C A T H O L I C M E M O R I A L

M A G A Z I N EA N E W S L E T T E R F O R A LU M N I , PA R E N T S & F R I E N D S O F C AT H O L I C M E M O R I A L

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Creat ing Christ ian Community by Celebrat ing the Achievements of our School and Alumni

Service at CM and Beyond

C AT H O L I C M E M O R I A L M AG A Z I N E

From the President’s Office

On the day before his inauguration, Barack Obama led a National Day of Service.

Obama himself headed to a shelter on Capitol Hill, one that provides counseling and abuse prevention programs to young men and women in Washington, D.C. “When all of our people are engaged and involved in making our community better,” the 44th president told a news conference later that day, “we can accomplish anything.”

I might say the same thing as our school’s 11th leader, because this is what has made Catholic Memorial School successful in its 51 year history: when we are engaged and involved in making our community better, we can accomplish anything.

As the stories in this issue of CM Magazine illustrate, and as I have found out during my first year in office, the young men at Catholic Memorial have learned of the many rewards of service. Our students have found that devoting themselves to their communities through service to others and to God is essential to their education and formation. For many, it is the most reward-ing involvement they will have at Catholic Memorial.

Look at the story of Bill Leahy ’64, one of our guest speakers at the annual President’s Society Dinner on October 15th, and his remarkable life of service to those citizens who cannot afford legal representation. Look at Major Michael Donahue ’88, whose service to country as demon-strated in his own words in this magazine are exemplary. Look at the young men featured in this issue’s stories on Senior Service. Making our community and country better started for CM decades ago and continues with each hour our students devote to others.

Thanks to record-setting gift drives over the holidays and to generous alumni and parents who are making this year’s Annual Fund a success, we can see the continued generosity of our students and graduates. They are inspiring.

America may need a “National Day of Service.” But at CM we are in no need of a reminder. I’m grateful that the idea of service is an integral component of our mission and ritual, each and every day.

Sincerely,

Paul E. Sheff ’62 President

2 Essential Elements: CM’s Senior Service Project

6 Young Alums in Service Beyond CM

8 CM and the Pine Street Inn

12 The 5th Athletic Hall of Fame Ceremony

14 CM’s Chinese Language Program

16 Bill Leahy ’64: A Career in Service

18 CM’s Holiday Gift Drives

22 Senior Reflections: College Application Essays

20 Picturing America: CM’s Newest Writing Contest

24 The Soldier’s Hall of Fame

26 Baker Street Bits

30 Sports Log

32 In Memoriam

On the Cover: Matthew Carroll ’04 got the service bug in his NHS and extracurricular experiences at CM and in his school vacations while at Boston College. After traveling to and effecting significant change in rural communities in Virginia, Appalachia and Belize, Carroll has tackled one of the biggest urban problems facing America: gang violence. Working for Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles as a Jesuit Volunteer Corps volunteer, Carroll mentors and counsels former gang members as they seek to better their lives through meaningful employment. Carroll is just one of the many recent CM alums galvanized to make mission and service part of their daily lives.

SENIOR SERVICE pagE 2

EDITORJoe McGonegal

CONTRIBUTORSMichael Donahue ’88 David Erwin ’96 Craig Spaner Pat Walsh Douglas Zack

PRINT & DESIGN Inkstone Printing Karen Ancas Design

PHOTOS

Terry BleilerMatt Carroll ’04Warren ChiangRob Croteau ’93Betsy Cullen P ‘11Ellen Eberly P ‘99, ‘05Steve Murphy ‘73Peter Trovato ’00Brent Williams P’09, ’12

CM MAGAZINE is a publication of Catholic Memorial School, a college preparatory school for young men, grades 7-12. It is published three times a year by the Christian Brothers Institute of Massachusetts, under the direction of Mr. Paul E. Sheff ’62, President.

CORRESPONDENCE POLICY Letters and correspondence are encouraged.

CONTACT US AT Catholic Memorial School, 235 Baker Street, West Roxbury, MA 02132; Phone: 617-469-8000; Fax: 617-325-0888; Email: JosephMcGonegal@CatholicMemorial.org

www.CatholicMemorial.org

PINE STREET INN pagE 8

ONE DAY IN IRAQ pagE 52

C O N T E N T S W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

SPRING MUSICAL pagE 27

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The Senior Service project Changes Lives

On a Wednesday morning in late March 2005, Mark Travis ’05 stood in front of a room full of visually impaired people.

He had no idea what to expect that day, or what they expected of him. By his own admission, he himself felt kind of blind to the purpose of his being there.

But by the end of his senior year at Catholic Memorial, having worked at Boston Aid for the Blind for over two months, Travis had developed a second sight, one that came to him through CM’s Senior Service Project.

Now in its fifth year of operation, the Senior Service Project has sent nearly 750 students to over a hundred sites in and around Boston, changing the lives of thousands of individuals and evangelizing gradu-ates of Catholic Memorial School with more than a textbook under-standing of liberation theology.

Creating “Servant Leadership”Travis was part of the first senior class who, in the spring of 2005,

headed out from Catholic Memorial to serve at such a variety of sites. But the program began well before that.

At a faculty retreat in 2003, Campus Minister Shivonne St. George, Theology Department Chair Brian Scott, and Vice Principal Dr. James Keane ’82 asked the faculty to brainstorm ways that the Catholic Memorial community could become more faithful to the Essential Elements of a Christian Brothers Education.

As Mr. Scott recalls, faculty suggested the Senior Service Project, based on a smaller-scale program in service learning conducted in the 1970s at the school.

“We wanted to put together a model that would be unique to CM,” Scott said. “We didn’t want to carbon copy what other schools did. The way Ms. St. George put it is that we wanted to build an ‘operative understanding of faith’ in our students. We knew we were sending out highly skilled and intellectual graduates, but we wanted them to have a little exposure to what the theologian Robert Greenleaf calls ‘servant leadership.’”

With Ms. St. George and Dr. Keane helping organize the paperwork, logistical concerns, and parent and faculty feedback, Mr. Scott realized CM would need a full-time campus minister to run the program. Ms. Kate Heaton interviewed for the position and was hired for the daunt-ing task of convincing 150 seniors in 2004 that tradition was about to change at CM.

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“The first year was difficult,” said Scott, “and we had a little resistance. But Ms. Heaton was very organized and she’s done a great job. You can see it now – instead of fearing the unknown, our kids embrace it.”

Ms. Heaton had spent the previous year in Haiti, teaching French and English in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince.

“My experience in Haiti was formative in my view of how people of privilege like me are given more compassion through service,” she said. “There’s so much joy when people have a chance to interact with other races and cultures and classes. So often we live in these little enclaves and aren’t privileged to do that.”

Mark Travis ’05 was certainly out of his own “enclave” that first day at Aid for the Blind. But his impressions of those in need quickly changed.

“I thought there’d be a lot of people who had a lot of anger,” he recalled, “and that they wouldn’t have a lot of spirit. But they were hys-terical! They would play games and even make fun of each other!”

Travis, who is working toward a degree at Dean College and hopes to pursue advanced studies in physical therapy, learned more and more each day in the eight weeks and over sixty hours of work on site at Aid for the Blind. He even stayed in touch with his supervisor there and continues to enjoy reading their volunteer newsletter.

“You learn a whole new appreciation for the littlest things,” Travis said. “And they remember you, too! Every Wednesday they knew I was coming in, and when I didn’t, the next week they’d be like, ‘where were

you?’ It was a great experience.”

Service and Studies CombineMs. Heaton and the rest of the team organizing the Senior Service

Project knew it wasn’t just to be about the service. For CM graduates to come away from the experience with more than just a “good feeling” about what they did, the senior teachers worked with Ms. Heaton on integrating readings and reflection into the quarter-long project.

“We felt that all of our students should,

before they graduate, live their faith

in a very real, concrete way, through service

to God and neighbor. In this way, the

theology they have learned in class

comes to life.”

– Shivonne St. George, former CM Campus

Minister who served on the

Senior Service planning committee

At right, the Dimanche brothers, Rudy ’08 (Hartford ’12) and Orphenson ’07 (BC ’11), went back to their roots at St. Angela's School in Mattapan to tutor elementary school students after school. Trevor Boyce ’09 (facing page, bottom left) helps organize basketball games for disabled students at the Massachusetts Hospital for Children. “I was really nervous my first day because I didn’t know anybody here, but everybody’s been great. It’s definitely been a humbling experience,” said Boyce.

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“I begin by telling the seniors that service is where our theology and philosophy hit the pavement,” Ms. Heaton said. “I love getting as many kids as possible to go to sites where they’ll see how systemic problems contribute to the things they’ve been talking about in theology class.”

At the beginning of the year, Ms. Heaton gives seniors a catalogue of 70-80 sites to choose from. Sites range from churches to shelters like the Pine Street Inn and Women’s Lunch Place to non-profits like Bikes Not Bombs, 826 Boston, and to social services sites like Casserly House, Big Brothers/Sisters and the Boston Housing Alliance.

Working with all the agencies routinely, Ms. Heaton and others involved were careful not to give sites the impression that students were just in it “for the hours” or for a mark on their college applications.

“Although it may itself be an extremely powerful pedagogical tool,” Dr. Keane said, “the concrete encounter with the poor is not just a prop to assist classroom instruction. It is something that can transform both the person who offers help and the person who receives it, if it occurs within a proper context and community of reflection.”

Where Theology Hits the pavementListen to the stories seniors start bringing back from their sites each

year and you quickly understand what a transformative experience is taking place.

Michael Casserly ’07 headed to Paris Island a week after graduation and has since risen to the rank of corporal in the U.S. Marines. But his last formative experience at CM was working for Cradles to Crayons in the Senior Service Project. Cradles to Crayons, based in Quincy, pro-vides specific, basic necessities for families in need year round.

“They’re pretty passionate about what they do, and they’re really committed to the task at hand,” Casserly said. “They put in a lot of time and effort to keep that place up and running.”

Though his and his peers’ work was in helping Cradles to Crayons expand their building’s footprint, Casserly often recalls the energy he witnessed in social workers there as he devotes himself 100% to the Marine Corps. “The passion they show is what I try to carry over to what I do in the military,” he said.

Teddy Poppe ’08 and Peter Falanga ’08 worked at the Hopkinton Rescue Center, which serves the needs of children with cerebral palsy. “We played with the kids. They needed special food for each person’s diet, so we shopped for it,” Falanga, who now studies at Loyola New Orleans, recalled. “Whatever other chores they needed done, we did.”

“We also stayed overnight on the third weekend each month,” said Poppe, now a freshman at Stevens Institute in New Jersey. “Having a child with cerebral palsy is a lot of work. Every third weekend the center hosts a sleepover so the parents could have a night off.”

“It was a really good experience,” Poppe added. “I never dealt with people with this degree of cerebral palsy. You get to know them and find out they’re really friendly.”

Nikko Shaidani ’08 spent several hours a week throughout his senior year at Children’s Hospital.

At left, Kyle Ryan ’09 and Ken Andrea ’09 devoted their Senior Service project hours to getting CM’s recycling efforts off the ground. The club they’ve led recycles over 30,000 pounds of paper a year. Below: Nick Grossi ’09 and Julio Baez ’09 help teenage patients at Children’s Hospital.

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“I sat in the waiting room with kids and colored with them as they were waiting each day,” Shaidani, now a zoology major at U-Maine, said. “It was very hectic in the waiting room, and a lot of times the parents would be there for a long time. My job was to get the kids away from the parents for a while because the parents would be stressed out.”

“It was great to see kids coming back each day, and it was a lot of coloring!” said Shaidani. “I’m a shy guy, too, and to have to speak up and go to each parent was a nice experience that give me more confidence.”

At the Casserly House in Roslindale, Ashcon Nejatian ’07 and Sam Harney ’07 helped immigrants complete paperwork for job applica-tions, visas and drivers’ licenses.

