Hoosac School - Owl Yearbook (Hoosick, NY)

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Mr. Theodore Geers Mathematics, they say, can be a rather un- inspiring subject, but then, they never learned math from Mr. Geers. Mr. Geers is one of those rare people with the ability to talk and act at seven o'clock in the morning as if he had already been awake and alive several hours previously. Forty-five minutes later, the quick give-and-take, the rib-tickling repartee ingeniously interjected at the proper moments to lighten the atmosphere of gloomy mathematical formulae insist that we too be as awake and alive as we can possibly be, un- til, much to our surprise, we really are awake and learning. To all of those who have never seen or felt the joys of learning and using mathematics, we of the senior class strongly recommend one of Mr. Geer's classes. No Picture Father Philip Lewis For a long time he was just the very erudite man who appeared from time to time to share a meal with us or explain the difficulties in resolving the problem of our relations with God, then, one day, Father Lewis appeared with a briefcase and a carefully prepared lecture in the History IV class- room. Then we knew that the man was a teacher, and a very good teacher at that. We learned many more things about Father Lewis as the year wore on: we learned that he was a man conscientious, dedi- cated and sincere, we learned that he was a man full of thought and ideas. The reputation of the Hoosac History Department rested with Father Lewis when he joined our classes in late March of this year and he upheld it nobly. Mr. Lawrence Horne This year the Hoosac School enlarged its Science Department with the addition to the faculty of the highly competent and determined Mr. Horne. Aside from what amounted to an obsession with Chemistry, Mr. Horne was soon discovered to have an ardent interest in skiing and the desire to estab- lish something previously unknown at Hoosac School: a skiing team. Although, as was to be ex- pected, the new team could not immediately com- pete with the larger schools, we have great hopes for it in future years. The loss of Mr. Horne to the Hoosac faculty will be a loss difficult to sustain. 11

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Miss Margaret Braswell Late in March of this year, the enigmatical, although vaguely reassuring figure of Miss Braswell walked into our senior English classes and began to tell us about a world and a way of thinking which was strange, challenging and altogether de- lightful. Miss Braswell had that strangely contagious sort of humor—perhaps not a little due to a fine record of thirty years' teaching experience at St. Agnes' School for girls and a profound love of liter- ature—which makes even the dreary task of writing a library paper an experience worthy of being listed on our chart of pleasures. The senior class may never produce another Emerson, but it will certainly communicate with its fellow men, thanks to its six weeks of exposure to the determination and en- thusiasm of Miss Braswell. We thank you. Miss Bras- well. Mr. H. Ashton Crosby If one man were to be chosen the guiding spirit of virtually every dramatic production, every literary endeavor and every intellectual inspiration ever to have appeared on the Hoosac campus in the past two years, that man would undoubtedly have to be Mr. Crosby. Astoundingly familiar with the world of English literature, Mr. Crosby has the rare gift of clarity to enable him to impart his knowledge to even the stubbornest and slowest minds. Mr. Crosby's experience in his field, how- ever, has not been limited to the merely vicarious sort of experience, as we all know, having benefited from his previous work in the professional theater and his highly competent, although, as yet, officially unrecognized, original verse. The senior class owes you a great deal, Mr. Crosby. Mr. Harry H. Dickie He doesn't teach any of our courses and he has a funny way of talking, but, twenty years from now, we shall probably think of Hoosac School only in the context of his proper setting, because 'Coach' Dickie has undoubtedly been at the heart of the happiest and most rewarding moments we ever knew while we were there. A funny little man running along the sides of the soccer field screaming, Get back in your positions!'', a comfortable, fatherly man inviting us into his home for a quiet evening of tele- vision and, if requested, a little sincere and inter- ested advice, a good-humored, happy man who pretends to be nearly ready to challenge us one and all to a wrestling match—all of these men are summed up in one man: 'Coach' Dickie. 10

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Father Joel Miller The science of Biology deals with life. As a church school, what better guide could we have found to show us the miracle of life than a priest, and what more capable and wiser priest could we have found than Father Miller? Coming to us in the middle of the year. Father Miller faced the difficult problem of picking up a course begun and organized by another teacher and making something valuable out of it through the means which he found at hand. Father Miller faced the problem and overcame it triumphantly. Biology, under the auspices of the benevolent Father Miller, became not just the science of organic life, but, rather, the tidy explica- tion of the life with which each of us is confronted. Mr. John B. Longstaff, Jr. The class of 1966 is not the first graduating class of Hoosac School fortunate enough to have the opportunity presented by the creation of a year- book of thanking Mr. Longstaff for the many hours he has devoted to the betterment of the minds and spirits of us, his students, but it does have the un- fortunate distinction of being the last class to do so. The versatile Mr. Longstaff, after five years of near-brilliant explication of the diverse fields of Eng- lish, Mathematics and History to the boys of Hoosac School, has now left Hoosac School for what we all hope will be greener pastures. The lessons Mr. Longstaff taught us about man and his condition will remain with us for as long as we continue to think. Mr. William A. Reifsnyder With Mr. Reifsnyder, English Composition was not an academic course but an enlightening ex- perience. From this excitingly literate man we learn- ed as much in six weeks as we learned in our other courses in a year, not because of the material in the course itself, but because of the material in the man. A musician at heart, Mr. Reifsnyder brought a sense of tone and of rhythm to our English classes from which we could not fail to gain great insight into the fundamental tone and rhythm of life as we will be called upon to live it. In the things that count, in all of the decisions we shall be called up- on to make in the next very important years of our lives, we shall be constantly thanking Mr. Reifsnyder, who taught us the means for valid judgement. 12