Vol88i6

Ligerbots, EDCO team compete at national level—See page 9

Student Faculty Administration Board members voted 18-3 to extend the restrictions on sophomore open campus to juniors. The measure makes juniors

who earn D’s, F’s, N’s and/or I’s ineligible for open campus. This week, the board heard a proposal from Riley housemaster Mark Aronson about field trips.

courtesy Edan Laniado

In Beijing on a music tour: Junior Ryan Vona stands with primary school children after a concert. See story page 3.

Fewer cuts to personnel,programs in FY10 budget

Newtonite◆ Friday, May 1, 2009 • Volume 88, Issue 6 Newton North High School, 360 Lowell Ave., Newtonville, Mass. 02460

Non-profit org.US postage paidNewton, Mass.Permit no. 55337

BY REBECCA HARRIS

Only those juniors in good academic standing with satisfac-tory attendance will have open campus next year.

Wednesday, April 15, the Stu-dent Faculty Administration Board voted 18-3 in favor of junior Camilla Jackson’s pro-posal to give juniors the same open campus restrictions that are in place for second-semester sophomores.

“Good academic standing con-sists of a grade of C- or better in each class,” the proposal says.

Juniors who earn D’s, F’s, N’s and/or I’s will be ineligible for open campus.

“It seems counterintuitive to allow students who are struggling academically to have open cam-pus,” the proposal says. “We have clearly identified an achievement

gap at North, and this proposal focuses on closing that gap.”

Out of 466 sophomores, 173 did not qualify for open campus in the fourth term, according to Principal Jennifer Price.

Acting housemaster for the Class of ’11, Annie Blais, will chair a committee to discuss how to make sophomore studies more productive, Price said. The com-mittee will be open to all students and faculty, she said.

Calling for “thoughtful imple-mentation” of the policy, Price cited increased computer access as a possible improvement.

“Small changes may actually be big,” she said.

Price said that there hasn’t been a formal decision about which grades — final or fourth term — to use to determine a student’s eligibility.

“The consensus among house-masters was that it should be the year grades,” she said.

The measure emphasizes the value this school places on aca-demics, Price said.

“These are my core values,” she said. “There are things as a leader that you really stand behind.”

Riley housemaster Mark Ar-onson said this proposal will al-low students to talk with adults about academic performance.

“I think we need to create op-portunities for juniors and staff to have conversations,” he said.

Senior Philip Engelke and sophomores Jared Kalow and Emma Leader, all on the SFA, voted against the proposal.

Leader said the measure is disciplinary rather than sup-portive.

Juniors will need to earn open campus

BY MATT KALISH

When the School Committee passed next year’s $164.4 million budget Tuesday night, it avoided what principal Jennifer Price termed a “worst-case scenario.”

Instead of losing 13.9 FTEs, both high schools will lose a com-bined total of seven FTEs.

“I was very pleased that the School Committee understood what the impact of losing 13.9 FTEs would be and restored a significant number of them,” Price said.

Also, instead of what the su-perintendent’s office called “ex-tremely high class sizes,” the increases will be more moderate, Price said.

“I feel that this is a critical time for the preservation of the depth of our programs,” Price said.

Losing 13.9 FTEs would have caused a significant impact on the quality of this high school, she said.

Even with the reduction of FTE

cuts, the school will eliminate or condense some programs, she said.

The electrical program will be cut, and levels of world language classes will be combined, Price said.

On campus programs might also be fewer next year, she said.

The physical education re-quirement will still change from seven semesters to five.

Also in next year’s budget, an additional $100,000 will go to textbooks and the restoration of funds to per pupil allocation.

Additional money from feder-al funding, additional allocation from the city and a decrease in health insurance rates add more than $1.8 million in available funds to the FY 10 budget.

Tuesday’s vote ended a long period of discussion among the mayor David Cohen, the School Committee and superintendent

“It doesn’t matter how many times you say in here that it isn’t punitive,” she said. “It is.”

The board also discussed a proposal from Engelke that would have required students who are struggling academically to meet with their counselors.

“Simply imposing a policy on students who have received D’s, F’s, N’s or I’s ignores the fact that these students are having trouble for different reasons and plans must be made for them on a case-by-case basis,” Engelke’s proposal says.

Five sophomores who are not on the SFA were present at the April 15 meeting to show their interest in the issue, said sophomore Sachi Hashimoto, who attended.

At this week’s meeting, Aron-son proposed higher standards

for field trip eligibility.To be eligible for field trips

that involve missing more than one day of school, students would have to receive a C- or above in all their classes and “demonstrate good citizenship,” the proposal says.

However, students participat-ing in field trips that are consid-ered curriculum requirements would not have to meet these standards, it says.

“The philosophy behind it is not to exclude kids or prevent them from participating in ac-tivities,” Aronson said. “This proposal is another way to make conversations happen.”

Price said that this proposal would not affect foreign exchang-es because all exchanges already have this requirement.

◆See related opinion page 2.

Jeff Young, said School Commit-tee chair Marc Laredo.

“The process was very lengthy because of the high level of uncer-tainty with the actual money we had to work with,” he said.

“When we learned how much we had to work with, we had to figure out how to spend the money and where to allocate it.

“The situation we were deal-ing with was very similar to what other towns also had to cope with because while additional money was coming from the federal stimulus plan, budgets were be-ing cut because of a reduction in state aid.”

Because the exact amount of state aid Newton will receive is uncertain, the School Committee is holding $750,000 in reserve funds.

These reserve funds would pay for a system-wide study, addition-al funds for musical instruments and science equipment, and one high school FTE.

Teddy Wenneker

opinion Friday, May 1, 20092 ◆ Newtonite, Newton North

The Newtonite, founded in 1922, is the newspaper of Newton North High School, 360 Lowell Ave., Newtonville, Mass. 02460.

Newtonite

LettersReaders are invited to submit guest articles and letters to the editor. Letters should be put in the Newtonite box in Beals House or emailed to [email protected]. The Newtonite re-serves the right to edit all letters, which must have the writer’s name, class and homeroom. The Newtonite serves as a forum for student opinion.

News staff — Rebecca Harris, Rebecca OranFeatures staff — Jacob BrunellSports staff — Evan Clements, Nicole Curhan, Emmett Green-burg, Jeremy Gurvitz, Becca Oran, Elliot RaffArts staff — Eliana Eskinazi, Kate LewisNews analysis staff — Kellynette GomezArt staff — Julia Belamarich, Puloma Ghosh, Anna Kaertner, Hannah SchonPhotography staff — Anna Gargas, Helen Gao, Jaryd Justice-Moote, Lucy Mazur-Warren, Jesse TripathiCirculation staff — Spencer Alton, Jackie Assar, Rebecca Kantar, Syd-ney Massing-Schaffer, Stoddard Meigs, Brooke Stearns, Daniel TabibProduction staff — John Synott, Alison Wu

Editors in chief — Eli Davidow, Matt Kalish, Ellen SarkisianNews editor — Marena ColeArts editor — Alicia ZhaoFeature editors — Emily Amaro, Jay KriegerOn campus editor — Olivia StearnsSports editors— Meredith Abrams, Josh BakanPhotography editors — Shira Bleicher, Gaby Perez-Dietz, Teddy Wenneker Graphics managers — Prateek Allapur, Peter Taber-SimonianAdvertising managers — Joe Connors, Chris KeefeBusiness manager — Chris WelchCirculation managers — Caleb Gannon, Dan SalvucciExchanges editor — Georgina TeasdaleAdviser — Helen SmithProduction advisers — Sue Brooks, Tom Donnellan

The Newtonite staff brings 16 issues a year to camera readiness for a circulation of 3,000 and goes on line daily during the academic year.

To place an ad in the Newtonite or contact us by phone, please call 617-559-6274. Yearly subscriptions cost $20. Readers can also reach us at [email protected].

To find the Newtonite online go to www.thenewtonite.com

BY PHILIP ENGELKE

The Student Faculty Ad-ministration Board takes pride in its supposed

openness to the school com-munity.

Observers are allowed to at-tend meetings, and SFA policy gives them the right to speak before the board.

Unfortunately, however, the SFA is not as transparent as it should be, and consequently there is a general lack of account-ability in the SFA.

Students and faculty at this school can be greatly affected by the resolutions passed by the SFA.

For example, the SFA just passed a measure that takes open campus privileges away from ju-niors next year with averages of D, F, N or I. These students will be assigned to study halls when they do not have classes.

The rationale for the proposal is to provide an incentive for juniors to work harder academi-cally.

Is this idea the best way to help students academically? Maybe, but not necessarily.

Keep in mind that most of the members of the SFA have not

BY MARENA COLE

H aving a new superin-tendent will change the Newton Public Schools

and could change this school in particular.

With super-intendent Jeff Young leaving to work in Cam-bridge after 11 years in New-ton, school and school system administrators gave their com-ments about what could happen here.

Jon Bassett, history and social sciences department head: “The superintendent sets the tone and management style for the entire district.

“His or her priorities and style influence the leadership team of every school by giving us a sense of what matters to the district and what’s less important.”

Tom Fabian, English depart-ment head: “Dr. Young really moved the district into a new era when he came nearly 15 years ago.

“At that time, this school was just getting exposed to MCAS and standards based teaching, as well as moving ahead with efforts to

symposium

editorial

guest column

experienced academic trouble. Do they know what second

semester sophomore study halls are like, the closest existing anal-ogy to the proposed junior study halls?

No. Not one member of the SFA has been in one. Lack of shared experiences

So although the SFA is trying its best to help students who need help, the SFA does not neces-sarily know the best means for achieving those ends.

In addition, people on the SFA can make decisions that could negatively affect certain students or even be considered unfair sim-ply because the majority of the school community does not know what is happening in the SFA. Therefore, to a certain degree, the SFA lacks accountability.

Several weeks ago, the SFA voted down a proposal to allow sophomores to leave the cafete-ria when they have a cancelled class, as juniors and seniors are currently allowed to do.

The reason for voting against the proposal was sensible enough:

There simply is not enough room in the library for more students.

But the SFA could at least have given the issue more thought.

If more of the sophomores had been aware of the proposal, and they knew which representatives supported it and which represen-tatives opposed it, the situation might have been different.

And currently, another propos-al is being discussed that would restrict students from going on multi-day field trips on the basis of their grades. This proposal seems like a slippery slope to me, especially when the SFA is discussing these things without most of the school community knowing.

Representatives ought to rep-resent their constituents.

But what kind of account-ability do representatives have if students do not know the posi-tions their representatives are taking?

If more students did know their representatives’ positions, would they re-elect the same people?

For a body that has so much direct influence over everyday life at this school, it is especially important to make great efforts at transparency.

At the same time, the school community should try harder to be informed about what happens in the SFA.

I admit that the SFA bulletin board and suggestion box that I proposed in December have failed to achieve the intended level of awareness within the school community about the hap-penings in the SFA. 7 a.m. meetings too early for most

What should be done then? For one thing, having meetings at 7 a.m. is not particularly conduc-tive to attracting observers from the school community.

