Welcome to the Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 191,

Shelley ‘Sheli Nan’ Hershcopf’s Concerts

Shelley “Sheli Nan” Hershcopf (1968) Writes - “Hi All - I've got some interesting gigs coming up and I'd love to see you there. February 8th at 2pm at the Center for New Music, 55 Taylor Street, San Francisco, CA, I am premiering two songs for Baritone and Guitar from my new series, PATHOS. For you Bay Area Wheatleyites, please come and say hello!! It is an inexpensive gig. This same concert of my music will be repeated with different musicians in Memphis, TN on February 22nd at the Beethoven Center.

But most importantly, I sincerely hope you will join me March 10th in NYC for the premiere of my new string orchestra composition - FLASH FORWARD. This is an important piece for me, and I would appreciate having some Wheatley support as well as seeing friends and family! The string orchestra is North-South Consonance, under the baton of Max Lifschitz. It is at 122 W 69th Street in Christ and St Stephens beautiful Church, which has great acoustics.

Please come and introduce yourselves, This event starts at 7pm and is free!!!!

Many of my published and performed pieces are on Youtube, Facetime, Instagram, and my website Shelinan.com

Sincerely,

Sheli Nan

Composer Performer

Teacher Author

Shelinan.muse@gmail.com

www.SheliNan.com

The American Prize

Replies to David Packer’s (1970) Response (reprinted below) to Steven Starr’s Environmental Essay

I appreciate your engagement, and perhaps we can take this conversation offline, but I take issue with the suggestion that my contribution oversimplifies the matter. If anything, what we are experiencing is the result of deliberate oversimplification by design—not by activists, but by the fossil fuel industry, which has spent decades manipulating the public to avoid accountability.

Yes, fossil fuels powered the modern world, and yes, we are all part of the system. But this is not some tragic, unintended consequence of human ingenuity—it is a calculated, profit-driven campaign of deception. Big Oil knew. Their own scientists warned them decades ago. Instead of pivoting, they buried the data, funded disinformation, and lobbied governments worldwide to stall renewables—ensuring we reached this crisis unprepared. That’s not just complicity; that’s a calculated disregard for safety on a planetary scale.

You argue that assigning blame ignores our own contribution. But Americans are "addicted" to fossil fuels by design. Oil companies have fought tooth and nail to block alternatives. When Carter pushed solar, they crushed it. When car companies developed EVs, they sabotaged them. When scientists warned of the dangers, they ridiculed them. This is not a neutral market force—it is industry obstructionism of the highest order.

You note the “muscularity” of fossil fuels in fueling human progress, but at what cost? The last century was powered by a one-time planetary endowment of concentrated ancient sunlight—burned through recklessly. Now that the bill is due—rising seas, mass displacement, wildfires—we’re told the issue is too complex to assign responsibility. That is not nuance—it is a deflection that enables inaction.

You ask how many of us will willingly give up our fossil-fueled lifestyles, but the real question is: why have those with power actively chosen not to transition? Why are banks still investing trillions in new fossil fuel projects? Why are oil companies making record profits while climate disasters escalate? If this is an inescapable conundrum, why are those who caused it still ensuring they remain its biggest beneficiaries?

There is no single villain. But there is a clear hierarchy of responsibility—and to suggest otherwise perpetuates the crisis.

Dennis Rosen (1979) Writes - I am responding to David Packer’s (1970) contribution to the latest Newsletter (# 190):

I appreciate your perspective and the compassion you have for those affected by the fires in the LA area.

That said, I think Steven Starr’s (1975) point about conditioned consciousness is important. The issue isn’t just about what fossil fuel companies do - it’s about the way we, as a society, think and behave. Our dependence on fossil fuels and the economic growth they’ve fueled is deeply ingrained, making it difficult to break away from that reliance. In other words, he’s not ignoring our own role in this crisis.

