Alumni News

Frank Allan Remembered

 Memories of retired Saltus Learning Support teacher, Frank Allan, contributed by friends and former colleagues Kay Latter, Peter LePage, Christine DeSilva, and Anna and Fred Phillips.

Frank was a quiet man, a gentle man, a good friend and a good listener.  He had a strong social conscience and over the years he served this community well.  He received a long service award from the Lions Club, delivered Meals on Wheels, and was a Superintendent of St. Paul's Sunday School for 18 years.  Until recently, he volunteered his time to read to children at a local school.

Frank arrived in Bermuda in 1970, and fell in love with the Island.  For the first year he swam every day.  He taught special needs children at Friendship Vale School for the first three years. Returning to England for one year of training, he pined for Bermuda the whole time. 

Upon his return, he taught special needs children at Central School and Purvis Primary School. He joined the staff of Saltus Junior School as a Reading Specialist and stayed for 15 years until his retirement in 2000. He was a delight to have on staff, always ready to help out.  The children responded to him, and he was proud of the fact that many of his charges went on to university and became successful. He often remarked on how many of his students remembered him and went out of their way to greet him.

Frank could always be relied upon and was most resourceful when it came to School productions when he often took responsibility for the props. Mr. Le Page would sometimes ask for rather unusual items for the show and somehow Frank managed to procure them.    

Appropriately for a reading teacher, he read voraciously and widely, but his real love was to be outdoors.  He walked all over the island and spent many hours walking the railway trail near his apartment in Paget.  He completed the End to End Walk an impressive 11 times, and raised large sums of money for the designated charities each year but was always modest about his accomplishments.

His kindness to others will be remembered by those whose lives he touched; whether it was picking up people to take them to church on Sundays, taking meals to those who needed them, or making that telephone call to make sure his friends were alright.

Frank was a good friend, and it is sad to recall how he had to brave such pain in his last years.  His quiet smile, and his gentle ways will be greatly missed by those who were lucky enough to be his friend. Frank is survived by his sister Ruth Brack and her husband Maxwell.

Frank Allan’s funeral took place on Wednesday, March 10th, at St Paul's Church in Paget.

Alumni News published in the Saltus Newspaper

Below you will find the alumni columns from past issues of the “Saltus News” .

Alumni News: Winter & Spring 2008-2009

 In addition to the following news on alums, there are spotlights on: Spencer Conway ’00 and the Bermuda U40s Re/Insurance Group of which he is the Chair; Tim Fox ’08 who was selected by The Bermuda Olympic Association to attend the Beijing Olympic Youth Camp and his experiences there; and Gianluca Gibbons who was selected by the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers’s Communications and Public Outreach Committee to design a booth at the ACE Careers Fair in October. And congratulations are in order for Kiera Aitken ’01 and James Stout (2002) for being awarded Female and Male Athlete of the Year.

Robert V. Barritt (1943) was honoured by the Town of Sackville for his contribution to the Owens Art Gallery’s Education and Community Outreach programme – he attended the 10th grade in Sackville in 1943 and went on to graduate from Mount Allison University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

In 1965, Bruce McClarron ‘67 set a Saltus and Bermuda record for the discus event – throwing 151’ 1.5” -- breaking the existing record by close to 25 feet -- this record still stands at Saltus.  Bruce has been living in Tucson, AZ for the last 15 years.

Horst Finkbeiner II (1980) was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Bermuda Commercial Bank Ltd.  Sean Pitcher (1980) was elected Chairman of the United Bermuda Party in December.

Mark Booth ’90 is in charge of the Volunteer and Patron Database for Greenrock.  Dr. Andre Raine ’92, who works as a Conservation Manager for Birdlife Malta whose mission is to protect endangered birds which stop there enroute to Africa, and his volunteers face constant threats and intimidation  from hunters (go to www.birdlifemalta.org). David DeCosta had his head shaved for St. Baldrick’s and at press time had raised over $60,000 with $15,000 of that going to PALS. Michael Fahy ’93 joined the Bermuda Senate and is very involved in Bermuda’s road safety issues.

Benjamin Davies (1996) is currently working for a financial adviser in London’s West End. James ‘Herbie’ Adderley ’94 coaches the BRFU’s Youth Rugby Squad (“The Young Byes”) which draws teenagers from both public and private schools and the U19 Bermuda team (which includes Saltus alums and current students) won two out of three matches and a bowl at the Caribbean Championships in the Caymans in July; and Herbie and his wife welcomed their first child Rocco.

