The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 217

Wheatley Luncheon Changed; an Amazing Essay by Bruce Clark (1958); More on the Passing of Peter Sultan (1989); and the Usual Goodies.

Welcome to The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 217.

Wheatley Wildcat Athletic School Spirit

Wildcat Athletic Foundation Banners 2025-2026

Bernadette McCrave Quinn (1983) Writes -

Dear East Williston families:

As we embark on another school year, we would like to thank everyone for their continued support of the Wildcat Athletic Foundation.

Two years ago, we started to fundraise through placing family banners around our athletic fields and courts.

Thanks to the support of the district, we have been able to purchase tents for use at the fields for the athletes, senior banners for senior day/night celebrations, care packages for those students/teams participating in state championships, etc. We have also instituted an annual scholarship for one senior boy and one senior girl which is given to those students who represent what the Wildcat Athletic Foundation is all about.

We are a 501(c)(3) Organization, so your donations are tax deductible.

If you would simply like to make a donation for use by a specific athletic program, we would welcome that as well.

All funds raised go directly to the student athletes.

Banners will cost $100. Please fill out the form below to order your new banner and indicate which fields, court or gymnasium that you would like your banner placed at.

Payment can be made via zelle – wildcatathleticfoundation@gmail.com

Payment can also be made by check...payable to..

The Wildcat Athletic Foundation.

11 Bacon Road

Old Westbury, NY 11568

https://forms.gle/sMmWhNsY9T23fV6h6

Thank You for your support! GO WILDCATS!!

If you have any questions, please reach out to Bernadette McCrave Quinn at

The wildcatathleticfoundation@gmail.com

Wheatley Alumni Luncheon - Changed!

The Eighth Wheatley School Alumni Association NYC Luncheon will still be held on Friday, October 3, 2025, at 1:00 PM…..but, unfortunately, not at Pepolino, which cannot be considered “accessible.” We need a new venue, one with the following characteristics: Midtown or Downtown (or possibly UWS or UES) Manhattan; able to accommodate 20-25 or so people; our own room (or something close to it); a standard cuisine (Italian, Spanish, American, etc.); a place we’ve never been (although that’s negotiable); moderate pricing (doesn’t have to be cheap, but not too dear)……and “accessible.” No responder had a strong preference for service style, but I’d still prefer buffet. Somebody reading this must know of such a place, so please let me know ASAP. We are running short on time.

Class of 1975 50th-Year Reunion Band

Toni Buckner LaPietra Writes:

Classmates,

As part of the Wheatley Class of 1975's 50th-Year Reunion Weekend, October 10-12, 2025, several classmates have been working together on forming the Wildcats Reunion Band. The band consists of Mark Lubin on guitar, Susan Rotholz on flute and vocals, Michael Sadowsky on drums and vocals, Toni (Buckner) LaPietra on keyboard and vocals (all 1975 graduates) and Joe Spallina on bass guitar and vocals (if Joe doesn't sound familiar, that's because, sadly, he was not a Wheatley attendee, but he is graciously volunteering his talents).

We have been having a great time selecting and practicing songs from our High School years (and beyond) for the performance on Saturday, October 11, 2025 at 2:00pm in the Wheatley cafeteria. But wait! This is not just a performance. We need you to join us in, hold on to your hats---Wheatley-aoke! No, no, not karaoke per se, but where our fellow classmates can join us 'on stage' with songs of your choice, on instruments of your choice. This means, we need you! If you play an instrument and/or sing, tell us your favorite song and we will be ready for you to join us. If you wail on harmonica, or play a mean sax, we want you! We only ask that you send us your requests by August 15, so we have time to back you up in style.

The Wheatley-aoke/Wildcats Reunion Band performance is open to all Wheatley Class of 1975 members, alumni and friends. You don't have to have signed up for the Sunday dinner to attend, but we hope to see you there, too!

Contact Toni (Buckner) LaPietra: musicboxstudios@verizon.net and tell us what song/instrument, etc., you'd like to sing/play.

If you haven’t signed up for the reunion yet, you can obtain all information by contacting us at Wheatleyclassof1975@gmail.com.”

Parent - Leah Tchack

Randi Glasser Dawson (1979) Writes - “I am sorry to learn of the passing of Leah Tchack. I remember her husband, Ted Tchack. Condolences to the families.”

Graduates

1958 - Bruce Clark - Deceased

Bruce Clark Memorial Get-Together - Tuesday, July 29, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM, at the Sands Point Preserve, 127 Middleneck Rd., Sands Point, NY 11050.

Robert Holley (1958) Writes - Hi Arthur, I sadly announce the demise of my classmate, Bruce Clark.