You’re right that human ingenuity and ambition have driven incredible progress over the past century. But that progress has come at a steep environmental cost. The real challenge now is recognizing and addressing the impact of our choices, both individually and collectively. Scientists have been warning about this for over a century - Svante Arrhenius first linked fossil fuel emissions to rising CO₂ levels back in 1896 - but it wasn’t until the 1970s and ’80s that people widely accepted the scale of the problem.

The Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, was the first major global effort to curb CO₂ emissions, followed by the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, where nations committed to limiting global warming. Our government, however, chose to withdraw, arguing that these measures would hurt the economy. While policymakers bear some responsibility for these decisions, the issue runs deeper - it reflects a broader pattern of conditioned thinking and collective behavior.

Does withdrawing from these agreements truly protect the economy in the long run? Since Kyoto, sea levels have risen nearly four inches, and climate-related disasters have increased by as much as 150 percent.* Are we simply postponing the costs, only to face them later through more frequent and severe disasters, rising health issues like asthma, cancer, and lung disease, and ecosystems pushed to the brink - damaged habitats, threats to wildlife, and biodiversity loss?

Steven’s call to follow the younger generation in their fight for a sustainable future is a powerful one. This isn’t about pointing fingers at a single villain. It’s about acknowledging our shared responsibility and working together to build a future that isn’t just economically strong, but also livable.

(* Note: These figures can vary depending on the source, but the overall trend is clear.)

David Packer (1970) Wrote - I am responding to Steven Starr's (1975) contribution to the latest Newsletter:

For anyone with the capacity for empathy and compassion, it is impossible not to be shaken by the fires in the LA area. I lived in San Diego for seven years in what now seems like the bucolic 1990s, and I had a former colleague in Escondido whose home was destroyed in a fire a few years later. He was insured. But the scope of the LA tragedy is as breathtaking as it was inevitable.

It is always tempting to find a villain to blame for such tragedies. However, I have to say that Steven Starr's (1975) heartfelt contribution to Newsletter # 189 oversimplifies the situation. Yes, climate change is a serious threat to lives and property, and big oil was at one time the chief anthropogenic climate change denier (no longer). But to place the full blame on oil companies is to ignore the reality of our own contribution. Petroleum fueled the tremendous economic and population growth of the past century. Human ingenuity and acquisitiveness was the engine. It's all we know, having grown up during the oil age, and what we have as well as what we lost are equally the fruits of the petroleum economy. Energy is the economy, as one person put it, and George W. Bush was right about one thing: Americans are addicted to fossil fuels. This one-time, multi-million year energy storage is unique in human history. Daily flows of solar energy as captured by the land and now by solar panels and wind turbines don't compete in energy density, portability, etc. with fossil fuels, even if they are our main hope as the oil age comes to an end (delayed, of course, by fracking).

The muscularity of fossil fuels has allowed us to solve most problems. We were toilet trained on the idea of finding solutions to everything from food to feed the growing billions to modern medicine, without even being aware, in most cases, that cheap, abundant energy from fossil fuels was essential to such ‘progress.’ Recovery and reconstruction after fires and hurricanes takes tremendous amounts of fossil fuels. It's a negative feedback loop and a conundrum without a single villain or a ready solution. How many of us will willingly give up our fossil-fueled lifestyles in which energy is the source of every luxury we take for granted and a fix for every kind of stupidity we practice?”

The Class of 1965 Reunion

Malcolm “Rusty” McNeill (1965) Writes - Our Reunion Committee has made some headway with planning and commitments. The reunion will be held the weekend of October 4/5^th, 2025 at the Wyndham Viana Hotel & Spa in Westbury, New York. We’re planning a full day of activities on Saturday, beginning with a catered lunch at Wheatley, catching up with old friends, a tour of the school, and culminating with a buffet dinner with open seating at the Viana. There will be a cash bar at the Viana. In terms of cost, we’re looking at roughly $30 per person for the lunch and $100 per person for the buffet. Hotel expenses are going to be $345 per night per room (which includes taxes and fees). Breakfasts at the Viana will be free. You’ll need to make your own transportation arrangements. If you wish, you may stay at a nearby hotel without affecting the charge for dinner at the Viana. We are currently devising a payment scheme, as the dinner and lunch will be prepaid. More on that later. For now, please let us know if you are coming and the number of people in your party, by emailing us at:

Let’s have a good turnout, folks. This could well be the last reunion we’ll have.”

