Welcome to the New Loyalty Club Newsletter
from Mary Carrasco, assistant head of school for external affairs

I hope you enjoy this new communication for Loyalty Club members! Three times each school year, we will bring you stories from our community, school news, and anything else you tell us will interest you. This special communication will supplement the school magazine, Mercersburg, with timely and tailored features and photos. I hope that you will send your ideas along.

Mercersburg is such a beautiful place, significant in the lives of all who have had the opportunity to live and learn here, most enjoyed in person and in the company of friends. I hope that we will entice you to come back to campus as much as you are able to do so. I know that a campus visit is easier said than done for many so, I hope we can “bring you back to campus” with these communications and catch you up with long-time friends as well as introduce you to new friends.

Welcome from Dick Schmidt '55

As the current chair of the newly organized Mercersburg Loyalty Club, I was asked to write a few words to welcome both old and new members to our organization.  I am pleased to do so.

Last year during reunion weekend, several members of the Class of 1956 asked me about the requirements for membership in the Loyalty Club.  I responded that it was a group composed of alumni who had attended the Academy fifty or more years ago and their spouses …… Membership seems simple enough, doesn’t it?......No particular family ties are required…….and your golf scores are of little importance….But to have attended Mercersburg more than 50 years ago means you are probably no younger than 68 years of age….That’s three score and eight….Maybe not so easy…..And as I have said to my own classmates, you must have survived three or more of the following….Again, not so easy…. At least 4 wars, both hot and cold…..Six or more recessions….13 presidents….. Need I continue...Dissolution, divorce, loss of job, loss of career, loss of business, loss of home….. Shall I go on... heart disease, cancer, stroke, loss of parent, loss of spouse, loss of sibling….loss of child…. Well, you get the idea……You have paid a pretty high price in life experience for admission to this esteemed group of your fellow alumni.

Welcome to the Club!

Now that you know that you have met the membership requirements, allow me, personally and on behalf of the Mercersburg Loyalty Club, to pay tribute to each of you for your individual accomplishments, achievements, and life experiences during the course of the last fifty or more years.  I hope those many years were underlayed and guided by the principles of “Hard work, fair play and clean life."

May your future years be spent in productive and useful endeavors underpinned by peace, prosperity and happiness.

I hope to see you around campus in the near future.

Football Q&A with Head Coach Dan Walker

Football season is always highly anticipated at Mercersburg.  We asked Dan Walker, head coach, to speculate on the upcoming schedule.

What will be some of the big games this year?
Our biggest game is always our first—this year it's Wyoming Seminary.  We try to have the kids not look ahead and get caught not focusing on the task at hand.  That being said, three out of the last four years with the Hill school has ended in a win or loss by 3 points or less—there have been some great games between us.  

Who are some newcomers on the team to watch? What about returning players?
Some of the newcomers include our quarterback Trevor Smith, wideout Collin Stevens, running back / linebacker Ben Eaton and linemen Nick Rowan, Garrett Matthews and Bill Campi.  Returning players to watch are Tyler Mort, AJ Firestone, Mitch Shetter, Chris Freeland, Clyde Fitzmaurice.
 
What are the strengths of this year’s coaching staff?
We have three head coaches and years of coaching and teaching experience among us, so I think one of our staff's strengths is getting the most out of our players and communicating to our players what our expectations are.  Also, I think we all listen to suggestions from different members of the staff—if there is a better method we use it —there are no real egos on the staff.  

How have the great successes and obstacles  of the past two seasons affected the returning players and coaches?
I don't think they have affected this season because every season is new.  We have so many newcomers every year that we can begin every year fresh—win or lose, we are optimistic at the start of the year.  If I had to point to some aspects that we have learned to be most important, I would say it would be team chemistry and overall attitude.

Special Events

December 15-16, 2007—Loyalty Club Christmas Candlelight Service Weekend

Mark your calendar for December 16, the traditional Mercersburg Candlelight Service. We have reserved a number of rooms (at a discounted rate) at the Mercersburg Inn for Saturday and Sunday nights; the rooms will be held until October 15, 2007 (Alumni Weekend).  The weekend will include the following: cocktails and dinner at the Inn on Saturday evening (a la carte), an activity at the school on Saturday afternoon, a special breakfast at North Cottage on Sunday morning, the Candlelight Service at 4 p.m. on Sunday, and a buffet dinner reception in the Edwards Room in Keil Hall following the service.

Although a number of you might wish to stay at other locations, we would hope that all of you would meet at the Mercersburg Inn for dinner on Saturday evening. To make a room reservation at the Mercersburg Inn, please call 717-328-5231.  To receive the discount, make sure you mention that you are a member of the Loyalty Club group. An official invitation for the Loyalty Club Candlelight Service Weekend will be mailed in October or early November.

Summer Reading for Everyone

Each year faculty and students participate in Mercersburg's summer reading program. After reading one of two selected book during, we come back to discuss them in depth in the fall.  As a school, we subscribe to the idea that reading—and reading widely—defines the core of an educated person.  This year’s summer reading addressed the global relationships at the core of our rapidly changing world. The recommended readings (both centering on Afghanistan) address the vital need to understand the delicate connections that affect us in universal ways and identify some of the problems that remain as roadblocks to a more peaceful world.  This year, The Kite Runner, by Khaleed Hosseini, and The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart, engaged faculty and students  in examinations of the unfamiliar.


The Kite Runner is “…an incisive, perceptive examination of recent Afghan history and its ramifications in both America and the Middle East, and the result is a complete work of literature that succeeds in exploring the culture of a previously obscure nation that has become a pivot point in the global politics of the new millennium.”


The Places in Between is an important travel book about Afghanistan, a “…journey that makes for an engrossing, surprising, and often deeply moving portrait of the land and the peoples who inhabit it. What emerges from the last leg of Stewart’s two-year journey across Asia is a lesson in good travel writing. By turns harrowing and meditative, his trek through Afghanistan in the footsteps of the 15th-century emperor Babur is edifying at every step, grounded by his knowledge of local history, politics and dialects.”

We invite you to join us in our reading by enjoying one or both of  these excellent books. They can be ordered online from Amazon.

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How can this newsletter better serve Mercersburg Loyalty Club members? Please submit your suggestions and comment to Pat Myers.