EVERYBODY
has a STORY Focus magazine | A ReMarker publication | December 2020
Staff Editor-in-chief Cristian Pereira Contributing Editors Jack Davis Jamie Mahowald Henry McElhaney Robert Pou Siddhartha Sinha Writers Alam Alidina Toby Barrett Morgan Chow Ian Dalrymple Shreyan Daulat Nikhil Dattatreya Rajan Joshi Arjun Khatti Keshav Krishna Myles Lowenberg Peter Orsak Will Pechersky Luke Piazza Matthew Reed Will Spencer Sai Thirunagari Austin Williams Dillon Wyatt Darren Xi Eric Yoo Han Zhang Photographers Sal Hussain Evan McGowan Jerry Zhao Cover Illustration Jamie Mahowald Photo Cristian Pereira
One week, three Zoom calls and 480 responses later...
B
efore we can write for The ReMarker, before we can design for Focus, before we can send anything to print, as Beginning Journalism students, we read one book: The Fiddler in the Subway by Gene Weingarten, the only reporter to win two Pulitzer Prizes for feature writing. It’s a quick read. Twenty short, powerful stories about all kinds of people — children’s entertainers, nonvoters, violinists and more. When asked how he came up with the idea to travel around the country and write feature stories about some of the most ordinaryseeming people, Weingarten wrote the following in his introduction: “If you have the patience to find it and the skill to tell it, there’s a story behind everyone and everything.” In essence, everybody has a story. This issue, we put that to the test. Because life is a series of twists and turns. And everybody, from your parents cooking breakfast to your last period teacher sending you home at the end of the day, has experienced these twists and turns in their own way. Everyone is filled with perspectives, ideas and stories. Yet most people never get to hear these stories. Did you know Nurse Julie got engaged two weeks after meeting her husband of over 40 years? Did you know Paul Mlakar’s parachute was tangled mid-air while he was free-falling? Did you know alum Stuart Nance ’78 and his grandfather unknowingly bet on the same winning horse, at the same horse race, twice? With this magazine, we hope to give you answers to questions you didn’t even know you had. For the most part, Focus dedicates each issue to a single topic. But how does one tackle a single-topic magazine if the single topic is everyone? With help from Mathematics Department Chair Shane May, we randomly selected 40 possible story candidates out of over 1,000 students, faculty, staff and alumni using a random number generator and the school directory. Our team came up with 12 questions, including: • If you could relive a single day in your life, which would you choose? • What is your closest encounter with death? • What are you proudest of in your life? • What’s the kindest, most helpful or most influential thing someone has done for you? • If a fire broke out in your home and you were only allowed to save one object, what would you save? And one week, three Zoom calls and 480 responses later, we narrowed them down to the ten stories we thought were the most engaging, most unique and most riveting. These are the ten stories that appear in this magazine — some sad, some frightening, some eye-opening. Enjoy. And remember — these are just a few of tens, hundreds, even thousands of stories that are surrounding you right now. Because everybody does have a story.
Stories 4 Julie Doerge
How the school nurse’s 42-year marriage started with an engagement two weeks after meeting her future husband.
6 Paul Mlakar
What do you do when you find out your parachute is tangled after you’ve already jumped off the plane?
8 Garrett Murphree ’98
Ready for a break in an inhibited twenty-something life, Garrett Murphree decided to do one of the most strenuous feats a person can do: the Ironman.
10 Doug Rummel
Once upon a time on an eighth grade campout, the human femur of a man who’d been lost nearly a decade washed up onto the shore of Lake Texoma.
12 Brad Wallace ’01
The many inevitable struggles that come with starting and running a business.
14 Stuart Nance ’78
The relationship between a man and his father accentuated at a surprising place: a horse race.
16 Trenton Calder
A hard fought championship between water polo giants Stanford and UC.
18 David Evans
The pleasures, adventures and challenges of a life-changing mission trip to Osorno, Chile.
20 Charles Kaufman ’71
Finding a unique passion: collecting autographed art and memorabilia.
22 Reyno Arredondo ’87
How a 30-year career in the U.S. Army made the wrestling head coach who he is today.
The St. Mark’s Chapel, a central landmark to 10600 Preston Road, has seen thousands of stories throughout its 32 years on campus since its opening in 1988.
We always hear about “love at first sight.” But is it really possible to look across a crowded room, make eye contact with someone and just know — know you want to spend the rest of your life with that person and never look back?
Julie Doerge May 7, 1977
J
ack was nowhere to be seen. Sitting with her best friend at a table in Archibalds in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Julie Pino sipped on her white wine, deciding whether to keep waiting or just get up and leave. This was the first time Jack had ever stood her up. It wasn’t like him to miss a date. As Julie paid the bill and walked out to her 1977 powder blue Monte Carlo, she tried to shake off the feelings of anger that come with getting stood up on a date. After all, “car dealers were a dime a dozen in Detroit.” As soon as she got back to her apartment, she dialed her mom and told her about Jack not showing up to their date. “Oh good, your sister’s having a party tonight,” her mom said. “So?” “Well, why don’t you come?” At 22-years-old — six years older than her sister, high school junior Kelly — Julie wasn’t interested in socializing with a bunch of 16-year-olds at her parents’ house. “Mom, I hate her friends,” Julie said. “I’m not coming.” “Oh, well I think some teachers are coming from her private school.” “No mom, I’m not coming.” Julie hung up the phone. She looked around her apartment but couldn’t decide what to do, so, still dressed up in her black pants and top, she picked the phone back up. “Ok, I don’t have anything else going on. I’m coming over. Sandy had just finished watching his students’ reproduction of the 1971
4 Focus
Broadway play Twigs when he decided to stop by their cast party and congratulate them on their performance. A 30-yearold native of Port Arthur, Texas, Sandy Doerge was a German instructor at Cranbrook, an all-boys private preparatory school located in the suburbs north of Metro Detroit. He also taught some of the girls from nearby Kingswood. One of these girls was Kelly Pino. As soon as he walked inside the Pino house, Kelly came up to him and said, “You need to go to the kitchen.” “Why?” Sandy asked, puzzled at such a cryptic request. “Cause my sister’s there.” Still unsure what she was talking about, Sandy let Kelly pull him into the kitchen. “This is my sister Julie. Isn’t she beautiful?” Taken aback at the bluntness of Kelly’s question, Sandy replied almost immediately, “Of course she is,” just to be polite, but then he realized he truly meant it. She was beautiful. After Kelly introduced them, she left, and the two of them began talking. Pretty soon, Sandy noticed a ring on the fourth finger of Julie’s left hand. “Oh, are you engaged?” he asked. “Oh, no, no.” Julie quickly slipped it off. The ring was just a gift from a friend. Eventually, Sandy asked Julie if she wanted to dance. She said yes, and they walked into the next room where others were also dancing. As they began to dance, Johnny Mathis’s Misty began to play. Walk my way And a thousand violins begin to play Or it might be the sound of your hello That music I hear
I get Misty the moment you’re near The echoey jazz piano. Mathis’ crooning voice.The dim lights. All of it came together as Sandy and Julie looked into each other’s eyes. And they just knew — they were going to spend the rest of their lives together.
May 21, 1977 After seeing each other every day for two weeks, Sandy and Julie were having dinner at Julie’s apartment. Two seniors from Cranbrook — Sandy’s students — were also there. They were having steak, broccoli and baked potatoes. After they had finished eating, around 9:30 p.m., Sandy grabbed Julie’s hand in his and looked into her eyes. “I’ve got a question for you,” he said. “Okay?” “Do you want to be Mrs. Doerge?” he asked. “What took you so long?” They picked out the ring together at a local family jeweler’s, got married on November 19, 1977 — the same church as Julie’s parents — and have been married for 43 years — “43 glorious years.”