Class of 1975 50th-Year Reunion

The Wheatley School Alumni Public Directory Is Alive and Well

‘Hood History - The North Side School

Wheatley’s Wikipedia Entry (just for fun)

Graduates

Wheatley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Undergraduate and Graduate Students

Editor’s Note - Here are the Wheatley/MIT alumni, undergraduates and graduates, of whom the Newsletter staff is currently aware (final final iteration……maybe):

MIT UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

MIT GRADUATE STUDENTS

1962 - Marilyn Lee McKelvey - “Dear Art: I am relating an incident that I encountered in the small city, University Place, in which I live in western Washington State. Although this story doesn't specifically relate to Wheatley, it is about our ‘neighborhood’ and how our lives overlap in the most interesting and spontaneous of ways.

I went to my local Library recently (my home away from home), which is located in a multi-story building complex of stores, city offices, the police department, and apartments with a multi-layer, underground parking garage of four floors. I park traditionally on the lowest level.

I brought my books to return, retrieved the books I had requested, and called for the down elevator. When it arrived, I was surprised to find it filled with four people. Of all the times I have been in that elevator, I might come upon one other rider, so this congregation of four people was interesting.

Then I noticed that all the four "down" floor elevator buttons were alight. Flippantly I said, “This must be the local.” The older woman across from me in the elevator laughed and agreed and greeted me. Everyone else was non-responsive so I figured they’d never been on a subway! (Or maybe they were thinking - don’t humor the old lady with a response!)

The woman who had greeted me was wearing a jacket embroidered with the Middlebury College emblem. I asked whether she was from the East Coast.

We stepped out of the elevator to chat and discovered she had lived on Derby Street, approximately two blocks from where I had lived, on Bengeyfield Drive.

She went to North Side and was particularly fond of Mrs. Ross; then Willets Road and Mineola High School.

We discussed East Williston: our favorite shops (ice cream at Hildebrandt's!), restaurants, the butcher shop, and the library. Winters sledding at the Golf Course. The parades weaving through town on the holidays.

She said her family went to the East Williston Community Church, as did my family. I was confirmed in that church and sang with my mother in the church choir for many years. She was married in the Community Church and the ceremony was officiated by Reverend Howard C. Shaffer, Jr. My parents were particularly fond of Reverend Shaffer, and I remembered him too.

We then discussed how it came about that we were located so far from East Williston and where we lived now in the area and continued to marvel about meeting decades later and 3000 miles from where we grew up!”

Jerry Mintz (1961) Writes - “My condolences to Roddy (1965) and George (1970) Nierenberg about Roy. I used to spend a lot of time at their house.”

Webmaster Keith Aufhauser (1963) Writes - Roy introduced me to many things: linguistics (with acknowledgements to Mr. Edward Ouchi), Shostakovich, Claude Shannon's information theory, Heathkits, Popular Science Magazine. His curiosity was enlivening. His generous character encouraged all who worked and played with him. We (Roy and I, and our classmates Michael Horowitz, Kit Ryan) read Plato's "Apology" together. We discussed the NY Times every day in the cafeteria. We had a gourmet club (he prepared Baked Alaska, I think, which was new to me). I missed him when he went to private prep school (Exeter, I think) in Junior year. He went on to major in physics, working in the Federal Government in Nixon's Price Control unit. He then started a software company focussing on project management and later on negotiating strategies, which he ran from his Berkeley home. With every conversation of his adult life, he spoke with love, pride and joy of his wife, Mimi, and their two children, Jovia and Zeke. He was quick to broadcast their latest projects and achievements. He loved singing with the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra. He met his health challenges with resignation and good humor.
"He was a man, take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again."

Donna Harmelin Rivkin (1963) Writes - “Dear Art, I feel great sadness at the passing of Roy. I will miss his gentle smile.”