I was not that close to Bruce in our high school years, but I know that he became pretty much the "Class Shepherd" for Wheatley's first graduating class, the Class of 1958, and he kept careful track of the whereabouts and doings of most of our graduates. He took time out from a very busy and successful law practice to engineer several of our ten-year reunions-- the final being our fiftieth, in 2008. My wife and I were fortunate to be his and his wife Judith's house guests for that memorable affair.

I was partly responsible for the management of our Class of 1958 50th-year Reunion Blog, on which we posted the pre- and post-graduation adventures of many of our classmates. Bruce and I shared a common bond in that each of us had, by fortune, chosen a college course elective that eventually directed our careers (his: anatomy/physiology; mine: computer programming), and I had saved a copy of his 2008 submission to our Reunion Blog (see below). I wish to pass it on for everyone to read; not only was Bruce a fine and very notable attorney, he was a GREAT storyteller...Reading it again after 17 years was quite a cheerful experience!

My best wishes

VQ

Robert Holley

Wheatley Class of 1958

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Message from Judith Clark, Bruce Clark’s widow, to Bruce Richardson (1958):

Hello Bruce, Your classmate, Bruce Clark, has passed away. He had been forced into a nursing home in early May of this year-because care of his Parkinson’s became so difficult at home.

Toward the end of June, he suddenly began bleeding internally, and we rushed him to the hospital, where they performed a tying-off operation that was supposed to be quick and easy, but unfortunately, he bled all the following night, and I think they forgot that he had a heart arrhythmia and was on a blood thinner. Toward the end of that awful night, I said, “please give him the antagonist for Pradaxa, the blood thinner.” Half an hour after they did that, the bleeding stopped.

But that afternoon, heavy breathing started with a lot of fluid in his lungs, and we all just decided that he had been through enough. We gave him oxygen until his oldest child could get here from Geneva, Switzerland, where she lives and works. We all said goodbye to him all evening. I spent the three nights in the hospital with him, lying on his shoulder, and the next morning, the 25th of June, I felt his breathing finally stop, and he was gone.

We held a private burial service in the family cemetery in Pennsylvania on the 28th. Our children and cousins spoke, a grandchild sang, and he was laid to rest.

We will hold a memorial get-together on the evening of Tuesday, July 29, from 6 to 9 PM, at the Sands Point Preserve. The address is 127 Middleneck Rd., Sands Point, NY 11050. (don’t confuse the Sands Point Preserve, which belongs to Nassau County residents and asks an entry fee, with the Sands Point Village Club, which is completely private).

Drinks and hors d’oeuvres will be served from 6 to 9 PM in a garden behind the Mansion, and my son feels that the sunset hour is very lovely there on the cliff overlooking Hempstead Harbor and the Sound.

People wanting to attend the memorial should simply say as they enter the gates that they are going to the Bruce Clark memorial at the Mansion, and they will not be charged an entry fee.

Bruce, I hope that you will pass this message on through your masterful list of class members so that anybody in the Metro area will feel welcome. That Wheatley School Class of 1958 was very important to Bruce all his life. I thank you very much.

Judith Hutchinson Clark

Bruce Clark’s 2008 Submission to his Class of 1958 50th-Year Reunion Blog:

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

The 50th anniversary of our graduation fromWheatley. I’m kind of excited. Those two years after Mineola High School and before college were, for me, two of the best in my life. The anniversary is another opportunity to think about that good, safe, enjoyable time. We were all new at Wheatley, and we were the senior class–for two years. The Mineola cliques that we, as freshmen and sophomores and non-varsity athletes were excluded from had been left behind.

Mineola had been a little frightening. I remember, I think it was the Shaw brothers, hanging a screaming Billy Grueneveld by his feet out the third floor window above the principal’s office. Or maybe it was Billy and someone else hanging one of the Shaws [they became policemen and Old Westbury real estate millionaires]. We heard that the principal, Mr. Sloat (wasn’t that a great name for that little man who looked like a mole?) looked out his window to see the screaming Grueneveld. Remember social studies teacher Mr. Plitt, who left springtimes to play baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals and marry Miss New York State, Diana Deutsch. Remember Diana Deutsch! Remember "hoods?" Like the skinny guy with the greasy hair who only wore black and stood outside Mr. Plitt’s home room every morning with his girlfriend, a platinum blonde who stood there with him with her hand in his pants pocket. [I always assumed she was his girlfriend. They never spoke. She might just have been someone with a cold hand.]

I had tried out for the Mineola basketball team and was cut the first day, before they had cuts. But at Wheatley, they needed bodies on the teams. If you weren’t athletic and couldn’t make the popular football, basketball and baseball teams, there were soccer, wrestling, and track. I became an "athlete." Once, I was the only member of the wrestling team who didn’t get pinned. [That memory must be wrong, because the team had Lance Lessler and Mike Stapleton, who were champions.]