“A lot of people we were helping didn’t use English as a first lan-guage,” said Harney, “so it made it kind of difficult. They didn’t always understand how the questions were worded...It felt really good to help these people out.”

“They were trying to learn our language and culture but we learned a little bit about theirs,” added Nejatian.

Service that Counts – in the Long Run“The Senior Service Project has to be a program that empowers

both the people in need and the students working it,” Ms. Heaton says. “We have asked seniors to push the boundaries as part of their CM experience. To work with a really marginalized or at-risk population, our seniors end up with an experience they won’t be able to replicate in their lives.”

Having students read modern theologians, those who have written about transmitting the gospel message into action in the 21st century, Ms. Heaton and the theology teachers have sought to further create in CM graduates the attitude of service that is at the heart of the Essential Elements of a Christian Brothers Education.

“The goal of community service must transcend reinforcing inter-personal skills,” said Dr. Keane, “inculcating the values of citizenship and fostering feelings of guilt and class-consciousness. It must go beyond mere charity, volunteerism, and do-goodism. Its goal is deeply theological: to experience the love of Christ in the fragile and wounded persons around us.”

As a hundred and fifty seniors head off to their sites this spring to complete thousands of hours of community service work, they will no doubt continue in that experience.

“It’s eye-opening for them to see how much

of the Catholic teaching exists outside of

the classroom context.” – Ms. Kate Heaton

Senior Service: Where a Typical Senior Class Serves➢ 25: to hospitals, including Faulkner, Brigham,

Beth Israel Deaconess, Children’s, South Shore, Milton, Newton-Wellesley

➢ 50: to homeless shelters and feeding programs for the poor

➢ 25: to schools

➢ 15: to nursing homes or physical rehabilitation facilities

➢ 5-10: to community centers in Boston

➢ 5-10: Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Boston, Boston Housing and Sheltering Alliance

➢ Individuals: tutoring programs like Casserly House and Mother Caroline Academy, free medical clinics and coaching positions for youth

Ms. Heaton brainstorms with David McDonald ’09 about his project at City Heroes.

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Beyond the Senior Service project

Two alums remind us that CM service is only the beginning.

The year before the Senior Service Project began at Catholic Memorial or its BERSI program went international, Matt Carroll ’04 graduated.

Fortunately for him and others like him, all that Carroll needed was the inspiration of teachers and scholarship to lead him to the waters of service.

“It was Bill Hahn’s junior theology class,” Carroll recalled. “That was a spark. I still have this image of him in the front of the room. And he’s slamming Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed on the desk, making a point about André Trocmé being his brother’s keeper. Fireworks were going off in my head.”

Heading to Boston College a year later, Carroll decided to act on his faith and try something he’d never quite done before – a ten-day long trip with the Appalachian Volunteer Program. Heading to a community

called New Road along the eastern shore in Virginia, Carroll worked with a small group of students on projects like elder care, classroom tutoring, construction and home repairs.

That’s when he caught the service bug.

“I fell in love with the entire program, the idea of service and learn-ing,” he said. “There’s a lot to be done and not a lot of people to do it.”

Carroll signed up his sophomore year, twice his junior year, then led a trip his senior year. From his experiences there, Carroll learned about all of the conditions that surround poverty: joblessness, incarceration, and the lack of role models. “The 16 to 50-year old gap is missing,” he said. “The incarceration rate is so high…it’s rural poverty.”

Finding concrete ways to help and finding out that he was good at it, Carroll signed on to the Jesuit Volunteer Corps last year after graduat-ing from BC. His placement was in as radically different a locale as you

could get from New Road, Virginia: Los Angeles.

“I was originally applying for an international placement [with JVC],” he said. “Then after the discernment weekend, I was talking to a placement person on the phone and I said I really wanted to teach some day but wanted something dif-ferent in the meantime. She said ‘I have a feeling you have a good force for Homeboy.’”

Homeboy – Homeboy Industries to be exact – was founded in 1992 in Los Angeles by Fr. Greg Boyle as a center for job training, education, and placement for “at risk and formerly gang-involved youth.”

Matt Carroll ’04 (front right) on a hiking trip with members of Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles based organization that helps ex-gang members find meaningful work.

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“One woman… lost one of her babies because she was shot when she was pregnant.

She was able to separate herself from an abusive relationship that nearly ended her life.

But she has her priorities in line now and is a domestic abuse counselor.” – Matt Carroll ’04

Recognized nationally as the largest gang-inter-vention program and as a model for reducing gang violence in at-risk neighborhoods, Homeboy finds creative ways to employ young men and women by cre-ating startup businesses for them right on site. To date, Homeboy Industries includes a bakery, merchandise and silkscreen shop, maintenance shop and literary magazine. Its motto: “Nothing stops a bullet like a job.”

At Homeboy, Carroll found himself in LA’s Chinatown, a gang-neu-tral territory, becoming a case manager for former members of Chicano gangs, working on teams with other volunteers to coach and mentor Homeboy’s unlimited supply of clients. This spring, Carroll is training a group of his clients to get in shape and run in the Los Angeles Marathon.

“Primarily we try to hire as many as we can here,” Carroll said. “But it’s financially tough right now. They get employed here, then take classes. Some take GED classes for a diploma. Our goal, whether spending some time here, coming in, or emerging from here, is that you’re more of a wholesome citizen and positive member of society.”

As for inspirational stories that keep him going, Carroll says there’s one a day at Homeboy.

“There’s a lot of people I know who just started working in mainte-nance and are now doing case management and navigational services, doing what I do and serving as mentors for young kids still in the gang life,” he said.

“One woman, she started here and now she’s a case manager. She’s a great mom to all her kids and was able to rise up in the ranks here. She had lost one of her babies because she was shot when she was pregnant. She was able to separate herself from an abusive relationship that nearly ended her life. But she has her priorities straight in line now and is a domestic abuse counselor.”-

“Her boyfriend,” Carroll relates, “is another guy who spent a lot of time in prison and has gone through incredible pain and abuse that set him down on a rough path. Seeing the commitment he puts in, he really feels a calling to help kids not make the mistakes he did. He speaks elo-quently to kids, talks like a philosopher and references Nietzsche. Seeing the care and compassion he shows is great.”

Helping Soldiers – and their FamiliesPeter Trovato ’00 found nothing but positive role models of service

in his years at CM.

“So many people there are so giving of their time,” he says. “My role models were teachers like Vin Catano and Bill Hanson. Those guys in a

Carroll working in Belize in 2008 in his senior year at BC. “That experience was as profound as all of my Appalachia trips, as it highlighted the extreme poverty and marginalization faced by those in Central America. That trip really raised my awareness of what it means to work for and with the ’poorest of the poor’ and the most neglected, hated, and marginalized of society.”

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Pine Street Pride

For forty years, the path from Baker Street to the Pine Street Inn has been a well-worn one.

Early this spring, a CM senior will stand in front of that seven-story stone tower in Boston’s South End. Maybe he’ll look up at the imposing structure and think about the city and his place in it, what he’s there for, and how walking through the doors beneath that tower might change his life.

That CM senior, on the first day of his Senior Service Project at the Pine Street Inn, will likely be comforted by the fact that many Catholic Memorial students have come before him. In fact, forty years ago, Richard Ring ’64 stood on that very same sidewalk, before entering the Inn and later becoming its founding executive director.

Ring’s story, and those of the seniors who will work with the home-less or needy at the Pine Street Inn this spring, makes CM’s involvement

with that remarkable Boston institution a story forty years in the making and one that continues to evolve each year.

When told he would spend the fourth quarter of his senior year at the Pine Street Inn, Chris Rooney ’07 (UMass-Amherst ’11) was not enthused. “Compared with what other people had to do, mine was pretty hard,” he said. “But it was easy to get to.”

Taking the train in to South Station each week, Rooney’s only real encounter with those served by the Inn was out in front before he went in each day. “You never really saw them,” he said. “When you walked into the main entrance you just saw them waiting there for the place to open. It was the only time you got to see them, but you’d say ‘okay, that’s who I’m helping out today.’”

Once he walked in, Rooney quickly learned that true community service is often a behind-the-scenes affair. Like making a tuna fish sandwich in the cavernous kitchen. Then making 900 more tuna fish sandwiches for the families and individuals who visited that day. “Working there,” he said, “I learned that I’m a lot more fortunate than I thought. No matter how rough it gets, I real-ized I still have a home-cooked meal.”

Connor Sweeney ’09 began his Senior Service Project at the Inn in December, working in the kitchen to prepare hundreds of meals a day and helping load trucks that deliver food to the Inn’s satellite centers.

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continued on page 11

“And I learned to work with people,” he said. “Some volunteers were trying to get into cooking school, and others were getting community service. At times, the conversa-tions got pretty interesting.”

Michael Hurley ’06 had worked in a res-taurant during summers on the Cape, but after three months of work at the Pine Street Inn, he’ll never think of restaurant cooking in quite the same way.

“Everything was just supersized there!” said Hurley of the Pine Street Inn’s kitchen. “We prepped a lot of food. It was an experience.”

That experience was brought to him – and to Rooney – by a CM classmate, one who graduated more than forty years before them.

After graduating from CM in 1964, Richard Ring studied at College of the Holy Cross, where he played football and majored in English. After a term of service in the U.S. Navy, Ring didn’t exactly know what to do with his life. Growing up in Dorchester and Mattapan and attending school in West Roxbury, he had always been keenly aware of Boston’s urban problems and needs, but he didn’t necessarily know how to begin solving them.

“At the time,” Ring recalls, “I couldn’t have labeled what it was I wanted to do. I responded to issues of social justice, but at the time I didn’t know what direction that would take. Coincidentally, it turned into homelessness.”

Ring took a leap of faith, and joined with several individuals to found the Pine Street Inn, eventually serving as its executive director for twenty-five years. After leaving that post in 1993, Ring eventually took on the role of executive director at Travelers’ Aid Family Services, the primary responder to homeless families in need throughout the city.

Although it wasn’t a service project at CM that directed Ring and classmates like him to lead lives of service, his experience as a student there certainly helped.

“Various alumni of CM will inevitably come back to the key figures who were present in our lives, like Brother McKenna, who was just an out-standing leader,” said Ring. “But it was the whole mix – some of the Christian Brothers who were there, and guys like Chris Jackson, Jim O’Connor, Ron Perry and Joe Quinn.”

“All of these people addressed life with such integrity and with such prin-ciple. You talk about role models, they were the role models for me.”

Working with the homeless popula-tion in Boston for two decades, Ring

“Pine Street is one of the truly unique

places in Boston…There are numerous

problems that beg for assistance from

people who are dedicated, stable and

can offer their skills to the broader society.

Pine Street is a perfect example of just

one way of doing that.”

– Richard Ring ‘64, former Executive Director

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, left, talks about Richard Ring 64’s contributions to the City of Boston over the years at the Travelers Aid Family Service Holiday Reception on December 11, 2008, while Ring looks on.

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way show that they’re selfless, they’re there every day for those kids. And who could forget Ellen Eberly or Dr. Dempsey? They were great teachers.”

Trovato also began what has become a lifetime of service as part of the National Honor Society. “It was the first thing I ever did that was service oriented,” he says. “Dr. Dempsey had us head up the lower school tutoring program – it all really started at CM.”

After a year at Deerfield Academy, Trovato headed on to the University of Massachusetts.

“I was living a pretty cozy life at UMass,” Trovato says of his life during 9/11 and its aftermath. “Part of the reason I started this thing was getting into West Point and turning it down…I remember thinking when that whole thing was erupting, this could have been me.”

Trovato wanted to help. In 2004, during a senior year when he was captaining the UMass hockey team, Trovato decided to begin a commu-nity service project at UMass to help widows of soldiers who died in Iraq and Afghanistan in the years following 9/11. He called it the Massachusetts Soldiers Legacy Fund.

Trovato convinced his parents to make the first donation: $50. In the five years since, he has turned that small gift into a fund of over three million dollars.