I absolutely believe in love at first sight . . . as long as Johnny Mathis is playing.
Story Robert Pou, Eric Yoo, Grant Jackson Photos Courtesy Julie Doerge
After I got engaged, I called Jack and told him, and he said, “What? You’re what?! I’ve only not seen you for two weeks.” You could tell he was upset, obviously. And then he asked, “Ok, so what kind of car does he drive, a Volkswagen?” And I said, “No, actually a Subaru.” But it was all about the car, right, because he was this fancy Pontiac dealer.
Julie and Sandy Doerge pictured througout the years from their wedding day, November 19, 1977 to the present. They celebrated their 43rd wedding anniversary this year.
The youngest Doerges, twins Alex and Katie, are now 28. Katie is a nurse at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, and Alex is an intellectual property attorney in New York.
Doerge 5
Paul Mlakar Hanging off a skydiving plane’s support, Director of Academic Information Systems Paul Mlakar starts his static jump over the Ohio countryside.
“When I let go,” Mlakar said, “I was trying to grab back and get a good arch. I didn’t do that very well.”
After untangling his cord, Mlakar enjoys the rest of his jump. He doesn’t remember being shaken up at the time. His parachuting days are behind him now.
6 Focus
There’s only 3,500 feet. There’s not a lot of time before you’re back on the ground. There’s nobody else around. You’re all by yourself. You have to climb out by yourself. You have to fix everything by yourself. But for Paul Mlakar, “that’s the exhilaration of
the static jump — the independence.” It’s all the thrill, all the adrenaline, all the excitement of a 45-second tandem jump from 10,000 feet. “But it’s way scarier. You have to be more careful about getting out.”
F
And for a 22-year-old Mlakar, it was even scarier when he looked up at his parachute and saw the one thing that could go wrong. The one thing he’d have to fix immediately in the shortest jump possible. The one thing nobody could help him with — a tangle.
resh out of The Ohio State University, Director of Academic Information Systems Paul Mlakar needed a summer job. The young Buckeye had received his bachelor of science degree in mathematics and was looking to put his college education to use. His opportunity? The Grand River Academy, a residential private school in Austinburg, Ohio. The school had an opening for a remedial algebra I teacher that summer. Only a few hours outside Columbus, Ohio, he took the job. Aside from teaching the Midwestern boys about inequalities and linear graphs, Mlakar was in charge of the students 24/7, including active involvement in the students’ many summer extracurriculars. Mlakar remembers saying “Yeah, I’ll go” when some of his students wanted to go skydiving, and at 22 years old, Mlakar radiated the impassioned immortality of youth. The recent college graduate felt invincible, ready to experience new opportunity and adventure. That summer, he did two static jumps. He’d done other jumps in his life. But Mlakar remembers these jumps — static jumps — as the most frightening. There was a long cord attached to his parachute. The way it’s supposed to go, the cable would pull the chute right when Mlakar jumped off the plane. So when Mlakar shuffled his way to the support diagonal to the wing, everything was ready to go. But just to make sure, Mlakar had to be ready for anything. Eight hours of professional skydivers teaching Mlakar
I don’t remember having a lot of fear making the decision to jump. When you’re 22, mortality doesn’t enter your mind as much. You’re more carefree. You don’t think about all the other things that would have affected your life.
and his students about everything, but specifically, landing. If there’s anything he’ll remember from those eight hours, it’ll be the jumping from the four-foot-tall step. Landing on feet, rolling, flailing their parachutes just before reaching the ground. No landing went uncovered. Finally, the instructors taught Mlakar and his students what to do in the event that the chute was damaged or entangled, hammering home one complete motion. Reach up and pull the chute as hard as possible. By the time they were about to jump, the motions had become instinctual. His training completed, Mlakar made his way 3,500 feet up in the air. He stepped out of the interior of the plane and reached the little step. He moved one foot over and then shifted his other foot. He grabbed the support. And then he kicked. Dangling like Superman, he looked up at the instructor. Three. Two. One. Let go. Mlakar doesn’t remember fearing the jump. He was more carefree than he is now. There wasn’t much running through his mind about the worst case — about his wife, his family, his friends. But he was still afraid, as most people would be, to jump from 3,500 feet in the air, tied to a plane by a long cord with a chute serving as the only thing preventing him from being a grease stain on some rural Ohio field. Right as Mlakar let go, he looked up and saw the tangle. He remembers “literally trying to grab back,” losing the form he had practiced for those eight hours before getting in the plane. Mlakar said “they train you to reach back and just pull really hard” whenever there’s a tangle. Pull with your right. Pull with your left. And the reserve chute will just pop open. “It was just instinct.” And it just untangled. From then on, pure adrenaline. For Mlakar, the first time is unforgettable. But what makes skydiving amazing to him is that there’s “still some exhilaration, still some thrill every time you do it.”
Story Siddhartha Sinha, Toby Barrett, Keshav Krishna Photos Evan McGowan, Courtesy Paul Mlakar
Mlakar 7
Garrett Murphree ’98 I
daho, about 13 years ago. Garrett’s cold, nervous and ready as hell to move past the stereotypical mid-20s life he’s been leading. On a June morning, the town of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, faces a cold, windy lake, the Bitterroot Mountains enshrouding it from the rest of civilization. In this isolated town, hundreds of athletes, Garrett Murphree ’98 among them, gather to subject themselves to a day of what would, for all others, be torture –– but he made the decision for his own sake. “[My decision] was driven by not wanting to stay up to 2 a.m. every night, not wanting to drink too much beer on the weekends and to have something that was a greater goal beyond those short term things. I was inspired by the fact that this was going to be all consuming.” A short-term lifestyle like the one he lived in his twenties did not require longterm planning and investment, so a triathlon represented the polar opposite of the choices he’d been making until then. In the scheme of his life, though, the decision to run a triathlon becomes another one of his brief stints into some sort of activity. “If I look at myself the last 15 years of my life,” Murphree said, “I’ve fallen into several different hobbies. I got into jiu-jitsu right before the pandemic, and before that I was into poker, and before
It’s okay if things are fleeting. You don’t have to be dedicated to something for 40 years for it to be fulfilling.
