2012 Alumni Events - Winter & Spring
Enjoy these opportunities to connect with your fellow Bruins:
Alumni Squash Tournament - Friday, January 6, 6:00 PM, Meadow Mill Athletic Club
Alumni Basketball Game - Monday, January 9, 5:30 PM, Lakin Performance Court, Park Athletic Center
4th Annual Park School Bull & Oyster Roast - Saturday, January 28, 7:00 PM, Park Athletic Center
Park on the Road: Chicago - Thursday, March 8, 6:30 PM, Location TBA
Park on the Road: Boston - Wednesday, April 18, Time & Location TBA
Park Alumni Weekend 2012 - Friday & Saturday, June 1 & 2 (Full schedule of events to be posted this spring.)
Please check back often as more events will be added to the calendar as the year progresses. For more information on any of the dates above, please contact Alumni Coordinator Pailin Gaither at 410.339.4114 or pgaither@parkschool.net.
posted: 06/01/2012 | Contact: Pailin Gaither
The following announcement was sent to the Park Community on February 3, 2012.
Dear Friend of Park –
I am sorry to inform you that Jack Russell, longtime Park teacher and drama coach, passed away on January 31.
Jack taught at Park from 1954 to 1975. In that time, he served as Head of the Upper School English Department, while also wearing numerous other hats. As Manfred Schweitzer wrote upon Jack's departure, "A man who can, in addition to meeting a demanding full-time job, also be a dynamic director of our dramatics, an innovative, imaginative, creative director of a drama organization, an initiator of our film program, the adviser to many classes and individuals is, in a very real sense, irreplaceable." Bob Thomason recalled, "His students idolize him for the breadth of his knowledge and the depths of his insights. They quote him to their parents at the dinner table; they willingly work long and hard on his very demanding assignments. And when he directs them in dramatics, they give remarkably sensitive performances."
Jack, ever a friend to the Park School community, will be missed by all who knew him. But for those who regret his absence, we have Jack's own words from the 1962 Brownie as consolation, "it never really ends, for schools say yes to life and laughing faces…"
Sincerely,
Pailin Gaither
posted: 01/31/2012 | Contact: Pailin Gaither
All members of the Park School Community are invited to join in honoring the life and memory of beloved Park School employee Leon Tillage at a memorial service in his honor. The service will be held at Park School on Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 5:00 PM in the Lower School Library. A reception will follow in the gallery space outside the library.
For those in our community who did not know Leon, here is a letter which was shared with the Park School Community this October :
I am sorry to inform you that Leon Tillage, a beloved and long-time employee of Park School, died October 5, 2011. He was 75 and had been living in Baltimore with his brother Lindwood.
Leon joined the maintenance crew at Park in 1967. For decades, he worked the night shift, tidying up after late meetings, locking the doors after theater perfo rmances, and making certain no child sat alone outside, waiting for a ride home. In 1994, the Alumni Council honored Leon (on his retirement) and Lindwood (who continues to work at Park) for their many years of service by establishing a tuition assistance endowment fund in their names.
In 1997, Leon’s Story was published. The small book, illustrated with collages by author, artist, and former Park parent, Susan Roth, records his stories of growing up in North Carolina – the very stories he told to the Middle School children about the difficult life of his sharecropper family, his fears of the Ku Klux Klan, and his role as an activist in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. The book received numerous laudatory reviews and was honored as the ALA Best Book for Young Adults, ALA Notable Children’s Book, and won the Boston Globe – Horn Book Award.
The 1991 Brownie dedication, written by Alexi Wright, perhaps best captured Leon’s spirit as the “gentle guardian of Park children, parents, and faculty,” and the very special role he played at Park.
...Quietly, he participates in every aspect of our school lives: admissions open houses, play productions, athletics, the seventh grade lifeskills program classes, and he has been the guest performer with his harmonica at parties and Cabaret Night. But Leon has never been a man of categories. Throughout the years, he has created his own title: Leon. We call him Leon out of respect, but the name means much more. To those who know him, it brings with it a smile or a sweet memory. … Years later, Leon is still outside to listen, to understand, to protect and to love, for new children, and for all of us.
Our thoughts are with Lindwood and his family.
Sincerely,
Dan Paradis
Head of School
In response to the kindness of the Park Community upon his brother's passing, Lindwood Tillage shared the following message:
On behalf of the Tillage family, I would like to take this opportunity to extend our most sincere and heartfelt expression of thanks. For the love, support, and words of consolation, encouragement, and prayers that have been shown us during the illness and passing of our loved one. Thank you all from the bottom of our collected hearts.