That is not to say that the timing of the meetings was not carefully thought out, for good reasons, but it is something to consider.

Secondly, there should be more effort on the part of the SFA to announce what it is doing to as many people as possible.

A combination of a more fre-quently updated bulletin board, mentions of SFA debates on the Wednesday announcements, and perhaps an SFA Facebook group where students could communi-cate and argue with representa-tives could help promote trans-parency and accountability.

And lastly, the school com-munity ought to care more. What the SFA does can affect you directly, and you have the ability to speak out about your ideas. So be aware. Be active. It is your responsibility.

SFA meetings are Wednesdays at 7 in the library.

include as many students as pos-sible in mainstream classrooms. I think a new superintendent will have to think about how we move on from those realities, which are here to stay. Any new superin-tendent would certainly have to consider how as an institution we help all students develop the skills they’ll need in the 21st century.”

Nancy Mar-rinucci, world language de-partment head: “Through his or her leader-ship, a superin-tendent estab-lishes a vision for the school d i s t r i c t and works with the leadership team: principals, department heads, and coordinators to implement that vision.

“He or she also works to pro-vide the support and resources that the schools need to effec-tively implement that vision.”

Ed Mulligan, EDCO director: “Dr. Young has been very sup-

Administrators discuss impact of a new superintendent

School, SFA need to communicate better

Putting students in a study hall does not necessarily mean that

the students will seek help, and giving them open campus does not necessarily mean that they won’t.

Before vacation, the Student Faculty Administration Board voted to give juniors the same open campus restrictions as are currently in place for second-semester sophomores.

According to principal Jennifer Price, 173 out of 466 sophomores did not qualify for open campus in the fourth term because they earned D’s, F’s, N’s and/or I’s in the third.

Newton North’s mission

says the school provides students with “the opportunity and freedom to discover and reach their potential as individuals.”

Clearly, too many students are not reaching their full potential.

The new measure the SFA passed emphasizes the need to improve students’ academic achievement.

We are pleased to see that the SFA has established an Implementation Committee to try to improve study halls.

Currently, for instance, getting permission to leave study halls to see a specific teacher help can be a lengthy,

arduous process, as there is currently no set procedure to follow.

In order to truly make a difference for students, this committee needs to improve study hall procedures so that students can get the help they need.

Computer access and teacher access are both important.

Students just have too much at stake to opt for Newtonville rather than trying their hardest and working toward a better future for themselves.

In current economic times, being without a post-secondary education greatly limits options in later life.

Ultimately, it falls to the students to help themselves.

Students need to take responsibility for themselves

Julia Belamarich

Existing study halls don’t help students grow.

Newtonian

Jon Bassett

portive of the EDCO program here and at Day Middle school. I hope that the new superinten-dent will place the same value on having the EDCO program here in Newton.”

Cheryl Turgel, Newton Teach-ers Association president : “I don’t believe having a new superinten-dent will affect Newton North, initially, in any significant way, since the leader of your school is your principal, Jen Price. As far as the new building, I would hope that it would not affect it in any significant way either, since the project is well on its way to being completed.”— ELI DAVIDOW CONTRIBUTED TO THIS STORY.

Newtonian

Nancy Marrinucci

newsFriday, May 1, 2009 Newton North, Newtonite ◆ 3

Committee seeks nominations for Elicker AwardBY MARENA COLE

Nominations for the Paul E. Elicker Award for excellence in teaching are due Monday, May 18, said Alieu Jobe, a teacher of French.

The 12-member Elicker Com-mittee, which Jobe chairs, in-cludes parents, students and faculty.

“We read the nomination forms from students and parents and link them to the criteria that , we’re looking for,” Jobe said.

The forms are available in the library, house offices, the Tiger’s Loft, the cafeteria and the school website, nnhs.newton.k12.ma.us, he said.

Criteria include an appre-ciation and knowledge of subject matter and overall excellence in teaching, he said.

“Winners are not based on the number of nominations, but on how the teachers have af-fected students in their teaching careers,” he said. “Everybody should think seriously about nominating someone who has a positive impact on their life.

“That’s what we’re looking for.”

People can drop off completed forms in Jobe’s mailbox in Adams house or email them to him, he said.

In honor of Paul E. Elicker,

principal of Newton High from 1932-1949, his son, Paul Elicker ‘40, established the award in 1991. Since then, two teachers have received the award each year. Junior semi-formal next Saturday nightBY PRATEEK ALLAPUR

Juniors will have their semi-formal dance next Saturday starting at 7 at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, said Eliana Eskin-azi, the class president.

P l a n n i n g the dance with Eskinazi are the Class of ’10 vice presidents: Rocco Donohue, Scott Giusti, Eddie McAuliffe and Zoe Talkin.

Eskinazi said the dance will be during a week of AP testing, but that she hopes students will attend and have fun for one night, despite the fact that it is during a stressful season.

“We hope all juniors can take a night off to dance the night away,” she said.

Tickets cost $50 and are on sale through Monday.

A bus will be available to and

from school the night of the dance without extra charge, Es-kinazi said.

Space on the bus is on a first-come, first-served basis, she said.Intro. Physics exam to be in late MayBY MATT KALISH

So that teachers can better assess what to emphasize in the final week before the June Phys-ics MCAS, the freshmen will take their physics final in late May, principal Jennifer Price said.

“The Academic Standards Committee voted to allow this exception so fewer freshmen fail the Physics MCAS, a requirement to graduate,” she said.

Freshmen will take the final during two regular blocks during the end of May, Price said.

“All of the freshman teach-ers will have to make a sacrifice because we have asked that they not assign homework during this time,” she said.

“It is very tough when students fail the Physics MCAS because they have two high-stakes, in-tensive MCAS tests during their sophomore year.”

Also, according to the Aca-demic Standards Committee report, “The Phyics MCAS dif-fers from the English and math exams because it is a specific, end-of-course exam, focused on particular content.

“English and math, by con-

trast, are more general exams that test certain key skills with less prescribed content.”Environmental Clubbegins school-widerecycling systemBY MARENA COLE

To create a more efficient and organized system of recycling in the building, the Environmental Club is putting recycling bins in every homeroom, said senior Trevor Romich, an officer.

“In the past, the school’s re-cycling system hasn’t worked,” Romich said, citing a lack of bins in the school. “We’re p r o v i d i n g h o m e r o o m s w i t h c a r d -board recycling bins.”

Every Thurs-d a y, h o m e -rooms can bring their recycling to larger recycling bins in the hallways, and there will also be bins for both bottles and cans, he said.

Environmental Club members will take the larger bins to be picked up and recycled later in the day, Romich said.

“The recycling program has been a responsibility of the club up until now,” Romich said. “It hasn’t been an effective system.

“Recycling is good for the school and the environment. We hope to start this as soon as we have enough cardboard bins for every homeroom.”

Romich said the program will begin over the next few weeks.

The club meets X-2 in 202.College admissions to be focus of programBY REBECCA ORAN

To educate juniors and their parents about the college admis-sions process, the counseling department will give a program Wednesday, May 13, from 7 to 8:30 in Lasker Auditorium.

Admissions officers from Tufts, U. Mass. Amherst and Wheaton will be here, said Irmhild Liang, a career center counselor.

“They will discuss the process of applying to college and what they are looking for in the appli-cation process,” Liang said.

“Each of the representatives will describe their college’s ideal transcript, curriculum, admission testing policies, essay and other qualities of admissions.

“Each college values differ-ent aspects of the process, and we hope the night will help to clear up confusion among types of schools and help to show the differences.”

Career center director Brad McGowan will facilitate the panel, and there will be a chance for juniors and parents to ask questions, Liang said.

BY EMILY AMARO

Junior Laura Valley said that her exchange student from Paris pointed out aspects of the culture here as different.

For instance, Valley’s ex-change student, Camille Drouet, said Newton North is less strict than Massillon.

Drouet also said that this school is “enormous—huge. I just can’t understand how people can’t get lost.”

From April 4 to 24, 21 Mas-sillon students attended classes, went sightseeing in Boston and stayed with Newton North host families. Newton North students had been in France in February with Massillon hosts.

While the Massillon students

Massillon students complete this year’s exchange

in brief

Matt Kalish

Visiting the Newtonite: Franck Mudiayi works on an article in room 101 for Mirettes, this school’s French publication.

BY MARENA COLE

In the Forbidden City Concert Hall musicians from this school and from Jingshan combined for a rousing performance, including John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

Sophomore Anna Kaertner, a cellist, called the performance “amazing.”

“It was a huge stage that seat-ed about 1,000 people,” she said. “There was a huge banner that said ‘Welcome’ to us on it.”

Seventeen musicians from this school left for Beijing Thursday, April 16 for a visit with Newton’s sister school in China and re-turned Saturday, April 25.

With them were assistant principal Deborah Holman, mu-sic teacher Sheldon Reid and fine arts department head Todd Young.

The students gave the concert in the Forbidden City Tuesday, April 21 and performed in a Jing-shan branch school in the Beijing suburbs Thursday, April 23.

Sophomore Annie Gombosi, a violist, said sightseeing was one

of the best parts of the trip.The group went to the Great

Wall, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and the Lama Temple, she said.

Another great aspect of stay-ing in China was spending time with host families, she said.

“They were so generous and hospitable,” Gombosi said. “It was so nice to just be a part of their home life.”

Young said the best part of the trip was sharing music between students from China and from this school.

“Being a music group, the goal was to immerse ourselves in the culture, to share our music and to learn from the Chinese students as well,” Young said.

Shared selections included a contemporary gospel, “Kum-baya,” “Be Like Him,” an Afri-can folk piece arranged by Kirk Franklin, and “One More Time,” a traditional spiritual, along with pieces that ranged from Mozart to ragtime to Broadway.

“It really shows you the power of music,” Young said.

were here, they went on a sky-walk in the Prudential Center, walked the Freedom Trail, took a tour of Harvard University, traveled to New York City, and visited Plimoth Plantation, the John F. Kennedy Library and the Museum of Fine Arts.

Junior Will Zhang said it was

fun showing the exchange stu-dents around.

“The exchange is good be-cause it gives students a chance to broaden their horizons about different cultures,” he said.

Zhang said that he enjoyed getting to know his exchange student, Franck Mudiayi, because he is from another part of the world.

“Everyone is very similar even though we are from different places,” Zhang said.

Fiona Blyth, a teacher of French, said that Parisian and Newton students have developed a wonderful relationship.

The exchange dates from 1978.

Newtonian

Eliana Eskinazi Newtonian

Trevor Romich

courtesy Edan Laniado

At Olympic stadium: Sophomore Edan Laniado, a pianist and a singer, goes sightseeing.