that I was into wine-tasting — and not just drinking wine, but evaluating it. It’s okay if things are fleeting. You don’t have to pick something and be dedicated to it for 40 years for it to be fulfilling. It can be fulfilling at a moment in time.” An Ironman ends with a marathon, so an athlete lacking confidence in his running has no hope of finishing the triathlon. The first six months of his year-long training regiment, Murphree focused on running, the next six months on biking and swimming. “You tend to find a club so that you have pals to train with,” Murphree said. “With my club there’s what you call the ‘base camp,’ which is three, four or five days where you go somewhere. We went to the Hill Country, and we rode our bikes 50 to 100 miles a day, just to get the miles on our legs.” But in the two weeks before the event, you taper. Your muscles heal and relax from eleven months and two weeks of intensifying toil. If you burn out, you’re hopeless. Murphree felt content that no matter what happened in June, he achieved the most in simply starting something for himself because everything else felt outlined for him. “I went to St. Mark’s and made good grades, but that was going to happen,” Murphree said. “I went to college and made good grades, but that was going to happen. I got a decent job. Sure, I was interested in having a good career. This was the first thing where I knew that nobody cares if I’ve done the Ironman –– I’m not going to win the thing and win any money, so it’s 100% just for me.” Murphree took the weeks before and after the Ironman off work. As Just as the Ironman gave Murphree athletes poured into the a reprieve from a normal life, his small town, he and his prized reclining chair provides him friends enjoyed the time with needed separation between before the race. work and home. “We would just walk around this beautiful I’m wound pretty tight and take town,” Murphee said. whatever I’m doing at the time “You do some workouts very seriously. But I don’t work to prepare, but it’s a fun, in that recliner. It just embodies peaceful time. You very entertainment, fun, whatever the much feel you’ve done the word is. work and can enjoy the
‘The Chair’
8 Focus
vacation before this crazy race in a few days.” Leading up to the Ironman, the weather was great, but when Murphree woke up on race day, it was unexpectedly chilly and windy. “We woke up freaking out,” Murphree said. “Like, ‘Are they going to cancel it? Are they going to delay it? What’s going on?’ It was just something we hadn’t planned for.” Although there was an option to take a penalty and skip the swimming section, Murphree braved the icecold water. After completing the biking portion and first half of the marathon, the end was in sight. “I remember an emotional rush walking thirteen miles,” Murphree said, “knowing that I was going to finish this Ironman that I had trained for for a year.” Murphree could vividly remember the final moments of the race. “I saw Blake, my brother-in-law, and he said something like, ‘You’re going to do it, man!’ I think that’s when it hit me,” Murphree said. “I was 100 yards away, and I was going to finish the thing. I ran down the chute, and for a minute, I felt like a celebrity.” After a year of extreme training and athletic accomplishments, it was over. “The finish is hard for me to remember,” Murphree said. “I remember just being ecstatic, super excited. You kind of walk into the chute, and you’re like, ‘Now what?’” His question wasn’t answered until long after the race. “The biggest long-term factor was that I was proud of myself for doing something,” Murphree said. “I found my
Working a steady job in the financial sector, a 25-year-old Garrett Murphree struggled with the feeling that everything had been prepared for him. So he set out to complete one of the hardest feats a human can achieve: the Ironman. “I saw Blake, my brother-inlaw,” Murphree said, “and he said something like, ‘You’re going to do it, man!’ And, I think that’s when it hit me. I was 100 yards away, and I was going to finish the thing.”
friendships and my relationships with my family were normal. I still returned to things I was doing in my 20s.” While Murphree did move on from the triathlon, there was another impact it left on him. “It also started my love of unique hobbies and knowing that I enjoy immersing myself in something,” Murphree said. “Maybe I move on in a few years, maybe I don’t. Maybe next year I will find the hobby that I carry with me forever, and that’s great.” Murphree says finding hobbies to try isn’t complicated. “If you don’t know what hobby you want to pursue, just pick something and go do it,” Murphree said. “Just try it out if it sounds kind of interesting. And if you don’t like it, you can always move on to the next one.” Murphree learned one other
lesson from the triathlon, which he carries to this day. “The other thing is not to have any doubts,” Murphree said. “I’m just a normal finance nerd who went to St. Mark’s and made some good grades.” For Murphree, completing the Ironman provided a satisfaction beyond the miles ran and paths biked. “Every time I would get another notch on my belt, from a training perspective, it was more work I did that nobody made me do,” Murphree said. “When I go out and run in the rain, water is up to my heels and lightning is striking five miles away from me, I choose to do this, and this is crazy and stupid but awesome.”
Murphree finishes up his 26.2 mile run, the last of the three legs of the Ironman triathlon.
Story Jamie Mahowald, Ian Dalrymple, Myles Lowenberg Photos Courtesy Garrett Murphree
Murphree 9
Donning his classic dress shirt and jeans, Founders Master Teaching Chair Doug Rummel stands outside the Winn Science Center underneath the Ginkgo tree, whose leaves all fall during an annual 48hour period (above). Rummel has been a long-time lover of the outdoors: “Between the ages of 12 and 17, I spent a total of a year underneath the stars.�
10 Focus
Doug Rummel D
oug Rummel had just arrived at 10600 Preston Rd. His first year was full of new: new campus, new classrooms, new students — and a new responsibility: group leader on the eighth grade campout. No big deal. Rummel had spent vast amounts of time in the outdoors and he loved nature. But when the bus dropped him off at Lake Texoma, the last thing he expected to find on his journey was the remains of a dead person. Here’s the story in Rummel’s own words. –––– “Fall of 1998, my first year teaching here. It was the eighth grade campout — three days, two nights. It’s the second and last hike to the second and last campsite — Juniper point. We were going to leave at noon the next day. 1998 had been a record drought year. The lake level hadn’t been that low in at least a decade, and the beaches were wide — they haven’t been that wide since. Normally, you can’t hike the beaches because they’re all mud and you get slogged into the muck, but we found that we could hit the sand and bypass some of the route. I grew up most of my life outdoors when I was in high school. As a kid, I was looking for animals, hunting, geology — just finding stuff. And as a result, on campouts, I like to go to the back, take it slow and look for things. We’re maybe 100 yards from camp. Everything was tossed up on the shore — tires, a car body, dead fish, cows — all the hidden things that get dumped into a lake were exposed, and the kids were having a great time finding all of them. You don’t need to mess with that, right? Well, I’m walking down the beach. And I notice a bone sticking up, two and a half inches out of the sand at a 45 degree angle. I did premed in college, so I’ve been in an anatomy lab before. At first, I thought it was a cow femur. For whatever reason there’s so many cows in Lake Texoma, God knows why. But this femur was too thin to be a cow’s, and it was too big to be a coyote’s or a mountain lion’s. So I didn’t touch it. I was pretty sure I was looking at a human bone. I went back to the campsite and directed
After finding a human femur buried in the sand at an eighth grade campout, Founders Master Teaching Chair Doug Rummel sprung into action, contacting authorities and helping a family along the way.
my group as if everything was fine and normal. I didn’t want anyone else to go down there investigating. We set up shelter, gathered our food for dinner, got everybody squared away and let them loose to go their merry way, which to eighth-graders means going to the lake and throwing rocks. Grabbing a black trash bag, I went back to the beach. I figured if I used the plastic, I could probably do away the sand and wrap it up. I carefully dug around and pulled it out. It was a little more than half a human femur, about two-thirds the length from the kneecap up. One can tell a lot of features about an individual based on the thickness and shape of their bones. This was a male, probably in his 30s or 40s and in good shape with strong muscular attachments — it was obvious where the quadriceps were attached to the bone. I wrapped this thing up and took it secretly back to the campsite. If this was a human bone, this thing had been here for a while, so an extra 12 hours wasn’t going to make a difference in any sort of case. I kept the bone hidden and wrapped up while we hiked to where the busses were going to get us. The base camp guys were there — they had been in charge of running the whole campout — and I showed them the bone. Ultimately, we ended up deciding that we needed to contact the Grayson County Sheriff. When the sheriff got there, he explained to us that Lake Texoma had become a dumping ground for bodies from Dallas — they were finding seven to eight per summer — and apparently there were a lot of drug deals gone bad. Safe to say, the county police were experienced with these kinds of things. In fact, it had become such a problem that they had received some federal money to deal with the problem and had invested in a really nice boat for hunting the bodies. After looking at the bone, the sheriff made some calls, and a whole team showed up — a medical examiner, a diver and, of course, the really nice boat. They went to the lake, sectioned off the entire inlet and swept every inch of the floor looking for more bones — they even swept a large portion of the coastline. But they never found any other bones. Later that year at the beginning of December, somebody called the switchboard at school asking for my name. The sheriff had an update: They had found a DNA sample, at the
time a rare occurrence, and they had found a match. Apparently, this bone sat for a month in the medical examiner’s office. The sheriff had a favor that was owed to him in Denton County, which had a relatively advanced DNA lab. Normally at the time, the cost for a DNA sample would have been in the thousands, but the sheriff was able to exchange his owed favor for a free sample. And they got a hit. It was a man who had been lost for close to a decade. He’d been out with his buddy fishing in the late spring or early summer. A thunderstorm came up, as they often do. They got caught out, went into a wave wrong and their boat flipped. And I don’t know if this guy had a life preserver on, but the other guy survived. He reported his friend missing, but they couldn’t find the body. They couldn’t even find any sign of him anywhere in or by the lake. And because they didn’t have a body, the life insurance refused to cut the check. This guy had a wife and two young kids, and they lost their house. They had to move into a trailer. They were in fairly dire financial straits, going from having a stable income to basically no income. So the sheriff was calling me, because the insurance company had just gotten approval and had cut them a chunk of change. And apparently, that had been enough to get the family into a house, get the kids into private school and give them enough money to have a college fund. It was a big deal. Anytime you have a loved one that’s disappeared, it’s tough not knowing what happened. You don’t have closure. Now the family had closure. The sheriff had also called me to tell me that in a week or two, they were going to have a memorial service up at the lake and that the family had invited me to come. I was floored. I told the sheriff how absolutely wonderful it was that they had closure, but I also told him it would feel awkward to show up as “the guy that found the remains of the husband.” I just imagine people introducing me as “the guy that found the remains of the husband.” I told the sheriff to go in my stead and that I was really, really happy for them. I’m glad it all worked out.”
