Two Feathers '74 honors John Bermon
1/8/2009
Changed my life with his class, "What's really going on?"

Stephen Sundgaard '60 honors George Warren
1/8/2009
His "problems of democracy" class led me to become a history major in college and to appreciate learning for the sake of learning

An anonymous alumnus honors Mr. Mills
1/6/2009
I particularly remember sitting around in his house with the other members of the board of The Loom discussing articles, and stories and poems that had been submitted and deciding which ones to publish.

Bruce Burnham '56 honors Rose Adams
1/6/2009
Rose Adams, my English teacher freshman year, gave me a love of literature that continues to this day. She was patient, humorous, insightful and a great teacher.

David Wachsman '46 honors Norris Orchard and John Huntington
1/6/2009
I was blest. I had the privilege of participating in Norrie Orchard's literature classes. He was Senior English Master and an invaluable counselor to students long before his initials came to be the name of a theater. He was slight of stature and enormous of intellect. Wit was never far from the surface when he was in the room and often emerged, producing laughter. His flights of fancy, always with a useful lesson, were frequent.

Norrie Orchard's knowledge and understanding of the masterworks in our language were vast, and his insights were keen. Most important to me was his awareness of the English language as a huge instrument, one capable of
expressing everything from the subtlest feelings to the most intense, blind passions.

He knew and taught the power, colors, precision, flights, nuances, music and delicacy that lay within the capabilities of our language. He unlocked the secrets of elegance in writing and speaking. He was my favorite Loomis teacher among several who remain vivid in my memory.

(Let the record show that I would never have called him "Norrie" when I was a student at Loomis. He was "Mr. Orchard" or "sir," as was the custom.)

I said I was blest. In point of fact, I was doubly blest because I worked with another teacher whose sense of the language was dramatically different from that of Norrie Orchard: John Huntington

I can't say with certainty what John Huntington's role at Loomis was. I checked my yearbook and failed to find him in the photo array of the faculty. He came to the school during or just after World War II and might have been a temporary English teacher. All I know is that he was faculty advisor to The Loomis Log
in 1945-46, when I was editor-in-chief, and I spent a good deal of time with him.

John Huntington, like Ernest Hemingway, had been a wartime ambulance driver, in Huntington's case in North Africa. Like Hemingway, he had been a journalist - with The Brooklyn Eagle, if memory serves. And, like Hemingway, he had a sharply defined sense of English, one that contrasted dramatically with Norrie Orchard's. I remember him as round, red-faced and gruff, at least on the surface.

John Huntington's English was the journalist's - direct, precise, powerful and effective. "Cut the adverbs," he'd bellow. "Make the verbs do the work."
He wasn't especially fond of adjectives either, though he respected the necessary, accurate ones. He was a master of tough talk and tough writing.

I have been a writer since graduating from college - vocationally and avocationally. Every serious writer sooner or later develops his or her own voice. With luck, it's as individual as his or her DNA. If mine meets that standard, I know why: because of my early exposure to the elegant English of Norrie Orchard and the tough English of John Huntington.

Jack Larson '66 honors Alan Wise, Joseph Stookins
1/6/2009
They guided me, refined me and will always be a significant part of me.

Richard Crutchfield '53 honors Joseph Stookins, Morris Brown and Bert Howard
1/5/2009
All three compassionate, generous and outstanding teachers made the difference in my journey of self-discovery which began at Loomis. They have been my greatest mentors in life, men who recognized something in me, something of my "calling", and nourished it with compassion. My gratitude has no bounds.

Dave Brewer '48 honors Ernie Evenson, Hull Maynard, Lloyd Fowles, Mr. and Mrs, Adams, Peter Ogilby
1/2/2009
Ernie Evenson, Hull Maynard, Lou Fowles, Mr. and Mrs. Adams, and Peter Ogilby as my inspirations to excel.

John Howe '91 honors Jim Wilson and Bob Andrian
1/2/2009
In honor of Mr. A and Grim for the support, guidance and tools they gave me to shape me into who I am today.

