Alumni

Merriconeag has an official alumni site on Facebook.

If you are an alum on Facebook, find us by clicking on the icon below:

Merriconeag Waldorf School is looking for its Alumni:

Please help us keep our information about you current so we don't lose touch. We would appreciate it if you would download our updated alumni survey and then send your completed form to: publicrelations@merriconeag.org.

Be sure to check out our events calendar. We always love to see you!

The Tuesday News is on our website. Read it today!

Alumni News

Alumni, Please send your news (for inclusion on our website and in our Tuesday Newsletter) to

Deeda Burgess, publicrelations@merriconeag.org.

From September 7, 2011 Tuesday Newsletter:

Who Says Poetry Doesn't Pay?

     Recent graduate Jeremy Colson, one of three Merriconeag finalists in last year's Merriconeag Poetry Festival, received yet another literary award over the summer. He won the statewide competition sponsored by the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance for his poem "Irrelevant Nonsense." Jeremy earned $200 for his achievement and was feted at a July awards ceremony that also included Maine Poet Laureate and Merriconeag Poetry Festival judge Wes McNair. Jeremy plans to attend Clark University in Worcester, Mass. in the fall of 2012.

    To read about Jeremy's honor in the Portland Press Herald, click here.

Jeremy's winning poem follows:

Irrelevant Nonsense

Strawberry skies and sherbet clouds.
A crepuscular punch bowl.
Licorice lamp-posts
populate the Italianesque boulevard.
A quacking multitude of moustaches
flock south as jimmies on whipped cream.
Crumbling cobblestone crenellations
mix in a castle stew.
Bubble-wrap hillsides
coat sealed wine bottles,
Next to a stack of vanilla wafers,
to be served abruptly and without warning.
I take a bite of polyurethane,
and chew slowly.
A drawbridge tongue mocks me,
so I trample it.
Flinging nonsense like anchovies,
I have seeded the courtyard with vocabulary.
This trans-dimensional blabbering
is pepperoni on pie.
Unfortunately deprived of ginger ale,
I wander into the gatehouse
And contemplate the meaning of beverage.

From May 10, 2011 Tuesday Newsletter:

     Aldis Gamble (8th Grade Class of 2009) is on a semester study program at the Island School on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas. He and close to 50 other students from across the US and Bahamas are learning to develop an intimate sense of place through immersion experiences in the natural and cultural environment. The school models sustainable individual and community lifestyles and the systems that support them, whose community members are cognizant of

their abilities, limitations and effect on others.
      They recently celebrated May Day where Aldis taught his fellow students how to weave the maypole, drawing on the lessons he learned at Merriconeag.

Submitted by Lisa Gamble

From April 5, 2011 Tuesday Newsletter

Alum Alice Gauvin (8th Grade Class of 2007) Reflects on her Merriconeag Experience for her College Essay:

To Wonder at Beauty, Stand Guard over Truth

      One day in seventh grade, my teacher showed my class Raphael’s The School of Athens, a beautiful Renaissance fresco that portrays many of the greatest intellectuals of Western history. Ms. Fox identified first Plato, then Aristotle, and continued across the painting, and as she did, I realized with a thrill of recognition that I had already been introduced to each person over the course of my grade school studies. The myths, stories, math and science classes, plays and festivals that are the ingredients of the Waldorf curriculum had made me aware of these icons of learning. Now the painting and my teacher were bringing them vividly to life.
      This moment was exciting for me, but it was not an isolated occurrence. My five years in a Waldorf classroom were characterized by these “a-ha” moments, when the puzzle pieces of learning seemed to magically come together, and knowledge – in science, humanities, and arts – became interconnected parts of a whole.
      Two years later, I was a freshman at Portland High School, whose size and cultural diversity presented an exciting shift from the sanctuary of the Waldorf classroom. In my first World Civilization class, I looked forward to a lively discussion (as well as the chance to impress my teacher with my expertise in Classical history!) Early in the lecture, a hand went up, and someone asked, “Do we NEED to know that?” This question confused me at first, until I realized that it was code for: “Will that be on the test?” To me this was an alien concept.   Read more.
   

Alum Michael Dix Thomas (8th Grade Class of 1998) Stars

in the Comedy "Brendan"

Shy Irish immigrant Brendan Roche ( Michael Dix Thomas) finds his first American girlfriend in Rose ( April Singley) in the comedy ' Brendan,' presented by the American Irish Repertory Ensemble from Thursday through April 16 at the Studio Theater at Portland Stage Company.

For ticket information call 799-5327 or visit www.airetheater.com

Read the review in the Portland Press Herald

From March 15, 2011 Tuesday Newsletter:

Sam Tarling is a National Champion!

Sam Tarling, a sophomore skiing for Dartmouth College, won the men's 10 kilometer Nordic freestyle race Wednesday, March 9, on the opening day of the NCAA skiing championships at Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont. Sam is a "graduate" of Merriconeag's 8th Grade Class of 2005 and is the son of Merriconeag High School's Nordic Coach, John Tarling.

To read the article in the Thursday, March 10 issue of the Portland Press Herald, click here

From March 1, 2011 Tuesday Newsletter:

     This season, Ian Moore, MWS 8th Grade Class of 2010, skied his way onto the New England Junior National Nordic Ski Team. Among the region’s high school and college Nordic skiers, the premiere racing circuit is the TD Bank Eastern Cup which consisted this year of eight races in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Lake Placid, NY and Vermont. Most importantly to many juniors, results from these races determine the athletes to represent New England at National Junior Olympics(http://www.jo2011.com) Ian was named to the New England team on February 20, following the concluding race in Holderness, NH. He is one of only six Junior boys (age 14-15) to join the New England Junior National team (ages 14-20) which will compete in Minneapolis, MN, from March 4-13. Teams from throughout the Northern US and Alaska will race for the "Alaska Cup", which New England hopes to bring home for a third year, or "three-peat".

     Ian follows in some fine MWS Junior Olympians' footsteps (or ski tracks), namely Sam Tarling, Adele Espy, Lucy Garrec, and Lucas Milliken, all of whom benefitted enormously from the Nordic ski program at Merriconeag started and led by John Saccone. Keep it up, Merriconeag skiers and coaches! Submitted by Louisa Moore

From February 15, 2011 Tuesday Newsletter:

Merriconeag Alum sweeps Nordic Races at 100th Dartmouth Winter Carnival

Sam Tarling (MWS 8th grade class of 2005), a sophomore at Dartmouth College, was on the podium celebrating back to back nordic ski victories last weekend at Dartmouth College’s 100th Winter Carnival. Although his father, John Tarling, was busy coaching Merriconeag’s high school team at the Western Maine Conference in Fryeburg, his mother and several other Merriconeag families watched as Sam won both the Men’s 10 km freestyle (skate) and 20 km classical races. Two of Sam’s former Merriconeag classmates and team members, Lucas Milliken (Bates College) and Kelsey Nichols (St. Lawrence University), also competed in the Dartmouth Carnival races. Submitted by Lynne Espy