June 2017 – President’s Message
Dear Schutzites:
It’s almost summertime, and another reunion/annual meeting is scheduled for July 21-22 at the Stultz farm in Butler PA. On the reunions page of the website you will see posted a list of people who have already registered. We have been graciously invited by Gib and Merrianne McGill to their home for a streamside dinner on Friday, and then our usual Saturday meetings, yet more food and catching up with each other during the day. For those who are coming, pick up a copy of Mary Doria Russell’s Dreamers of the Day, a historical novel based on the 1921 Cairo Conference where the looming shadows of today’s Middle East puzzle drawn by Sykes/Picot, Lord Balfour and others as the Great War drew to a close were crystalized by, among others, Winston Churchill, T.E. Lawrence, Edmund Allenby and various emirs and sheiks who gathered there. We had an enjoyable book-club discussion at the 2015 Grand Reunion in DC, and now plan to make this a regular feature.
Speaking of which, new on the website will be an on-line book club, and we’re also working with Charlotte Gelzer-Weaver and Alice Meloy on having an on-line WikiSchutz for all to join in someday soon, too. This everything-you-wanted-to-know-about-Schutz will be open to anyone to add to the history, your knowledge, your personal memories, stories, letters and essays –whatever! We want the wiki to be a living history of Schutz in the voices of the people who experienced it. Also planned is a map-based database of our community, so that with the push of a button you can find your old classmates by name or graduation year.
We’re putting a lot of work into this website, and it will only pay-off if we all use it to stay in touch. Tell us your news, and we’ll post it! We want to know what happened to you after leaving Schutz – write something about yourself to post on the personal profiles page. Just so everyone understands, you have to register to see everything, and the personal and private information will be kept behind the members-only screen. It’s easy to do and costs nothing.
We also hope to have news on the George and Mary Lou Meloy Scholarship. We have proposed to the School changing the scholarship to give incentive to student awardees to use their senior year for leading community service projects, such as helping School administrative staff with their educational needs. Learn about it at the 2017 reunion.
Our next Grand Reunion will be held July 13-15, 2018 at the McMenamins Edgefield resort on the edge of Portland, Oregon with restaurants, outdoor amphitheater, soaking pool, bonfire pavilion, a winery, short-holes golf course, tennis courts and walking paths nestled in a lovely 74-acre spread of gardens and vineyards. A century ago, Edgefield was a state poor farm, but it doesn’t look like that now! We have reserved a block of rooms at the venerable hotel in the heart of the property, and for those who yearn for the old Schutz dorm days they also have men’s and women’s hostels on the upper floor with bunk-beds as a lower-cost sleeping option. We’ll be sending out more details on how to register and book for the 2018 reunion later this year.
Be well, everyone, and I hope to see you at our upcoming reunions.
Paul Clark (’68)