Musicians visitJingshan School

junior Will Zhang

“The exchange is good because it gives students a chance to broaden their horizons about different

cultures.”

arts Friday, May 1, 20094 ◆ Newtonite, Newton North

BY ALICIA ZHAO

Representing the culmi-nation of four years of work, the Senior Art

Show serves to put a cap on the students’ efforts here, art teacher Shannon Slattery said.

“Students created the artwork and did the publicity and hang-ing for the show,” she said. “The whole event is student-organized and student-produced.”

Three of the pieces won hon-ors at the Boston Globe Scholas-tic Art Awards.

Angelina Zhou’s drawing, “Interior Space,” received a Gold Key. The drawing focuses on a closet with its door open so that the clothes hanging inside are visible. Right behind the door is a book shelf filled with dolls, books and porcelain.

By sketching her room, a truly personal place, Zhou is letting the viewers into her world.

Nolan Gargas’ untitled pho-tograph is a Silver Key winner. It shows a girl standing in the middle of a field.

The field and the dark sky above it take up most of the picture, making the girl com-paratively small. Gazing into the distance, the girl tries to reach a destination.

But the sky and the field seem to end elsewhere, coaxing the girl to go there instead.

This image conveys hope and determination, showing viewers the bigger picture with its pro-portions.

Emma Kornetsky’s photo-graph, “Bridge in Berkshires,” also won a Silver Key. It shows a view from a bridge’s supporting beams.

Emphasizing depth, the scene starts out clear and crisp but be-comes blurry as the viewer tries to look further into the picture.

Such a perspective suggests a lucid present, yet a worrisome future.

Among the other highlights

BY ALICIA ZHAO

Small ensembles will perform Sunday at noon in the little the-atre, fine arts department head Todd Young said.

“Unlike at concerts for our larger ensembles, the audience will get to listen to chamber music up close and personal,” he said.

“It will be more intimate.”Music teacher Adam Gross-

man will conduct String En-semble, Young said. Orchestra students auditioned for the group in February.

The program will be an-nounced at the concert.

Brass Ensemble will perform under the direction of Ed Harney, a professional trumpet player.

On its program are “Fanfare”

Young said the group also played the quartet during its trip to the Jingshan School in Beijing during vacation.

“One of the great things about the fine arts department is that we give a lot of opportunities for students to perform,” Young said.

“The greater challenge is where and when all these stu-dents will perform. The little theatre gives small ensembles an appropriate venue to express their music.”

Tickets cost $5 at the door.

of the art show are Jasmine Pul-len-Schmidt’s drawing, “Apples,” which illustrates an apple in six stages. As the stages progress, bites into the apple increase— The first few bites are clear to see, but as more bites appear in the apple, the change is less obvious.

Because change is a gradual process, this image seems to hint at how people tend to overlook significant changes until they

compare the current state of something to what it was like in the beginning.

Another interesting work, “Untitled,” a black and white photograph by Melanie Segal, captures water shooting out of a drinking fountain.

The water seems to flow on and on, creating a pool on the surface of the sink. This simple, every day moment seems much more significant in the photo-graph than in real life, portraying what one can notice by stop-

ping and appreciating the small things.

Providing an unusual point of view, Erica Efstratoudakis’ pastel, “Untitled,” displays a hu-man body from the back. With a red background, the body is also mostly red mixed with gray and white.

The viewer can see the body physically, and at the same time, decipher emotions through the texture and color of the piece.

For their portfolios, five of the seniors received scholarships

by Charles Falken and “Canzon Pian’e Forte” by Giovanni Ga-briel, Harney said.

“The first piece is a brass fan-fare written by a student at MIT for his commencement,” he said. “The second piece is an octet originally written for two voice choirs.”

Additionally, Young said, he ex-pects that senior Mariam Raffeld, junior Amalia Golomb-Leavitt, sophomores Anne Gombosi and Caroline Ellison and freshman Anna Kaertner will perform the first and third movements of Mozart’s “Oboe Quartet.”

Seniors present their best work in exhibitThree artists won keys in Boston Globe Scholastic competition

Small ensembles concertto be in little theatre Sunday

review

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from the Newton Art Associa-tion Thursday, April 16, Slattery said.

At first place, Robin Hayashi won $500, and as honorable mentions, Leah Medin, Pullen-Schmidt, Fiona Stoltze and Zhou each won $100.

Also, there will be an exhibi-tion tea Friday from 4 to 6 in the art department, art teacher Sandra Truant said.

“We’re displaying the art de-partment’s work from this year,” she said.

Gaby Perez-Dietz

In the library: Freshmen Nellie Robinson and Allison Wu admire artwork in the Senior Art Show.

Todd Young“The little theatre gives small ensembles

an appropriate venue to express their music”

Parents of 2009

Congratulate your senior.

Place an ad in the graduation issue of the Newtonite.

Call us today at617-559-6274

special message

Conservator says art needs special care

BY FATEMA ZAIDI

Laura Rankin, illustrator of 15 children’s books, illustrated and wrote “The Hand-made Alphabet.”

In it, she carefully displays the handshape for each letter of the manual alphabet.

Along with the hand-shape, there is a corre-sponding picture of an object that represents each letter of the al-phabet.

The book contains realistic images of the hands, and it portrays all different shades of skin color.

It is realistic to the point where it even shows the shadow of the hand and what-ever object the hand is holding.

Even for the letters like “J” and “Z” where you have to move your hand, Rankin clearly il-lustrates the motion of the hand.

The initial handshape is sketched without color, kind of like a ghost’s hand, and the final handshape is shown with a realistic hand.

My favorite illustration in “The Handmade Alphabet” is the illustration for the letter “J.”

It clearly portrays the dipping motion neces-sary for “J” with jam.

There is even some jelly left on the little finger, and the jam looks realistic.

“The Handmade Alphabet” easily allows a

artsFriday, May 1, 2009 Newton North, Newtonite ◆ 5

BY JAY KRIEGER

AND OLIVIA STEARNS

All 85,000 of the art objects in the Rhode Island School of Design museum need care and cleaning—sometimes with tooth-picks and special brushes, said Ingrid Neuman, a conservator and a Newton North parent.

Taking care of art also means doing annual checkups on it, and monitoring the light and heat of the rooms where it is on display, she said.

“What can be the most dam-aging to art is the oil in your fingers,” she said.

“The conservators must wear cotton gloves when handling art.

“Not only do your fingers damage paintings, but they can permanently damage metal sculptures by leaving a never-fading fingerprint that shows up years later.”

Conservators also use distilled water and saliva that has no acid in it for cleaning artifacts, she

said. “We use brushes similar to

those of cosmetic brushes to clean the art because we need soft bristles to ensure that we don’t damage anything,” Neu-man said.

Art also needs to be checked frequently to avoid insect infesta-tions, she said.

Neuman, who gave a Hunting-ton lecture here January 8, re-turned to speak with students and faculty about her work Thursday, April 9 in the little theatre.

A sculpture conservator at RISD, she is collections care in-structor in the Graduate Museum Studies Program at Tufts, has worked at the Smithsonian and the Museum of Fine Arts, and has had her own conservation busi-ness for nine years in Newton.

Her current project is re-pairing a 1,000-year-old hollow wooden Buddha.

“An art conservator takes

care of sculptures and paintings in storage and on the museum floor,” Neuman said.

“Most museums only show about three percent of their art and keep the rest in storage.

“What a lot of people don’t know about art conservators is that they must document all of the art they work on.

“Reports must include the con-dition that the art is in that day, so in 10 years they will know how it has aged.”

Neuman also talked about the Visual Rights Act, which says that conservators must ask the artist, if living, for permission to fix a work of art if it needs repair.

Talking about contemporary artists, she said that they may use recycled materials, such as rubber, foam and plastic.

“In ancient times, artists used bronze and marble in their sculpt-ing, materials that would last a long time,” Neuman said.

“That concept has become less important to modern artists.”

on campus

BY FATEMA ZAIDI Laura Rankin, illustrator of 15

children books, said knowledge of theatre is helpful in her work.

“A book is like a little play,” she said. “There is a set, costumes, characters and a dramatic devel-opment.”

Rankin has been drawing all her life, and while she was at the University of New Hampshire, she took courses in art as well as in theatre.

“I took costume design, stage make-up, set design, and how to draw in perspective classes,” Rankin said.

She said that she did not know that she would pursue art at the time, and that theatre helped in her artwork and illustrations.

Rankin said her professional career began in the early 1970s when she began doing courtroom illustrations of murder trials for the CBS TV affiliate in Buffalo, N.Y., because cameras were not allowed inside.

She also worked on The Buf-falo News and illustrated for entertainment magazines.

“For 15 years, I worked on a deadline,” she said.

Books she has illustrated include

◆“The Wriggly, Wriggly Baby” by Jessica Clerk

◆“Fluffy and Baron,” which she also wrote

◆“Ruthie and the (Not So) Teeny Tiny Lie,” which she also wrote

◆“The Handmade Alphabet,” which she also wrote

◆“Rabbit Ears” by Amber Stewart

◆“No Babysitters Allowed” by Stewart

◆“The Handmade Counting Book,” which she also wrote

◆“Swan Harbor: A Nature Counting Book,” which she also wrotee

◆“Merl and Jasper’s Supper Caper,” which she also wrote, and

◆“Harriet Bean and the League of Cheats” by Alexandar McCall Smith.

Rankin won the Boston Globe-Horn book honor award for “The Handmade Alphabet.”

Her publishers are Alfred A. Knopf, Arthur A. Levine, Blooms-bury USA, Dragonfly Books, Puf-fin Books, Scholastic, Inc., and Tandem Library Books.

Rankin said her first trade picture book was “The Hand-made Alphabet,” which has all the hand shapes for each letter of the manual alphabet in American

Sign Language. She said her aunt and uncle

were deaf and as is her stepson, and she wanted to celebrate the beauty of sign language.

Having continued as a book illustrator, she said it is rare in publishing to meet the author.

“It’s easier not to meet them,” she said. “Writers have specific ideas on what the artwork should look like, and it would stifle my creativity.

“I need to be free to explore my own ideas about the feel of the book and its characters. Then

I’m able to ‘fall in love’ with the work, which is important when you’re drawing and painting for months on end.”

Rankin said she has an extra bedroom, which is her studio, and it has art supplies, a computer and a photocopying machine.

“I love my editors, but they are in New York and I am in Maine, so we don’t get to see each other in person, and we communicate mostly over e-mail,” Rankin said.

It can take from three months to a year to illustrate a book, she said.

“The magic number for the number of pages to illustrate for a children’s book is 32,” she said.

These 32 pages include the front matter, title page, copyright page and dedication, Rankin said.

“Then you have to figure out the pacing, the characters and how they look, and the interest from one page to the next,” she said.

Rankin said she first makes rough thumbnail pencil sketches, which she eventually makes into a book dummy.

“The book dummy is a book made by hand by pasting in the pencil sketches and the story type, or copy,” Rankin said.