Specifically designed to aid widows of fallen troops in conflicts over-seas, the fund is providing college tuition for its first recipient this year. Any eligible parent can apply for $10,000 of aid per year for any private or public college, in or out of state.

“We’ve raised contributions from hundreds of individuals and foun-dations, and it all goes to these kids who lost a parent,” says Trovato.

“We’ve tried to make this a no-strings-attached offer. They don’t have to jump through hoops here. Obviously a tragedy makes them eli-gible for this fund, but we like for it to be a light at end of the tunnel.”

Trovato, who now works as an asset manager, has recruited plenty of notable philanthropists to help in his cause. “We had a big breakfast fundraiser in November that raised nearly $1 million,” he says. “At that

Trovato wanted to help. In 2004, during a senior year

when he was captaining the UMass hockey team,

Trovato decided to begin a community service project at

UMass to help widows of soldiers who died in Iraq and

Afghanistan in the years following 9/11. He called it the

Massachusetts Soldiers Legacy Fund.

Peter Trovato ’00 (above) hosted a fundraiser for the Massachusetts Soldiers Legacy Fund at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in November. At right, special guests included owners and representatives of Boston’s major sports teams: (l-r) Charlie Jacobs, Wyc Grossbeck, Jonathan Kraft, and Larry Lucchino.

YOUNG ALUMS IN SERVICE, continued from page 7

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breakfast we had owners of four major sports teams – Larry Lucchino, Jonathan Kraft, Charlie Jacobs, and Wyc Grossbeck spoke on our behalf about leadership.”

With rising post-secondary education costs these days, Trovato wanted to help single parents specifically save for college tuition, which may be five or ten years down the line for their children. “We’re looking long term and we’re pretty focused on it going towards a college educa-tion,” says Trovato.

Honored by the Celtics and Bruins, among others, Trovato says one of the highlights of this project was joining Shannon Enos, who had lost her husband Peter Enos in Iraq, on center ice at a Bruins game on Veterans Day in 2006. “It was a pretty packed house,” he said. “To see their support and have people stand up and recognize her effort and sacrifice was great. I realized that this isn’t about me starting a fund – it goes towards these service members’ children and it recognizes their sacrifice.”

Thanks to Trovato’s sacrifice of time and effort, three service members’ children will attend colleges of their choice this fall.

also served as director of Caritas, which helps provide housing for working individuals, and as commissioner for Boston’s Emergency Shelter Commission. Mayors and governors have solicited his advice, and Ring’s opinions on urban issues have carried weight in many public forums.

“The biggest change that has taken place is that at one point there was a huge effort just to provide basic shelter, on the belief that it would be temporary in nature,” Ring says. “But what many of us thought would be a temporary situation has become a chronic situation.”

Ring’s work with Travelers Aid involves helping homeless families get placed into transitional and then permanent, afford-able housing. “In the past year,” he reports, “we helped over 450 families with varying types of shelter and housing. Over time, we’ve developed a continuum of care that covers the whole range of providing direct funds for prevention to helping people stay in their apartments if they’re in danger of losing them.”

Ring is quick to remind citizens that homelessness is a finite problem that can be solved. Sound social and financial planning from government leaders, he says, can solve many problems for the homeless.

“The key for any CM students about to graduate, or young graduates,” Ring says, “is to be aware of what’s going on around you. Sometimes we can put a pretty narrow focus on what we see. In fact there are enormous issues we don’t see because they’re not in front of us.”

“Devote your life to steadily making changes in society,” he says. “Develop that awareness to view yourself as an active participant and citizen. There are a number of ways of doing that. There are numerous problems that beg for assistance from people who are dedicated, stable and can offer their skills to the broader society. Pine Street is a perfect example of just one way of doing that.”

For now, CM students will continue to begin their journey of service at Pine Street Inn, a journey Richard Ring began in the 1960s.

“I’d been at Catholic schools my whole life,” said Michael Hurley ’06. “But this opened my eyes up more to what was out there. I was happy I could help.”

PINE STREET, continued from page 9

Read more on the CM Website:

a senior’s reflection on his trip to El Salvador with BERSI

Seniors becoming newsmakers in the local press for their good work

More on Matt Carroll’s efforts with Homeboy Industries

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They left Catholic Memorial at the top of their game, and they went on to become even more accomplished athletes as well as teachers, entrepreneurs and civic leaders. But on November 28th, some of Catholic Memorial School’s finest athletes gathered for the 5th Athletic Hall of Fame Ceremony, held at Moseley’s on the Charles in Dedham.

There, over 300 members of the CM com-munity honored them one more time for their achievements and contributions to the con-tinuing lore of the Catholic Memorial Athletics program.

Inducted into the 5th Catholic Memorial School Athletic Hall of Fame on November 28th were Kevin Ahearn ’66 (Hockey, Golf ), Steve Fratalia ’72 (Football, Hockey, Outdoor Track), Bill Martin ’75 (Cross Country, Outdoor Track, Indoor Track), Chuck Texeira ’89 (Football, Hockey, Track), Steve Berte ’98 (Football, Wrestling), Joe Hough ’02 (Football, Basketball, Baseball), Vin Catano (Head Track Coach), and the 1986 State Championship Hockey Team.

Father Phil McGaugh ’70, pastor of St. Bartholomew’s in Needham, offered the invocation to begin the ceremony. Dan Masterson ’08, a freshman music major at

Harvard College, sang the National Anthem. Mr. Paul E. Sheff ’62, CM’s president, offered his remarks before the athletes were inducted.

“Tonight was a great way to honor people who’ve made Catholic Memorial proud,” said principal Mr. Richard Chisholm P ’93, ’98, ’03. “It was a great night to honor our athletes and honor CM.”

Each honoree received a marble plaque as they were called forth. A teammate, coach, family member or friend spoke for each inductee. CM’s head hockey coach Bill Hanson offered his thoughts about the 1986 State Championship Hockey Team.

Dave Erwin ’96, Director of the Annual Fund and Alumni Relations, organized the

event along with the dedicated committee members. “The induction was a tremendous night for all our inductees and for the Catholic Memorial community as a whole,” Erwin said.

Jim O’Connor P ’78, ’80, ’86, former CM ath-letic director and current director of postseason playoffs in football and hockey for the MIAA, offered his reflections on the evening.

“I thought it was a very positive night. It was a nice crowd this year,” O’Connor said. “People in attendance were extremely positive and the reaction to this year’s recipients was great.”

Asked which inductee’s story moved him the most, O’Connor replied, “I was really impressed with Steve Berte’s talk about going

The glory Returns

Catholic Memorial School recognizes its best athletes of yesteryear

13

to Brown University and the effect that experi-ence had on him. And Steve Fratalia, who was a great kid when he was at CM and played all three seasons.”

O’Connor had plenty of praise for the other inductees, however. “Joe [Hough] was just a wonderful baseball player who went on to play minor league baseball. He’s just a wonderful kid. His presentation and thank you were short and concise but had a lot of feeling.”

“The 1986 Hockey team – as Billy Hanson said, they were young and I remember how he cut seniors and had sophomores on the team because they had so much talent,” O'Connor continued. The principal wasn’t happy at the time because seniors were cut, but Billy stuck to his guns and the kids came through and won the state championship. Billy had the courage to go with his feelings and they proved to be correct.”

What is it about Catholic Memorial and athletic greatness? “It goes all the way back to Brother McKenna,” O’Connor said. “He said ‘never apologize for excellence and make no apologies for it.’ We followed that slogan for years and years – then added poise and class. It grew into a great experience, and all the teams that represent the school have that tradition.”

Steve Berte ’98 was inducted for his success on both the football field and wrestling mat. He recalled how he felt when he learned about his nomination. “It was one of Brother MacDonald’s last duties as president, to call and tell me,” he said.

“I felt an immediate sense of pride when he told me,” Berte recalled. “Not so much personal pride, but more that I knew I’d be a part of CM history. I grew up the son of a CM Knight and to be able to consider myself on the same level as the rest of these athletes certainly gives me a sense of pride.”

Photos (at left) The 2008 Inductees: Bill Martin ’75, Bill Ahearn ’71 (accepting for Brother Kevin ’66), Vin Catano P’01, Chuck Texeira ’89, Stephen Berte ’98, Steve Fratalia ’72, Joe Hough ’02; (top to bottom): Bill Martin ’75 accepts his award from President Paul E. Sheff ’62. Track Coach Vin Catano P’01 and Sheff. Steve Berte ’98 accepts his award. Members of the 1986 State Championship Hockey Team.

14

Mandarin Moving Forward CM’s Chinese Language Program Expands

Changming XuBorn in the village of Xupeng, Mr. Xu

moved to the city of Anlu when he was 12 years old.

“At first,” he says, “I wanted to become a scientist, but wasn’t really good at math so I made up my mind to switch to the arts.”

After studying English language and literature for three years in college, Mr. Xu moved back to Anlu to teach middle school. After deciding that he liked to teach, he went back to a teacher’s college, Hubei University of Education in Wuhan, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree.

Most people think Chinese is a hard lan-guage to learn. That’s not true, according to Changming Xu, one of the two Mandarin Chinese language teachers who are continu-ing in a new World Language program that began three years ago at CM: Mandarin Chinese.

“According to Einstein, interest is the best teacher,” Xu says. “If you’re interested, you can find a way.”

Over two hundred students at CM have found that interest in the program’s brief history, and thanks to a partnership between The College Board and CM and new initia-tives to make Mandarin Chinese a recognized language in the course of study at CM, many more students will satisfy their interests by enrolling in Chinese classes in the years to come.

“Language, of course, is important,” says Vice Principal Dr. James Keane, who applied to the College Board four years ago for a teacher and worked closely with George Li, CM’s first sponsored Mandarin Chinese teacher. “And our proliferating language programs, are dovetailing nicely with our expanding international initiatives.” After two successful years of growth, CM’s Mandarin program was recognized by Boston's Confucius Institute as a model program.”

Because of overwhelming demand from students and parents, Mandarin Chinese will become one of the languages that satisfy CM’s graduation requirement for World Languages beginning in 2009. CM will offer an introduc-tory course for seventh and eighth graders as well as Chinese I, Chinese II, and Advanced Placement Chinese in the high school. Keane says he also hopes that an exchange program with Chinese secondary schools will begin in the years to come.

Carol T. Lin, the Associate Director for Chinese Language & Culture Initiatives for The College Board (the same organization that creates the SAT and Advanced Placement tests), says there are a lot of benefits for a school like CM hosting a Chinese teacher: “Instruction from a native speaker and authentic cultural resources are helpful,” she says.

Catholic Memorial’s two Mandarin lan-guage teachers bring a wealth of experience, knowledge and skill to their positions this year and moving ahead, CM’s World Language program will benefit from its partnership with the College Board’s program.

15

Staying in Wuhan, Mr. Xu taught English to first and second year university students. “They still preserve my teaching position there,” he reports, “but my first concern was to move here and get the experience in both public and private education. Last year, I was at Wilson Middle School in Tulsa, Oklahoma.”

In Tulsa and now in Boston, Mr. Xu has learned the dynamics of American virtues and culture, experiences he hopes will enrich his teaching in China.

So why is it so important for American students to learn Chinese?

“With globalization, especially in the busi-ness fields,” Xu replies, “there’s unavoidably got to be a mutual understanding between cultures. There’s going to be better coopera-tion if we learn language.”

As for CM’s middle school students that he instructs, Mr. Xu says their interest is indeed the best teacher and they are finding inter-est in the geography, history and culture he teaches along with language. “They’re writing the language very well,” he says of his classes. “They’re very good students.”

Zhengzhong JiaMr. Zhengzhong Jia was the first student

in the village of Ying Ling, in southwest China, to go to college. In the entire county of Chao Tian, he had the highest college entrance exam score in 1992. Though the rest of his family has stayed in that remote mountain village, Mr. Jia got out and saw the world. And now, here he is at CM.