Elizabeth Stone Matho (1963) Writes - “Roy was someone very special and beloved. He lived half a block from me, on the corner of Snapdragon and Sherwood Lanes. Reading Zeke's compiled biography, I learned some things about Roy that I didn't know before, such as remembering Mr. Finn for introducing the class to an actively political and sociological way of thinking. Although I was in Miss Genzen's class, across the hall, Mr Finn sometimes combined our two classes to teach us square dancing. He never forgot to ‘paddle’ kids on their rear ends for their birthdays. And, he engaged his (not mine) class in games of strip poker. Apparently, he finally stopped it when one girl got down to her undershirt and underpants.”

Larry Rosenthal (1965) Writes - “This past Sunday, I attended Roy Nierenberg’s Memorial Service in Mill Valley California. Without exception, the speakers recalled Roy’s lifelong extraordinary grace and warmth, somehow undiminished during his many years coexisting with Huntington’s Disease.

Long ago, Roy gave me a lesson in manners without even knowing it. This was at Wheatley, at an afterschool lecture by an outside speaker. There were perhaps 25 people in the room, and I don’t remember the topic, but when it was time for questions, several of us raised our hands, me as usual waving wildly. Roy was one of the first called upon, and I was among the last. When everyone had gotten their answer, Roy raised his hand again--and I suddenly somehow knew with certainty that Roy had had that second question in mind all along but had waited until everyone else had gotten a turn before raising his hand again. What a concept!

I knew Roy only a little in high school, since he was 2 years ahead of me. We were both in the band (he on clarinet, and me on tuba), and I was very occasionally at his house, visiting his brother Roddy, who was in my year. At Columbia, dang if Roy wasn’t still 2 years ahead of me, but since he was in a completely different area (he in physics, and me in government), I bumped into him only occasionally,

40 years later, I was living in Berkeley and doing volunteer calling for a presidential campaign, when I noticed on the roster a Roy Nierenberg of neighboring El Cerrito. Sure enough, it turned out to be the very same Roy Nierenberg, with the same warmth and personal grace.

I’ll miss his bicycling to our potlucks, where he loved to play Taboo, and I’ll miss his Berkeley Community Chorus concerts. And most of all, I’ll miss our walks by the bay, which he did at first unaided, and then with a cane, and then with a walker, and always with a smile. I’ve never known a kinder soul.”

1968 - Susan Beirne - Paul Ingrassia (1968) Writes - “I am sorry to hear of Sue Beirne’s death. She was a sweet and kind person who didn’t have many of the home advantages many of us had. Despite this, she was a warm and generous person. As I look back on my senior year, some of my fondest memories are of spending time with her and her close friend, Barbara Guarino (1968). The world was a better place with Sue in it; I’m sorry to say goodby.”

The funeral will be held at Riverside Nassau North Chapel on Sunday at 9:00 AM. The Chapel is at 55 North Station Plaza, Great Neck, NY, 11021. Due to the large number of people who knew him from his business, we thought it better to be a bit more private about his demise, instead of having all of Floral Park show up. The service will be available on line:

William Kirchick (1969) Writes - “Larry had terrific class spirit and a positive attitude about everyone and toward life in general. We have lost a wonderful person.”

Dorothy Silver Samuels (1969) Writes - “I am so sorry to learn of Larry’s passing. He was such a sweet, positive person - a unique soul and friend to all in Wheatley’s Class of ‘69. His political engagement was another aspect of Larry’s caring. I feel lucky to have known him.”

James Wallach (1969) Writes - “Larry and I often went to Roosevelt Raceway. A few $2.00 bets plus parking made for a sometimes profitable and always enjoyable evening. Great guy.”

Andy Wilkins (1969) Writes - Dear Art, Larry’s passing is terribly sad for me. He was a dear friend, and I will miss him a lot!

When I spoke with Larry at length just over a week ago, we reminisced a bit about the number of enjoyable times we spent together. Our friendship goes back to Willets Road. Amongst other activities, we would spend time after school shooting baskets together. We truly enjoyed each other’s company!