An anonymous alumnus honors Ruthanne Marchetti and Don Joffray
12/31/2008
Ruthanne was an advisor/counselor in my days of greatest need - she has my gratitude for life. Don Joffray made learning a joy for both my father and me. I can't think of a better role model and teacher.

Andrew Lowe '74 honors Fred Seebeck
12/31/2008
The complete Mr. Chips!

Donald Lynn '46 honors George Savage
12/31/2008
I have always appreciated my two years at Loomis as a legacy even when I look back on my twice a day trip to Windsor to pick up the student mail.

John Peterson '44 honors Lloyd Fowles
12/31/2008
He scared the hell out of me at first, but as time went on - especially summer school to get ahead so I could enlist n the Army Air Corps - he became a true friend and mentor.

Elizabeth Townsend '53 honors Miss Speirs
12/30/2008
Ms. Speirs was always available to help with my way too many math problems with her "open door" policy. (we did share an enthusiasm for hiking and native plants.) And that old Ford car of hers that she cherished. Never saw her drive it though.

David Kohl '70 honors Bill Eaton
12/29/2008
Bill Eaton - he made space for the new kid

William Murtha '00 honors Jeff Scanlon
12/29/2008
For your leadership and guidance during a challenging senior year.

James Munves '39 honors John Burns
12/23/2008
An inspiring teacher of American Poetry

Steven Cohen '73 honors Keith Palmer
12/23/2008
All those hours spent teaching Loomis students how to fly airplanes - and how to tune up the Palmer family car!

An anonymous alumna honors Elaine Lowengard
12/22/2008
Mrs. Lowengaard stands out in my life as one of a handful of people to whom I owe so much.

Olivia D'Ambrosio '01 honors Martha Hess
12/19/2008
Mrs. Hess - I am in my first of three years at graduate school. Every day, in every class, I benefit from the foundation you helped me build in writing, critical thinking, and text analysis. Thank you. You are the best teacher I've ever had.

Robert Kotchen '86 honors Dom Failla
12/19/2008
I have been blessed with extraordinary teachers and coaches. Dom Failla is among those who had a great impact on my life.

Jason DiVenere '01 honors Carol Hartman
12/18/2008
It was always great to see her friendly face and experience her caring demeanor.

Stephen Dahl '63 honors Joseph Stookins
12/18/2008
I am still fluent in "his" French.

William Pope '61 honors Nickerson Rodgers
12/18/2008
Great Physics teacher, confirmed my enthusiasm for engineering

John Foster '51 honors Joseph Stookins
12/17/2008
Joe is largely responsible for developing my interest and skills in French. He arranging a summer homestay program for me in France in 1951, which has led to lifelong friendships overseas and a teaching career where I organize homestay programs in France.

An anonymous alumnus honors Jim Wilson
12/16/2008
If greatness were measured by the number of people positively influenced, Jim Wilson is a great man! Nice to have known him.

Nathaniel Treadway '71 honors David and Edie Treadway
12/13/2008
Can I ever properly thank my mother and father? Or Loomis Chaffee for bringing them together?

An anonymous alumna honors Al Beebe
12/12/2008
Thank you for all of your support over the years in the classroom, on the field and in your letters!

Donald Prohaska '44 honors Dr. Mather
12/11/2008
I went to sea for 51 years after Loomis - deep sea ships, tug boats, fishing boats, ferries, etc. Never made any money, but my Loomis education has kept me on a par with college educated friends.

Margaret Green Torrey '46 honors Josephine Britton
12/11/2008
Dodie was our sprightly, earnest and inspiring English teacher and friend who gave so much to all of us and to whom our class dedicated our yearbook to signify our strong connection and devotion.

Peter Abel '42 honors John Ratte, Frank Grubbs, Joseph Stookins
12/11/2008
Messrs. Grubbs, Stookins and Ratté embody, for me, the highest standards of humor, caring and tolerance.