Mr. Jia, who teaches many of the high school Mandarin classes, agrees with Mr. Xu about CM’s student body. “They’re very good,” he says. “Most are quite curious about Chinese and they’ve made great improve-ments. CM is a very good school. The faculty and students are always so friendly.”

After graduating from the Sichuan Normal University for Teachers in Cheng Du, the capital city of Sichuan Province, Mr. Jia began his teaching career at the Chong Qing Foreign Languages School attached to SISU (Sichuan International Studies University).

For twelve years, Mr. Jia taught English in grades 7-12, becoming head teacher of the senior class and special instructor in the school’s IB (International Baccalaureate) program. His school, where he plans to return next year, thought it would be a good idea for him to experience the American educational system, and Mr. Jia obliged.

“I got the call from the administration in my school who told me about the program and I applied,” he said.

Mr. Jia had previously traveled to Seattle and Australia as a chaperone on international programs for his school, which graduates nearly 130 students each year that go on to college. “I hope to start a sister school program with CM, for teachers and students,” he says.

Mr. Jia has three older sisters, one older brother and eight nieces and nephews who live near his native village in Yang Mu. Mr. Jia’s wife lives in Chong, and received govern-ment honors in 2003 as a nurse treating SARS patients at Xiao Tang Shan Hospital in Beijing, hopes to visit him in America soon.

16

You’ve heard that line a million times on TV:

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney during interrogation; if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you.”

Since 1991, it’s been the job of William Leahy ’64 to make sure that the second part of the “Miranda Rights” declaration – that you have a right to a court-appointed attorney – is honored.

Leahy, the Chief Counsel for the Committee for Public Counsel Services in the Commonwealth, has fought for countless defendants, particularly those without means to represent themselves, in three decades as a public interest lawyer in the state of Massachusetts.

As a CM grad who went on to Notre Dame then Harvard Law School, Leahy could have been any kind of lawyer he wanted to be. But as he told those assembled at the annual President's Society Dinner on October 15, Leahy wanted to devote himself to a life of service.

“My vision of myself at CM was to become a priest,” Leahy said. “I wanted to become a Maryknoll Missionary. In the evolution of that idea, I went to Notre Dame where I thought I was headed to become a foreign aid person or foreign diplomat overseas. Then in law school, I focused on civil legal services and public defense.”

While at Harvard, Leahy, originally a Dorchester native, worked for the Clinical Reform Institute and the Cambridge and Somerville Legal Services Clinic. When he graduated, he realized his calling as a public defender. And in thirty years since, he has helped not only the under-served and unprivileged defend themselves but the public interest law field, whose work is often without a champion, fight for fair and ade-quate compensation.

Catholic Memorial, Leahy recalled, gave him much of that passion for service. “It was really the high expectations there, the high standards, and the passion that CM was full of. It’s a sense that we were all on a mission.”

In Brother Jim Barry, Leahy saw that passion that involved, in his words, “getting the best out of yourself, whether it be in the classroom or on the track.”

“And Brother McKenna, I think Dumbledore from Harry Potter was a cousin of his,” Leahy joked. He had the same wisdom. He knew where the school was going. He had a confidence about him and a reserve and wisdom about him that stood that young school in good stead.”

After breaking records in cross country and track at CM and Notre Dame, Leahy tried teaching for a few years, at P.S. 20 in Hunts Point in the Bronx. “They were three very important years in my life,” he said.

Realizing he wanted to study the law, Leahy returned to Boston and studied at Harvard Law School. In 1974, he began work as a public defender in Boston, Cambridge and Dedham. When the Committee for the Counsel of Public Services opened in 1984, he became its first Deputy Chief Counsel and in 1991 took over as Chief Counsel.

Asked what cases he is most proud of in his distinguished legal career, Leahy cites the oft-referenced Commonwealth v. Sneed (1979). “It made completely clear that a judge cannot instruct a jury that a person is guilty,” Leahy said.

In Lavallee v. Justices of Hampden County Superior Court (2004), Leahy argued for higher wages for counselors who, like him, defend those who cannot defend themselves. He won. “We were finally forced to go to the Supreme Judicial Court to preserve the right to counsel, which had fallen into crisis after decades of funding neglect,” he said.

The Public Servant: Chief Counsel William J. Leahy ’64

NEWS NOTES...NEWS NOTES...

17

1962Dan Driscoll, who has been a teacher in the Boston schools for 33 years, retired in 2003.

Dick Geden has been enjoying retirement from Gillette for the past ten years. He is enjoying life with his wife of 37 years, Carol, at their lakeside home on Lake Winnipesauke in Moultonborough, NH.

Phil Riley is employed as the Director of National Security and Foreign Relations at the National Level for the American Legion.

1963Jack Parker was named to The New England Hockey Journal’s Top 50 Most Influential People in New England Hockey in January. The Journal said that Parker’s “legacy is tangible as anyone who has been to Agganis Arena can attest. He has as much to do with it being built as anyone, even ensuring that the stands were made steeper to ensure a more intimate atmosphere.” Parker came in at #6 in the ranking.

1964Forty years after graduating from CM, Dr. James Rush has limited his private practice of neuro-ophthalmology to half-time volume, easing his way into gradual retirement. Dr. Rush will giving free testing to fellow CM grads who live in Florida.

1965Mark Campbell retired in August 2008 after 40 years with the City of Boston. He is enjoying his re-tirement while living in Marshfield (Rexhame Beach). Mark sends his greetings to Dr. Jon Ruel, Deac Finn, Bud Dolan, and fellow classmates.

1968Fr. John (Jack) Costello was named as rector of Epiphany Cathedral in Venice, FL on October 1,

2008. Before assuming his new duties, he served as pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Bradenton.

NEWSNOTES

continued on page 17

Since 2004, things have become better, Leahy reports, but there’s plenty of work left to do and the economy isn’t helping matters. “I just came out of an impromptu conversation with the governor’s forecast person who is predicting extremely low budget recommendations for this year,” he said on a recent morning. “We are scrap-ing through this fiscal year. But there’s a difference: this time, it’s a part of a statewide and national fiscal emergency. Before it was simple neglect.”

Although he gladly advocates for equal pay for lawyers who do the honorable task of ensuring a defendant’s Miranda rights or on behalf of alleged criminals, Leahy is cautious in giving advice on choosing a life of service.

“You have to find something that moves you,” he said.

“The world is not sustained by public service people,” he said. “It’s everybody’s responsibility. You have a personal responsibility for the world you live in. Everybody can serve – it doesn’t have to be your career.”

Pictured (left to right), Brennan Williams ’09, Paul E. Sheff ’62 and Bill Leahy ’64, at the annual President’s Society Dinner, held at the Waltham Westin Hotel on October 15th, 2008.

18

Take a few student leaders who want to make a difference. Add eight hundred students behind them, as well as a caring faculty and staff, and you’ve got a school-wide project that makes families’ lives across the city a lot easier over the holidays.

That’s the lesson that the student body at Catholic Memorial School found out in December, as they spearheaded two major gift drives to raise thousands of dollars and hun-dreds of gifts for those in need around the holidays.

The National Honor Society at the school, along with Campus Ministry, headed by Mr. Brian Scott, organized two drives to benefit the Home for Little Wanderers Adopt-a-Family Program and the Quincy-based non-profit Cradles to Crayons.

After a successful Thanksgiving food drive to benefit St. Patrick’s Parish in Roxbury, Scott knew the two CM groups – NHS and Campus Ministry – could help out even more over the December holiday season. “Each homeroom bought an entire household of gifts for families who would otherwise have nothing to open on Christmas,” Scott said of the Adopt-a-Family program.

With over twenty-five homerooms in the school building, that meant a lot of help for families in need. “In total, CM was able to help make Christmas possible for 20 families in

our local neighborhood,” said Scott.

The juniors and seniors, in particular, raised funds and supplies for Cradles to Crayons, a Quincy organization whose purpose is to make sure that young boys and girls have the basic supplies neces-sary for becoming successful. “Their efforts raised over $5,000,” reported Scott, “and provided clothes for many children this winter.”

god Rest Ye Merry gentlemenCM students play Santa for Boston area families and children

CM students ( above) get ready to deliver Christmas gifts and supplies to the Home for Little Wanderers program and Cradles to Crayons. (Left to right) Sam Walter ‘14, Patrick Doolan ‘13, Sean Mahoney ‘09, Tom Flaherty ‘10, and Will Donovan ‘10. At right, CM's peer ministers pack up the Thanksgiving Food Drive baskets after the annual Thanksgiving Mass.

Letters of Thanks and Appreciation

From the U.S. Marines in Iraq, on receiving the freshmen care packages

December 1, 2008

I wanted to drop a line to wish you a “Happy Thanksgiving.” I also wanted to let you know we received all the pack-ages. The Marines truly appreciate all of the support. That was a lot of work and I know that each Marine appreciated getting a little something personal from home. Marines can be hit or miss with sending letters, I hope some of them take the time to send a little response, but I wanted to make sure you knew that the packages were received and it is appreciated!

We had a little Thanksgiving celebra-tion out here yesterday, it is not easy to get my whole group together due to the operational tempo but we got about 80% together and had turkey, ham, stuffing and potatoes. Good times had by all. I do my best to give them a little taste of home…

Please pass this on to everyone and I will talk with you soon.

Semper Fi.

Captain Tim Mahoney TS Company Combat Logistics Battalion 2Al Asad, Iraq

NEWS NOTES...NEWS NOTES...

19

1968Larry Quinn is happy to report that he and his wife are getting ready to send their final daughter, Caro-line, off to college. They have raised three daughters in the town of Natick. Daughter, Jennifer, is married with two children and lives in Wellesley; daughter Jaclyn lives in Saugus.

1970Dennis Lyons is the Vice President of Alumni and Professional Affairs at the Mass. College of Pharmacy and Health Sci-ences (MCPHS). He has two daughters, one is a freshman at MCPHS and the other is a 2007 graduate of Stonehill College and is now working at Children’s Hospital Trust.

1973James McCarthy is happy to announce that his son, Joseph, a junior at CM, caught a touchdown pass against BC High during the annual Turkey Bowl game at BC High on Thanksgiving morning. Joseph also plays baseball.

Matt Mulvey was sworn in as a United States Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla Vice Commander in December

2008.

1975Bill Martin was inducted into the Athletes Hall of Fame of the Massachusetts State Track Coaches Association at the Reggie Lewis Center on January 31, 2009.

1981 Richard Devito and his wife, Delia (Duggan), welcomed their fourth child on October 11, 2008. Nina joins brothers Thomas (7), Luke (4), and Peter (3). The Devitos are living in West Roxbury and are active in the Parkway community.

1987Ted Donato was named to The New England Hockey Journal’s Top 50 Most Influential People in New England Hockey. The Journal calls him “the type of person you never hear a bad thing about, Donato has increased the program’s talent level with his recruiting.” Donato’s ranking was #27.

Thanks from Everyone

January 12, 2009

Happy New Year and I hope you had a wonderful holiday season.

I want to thank you and all your students, families & colleagues at CM for all your support in the Adopt a Family program this holiday season. Due in a big part to your support and efforts we were able to provide gifts for 111 families and 500 family members!

Here is a sampling of some quotes from our families:

“Thanks very much for making my children and family very happy during the holidays.”

“During two weeks after my husband lost his job, I was worried about how we were going to get any presents for our children during the holidays. Because of people like yourself, I still have faith God is watching over us. Thanks very much and God bless you.”

“Thanks for putting a smile on my children’s faces.”

“No words in this world can describe what you have done for my children and my family. I will always be thankful to you and my higher power for putting me in the pathway of people like yourself.”

“There are no words I can describe the blessings you and the sponsors have given to my family and me. Thank you so much for this holiday blessing.”

Please share with everyone our sincere thanks. You truly made an impact on less fortunate families this holiday season.

Scott Inman, Home for Little Wanderers

A letter of Thanks from St. Patrick’s Church in Roxbury

November 26, 2008

Thanks to you and the school for the generous gift I received in the mail today. Particularly extend our gratitude to your great students who look out for the needs of others.