When Wheatley started, we didn’t have a mascot or a team name. Bruce Gherke, the Mineola gym teacher, was the first person I heard say, "Wheatley Wildcats." I proposed it for the mascot referendum. It was a natural. Romuold Lanthier, the father of Tracey, Toni and Tina of succeeding classes, had a stuffed wildcat that Mrs. Lanthier was probably overjoyed to get out of their living room. It took a place of honor in Mr. Davis’ office. Remember Mr. Davis? Every time Dr. Norman Boyan, the Wheatley Principal, introduced him, he told of Mr. Davis in his first interview making it understood that, in all his jobs around the gym, he considered himself primarily as a teacher. And Mr. Lawson, the ex-Marine coach. When I told him I thought I had broken my arm pole vaulting, he told me to run a couple of laps and go take a shower. He signed my cast the next day.

Remember Dr. Boyan? Dr. Boyan appeared at the 50th All-Classes Wheatley Reunion in October on film. Mr. Wathey was there in the flesh looking great. I remember suggesting to Dr. Boyan that they offer us some college-level courses. His answer was that I was having enough trouble with high school-level classes. What a monumental job it must have been to create a high school for 400 students from scratch.

Mr. Wathey will always have a warm spot in my memories. He was principal of North Side when I transferred from public school in Jamaica, Queens, in the 6th grade. The teachers in NYC had been so strict that if you were going to do something like sharpen chalk in the pencil sharpener, you had to be really careful not to be detected. We even had to wear a tie every day. The kids in Mrs. Batchelder’s class laughed at me when I wore a tie my first day. They were actually wearing dungarees, and there were classes in art and music, and gym was outside on grass. I decided that school in East Williston was like country club membership [the beginning of a sweet academic decline. Isn’t it great that you can blame a poor academic record on dungarees and publish it to the world?]

I don’t remember what it was I did that so outraged Mr. Ingrassia, the North Side shop teacher, that made him decree that I would not be allowed on the class trip to Rye Beach. I’m sure I was completely innocent. It devastated me to be banished from the trip. Mr. Wathey kindly overruled Mr. Ingrassia and let me go to Rye Beach, where I bought a bottle of disappearing ink and a squirting pen (literally a "fountain" pen). Mrs. Batchelder was a pretty good sport when I created a big black spot on her white blouse. Jeanne Pretsch (1958) said that it wasn’t really disappearing ink, and I had ruined her best blouse. Yeah–sure, she would wear her best blouse to Rye beach. I probably did her a favor.

Mrs. Batchelder lived in East Williston and rode her bike to school. She looked just like the witch in the Wizard of Oz, pedaling through the village. I remember her teaching us things like how to jump off the window sill and that it was time to start using deodorant. Puberty was on the threshold. She punctuated its arrival with a comment one warm spring day that she was only wearing three things and her shoes were two of them. And then she would sit on a tall stool in front of the class or bend over to pick something up.

Mrs. Batchelder taught us that you can remember that "dessert" has 2 s’s because it has lots of sugar. I pointed out that deserts have lots of sand. I still remember the look she gave me. Or the time I asked her how to spell a word. She told me to look it up in the dictionary. I asked how you can look a word up if you don’t know how to spell it.
Then there was the time when a bunch of us 6th grade boys were caught with pictures of women who had breasts, 35 mm contact print size – the pictures, not the breasts. We were all sent to Mr. Wathey: Images of expulsion, "permanent record," shame, mortal sin, hell, parents hearing about it, no Rye Beach. Mr. Wathey gave us all a stern lecture. That was the end of it. No one went on to become a rapist, child molester, Governor or other type of sex criminal -- to my knowledge, any way. It’s too bad that decent and sane man, Mr. Wathey, didn’t get to be President of the United States.

Wasn’t it Mrs. Smiley who was the principal when they consolidated kids from East Williston and Roslyn Heights for 7th grade? Hank Tredwell, Slade Walter and I liked to spend hours on our bikes, sometimes trying to get lost. One day we stopped outside the butcher shop at the Albertson Long Island Rail Road Station. There was a pile of chicken feet in the showcase. I remembered, as a child, being given a chicken’s foot by a kindly butcher. A plot was hatched.

Hank, Slade and I got to school about a half hour before the school day started. We divided up 40 or 50 chicken feet the butcher had given us and set about seeding the 7th grade wing of the Willets Road School. Then, as the school day started, our work done, we sat back and enjoyed the pandemonium. Boys chased girls with chicken feet. Girls cooperated by screaming and running down the hall. It was so delicious. I seem to remember Mr. Visco and Mr. Goldwasser trying to keep from laughing. Then, everyone was herded into home rooms. Laurel Davis (1958) sat at the desk next to mine and opened the top to reveal a chicken leg. Fainting or at least a shriek would have been a nice conclusion to the adventure. She just picked it up–a girl touching a chicken leg with her bare fingers -- and dropped it on my desk. My desk! Why did she drop it on my desk?