An anonymous alumna honors Sue Griffin
12/9/2008
Sue Griffin - AKA - "Griff" - I will always be thankful for her endless support as a dorm head, her motivation as a coach, and her inspiration as a leader.

Carolyn Covello Keating '47 honors her Chaffee teachers
12/9/2008
Our memories are indeed curious vessels -- what is lost, what is retained. All of my Chafee teachers are as alive and bright to me today as they were in the rooms and hallways of Sill House -- of course memories like candles "burn" brightest in December!

Edward Sharkansky '86 honors Glover Howe and Fred Seebeck
12/9/2008
For teaching me about community and reciprocity

Elizabeth Hallas '90 honors Allison Beason
12/9/2008
Ms. Beason was a great teacher and friend! Thank you so much.

John Bidwell '50 honors Norman Smith, Norris Orchard, Bill Speer
12/9/2008
Fine teachers, fine examples.

Gloria Barnes Harper '53 honors Josephine Britton
12/2/2008
Mrs. Britton tutored me weekly in grammer, syntex, pronunciation, etc. She had great patience, wisdom and kindness. I am eternally grateful.

James Davis '67 honors Howard Norris, Keith Palmer, Sandy Flash
12/2/2008
Teachers/mentors who walked the walk and touched all they encountered

Pierre Laurent '52 honors Hull Maynard and Ralph Erickson
12/2/2008
From one teacher to two others.

An anonymous alumnus honors Bert Howard
11/26/2008
He stimulated our minds in geometry class by inviting us to prove the Pythagorean theorem in a way different from that in the book. He accepted my submission, then showed us still another way.

James Wagner '42 honors Nathaniel Batchelder
11/26/2008
Mr. B. did more to help me achieve whatever I have done more than anyone besided my mother and father. I came to Loomis after being expelled for poor grades. Mr. B straightened me out and got me into Yale and continued to inspire me.

Dorothy Schoenfuss Howell '43 honors Harriet LaMontagne
11/25/2008
Mrs. LaMontagne was our Math teacher. In college I majored in Math and have worked in statistics ever since. She gave us a wonderful Math background.

Maurice Robinson '72 honors Don Joffray, Tom Sharp, Hal Sullivan
11/24/2008
Great role models for young boys at a very impressionable age. Thanks for helping me grow as a man.

Paul Shlanta '75 honors Sam Stevenson
11/24/2008
Sam taught me how to write. I remember sitting with him in his apartment at night going over papers that I had written for one of his classes -- comedy I think.

An anonymous alumnus honors Molly Pond
11/21/2008
Molly always challenged me in class and forced me to push myself harder than I would otherwise. I credit her demanding nature for much of my success in college.

David Burnham '46 honors Lloyd Fowles, George Adams, William Knickerbocker
11/21/2008
I have chosen the three teachers who did the most to help me gain confidence in myself while I was at Loomis.

David Wilson '61 honors Joe Stookins and Bud Porter
11/21/2008
"Stook" was a wonderful teacher and I'm very grateful for the French he taught me and the enthusiasm for learning he conveyed. Bud was a gread advisor, common sense and tolerance of young men's "mistakes" are what he stood for

Evelyn Smith '50 honors Josephine Britton
11/19/2008
I am deeply indebted to "Mrs. Britton", my advisor and English teacher for three of my four years. She was very supportive and encouraging, especially in my scary freshman year...1946-7. I remember my friend as a scholar who believed in the education of the whole person, in and out of the classroom.

Samuel Havens '61 honors Donald Joffray and Laurence Muzroll
11/19/2008
Larry and Don helped me learn discipline and team work.

Anne Shortliffe '72 honors Barbara Erickson and Jim Dinsmore
7/1/2008
Jim Dinsmore who taught me to think, and Barbara Erickson who gave me the confidence to express those thoughts!

Scott Wallace '72 honors Bill Westfall
7/1/2008
Bill Westfall was a superb teacher and advisor, a reliable friend and a wonderful mentor. His untimely death cut short the life of a very gifted and giving man.

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