“It’s roughly the size the fin-ished book will be. It is sent to the art director and editor so they have an idea of the flow and look of the book and can discuss whether they want changes made on any of the drawings.”

Then they critique it, Rankin said.

Animals are Rankin’s favor-ite.

“I like to anthropomorphize, which means I like to make ani-mals represent children and dress them up and give them human qualities,” she said.

She said her favorite animal to illustrate is a fox, and that por-cupines are pretty cute too.

Currently, Rankin said, she is working on a book about a por-cupine who is graduating from kindergarten. Everyone gets a balloon except for her, and so she is trying to get one.

The title of the book is “A Bal-loon for Emily.”

Illustrator of children’s books tells about her career

Matt Kalish

“Most museums only show about three percent of their art and keep the rest in storage,” says Ingrid Neuman, who spoke here Thursday, April 9 in the visiting artist series.

‘The Handmade Alphabet’a useful guide to sign language

courtesy Laura Rankin

“Handmade Alphabet” is Laura Rankin’s first book.

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novice in sign language to learn the manual al-phabet, a part of American Sign Language, and to and celebrate this beautiful language.

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family photo

Laura Rankin

arts Friday, May 1, 20096 ◆ Newtonite, Newton North

BY ALICIA ZHAO

Delivering their pieces with passion, five music groups made Spring-

fest a moving experience—es-pecially the senior soloists who played with the Orchestra.

The concert began with sing-ers under the direction of music teacher Richard Travers and then built toward the solo section.

Travers, who has been recov-ering from shoulder surgery, led Concert Choir in “Three Folk Songs” by Johannes Brahams and arranged by Walter Ehret. This a capella selection included a fast, minor melody, in contrast to a slower, grateful song.

“Song for the Mira” by Allister MacGilvray, which Stuart Caherti arranged, was a blissful, nostalgic piece. Freshman Melissa Weikart accompanied at the piano.

“I wish I was with them again,” the performers sang, sending across peaceful images like bon-fires and dancing children.

Family Singers sang “A Jubi-lant Song” by Norman Dello Joio, a strong, pulsing piece, with ju-nior Nathan Harris at the piano.

After a fast opening, the song slowed and became quieter as junior Hayley Travers sang the soprano solo. As the pace sped up again, the altos and sopranos held their high notes, and the basses and tenors hummed in rapid staccato.

Next, Symphonic Band per-formed two pieces.

Fine arts department head Todd Young directed Peter War-lock’s “Two Dances from ‘Capriol Suite,’” which Johnnie Vinson arranged. The dances have lively percussion sections and melo-dies.

Next, senior Patrick Alves con-ducted Mark Williams’ “Mirrors,” a vigorous piece that picked up speed at the end.

After that, Young came back to conduct Wind Ensemble. John Cacavas’ “Aria For Winds” was a slow, magical piece, and Robert W. Smith’s “The Ascension” built energy throughout.

Orchestra came on stage for the final section of Springfest with its conductor, music teacher Adam Grossman.

In each piece, soloists gave remarkable, lyrical performances while the Orchestra accompanied skillfully.

Senior Sandra Chan, a flutist, soloed in the first movement of

ing the violin with striking speed, Cooke mesmerized the audience with her intensity and ended the concert with a powerful perfor-mance.

courtesy Sherrie Deng

Music teacher Richard Travers leads Family Singers in Norman Dello Joio’s “A Jubilant Song” at Springfest April 14.


Senior Elizabeth Cooke performs in Max Bruch’s “Scottish Fantasy.”


Senior Patrick Alves interprets Carl Stamitz’s “Clarinet Concerto No. 3.”


Senior Sandra Chan plays in Carl Reinecke’s “Flute Concerto.”

Soloists outstanding in their work with Orchestra

Musicians present enjoyable Springfest

Carl Reinecke’s “Flute Concerto.” With light, free-spirited melodies, Chan played impressive trills and high notes, complementing lower

notes from the orchestra. In the first movement of Carl

Stamitz’s “Clarinet Concerto No. 3,” Alves soloed on the clarinet. He played detailed melodies with clarity and strong expression,

smoothly delivering the vivid piece.

For the closing piece, se-nior Elizabeth Cooke soloed in the second movement of Max Bruch’s “Scottish Fantasy.” Play-

review

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artsFriday, May 1, 2009 Newton North, Newtonite ◆ 7

Poet recites work, shares his experiencesTalks about importance of articulation in poetry

BY MARENA COLE Taylor Mali, a poet and a teacher, emphasized the impor-

tance of being articulate.“We’ve been infected by a tragically cool tone,” Mali said.“What has happened to our conviction? Where are the

limbs on which we used to walk? Did they get chopped down with the rest of the rainforest?

“Contrary to what the bumper stickers say, it’s not enough simply to question authority. You have to speak with it.”

Mali described his experiences and gave recitations of his poems on campus Thursday, April 16.Advocates ‘like-free’ zones

One poem he recited is about an eighth-grade girl he taught. She said “like” so often that he made his classroom a “like-free zone.”

“She couldn’t speak for a week, and when she did she said, ‘This is l— hard,’” Mali said.

“I encourage you all to make your mouths a ‘like-free’ zone.”

As a child, Mali said, he was often exposed to poetry be-cause his father was a poet.

“My father wrote poems—poems he would recite a wedding and birthdays,” Mali said. “At a very early age, I got to see what it was like to entertain people.”

Mali recited a poem he found in a book of poems his father wrote, dated New Year’s Eve, 1964.

“I was born in 1965, so that would have been a few months before I was born,” he said. “I can imagine my dad reading that to my mom that night, and that through the muffled walls of my mother’s stomach I might have heard my very first poem.”

Mali said he found that the skills of writing a poem differ from those involved in reciting one.

He referred to his involvement in poetry slams, where poets perform original pieces for judges and an audience. He said he began competing in poetry slams as a graduate student at Kansas State University.

Mali earned his bachelor’s in English at Bowdoin in 1987 and his master’s in English/creative writing at Kansas State in 1993.‘No such thing as “slam poetry”’

“There is no such thing as ‘slam poetry,’” he said. “There are poems that work well in slams and poems that do not work well in slams.”

Mali recited more poems, with topics including a dyslexic Scrabble champion, a three-legged dog, a student who had cancer, the importance of proofreading, and being a poet while teaching math and history.

In response to a question from the audience about his writ-ing process, he said, “Luckily I’m inspired from 8:30 in the morning unti1:30 every afternoon.

“If you sit down at the same time every day, pretty soon your muse will know that’s when she has to show up.

“A letter to my brother is the first draft of my poem some-times.

“Poets are not journalists. If I need to change the facts to get the message across, I reserve the right to use poetic license, to change the facts to make a better poem.”

BY KATE LEWIS “Macbeth” will provide a

chance to explore the effects vio-lence has on relationships, said its director, Dev Luthra.

“This play is about how peo-ple’s better impulses are under-mined when fighting in a war for a long time,” Luthra said. “It shows the consequences of war on our moral choices.

“The play touches on the limitations of violence. As a long-term way of living, violence seems corrosive of our better intentions.”

In the 26th annual North-South Shakespeare production, a cast of 31 will present “Macbeth” Thursday, May 14 through Satur-day, May 16 in South’s Seasholes Auditorium at 7:30.

Prateek Allapur

Taylor Mali recites his poetry and describes his background.

Prateek Allapur

Visiting poet: Taylor Mali says it’s crucial to speak with authority. He gave an on campus presentation Thursday, April 16.

BY PRATEEK ALLAPUR

Diana Spechler ’97, an award-winning writer while she was a student here, visited and spoke on campus about her first book, “Who by Fire.”

“Writing this novel was a complicated two-fold process that took four and a half years,” Spechler said Monday, April 13.

“It involved researching or-thodox Israeli families and their daily lives.”

Spechler said that she spent months in Israel talking to Ortho-dox rabbis and discussing family and relationships.

She said she also used re-sources, such as askmoses.com, an online chat room for Orthodox rabbis.

The second part of the process involved the actual writing itself, she said.

Harper Perennial has pub-lished her book.

During her years here , Spechler won two Heintzelman awards: for poetry and for a short story.

As a junior, she received hon-orable mention in the 40th M. Roland Heintzelman Memorial Award Contest for a collection of nine poems.

Then, as a senior, Spechler won again, tying for first place with a short story, “Praying to Anthony,” about a girl with an eating disorder.

“Writing is the thing about myself that I’m most proud of,” Spechler said at the time.

“To be rewarded for it and to share my writing with people is huge.”

Having had three poems pub-lished in Thoughtprints, this school’s art and literary maga-zine, her junior year, Spechler was its literary editor in her senior year.

In addition, she said, she tried to write for at least an hour every day “to make sure I keep the cre-ative juices flowing and I don’t lose any ideas.”

After graduating, Spechler earned her bachelor’s at the University of Colorado and her master’s at the University of Montana. She was a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State Uni-versity.

In the play, Macbeth becomes hungry for power and with the aid of his wife, he kills a king and others who get in his way.

South senior Alex Caron, who plays Macbeth, said he can’t relate to someone killing his best friend and his king, but he can relate to Macbeth’s inner conflicts over duty to others and to himself.

“It’s difficult to find reality in such an emotionally complex character,” Caron said.

“He has been at war for an extended period of time, and he’s

been corrupted by the conditions around him.

“Life in a war zone essentially colors Macbeth’s entire world.”

South sophomore Maddy Schulman will portray Lady Mac-beth, and playing the witches are South senior Rachel Insoft and South sophomores Rina Fried-berg and Jocelyn Weiss.

After Macbeth kills the king and acquires the throne, Mal-com, the king’s son, must take authority.

Playing Malcolm, sophomore Derek Butterton said that he will

portray an idealistic character who has to deal with the fact that he is the rightful king, even though Macbeth is the actual king of Scotland.

The set by South junior Ari Shvartzman will depict a desert area where war has taken place for a long time, Luthra said.

He said he envisions a Middle Eastern look for the show, in-spired by the battle at Fallujah in the Iraq War.

“I also can see the play taking place in a city,” Luthra said.

“An urban, street-fighting kind of set would communicate the claustrophobia of seeing into Macbeth’s and his wife’s minds.”

Also, costumes by Martha Heller, the costume designer at

South, will have a contemporary military focus, Luthra said.

“The costumes for the witches and apparitions will be more styl-ized,” he said.

Luthra trained as an actor in London and at Shakespeare and Company in Lenox.

The artistic director of And Still We Rise Productions, a com-pany focused on the struggles of those trying to rebuild their lives after involvement with the prison system, Luthra also teaches and directs at the Winsor School in Boston.

Additionally, he has taught in the Brookline schools and at Bos-ton College and Emerson.

Tickets to “Macbeth” cost $7 and are on sale beginning next week.

Dev Luthra“The play touches on the limitations of violence. As a

long-term way of living, violence seems corrosive of our better intentions.”

