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Tony Guernsey ’66

In the 1970 conscription military draft, my birthday was drawn 13th. The first 186 birthdates drawn were drafted into the Army. It was a short evening for me. A parent of a Taft student was, at the time, a high-ranking officer in the Navy. Because of that connection, although the ROTC Navy program was full, I was able to join the Navy as an enlisted sailor, where I subsequently served 30 months at Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago, Illinois. (My grandfather, Taft Class of 1912, was a two-star General in WWI. My father, a graduate of Taft in 1940, was a Major in the army during WWII.)

When the Vietnam war ended, I applied for a job at J.P. Morgan. I was accepted into their management training program on the basis of being a military veteran, having served our country. I went on and spent a successful career in the financial services industry. Forty-seven years later, I was awarded our industry’s lifetime achievement award in wealth management.

It all started with Taft.

Charlie Yonkers ’58

In my years at Taft from 1955 to 1958, almost all of our [school] “masters” were veterans, from privates in WWI like Paul Cruikshank to extended WWII service like Cunningham, Douglas, Sullivan, Logan, Sargent, Manning, Pennell, Lovelace, Small, Woolsey, Clark, McKinley, Snow, etc., to Livingston Carroll, who earned a Silver Star. A quick survey of the faculty bios in any Taft Annual will stun you. Our teachers were living emblems of the school motto. The ethos of the place was service, not to be served.

The school’s living examples of pathways to service affected us all. Most all of my fellow 1958 classmates have stories of service. Personally, it led to law practice, pro bono legal services, four years as a Peace Corps Country Director in West Africa, and ultimately a late-in-life teaching career at Georgetown University.

Thanks, Taft. Thanks especially to the many faculty members who gave us such inspiring life experiences. I’m humbled to recognize the rich seedbed of service that the school offered us.

Ken Marcella '75

This is a topic that I have thought about a lot and, having a son who recently applied to and attended prep school, I have revisited my thoughts about my own journey. Back in 1975, I was considered a minority—a first-generation Italian American from an immigrant family. I was given one of two scholarships that Taft awarded to local students at that time. Anthony "Sam" Sowinski, a first-generation Polish immigrant from Watertown, was awarded the other. Sam and I bonded because of our position as “outsiders” in the hierarchy of Taft at that time, and we are still friends and communicate frequently. To say that the scholarship to Taft opened doors for me would be a massive understatement. When I walked into those halls, I did not even know that such “doors” existed. Yet both Sam and I, and others, were always aware that financially and, because of that, socially, we never really fit in. They were difficult and unusual times back then, but I tried to make as much as I could of the opportunity given to me. It allowed me to get a college scholarship to Dartmouth and then attend veterinary school at Cornell and get to the position where I could then send my own son to prep school. My life is sort of the American Dream story, though, and Taft was an early part of that.


Sam Sowinski '75

At a crossroads in my life (1987), I accepted a position to teach at the Connecticut Junior Republic in Litchfield, Connecticut. The youth I served in that position were juvenile delinquents serving their court-adjudicated sentences in a residential setting. This position then led to teaching at an alternative school in Winsted, Connecticut, and then in an educational psychiatric setting in New Britain, Connecticut. A call from Charlotte, North Carolina, by my daughter to help her raise her two sons meant a move to Charlotte. I worked for Cabarrus county as a special education teacher, working with every population served by the special education umbrella. I also had the opportunity to teach a self-contained class of ninth grade boys with autism two years ago. I have spent the last two years working in a specialized school in Charlotte. It can best be described as a very intense/last stop behavioral setting for CMS. When I reflect on teaching and impacting the most challenging students one can find for 37 years, I realize how my Taft experiences gave me the educational and emotional foundation to take on these challenging students. My dysfunctional childhood is a way that I can relate/empathize with my students, but the Taft scholarship I received prepared and challenged me academically in ways that readied me for whatever I had to do in the classroom to teach them. I had a chance to meet Dick Cobb (my first teacher at Taft) a couple times a year to break bread at P.F. Chang's and share teaching war stories with each other. That connection was a gift for me that Taft enabled. Taft will always drive my ability to teach and reach the students I meet along the way.

Sam Crocker '60

Being able to attend Taft on a scholarship turned out to be one of the most important events of my life. My experience over my four years not only presented me with academic, athletic, and social interaction opportunities but also, and perhaps most importantly, formed the foundation for who I am as a person today. I was truly fortunate to be part of a truly wonderful class (1960), maybe one of the best in Taft’s history! Friendships formed at Taft last a lifetime, something for which I continue to be exceedingly grateful. Go Rhinos!


Bob Gast '54

I arrived at Taft in the fall of 1950, having spent my eighth grade year at a one-room ranch school in the cattle country of southern Wyoming. I was the only student in the eighth grade, so Taft with over 100 in my lower mid class was exciting while somewhat daunting!!! Now some seventy-four years later, I realize that exposure to all these young men from all over the country taught me many things that have served me well at Stanford and the U.S. Coast Guard and for twenty-five years in the FBI. #1. How to get along with all sorts of different personalities and diverse backgrounds. For example, I had never even met a Jewish person, and two of my Jewish classmates became my closest friends. #2. How to write the English language. #3. Team sports at various levels with uneven results. In my Wyoming school, the principal activity at recess was a spirited horse poop fight! Finally, #4. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, Taft instilled in me a real dedication to the school motto: Not to be served but to serve!

