The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 281

Dear Wheatley Wildcats and Other Interested Persons,

Welcome to the Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 281.

9/11

Richard Kopelman (1961) Writes - “Hi Art, Here is my 9/11 story.

On Tuesday, 9/4, I taught a class of 35 Morgan Stanley employees who were taking MBA courses offered by the Baruch College faculty. The course was taught on the 110th floor of Tower 1, I believe. As I was writing on the blackboard, I heard students saying that they would only take a few courses where they worked but never attended Baruch.

On 9/11, I took an early train into NYC, and there was a bunch of men excitedly pointing out the window. They said a plane had just flown into one of the towers. (I thought, even a beginner would not crash their plane into a building.)

I had come in around 9am to see my chiropractor. When I arrived at her office on 29th street, I watched on TV as the second tower was destroyed. The announcers said they saw people leaping out of the upper floors. The trains to Long Island were shut down until 10pm.

On 9/18 my class met in a horrible classroom at Baruch. There were no windows in the room. Fortunately, all 35 Morgan Stanley students survived.

The class was a dismal event for another 11 weeks. Students were in mourning, and I taught with a dreary countenance.

I'm relating my story because I find it so poignant.

Best,
Richard ('61)”

Ellen Solow Holzman (1964) Writes - “On 9/11, I was teaching at Wheatley, my alma mater. That was the first or second day of classes, and we had one of those boring introductory assemblies first thing in the morning, so I escorted my class to the auditorium. As we exited, a colleague rushed past saying something I didn’t understand about being glad her brother was not at work that morning. By the time my class and I reached our classroom towards the end of the 200 corridor, there was a buzz that something was not right. Then the announcement came over the PA that planes had flown into the World Trade Center towers. We were all struck dumb, except for one student who looked forward to seeing video of what had happened.

I had to keep my composure through that period and the next, but as soon as I was free, I tried to call my three children, all of whom could potentially have been in lower Manhattan. (When I did finally get through, they were all fine, though two of them had been not far from the towers.) Then I joined the large group of students in the lobby, where the tv screens were tuned in to a news channel. So many of us had our hands over our mouths (Why do we do this?) as we watched the towers fall. One student expressed to me her fear that Wheatley would be attacked. Why? Because we had been ranked as the number one school in the country. And I thought about the strange confluence of events that had me in the Wheatley auditorium on that day—and on the day that JFK was shot.”

Travel Query (Redux)

An intrepid Wildcat will be in Morocco the first week of November (2026) and is wondering whether there are any Wildcats living there who might want to share a meal in Fez or Rabat. Please let me (Art) know, and I will convey the information.

Concert Review - Nostalgia Reigns

Art Engoron (1967) Writes - Saturday evening, September 12, 2026, classmate Mitch Stephens and I attended a concert featuring Stevie Winwood (of the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, and Blind Faith) and John Fogerty (of Creedence Clearwater Revival) at the Jones Beach Theater (of Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater).

Why be so regressive in our tastes? In my case (Mitch’s tastes are more eclectic than mine) because classic rock & roll is so much better than the so-called music spewing forth from radios and concert halls nowadays. It had hummable melodies, logical chord progressions, verses, choruses and bridges, a big beat, and, in the classic formulation, “you can dance to it.”

I haven’t heard anything in 40 years that can compare to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Rascals, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, The Eagles, the Four Tops, the Supremes, The Byrds, The Animals, the Dave Clark Five, Mitch Ryder, or, of course, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan (and on and on). The lyrics were heartfelt and helped foster seismic changes in society. They were real bands, often friends. They usually played their own instruments.

Even the names of the bands were better.

Winwood and his six-or-so person ensemble played a professional set of fan faves from the various iterations of his career.

It was the first mainstream Rock & Roll concert I have ever attended in which there was no bass player, although there was no lack of booming bottom, given the powerful set drumming, an excellent manual percussionist, and Stevie’s playing in the lower register of his keyboard. Stevie also plays a mean guitar. All in all, a tough act to follow.

But Fogerty did so, with energy and elan. His mixture of crowd-pleasing CCR classics and his personal favorites had the front rows standing and dancing the entire time. What his voice has lost (a lot, unfortunately) since CCR’s heyday, his guitar playing has gained (a lot, fortunately). Two of his six children performed, one of whom, an outstanding guitarist, is a chip off the old block. As expected, Proud Mary was the encore, rounding out an amazing set and career.

Fogerty was born in 1945 and Winwood was born in 1948, and they both still have great chops. I was born in 1949, which is probably why I forget to take a photo of Mitch and me (and anyway, in previous editions, you’ve probably seen more than enough photos of me and almost enough photos of Mitch).

Graduates

1975 - Nick Pantinakis and Dan Weiss - Friends and Neighbors

Nick Writes - “Dan Weiss, literally my next door neighbor for many years, recently informed me of your fun, informative Wheatley Newsletter and Website (WWW.WHEATLEYALUMNI.ORG). It’s been an excellent way to stay connected, especially as I live overseas. Dan, my wife, and I had dinner together in Baltimore in August.

Dan’s sister, Sara Weiss (1973), also my next door neighbor for many years, is married to your younger brother, Danny Engoron (1973), whom I’ve met a few times.

You must be proud of the results that you get from your very hard work on the Newsletter. Many thanks for all you and your ‘team’ do.

Dan’s remarkable career continues. After the Presidency of Lafayette College, Haverford College, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dan served on various boards and has done consulting work. While consulting, the Philadelphia Museum of Art requested his expertise to guide the institution through a major crisis. Dan accepted the offer and is now the Director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He and his wife, Sandra, maintain homes in Philadelphia and Easton, Maryland.

I retired some years ago after a fortunate career selling educational content. Since then, my wife and I have lived overseas, full time. In our latest posting, Nairobi, she has been serving as US Charge D’Affaires since August 2025. We maintain domestic homes in Baltimore and West Palm Beach.

I hope to attend a Wheatley reunion at some point. In the interim, your delightful Newsletter offers superb updates.

Best,
Nick Pantinakis, ‘75.”

The WildCat Pet Corner - Correction

The pooch photo in the last issue of this Newsletter was of Mindy Spier Cohen and family members, not sister Ricki Spier Cohn and family members, as previously reported.

Fan Mail

1960 (Joanne Festa) - ❤️

1963 (Joan Hennessy Syms) - ❤️

1964 (Natalie Cobb Wentworth) - ❤️

1964 (Richard Ilsley) - ❤️

1966 (Claude Lévy) - ❤️

1966 (Deborah Simmons) - ❤️

1966 (Suzanne Stone) - ❤️

1968 (Ricki Spier Cohn) - “I look forward to the Newsletters.”

1972 (Jeffrey Kargman) - “I love to receive the Newsletters every few weeks. It’s the first thing that I look at. Thanks, Art, for all the hard work you put into publishing it.”

1972 (Kenneth Roggen) - ❤️

1974 (SuZanne L. Zenker Gilbride) - ❤️

1978 (William Haft) - ❤️

1996 (Joshua Effron) - ❤️

The Usual Words of Wisdom

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.

Thanks to our fabulous Webmaster, Keith Aufhauser (Class of 1963), you can regale yourself with the first 280 Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletters (and much other Wheatley data and arcana) at our website: The Wheatley School Alumni Association Website.

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 vouch for the accuracy of what people tell me, as TWSAA does not have a New Yorker style 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, performed, and/or studied there. Art Engoron, Class of 1967

Closing

That’s it for The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 281. Please send me your autobiography before someone else sends me your obituary.

Art