High schools to present ‘Macbeth’ at South

Graduatedescribesher novelWon Heintzelman twice, was editor of ‘Thoughtprints’

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featuresFriday, May 1, 2009 Newton North, Newtonite ◆ 9

BY ILANA GREENSTEIN

AND ELLEN SARKISIAN

Ligerbots, combining North’s Tigers and South’s Lions for Newton high schools’ first-ever Robotics team, made it to the Na-tionals after winning the Rookie All-Star Award at the Boston Regionals.

In Atlanta, Ga., Newton placed 74th out of 87 in its division at the competition April 16-18.

Captains of the 45-member team, which includes 30 fresh-men, are senior Sarah Sanchez and South junior Jeremy Perl-man.

“We did really well at doing what we could and putting all our effort into it,” Perlman said.

“No matter what any person was doing, we had incredible enthusiasm. The team learned about working together and having pride in what they were doing.”

The competition, For Inspira-tional Recognition in Science and Technology, set specific size and weight limits for all robots. The robots could be no larger than 30” x 30” x 60” and weigh no more than 120 lbs.

But the most important rule of FIRST is gracious professional-ism, which means helping out other teams if they need help and doing community service, said freshman Mike Otten, who attended the Nationals with 29 other Newton team members.

“FIRST is about more than just making robots,” he said. “It’s about helping the commu-nity. It’s almost like its own little business.”

It is also about “getting people interested in science and technol-ogy,” said computer specialist Phil Golando, a coach. Other coaches are design and visual

communications teacher Sue Brooks, South science depart-ment head Chuck Hurwitz, South science teacher Jordan Kraus, science teacher Deborah Lund, tech and engineering teacher Scott Rosenhahn and South tech ed teacher Tim Stephens.

In January and February, Ligerbots built the robot at South in the engineering lab during a six-week session.

After the six-week build time was up, the members of the team could not touch the robot.

“The robot got shipped out,

and teams did not see it again until the actual competition,” Golando said.

The 350 teams in the com-petition from around the world were in four divisions: Archime-des, Galileo, Newton and Curie. Newton’s team was in the Curie division, Golando said.

In each division, all of the win-ners had experience in previous nationals, and they continued to compete against each other in the Einstein Field, he said.

At the Nationals, each team was paired with two others to

make an alliance. Alliances were randomly chosen and varied with each match, Golando said.

Describing how the competi-tions worked, freshman Paige Grody said each team has a trailer, which is like a bucket, at-tached to the robot.

The al l iance competed against another three-team alli-ance whose robots also have trail-ers attached to the back of them, Grody said. The goal is to shoot as many balls into the opponent’s trailers as possible.

There is also a person from

each team, called a shooter, standing behind a six-foot high glass wall in the corner of the arena shooting the balls by hand. The shooter is another way for the alliance to get balls in the other alliance’s trailers.The Drive Team for the robot includes the shooter, driver, controller and coach, Golando said.

Two people from the team ac-tually control the robot, he said. One controls the drive system and the other controls the ball lift and release mechanisms.The coach instructed the drivers about their robots’ surroundings.

Other members of the team would participate in the pit crew, scout, promote the team and take pictures.

Grody, freshman Ryan Byrne, South junior Elie Glick, and South senior Keng Wei Woo were on the drive team for Newton.

Funding for the team came from grants from multiple com-panies. The team’s biggest spon-sors are listed in their team name, 2877 NASA PTC BEC Raytheon Textron Newton Ligerbots.

EDCO competesat Gallaudet U.

In the Nationals . . .

High schools’ first-ever Robotics team goes to Atlanta

Ed Mulligan

In D.C.: Sophomore Tom Ansill, junior Gilberto Richardson, freshmen Ben Hollingsworth and Kellynette Gomez, and senior Janay Mitchell compete at the Gallaudet University Northeast Regional Academic Bowl. The team placed second, with speech specialist Joan Dale-Siskind and EDCO lead interpreter Melissa Phair coaching.

BY MARENA COLE

For the EDCO academic bowl team, going to the Nationals was an educational experience, said senior Janay Mitchell, a member.

“We played very well,” Mitch-ell said. “It was awesome.”

The EDCO team’s strongest events were math and science, Mitchell said.

North’s team was one of 16 at the Gallaudet University Aca-demic Bowl Nationals in Wash-ington, D.C., Saturday, April 25 to Monday, April 27.

Representing North were Mitchell, junior Gilberto Richard-son, sophomore Tom Ansil, and freshmen Kelleynette Gomez and Ben Hollingsworth.

Gathered in Washington were teams from five regions: New England, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, South and West.

“The teams from the West and Mid-Atlantic were standouts,” said EDCO director Ed Mulligan. “They won seven out of seven of their competitions.”

First place went to the Uni-versity High School team from

Irvine, Calif., he said. “They have a program similar

to the EDCO program in that it’s a regular high school with a significant number of Deaf and hard of hearing students,” Mul-ligan said,

“It was a great opportunity for our students to meet with bright and talented Deaf kids from across the country,” Mulligan said. “That was the best part of the competition.

“I think part of what you learn is that the Deaf world is much larger than we know it, and Deaf people have made many major contributions to society. Ques-tions from the Deaf culture cat-egory helped us to realize that.”

Mulligan said that the teams were separated into two pools with eight teams per pool. This school’s team won one of its games in its pool.

The University of Gallaudet has sponsored the event since 1999, he said.

“Gallaudet is the only liberal arts university exclusively for Deaf undergraduates,” he said.

Ligerbots. com

In the Regionals: The Ligerbots, this school and South’s robotics team, compete at Boston University in the For Inspirational Recognition in Science and Technology Boston Regional competition March 5-7. The team went on to the Nationals in Atlanta, Ga. April 16-18.


The best way to handle smoking is to never start.

If you do smoke and want to quit, you can find help. Talk to your school nurse or doctor.

You can find more information about smoking and quitting on our website www.nwh.org and through The American Cancer Society atwww.cancer.org, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at

www.cdc.gov/tobacco, and at www.gottaquit.com.

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featureFriday, May 1, 2009 Newton North, Newtonite ◆ 11

BY CHRIS WELCH

Dad’s office is 36,000 feet up in the air.

Even when he was a little boy, my dad wanted to fly.

“I remember having a book with a plane that looked like a giant wing with a playground on it, and I thought that was so cool,” he said. “I had many books about World War II fighter pilots, and all of them were so interesting.

“Aviation was still a relatively new thing when I was young, and not many people knew much about it.”

My dad, Wayne Welch, is a captain with American Airlines. He is based in Boston, and he has been flying for 30 years, 23 with American. Learned to fly in Navy

He joined the Navy in 1979 and spent five and a half years flying the P-3 Orion propeller plane. He then hunted Soviet submarines in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Now, for American Airlines, he flies Boeing 757s and 767s.

“After I graduated from Har-vard, I was debating between graduate school and the armed forces,” he said.

“I eventually chose the Navy, and I went to their flight school in Pensacola, Fla.

“After I finished Aviation Of-ficer Candidate School, I started off at ground school, which lasted about two months.

“Here we learned about flying through class work, tests and simulators.

“I flew my first solo after two months of flying with an instruc-tor. I got my wings and became a naval aviator nine months after completing flight school. I went through training and flight school relatively quickly.

“Some students can take up to two years, but a little less than a year is about normal. The Navy is very demanding, and you are always expected to be prepared.

“If you don’t pass a flight then you get a ‘down,’ and too many ‘downs’ can result in your being removed from flight status and being kicked out of flight school. About one-third of the students don’t complete training.”

While he was in the Navy, my dad was stationed at Moffet Field Naval Air Station in California; Corpus Christi, Texas; Adak, Alaska Naval Station; Misawa, Japan; and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

“I was stationed mostly on the West Coast and in the Pacific, he said. “I was in Patrol Squad 50, nicknamed the Blue Dragons.” Pathways to flight

My dad learned to fly in the Navy, but there are other ways to start flying.

All of the armed forces offer a path to flight school.

“Commercial airlines used to accept about 80 percent of their pilots from the military in the 1990s, but now that number is down to about 70 percent,” my dad said.

Aspiring pilots can attend private flight schools where they can learn to fly with an instructor and obtain their license without joining the military.

“Learning privately can cost about $10,000, or about $250 an hour, depending on if you fly through a school or through an airport trainer,” my dad said.

“If you learn privately, you have to pay for instruction, fuel and rentals.

“Then you have to work your way up through small airlines and local flying with small planes.

Father tells why he loves his job as a pilot

After years of that and amassing 1,000-2,000 hours, you can apply to one of the major airlines like American, Delta or Continental.

“Not everyone can fly a plane,” my dad said. “You have to have 20-20 vision, and you can’t have any medical problems.

“The military and airlines will accept anyone of any race or sex, and more women are choosing aviation now because there are no longer restrictions against women in the military.

“A civilian pilot does not need to have a college degree. How-ever, all military officers must have a degree to be commis-sioned and must have attended flight school.

“When I was through with the Navy in 1984, there were a few airlines that were interested in hiring me, and American was one of them.

“At the time, American was the largest airline in the world because it had the most airplanes and flew to the most destinations. I liked the airline and so I eventu-ally was hired by them in 1986.”

American Airlines flies to large cities in Europe including London, Paris and Rome, and it is also popular in the Caribbean, along with South and Central America, my dad said.

“It flies to Alaska, Beijing, Canada, Hawaii, India, Mexico, Russia, Shanghai and Tokyo,” my dad said.

“We do not yet fly to Africa. That can change, but American has to get the State Department to reach an agreement with the foreign governments.

“It is a negotiation process, and each country wants to pro-

tect its own airlines’ interests, so many don’t want U.S. airlines flying into their airports.” Caribbean often his destination

My father usually flies to the Caribbean, but he also goes to London and Paris.

Depending on his schedule, he is gone about 15 days a month.

On a regular morning, my dad gets up about three hours before takeoff. He is at the airport at least an hour and a half ahead of time.

He parks in the employee lot in Chelsea and then takes a bus to the terminal where he heads to flight operations.

American Airlines is in Termi-nal B at Logan, and operations is on the first floor.

In operations, my dad said, he gets his mail and his kit bag, which contain all his manuals for the plane.

He then pulls up the flight plan and loads the information.

The flight plan is a list with all the information about the flight including the routing, the fuel, the passenger load, the weather and the mechanical information about the plane. If that is all in order, my dad signs the flight plan and heads up to the gate.

At the gate, he checks in with the gate agents to coordinate the boarding process. Then he heads down to the plane where he and the copilot run through some checklists and prepare for departure.

The copilot goes out onto the ramp and walks around the airplane, checking its exterior for problems like dents, leaks

and other things that could be hazardous.

Then, my dad and the copilot complete more checklists as they taxi to the runway, prepare for takeoff “and then blastoff into the air after getting clearance from the tower,” my dad said.

“The autopilot is on most of the time after we level off at our cruising altitude,” my dad said.

