Category Archives: Williston Northampton News

Journalist Thomas French Completes Writers’ Series

thomas frenchThe 13th Writers’ Workshop Series ends with author and journalist Thomas French on November 30, 2010, 7:00 p.m. in the Dodge Room in the Reed Campus Center. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Thomas French was a feature journalist for the St. Petersburg Times where he wrote seminal pieces such as ‘A Cry In The Night’, a story that “made a model for the rest of us to follow,” according to Washington Post reporter Anne Hull.

In 2009, his book Zoo Story was published. Based on six years of research, the book chronicles the inner world of Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo by following a cast of animals through their adventures of captivity and addressing the moral complexities of zoo life. He has appeared on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” and most recently on the “Colbert Report.” In 2008, French returned to his alma mater Indiana University where he has since served on the faculty of the Indiana University School of Journalism.

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Gene DeFilippo ’69 Receives Award for Distinguished Record in Life

Gene DeFilippo

The Williston Northampton School is proud to announce that Gene DeFilippo ’69, the director of athletics at Boston College, is the 2010 recipient of the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council’s Martin Williams Souders Award. The presentation was made at the NEPSAC annual meeting at the Best Western Royal Plaza and Trade Center in Marlborough, MA, on Friday, November 19. Williston’s former athletic director, New England Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Rick Francis H’00, presented the award.

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Samples-Smart Signs National Letter of Intent

kay samples smart

The Williston Northampton School’s Kay Samples-Smart signed a National Letter of Intent to play basketball at Division 1 Bethune-Cookman University during a special ceremony in Williston’s Athletic Center on Friday, November 12.

Surrounded by her family and joined by her coach, Kevin Kudla, Williston’s Athletic Director Mark Conroy, and Head of School Robert W. Hill III, Kay agreed to attend Bethune-Cookman University as part of the class of 2015. In return, the university agreed to provide her with a full scholarship. Signing the letter also gives notice to other schools that she may no longer be recruited, which will allow her to better focus on her senior year, both academically and athletically.

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Debra Monroe to Read from “On the Outskirts of Normal”

news 7The Williston Northampton School’s Writers’ Workshop Series will host author Debra Monroe for a public presentation on Thursday, October 7, at 7:00 p.m. in the Dodge Room of the Reed Campus Center. This event is free and the public is welcome.

Declared “required reading” by Vanity Fair and picked by People Magazine and Salon.com, Monroe’s memoir On the Outskirts of Normal: Forging a Family Against the Grain tells an unsentimental story about a white woman who adopts a black baby in small town Texas. Published in June 2010, it has since been on the “Top 10 Books to Pick Up” in O: the Oprah Magazine.

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Three Cups of Tea: Community Read, Visit from Greg Mortenson

Greg MortensonInternational humanitarian and author Greg Mortenson will be a special guest on campus this fall. In preparation for his visit, students, teachers, staff members, parents, alumni, and friends are invited to participate in an all-school read of Mortensen’s co-authored first book, Three Cups of Tea, which tells the story of his experiences after a mountaineering trip up Pakistan’s K2.

While recovering in a nearby village, Mortenson promised children he met to help them build a school. As of 2010, he has established over 141 schools, and another five dozen temporary refugee schools, that provide education to over 64,000 children, including 52,000 girls, in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where few education opportunities existed before.

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