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Last Call for Reunion Weekend!
Registration for Reunion Weekend -- less than 60 hours away -- is open online until Thursday at 5 p.m.! McCallie will go for its 11th consecutive victory over Baylor School on the field at Finley Stadium on Friday night, October 3. Cheering on the Big Blue will be some 500 alums and family members, many of them involved in the weekend's vast array of Reunion Weekend activities. For a detailed breakdown of the weekend's adventures, visit reunion.mccallie.org.
For local alumni who are not from the classes of '-3 or '-8, you can still buy tickets at the gate. One of the central moments of Reunion Weekend is the recognition of this year's Distinguished Alumnus and the Alumni Achievement Award recipients. These men will be honored at the Headmaster's Luncheon on Saturday at 1 p.m. in the dining hall on campus. This year's Distinguished Alumnus is Dan Rather '53. A retired partner of Carter Real Estate, Mr. Rather headed the company's brokerage, retail, corporate services and research operations. He has served in a wide range of professional and volunteer positions throughout his career. A more detailed look at Mr. Rather's achievements and those of the Alumni Achievement Award recipients listed below will be included in a web site posting next week:
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Upcoming Alumni Gatherings
Gatherings planned in the coming months include several stops in Texas as well as Atlanta, Knoxville and the NC Triad... If you can't make it to Reunion Weekend on Missionary Ridge, McCallie might well be headed to your area for a gathering in the coming months. We encourage you to gather with fellow alums in your area to reminisce as well as get back in touch with the school and its continuing mission to build men of character. Upcoming Alumni-related events are always available on the right column of alumni.mccallie.org, so stop by for a visit once in a while!
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Voices from McCallie Chapel
A longtime teacher and a senior both spoke to the Upper School this week about the priceless value of good teachers and good role models, and both talks can now be heard online or downloaded as MP3 files... One of the requests we repeatedly received from parents over
the years was to hear more of the talks their sons get
to experience in Chapel. This year we will aim to do just that.
More often than not, we will aim to provide the audio files for Chapel
Talks, which are available on the right side of the News & Calendar page.
Recent talks include:
Click on the link or the PLAY button to hear any of the talks. You can also download the files as MP3s and listen to them on your iPod! |
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Mills '88 Publishes Book on Slave History
Kincaid Mills '88 recently published “Coming Through: Voices of a South Carolina Gullah Community from WPA Oral Histories.” Kincaid Mills ’88 worked 15 years to help keep alive the culture, the language and the spirit of the Gullah people of Coastal South Carolina. In a recently-published book, “Coming Through: Voices of a South Carolina Gullah Community from WPA Oral Histories,” Mills and a team of two others compiled and edited hundreds of pages of interviews conducted by Genevieve W. Chandler. From 1936 to 1938, Chandler interviewed over 100 former slaves and their descendants who populated and settled in the Coastal and Sea Island areas of the Palmetto State. Her subjects offered detailed descriptions on everything from the slave lifestyle and living conditions to the culture and music of the Gullah people. Mr. Mills gained an interest in this subject as an American Studies student at Sewanee, and used Chandler’s interviews as source materials for his thesis. Together, with Chandler’s daughter, Genevieve C. Peterkin, and Aaron McCollough, the trio has published the expansive interview library in “Coming Through” and included a biography of each interview subject. “We realized what a huge source this information would be for historians and a general audience,” Mr. Mills says. “The interviews are known among the academic community, but not well-known. Our goal was to take these in abstract form, build the biographies, put it in book form and get it in the hands of as many readers as possible so there is a record of these forgotten slaves.” Mr. Mills, a 1992 Sewanee graduate who now works in investments in Chattanooga, is satisfied with the project, which has two more volumes in the works. “The rewarding part for me was getting out in the field, getting to meet all these people and being in their homes,” Mr. Mills says. “It was fascinating to interview them about the Depression and about the Jim Crow South. These subjects were in their 70s and 80s and relaying stories from their childhood when ex-slaves were alive.” The book is available in the McCallie Bookstore or on-line at the University of South Carolina Press (www.sc.edu/uscpress/) or Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. |
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Baker '43 Earns Magazine's Achievement Award
Former Tennessee Senator Howard H. Baker Jr. ’43 will be presented American Lawyer magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Former Tennessee Senator Howard H. Baker Jr. ’43 will be presented American Lawyer magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award on Oct. 29 in New York City. Mr. Baker earned his Law Degree in 1949 from the University of Tennessee Law College. After working for over 15 years for a Huntsville, Tenn., law firm, Baker entered into a career in public service in 1966, becoming the first Republican from Tennessee popularly elected to the U.S. Senate. Mr. Baker served 20 years in the Senate, including terms as Senate Majority Leader and Senate Minority Leader. He worked as President Ronald Reagan’s Chief of Staff and was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Japan in 2001 by President George W. Bush. In 2005, Mr. Baker returned to the law firm of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC. The American Lawyer's Lifetime Achievement Award, according to its website, is presented to senior lawyers who have made important contributions to public life while building outstanding private or public-interest practices. They are also exemplars – lawyers who breathed life into the legal profession's abstract values of client service and public service. Mr. Baker last visited McCallie in November 2006 and spoke to the Upper School student body. Other available links: |
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Habitat: Here Comes #12!
McCallie and GPS students began its first fall construction on what will be the group's 12th Habitat for Humanity house in Chattanooga... More than 40 McCallie and GPS students and faculty were on hand at the site of McCallie's 12th Habitat for Humanity house in Chattanooga. (Students have helped build a significant number of houses on trips to sites outside of Chattanooga and overseas.).
The students started by laying out individual framing sections which they had previously assembled in the Habitat Warehouse. While one group hammered these pieces together to form the side walls, another group glued moisture barriers to the cement slab. This part of the construction concluded with all forty students lifting the walls into place, stabilizing them with bracing and cement nails. "To watch the face of the homeowner, Saidu Bah, as he saw this first step towards his house's construction was an emotional experience," explained Sumner McCallie, the faculty advisor who helped found McCallie's chapter. By the end of the day, students had erected both side walls and a number of interior walls. Next week, they will finish standing the back and front walls and mount the OSB and insulation. The house is set to be completed prior to Christmas Break. It will be the first house the school has built in the fall rather than the spring. |
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Middle School Library Begins Sweet Reading Series
The library’s new read-aloud program was initiated to encourage fathers and male mentors to model reading. The Middle School Library began its Dads and Donuts series Wednesday morning with Varsity Tennis Coach Eric Voges ’81 reading to some 40 middle school students and about a dozen fathers.
After helping themselves to donuts and orange juice, the students and guests were treated to Mr. Voges’ reading of “Beowulf: A Hero’s Tale Retold.” The library’s new read-aloud program was initiated to encourage fathers and male mentors to model reading, to create an environment which supports male literacy, and to demonstrate that reading is an activity enjoyed by many men. According to the Reading is Fundamental website, studies show that the more children read, the better readers and writers they become. The website also suggests that reading aloud to preteens and teens allows them to stay connected with their families, learn about words and language, build listening skills, expand vocabularies, gain knowledge about a variety of topics, become more skilled independent readers, be motivated to read on their own and establish a lifelong commitment to reading. Reading is Fundamental, the nation’s largest children’s literacy program, provides free books and other reading resources to families in need. The nonprofit organization uses three elements in stressing the importance of reading to our nation’s youth – reading motivation, family and community involvement, and the excitement of choosing free books to keep. Dads and Donuts is already scheduled four more times during the school year with the next reading set for Oct. 29. Other links of interest: |