Lindwood Tillage
posted: 01/19/2012 | Contact: Pailin Gaither
Will you be in Baltimore for Thanksgiving?
Please join the Park School Community on November 23 for Park's 11th annual Day of Community Building, Service and Reflection.
Inspired by the “need to do something” in response to 9/11, The Park Service Committee came up with the idea of canceling classes the day before Thanksgiving and hosting a half day of service activities for the entire school. Middle and Upper School students have the opportunity to go off campus to help in soup kitchens, retirement communities, or shelters. Or they may choose to work around campus helping the Facilities staff, making sandwiches for local soup kitchens, soup bowls for the “Empty Bowls” project or gift bags for NIH pediatric patients. The list goes on and on. Many Lower School students join them in these activities or work on their own projects with classmates. The day culminates in a community sharing of bread and soup lovingly prepared “by us, for us” and served at noon under the eaves of the Athletic Center.
This year we have added the opportunity for you to participate. We want you, the alumni, to come back and join activities. Three specific ones are listed below, but if you are interested in other options, please get in touch with Carol Kinne (ckinne@parkschool.net) for more information.
Library Helpers: Alumni are invited to put books in order, tidy up the place, dust off shelves and their debating skills while they catch up with library legend and rogue cowboy, John Roemer who will be available to spar with anyone up to the challenge.
Contact: Susan Weintraub (sweintraub@parkschool.net)
Habitat Build: Help with construction/rehab of a house in Baltimore City– our first building opportunity this fall! ALUMNI welcome to join the crew.
NOTE TIME: 8:45 – 3:30
Contact: Marla Hollandsworth (mhollandsworth@parkschool.net)
Actors and Tech Crew: Actors and Tech Crew members may spend the morning getting the stage and storage areas in good order. Limited to current and alumni Actors and Tech Crew members only
Contact: John Trout (jtrout@parkschool.net)
posted: 11/23/2011 | Contact: Carol Kinne
We are excited to launch our new and improved Alumni Portal.
This enhanced Portal connects you with your Park Alumni community in many ways. Use the Online Alumni Directory to look up a lost friend or to network with other Alumni by geographic area, occupation, or college. View Park's Alumni event calendar and make plans for a Bruin reunion. Browse through our Alumni photo galleries or share an Alumni Note. Post a picture of a life milestone. Read back issues of Cross Currents in the Resources section. Enjoy exploring the Portal and please visit often.
Signing in to the Alumni Portal:
~ Alumni who are currently Park parents or staff may sign in to the Alumni Portal with the user names and passwords that grant them access to the Parent and Faculty Portals.
~ All other alumni should receive an additional email with a new Alumni Portal username and password. Please notify pgaither@parkschool.net if you do not receive your user name and password.
To access the Portal, please use the latest version of your internet browser; using an older version of your browser may reduce the functionality of the Portal.
The Alumni Portal is located at: https://portals.veracross.com/park. Additionally, there is a link from the front page of the Park School website called "Portal Login", and a similar link appears here on the Alumni home page of Park's website.
Please help us improve the Alumni Portal; like all evolving information systems, it is a work in progress. Help us correct inaccuracies and identify glitches. Please update your own profile when you visit the Alumni Portal and, if you encounter problems using the Portal or have questions or comments, send an email to pgaither@parkschool.net.
Enjoy the Portal!
posted: 10/31/2011 | Contact: Pailin Gaither
As Park kicks off its 99th year, gather with fellow Bruins:
October
10/22 Brown & White Day
- Women's Alumnae Field Hockey
- 11:00 AM, Girls' Varsity Field
- Men's Alumni Soccer
- 1:00 PM, Boys' Varsity Field
- Saturday in the Park: Park School's Fall Family Festival
- 12:00 to 3:00 PM, Welcome Booth by the Kindergarten Building
- Hosted by the Parent's Association
- Parktoberfest: An Autumn Alumni Happy Hour
- 3:30 to 5:30 PM, Butterfly Meadow Campfire Ring
- Hosted by the Alumni Council
To register for games or for more information about any of these events, please contact Alumni Coordinator Pailin Gaither at 410.339.4114 or pgaither@parkschool.net.