Story Cristian Pereira Photos Sal Hussain, Courtesy Doug Rummel
Rummel 11
Brad Wallace ’01 D
ay after day for the past year and a half, Brad Wallace ’01 has faced challenges. Frustration with employees. Financial instability. Lack of experience. Even after committing hour after hour, dollar after dollar, Wallace found his business at the brink of bankruptcy. After leaving his nine-to-five office job to start his own commercial cleaning business, Jan-Pro of Greater New York, Wallace found himself in a spot far outside of his comfort zone. He became unsure, beginning to doubt if his business would make it. But he knew he had to stick with it — one step at a time. –––– Wallace, 28 at the time, was living in New York City and had grown unhappy working in investment banking. “I looked at all the older people around me, and they were all miserable,” Wallace said. “Nobody liked it. I didn’t have any inspiration to stick around, so I quit my job and went and travelled for about six months. I came back to New York and looked for a business to start or buy, and I just fell into it.” Wallace ultimately found a franchise that intrigued him — one he was eager to delve into: commercial cleaning. “The company happened to have my territory available, which at the time was New York City Long Island,” Wallace said. “I did my homework and ended up buying the territory.” After launching his business in 2013, Wallace quickly realized he was facing an uphill battle with no prior experience hiring employees, making it exceedingly difficult to generate a profit. Above all, the business wasn’t growing. “It was a very bumpy year before we got to critical mass,” Wallace said. “In our
I was scared and nervous, but I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
12 Focus
first full year of operations, we lost ten percent of our revenue three separate times. It was very frustrating that we kept growing, and then we’d keep losing a big chunk of our customers. It wasn’t necessarily our fault or anything we could control, but it was just stuff that happens along the way when you’re growing any business.” Wallace recognized that because he didn’t know much about the particular industry, it would be difficult to innovate if he lacked expertise. “So I came up with some criteria and characteristics that I wanted my business to embody,” Wallace said. “I began looking into franchises because it is a good way to learn about an industry because they disclose a lot of information to you if you are investing.” While Wallace was extremely optimistic at the start, looking back, he realizes he put lofty expectations on his business too soon. “I expected things to start taking off as soon as I opened the doors, but what you quickly realize is that just because you start a business doesn’t mean anyone is going to necessarily care about it,” Wallace said. “You really have to figure out how to grow it and differentiate yourself from your competitors, and it’s a lot harder than you would have thought if you had not done it before.” Although Wallace was frustrated with the early setbacks his business faced, he recognized that he didn’t have a choice but to keep going, one foot in front of the other, as he had invested money and time to his business. “There are very few businesses that go better than expected, especially for a first-time business owner,” Wallace said. “So, I had my back up against the wall, and there was nothing I could really do but keep going and make a little bit of progress every day. It took about six, seven months before I really felt like I knew what I was doing and could confidently speak with potential customers, knowing what I was talking about.” Once Wallace got settled into his position as a first-time business owner — previously foreign to him — his company
As a first-time business owner, Brad Wallace ‘01 was scared. His company wasn’t growing at the rate he envisioned. However, he kept working, and he’s now thriving in his role as a multi-business owner.
began to take off. “The company is part of a franchise system,” Wallace said. “We started to win internal awards as the company grew, so that felt good — validation that we were doing a good job and doing what we were supposed to do. And in 2017, we were the fastest-growing market within the franchise network.” Wallace knew he had broken through when people started calling him asking for advice, as opposed to his relying on others for guidance. “When you start a business, you’re a taker — you need to take information from other people,” Wallace said. “But then after you get going and figure out what you’re doing, you can be more of a giver and give advice, give help and give input to people. Whereas when you’re starting, you need a life raft. Once you’re established, you can be that resource for other people.” After starting other businesses in addition to Jan-Pro, Wallace has learned that sometimes a business will go well and sometimes it won’t. “You’ve got to have a little bit of perspective,” Wallace said. “As long as you are generally making progress toward your long-term goal, then you can’t let the ups and downs from each day get to you.” Thinking back on his experience as
Businessman Brad Wallace enjoys dinner with his wife, and his two boys who are two (left) and four (right). a first-time business owner, if Wallace could have done it again, he would have certainly taken things slower. “My biggest mistake was that I went out and hired people to do work that I as the owner should have been doing from the beginning,” Wallace said. “I did that because I thought that it would make the business grow faster, but in reality I
made very bad hiring decisions, and these people didn’t do the job very well. I could have done a much better job.” After going through the process of successfully building multiple businesses from the ground up, Wallace now would find it extremely difficult to work for somebody else. “I can definitely see the perks of being
able to go home at night and not having to think about [the business] 24 hours a day like you would as a business owner,” Wallace said. “I would certainly say it’s worth it, but it’s not for the faint of heart to start a business.” Story William Aniol, Shreyan Daulat Photo Courtesy Brad Wallace
Wallace 13
Stuart Nance ’78 T
he light blue grandstand faces the 400-yard, oval-shaped Trinity Meadows Race Track, which is bordered by a white wooden fence. Decked out in blue jeans, a button-down Oxford shirt and cowboy boots, Stuart Nance ’78 and his father, Evan, walk across the light green grass surrounding the stadium to join the crowd of about 1,500 people sitting in the white chairs. They’ve arrived shortly before noon, but Stuart’s upset they didn’t get there earlier. He likes taking his time to review the horses’ past performances, jockeys’ records, trainers’ records and tip sheets to pick his bets, so he decides not to confer with Evan before the first race starts at 1 p.m. He’s learned enough from his dad over the years. He knows what he’s doing now. It’s a casual Class Two race — inexpensive horses. The total purse is only $2,000 each for the first two races. Evan and Stuart want to bet on the daily double, meaning they have to predict the winners of the first two races before the races start. Stuart wagers a dollar on Miss Vibrant Jet — horse five out of nine in the first race — and a dollar on Kool Kue Baby —
The horse Miss Vibrant Jet wins the first race at Trinity Meadows in 1994. The Trinity Meadows Race Track in Weatherford opened in May 1991. Stuart and Evan Nance celebrate Stuart’s graduation from the University of Texas at Austin May 22, 1982 (right).