It looked like everything was over. Mrs. Kurtz started doing her teaching thing. Then, she opened her desk drawer, the third one down on the left where she kept blank sheets of paper. She looked up and scanned the class: no reaction. She said, "All right. Whoever put this in my desk, come here and take it out." This time I really wasn’t guilty. Hank Tredwell sat in front of me. I waited, watching his inert back as the tension mounted. Finally, I couldn’t wait any longer to get back to diagraming sentences. I got up and retrieved the offending chicken leg.

Back to North Side for 8th Grade. Mr. Neidich taught English. More important, he had been a decoder in the Korean war and could break any code an 8th grader could devise. Miss Kreppein taught social studies. She was probably the nicest teacher I had. I remember hearing that she got married and not wanting to call her by her new name.

I told Mr. Gorman, our Wheatley guidance counselor, that I wanted to go to Princeton. He said that the only way I could get in with my grades was if I was president of the student council. Wheatley didn’t have a student council, so I suggested that we form one. I met with the Mineola student council and got each Wheatley home room to appoint one representative. Then, with the structure in place the electoral college, as it were, of home room representatives elected me. I never did apply to Princeton. The application was too long. But I had discovered politics. I decided that I wanted to get elected to something in the real world. On the way to politics as a career, I would become a trial lawyer and learn how to speak in public.

About a year ago, Charlie Schmid (1958) and I had dinner. He is the executive secretary of the acoustical engineering society and commutes between Seattle and New York and most other countries of the world at some time or another. We reminisced about those two years at Wheatley– each of us having different vivid memories. We went to a lot of theater: "Inherit the Wind," "My Fair Lady," "West Side Story." We wondered who it was that sparked that interest. I remembered sitting next to Doug Kull (1958) at "My Fair Lady." He had bought a big yellow box of Mason’s Dots, and each time he wanted one, he had to invert the box and let the Dots rattle down into his hand. When he was at full-inversion, a woman sitting in front of him turned around and ordered him to stop making that noise. He froze. With the open box tipped into his hand. Sweat dotted his brow. He was paralyzed. It had taken months to get tickets. Finally, he couldn’t wait any longer. The dots in his hand were beginning to melt. He gently tipped the box up to home position. The Dots clattered back with a deafening sound, drowning out Julie Andrews and almost stopping the show. The woman in front turned around and slugged Doug.

Once Doug and I decided to see an opera. We chose a Saturday afternoon performance of Pelleas and Melisande by Debussy. Little did we suspect that it was probably the most boring opera in the lexicon. We bought tickets at the door and went around to the standing room entrance at the back of the old Met. At about 1:50, the doors opened and the crowd crammed into the old wire cage elevators. As our elevator ascended, a woman behind us mooed. When we emerged in the stratosphere, the mooer and the other experienced opera goers ran to the spots at the back of the theater. Doug and I ambled to comfortable looking open spaces in the front. Then we learned that the closer to the stage, the less you could see. Most of the time as Pelleas and Melisande were being totally inactive on the stage, we were only able to see about 15% of what they weren’t doing. I guess we started with the premise that opera was painful and we weren’t disappointed. I married a singer, and opera has since become a significant part of my life. I still don’t like P&M.

Charlie Schmid remembered Miss Bodnar’s production of a play about five or six sailors trapped in a submarine. She picked Don Kleban, Steve Perlin, Mike Stapleton (all 1958) and others we couldn’t remember to play the sailors. It was a courageous teaching adventure. Then, there was Mr. Storm’s handwritten play with parts drawn for the types he expected to act it. I played the master of ceremonies. I envied the people in his English classes.

We agreed that Mr. Loring was a wonderful teacher. Charlie said Mr. Loring had turned down a job teaching in a college to work at Wheatley. Mr. Loring told us that he was descended from a revolutionary war soldier who fought at the battle of Bunker Hill. He came from Massachusetts, so it must be so–we third generation children of the melting pot didn’t question it. Then, as we were studying the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Mr. Loring said, "Bruce, you’re descended from Meriwether Clark, aren’t you?" I replied that he must be kidding, my grandfather didn’t speak English. Mr. Loring said that I might as well claim it. Nobody will be able to prove otherwise. [Editor’s Note - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the “Lewis and Clark Expedition,” so Bruce could not have been descended from “Meriwether Clark.”]

I had a profound experience in Mr. Loring’s class that I didn’t understand until years later. The class was discussing the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, which I think were then going on. I asked Mr. Loring why people were upset if the committee was getting rid of communists. A look of fear flashed across Mr. Loring’s face. He didn’t answer my question.

