Foxcroft Academy alumni award winners

DOVER-FOXCROFT — Two prestigious Foxcroft Academy alumni awards were presented during the 2019 alumni banquet on Saturday night, Aug. 3.

The Dr. Mary Chandler Lowell Award is named in honor of Dr. Lowell, who was an 1881 alumna. Upon graduating, Dr. Lowell earned the distinction of being one of the first women to earn the degrees of doctor of medicine, bachelor of law and doctor of jurisprudence. Each year this award is given by Foxcroft Academy’s alumni, who nominate and vote for an alumnus who has distinguished him or herself professionally. The Tillson D. Thomas Award recognizes a past faculty or staff member who has served the students of Foxcroft Academy with the highest degree of professionalism as nominated and voted upon by alumni. Thomas served as head of school from 1947-72 and is well-known and remembered by all who were here under his watch.

Lowell Award winner Dr. Wendy Love graduated from Foxcroft Academy in 1975. She was a Rose Award recipient, a member of the National Honors Society, vice president of her senior class, was the Spear speaker in 1974 and received the Excellence in Public Speaking Award. She was also a member of the gymnastics team for four years and the music program as a pianist and a member of the chorus. She participated in the dramatic arts program under the direction of John Arnold.

Photo courtesy of Foxcroft Academy
DR. LOWELL AWARD HONOREE — Dr. Wendy Love, pictured with Foxcroft Academy Head of School Arnold Shorey, was presented with the Dr. Mary Chandler Lowell Award during the alumni banquet on Aug. 3. Dr. Love is a 1975 Foxcroft Academy graduate.

Dr. Love completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Maine with a B.S. in biochemistry. She was a member of Phi Kappa Phi and the valedictorian of the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture in 1979 for which she received the Steinmetz Book Award and the Radke Award for academic excellence in the department of biochemistry.

She attended Harvard Medical School and received an M.D. in 1984. She then specialized in anesthesiology and completed her residency at the University of Vermont, Fletcher Allen Health Care. After five years in private practice, Dr. Love returned to Fletcher Allen for a one-year fellowship in chronic pain management where she co-authored a paper on the topic. She then returned to private practice in anesthesiology and pain management in the midcoast area. For five years, she served as the chief of anesthesiology at Midcoast Hospital and currently is serving the nation’s veterans as an anesthesiologist at Togus VHA in Augusta.

Dr. Love served in the Army Reserve as a physician and administrative officer. While in the reserve, she participated in humanitarian medical missions to provide primary medical care to villagers in remote areas of Honduras and Bolivia. Most recently she has been part of a team of medical professionals sponsored by the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund and Physicians for Peace providing orthopedic and restorative plastic surgical care to Palestinian children and adults in the West Bank.

Dr. Love considers herself a lifelong learner. In 2010 she went back to school and in 2012 completed an MFA in fine art at the Maine College of Art which culminated in an exhibition of her paintings and publication of her thesis “Hidden Immensity: The Integrated Body Revealed.”

“My experience at FA provided a solid foundation for college and post-graduate studies because the education here was classical, steeped in the humanities, the arts, and the sciences,” she said. “We were encouraged to explore where our hearts and minds lead us and I am a renaissance person today in part because of my experience at FA. Jim Steenstra’s tutelage encouraged me so that science became my passion and my college major, Constance MacPherson will always be remembered for her enthusiasm of literature’s classics, especially Shakespeare, Rusty Willette is credited for my continued interest in political thought and John Arnold for my experience in the arts. Their teaching and my life while a student at FA continues to influence me today.”

Thomas Award winner Doreen Emerson graduated from Higgins Classical Institute in Charleston and continued her education at the University of Maine Farmington, graduating with honors in 1970. Her concentration of study was home economics and she used her degree to the absolute fullest. During college, she married her husband Derwin and they settled in Charleston to start their family and they never left.

Photo courtesy of Foxcroft Academy
TILLSON D. THOMAS AWARD — Dawson and Jackson Emerson, grandsons of the late Doreen Emerson, accept the Tillson D. Thomas Award from Foxcroft Academy Head of School Arnold Shorey. Emerson taught at Foxcroft Academy for more than three decades.

Emerson secured a teaching position at Higgins Classical Institute after college graduation. She resurrected a home economics program and taught there for five years until the school closed as a secondary institution. In 1984 Emerson was hired at Foxcroft Academy and she remained for 31 years, retiring in 2015. While at Foxcroft Academy she trained in mediation and conflict resolution and established a peer mediation program, one of the earliest in Maine, and still an active program today. Her belief was that talking through a difficult situation was better than potential violence. Many students worked through problems thanks to her leadership.

A few years before retirement Emerson created a business in Corinth, “In The Blink Of An Eye.” The name evolved from how fast young people grow, develop and move on, the business was a children’s consignment shop. Her mission and passion was to provide gently used clothes and toys for purchase at a price that was affordable by anyone in difficult financial times. She felt that children should be able to have appropriate clothes for school and church, no matter their financial situation.

Emerson absolutely lived for her children, Matt ‘90 and Ben ‘93, and grandchildren. According to a friend she “always knew what to do and say.” Emerson became a mentor to her children and grandchildren beyond any expectations, offering advice when things got tough and listened, really listened to them, offering ideas and choices. She simply was a quiet, respectful woman who wished to leave only footprints on our earth.

Emerson passed away in April 2018. She left a legacy of cooperation and peace that are still felt in the halls today.