14 Focus
Nov. 25, 1994 — the day after Thanksgiving. That day in Weatherford, just half an hour west of Fort Worth, Stuart Nance ’78 experienced his father’s luck firsthand in a “surreal experience” gambling on a low-chance bet at a horse race, their typical father-son bonding activity.
horse three out of ten in the second race. He doesn’t know what Evan’s bets are, but after he and his dad cash their tickets for the first race, they walk down the large flight of stairs from the betting window to their seats. They gaze intently at the track. The starting gates flap open, and the horses bolt through, their hooves clopping on and kicking up the red, sandy dirt. Twenty-three seconds later, the race is over. Miss Vibrant Jet crosses the finish line first. As Stuart and Evan walk back up the stairs to cash in their tickets and place their bets for the second race, Stuart asks his father, “How’d you do? Any winners?” “Well, I got the first half of the daily double,” Evan responds. “No way! So did I! Who do you have for the second race?” “Kool Kue Baby.” “Wow, so do I!” Stuart and Evan walk back down the stairs to their seats for the second race, holding their breaths before the second race starts. The starting gates flap open again, and 20 seconds later, Stuart and Evan cheer together for Kool Kue Baby as she crosses the finish line in first place.
For two people guessing blindly, there’s a one-in-8,100 chance they both win this daily double betting independently of each other. But Stuart and Evan’s experience pays off. They both win in an uncanny stroke of luck. –––– Evan’s hobby for betting on horse races stems from his time as a traveling salesman, when he would leave Dallas in his company car for two weeks at a time and drive to West Texas and New Mexico. In the trunk of his car, he always carried the wool blanket that was issued to him as a soldier in World War Two. That wool blanket kept him alive in the frigid 1944 winter in Germany while his unit huddled together in foxholes to avoid freezing to death. He kept his blanket with him as a memento and a sign of his good luck. “If you survive the cold — if you survive the shelling, the snipers, the mortars and all that stuff –– then he figured, ‘Man, every day is a bonus, and it’s all good,’” Stuart said. “He just had that outlook. He wasn’t going to get too stressed out about stuff.”
To complete the daily double, the mare Kool Kue Baby wins the second race at Trinity Meadows. By the time she retired in 2000, she was the all-time leader among American Quarter Horses with 25 stakes victories.
Evan channeled his glass-half-full attitude in horse races. As he drove around selling steel to clients, he became friends with a customer who owned a few American Quarter Horses and was involved in the horse racing game. Evan started attending horse races with his friends, and soon it became a passion he shared with Stuart from a young age. Stuart and Evan had a unique father-son connection in this aspect. Stuart learned everything — from handicapping horses, to tracing breeds and bloodlines, to grading their value — from his dad. As he quickly realized, the nuance of betting is much more complicated than it appears to the untrained eye. Betting on the most popular horse is not necessarily the best strategy because betters must take into account which horse will give them the highest payback. “If the favorite horse is an odds-on favorite, you’re not going to get any return for the money you bet because the odds are so poor,” Stuart said. “You might be better off betting on a horse that’s not as favored, but if it does win, you’ll receive a much more handsome payout. It’s not just picking the winner. It’s looking for value on the odds. It’s a test of your experience and your abilities to handicap, and there’s a fair bit of luck involved, too.” –––– Eight days later... Having spent the night before at his girlfriend’s house, Stuart returns home Saturday afternoon, only to see the number “5” flashing on the digital display of the cordless telephone lying on the table. Five missed calls. Uh-oh. He picks up the phone to hear the messages from his answering machine. “Stuart, it’s your mother. I need you to call me as soon as possible. Your father’s in the hospital...” He listens to the next message. “Stuart, it’s your mother. I’m calling again…” His heart sinks. He knows something’s wrong, and a devastating feeling of guilt over missing her calls washes over him. Immediately, he rushes to Hobby Airport and negotiates his way onto a Southwest Airlines flight from Houston to Love Field. Once he lands in Dallas, Stuart notices something peculiar about the date on his way to Presbyterian Hospital — something his father would’ve found fortuitous. Dec. 3 — 12/3. Dad was born March 12, 1924 — 3/12. He likes lucky numbers, and today’s the coincidental reverse of his birthday. He’d like that. Stuart arrives at the hospital at 5 p.m. His mom
— Janelle Nance — is already there. Evan has had a heart attack. As Evan undergoes surgery in the ER on the first floor, Stuart and his mom wait upstairs in a private room with a few chairs and a small table — enough to accommodate about four people. The nurse says Stuart and his mom can see Evan for a few minutes, so they enter the ER. It’s the typical hospital scene. Evan’s slightly conscious, lying inclined on a hospital bed with IV needles in his arms and heart rate monitors all around. Stuart and Janelle hold their breaths when they see him. “Don’t worry about your dad,” a nurse reassures Stuart. “He’s strong. He’s young. He’ll be fine.” Stuart peers at his 70-year-old father’s jet-black hair. Evan’s always appeared younger than his age, but as Stuart takes a closer look, he notices only three, maybe even four gray hairs in the hair above his father’s temple. The hospital staff allows them to have only a few moments with Evan, so Stuart leans in and holds his father’s frail hand. “Dad, you’ve got to get well soon so we can go back to the horse races again.” Evan smiles, remembering their lucky daily double win, but he doesn’t say anything. The nurses usher Stuart and his mom out of the ER, so they go back to the waiting room. A few minutes later, alarms — some sort of signal only the hospital staff understand. The medical professionals rush into Evan’s room. Stuart and his mom know something’s wrong. And about 15 minutes later, a nurse comes out and delivers the news. “Your father’s gone.” It was jarring to lose his dad so unexpectedly soon. To this day, Stuart and his family don’t know the exact cause of Evan’s death. There was no autopsy. They speculate internal bleeding or cardiac arrest, but nobody knows for sure. “You just never know,” Stuart said. “This might be the last conversation we ever have. I remember holding his hand, and I honestly had no idea what was going on with him. What his prognosis was. I just knew it was bad and scary and shocking.” With his mother recovering from ovarian cancer the year before, Stuart and his family were already under a great deal of stress. And only nine short years after Evan’s passing, Janelle was diagnosed once more, this time with pancreatic cancer, passing away at 73 years old. The pain of losing his parents so early weighs on Stuart to this day, but he recognizes they died almost painlessly with no long-term illnesses. Still, Stuart has nagging unanswered questions he wishes he had asked that day at Trinity Meadows.
What really happened in Germany in November 1944? Evan rarely spoke to his family about World War Two. Stuart only knows the details of his father’s time in Europe through his own research and from talking to other family members. “It would’ve gone one of two ways: he would’ve either talked about it, and said, ‘Yeah, I was scared,’ or he would’ve told me he didn’t want to talk about it,” Stuart said. “A lot of his peers were so traumatized. They weren’t used to talking about their fears, or the fact that they had come to terms with the real possibility that they could die at 17 or 18 years old.” Evan was only 20 years old when he was deployed in France. He left his two sisters and his Albanian immigrant parents in Worcester, Massachusetts. He left his officer training program and engineering education at Rutgers University. He left a normal college experience. As a U.S. private first class foot soldier, Evan marched with the 104th Infantry Division and fought through Belgium and Germany in 1944 until he was Wounded in Action by shrapnel in his leg Nov. 17 in Eschweiler, Germany. He was discharged and brought back to the U.S. with a Purple Heart medal in early 1945, but his brother, who served in the Merchant Marines, had died in battle. “People who knew him called him an eternal optimist, and we often thought that was because of his harrowing experiences as a young man in World War Two,” Stuart said. “My sense is that it really shaped his outlook on life. It’s like, ‘Look, if I can survive that hell, then nothing bad can happen to me. Every day is going to be a good day.’” How did you know when it was the right time to get married? In 1955, Evan moved to Dallas to work for Laclede Steel and started a family at the same time. Evan and Janelle got married when he was 31 and she was 25, having a 39-year marriage until Evan’s passing in 1994, before Stuart’s wedding. “It’s just not something we talked about a whole lot,” Stuart said. “It would have been interesting for me to hear his perspective on being a single man, being a father and being a husband. My dad didn’t dispense a lot of advice. He was fairly hands-off. He didn’t talk about his feelings very much. If I were back on that day — not 60-year-old Stuart, but 34-year-old Stuart — I would have asked him.” But above what he would’ve asked his father, there’s something else he wishes he said. I love you, Dad.