We of the Class of 1958 played a significant role in setting policies of the Wheatley School that are probably still in effect. Driver’s Ed is an example. Reese Buick had donated a red and white Buick to the school for Driver’s Ed. I had applied for a learner’s permit at the first strike of the clock on my 16th birthday, and I was licensed after only two driving tests–teenager liberation, adulthood, no more having my mother drive me on dates. [I can still feel the humiliation.] I didn’t tell my parents that a junior license could not be used at night, but that’s another story. With Driver’s Ed, you could drive legally anytime and anywhere at age 17. I enrolled in Mr. Saunders’ class. On the first day, we were driving around the south parking lot when Mr. Saunders had to go to the bathroom. As I had a license, he put me in charge and said to keep going around the little island in front of the school. I don’t remember who was driving, but as soon as he was out of sight, we left the parking lot and drove to the lot by the gym. We were seeing how fast the Buick could corner and throwing girls’ purses, books, chickens, stray cats out the window when Mr. Saunders returned. He said he would never, ever, ever again leave the students in charge of the Driver’s Ed car.

Then there was the incident of Mr. Maskin’s car getting wrecked. I wasn’t there and only have hearsay evidence of the incident–something to do with the son of the head of the Motor Vehicle Bureau. Maybe that person could share that incident with us, whoever he was. [Hint: his initials are "Dick Benfield."] The statute of limitations has expired.

In choosing a college, I was influenced as much by the Horatio Alger and Hardy Boys novels I had read as by the scant advice from Mr. Gorman. I wanted a school with a beautiful campus, maybe a lake, fraternities to join, fraternity brothers who would become friends for life. Football games, party weekends, hip flasks and beautiful coeds visiting from Vassar. I was accepted to Colgate, which promised all of those things. Then a funny thing happened – school became interesting. I was taking courses in art, politics, economics, psychology, Russian . . . I felt almost guilty not having to take math.

I had started college as a serious, practicing Roman Catholic. The parish priest in Williston Park warned that if I went to a secular college, I would lose my faith. He was right. As freshmen, we had to take a two semester course in philosophy and religion. I was lucky to be assigned to Jerry Balmuth, a great teacher. In my senior year at a fraternity dinner, I was waiting a table for Professor Balmuth and Albert Parry, the head of the Russian Department. Dr. Parry introduced me to Prof. Balmuth as "Bruce, a good Catholic." Prof. Balmuth said, "He was until he took my course."

Sputnik had flown our senior year at Wheatley. Enrollment in Russian 101 at Colgate went from 6 or 7 the prior year to over 70, I among them. I took the first three years of Russian language in two years and heard that the Russians were allowing a few Americans into their country. I applied and was accepted to the Lisle Fellowship group spending the summer of 1960 in the Soviet Union. They allowed sixty American students in. We went to all the major cities and stayed in student dormitories and met with Russian students. When it wasn’t schools, we toured factories. In Moscow, we attended the Bolshoi Opera. In Tbilisi, we saw the Georgian State Ballet dance Otello, and then went to a ballet company party afterwards. I danced the Lindy with one of the ballet dancers and tried unsuccessfully to pick her up.

In Leningrad, I was getting bored with factories and wanted to experience the Soviet justice system. Without telling anyone, I left the group and approached a policeman directing traffic. I asked where the nearest court was. He told me which bus to take and then to look for the police station. The court was upstairs from the police station. I found the police station and asked for the court. The officer at the door pointed me upstairs. I asked a court clerk if I could watch. She said I could. I found the courtroom, which was empty. I took a couple of pictures and then sat down and waited. The room filled and a trial started. I drew a diagram of the courtroom and was taking notes and trying to figure what the trial was about and maybe dozing a little when the state’s attorney stood up, stopped the trial and asked who that was who was taking notes. A man behind me stood up and was told to sit down. It was I the state’s attorney wanted to know about. I stood up and said I was an exchange student. They ordered me to come forward and take the witness stand. I told them again that I was an exchange student and was from America. It was if I had jolted them with a bolt of lightning. The judge (an older woman who had survived the Stalin era) was visibly terrified. The trial was stopped and we all went back into the robing room where the judge started frantically making phone calls. My notebook was confiscated. After a while two men came in and told me to come with them. They didn’t say anything more. I was relieved when they dropped me off at my hotel. The next day I got my notes back with a tongue lashing from our guide for going off without permission. At this time things were pretty tense between the two countries. The trial of Francis Gary Powers was going on and was broadcast everywhere. His crumpled U-2 spy plane was on display in one of the parks. One of the students in the exchange was arrested for giving out Bibles and selling on the black market. (We all sold on the black market. I was sorry I didn’t have more American dollars which on the street fetched about 10 times the official exchange rate.)