Who says kids aren’t caring today? Not me.

Prayers and best wishes to all.

Sincerely,

Father Waldron, Pastor

20

The beginning of Patrick Simas ’10’s story sounds dreary and ominous. But it was just the kind of dreariness that matched the spirit of Edward Hopper’s painting, one of the two inspirations for Catholic Memorial’s Picturing America Writing Contest.

The awards ceremony, held in the Board Room on January 14th, honored eight creative writers and awarded over $400 in cash and prizes to them.

Among the contest’s judges was William Martin ‘68, an accomplished author who has gone on to publish eight novels, among them Harvard Yard, Back Bay, and most recently Lost Constitution. Martin was on hand to congratulate all the young and talented writers in the fields of poetry, fiction and non-fiction who were named finalists in the contest.

“This was a wonderful creative challenge,” Martin said of the contest, which asked students to write about two art prints furnished by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant. “To have the opportunity to look at images like this and take your imagination into them, it’s something you should enjoy doing.”

Martin, along with faculty authors Naomi Lockwood and Dr. Michael Dempsey ’75, offered advice to the eight finalists in the contest whose work was chosen from nearly a hundred entries.

“We serve a higher truth,” Martin said of fiction writers. “I’ve spent most of my career going up into a room and making stuff up, which is not a bad way to spend your life, as long as people read it!”

“You’ve gone through the same creative process writers go through,” Martin told Simas and fellow finalists Michael Carey ’09 (2nd place) and Dan Haley ’10 (3rd place). “If you study images like these long enough you under-stand the basic truth about writing and particularly about writing fiction: character is the heart of fiction and action is character.”

Ms. Lockwood invited finalists Killian Page ’09 (Honorable Mention), Christopher Caidor ’11 (2nd place), and Andrew Fanikos ’10 (1st place) to read their poems to the audience. “These are all poets in the making,” Lockwood said. “A good poet needs to know what to leave out as much as what to put

CM’s Best Writers Emerge in “picturing america” Writing Contest

Isaac Shins, age 42, sat at his piano, in his empty home, with an empty soul. A picture of Mozart sat atop the piano; Isaac nodded to the portrait that had often brought him some source of inspiration. He stopped to look at his home. The massive Victorian house he resided in seemed cozy when his wife June and their three children were inside.

He observed the things that used to make him happy – the massive French windows which captured every shimmer-ing particle of life, the checkerboard floor in the main hall, the bright green wallpaper, and the lamp on the dining room table which his children had broken on several occasions. Now, he was a prisoner of his own music, confined to his piano stool, going days without leaving it.

– from “Magnum Opus” by Patrick Simas ’10

Poet in residence and Spanish teacher Ms. Naomi Lockwood, awarded the top poetry prizes to (left to right) Killian Page ‘09, Chris Caidor ‘11, and Andrew Fanikos ‘10.

NEWS NOTES...NEWS NOTES...

21

1990Phil Davies is happy to announce the birth of his daughter, Katelyn Paige, born on March 1, 2008.

1991Kenneth Smith works and lives in the Chicago area with his wife, three year old son , Kenny III and twins Madeleine and Morgan, who were born this past summer. He plans on being back for the 20th reunion and encourages all his classmates to attend. Classmates are invited to contact him at kensmith06@hotmail.com.

1992Brian O’Connell is currently a Major in the Air Force stationed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware where he is an Instructor/Evaluator Pilot in the C-17 Globemaster III.

1997Br. Jason Ford, C.F.C. has been asked by the Leadership Team of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers to go to Bolivia (in Latin America) for one year beginning July 2009. While there he will study Spanish at the Maryknoll Language School and participate in the local Brothers community ministry.

2008Michael Collins is playing for the Vernon Vipers in the British Columbia Hockey League as a forward. The West Roxbury Transcript newspaper profiled him in a January feature article.

We want to hear from you!Please send us information and photos on weddings, births, anniversaries, job promotions, etc.

Send your updates and photos by contacting Dave Erwin ’96 at DavidErwin@CatholicMemorial.org

Faculty MilestonesHal Carey ’95, math teacher, was engaged to Meredith Stewart in December.

Ms. Mary Concannon, director of Catholic Memorial School’s Irish Studies program, was interviewed on Ireland’s National Public Radio (RTE) show Iris Anair on January 20 to discuss the inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States.

Rob Croteau ’93 and Eileen McLaughlin were engaged in the fall.

Shawn Cusson, science teacher, and his wife Corinna welcomed a son, Lucas Edward, who was born Friday January 16th and weighed in at 8 lbs. 16 ozs.

Bill Hanson, guidance counselor and head hockey coach, was named the recipient of the 2009 John Mariucci Award by the American Hockey Coaches Association. Hanson was also named as the only high school hockey coach in the New England Hockey Journal’s Top 50 Most Influential People in New England Hockey listing.

Tim Lewis, theology teacher, was engaged to Leigh Ann Moreno in December.

Pat Murray, math teacher, was engaged to Lauren Kelly in the fall.

in. These young men are all poets in the making and it was very difficult to choose from among them.”

Dr. Michael Dempsey awarded the first place in non-fiction to junior Sean Steinberg and a second place award to junior John dePierro. Over $400 in cash and prizes was awarded to the finalists.

CM librarian Ann Magyar organized the contest and awards ceremony, which aims to elicit faculty and alumni authors to judge each year. “I was impressed not only with the number of students who chose to write but with the interesting take they had on it and the thoughtfulness they put into it,” said Magyar.

CM president Paul Sheff ’62 thanked the school’s teachers for mentoring such talent and applauded the winners and their parents.

“I am extremely impressed and I’m proud of you for doing this,” Sheff said. “Writing will enrich your life in so many ways and it will also enrich the lives of your readers.”

“We serve a higher truth,” said best-selling author William Martin ’68 about fiction writers. Martin judged the fiction awards in this year’s contest.

22

Spotlights scattered across the top of the sur-rounding spruce trees, all beaming down on a small, unclean sheet of ice. Dozen of pucks piled in the back of an old, faded red metal hockey net barely standing. Homemade wooden benches stared each other down from opposite sides of the rink. Since I was seven, that has been the scene in the Anderson backyard. My younger brother Eric and I would be outside under the lights, nearly frozen, skating until our mother’s threats resonated from the back porch com-manding us to come inside. Hockey became the only – indeed, was the only – thing my brother and I knew during the winter; it ruled our lives.

It was Friday and school had just let out. The weather was below freezing and perfect for pond hockey. Eric and I raced to our dad’s car parked across the street, anxious to get home and lace up the skates for an all night event. However instead of going home, we drove to Children’s Hospital in Boston. I was put in a small exam room in the Emergency department. The nurse came in to take my blood, and made me give a sample of urine and then simply left.

Student Voices: Two Seniors’ College Application Essays

“I’m sorry, but the tests have confirmed that your son is a type-1 diabetic.” I overheard the doctor say this softly to my parents in the corner of the room while I lay there helpless on a stretcher a few feet away. The moments that followed were tough. A disease that took less than an hour to diagnose seemed to shatter my life and everything I knew in it. Doctor Lafelle explained the daily routine I would have to endure for the rest of my life: constant finger pokes to check the blood sugar level in my body, and different insulin injections into my stomach I would have to take through the course of a day. She also explained how playing hockey would have to be less of a priority for a while.

I spent a week in the hospital taking a crash course on diabetes. Everyday we needed to learn something new. First it was the insulin, how to mix and inject it. Then the equipment and how to calibrate meters and then the ADA diet and how I would have to measure everything I would eat. I can easily say it was the longest week on my life. The minute I was discharged, I left without looking back. The first chance I had to skate, I took it, completely disregarding Doctor Lafelle’s instructions. Sure enough, my sugar level crashed to an extreme low where I could not sit up under my own power. After that incident nothing else seemed to matter.

The spring of my junior year however, I met someone who would help turn my life around. I began to work with a trainer who slowly reintroduced weight training and exercise into my life. He forced me to keep a food journal,

and completely change my diet. I found myself gaining muscle mass and gaining control of my blood sugar levels. Being active again helped me cope with the disease and help bring back the relationships I once had with my friends and also my brother.

The next visit to the Joslin Clinic, Doctor Lafelle almost fell out of her chair: my “A1C” test (the average blood sugar level over a three month period) that is taken each visit was an unheard of 6.1, a non-diabetic reading. In other words, if you took my A1C and that of a person who did not have diabetes, they would be equal. It is a very rare accomplishment to achieve and even more rare for someone newly diagnosed. I finally had gained control of my disease and my life once again.

Being diagnosed was probably the worst and surprisingly the best thing that has ever happened to me. It may have forced me to make some changes in my life, but it made me realize how much hockey truly did mean to me and showed me how much I was willing to do to keep it in my life. The disease has taught me life skills of patience, perseverance, determination, practicing good health, and how to overcome obstacles in my life that you would never expect to encounter.

It is now winter 2008, soon to be 2009, four years after being diagnosed. The spotlight, the pucks, the net, and the intimidating benches- they’re all still there. My mother’s threats once again resonate from the back porch while we nearly freeze skating. Screams of victory and howls of defeat are heard in the dead of night. My screams of victory over diabetes however, will reign long after the ice in the rink melts.

Mark D. Anderson ’09A Winter that Changed a Life

23

I have heard these words many times throughout my life and I think I finally realize what they truly mean.

I heard these exact words said to me by my grandfather when I was 9 years old when my pet hamster died, and again by my father when I was 16 when my grandfather passed away. There has always been only one man who was a complete role model for me, whom I revered so greatly I even thought of him as a parent. This man was my grandfather, Julio Cesar Abud.

Julio Caesar Abud – “Papa” to me – took me in as his own while my mother struggled to finish college and work at the same time. My paternal father was the provider, now and then, until I turned five and he went to the Dominican Republic. But that is a story for another time. As an infant of only a few months, I instinctively mimicked many of the habits of my grandfather and his companions. For instance, they would consecutively drink cans of beer and always eat Planters cashews. So one day, I am told, while everyone was enjoying themselves, I stole an empty can of beer, sat on the couch, and started gnawing on cashews, trying to eat them while everyone watched and laughed.

Later, when I began going to preschool, my grandfather would pick me up every day. He would meet me near the lush and beautiful park by Boston’s Green St. “T” Station. Watching the

trains go by the park, we would admire their power and speed. Papa would speak to me about taking long train rides, and I started to dream of taking them too, far away from there.

Papa traveled far from home in the 1950s, from the Dominican Republic where he was born and raised. Although he grew up in a privileged family and eventually was married to his wife, Mireya Valerio, he grew up in tougher times with an abusive father and a tyrannical government. One time his father actually took him and one of his brothers (my Great Uncle Americo), tied them both to wooden poles and struck them repeatedly with a whip. “It was tough, but I knew that I had the will power,” Papa said. But Papa then told me that they would always steal money from their malicious father, and that they would even have fist fights with their own father. Papa risked his life in the early 1960s by joining the “14 de Junio” rebel group that opposed then Dominican president Trujillo. Papa joined the cause after seeing oppressive conditions in LaVega, his hometown. One story in par-ticular that I remembered was of him being caught in a raid by government officials. He was going to be executed on the spot, had he not made friends with one of the President’s attorneys, who just happened to be passing by on coincidence, and stopped him from being murdered. But still, he was then thrown in jail.

Although Trujillo was eventually assassinated by the “14 de Junio,” Papa had to flee the country because of his involvement in the plan to over-throw him. He settled in the northeast, living in both Boston and New York. He enjoyed playing the piano and reading about medicine in his spare time, while spending time with his family.

Although Papa died, April 14, 2008, I feel honored to be his namesake. In addition to being named Julio, my mother and I are planning to legally add “Abud” to my name.

