The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 220
TWSAA 2025 NYC Luncheon is Official; Celebrating Bruce Clark (1958); Book by Steve Nelson (1958); Andy Cerillo (1963) Turns 81; 1978 Wildcats Gather; and More!
Welcome to The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 220,
The Wheatley School Alumni Association 2025 New York City Luncheon - Friday, 10/3/2025 - 12:30-3:30 PM - Rosie O’Grady’s - 148 West 51st Street (between 6th & 7th Aves.) - $125 pp
Art Engoron (1967) Writes - After initially considering approximately 15 places, and after checking out five places in person (all in one day and all on foot, whew!), Rosie O’Grady’s is the clear winner. It is located a short walk from stops of the following subway trains 1, B, C, D, E, F, M, N, R, and W. It is a stone’s throw from Times Square and Rockefeller Center, etc.
The Broadway Room is picture perfect: totally private; just the right size (and shape) for the 25-30 people I’m anticipating; and has its own little bar. The establishment and the room are wheelchair accessible; and there is a dedicated accessible bathroom.
The food is, ironically, mostly Italian, and (IMHO) the most appealing of all the food at all the places that I considered. Some of the items that sound particularly delicious are fettucini Alfredo, pesto pasta, chicken marsala, and eggplant rollatini with ricotta cheese. There are several vegan/vegetarian options, including couscous with saffron primavera. We get to choose four (more on that later). Beer, wine, and soft drinks are included (hard liquor is available if you are so inclined, but is not), as are taxes and a 20% gratuity There is no administrative fee (which many places tack on), and I’ll pay by check to avoid the ubiquitous 3% credit card fee.
The price is decidedly on the high side, but this place is the gold standard. The event will be classy without being formal (think “business casual”). As in the past, if $125 would bust your budget, you can pay me what won’t. I’ll play banker, so start mailing your checks made out to me at 117 Plandome Road, Manhasset, New York 11030. (BTW, RO’G is charging me $145 a person; I’ll subsidize the difference; the “Wildcat Angel” price is $150.)
Graduates
1958 - Bruce George Clark - Celebrating His Life
Art Engoron (1967) Writes - On Tuesday, July 29, 2025, at the Sands Point Preserve Conservancy, in and around Hempstead House (the former Guggenheim Castle), the family and friends of Bruce George Clark (1958) celebrated his life.
From 6:00 to 7:30 PM, there was plenty of pasta, fruit, and libations. The crowd then migrated outside for speeches equally funny and loving. Three Wheatley graduates attended: Richard Benfield (1958); Art Engoron (1967); and Gyll Gates Sbrocchi (1981).
L-R - Richard Benfield (1958), Gyll Gates Sbrocchi (1981), Art Engoron (1967)
Rich Benfield and Art Engoron in front of Hempstead Harbor/Long Island Sound
Inside the castle, with Judith Hutchinson Clark, who was married to Bruce Clark for 59 years. More about Bruce Clark can be found at:
Wheatley Alumni Newsletter # 218
Wheatley Alumni Newsletter # 217
1958 - Steve Nelson - “My new book is out -- Fire in a Wire: Electricity Empowers Human Evolution Beyond Homo Sapiens.
It’s been a long time coming, 64 years to be exact. I spent the summer of 1961 doing anthropology field work among descendants of the Incas in the Peruvian Andes, living without electricity. It made a deep impression on a middle-class kid from Long Island.
I didn’t fully understand what I’d experienced until a flash of insight a few years ago. Just as fire was key to the evolution of prehistoric humans, electricity is key to the ongoing evolution of modern humans. Electricity is the new fire. Fire in a wire.
The best-selling nonfiction book of the 21st century is Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari. Perhaps you’ve read it, or were planning to. Then you’ll want to read Fire in a Wire. It tells the story that Sapiens missed, about the most momentous development in recent history: harnessing electricity.
Our natural habitat has become a world powered by electricity. We use it for everything from providing food to medical care to artificial intelligence to sex. We can’t live without it. A new species of human is emerging, not in some imagined future but living among us today.