Story Sai Thirunagari, Austin Williams Photos Courtesy Stuart Nance ’78
Nance 15
Trenton Calder I
t’s finally here, Trenton Calder looked confidently into each of his teammate’s eyes. He knew right from the start this day was going to be special. Everything Calder had put himself through up to this point was about to pay off. All the swimming, miserable workouts and missed parties earned him an opportunity to compete in the biggest game of his life: the 2007 NCAA Men’s Water Polo Championship. Fans slowly gathered at the Avery Aquatic Center at Stanford University for a highly anticipated matchup between the nation’s top two water polo programs: the University of California Berkeley and the University of Southern California. For Calder and the Cal team, the sound of the pool splashing back and forth combined with the clapping and hollering of thousands of energetic spectators made for the perfect environment. Finally, as the team gathered in silence for prayer, the game was ready to begin. –––– Soccer, baseball and hockey were Calder’s favorite sports until he got into high school. As a freshman living in Chino Hills, CA, Calder found another passion when his sister, a swimmer, got him into the pool to try out this new sport. Calder’s strengths matched perfectly with the necessary skills for water polo. His talent as a swimmer combined with a strong arm from baseball gave Calder an advantage over his peers. He was “a duck to water.” But he wasn’t planning on sticking to the sport for very long. For Calder, water polo was simply an escape from high school PE, giving him a way to avoid this requirement for the two years he needed. It all changed when Calder tried out for the national team the summer after his freshman year. “Congratulations, you’ve made this team, and you’ve basically punched your ticket into college,” a coach said. That’s when Calder realized water polo had the potential to take him places he had never imagined. For the next four years, Calder played water polo for both school and his club team. Having an immediate impact as a freshman on the varsity team, Calder’s first season
After trying out a new sport as a freshman in high school, head coach Trenton Calder found himself playing a lead role on a championship collegiate team just six years later.
was a success, earning him the status of the team’s Most Improved Player. From there, the accolades poured in while he played center. MVP, scoring leader, First Team All-League All-American, and a league championship to top it off. On the club scene, college recruitment became a new focus in Calder’s athletic career as he played in bigger tournaments. At the time, Calder’s sister was swimming at the University of California, Berkeley, and she alerted the head coach of her brother’s status. Calder thrived under the pressure, winning the championship in a newlycreated event and being voted MVP. He attracted the attention of a variety of schools, but Cal, Pepperdine and UCLA stood out. “The coaching staff and the players as well as the education is what made Cal win for me,” Calder said. “It was the best decision I’ve ever made. Everything about it was the best.” Calder had even more success at the collegiate level. During a transitional period in the gain and loss of players on the team, winning a championship wouldn’t come easy. “Coming to Cal, the expectation was, ‘We’re going to get a national championship in our four years here,’” Calder said. “So that thought of ‘Can we beat any team?’ was already in our heads. We already knew ‘we’re gonna beat everybody, now we just have to go out and do it.’” At one point, Calder had to have hip surgery, forcing him to change positions from center to defender. This didn’t stop him. Calder enjoyed his new position and had great success with it as well. –––– Two days before the game of Calder’s life, the team left for Stanford. It was good for him to see the other teams, judge the competition and anticipate the next day’s results. Back at the hotel later that night, the team went over their game plans. The atmosphere was tense. Everyone was excited the wait was over. Everything they had put themselves through, everything they hated to do, would finally pay off. Game day was no different. The morning started off with a workout routine, and
Story Luke Nayfa, Will Pechersky, Nikhil Dattatreya Photos Jerry Zhao, Courtesy Trenton Calder
16 Focus
everything was running smoothly. Everyone was smiling and nodding, thinking, “We’re gonna kick some ass today.” It didn’t matter what went wrong because the team would make up for it; they would compensate. Taking in the arena, the empty stands and the quiet ambience, Calder knew the atmosphere would be completely different just a few short hours later. And just like that, he was there, waiting anxiously for the game to start. The stands started to fill up. The music was blaring. The team was getting hyped up. As the crowd quieted down, the players waited steadily. Then the ball dropped. The team made plenty of mistakes, some missed shots here, poor defense there. But the team didn’t fall apart; someone would always be there, ready to compensate for a mistake made. Then came the end of the game. Cal was up by two, and during a crucial timeout, the team planned their next play for Calder. They called it “Banana.” Standard rotation, but using a pick in a 6-on-5 advantage situation, Calder’s team added their unique twist. The play worked perfectly every time the team had run it during the regular season, and they were sure it would work out this time. The same play ended up winning them the game. With only seconds left on the clock, the crowd went berserk, full of band members, parents and alumni who came to watch the final game. “The atmosphere was super hostile, and everybody was yelling,” Calder said. “It was awesome.” Calder spent the rest of the day with the team, reveling in their exceptional performance at the highest level. For him, the national championship was the end goal. All of his sacrifice, nearly eight years of practice and grind, finally made sense. “Win or lose,” Calder said, “I would do it all again, just to have this opportunity right now. It’s all worth it, just to be here, let alone win.”
All that time, all that energy sacrificed — all of that makes sense when you finally get to the pinnacle.
After coaching at both Brown University and the University of California, Berkeley, Calder prepares to use his personal experiences with the sport to coach the varsity water polo team.
As a captain and one of the top players on the Cal team, Calder was a main contributor in the team’s success because of his large wingspan and his natural ability to move through the water.
Calder 17
David Evans Following the Mormon custom, Spanish instructor David Evans traveled across Chile during his missionary trip over 20 years ago. Although there were challenges along the way, Evans connected with his faith and mastered the language he now teaches without any prior instruction.
18 Focus
H
is hands are shaking as he opens the envelope. He’s nervous but excited. Ever since he sent in his missionary papers a few weeks ago, he has waited to see where the next step of his life will take place. Today is the day he finds out where his mission is. Today is the day that determines where he spends the next two years fulfilling his role as a Mormon missionary. As his hands are shaking, 19-year-old David Evans unfolds the paper. He opens his eyes, takes a deep breath and reads… OSORNO, CHILE. –––– • Growing up, the tradition is for young men to go on a mission. It used to be from the age of 19 to 21. That has changed now to start at 18, but I went when I was 19. • You fill out your missionary papers, and you wait for your call in the mail and open up the envelope. You find out at that moment where you’re going. I remember opening up the envelope and seeing ‘Osorno, Chile.’ • The Osorno, Chile, mission within the church spans the entire southern half of Chile starting directly south of Concepción to the tip of South America. It goes to Punta Arenas, which is the furthest south you can get until Antarctica. • You’re sent to the missionary training center in Provo, Utah, for a couple of months after you get your call. You have to live in the training center where you learn how you’re going to share your message and also have a crash course in the language. I hadn’t learned any Spanish before I went, so it was very difficult. • It was daunting on the airplane. You see the Andes Mountains rising in the background through the airplane windows. You hear the people speaking very quickly in a unique accent, and you don’t understand it. It was a feeling of both exhilaration and challenge with a little bit of doubt, but you know that so many people have done it in the past, so you can do it too. • When I got to Santiago and stepped off that airplane, I couldn’t understand a single thing anyone was saying. It took me months to really communicate, listen and understand. It took me a few more months to actually converse and be comfortable. • Once you get there, you go to the mission home, which is in a really nice neighborhood in Osorno, and meet the mission president. • The first night I went out with other missionaries, we walked to this house and
shared our message. It was amazing. The family was so receptive and wanted to hear the message. The other missionaries were so good at what they did. It was exhilarating to see what they did and know that someday I would be doing it, too. • You get paired up with a companion. A companion is another missionary. Usually there’s a junior companion and a senior companion, so they pair up people who don’t know what they’re doing with someone else who does. You’re together for protection, so if anything were to happen, you’re with someone else. It’s like a buddy system. • We lived in what’s called pensiones. Those were either houses of members of the church down there or someone who we rented the house from. We’d live in the pensión with a companion. We’d do all of our missionary work, service, preaching, baptizing –– all of the stuff we do as missionaries –– together. • You go through many companions throughout the mission because we go through many different places. You spend maybe a month or two in one place, and you’re off to another place and you spend a month or two there. Maybe three or four months in some spots. Sometimes it’s fast. Sometimes it’s not. You never know. They keep you on your toes. You’re always going to different places and are paired with different people. • I started out in a small town called Loncoche with an American companion. He trained me how to do what they do down there as a missionary. He was wonderful. He helped me out a ton. • After that, I got a native speaker as a companion, and he was great too. We didn’t get along too well all the time, but he taught me a lot. He kind of laughed at my Spanish, which I didn’t like because I wasn’t very good at it yet, but he wasn’t trying to hurt my feelings. • In these rural parts of Chile, they burn
Across Chile, Evans interacted with native Chileans in a number of ways, from visiting families (left) to preparing sheep for meals (below) to helping local chop down trees and transport the wood to their homes.