Walking by the trains at Green Street these days, I think of how I spent many days of my formative years with my grandfather, but when he was alive I did not cherish him enough. It is true what Ralph Waldo Emerson says: “All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart unhurt.” Even now, almost nine months after his death, when I listen to a piano being played on the radio, I think sadly of all of the small ways that I may have hurt Papa’s feelings, and I cannot heal the pain that I continually feel in the bottom of my heart.

I hope that I will continue to live on with Papa’s spirit in my heart. Like him, I enjoy reading about medicine and health care and wish to study it full time in college and beyond.

Julio Baez ’09“All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart unhurt.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

24

I’ve done some pretty interesting things in the Army. I’ve jumped out of perfectly good airplanes. I once planned security for a Papal visit to Bosnia. I was one of the first 4th Infantry Division soldiers into Iraq in 2003. And yes, like most other Soldiers who’ve deployed, various people have tried to kill me in various ways during my three tours here.

But on December 6, I got the greatest assignment a Soldier, who also happens to be a Red Sox fan, could dream of: I got to be Curt Schilling’s military escort during his USO trip to Baghdad. It was the single best day I’ve spent in uniform in more than 16 years of service.

I worship Curt Schilling for The Bloody Sock. As far as I am concerned, that sock dem-onstrated a level of guts and courage unprec-edented in any athletic event since the beginning of World History. Yes, Papi made it possible by carrying US through games four and five, but to my mind it was The Sock that beat the Yankees and brought the World Championship to Boston. I will have no argument about this. I outrank you.

There is always a danger when, as a fan, you meet someone you have idolized for years – a danger that he will disappoint you with some tragic flaw. He might be a high-maintenance snob. He might talk about himself incessantly.

The Soldiers’ Hall of Fame

By Major Michael Donahue ’88,

4th Infantry Division, Baghdad

Maybe he’s so dumb he can’t talk at all. Or maybe, worst of all, he’s here as some sort of publicity stunt. Watching Schill for years, I was pretty confident none of these things were true, but what if they were? I actually started to question whether or not I really wanted to do this.

I have to admit that I was a mess when I picked him up. I was too excited and nervous to sleep the night before, I hadn’t eaten, and I was jittery from the pot of coffee I threw down at 4am getting ready. If I was unsure of what the real Curt Schilling was going to be like, I was one hundred percent sure that I was going to make a fool of myself. It took less than three seconds to rid me of all my fears.

This massive guy with a huge smile on his face came bounding down the hall talking about how excited he was to meet me and to get out and see as many Soldiers as he could. He wanted to know where we were going, who we were visiting, what types of units, how long they had been deployed…every detail he could get. For the next eighteen hours we bounced around the most remote corners of Baghdad visiting Soldiers, signing thousands of hats, photos, balls, and posing for pictures- and he exceeded my wildest expectations - never showing a sign of

exhaustion, always enthusiastic, always humble, and always engaging.

He signed hats for wounded comrades who had been sent home, recorded Christmas video messages for Soldiers’ families, and even talked a little smack about his personal abilities at Madden Football with the self-proclaimed Champion of one of the patrol bases. Soldiers loved him – for a number of reasons. First, he’s a genuine Superstar who came to visit them – not a second tier guy or some pretty good guy, but the single most accomplished athlete to ever step foot in this combat zone.

Second, he can relate to them – as Curt said to his friend Ty, there is no difference at all between locker room humor and foxhole humor. Soldiers frequently regale one another with the same crude, off-colored putdowns that a team, or any loose, tight-knit bunch of people with shared values and goals throws around behind closed doors. It is not cocktail party humor, but full-contact ribbing that is a mark of acceptance and respect - you have to earn the right to be attacked by these people.

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Finally, Curt Schilling is real. He’s not some “BS artist” who came with an agenda. He didn’t come to Iraq for any reason other than visit-ing Soldiers. He didn’t come for accolades. He didn’t come to make a political statement. He didn’t come for himself. Schilling came for them. Soldiers can smell a phony.

I’m not sure I can pinpoint my personal favorite moment of the trip. It could be the look on the faces of Soldiers at Joint Security Station Hor al Bash getting to play catch with Schilling moments before they were to roll out on yet another combat patrol.

I think my favorite moment, though, was a sidebar conversation Curt had with someone trying to arrange a live interview with ESPN or CNN to talk about his trip, an interview the station promised would only take an hour or so. Without hes-itation, and very privately, Curt told them unequivocally no. As he said: “I’ve done a million interviews with those guys and can do one when I get back, I’m only here for eight days and I’m not taking any time away from these Soldiers.”

He didn’t do it publicly; he didn’t do it to make the Soldiers appreciate him more – none of them even knew about it. He did it because he wanted to spend every second he could with the people he came to visit, because

for him this trip was about Soldiers, not about public relations.

Throughout the visit, Schilling answered every question thrown at him with the blunt honesty and charisma that has made him a fan, though not necessarily media, favorite in every city he’s pitched. And while he has frequently been labeled a blowhard, too Christian or too conservative in the Boston media, Soldiers can always see through a phony, and always appreciate honest people with strong values – especially when one of the things they value most is our service. “Did you want to shoot Mitch Williams?” “What is your single great-est baseball memory?” “Who would you have voted for this years’ AL MVP?” “What the hell is wrong with Manny?”

The Soldiers hung on every word, frequently erupting in laughter or shouting “I told you so” at one another. At first I wanted to ask him about the Hall of Fame, but later, I realized that not only did I already know what his answer would be, it no longer really mattered as much.

In meeting Major General Jeffrey Hammond, the Commander of the 4th Infantry Division and Multi-National Division (Baghdad), Curt made a point to mention that of all the games he’s won, all the trophies and all the rings, he’s sure that nothing would make his late father more proud than to know he came to visit American Soldiers and do what he could to show his support and appreciation. I cannot count the number of people who have stopped me since his visit and referred to that simple,

continued on page 29

At left: Michael Donahue ’88 poses with Curt Schilling on his visit to Iraq. Right: Donahue calls a bunt against Big Schill.

26

Midway through its year-long season, the Catholic Memorial Forensics Team is poised to become a serious contender for state and national titles in individual and team categories.

The teams accomplishments include a 5th place in the Early Pumpkin Tournament in Revere, 2nd in the Dighton Rehoboth Tournament, 6th (out of 75 teams) at the Villiger Tournament at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, and 1st place at the Al-bany High School tournament in December. At the prestigious Rippon Memorial Tournament at Regis High School in Manhattan on January 17th, the team came in 2nd place.

That’s to say nothing of the individual accomplish-ments. Dominic Montalbano ‘11, Ethan Madden ‘11, Aram Gurekian ‘11, Kevin Verity ‘10, Sean Steinberg ‘10, Brian Murphy ’09, Greg Sabina ’09 and John Labelle ’09 keep racking up big wins at tournament after tournament.

“They’re consistently performing at the top of their game and show a lot of promise heading towards national competitions in the spring,” said Coach Rob Croteau ’93 of his team’s top competitors.

At the Fr. Gerald Rippon Memorial Tournament at Regis High School on January 17, the team missed besting every Massachusetts and New York team by one point, finishing behind New York City power-house Stuyvesant High School. There, the team was led by Brian Murphy ‘09 and Greg Sabina ‘09 (1st place, Duo) and Dominic Montalbano ’11 (1st Declamation).

Also earning high marks at Regis were Ethan Madden ’11 (2nd place, Declamation), Sean Steinberg ’11 (4th, Original Oratory), Andrew Rogantino ’12 (4th,

Declamation), Kevin Donnelly ’11 (6th, Declama-tion), John Labelle ’09 (7th, Dramatic Interpretation), Kevin Verity ’10 (7th, Original Oratory), Patrick Storer ’11 (7th, JV Oral Interpreation), Eric Butts ’10 (Honor-able Mention, Oral Interpretation), and Pat Simas ’10 and Chris Masterson ’10 (Honorable Mention, Duo).

The week before, the team split up to cover two tournaments on the same day. Some joined Coach Croteau to attend the Pine Ridge High School Tour-nament in Deltona, Florida on January 10. Individual winners at that tournament included Kevin Verity ‘10 (1st in Original Oratory), Brian Murphy ‘10 and Greg Sabina ‘09 (2nd in Duo), and Dominic Montalbano ‘11 (2nd in Declamation).

Brother Cavet and other members of the Forensics Team competed in the “Around the World Tourna-ment” held at Newton South on January 10th. The team placed 6th overall. Individual winners included Marcus Jackson ‘12 (1st in Declamation), Andrew Ro-gantino ‘12 (2nd in Declamation), Brendan Shea ‘11 (4th in Declamation), Robert Kane ‘09 (4th in Group Discussion), Andrew Fanikos ‘10 (6th in Extempora-neous), Todd Taylor ‘10 (6th in Storytelling), Brendan McGowan ‘11 & Mark Woodall ‘11 (7th in Duo), Patrick Storer ‘11 (semi-finalist in Novice Reading).

Another Standout Year for CM Forensics

The CM Forensics Team had to carry-on plenty of trophies on their plane ride home from the Pine Ridge High School Tournament in Deltona, Florida. Thirteen students have qualified to compete at Nationals in May.

CM Online: Visit www.CatholicMemorial.org

• Watch CMTV videos and get updates on Sports/Activities.

• More alumni news and events, including Reunion 2009 Class Pages.

• Read about the CM Hockey team’s mid-season rally and triumphs.

27

“You have that cool, clear, eye of a seeker of wisdom and truth…”

So goes the lyric to one of Broadway’s most famous songs “I Believe In You.” Made famous by Robert Morse in 1961 and reinterpreted again in 1995 by Matthew Broderick, it comes from the hit Pulitzer Prize Winning Musical, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. The show garnered seven 1961 Tony Awards and four 1995 Tony nominations (one win for Broderick). A simple story of fictional J. Pierpont Finch’s journey climbing the corporate ladder rung by ever-present rung, stumbling upon true love, nearly losing true love, and realizing he had everything he ever wanted all along, all before the final note is sounded.

This show will be Catholic Memorial’s spring musical.

Directed and Music Directed by CM’s Director of Music, Mr. Craig Spaner, this show will feature the Knights of Baker Street, faculty members, and several guests from Boston-area schools.

The character of Finch will be performed by junior Patrick Simas.

“I think it’s a fun, off-the-wall show that’s going to give me a chance to work with a lot of great people,” Simas said. “The songs are very catchy.”

The spring musicals-in-concert series came about four years ago. It was the brainchild of Mr. Spaner. “I actually wanted to do a musical here my first year, but I was coaching two seasons, and realized I should perhaps, go one step at a time before soaring up staircases in one bountiful leap. It was always in my mind, but didn’t materialize until fall 2005.”

That’s when Spaner decided to perform Chess: The Musical – in Concert.

“It’s not the most well-known show, but in the theatre world it has a tremendous following. Plus, it’s the music of Abba, so it had built in pop recogni-tion. The show was everything I hoped it would be and wound up an incredibly moving and pivotal experience.”

The success of that one-night only show opened the doors for years to come.

“I followed with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” said Spaner, “still mixing students and professionals, but giving the students more responsibilities from the cast to the crew. Guys and Dolls was last year and it was such a wonderful evening. And the boys loved it!”

“This year, it appears we will have an entirely student cast and a larger pit orchestra of students, faculty, and three professionals.”

Starring in the one-night only musical will be junior Sam McGee as the conniving, yet entertaining Bud Frump and senior Greg Sabina as the gruff-on-the-outside boss, J.B. Biggley. Also, starring in the show will be junior Connor Lynch as Head of Person-nel, Bert Bratt. Also, junior Sung-Eun Park as Mr. Twimble. Rounding out the many roles are David Colarossi ‘13, Michael Embleton ‘10, Andrew Fanikos ‘10, Aram Gurekian ’11, Cuinn Hanscom ‘11, Yang-Woo Kim ‘11, Brendan MacNabb ’10, Devin MacNeil ‘10, Ethan Madden ‘10, and Sean Steinberg ‘10.

