Alumni

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