wood for heat, so they have woodburning stoves everywhere. They do that even for cooking and heating their water. We had plenty of opportunities to chop wood. We were chopping wood all the time for folks. • We would go around and set up appointments with people who wanted to learn about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The people who wanted to join would get baptized, so we would facilitate that. • Over the course of a few months, I became a senior companion, a district leader and a trainer. I would train my own new missionaries. From there, I became a zone leader as well, learned the language and preached the Gospel. • One time, we were walking along some railroad tracks, and there happened to be a man with us who had had a little too much to drink. He was asking for money, so he said “Pesos, por favor.” I said, “No tengo pesos [I don’t have money],” and he said, “Oh, besos? Quieres besos [Do you want kisses]?” He started to chase us down the railroad tracks, trying to give us kisses. • We were walking down a dirt road, and there was a house off to the side. In the front yard, there was a guy who had a sheep tied up to his tree by its legs, and he was cutting it open and processing it for food. But this was in his front yard, out in the open. They put a casserole dish underneath the sheep and let the blood drip out into the dish, and it coagulates, and it’s like jelly. They added spices, took a spoon and ate it. • One day I was in our pensión, and the lady who owned the house, one night, came in with half a cow. And it was skinned, but it was the meat and bones of half a cow. She took her knife and just started cutting it up. Being from the United States, we don’t see things like that very often.
• There were times that were harder than others, especially because you’d get homesick. We could only call home two times a year: Mother’s Day and Christmas. We were not in contact with our families really at all besides a few letters. That was a very military-type custom. The idea is that you go and devote yourself, so you’re not distracted by things at home. • I went through a really hard time in the middle of my mission. I was given the opportunity to lead my own sector, but then the mission president called me to a different area. I also had a girlfriend in high school, and she ended up writing me a letter saying that she was getting married to someone else. On top of that, I received the news that one of my friends passed away. • It ended up being the case that the mission president just wanted me to be trained for a higher level position. My friend’s death helped me learn that I could get through things like that, and my girlfriend leaving me allowed me to meet my wife later on. When you’re young and focused on something, it’s easy to get tunnel vision, but looking back on that now, I realized that things really do work out. • I wanted to be an accountant before I headed out on my mission. Had I not learned Spanish, had I not had the rich experiences down in Chile that I had, I never would’ve come back and wanted to teach Spanish. • I don’t think anyone who serves a mission, who wants to go and who really devotes their time and themselves to what they’re doing comes away with it and has any regret. They will say that it was the best time of their life.
Evans also engaged in the Chilean community during his mission trip by building houses (left) and visiting the Andes Mountains.
Story Peter Orsak, Han Zhang Photos Courtesy David Evans
Evans 19
Charles Kaufman ’71 C
harles Kaufman ‘71 began collecting autographs, mostly signatures from baseball’s biggest names, early on in his childhood. It was a part of the sports culture of his youth. “When people went to the ballpark, collecting autographs was just part of the baseball experience,” Kaufman said. “Players were certainly amenable to meeting with young fans and signing autographs. You would always see kids waiting in line to connect with their sports heroes.” Kaufman came to ballparks to meet childhood heroes and leave with meaningful mementos. But he’s witnessed the autograph change from a mainstay of any young fan’s trip to a game to the center of a commercialized industry. “The real charm about collecting [autographs] has changed a lot because now people have an idea of what this stuff
is worth,” Kaufman said, “and I certainly, as a kid, didn’t go into it with that in mind.” –––– The aesthetic of athletes’ autographs has changed as well. “Nowadays, players try to meet the fan demand so much that they have a shorthand autograph or a squiggle,” Kaufman said. Yet, even with the commercialization of autographs, Kaufman believes they still possess their artistic significance. He connects each person’s unique autograph to an artist’s “signature” style. Kaufman began to collect artwork and has assembled a collection of both autographed memorabilia and art pieces in his home. “Art is something I’ve always just
To Kaufman, a signature is much more than a scribble: it’s a work of art. He’s always had an affinity for the unique nature of autographs and artwork and has amassed a diverse collection of both.
appreciated, but I didn’t really pursue it until I was working as a columnist in a newspaper,” Kaufman said. “I noticed nobody was really writing about art. Something I discovered just in pursuing this passion is that [artists] are very interesting people.” It was the artists themselves, the athletes themselves and how they gave each signature or work of art their own personal twist that intrigued Kaufman. “Art was certainly a great diversion from sports,” Kaufman said. “I really appreciate the artists, not only from their work but from who they are and the various slices of history that they represent.” Here are some of Kaufman’s favorite autographs and works of art in his home: Story Henry McElhaney, Arjun Khatti Photos Courtesy Charles Kaufman
Louis Freund, a painter who began producing
murals and wartime propaganda pieces during the beginning of the Great Depression, created this piece, titled ‘The Storm,’ in 1946, not long after the end of World War II. Kaufman was working as a newspaper columnist when he discovered this work. At the time, he was interested in protest art, which brought him closer to works like Freund’s. “I was doing this article about protest art,” Kaufman said, “and someone introduced this piece to me. It blew me away. There are other themes that are similar to this one, but ‘The Storm’ is his own interpretation of this theme. I just think it’s an incredible piece, and I feel so honored to own it.” Freund used lithography, a method of printing that uses water- and oil-based inks, in many of his wartime propaganda pieces. But ‘The Storm’ stands out to Kaufman. “There were only ten prints made,” Kaufman said, “but it’s such a powerful, expressive work. It’s probably one of the favorite things I have in my collection. Even though this guy is far less known than the other people whose art I collect, I just love his work and this one in particular.”
20 Focus
This Boston Sports Lodge
autographed piece features some of the greatest baseball players from the 20th century — Cy Young, Joe McCarthy, Lefty Grove and many more who were inducted into the earliest classes of the Baseball Hall of Fame. “This is a good piece to illustrate the uniqueness of an autograph,” Kaufman said. “Cy Young (bottom) is a folklore character of baseball. He was born in the 1800s, and this piece was signed in 1955, so there’s a good chunk of time represented in this signature.” Kaufman emphasizes how each signature is different in its own way. Some signatures evolve throughout a person’s life, and others stay more consistent. “The actual crafting of the names is something that I find fascinating,” Kaufman said. “Signatures are like fingerprints. They’re really unique to that person. And they can change, so the way you write your name now might look completely different in 20 years.”