Back at college, I was accepted to the Colgate Washington Study Group–a semester in DC with a professor and nine other students. We got to meet and interview people like Congressman Gerald Ford, Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, Senator William Proxmire. We went to a Dean Rusk press conference. I spent a couple of weeks in Congressman Steven Derounian’s office. His secretary, who ran his office and probably told him how to vote, was Tecla Bomhard, the aunt of our Northside classmate, Harold Barnes. We met James Reston, who asked about our program and then said, "It sounds like a ball." We had been found out. In retrospect, I didn’t realize it then, but that semester was the beginning of my disaffection with politics.

After college, I spent the three most miserable years of my academic life at Columbia Law School. It was education by intimidation and humiliation. Despite the pain, I will ever be grateful to Columbia for the legal education it crammed down my throat.
The best part of Columbia was meeting Judy Hutchinson, a Sarah Lawrence senior and opera singer, on a blind date to the Colgate-Columbia football game. We discovered that neither of us cared for football and we spent most of the game walking along the river and talking. I asked her to marry me that night. Forty-three years, 3 children, six grandchildren and multiple incarnations later, I am now married to and still in love with Judith Hutchinson Clark, author. [No, she didn’t write this.]

As law school graduation approached, I turned down job offers to become a real estate or trusts and estates attorney to work for George Washington Herz, one of the great trial lawyers of the last century. He paid me $75 a week, and when I told him I wanted to try cases, he said that clients didn’t come to his office to have me represent them, but he would not object if I found my own clients. On the day I got my license to practice law, I volunteered at the Samaritan Halfway House, an outpatient rehab facility for drug addicts. I went there a few nights a week to "counsel" their clients, many of whom were older and a lot more street-smart than I. Within a few weeks, I was appearing in criminal court. I was my own little Legal Aid Society, working for fees of $50, $75 or nothing. As my practice grew, I went on a per diem arrangement with Herz. A few months later, Herz fired me, after I had a serious disagreement with his junior partner. I went to another firm and was fired by them after a couple of months. Something told me it was time to open my own office.

In the beginning, I took just about every type of matter, telling everybody I met anywhere that I was a trial lawyer. As soon as I could, I applied to become one of the lawyers they assigned to represent criminal defendants in the federal court. Within a week, I was appointed to represent the mastermind of the largest bank robbery ever in the Eastern District of New York– the reason I was appointed being that I was, by definition, the least experienced attorney in the entire federal system. I learned that my client had charges pending in other jurisdictions for kidnaping and attempted murder – but that, too, is another story.

The Vietnam War was on, and Judith and I got active in the anti-war movement. I represented several draft resisters and dessserters (Mrs. Batchelder, help me, wherever you are.)

About that time, I started attending meetings of the local Democratic club. The meetings were sooooo deadly. The District Leader would get up and say, "We are all going to support Arthur." No reason to support Arthur, like even though he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, he is able to chew gum. The implication was that now it is Arthur’s turn; when it is your turn, we will support you–end of discussion. I wasn’t going to have the politician’s prerequisite military career if I could help it, and I couldn’t stand what I had seen of what politics involved, so I readjusted my goals.

After a few years of a practice that included more and more trials (I represented defendants in four murder cases and several other bank robbers), I started to handle medical malpractice cases; first representing doctors who were being sued and gradually taking patients’ cases. In the 1970's, there were only two or three law firms in the New York area who took malpractice cases. The cases were so hard for attorneys, who had to learn a different area of medicine for each case, that lawyers were eager to refer the cases out. I loved it. It gradually has become the entirety of my practice.

One of those firms that did handle malpractice cases invited me to try some of their cases. I accepted and then decided that I wanted some more preparation. I started by going to the NYC Medical Examiner’s office and watching autopsies so that I would be confident about the anatomy. Then, I found a seminar on trial practice that was a hands-on course taught by experienced trial lawyers and a few judges. It cost more than I wanted to spend, so I volunteered to be one of their teachers. I was accepted and began a sub-career teaching trial advocacy seminars. Eventually, I originated a course at Hofstra Law School in "Advanced Trial Advocacy: The Expert Witness," and then another on, "The Jury." I teach Wednesday nights throughout the school year. I’m not very good at intimidation and humiliation, and I tend to give good grades.

My highpoint as a trial lawyer, so far, has been representing the estate of Andy Warhol in the lawsuit that arose from his death following a gall bladder operation. The lawsuit had been handled from its inception by a firm that had a practice that was primarily theatrical. They had never represented a client in a medical case. As the trial date approached, they realized that they were in totally uncharted territory. They asked around and found me. As I got into the preparation, I began to suspect some of the witnesses. The medical examiner who did the autopsy had missed some obvious abnormalities and was very uncooperative when I attempted to speak with her. I found that the defendant hospital had sent an ‘observer’ to the autopsy. One of the two main medical witnesses for the theatrical lawyers had volunteered to help against the defendant surgeon and hospital. That never happens. Doctors don’t volunteer to testify against other doctors. I found out that our witness had done his fellowship at the defendant hospital and had a very close lady friend who was still an attending physician there. Another witness, the world’s greatest expert on critical care, considered it below his dignity to say that another physician had made an error. (It is an absolute requirement in medical malpractice cases that a doctor testify that there was medical negligence that injured the patient.) I fought with the witnesses and I fought the senior partner in the theatrical firm. But lawsuits are like what they say about making sausages: you don’t want to see the process, it’s the end result that counts. We ended up settling the case toward the end of the trial for a very large amount of money, which everyone involved has been charged to keep secret.

