Hoosac School - Owl Yearbook (Hoosick, NY)

Page 17 text:

Mrs. Peggy Ward There are times when each of us, during the school year, needs and appreciates an interested and considerate listener. Mrs. Ward came to us two years ago as a school nurse, but, since then, because of her seemingly illimitable compassion, she has won a firmer place in our hearts than a mere nurse of our physical ailments could ever have hoped to achieve. An ebullient, always entertaining woman when the occasion demands, Mrs. Ward has managed to amuse us as well as to comfort us. We came to Hoosac School for the things we have acquired in our classrooms, but without the inestim- able sympathy Mrs. Ward had for us and our more serious problems, school would indeed have been much more difficult. We of the graduating class of 1966 thank you, Mrs. Ward. Mr. Pierre Van Quickenborne Should the conversation ever turn upon the topic of Belgium in the presence of a member of the graduating class of 1966, he should be able to add some rather pertinent comments, if he has ever, in the past two years, had the opportunity to talk with that arch-patriot, Mr. Van Quickenborne. Mr. Van Quickenborne, our eternally smiling, ex- ceedingly tolerant French master, has worked with us and for us these past two years determinedly at- tempting to instill in our hearts a respect and under- standing for the cultural temper which is called French. Decidedly pro-Belgian, Mr. Van Quicken- borne may well change his mind should he find much else in this country of ours quite so satis- factory as a certain olive-green mustang. The class of 1966 extends its warmest best wishes to Mr. Van Quickenborne and hopes that he will find our coun- try a permanent home. No Picture Mr. John J. Wells Mr. Wells came to us this year directly from Ohio Wesleyan University, where he had majored in Latin, Greek and English. Although most of the members of the graduating class have not been very much in contact with him, information received from what we have considered reliable sources inform us that he enjoys reading, eating anyplace other than the Hoosac dining room, and spending money he doesn't have. Within the near future he hopes to re- turn to school for his Master's degree in Classical Languages. 13

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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

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Mr. Walter C. Wood Although no one has ever learned what the C meant in the Mr. Walter C. Wood, most students have come to the reasonably well-justified conclu- sion that it stands for Chemistry, and, indeed, it well may, for Mr. Wood's knowledge of his field is nothing short of phenomonal. A quiet, unassuming sort of man with, nevertheless, a subtle sense of humor, Mr. Wood, our senior master, has taught the secrets of the sciences to the students of Hoosac School for the past thirteen years. The famous text- book entitled Chemistry Can Be Fun may well have a point if its author took Chemistry from Mr. Wood.