Faculty members include Mr. Bill Hahn as Gatch, Mrs. Ann Murphy P ’03, ’05, ’08 as Miss Jones, and Mr. Spaner as The Voice of the Book. Mr. Colarossi P ’13 and Br. Phelps will help with music and behind the scenes. Several young women from Boston-area schools will play the roles of Rosemary, Smitty, and Hedy LaRue.

“Theatre is only as limiting as your imagination

Pulitzer Prize Winning Musical will be CM’s Spring Show

Mr. Spaner, (at left) seen after another successful Christmas Concert, will be directing this spring’s musical.

Early College Acceptances

Judging from the first acceptance letters that were coming in this winter, this year’s senior class will be off to some of the finest colleges and universities in the coming year. Here is a sampling of some of the early acceptances that were received by January 31.

Arizona State University Andrew DiBartolo

Babson College Trevor Boyce

Boston University Mark Macchi

The Citadel Andrew Ziniti

Harvard College Joshua Boyd

Providence College Anthony Valle

Seton Hall University Mark Hedberg

Union College Brian Daley

University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill

Brennan Williams

Villanova University Russell Rioux

allows it to be. I tell these boys all the time how fortunate they are to have the faculty, staff, and administration that they do. It’s remarkable.”

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying will be presented in the Ron Perry Gymnasium at Catholic Memorial on Wednesday April 15, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $5.00 and may be purchased at the door.

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continued from page 23

Since graduating from Harvard College, Mr. Nick Colarossi P’13 has worn many hats in his career; actor, musician, teacher, and of course now, director. He is currently the director of the Drama Club and will direct CM’s dramatic entry at this March’s Massachusetts DramaFest. It’s an annual competition pitting high schools throughout the state in friendly competition. But, what is gained by the student actors is much more important than a first place finish.

“DramaFest helps us see what other schools are doing and allows us to challenge ourselves as performers,” said Colarossi. “The struggle is that we have, like each school, just 40 minutes to set, act, and strike the show.”

Mr. C. remains nonplussed about the time limit on each DramaFest submission. And for this year’s entry, he has chosen quite a whopper: From the

Memoirs of Pontius Pilate, by Eric Bentley.

“Apart from being an all-male show, the script is phenomenal,” he said. “I ordered it sight unseen to see if we could work and read it in one sitting. It’s a transformative, thought-provoking work that tells a story that maybe people take for granted and presents it in a slightly different way.”

So, where did Mr. C’s love of the arts begin?

“I started playing the piano when I was in the second grade and have loved performing since. I suppose I’m a quiet ham, if there is such a thing! I enjoy helping tell a story through music and constantly find ways to combine music and other subjects.”

So, Mr. C. wanted to direct and teach instead of perform. Though, he did have opportunities early on

however, to ‘tread the boards’ as an actor. “Mostly comedic roles in Kiss Me Kate, Pajama Game, 6 Rms Riv Vu, and Plaza Suite. Neil Simon…comic relief.”

But, acting wasn’t in his future plans. Perhaps then, his piano-playing skills and love of theatre as a bridge to tell stories and teach lessons would fill his love for the stage.

“In high school, I was the guy who accompanied singers who were auditioning for a role or solo since I was one of the school’s pianists. And, even at Harvard, I played for a few shows and helped a few people audition.”

Mr. C. serves on the Massachusetts Department of Education Arts Education Advisory Council. “The Advisory Council is a wonderful opportunity to help grow the love of arts in an educational environment.”

His favorite plays: A Man for All Seasons and Camelot.

Movies that changed him in some way: Saturday Night Fever, Love Story and All That Jazz

Favorite actors/actresses: Bette Davis, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda.

In 3 words, Mr. C’s inspirations to create theatre: perspective, story, entertain.

It appears CM’s Drama Club is on its way towards a strong showing at this year’s DramaFest. Under the watchful eye of Nick Colarossi, their chances for placing high in the awards might be strong, but the company’s chances of learning about theatre craft and teamwork are even stronger.

Your Bow is Now: Mr. Nick Colarossi’s Vision of Theater at CM

Mr. Colarossi P’13, in his other role as English teacher, knows how to bring drama to the classroom as well as the stage.

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Seniors put a face and name on AIDS Awareness Week

brief encounter as one of the most memorable and moving tributes they have ever received – because it was obvious to them that Curt’s words came from the heart.

In baseball, more than any other sport, players are measured by statistics. For a pitcher, wins, losses, earned run averages, championships, and trophies all define a career. While his career regular season statistics are impressive: 216 wins and 3,116 strikeouts (15th all-time), they may not be enough, as the traditional mark for a pitcher to “guarantee” entrance to the Hall of Fame is 300 wins. His playoff and World Series numbers are astounding: 11 wins (5th all-time), 2 losses, 134 innings pitched, 120 strikeouts, three time World Series Champion and co-MVP of the 2001 World Series for the Diamondbacks – but they may not be enough to put him over the top on 75% of the ballots.

Curt Schilling wants to be in the Hall of Fame, but he probably recog-nizes that by traditional standards for pitchers he may not get the nod. At

the end of the day though, I think he will always take the greatest satisfac-tion from being the guy his teammates wanted to take the mound when the wind turned cold and the leaves fell off the trees. He justifiably takes pride in being that someone we all wanted on our teams in October – because he’s a gamer, a workhorse, a winner.

The greatest post-season pitcher in modern baseball history, the guy with the bloody sock, who’s selfless, gutsy performance in the 2004 ALCS and World Series will be long remembered as one of the most courageous performances in baseball, a 6 time All Star, the first pitcher in history to win a World Series game for three different teams, and the Co-MVP of the 2001 World Series, Curt Schilling may still not be considered “worthy” for induc-tion into Cooperstown. I don’t know how the Baseball Writers Association of American will ultimately vote, but I will tell you this: I know hundreds of American Soldiers on the front lines of combat in the worst city in the world who’d punch his ticket. He’s Hall of Fame in our book.

DONAHUE/SCHILLING, continued from page 25

AIDS Awareness Week, commemorated in the first week of December, came and went again this year for many of us in the blink of an eye.

But it’s likely that for many CM seniors, AIDS Awareness Week will now remind them each year of a candid and enlightening conversation they had with Mr. Mark Smith ’85 in the CM Chapel on December 5.

Mr. Smith, a theology and geography teacher in the Middle School Program, had a simple story to tell. His brother Brian died of AIDS in 1991. He was 31 years old.

“I approached Mr. Chisholm last year and told him I’d talk about it,” Smith said. “I knew with them going off to college, that it’d be important for them to know more about the disease and I knew there are a lot of misconceptions.”

Smith told them Brian’s story with some very simple lessons in mind for helping people with HIV. “It’s about not pushing people aside,” he said. “Be

welcoming to them and embrace them. I was trying to make the kids more sensitive.”

“It was pretty serious, because it was such a serious life experience,” said Mike Minton ’09 after the talk.

“Mr. Smith said he’s happy that the school’s rec-ognizing AIDS more,” Martin Giordano ’09 added. “People used to think it was just a disease that homosexuals got. Nowadays they realize it’s often spread by straight people. Mr. Smith told us that as growing men we need to take care of and look out for ourselves.”

Mr. Smith read a letter to the seniors that a friend of Brian’s had read at the funeral, talking about how positive Brian was and how strong he was in deal-ing with the ravaging disease. As for their response to his talk, Mr. Smith was overwhelmed.

“Some kids laughed initially, but kids laugh sometimes at serious things. Overall, they were awesome.” After reading their responses on a sur-vey he handed out, Smith remarked, “They wrote great responses. I asked them what they found

Mr. Mark Smith ’85, theology and geography teacher, has brought his brother’s story to bear on the senior class’s commemorating of AIDS Awareness Week.

useful, and most of them said they would think more about what they’re doing in the future. That’s the least you can hope for.”

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Varsity basketball co-captain Jeff Tagger ’09, a standout guard on last year’s Division II Championship team, hopes to lead the Knights deep into the postseason again this March.

BASKETBALLWith a 12-4 record nearing the end of the regular season, the varsity basketball team is making strong progress towards its goal of returning to the postseason.

The team opened the season with an 86-50 win over Tiverton (RI). Al Harris ’09 led the Knights with 22 points in the game and Daniel Brooks ‘10 added 15 points. Other wins included Franklin, O’Bryant, and Lincoln-Sudbury and Catholic Conference wins over Xaverian, Malden Catholic and St. John’s Prep. Both Harris and Brooks came out as CM’s top scorers in many of these contests.

Captain Jeff Tagger ’09, Mike Ennis ’09 and Kyle Lawrence ’10 have also demonstrated leadership both on and off the court and put up points. James Griffin ’10 and Bomani Simmonds-Jennings ’09 have also added strong offense.

While the team has many tests awaiting it this season, we have a six-game home stand working in our favor and a lot of experienced starters and play-ers off the bench who come to practice and games devoted and ready to play.

– Coach Denis Tobin

HOCKEYWith a 4-3-3 record through the end of January, Catholic Memorial Varsity Hockey got its share of tests early on in the season this year.

CM Hockey began the season with a 6-3 win over Canton in a benefit game for Canton assistant coach Dennis Sholes and his family. The game raised over $5,000 for the cause. Scoring for the Knights in the game were Bill Carey ‘09 (2), Garrett Noonan ‘09, Shane Walsh ‘10, Derek

Colucci ‘10 and Ben Murphy ‘10.

With the toughest schedule in the state, the team faced St. Sebastian’s and Delbarton (NJ) before com-ing to its first Catholic Conference foe, St. John’s Prep, on December 30. Derek Colucci ‘10 had a hat trick and T.J. O’Brien ‘10 added 2 goals in the 5-1 win.

The first half of the season the team had three remarkable comebacks to tie Malden Catholic, Bishop Hendricken and Hingham. In the Hingham game, Phil Rossi ‘09 and Danny Connell ‘11 each scored one goal as CM came back in the third period from a 2-0 deficit.

Leadership on the team was demonstrated by cap-tains Derek Colucci ’10 and Garrett Noonan ’09 as well as a strong senior class.

– Coach Bill Hanson

INDOOR TRACKAthletes from grades 7 to 12 took full advantage of the winter months to train and compete on CM’s Indoor Track Team this season. Through January, the team showed promising results.

Early in the season, the team lost a close matchup against Xaverian despite winning nearly half of the events. Sean Mahoney ‘09 and Tim McLaughlin ‘10 won 1st and 2nd place in the shot put, Chinedu Chukwu ‘10 won the 55-meter event, and captain

Nahed Lakkis ‘09 won both the mile and the 1,000-meter events.

Ed Colvin ‘10 came out strong in the 1-mile and 2-mile events by mid-season, and recording a personal and league best time of 9:38 in the 2-mile against BC High on January 20th he improved his personal mile time to 4:33 versus Malden Catholic. Ryan Pai ‘09 led the team to a victory versus Malden Catholic on January 27 with his triple win (55-meter hurdles, 55 meter dash and high jump). Other winners against Malden Catholic were Lance Murray ‘10 (long jump),Ed Colvin ‘10 (mile and 2 mile), Nahed Lakkis ‘09 (personal best of 2:38 in the 1000 meters), and Sean Mahoney ‘09 (shot put).

The team is headed towards conference foe St. John’s Prep in the second half of the season and is poised to compete in the Elite Coaches meet on February 1, the Tri-Country League Championship meet on February 12 and the State Division II meet on February 22. All meets are at the Reggie Lewis Center.

– Coach Vin Catano

SWIMMINGThe CM Swim Team is having a standout season with an able crew of divers and swimmers led by competi-tors who have gotten a taste of the postseason and are ready for more.

Through the first half of the season, CM had five state qualifiers and two sectional qualifiers. That included the 200-Medley Relay team of senior captains James Myers and Sean Farrell ‘09, junior captain John Mackie, and sophomore Matt Farrell. The 200-Free Re-lay team also qualified for states – a squad consisting of Mackie, Ryan Clifford ‘11, and the Farrell brothers.