When we last spoke, Larry understood that his remaining time was very limited. He accepted his fate with strength and courage. It was just after that conversation that things took a dramatic turn for the worse, and Larry had to be briefly hospitalized.

1974 -“Art and other Wheatleyites: I read the obituary notice for Peggy Maguire Cilmi (1974) with the fact that her and her husband, Joe Cilmi (1968), another Wheatleyite, lived on The Farm Community for a number of years. I lived on The Farm from 1971-1979. The Farm was an intentional spiritual community in rural Tennessee that grew out of our shared Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco experience. I could describe The Farm in depth, but there are many written accounts, or you could check out The Farm (Tennessee) - Wikipedia .We were completely communal in the day and had our own water systems and telephone and combines and semi trucks. Later, the communal system was abandoned, and so now it is more like a cooperative. There are still some 100 people there, whereas we had grown to about 1500 at its peak, in about 1980.

I did not recall meeting the Cilmis, but I did live with two other Wheatleyites on The Farm: Teresa “Terry” Lauricella Schwartz (1966) and Gary Schwartz (1966) and their four (as I remember) children, one of whom I have communicated with on our Farm Community Facebook group. We lived in a house with about 30 people, and I lived under the stairs, and there was always a gaggle of blonde urchins running around, as The Farm was big on natural birth control, which meant big on families. I was single until I married on The Farm in 1977, but my wife and I left a few years later. My second daughter was conceived on The Farm but was born in Brooklyn at Downstate Medical Center in 1979 with the midwifery program when we lived in Woodhaven, Queens, at which time I was driving a taxicab and had returned to school at York College in Jamaica.

Gary Schwartz died a number of years ago, but I have heard through Terry’s daughter, Lydia, that Terry is still in Virginia, near Louisa, where she and Gary moved after they left The Farm. Gary was a carpenter and I believe Terry was a teacher.
Anyway, I posted Peggy Cilmi’s obit from the Wheatley Alumni Newsletter on The Farm Community Facebook group. I had a few responses, and I found Joe Cilmi on Facebook; he is an auto mechanic and farmer in Florida. Here were some of the responses I got on Facebook:

Fan Mail

1962 (John Cilmi) - “Thanks so much for all you do to keep us connected.”

1962 (Carol Keister McCormick) - “Hi Art, thanks for keeping the Wheatley Newsletter timely and real.”

1963 (Elizabeth Stone Matho) - “Thanks for sending this, Art. You're always a gem!”

1965 (Eliot “Ike” Evans) - “I always enjoy reading the Newsletter and catching up on everyone.”

1974 (Clifford Struhl) - “Thanks for keeping the Wheatley community together.”

The Official Notices

All underlined text is a link-to-a-link or a link-to-an-email-address. Clicking anywhere on underlined text, and then clicking on the text that pops up, will get you to your on-line destination or will address an email.

In the first 24 or so hours after publication, Wheatley Alumni Newsletter # 190 was viewed 2,897 times, was liked 10 times, and was commented on once. In all, 4,725 email addresses received Newsletter # 190. For all of January, The Newsletter was accessed approximately 11,400 times.

The Usual Words of Wisdom

Thanks to our fabulous Webmaster, Keith Aufhauser (Class of 1963), you can regale yourself with the first 190 Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletters (and much other Wheatley data and arcana) at

Also thanks to Keith is our search engine, prominently displayed on our home page: type in a word or phrase and, wow!, you’ll find every place it exists in all previous Newsletters and other on-site material.

I edit all submissions, even material in quotes, for clarity and concision, without any indication thereof. I cannot and do not vouch for the accuracy of what people tell me, as TWSAA does not have a fact-checking department.

We welcome any and all text and photos relevant to The Wheatley School, 11 Bacon Road, Old Westbury, NY 11568, and the people who administered, taught, worked, and/or studied there. Art Engoron, Class of 1967

Closing

That’s it for The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 191. Please send me your autobiography before someone else sends me your obituary.