“We do radio checks with air traffic control to report the condi-tions and our position. We then prepare for landing with more checklists and briefings.”

Either the captain or the co-pilot flies the whole leg, takeoff to landing, while the other pilot handles the checklists and the radio communications.

They then taxi to the gate and power down the plane. “We make sure all the passengers are off and I usually say goodbye to them as they leave and thank them for flying with American,” my dad said.

“I then accompany the crew to the hotel if we are staying overnight and then leave the next day.

“If it is a one-day trip, or a turnaround, then we get off the plane while it is cleaned and pre-pare for the leg back to Boston.

“I love my job,” my dad said. “It can be challenging and I have a lot of responsibilities, but I have made a lot of friends flying and it is a fun job.

“One thing that is unique about my job is that it stops when I leave the airport.

“I can’t bring work home with me. It is all done on the plane. That leaves me lots of time to spend with my family.”

Dave Barnes

Ready for takeoff: Capt. Wayne Welch finishes the final checks of the plane as he prepares to depart for St. Thomas.

Student has hisjuniorlicenseBY CHRIS WELCH

Junior Nick Bryant is learning to become a pilot, and he already has his junior pilot’s license.

“All my life I have been inter-ested in flying,” he said. “The idea just fascinated me.

“I was 10 years old at the time of my first intro flight. I flew out of Minute Man Airfield in Stow. I took my first lesson at the Mans-field airport when I was 14, and I did everything but the landing.

“At these lessons I learned about all the instruments, both what they did and how to use them. I learned about the tech-niques of flying and how to do landings and takeoffs.

“The lessons cost about $8,000 to $10,000 including the plane rentals and the costs for the dif-ferent textbooks.”

Currently, Bryant flies the-Cessna 172 and 152 high wing planes out of Cessna Hanscom, where he has a private instruc-tor.

“I do about four-hour-long flights usually,” he said. “I haven’t soloed yet but I do have my stu-dent pilot’s certificate, which allows me to do so when I am ready.”

featuresFriday, May 1, 2009 Newton North, Newtonite ◆ 13

Days of Remembrance

BY OLIVIA STEARNS

One of the hardest parts of thinking about the Holocaust is to realize that no one will ever know why it happened, said Elizabeth Dopazo, a survivor.

“It’s like a puzzle, and at the end there will still be pieces miss-ing, which is frustrating because nobody will ever know how or why everything happened,” she said.

“Many people have written, denying that the Holocaust ever

BY ELLEN SARKISIAN

If the world had reacted strongly and immediately against the Armenian genocide, the Nazis would not have been able to kill 11 million people during World War II, Apo Torosyan said.

Torosyan, whose father sur-vived the genocide, showed his documentary “The Morgen-thau Story,” and Roger Hago-pian showed his film “Victory at Van.”

“In 1915, one and a half mil-lion Armenians were murdered,” Torosyan said.

But he said his message was “not hate, but hope.”

“I believe every single one of you can make a difference,” he said to the students and faculty assembled in the film lecture hall Wednesday, April 8.

“ We c a n n o t s a y, ‘ W h o cares?’”

Because there is now a “global environment,” Torosyan said, even if problems are taking place far from home, they deserve thoughtful attention.

“It could happen in your back-yard if you don’t care,” he said.

Torosyan cited a lack of pun-ishment for the actions of the Ot-tomans toward the Armenians.

He also said the world’s inat-tention was what led Hitler, the night before the Nazi attack on Poland in 1939, to ask rhetori-cally, “Who remembers the Ar-menians?”

Hagopian, a film maker whose father was a survivor of the geno-cide, said that in 1915, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were deported and murdered.

Of more than 2 million Arme-nians, 1.5 million were killed, he said.

“We are still, at this moment, striving for recognition around the world,” he said.

The first movie on the pro-gram, “Victory at Van,” tells of an uprising during World War I of Armenians living in the Van

region, in what is now Eastern Turkey but which Armenians refer to as Western Armenia.Citizens of Van take stand, defend selves

After locating the area, the film goes on to show that the people in the city of Van did not want to “go down like sheep.”

Newsreel footage shows them defending themselves in spite of their lack of weapons and resources.

The Russians, who were fight-ing in World War I against the Ottoman Empire, took control of the Van region in 1916.

They aided the Armenians but retreated in 1917 when the Czar’s army collapsed. The area fell again under Turkish control and to this day remains part of Turkey.

“The Armenians were pawns,” Hagopian said.“The Russians were not invading to defend the Armenians.”

Survivors walked for three weeks, desperate for water and food, and the city of Yerevan, the capital of Russian Armenia, “was filled with corpses,” the film says.

Turkish censorship delayed news during this time, but Clar-ence Ussher, who had been the head of the American hospital in Van, set up a relief committee in the United States in late 1915 to help refugees in Russian Ar-menia who had been evacuated from Van.Morgenthau aimed to raised awareness

The second film, “The Mor-genthau Story,” is about the ef-forts of Henry Morgenthau, U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 1913 to 1916 during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, to stop the Ar-menian genocide and to alert the world that it was going on.

In 1915, while Morgenthau was serving in Constantinople, he unsuccessfully appealed to the

BY ELLIOT RAFF

Rev. Elisee Rutagambwa, a graduate student and priest, traced the history of the genocide in Rwanda.

Rutagambwa told students Monday, April 6 that more than one million died in the genocide, and he expressed his distaste for the world’s reaction.

“Everyone knew a genocide was being prepared, and the world turned its back,” Ru-tagambwa said.

The lack of response created fear because it gave the impres-sion that the United Nations was sanctioning the murder of hundreds of thousands of people,

Ottomans but then came home to communicate to this country and to the world about what was go-ing on. He collected about 30,000 documents, the film says.

Then, in 1923, in the aftermath of the Greek and Assyrian geno-cide, Morgenthau helped save survivors by leading relief efforts in Greece, the film says.

Two of his grandsons, Henry Morgenthau III, a television producer and an author, and Robert Morgenthau, just retired as district attorney in New York City, and one of Henry, Sr.’s great-granddaughters, Pamela Steiner, comment in the documentary.

All three discuss Morgen-thau’s life and their position on Turkish acceptance of the geno-cide, which Turkey still officially denies.

Henry Morgenthau III says that instead of denying the genocide, Turkey should “find redemption by accepting what happened and trying to make restitution.”

He also says he likes to think of himself as “an honorary Ar-menian” because of what his grandfather achieved in efforts to alert the world.

Robert Morgenthau com-ments, “If the world had reacted to the genocide of Armenians, Hitler would have been reluctant to go out and kill Jews in a whole-sale fashion.”

Near the end of the film, Stein-er, who has a master’s in govern-ment from Harvard, explores what reconciliation means:

◆stating the truth◆acknowledging the truth◆reparations◆restitution◆giving a promise not to re-

peat.◆memorialization, and◆changing the history books.At the end of the presentation,

Torosyan and Hagopian greeted another of Morgenthau’s great-granddaughters, English teacher Helen Smith.

happened, and I want to make sure that people know that it did.”

The Nazis’ records have made it almost impossible to ignore the evidence, she said.

“It is not as important to know exactly how many millions of people were killed in the geno-cide as it is to keep in mind that every individual who died was somebody’s family member or somebody’s loved one.”

Dopazo was born in 1929 in Sachsenburg, a small town in Southeast Germany, and lived there in the beginning of World War II.

Her parents belonged to a small Christian sect, and they suffered persecution because of their religious affiliation, she said.

“Both of my parents were taken by the Nazis and put in jail,” Dopazo said.

Eventually, she said, her moth-er was released.

“After my mother was re-leased, we ran away to a small town in Northern Germany to hide at my grandparents’ house,” she said.

“My father was sent to Sach-senhausen, a concentration camp for ‘enemies of the state,’ where he was killed by the Nazis.

“Once we moved, we couldn’t have any friends or talk to any-

one.” Offering advice to the current

generation of teen-agers, Dopazo said, “Try not to get too hung up on material things because they can go away in a second, even without a war or genocide.

“Get involved whenever you see something that is wrong in the world and always have your eyes and ears open for ways you can help.”

Dopazo gave an on campus presentation Tuesday, April 7.

Survivor discusses causes of the Holocaust

Movie depicts Rwandan genocide

Matt Kalish

“Victory at Van:” Roger Hagopian, whose father was a survivor of the Armenian genocide, introduces his film on campus during a Day of Remembrance Wednesday, April 8.

Two show their films about Armenian massacre

Gaby Perez-Dietz

Day of Remembrance: Elisee Rutagambwa speaks in the film lecture hall Monday, April 6 about the genocide in Rwanda.

on campus

he said.“You have no idea what it’s like

to have backs turned on you by the entire world,” Rutagambwa said.

The genocide was a result of longstanding conflict between the government and refugees and was sparked by the plane crash of the Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, he said.

Police and the army were actively using force against their own citizens, he said of the vio-lence between the Hutus and the Tutsis.

“It was difficult to separate the people because despite their ethnic differences, they shared everything,” Rutagambwa said. “The division was manufactured, calculated. It did not happen by accident.”

The Rwandan government has since established laws to suppress the divisions that had prevailed for years, Rutagambwa said. Now, he said, it is illegal to form political parties based on ethnicity.

Rutagambwa also presented a documentary of the history of Rwanda entitled “Rwanda: Will the Scars Ever Heal?”

It traces escalating conflicts

that have been present between the Hutus and Tutsis since Bel-gium granted Rwanda indepen-dence in 1962.

The film shows images of large graves into which bodies were bulldozed.

Survivors and relatives of survivors give their accounts of the slaughter.

One woman tells her story of the initial arrival of the refugees in 1990, after Rwanda’s borders had been closed.

Suddenly, she says, every refugee was an enemy, and the government was encouraging the murder of its own citizens.

sports Friday, May 1, 200814 ◆ Newtonite, Newton North

Powder puffunlikelythisspring

Senior biker rides 3,012 miles from coast to coastBY EMILY MCLAUGHLIN

To notice and experience this country, senior Dan Kulla biked 3,012 miles

from Savannah, Ga., to Los An-geles last summer.

With initial encouragement from his older sister Jill Kulla ’08, the idea “grew on me,” Kulla said.

He said he never thought he would visit rural Mississippi or Arkansas, which he described as “unexpectedly beautiful.”

“Cars are sealed shut and don’t let you experience the world,” Kulla.

Instructed to pre-train and con-dition before the journey, most of the group— 12 other teen-agers and two leaders— decided not to, making the first week tough on everyone, Kulla said.

A bike carrying clothes, sleep-ing gear, water and repair tools weighs about 40 lbs., and ped-aling all day is exhausting, he said.

Taking the trip, called Ameri-can Challenge, costs $5,295, according to the Overland Co. Website.

Every day the group would

go grocery shopping, which was always fun, Kulla said.

“Walking around in your Span-dex bike shorts and cleats with metal on the bottom sounded like tap shoes clanking up and down the aisles,” he said, laughing as he remembered the looks they got from shoppers.