Mackie also qualified for states in the 100-meter breaststroke event, Myers in the 100-meter backstroke, and Sean Farrell in the 50-meter freestyle. Sean also qualified for sectionals in the 100-meter freestyle and Myers in the 100-meter backstroke, 500-meter freestyle, and 200-meter individual medley.

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BRENNAN WILLIAMS ‘09 PLAYS BEFORE 34,000 AT ALL-AMERICAN BOWL Aside from putting in a dominant performance with his East team at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl on January 3rd in San Antonio’s Alamo Dome, Brennan Williams took the occasion to announce his intentions to play football for North Carolina’s Tarheels next year.

Williams, pictured with Coach Alex Campea at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl game, cited the game as a highlight of his high school career and looks forward to both studying at UNC and playing for Coach Butch Davis.

“I learned a lot about the players that I’ll be playing with next year,” Brennan said after the game. “They were really good. They’re All-Americans for a reason!”

Not only did Williams play two of the four quarters in the game – he was treated like a VIP all week, signing autographs for kids and being escorted by a U.S. Army Major.

The game highlight for Williams in the 30-17 win for the East was coming in on his first play in the second quarter. “The play was a dive inside,” he said. “I’d been on the sidelines for big games before, but I’ve never been on the field before. It was pretty cool.”

Coach Alex Campea P’09 was thrilled to be invited to San Antonio, Texas to watch Brennan’s performance in person. “To be selected to participate in this very prestigious game is a tremendous honor,” Campea said. “Brennan represented himself, his family and CM very well in the way he acted and played.”

Campea was also pleased with Brennan’s choice of colleges. “He made a very difficult but great decision by selecting UNC, out of a lot of good choices. It’s a great choice from both an academic and athletic perspective.”

Brennan Williams ’09 poses with football coach and CM's Athletic Director Alex Campea at the All-American Bowl in San Antonio, TX.

As a team, these young men showed poise in wins over O’Bryant, Boston Latin Academy and East Boston and they were clearly ready for more formidable conference foes as the regular season came to a close.

– Coach Chris Boyle

WRESTLINGSenior captains Giovanni Lopez, Demetry Vieux, Josh Boyd and Matt Campo led a confident and remark-able squad of wrestlers this winter. In its December 13 opening quad match, the team went 2-1. Though it lost to Josiah Quincy in a close dual 36-33, the

team came back strong to beat Cambridge 55-4 and Newton North 40-33. Lopez, Vieux, Boyd and Joe Warren ’10, all went undefeated on the day.

Other highlights early in the season included Josh Boyd’s undefeated streak in the 215-lb. division. He went undefeated until the Lowell Holiday tourna-ment in December where he finished in 3rd place and went 6-1 on the weekend. There were strong individual showings by all the seniors as well as freshman Ricardo Vieux at the Belmont Tournament on January 10th. On senior night, January 14th, all five seniors – Campo, Boyd, Vieux, and Manny Cal-deron ’09 and Josh Rosario ’09, won their matches.

In handily defeating Lexington and Boston Latin on

January 19th in a tri-meet at home, another young wrestler came in big with a win – Juan Ovalles ’13. Juan won his 103-lb. class to give CM the victory over Latin after Campo, Boyd, and Rosario won their matchups.

The team got stronger as the season went on – no more evident than the win against Xaverian (36-33) after suffering a loss earlier in the season. The CM grapplers look to peak in the postseason where several wrestlers hope to achieve state paper, led by Josh Boyd whose goal is nothing short of a state championship.

– Coach William Hahn

32

IN MEMORIAMAlumniMichael P. Crespi ’62 November 11, 2008.

Paul J. Toner ’62. November 1, 2008.

ParentsBernard G. Bowers, father of Joseph Bowers ’81. January 5, 2008.

Robert R. Brown, father of Michael B. Brown ’86. November 7, 2008.

Marie J. (Finn) Conley, mother of Michael W. Conley ’04. October 29, 2008.

William H. Curley, father of William H. Curley, Jr. ’79 and grandfather of Timothy J. Sullivan ’08. December 12, 2008.

Peter N. Doherty, father of Rory Doherty ’82. January 22, 2009.

Kenneth J. Dorn, father of Kenneth J. Dorn ’66. December 2, 2008.

Mary C. (Cassidy) Flatley, mother of Michael Heavey ’70. November 11, 2008.

Francesco Fratalia, father of Stephen R. Fratalia ’72 and Robert A. Fratalia ’82. December 9, 2008.

Robert Joseph Godding, father of Robert J. Godding ’64 and Mark A. Godding ’72. January 18, 2009.

Ralph F. Henry, Sr., father of William P. Henry ’85. January 8, 2009.

Mary Margaret (McHugo) Hoar, mother of John P. Hoar ’62, Charles G. Hoar ’71, and Michael S. Hoar ’73. December 10, 2008.

Lawrence J. “Larry” Kangas, father of Lawrence W. Kangas ’75 and Paul J. Kangas ’76. November 27, 2008.

Anne M. (Patten) Maloney, mother of Thomas Maloney, Jr. ’72. November 17, 2008.

John J. Maciejko, father of Paul Maciejko ’82 and grandfather of Brendan L. Maciejko ’10. November 5, 2008.

Alexander D. Morgan III, father of David Morgan ’81. November 20, 2008.

Lorraine I. (Campbell) O’Neill, mother of Daniel J. O’Neill ’71 and Kevin M. O’Neill ’73 (deceased). January 6, 2009.

Mary P. (Nelson) Petreyko, mother of Jason W. Petreyko ’06. November 19, 2008.

Ann (Hennessey) Praught, mother of Joseph A. Praught III ’71 and Stephen J. Praught ’72. January 18, 2009.

Antoinette (Manganaro) Saveriano, mother of Bert W. Saveriano ’80. November 2, 2008.

Dolores M. (Shamon) Raymond, mother of Gary S. Raymond ’75. January 27, 2009.

Donald K. Shruhan, father of Donald K. Shruhan ’73 and Robert M. Shruhan ’75. January 26, 2009.

John Francis Torpey, father of John F. Torpey Jr. ’69. December 25, 2008.

Theresa L. (Imbrogna) Venuti, mother of David T. Venuti ’90. November 17, 2008.

Kathleen J. (Hartley) Ward, mother of Michael F. Ward ’69 and David L. Ward ’73. November 20, 2008.

Relatives & FriendsElisa (Reda) Catalano, grand-mother of Anthony Catalano ’82. November 17, 2008.

Mary L. (Flaherty) Cerbo, mother of Jim Cerbo. October 30, 2008.

Pauline E. (Bulger) Clancy, grand-mother of Robert A. Traft ’04. December 15, 2008.

Martin J. “Marty” Coughlin, Jr., grandfather of Nicholas C. Barker ’11. December 14, 2008.

Helen E. (Whitney) DeGiacomo, grandmother of Daniel K. Murray ’91, Paul J. Murray ’96, and

John J. DeGiacomo ’94 and great grandmother of Michael Collins ’08. October 30, 2008.

Emma (Ladonisi) Galante, grand-mother of Andrew Galante ’96. December 7, 2008.

Daniel J. Graham, husband of Nancy Graham. January 28, 2009.

Gloria E.M. (Strandberg) Klint, grandmother of Carl Klint ’05 and Cameron Klint ’13. November 1, 2008.

Archille J. LaFerriere, grandfather of David A. Tramontozzi ’05. November 7, 2008.

Laura Anne (Mesics) May, wife of Paul F. May, Jr. ’77. December 25, 2008.

William M. McTomney, grandfa-ther of Kyle Stevens ’13. January 23, 2009.

Anne (Cullinan) Mealey, grand-mother of Timothy P. Carroll ’13. November 30, 2008.

Helen E. (Connolly) Mitchell, grandmother of Donald P. Feener ’02. November 3, 2008.

Kenneth E. O’Brien, Sr., grand-father of Austin C. O’Brien ’12. November 22, 2008.

Martin P. Walsh, grandfather of William Kickham ’04 and Brian Kickham ’07.

Brother Adrian Paramo November 26, 2008.

Brother Paramo was a teacher, guidance counselor and club moderator at CM from 1976-1987. Brother Paramo taught art history and was very serious about

his work. Colleagues recall his academic rigor, his attention to detail, his gifted teaching and his high academic standards.

Michael P. Crespi ’62 Brother of Paul Crespi ’67. November 11, 2008.

Michael was born in Boston and grew up in West Roxbury. At CM, he played intramural basketball and varsity basketball and was involved in the Legion of

Mary all four years. He graduated in 1966 from BC after serving in the U.S. Army Reserves. Before retiring in 2007, Michael worked for Sony PlayStation, and previously he worked for RJ Reynolds in Springfield.

Paul J. Toner ’62 November 1, 2008.

Paul grew up in West Roxbury in the Holy Name Parish. At CM, he played baseball and basketball. He was involved in the drama club, yearbook club, and was

co-chairman of the Student Council Poster Committee.

Campus Tours

2:00pm Tours will start in the main lobby

CaTholiC memorial Today

3:00pm Alumni Hall, Adjacent to the Perry Gymnasium

Join Paul Sheff ’62 for an inside look at life at Catholic Memorial School

reunion mass

4:00pm Perry Gymnasium

Concelebrants: Rev. Kevin O’Leary ’69 & Rev. David White ’69

presidenT’s reCepTion and Class phoTos

5:00pm Reunion Tent on Athletic Field

reunion Clambake $55pp $45pp, 5th reunion only

6:30pm Reunion Tent on Athletic Field

Save the Date!C A T H O L I C M E M O R I A L

BUSINESS CASUAL. CLAMBAKE IS OUTDOORS. DRESS APPROPRIATELY.

Look for you invitation coming in the mail or register by visiting www.CatholicMemorial.org

REUNION 2009SATURDAY, jUNE 6, 2009 d ACTIvITIES

Catholic Memorial Classes of ’64, ’69, ’74, ’79, ’84, ’89, ’94, ’99, ’04

To learn more or to join your reunion committee, please contact Dave Erwin ’96 at 617-469-8052 or DavidErwin@CatholicMemorial.org

C A T H O L I C M E M O R I A L235 BAKER STREET, WEST ROXBURY, MA 02132

parents of alumni: If this magazine is addressed to a son who no longer resides in your home, please email changes to: pwalsh@catholicmemorial.org. Thank You.

Change S erv ice Requested

Upcoming EventsMarch 2009Wednesday 3/11 Parent and Teacher Conferences, 3-5pm

Friday 3/13 Financial Aid Deadline for Grades 8, 10, 11, 12

Monday 3/16 Start of Spring Sports

Tuesday 3/17 St. Patrick’s Day, Evacuation Day (No Classes)

Friday 3/20 End of 3rd Quarter (Seniors)

Friday 3/27 End of 3rd Quarter

Monday 3/30 Faculty Professional Day (No Classes)

Friday 4/3 National Honor Society Blood Drive, 8am-1pm

Saturday 4/4 ACT Exam (Juniors), 7:30am

Sunday 4/5 Palm Sunday

Tuesday 4/7 Stations of the Cross

Friday 4/10 Good Friday (No Classes)

Wednesday 4/15 Spring Musical, 7pm

Spring Vacation Monday 4/20 through Friday 4/24

On the Horizon:JOHN TOBIN ’87 invites Parkway area CM grads to the 2009 Parkway Reunion. Saturday, June 20 on the football field at West Roxbury High. All proceeds above cost to benefit the Parkway playgrounds and open spaces. $50 tickets, can be bought at www.parkwayreunion2009.com.

THE CM JazzMEN aNd CHaMBER ENSEMBLE will perform in the Spring Concert on Tuesday May 5, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. in the Ron Perry Gymnasium. The groups will perform popular and classical titles and will feature soloists, duets, trios, and group numbers.

HOW TO SUCCEEd IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REaLLY TRYINg will be presented in the Ron Perry Gymnasium at Catholic Memorial on Wednesday April 15, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $5.00 and may be purchased at the door.