Sarah Gallo ‘00 graduated from Northeastern in Biology and is in her penultimate year at Boston University School of Medicine. Kieran Bradshaw ’00 is in software development at Orbis Mutual Funds building trading applications. Kimberly Frith ’00 wed Jason Thomas in August.  Zander Kirkland runs a junior sailing programme at a yacht club in Newport Beach (CA), coaches the local high school team and is now an avid surfer: “I have taken to surfing rather religiously and surf whenever the waves are up.” Anne Marwick ‘01 received the Bank of Bermuda Foundation Eldon H. Trimingham Master of Business Administration Scholarship 2008 for her studies at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Congratulations to Gillian Henderson ’01 who had a baby girl Annika Ruth.  Kiera Aitken ’01, who competed in the Beijing 2008 Olympics, broke several national records in freestyle and backstroke at the Spanish Nationals in December and was named Bermuda’s number one swimmer at the Bermuda Amateur Swimming Association’s prizegiving. Tyler Butterfield (2001), who has quit pro-cycling and is training to compete as a triathlete for the 2012 Olympics, re-launched his triathalon career at the “Escape to Bermuda” event in October.  Aziza Ahad ’02 who is a Client Services Associate with Aardvark Communications Ltd. was profiled in The Royal Gazette.  John Neal was a Butterfield Bank’s 2008 Management Trainee. Carl Soares, who graduated from the Savannah College of Art & Design with a major in Industrial Design and minor in Transport and Marine Design, went to Milan to get his Master’s at the Scuolo Politecnica di Design with an unpaid internship at Lamborghini but before leaving the Island, he came and spoke to enthralled Design Technology students and demonstrated design software for automobiles. G’ane Everheart ’04 was awarded a $5,000 for studies overseas by the Just-Between-Us Breast Cancer Support Group. Richard Hillen ’04 graduated magna cum laude from the Wharton School of Business (PA) last May and, after spending the summer as a camp counselor in a camp for children with Downs Syndrome, has joined Orbis Investments. Zuri Darrell ‘04 was a Butterfield Bank 2008 Management Trainee.                               Rotary Exchange student Nurbek Ababakirov ’06, who emailed from Bishkek City, Kyrgyzstan, reported he’s in his third year at the American University-Central Asia in Bishtek studying Business Administration, and last year traveled to Iran with his uncle and while there visited Kish Island in the Persian Gulf, “as I walked out of the airport I took a breath of an island air which was humid and filled with [a] salty ocean smell [and] memories from Bermuda just flashed back.  Those few days around the island I was recollecting the days in Bermuda…. I definitely should go back to Bermuda again sometime in the future.”  Ben Bernardo ‘07 is attending the Gordon Ramsey Cooking College at Tante Marie College in Woking, Surrey, UK.  Christopher Smith ‘07was selected for the Warner University Young Americans Choral Ensemble. SGY 07 grads Kryshae Furbert, Keishae Robinson, Brittany Uddin and Francesca Cacace (along with current students Emily Chadderton, Ryanne Bardgett, Yvonna Osborne and Erica Parsons) represented Bermuda in the U21 Pan Am games Junior Hockey Tournament in Mexico.

Our condolences to the families of the following alumni: J. Henry Dallas, Ernest Llewellyn Conyers (’36), Anthony D. Pearce ’50, Michael Caton ’54, Wendell Colin Rance ’57, Peter Blaney ’78, Kevin C. Way (1985), Kimberly Christina Matthew ’91, Stephen Maughan (1991), Kenneth D. E. Robinson (1994), and James Smith age 24.

Alumni Winter 06-07

Former Mayor of Hamilton, William de V. Frith, was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours. Alumnus and former Trustee, D. Colin Selley, was awarded the Member d’Honneur by the international SKAL Club.

Congratulations to Linda Noble Parker ’79 who will be taking over from Roy Napier as Head of Bermuda High School for Girls – Linda is only the fifth Bermudian Head in the school’s history.  Paul Maddern ’79, who lives in Northern Ireland, has had his poetry published, won a Kilfedder Memorial Bursary from the North Down Borough Council Arts Section, and is working on his PhD.

Ian Bickley ’80 was appointed President of Coach International (maker of luxury leather goods in the US). Frank Capstick, who taught English in the Junior Department (1957-66), stopped by with some photos from that time and reports that daughter, Alison Capstick Carlson ’81 is living in California with her husband and three children.  Rosemary Jones ’82 authored a travel guide titled Moon Bermuda highlighting things for families with children travelling here and she was Race Director for the PartnerRe women-only 5K run and walk in October which benefited the Bermuda Diabetes Association. Blythe Walker ’86 was named BSA 2006 OMEGA Male Sailor of the Year.