“Everyone got along pretty well, but each person had up and down days,” he said.

Both the back and front of the line were nice— the back because you could talk with others and the front because you were ahead so you finished faster giving you a longer rest, he said.

Rest was important because after “biking 80 miles, no one was bouncing off the walls,” Kulla said.

Traveling through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Colorado, Arizona and California, the group avoided the interstate because it is illegal for bikers, Kulla said.

A secondary interstate was good because it was straight and direct, with less traffic and wide shoulders, Kulla said.

Talking about challenges, Kulla said that mountain passes and head winds made biking hard.

“You had to put forth more effort to push through the winds while they blew directly at you,” he recalled.

“Kansas was difficult because of the headwinds, and it isn’t as flat as they say,” Kulla said.

“Tail winds, on the other hand, made it fun because they pushed you along.”

Remembering when he fin-ished and reached the Pacific Ocean, Kulla smiled. After 3,012 miles and 44 days, he accom-plished the trip.

“It’s humbling to think that I rode my bike for six weeks across the country, then took a six-hour plane ride home,” Kulla said.

Softball has five-game winning streak

Dan Kulla

“It’s humbling to think that I rode my bike for six weeks across the country, then took a six-hour plane

ride home.”

Teddy Wenneker

She’s out: Senior Tiffany Hamann tags out a runner Monday, April 13 against Braintree at Cabot Park. The Wamps won 10-0.

courtesy Brian Ash

On the road: Senior Dan Kulla rides his bike to the end of his cross-country trip from Georgia to California.

BY ELI DAVIDOW Powder puff football captains

from the junior and senior classes said a game this spring looks fairly unlikely.

The two teams had a game scheduled November 23 at Alber-marle Field, but it didn’t happen because the city did not turn on the lights there.

Tom Cahill of the Parks and Recreation Department said afterward that no one from this school had gotten a field permit from the department, which would allow the lights to be turned on.

Afterward, athletic director Tom Giusti said the event would be good if it were “organized properly” compared to years past.

“I would want the powder puff game to be played in a healthy sense,” he said this week. “I don’t want division between the classes.”

Also, it would help if there were a supervisor who would “seek a proper field permit, date and time for the game before-hand,” Giusti said.

Senior Diana Salvucci, a co-captain for ’09 with seniors Alys-sa Hansen, Sarah Lavalle and Lizzie Weilburg, said the chance of the game occurring “just de-pends on how many people still want to play.”

“Both teams have all the shirts made up and all, so we have ev-erything that we need,” she said. “I still hope that it happens.”

Junior Jess Fugazzotto, a co-captain for ’10 with juniors Sam-my Alpert and Jenny Mullin, said many of the coaches, who are members of the football team, play sports in the spring. She said that it lessens the possibility of a game happening.

BY EMMETT GREENBERG

Having won its last five games, softball is on a roll.

But hosting Needham today the Tigers, 8-4, can expect a challenge, coach Lauren Baugher said.

“I hope we keep playing well as a team, and everyone is able to contribute,” she said.

Against Framingham Monday, the Tigers need to take care of the little things, Baugher said.

“We just need to play good de-fense and hit the ball the way we did last time against them when we won 3-0,” she said, referring to the Tigers’ victory in Faming-ham Tuesday, April 14.

Braintree, which made it to the semi-finals in the States last year and beat the Tigers 10-0 in Braintree Monday, April 13, hosts

the Tigers next Friday. Baugher predicted the game “will be a good test for us.”

Mental errors were a problem in the previous Braintree game, said senior Kate Pellegrini, a right fielder.

“We let their record scare us,” she said. “We’re a solid team and we can go in and win any game we want.

“Our hitting is solid, and we’re strong on offense.”

Pellegrini said that she enjoys the unity the team has.

“We’re energized, unified and we’re really close together,” Pel-legrini said. “The best part of the team is just working together and being able to learn life lessons from each other.

“We have great players, and

some good freshmen.”Senior Tiffany Hamann, an

infielder, cited seniors Rae Copan and Allison Clott and freshman Katie Caruso as key players.

“Rae is doing a really good job pitching,” she said. “Allison has been on varsity for four years and played through the pain of a thumb injury.

“Katie is doing well adjusting to the varsity level of playing, and she’s playing like she’s always been on varsity.”

Wednesday, the Tigers won 28-7 in Brookline.

“We just hit really well,” Baugher said. “We put the ball in play, and made the run.”

The Tigers defeated Belmont 2-0 Tuesday in Belmont, and Mil-ton 5-2 Monday at Milton.

Against Belmont, “Rae Copan was one for two with an RBI and struck out eight people, and Me-lissa Jewitt was one for one with two stolen bases,” Baugher said.

Saturday, with seven runs in the fifth inning, the Tigers de-feated Lincoln-Sudbury 8-4 in Sudbury.

Earlier, at Weymouth April 16, the Tigers won 13-3.

“All of our starters had at least one hit,” Baugher said. “We just hit really well overall.”

Wednesday, April 15 Walpole beat the Tigers, 8-7, and Tuesday April 14, the Tigers beat Framing-ham 3-0 at home.

“We were prepared,” Baugher said. “At one point, we were win-ning 7-2 and then Walpole scored five runs in the third inning.”

sportsFriday, May 1, 2008 Newton North, Newtonite ◆ 15

Boys’ tennis, 5-4, lacks experience but compensates

Girls’ lacrosse adjustsits approach on offense

Boys’ lacrosse to focus on communication

Girls’ tennis builds chemistry

BY JOSH BAKAN

Despite its lack of experience of players, boys’ tennis, 5-4, is finding ways to win.

“We don’t have much depth,” coach Phil Goldberg said. “We’re a young team. We only have four seniors.”

Senior Ben Cassidy, a captain with senior Andrew Whittum, also said inexperience has been “a weakness,” but he cited sopho-more Zev Cariani and freshman Parker Swiston for their improve-

BY ELI DAVIDOW

By putting emphasis on its offense, girls’ lacrosse, 2-5, is beginning to earn some victories, said junior Kim Gillies, a co-cap-tain with seniors Allysa Hansen and Amanda Taylor, and junior Brittany Jaillet.

“In the beginning, we focused a lot on defense because we didn’t have a lot of returning players there,” she said. “But recently, we have shifted our focus around the offensive zone.”

Senior Mary McGrath and junior Julia Dzambia have had major roles in the Tigers’ offen-sive improvement, Gillies said, noting that Dzambia “has gotten some key goals.”

Today, the Tigers visit Natick, a team that is “having a bit of trouble this season,” Gillies said.

Monday, the Tigers visit Brain-tree, which has given the Tigers “good competition” in the past, Gillies said.

“Last year, both games that we played against them were pretty close,” she said.

Wednesday hosting Dedham, the Tigers expect to play “a generally physical team,” Gillies

BY MEREDITH ABRAMS

Eliminating undisciplined mis-takes with better communication is a focus for the boys’ lacrosse team, said senior Brian Tully, a captain.

“We need to work as a unit on offense, getting six guys on the same page,” Tully said.

Younger players such as soph-omores T.J. Ryan, Dia Berger and Josh Winik, are large contribu-tors, Tully said.

Hosting Natick today, the Ti-gers “have to continue to improve because Natick is a strong team,” coach Bussy Adam said.

Braintree would be another

BY NICOLE CURHAN

Girls’ tennis needs to stay fo-cused for each match, said senior Anitra Kloczewiak, a captain with senior Peri Silverman.

“Tennis is a very mental sport,” Kloczewiak said.

“You have to pump yourself up. If you lose a point, you can’t let it get to you, and you have to try your hardest no matter what the score is.”

The team, 5-2, has also strengthened its chemistry over-all, she said.

“We’ve gotten to know each other a lot better even though tennis is an individual sport,” she said.

In Needham today and in Framingham Monday, the Tigers match up well to their opponents, coach John Gautschi said.

Teddy Wenneker

Down the field: Sophomore Cristina Leone cradles the ball from Neeham defenders Monday. The Rockets won 17-5.

said. “They also go for all the 50-50

balls,” she said. “They’re a quick and scrappy team, so I hope that we surpass their aggression.”

A solid Weymouth team visits the Tigers Friday, Gillies said.

“They have a very strong player who plays attack, so we’re going to focus on shutting her down,” she said.

Monday, May 11 in Wellesley, the Tigers will play an élite team, Gillies said.

In order to beat Brookline here Wednesday, May 13, the Ti-gers must play the way they did the first time they played them, Gillies said.

Before vacation, the Tigers got a big victory in Brookline Friday, April 17, winning 15-4, Gillies said.

“It was a rough start because it was pretty even,” she said. “But then we settled in and we started connecting passes.

“Brookline is not known to be the best team, but we came out to win because we knew we needed it.

“We’ll have to just score a few quick goals and have quick

transitions,” she said. “We’ll have to keep moving around on offense.”

Wednesday, Framingham de-feated the Tigers here 15-2.

“Framingham is a really strong team,” Gillies said. “We weren’t able to possess the ball on of-fense, and they kept getting the fast break.”

Monday, Needham beat the Tigers 17-5, in a game Gillies called “a blow-out.”

“We were unfocused in the first half, scrambling around,” she said. “There was some confusion in who was marking whom.”

Wednesday, April 15 Milton edged the Tigers 8-7.

“We started off well, but to-wards the end of the first half we got a lot of calls,” Gillies said. “They capitalized on our off mo-ments, and it brought our heads down.”

The Tigers got their first vic-tory defeating Weymouth 13-10 Monday, April 13.

“Overall, our transitions from defense to offense were great,” Gillies said. “We began to pass the ball down the field, not run.

“We weren’t afraid to take a shot.”

challenge Monday, as it is typi-cally a “match that is usually pretty physical,” Adam said.

Wednesday at Dedham, the Tigers are “the better team, so it should be a game we can domi-nate,” Adam said.

In Weymouth Friday, the team hopes to repeat its victory.

The Tigers defeated Wey-mouth 11-10 Tuesday, April 14.

“It was a very close game, but was good because five differ-ent people scored goals,” Adam said.

This time, he said, the Tigers are going to have to shoot bet-

ter. Visiting Wellesley Monday

May 11 and Brookline Wednes-day May 13, the Tigers will have to play well to win, but they still have plenty of time to improve, Adam said.

In a “big win,” the Tigers de-feated Brookline 6-2 Friday, April 17 at home.

“That game was probably our best game yet,” Adam said. “It was especially important because it was a Bay State Conference game.

“We need to work together to have all 10 players working as a

team, instead of relying on just one or two guys,” Adam said.

“We’re taking small steps to improve every day.

“The team is working hard, so there is a big sense of im-provement, especially on ground balls.”

However, Adam said the Tigers need to shoot more accurately.

“Shooting and shot selection are important, but the biggest thing is to maintain possession of the ball and avoid giving the ball up and having unforced errors.”