Fire in a Wire is available at www.amazon.com/dp/0578890097 and at bookstores (ask them to stock it from Ingram, the book distributor).
It will inform and entertain you, while challenging you to rethink who you are and who we are all becoming in the Electric Age. We are taking control of our own evolution. We can, and we must, if we are to survive.”
1962 - Andrew Cerillo on his 81st (not 18th) Birthday
L-R - Scott Cerillo (son), Andy Cerillo (1962), and Mary Lee Holley Cerillo (1963).
1966 - Ned Lagin’s Stint With the Grateful Dead (1970-1974) - Gerry Gersh (1969) Writes - “Ned Lagin played with the Grateful Dead? Very cool. Wheatley strikes again.”
1969 - Robin Brinn - “I’ve been a Deadhead since 1969, the year I graduated from Wheatley. I remember Ned Lagin (1966) well from the days of the Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound……but I had no clue that he attended Wheatley!
When I was a student at Cornell, I missed many classes because I was following the Dead tours, plus I spent too much time in Berkeley. Nonetheless, I graduated in 3 1/2 years Magna Cum Laude with 5 majors (psychology, sociology, anthropology, Russian and theater……but my real major was going to Dead shows 😎). Life is funny. 😂”
1978 - Wildcats in Tuscany
Daniel Paisner (1978) Writes - Art - some fodder for the next edition...
I’m back from an idyllic bacchanal in Tuscany, where a group of lifelong Wheatley pals toasted our 65th birthdays and our very many years of friendship...
We've been at it a good long while... four of us go back to Roslyn Co-op Nursery School... six of us to Mrs. Deaner's Kindergarten Class at Willets Road (the last Willets Road Kindergarten class before the great North Side-Willets Mash-Up of '66!), and the rest of us joined the ranks on our way to Wheatley...
The gathering wasn't a reunion so much as a continuation... we get together regularly, at our homes in West Palm Beach (FL), Park City (UT), Sarasota (FL), New York and elsewhere... we celebrate each other's milestones, and mourn our losses, and we mis-remember our shared misadventures... By now, our significant others have become lifelong friends as well.... happily, they were with us on this birthday trip and helped to keep us in check...
Here we are gathered for the carving of our host and sommelier, Robert Brinkman, who arranged this fabulous getaway at the Petrolo Villa in the village of Bucine, Italy... joining Robert in the photo, from left to right in the back row: Neil Eisenstadt, Robert Glantz, Steven Rosen, Jeff Needle... from left to right in the middle row: Eric Kahan, William Haft, Michael Kass, Daniel Paisner, Peter Mester... all Class of 1978... all doing what we can to age gracefully and to hold on to a time in our lives when pretty much anything seemed possible... Salute a tutti!...
Fan Mail
1965 (Malcolm McNeill) - “Good job, Art!”
1973 (Jerry Nassau) - “Thanks for your continued efforts with the Newsletter, always a treat to receive.”
1978 (Daniel Paisner) - “I appreciate your efforts - the Newsletter is a treasure...”
The Official Notices
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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 217 Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletters (and much other Wheatley data and arcana) at
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 and do not vouch for the accuracy of what people tell me, as TWSAA does not have a 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, and/or studied there. Art Engoron, Class of 1967
Closing
That’s it for The Wheatley School Alumni Association Newsletter # 220. Please send me your autobiography before someone else sends me your obituary.
Art
Arthur Fredericks Engoron, Class of 1967
646-872-4833
Art,
I applaud your continued efforts keeping us up to date and both informed and amused with newsy items, achievements and sad loses within our Wheatley community.
But most of all, I chuckled at you valiant efforts to find just the perfect location for the TWSAA 2025 Luncheon in October. You should be applauded for all that walking, menu checking and perhaps taste testing it took to arrive at the final event location.
Sounds like a dirty job, but someone HAD to do it!
With great admiration and appreciation for your tireless efforts,
Rosemary Biancavilla Clayton '70