The Jon Breen Memorial Fund
Mount Vernon High School Class of 1963
100 California Road
Mount Vernon, NY 10552
MVHS Class of 1963
www.geocities.com/Tokyo/7970/mvhs1963/reunion.htm
June 15, 2000
Dear Friends and Classmates,
As usual, I hope this letter finds all of you and yours quite well. Recently, as you know from my last letter, I reported on the untimely death of Coach Henry Littlefield, who passed away after a long illness on March 30th. Over the past three months I have received a number of wonderful letters from our class regarding Henry and his legacy of giving, scholarship, committment to a greater, more open society and some poignant personal reflections. MVHS, with my input, has created a memorial plaque for Henry, and I have included a picture of the plaque along with this letter.
This year the Jon Breen Memorial Fund has again sponsored an essay contest, based on the public policy question “The Presidency: Who decides? the People, the Press, the Parties, or big money?” This year, again, I worked my way through many, many submissions, along with the educated assisstance of my wife Linda. The 3 winning papers were submitted by: Stephanie Brown, Harvard, Richard Thomas, NYU, and John Boykin, Cornell.
Along with the Jon Breen Award, our fund is donating a $500 history prize in the name of Coach Henry Littlefield to Robert McNair, who will be attending Cornell in the fall. Robert is an excellent athlete and scholar, who has especially excelled in the field of Social Studies. He not only achieved a 5.0 on his American History AP exam, but has attained top grades in this discipline throughout his high school career. (FYI, Henry was an AP History grader.)
On this past June 14th, I had the pleasure of attending the MVHS Award's evening and was the presenter of these prizes. As usual, as a consequence of this venture, I get to speak to many in our class, and I do receive some wonderful mail. Recently I have been in contact with Jessica Romeo, Matthew Goldberg, Joseph Gherardi, Armel MacDonald, Alan Rosenberg, Larry Reich, Michael Rosenblum, Frank Engel, Stan Goldmark, Lee Jackel, Carol Bellew, Lewis Perelman, Beth Roberts, Al Schultz, Barbara Tucci, Arnold Siegel, Peter Altieri, Lucille Bisesi, Norman Raphael,Warren Adis, and I know there are some others that I have unintentionally ommitted. Meanwhile our old friend Jim Anchin, Davis '61, has donated $90,000 to MVHS Seniors over the past 9 years in the name and memory of his sister Linda. In addition, over $1,000,000 in
grants and scholarships were awarded to the class!
Linda and I are heading out to California on July 20th. Hopefully we will meet with Matthew Goldberg in San Fransico, and then we will work our way down to Pacific Grove and spend some time with Madeline Littlefield. We will then proceed southward to Los Angeles, where we will meet up with Dr. Larry Reich. Along the way, we will try to link up with some cousins who have made the trek west at an earlier time.
If any of you have any news or thoughts on what I have written, please drop me a line or e-mail, or post your message on our website (see above). Also, if you wish to contribute to the Fund, please send to the above address or mine, that is listed below. For sure, if you send it to me, you will get a personal thank you. Unfortunately, I do not learn about all of the donations sent directly to the school. Again, thank you for your continue support.
Richard J. Garfunkel