Prior to my involvement in the Warhol case, I had written a novel. It was accepted by an agent right after the first draft. She found a publisher whose editor-in-chief started working on it. Then we had a dispute and severed all relations. I was not able to get another agent or publisher to take the book. But I found that I enjoyed writing. In the Warhol case, there were things that I had suspected, but that I would never be able to prove. I could, however, write about what happened, as fiction, which I did. I found an agent who submitted the Warhol book to John Grisham’s publisher. After it was rejected, the agent retired from the agent business. I found another agent who did a lot of really good editorial work on the book and then died before she could submit it: end of my publishing career. But I do enjoy writing and have three other novels in various stages of completion.

I am still actively managing an office full of cases and trying several cases a year. I’m having too much fun to retire.

Robert Holley (1958) Writes - “As to remembrances of dear Mineola, one of the funniest moments I recall in high school was the day that the study hall teacher had his back turned to all the ‘studiers.’ He was busy writing on the blackboards that went the whole length of this very long room. As a change of pace from the normal rubber band-launched paper clip fusillade one had to endure, the ‘fad de jour’ was water pistols, and as this poor man (who, as I recall, did not see very well) went scribbling on, several dozen pistols were drawn, and they started to wet down the back of his suit jacket.

It got totally soaked. Everyone was cracking up and snickering; they kept firing and he was still scribbling. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, one of the misdirected pistols wet the board right by his chalk. He whirled around so fast, and he was so wet that he practically drowned a few girls nearby.

I have this weird thing for remembering faces… I found him right away in the Mineola yearbook. It was a math teacher… Mr. Wanich.

Art Engoron (1967) Writes - Amazing! Thanks, Bob. You are correct: Bruce was as good at telling stories as he was at practicing law.

1961 - Carol Jalonack Blum, Tim Jerome and “Good News.”

Carol Writes - “I see that my classmate Tim Jerome found the program for ‘Good News. Below is a photo taken during a performance. Dr. Wills (at the piano) wanted help with the orchestra. My mother is right behind him, playing her violin.

Who can identify themselves?”

1961 - Michelle “Mickey” Gordon - Deceased

Mickey died on December 8, 2024. She lived in Colorado and raised Jacob 🐑 Sheep.

1973 - Susan Davis Pereira - Successful Concert

Dear friends and fans of Sabor Brasil,

Thank you so much for coming to our recent Jazz Forum gig!

The house was packed, and we couldn't have asked for a warmer or more enthusiastic audience. (Extra gratitude to those of you who stayed for two sets!)

We deeply appreciate your support and look forward to playing for you again soon.

In the meantime, keep the samba vibes going, and have a fantastic summer!

Um grande abraço,

Susan Pereira and Sabor Brasil

Photo credit: Deborah Davis (edited by S. Pereira)

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1989 - Peter Sultan - Two Additional Photographs and Another Obituary

Community mourns Dr. Peter Sultan, surgeon who died suddenly during Jamesport triathlon Sunday

A beloved local surgeon died Sunday morning after collapsing during the Jamesport Triathlon.

Dr. Peter Sultan, an orthopedic surgeon at Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead for 20 years, was widely known in the community for his skill in his specialty of hip and knee replacement, his affable nature and his talent as an accomplished pianist.

Sultan’s sudden death at age 54 shocked friends and colleagues and left the hospital community reeling. He was an athlete who walked many miles daily, and an avid cyclist who also enjoyed running and snowboarding, friends said. Sultan competed frequently in the Jamesport Marathon, an annual event sponsored by Peconic Bay Medical Center.

“It’s so strange that this happened, because he certainly trained, but yet…” fellow surgeon and friend Dr. Agostino Cervone said in a phone interview today.

Andrew Mitchell, former president and CEO at Peconic Bay and a close friend of Sultan, said he was “just devastated” by the news. “He was my first real recruit at the hospital,” Mitchell said.

Sultan earned a bachelor’s degree in biology, magna cum laude with highest honor, from Harvard University and a doctor of medicine degree from Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He then studied business administration and management at the Wharton School before attending Harvard Medical School, where he completed a fellowship in adult reconstructive surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.

“Peter was one of Long Island’s top orthopedic surgeons,” Mitchell said. “He truly cared about his patients, the East End communities where he lived, and the continued advancement of PBMC into a highly regarded regional medical center.”