Donald Roller Wilson is a super-realistic painter known
for his portraits of unique subjects, from dog breeds to baby orangutans. The photo realism in these pieces fascinates Kaufman. “I like to get up close to the canvases and see brush strokes,” Kaufman said, “and it’s just amazing to me how real this is. He writes a narrative with his painting, and only Roller knows what all this stuff in his work is.” Kaufman admits that Roller’s goofy style isn’t for everyone. You either love it or you hate it. But for him, it’s the technical virtuosity matched with the whimsical narrative of these paintings that excites him the most. “This world he paints with animals in Victorian clothing, it’s just the crazy wacky world of Roller,” Kaufman said. “I’m sure all of these are real people in his mind, but I guess he portrays them as animals. And every hair follicle is in such detail, it’s just amazing.”
Kaufman 21
Reyno Arredondo ’87
For Lt. Colonel Reyno Arredondo, a 30 year career in the Army wasn’t just a chance to serve his country — it was an opportunity to transform his life.
L
ate summer in Baghdad is hot and dusty, and this July evening was no exception. Even the cool breeze that wafted off the moat surrounding the Al Faw palace — built and once occupied by Saddam Hussein — couldn’t keep the sweat off Major Reyno Arredondo’s face as he arrived at an auditorium inside for the 17:00 evening briefing. The auditorium itself looked like something out of a movie. The walls, ceiling and floor were littered with Hussein’s signature gold and marble accents. A live feed from a Predator drone played 24/7 on a projector in front. And in the rows ahead of him, dressed in wartime fatigues, were the commanders of the Iraq War. “The generals got to sit up-front and in the middle,” Arredondo said. “Behind them were the chief of staff and a couple of colonels from military intelligence and Infantry. And then my Intel section sat behind them on one side.” After the briefing, just as he was getting ready to leave, Arredondo saw the 6’5” figure of General Raymond Odierno, commander of all U.S. troops in Iraq and Arredondo’s “boss’s boss,” approaching him. “I had no clue what was going on,” said Arredondo. “But he said ‘Hey Rey, I need you to pack your stuff’ — he didn’t say stuff, he used an expletive — ‘You’re going to Kurdistan.’” Odierno explained the mission. Arredondo would have 30 days to fly to neighboring Kurdistan’s capital, Erbil, and convince the Kurdish president to have a summit meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and support the current Iraqi government. Arredondo was shocked, and so was the colonel sitting in front of him. “My colonel thought they would pick another colonel,” Arredondo said. “He didn’t expect Odierno to drop down two ranks and choose a major: me.” Arredondo doesn’t remember exactly what he thought as the plane to Erbil took off. But it’s not hard to imagine that a single phrase stuck in his mind — one which, 30-years later, he recites as if he memorized it yesterday. His West Point class moto: “Defenders of the Free.” –––– Arredondo came to St. Mark’s in the third grade, riding an hour and a half each way on the city bus from his barrio —or neighborhood — in West Dallas to the stop just outside 10600 Preston Rd. “The bus ride to downtown was normally
22 Focus
just me, but once I caught the Preston Hollow bus I always met a few [St. Mark’s] cafeteria workers,” Arredondo said. “And one of them, Miss Maxine, would always check up on me and give me a snack if she thought I was hungry.” The ride back was much less comfortable. As soon as Arredondo got off the stop near his home, he was bullied and beaten up by other kids in the barrio, all for carrying a backpack and wearing his school uniform. For Arredondo, this environment added to the appeal of a more regimented lifestyle. “Growing up as a Latino on the wrong side of the tracks, I saw a lot of drugs, violence and alcohol abuse,” Arredondo said. “I knew that if I joined the military, it was going to give me an opportunity to start my life out knowing nobody else would have to worry about me.” When he began seriously looking at colleges freshman year, West Point stood out. “The leadership focus is what really drew me in,” Arredondo said. “In the army, the major component isn’t technical like it is in the Air Force and the Navy. It’s soldiers. So at West Point, leadership is tantamount to your success.” But a few obstacles stood in his way. Arredondo was a top wrestler, winning the Texas state championships his sophomore and senior years, but his focus on training had let his grades suffer. So he took a more circuitous route, spending a year enlisted at Ford Ord before applying again to West Point and
Currency of excellence Challenge coins are given for courageous service or for completing a difficult mission. Here, Arredondo discusses his favorites: Dead center, the coin in the shape of a pentagon was given to me by General Raymond Odierno, my commanding officer in Iraq who was a terrific mentor to me. And below it to the right is my own challenge coin, the one I gave out in Afghanistan to the troops I commanded there.”
making the Division 1 wrestling team, where he found yet another community he could bond with. “I got to meet and serve with some lifelong friends,” Arredondo said. “It’s funny — of my 11 teammates in the Class of ’93, seven now live in the Dallas Fort-Worth area. We get together on a fairly regular basis.” He also quickly learned the “West Point culture,” the moral qualities of honesty and honor the academy instilled in its cadets. These proved useful when he served on an Honor Board his senior year. “Some cadets had a disagreement and just exploded, and we were tasked with assigning a punishment,” Arredondo said. “And while there were some officers there to supervise us, it was really neat to see how everyone — there was a representative from every class — tried their best to give a fair punishment.” In his final months at West Point, Arredondo picked his specialty — military intelligence — and graduated. His first deployment, to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, came soon after. “In 1994, we had Haitian refugees, and Cuban refugees that were trying to migrate to our shores in makeshift boats, which was not very good,” Arredondo said. “So we would go out in Coast Guard boats and bring them to the base [at Guantanamo Bay] so they could be processed and taken care of.” Just a year out of college, Arredondo was assigned 100 military service members, who
0
he ordered to interview asylum seekers and to quell riots and other unrest within the camps. He would also advise commanders at the base on any larger issues among the refugees. That taught him an important lesson: trust the process. “The military decision making process allows staff officers to make arguments or plead cases,” Arredondo said. “And I always felt that the process worked.” Over a decade later, as he sat in an auditorium in Baghdad, that trust gave him confidence he would succeed in his mission. –––– Arredondo knew that as soon as he landed in Erbil, the 30-day clock was ticking. So he soon met with a Kurdish intelligence officer and they hit it off — over soccer. “We both loved Bocca Juniors [an Argentine soccer club],” Arredondo said. “And he wound up inviting me to the soccer championship
between Baghdad’s team and the Kurdish team. I ended up sitting with governors, mayors and all kinds of leaders from Kurdistan. That gave me incredible legitimacy.” Soon after, Arredondo met with the Kurdish President’s Chief of Staff, Dr. Fuad Hussein. This time, the connection he made was far more personal. “When I met with Dr. Faud, everything opened up. Amazingly, he reminded me of my grandfather. So we had an instant connection, because I almost felt the reciprocal feeling from him.” Arredondo immediately invited him and the president to come to Baghdad and meet with Secretary Rice. While Dr. Hussein wasn’t sure at first, after a week of internal discussions he and President Masoud Barzani agreed to the summit. For Arredondo, the mission’s early successes felt like destiny. “I’m a Catholic,” Arredondo said. “And my first Sunday in Erbil, I heard the bells of a
Catholic church. I never felt more that God was in control of my life. Things were happening because they were supposed to happen.” Weeks later, the first-ever summit between President Barzani, President Jalal Talabani of Iraq, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, and Secretary Rice took place. In a working lunch with President Barzani and General Petraeus soon after, Arredondo walked in after making sure the security teams and pilots were taken care of, expecting to sit in the corner and grab a quick bite. Then, President Barzani gestured to him. “He calls me up in front, stopping all discussion that was going on around this huge table,” Arredondo said. “He yells ‘Kaka Reyno, Kaka Reyno’ — ‘Kaka’ is a friendly term in Kurdish, like uncle — and he sits me down next to him, opposite General Petraeus. I was floored. I knew he looked at me in a way that was great.” Story Alam Alidina, Dylon Wyatt Photos Jerry Zhao
Arredondo 23