posted: 10/22/2011 | Contact: Pailin Gaither
Park in New York:
Gallery Night
Fall 2011
"Lost Divers"
A show by Josh Dorman '84
Tuesday, October 18
6:30-8:00 PM
Mary Ryan Gallery
527 W 26th St
RSVP by October 10
pgaither@parkschool.net
410.339.4114
Learn more about Josh's show, "Lost Divers" below:
From a Mary Ryan Gallery press release --
Mary Ryan Gallery is pleased to announce Lost Divers, Josh Dorman’s third solo exhibition at the Gallery. This exhibition includes new paintings on wood panel that combine Dorman’s unique mix of ink, acrylic and collage over antique maps. Dorman’s use of weathered bits of collage material—all pre-photography, generally engravings from antiquarian books and manuals—allows his work to exist somewhere between the past and present, and often in both at once. This sense of dislocation in time is essential to Dorman whose influences range from Sassetta and Bruegel to Andrew Bird and Italo Calvino
Dorman has always been interested in dualities, contradictions, and simultaneous realities. In his work, “Time shifts constantly, moves backwards, ceases. Space and scale are also unfixed: cities can be microscopic, paper-thin. They can mirror themselves underground; they can be inhabited by the dead,” says Dorman. “My primary goal is to create worlds that are utterly specific and completely open.”
True to form, Dorman’s newest paintings offer infinite suggestions to their meanings and no explanation. The title “Lost Divers” hints at both purposeful exploration and accidental disappearance. Divers, many of which can be found hidden or plainly exposed in the works in this exhibition, are suspended between worlds, moving through atmospheres, and fraught with potential. The engravings of divers come from an antiquarian book on swimming and diving techniques and a Russian scuba manual from the 1940s.
In recent paintings, Dorman has begun to collage in his own finely detailed graphite drawings, adding yet another facet to his kaleidoscopic images. Dorman works on the small drawings in an automatic fashion, moving from left to right across the paper without any initial sketch. In The Big Picture Show, the graphite drawing takes center stage. Illuminated by searchlights, it functions as both a billboard and movie screen, in what seems to be an otherworldly theater-laboratory hybrid. Whether man, beast, or machine is running the show is not clear.
An illustrated catalogue with an essay by Nam Le and an interview with Mario Naves and Josh Dorman accompanies this exhibition (40 pages; $25).
Josh Dorman lives and works in New York City. He received his MFA from Queens College in New York and has been the subject of many solo gallery exhibitions across the country. Most recently Dorman was included in the four-person “Alumni Invitational” exhibition at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, and “Within Four Miles: The World of Josh Dorman” a solo exhibition at the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. He has received grants and residencies from Yaddo, Saltonstall and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and has been written about in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, ArtForum, The New Yorker, and by acclaimed author Paul Auster.
posted: 10/18/2011 | Contact: Pailin Gaither
A Memorial Celebration for the life of Louise Rowles will be held at 1 PM on October 23rd in Park School's Meyerhoff Theater. All are invited to attend.
On September 2nd, the following email was sent to the Park community. It shares the news of Louise's passing:
Dear Friend of Park -
It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of Louise Rowles on August 29th. Louise spent many years at The Park School as a parent, librarian and friend to many. She served as the much loved Lower School librarian from 1962 to 1988. A warm, caring, friendly, and supportive person who touched many lives at Park, Louise will be truly missed. The family is gathering privately this weekend, but there will be a memorial service in October that will be open to all. We will pass on information about the memorial service when it becomes available.
Sincerely,
Pailin Gaither
posted: 09/02/2011 | Contact: Pailin Gaither
Friday, June 3
Toast to the Brown & White Cocktail Party
5:30-7:30 pm / Davison Lobby, Wyman Arts Center
Kick off the weekend's festivities and catch up with friends. Say thank you to faculty members who are saying farewell to Park at a reception for alumni, current and former faculty, and current parents.
The cocktail party is for adults only. Free childcare will be available in the Middle School Commons. Pre-registration for childcare is required by Friday, May 20. Please register your children when you RSVP.
Saturday, June 4
11:00 am / Men's Lacrosse on Boys' Varsity Field
12:00 pm / Women's Lacrosse on Girls' Varsity Field
12:00 – 1:30 pm / Lunch on Girls' Varsity Field
For all alumni athletes and spectators
1:00 pm / Liberty Heights Society Luncheon for the Classes of 1923-1961
Davison Lobby, Wyman Arts Center
Join Dan Paradis, Head of School, for lunch
1:30 pm / Baseball on Sugar Field/Hillside Road Campus
Refreshments Available
Class parties: Watch the mail for information.
RSVP
for all Alumni Weekend Activities by May 20. Register online at www.parkschool.net/reunion or contact Alumni Coordinator Pailin Gaither at pgaither@parkschool.net or 410.339.4114.
posted: 06/03/2011 | Contact: Pailin Gaither