Investing in Bermuda’s future -- currently with Microsoft in Seattle, Laurion Burchall ’90, who obtained a degree in computer science from Brown University thanks to Bank of Bermuda Foundation IT and Fessenden Trott scholarships, has started to pay back the $54,000 he received  to give other young Bermudians an opportunity. At the New York International Fringe Festival, Joel Froomkin ’91 won an award for outstanding excellence in direction for the play ”The Infliction of Cruelty.” Chris Flook ’91 caught a dusky shark off Castle Island which is the first of this species to be displayed at the Bermuda Aquarium. After qualifying in a six-day tournament in the U.S. in 2006, golfer Michael Sims earned full exemption to this year’s Nationwide tour. Artist Jon Legere exhibited his works locally in a show called “Pomo Cuts” in November.  Simon Franklin '98 and Andrea Benevides Franklin '98 welcomed their first child Jared Edward on December 31st.  Mark Henderson was awarded the Appleby Spurling Hunter Legal Education Scholarship Award for 2006/2007 and is currently studying law at the University of Calgary.  Sarina Bean ’99, currently working in Bermuda’s Supreme Court as an assistant to Judge Ian Kawaley, received a Certificate of Meritorious Recognition from the Supreme Court in December and won the 2006 Hector Barcilon Memorial Moot for law students. Kevin Richards, who works in London, and Senior PE Head Tim Figureido travelled to St. Thomas with the National Soccer squad.

Barry Houghton ’00 married Melissa Catherine Tanner of Nova Scotia in August of 2006 -- both graduates of Acadia University (Barry’s degree is in computer science), they are residing in Halifax and he is on the IT staff of Capital Health (Halifax).  Geoffrey Faiella was awarded legal bursaries from ASH, CD&P and Cox Hallett Wilkinson.  Anne Marwick ’01, who graduated with Distinction from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in 2005, is working at Deloitte Consulting in Toronto within the Corporate Strategy Practice where she works with clients in the Financial Services sector and she volunteers with the Toronto Council of the Special Olympics. Tyler Butterfield came first in the Bank of Bermuda Individual Triathlon in October.  Rachel Willitts ’03, a student at Ryerson University (Toronto), found huge need among the people in Zambia where she worked with “The Rainbow Project” last summer.  Bermudian reggae band, HomeGrown, which includes Will Tucker ’03 (drums) and Oscar Deuss ’03 (rhythm guitar/sax), opened for Anthony Hamilton, India.Arie, and Charlie Wilson at the 20006 Bermuda Music Festival. Whitney Morfitt ’03 studying at St. Mary’s in Halifax and a partner produced “Sincerely Yours” a Bermudian swimsuit calendar for 2007. Stephanie Adderley ’04, in her 3rd year at Glasgow University, received the BELCO Llewellyn Vorley Scholarship.  Lucy Hollis, studying at University College London, plays in weekly matches for the university's First hockey team.  She was awarded a Nicholl Scholarship this year and in November received the Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award at St James Palace. Kelly Savery ’05 travelled to Namibia in the summer with Raleigh International.  Jennifer Beech ’05 is a key defensive player with Endicott College’s field hockey team, “The Gulls.”    Erick S. Sanchez currently attending Florida Community College in Jacksonville majoring in "Automotive Management & Technology" and expressed his thanks to the Saltus staff “…for helping me accomplish my dreams.” Patrick Doyle ’06 made the Dean's List at Johnson & Wales with a 4.0 and will be featured in a university ad to appear in Bermuda.  After completing an IB diploma at Salem International College (Germany), Tristan Loescher is enrolled at the University of British Columbia (Canada).

Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Beauty and The Beast” starred Jessica Frith ’01 and Graeme Henderson ’98 also in it were John Ross, Gillian Henderson ‘01. Adrian Kawaley-Lathan ’00, Stephen Notman and Alison Begeman were in the B.M.D.S. Christmas pantomime “Ali Baba and the 14 Thieves.” The Bermuda Islands Pipe Band, which counts many alums among its membership, celebrated its 50th Anniversary in November. The Pipe Band practices weekly at Saltus and has donated musical instruments to the School.

Condolences to the families of: alumnus David William Godfrey, Douglas Pullen (father of Christopher ‘02), Aldwin Savery (father of Kelly’05 and Vincent), and Judy McPhee wife of former Saltus Headmaster, Keith McPhee.   September marked the 5th anniversary of September 11th where two Saltus alumni, Bermudian Boyd Gatton and American  Robert Higley, perished.

New job? New addition to the family? Moved? Please email any information to alumni@saltus.bm or use our news update form here.

We’d love to hear from you.

Email any news or changes in contact information to alumni@saltus.bm or send “snail mail” to Saltus (attention: Alumni News) at P.O. Box HM 2224, Hamilton HM JX, Bermuda.