At Framingham Wednesday, the Tigers won 11-3.

“We won off hard work and hustle,” Tully said. “Going into the fourth quarter, we were up 4-1, and we just executed plays and put our shots away.”

Needham defeated the Tigers 13-7 Monday, and Lincoln-Sud-bury defeated the Tigers 16-5 at home Wednesday April 22.

Regarding Lincoln-Sudbury, Adam said the game was “prob-ably our worst game of the sea-son. We had 28 turnovers.”

Wednesday April 15 at Milton, the team won 13-4, with juniors Scott Giusti and Mike Vaglica each scoring four goals.

“Whether we win depends on the flexibility of our team and how our players play,” he said.

“We have to play strong.“If do well against Needham

and Framingham, we have a chance of success this season.”

Against Natick Wednesday, the match is expected to go smoothly, Gautschi said.

When the Tigers visit Braintree Friday and host Dedham Monday, May 11, they are not expecting a challenge, Gautschi said.

“We will be able to handle both of them,” he said.

Thursday, May 14, the Tigers’ match here against Wellesley will be difficult, Gautschi said.

“It’s not out of reach at all for us, but by the time we play them, we need to be ready to go,” he said.

In recent action, the Tigers defeated Brookline 5-0 Wednes-day at Brookline.

“It was a great match,” Silver-man said. Matches were “tough, with several going into a third set, but we came through.”

At Milton Monday, April 27, the Tigers won 4-1.

“In the first doubles we were tied at 1-1, but by the second doubles we were in control,” Gautschi said. “It was icing on the cake to win.”

Friday, April 17, the Tigers won 3-2 hosting Weymouth.

Wednesday, April 15, Walpole edged the Tigers here 3-2.

Tuesday, April 14 in Fram-ingham the Flyers defeated the Tigers 4-1, and Monday, April 13 the Tigers beat Braintree here 3-2.

ment.“They’re very versatile,” he

said. “They can play many posi-tions in he lineup.”

Today the Tigers visit Need-ham, which is “having a good comeback season after a down year last year,” Cassidy said. “They have two very good fresh-men at first and second singles.”

Monday, the team visits Fram-ingham, which “plays very hard,” Cassidy said.

The Tigers host Natick Wednes-

day and then host Braintree Fri-day, having defeated the Wamps 3-2 here Monday, April 13. Senior Parv Mital made the difference, winning at third singles.

“Natick has usually been a weak team, but they have rela-tively strong singles players,” Cassidy said.

Monday, May 11, the Tigers visit Dedham and then Wey-mouth Wednesday, May 13, both of which are “relatively weak teams,” Cassidy said.

Thursday, May 14, the Tigers face stronger competition in their second visit to Wellesley, which beat the Tigers 5-0 Thursday, April 23.

“They dominated us,” Cassidy said. “They’re one of the top two or three teams in the state. They’re very deep.”

In recent action, Brookline beat the Tigers 5-0 here Wednes-day, when the Tigers’ first singles player, junior Dan Stein was out sick, Cassidy said.

“Everyone had to move up a spot,” Cassidy said. “It was diffi-cult because Brookline is a pretty deep team.”

At Milton Monday, the Tigers won 5-0.

The Tigers won 5-0 hosting Weymouth Friday, April 17 and hosting Walpole Wednesday, April 15.

Framingham, which has the best player in the state, senior Fan Del, beat the Tigers 5-0 Tues-day, April 14, Cassidy said.

Teddy Wenneker

At Newton South: Junior Micah Dornfeld plays second singles.

sports Friday, May 1, 200816 ◆ Newtonite, Newton North

Volleyball has second chance to beat Natick

Pitchers, defenseboost baseball Tigers visit rival Needham today

Teddy Wenneker

Hosting Brookline: Senior Chris McCann, a captain, goes up for the spike. The Tigers beat the Warriors Monday, April 13 3-1.

Gaby Perez-Dietz

At shortstop: Senior James Krasker, a captain, warms up for Weymouth here Friday, Aptril 17. Weymouth won 12-6.

BothtrackteamscruisingalongBY MEREDITH ABRAMS

AND JOSH BAKAN

Boys’ and girls’ track will send team mem-bers to the Weston

Twilight Invitational tomorrow. Then they compete in Need-

ham Tuesday before sending individuals to the Coaches Meet at Durfee next Saturday and then to Framingham Tuesday, May 12.Boys make up for injuries

For the boys, senior Tony Chen, a captain with seniors Sam Arsenault, Jared Forman and Dan Hamilton will miss the rest of the season because of an arm injury.

“He’s our top hurdler and triple jumper,” coach Jim Black-burn said.

However, the Tigers have been able to make up for inju-ries well, Blackburn said.

“We don’t have many weak-nesses,” he said. “We’re good in every event.”

Hamilton said the Tigers’ strengths are “the throwing team and the distance team.”

In Needham, the boys will face a team that’s “not so strong,” Blackburn said.

At the Coaches Meet, “all our top people will participate,” Blackburn said.

Framingham has “more people then usual and a few better runners then they’ve had in past years,” Blackburn said.

Tuesday at Braintree, the Tigers won 85-47, having won 82-53 Tuesday, April 21 in Wey-mouth.

The Tigers were to have vis-ited Norwood Thursday.Girls work on fine tuning

Speaking about the girls, senior Michele Kaufman, a captain with seniors Sophie Duncan, Emma Kornetsky and Carolyn Ranti said, “Practices are a lot more focused.

“Everybody is fine-tuning and getting ready for the bigger meets.”

At the Weston Twilight Invi-tational, “there will be strong competition, and it will be good for new runners to experience a night meet,” Kaufman said.

Visiting Needham, Kaufman said, the meet will not be dif-ficult.

“They have good runners, but they just don’t have as much depth or experience,” she said.

After the State Coaches Meet, the girls visit Fram-ingham for “a good match,” Kaufman said.

According to coach Joe Tranchita, “The team is doing really well at this stage of the game, but we still need consis-tency, mainly in sprints and in general.”

Against Braintree Tuesday, the Tigers won 94-35. The Ti-gers defeated Weymouth 78-58 Tuesday, April 14.

Yesterday, the Tigers were to have visited Norwood.

BY JACOB BRUNELL

Boys’ volleyball, 5-1, has been successful despite inexperience, senior Jon

Lee said.“We have a more athletic team

than expected,” Lee said. “We’re more athletic than we’ve been in previous years.

“Occasionally we get down on ourselves because of our errors, but when we play to our potential potential, we can beat almost anyone.”

Freshman Luke Westman has stood out, he said.

“He’s been able to take over the leading role of being our start-ing setter,” Lee said.

Along with contributions from young players, the Tigers have been effective under the lead-ership of Lee and senior Chris McCann, coach Richard Barton said.

“Not only have we worked on the basic skills like setting, pass-ing and spiking, but also we have worked on a new, more advanced type of offense that we hope will help us continue winning this season,” Barton said.

Today, the Tigers host against Natick, the only team they have lost to so far this season in a match Natick won 3-2 Monday, April 6.

“Natick is definitely one of the better teams in the state, and one of the best in our conference, so it will be interesting to see what happens the second time around,” Barton said.

Monday the Tigers will host Framingham, a team the Tigers defeated 3-1 here Wednesday, April 8.

“They’re a very scrappy team,” Lee said. “They have a lot of talent, but they don’t play to-

gether.”The Tigers will visit Brookline

Wednesday for a rematch, hav-ing won the first match here 3-1 Monday, April 13.

“They’re a great team,” Lee said. “They’re more experienced than we are. They have some great returning players.”

Friday, the Tigers visit Nor-wood, “a very well-rounded team,” and then Monday, May 11, they visit Braintree, “a team with a lot of experienced play-

ers,” Lee said.Wednesday, May 13 the Tigers

visit Weymouth another team with “a lot of juniors and seniors,” Lee said.

In recent action, the Tigers beat Needham here 3-1 Wednes-day.

“After we lost the first set, we were a lot more focused,” Lee said.

Monday, the Tigers beat Wey-mouth 3-0 here.

“Our passing was above aver-

age, our setting was very good and our hitting was unstoppable,” Lee said.

Friday, April 17, the Tigers beat Braintree here 3-2 after beat-ing Norwood here 3-0 Wednes-day, April 15.

“We got off to a good start and then we took over the game,” Lee said.

Monday, April 13, the Tigers beat Brookline here 3-1.

“They’re a great team, but we really played our own game,” he said.

BY JOSH BAKAN

Baseball, 2-5, has strug-gled on offense without senior Billy Uberti, the

Tigers’ best hitter, but the team has compensated with pitching and defense, coach Joe Siciliano said.

“Our pitchers are spotting the fastball and throwing the curve for a strike,” Siciliano said. “All the pitchers are better than they were their first time out.”

About the defense, Siciliano said that the team strives for two errors or less per game.

Sophomore Lucas Mosca has improved at hitting on offense, said senior James Krasker, a cap-tain with Uberti and seniors Alex Clark and Lenny Tocci.

Top pitchers have been juniors Eric Howard and Borja Jones, Krasker said.

Today, the Tigers visit Need-ham, and Monday they visit Framingham.

“Needham is a fundamen-tally sound team,” Siciliano said. “They get timely hits, which make for tough outs. They’ll be quite a challenge.

“Framingham pitches well and hits well. You have to be on your ‘A’ game against them. One of their pitchers threw a no-hitter this season.”

Wednesday, the Tigers host Natick, a “young team,” and Fri-day hosting Braintree they’ll play a team with good pitching and good hitting, Siciliano said.

Natick coach Josh Hanna described the squad as “under-

classman-dominated.“We have played a difficult

schedule up to this point and we’ve had five one-run games, but the team has a positive at-titude.”

Monday, May 11, the Tigers visit Dedham, which is young and struggling, Siciliano said.

The competition will be more challenging Wednesday, May 13 when the Tigers visit Weymouth and the next day when they visit Wellesley, Siciliano said.

In recent action, Brookline beat the Tigers here 3-2 Wednes-day.

Monday at Milton, the Wild-cats beat the Tigers 9-6, a game in which the Tigers “struggled defensively,” Krasker said.

Friday, April 24, Catholic Me-morial beat the Tigers here 1-0.

“Eric Howard pitched very well for us,” Krasker said. “We just couldn’t get many hits off their pitcher.”

Wednesday, April 23 at Xave-rian, the Hawks won 4-1 and Friday, April 17, Weymouth beat the Tigers 12-6 here.

Weymouth led 9-0 in the sec-ond inning, but the Tigers came back in the fifth, trailing 9-6.

“We got our bats going, but the game was called off in the middle of the eighth,” Krasker said.

Wednesday, April 15, the Ti-gers beat Walpole 7-3.

Braintree beat the Tigers 7-3 at Braintree Tuesday, April 14 and Thursday, April 9, the Tigers beat Framingham 9-8 in the 12th

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