January 2009: Happy new year from SAS! We had a number of visitors to campus the first two weeks of January, but unfortunately they were too quick to be captured by the alumni office camera! Chi-Chi Lin, Renuka Agarwal and Auggie Bautista all dropped by. Chi-Chi had organized a Young Alumni Reunion for alums in the last five graduating class years on January 3, so she dropped off her photos of that event, which you can see here.

 

In the photo to the left, you can see alum Jim Burdell '73 who came to visit Singapore for the first time since a short layover in 1981. Jim lived in Singapore in the early 60s, before moving back to California after his 5th grade year with his mother Lois and brother Paul '76. Jim's father, Frank Burdell, was an active member of the American community in the 60s. He was killed in a plane crash in 1966, and has since been honored at SAS with an annual high school scholarship in his name called the Burdell-Wood Scholar-Athlete Award. Frank Burdell has also been remembered on the Memory Garden Timeline Wall, which Jim toured on his campus visit.

 

Jim has fond memories of Singapore in the 1960s, and shared some of these stories about the American community with Brent Mutsch, SAS Superintendent. Instead of letting 28 years go by until his next visit, Jim told us that he plans to visit Singapore 3-4 times in the next two years. He works as a military civilian, and he and his wife Valerie have recently returned from two years living in Naples. His home base is in San Diego, but upon his return from Naples, he was seconded to Hawaii, where he will work for the next two years. In fact, before his visit, he had only spent a couple of days in Hawaii before coming to Singapore. Thanks for coming to see us despite your busy schedule Jim! It's time to get your brother Paul reconnected to SAS!

 

Sean Nerney '02, his lovely girlfriend and Julie Chew stopped by today. All three are visiting from New York City. All three were happy to be back in the warm Singapore weather after a cold winter in New York.

 

They visited with teacher Paul Koebnick, who helped Sean and his band The Old Kings produced several CDs while they were at SAS. Sean promises us a an article for Journeys about the days of the Old Kings and where they are now. Most members of the band have continued with the music. Sean reported that Dave D'aranjo '02, who was living in New York at this time last year, has moved to Boston to pursue his music career at Berklee College of Music. 

 

They also chatted with teacher Ellen White, who just happened to be walking through the alumni office. Ms. White asked after Sean's brother Mark '00, who she had had in class. Sean said that Mark was happily living in Denver, Colorado.

 

January 28, 2009: Rainer Kumbroch '77 and his wife of 14 years, Lisa, dropped by on their wedding anniversary! Rainer and Lisa have been together for 22 years, and are celebrating with a week in Singapore and a boat trip from Singapore to Shanghai.

 

This visit was Lisa's third time to Singapore, and she gave the alumni office a very impressive gift that we're so grateful for! Before she left Honolulu, where they live, Lisa took all of Rainer's Singapore photos, slides and negatives to Costco and had them scan all 1000+ of them onto DVDs and Rainer's hard drive. She very kindly had copies made for the alumni office, so we are now 1000+ photos richer in school and Singapore history. We are thrilled! Rainer took 'Singapore through the lens' with Ken Clarke as an Interim Semester in high school, so many of the photos are of Singapore buildings and markets in 1976 and 1977. They are stunning, and we can't wait to show them to you in future issues of Journeys.

 

Rainer's friend Russ Ng '67 was kind enough to escort Rainer and Lisa to campus and spend the day touring Singapore with them. The four of us walked through the school, visiting the new Riady Performing Arts Center and Memory Garden. We also visited Mr. Ho's cafeteria, where I took my favorite photo of Russ and Rainer:

 

Thanks for coming Rainer, Russ and Lisa! We hope you enjoyed your visit!

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 29, 2009: You don't have to be an SAS graduate to be an SAS alum! Alumni parent Robert Lockett dropped by with Asst. Superintendent Mark Boyer today. Mark was showing Mr. Lockett around the campus and the new Memory Garden, and luckily we got to catch up with them! Mr. Lockett was proudly sharing the success of this three kids, Jamie '98, Douglas '99, and Ashley '02, who live in LA, Washington DC and New York City, respectively. I hope to meet up with Douglas and Ashley on our February trip to the United States. We managed to capture this picture of Mr. Lockett, so that he could show his kids that he'd been up to visit their alma mater!