Luiza Wasielewska Kotzen ’96

Arriving at Main Circle with my daughter, Liora, on a picturesque October morning in 2022 brought back countless memories of my time at Taft. It was one of those perfect days in autumn when all of the leaves have turned thousands of shades, but the air is still warm. Having raised her in Palm Beach with just “in-season” or “off-season,” experiencing autumn for the day was a treat. The highlight of that day, however, was that Mrs. Campbell, who interviewed me nearly three decades earlier, interviewed us.

I was very nervous when my parents and I arrived at Taft after a substantial snowstorm in January of 1994. The campus was very quiet, and we quickly found out that the interviews had been canceled because no one would drive in a storm like that. No one except my father, who had just escaped from Communist Poland 12 years earlier by “borrowing” a Polish Air Force plane. A foot or so of snow wasn’t a big deal to him…we just left earlier… so early that we missed the call from the school. Mrs. Campbell had just been at Taft for a couple years at that point. She was so welcoming that I got over my nerves during my interview with her. I felt quite confident, in fact, until she said it was time for the campus tour and asked if I brought boots. I was wearing cute shoes that went with my outfit but were not suitable for walking up the hill outside in the snow. As we were leaving the house in the early morning, my dad had handed me my mom’s old hiking boots just to get from the front door of the house to the car. I can understand that there were not a lot of options in Communist Poland in the 1970s for footwear, but why these boots were still in our lives in 1994, I cannot explain, except they were actually quite functional, albeit hideous. So there I was, in the old world glamor of the Harley Roberts Room putting on Communist-issue hiking boots with my preppy J. Crew skirt, sweater, and pea coat. I was mortified, but tried not to show it.

My dad still says those boots helped me get accepted since Mrs. Campbell probably felt bad for me. I wonder if she ever even noticed the boots. I should ask her. Still, the boots are personally symbolic of how I felt at Taft. I arrived a little anxious about not completely fitting in, but quickly realized that one of the incredible things about Taft isn’t a homogenous student body, but one of unique and interesting students on a stand-alone basis, each with very different talents and backgrounds, who work together with kindness and respect. Just as I needed those boots to stay warm and navigate the hill to Cruikshank, every individual student is a crucial part of the whole student body. Coming in as an upper mid was challenging, as being a new person always is, but I was immediately made to feel welcome. I embraced that my new family had members not just from all over the USA, but from all over the world. I was fully American in a lot of ways, having grown up in the Hudson Valley, but my first language was Polish, so I related to the European students, closely, as well.

My days at Taft were a blessing for which I am truly grateful. I am grateful to my parents who worked so hard to make it possible for me to attend. I am grateful for the friendships I made, some of which I keep up with frequently. Keeping up with Taft friends’ lives is probably the main reason I still keep Facebook. My time at Taft molded me into a more critical thinker but also taught me about the world in a way one wouldn’t expect a bubble in rural Connecticut could.

As Liora is finishing up her lower mid year, I can say Taft has been the right place for her, even on the cold days, with the right boots. I always loved Taft for many reasons, but I had not fully appreciated the continuity and the dedication to preservation of the campus itself until I started to live the experience through my daughter’s eyes. It warms my heart to imagine her arriving at Main Circle in another 30 years, surprised to see the set impeccably preserved for a new group of smiling Tafties.

Will Dawson '12

Before Taft, my appetite for the classroom was muted at best. I was way more focused on making friends, playing sports, or simply finishing my homework as fast as possible so I could watch SportsCenter. Classroom learning and achievement meant getting good enough grades so my parents would leave me alone and hopefully positioning myself well enough for whatever the next step would be—nothing else!

My parents decided a smaller environment for high school, coupled with more hands-on teachers and a structured schedule, would do me some good. It didn’t hurt that Taft and the whole boarding school experience also reminded me of Hogwarts! When I arrived in Lincoln Lobby, I realized my approach to school was not adequate in a more rigorous classroom, and my grades were mediocre at best. But despite my initial lackluster performance, I began to lean in and enjoy learning for the first time. Looking back nearly 15 years later, I think this spark occurred for two reasons: first, exceptional teachers who were focused on your intellectual development and who encouraged debate rather than pushing a curriculum; second, highly motivated and intellectually curious peers who not only made classroom discussion interesting but also inspired you to hold yourself to a higher standard of academic achievement.

By the time my upper-mid year rolled around, I began to figure out how to both enjoy school and achieve high marks. I was also lucky enough to meet and begin dating Katie, my now-wife, that same year. It would be unfair to not attribute a significant portion of my academic progress to her; watching her dedication to her studies, passion for certain subject matter, and overall success as a student pushed me to double-down on my studies once again. By the time graduation rolled around, I was not only confident in my work ethic and approach to learning, but I had also discovered a true passion for English literature, history, and economics.

Fast-forward to the present day, and I look back on my Taft path as the four most impactful years of my life to date. I fell in love with learning and developed not only a strong work ethic but also an efficient one. This led me to success as an undergrad at Kenyon College, an MBA student at Harvard, and in my various professional roles. Today, I am a voracious reader and constantly trying to make sense of the evolving world around me. Taft taught me to do this through a combination of deliberate self-discovery and listening to the unique perspectives of those around you. My intellectual curiosity and appetite for knowledge is a direct product of my experience at Taft. Socially, I met some of the most competitive, intellectual, and kind people in the world—one happens to be my wife, and my closest friends to this day are still Tafties. Five of us still talk nearly every day and continue to share in the ups and downs of the emotional roller coaster we call life. Taft created a path for me—academically, professionally, personally—that I would never have even known existed. Had I not landed in Watertown in 2009, who knows where I’d be today—and I’m forever grateful for that.