PBMC Executive Director Amy Loeb, who succeeded Mitchell in the top leadership post at the hospital after he retired in 2022, said Sultan, as the orthopedic surgery service’s first recruit, was key to the hospital’s transformation.

“Orthopedics really is the service that changed the hospital,” Loeb said. “He took a chance on us as a hospital and as a community and really built the hospital, and started to turn the reputation of the hospital around.”

“Patient by patient, he changed lives. Thanks to his joint replacement practice, thousands of people are able to move and walk and dance and enjoy their families,” Loeb said.

“He was so committed to his practice, to his patients, to the hospital — just an all around great guy,” she said.

Cervone said Sultan had a reputation for being very conservative with managing patients’ conditions, opting for nonsurgical treatment wherever possible. Other physicians — and their patients — appreciated that, Cervone said.

“He was very thorough. Patients liked him. He got great results and was very knowledgeable. He was always on top of everything,” Cervone said. “He enjoyed his work, he enjoyed his family, he enjoyed his life.”

Sultan, a Westhampton resident, was the devoted father of two teenage children, Elizabeth and William. “They were the world to him,” Cervone said.

Lisa Hubbard, administrative director of orthopedic services at Peconic Bay, worked closely with Sultan; they both started at the hospital in the fall of 2005. At first he was an introvert, she recalled. “He was very shy.” As he matured and got more comfortable in his new hospital, he became more outgoing, she said.

“Everyone loved Dr. Sultan,” she said. “Everyone is reeling from this loss.”

She said the hospital, which is usually bustling, has been extraordinarily quiet the past two days. The atmosphere there is “solemn.” she said. “I’ve never seen it like this before.”

Loeb said Sultan’s loss “leaves a big hole we all need to just reconcile.” Right now, everyone is stunned and still trying to process what’s happened. “It’s so fresh,” she said.

Loeb said she visited the unit where he worked, the OR and his practice team, who worked with him every day.

“They are so focused on making sure their patients are taken care of,” said Loeb. “We offered to have other staff make those calls, but they wanted to make the calls themselves, because ‘They’re our patients,’ they said. It speaks to the culture of Dr. Sultan’s office and who he was.”

Those phone calls have been emotional, Hubbard said, often ending with both patients and staff members crying.

“He loved his patients and they loved him,” she said.

Peter Sultan, on keyboard, accompanies Jerome Foster Lewis at a hospital event in June 2023. RiverheadLOCAL/Alek Lewis

As masterful as Sultan was with his hands in the operating room, he was even more so on the piano keyboard, said his friend and coworker Jerome Foster Lewis, a vocalist who would often team up with Sultan for impromptu concerts in the hospital lobby, which is outfitted with a grand piano donated by a benefactor. Sultan was not only a self-taught pianist but he also played by ear — he didn’t read music, Lewis said. He learned new pieces quickly and had an extensive repertoire committed to memory.

“He was a genius — a brilliant, brilliant human being,” Lewis said.

Sultan would go down to the lobby, dressed in scrubs, and play a little concert in between surgeries, he said. The performances surprised and delighted patients and visitors and soothed the nerves of family members waiting to see their loved ones after procedures.

“The unexpected concerts gave them the uplift they needed,” said Lewis, a patient experience specialist at PBMC. People really appreciated it, he said. “It was a joy for us, too. It was uplifting and gave us the strength we needed,” he said. “He would always say, ‘Medicine cures the body, but music cures the soul.’”

“He told me to never give up on my music — ‘That’s what you are meant to do,’ he told me. ‘It’s the core of who you are.’ It was the core of who he was, too,” Lewis said.

“People saw the analytical side of him. I got to see the artist. It was a side of him I’m so grateful I got to experience,” Lewis said. “The relationship will always be sacred to me.”

Sultan was always enthusiastic about sharing his music with others. He kept a keyboard in his office and practiced every chance he got.

“It’s so sad, somebody so vital and in a really good place in his life and looking forward to so many things with his kids, with his career…” Hubbard said. ”He was living and loving life.”

Loeb said the deep grief everyone feels and the way people are supporting each other says a lot about the hospital and the people who work there.

“That doesn’t happen everywhere. Not every place is like a family. To look around and see the love that we have here, it’s really special.”

Fan Mail

1961 (Camille Napoli Cannizzo - “I love all the photos in the Newsletter!! 😊😊😊”

Carol McDowell Shaheen - “The Newsletter is fabulous.”

2003 (Scott Fink) - "Thank you for your wonderful Newsletter."

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The Usual Words of Wisdom

Thanks to our fabulous Webmaster, Keith Aufhauser (Class of 1963), you can regale yourself with the first 216 Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletters (and much other Wheatley data and arcana) at

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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.

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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 # 217. Please send me your autobiography before someone else sends me your obituary.

Art

Arthur Fredericks Engoron, Class of 1967

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