RFH Hall of Fame inducts three alumni

RFH Superintendent Peter Righi (l-r), Karl Kieburtz, Brooke Kamin Rapaport, David Quigley, and RFH Principal Tracy Handerhan at the 2008 induction ceremony.

RUMSON - Hall of Fame Day at Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School was May 2, when three former students, Karl Kieburtz, class of 1976, Brooke Kamin Rapaport, class of 1980, and David Quigley, class of 1984, were honored as inductees and spent the day at the school participating in the event.

Each honoree led a seminar with students who have an interest in his or her area of expertise. Students took the opportunity to ask questions of the alumni, who are experts in their fields. The honorees were surprised by the level of understanding and by the probing questions that were asked.

The inductees, who all grew up in Fair Haven and went from RFH to Amherst (Mass.) College, also spoke to the entire student body at an assembly.

Kieburtz, who received his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Rochester; is chief of the Movement and Inherited Neurological Disorders Unit at the University of Rochester School ofMedicine and Dentistry and an associate editor of Neurology, the journal of the AmericanAcademy of Neurology. His area of clinical and research interest is the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases affecting the basal ganglia, particularly Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease and HIV-related neurological disorders.

During the assembly, Kieburtz said he felt that high school students "don't know who you are yet and are striving to find out; you are looking to others to validate who you are." He said that this search for identity is the cause of normal high school anxiety, which sometimes translates into anger. He wanted to convey that "In many ways, the most exciting thing about being where you are now is not knowing who you are yet."

Rapaport served as associate curator of contemporary art for the Brooklyn Museum of Art and is currently an independent museum curator and writer. She was recently the guest curator at The Jewish Museum in New York and created a show, "The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson, Constructing a Legend," an exhibition that traveled across the country. The major catalog for this exhibit was published by Yale University Press and was voted the best art and photography book of 2007 by Amazon.com.

Rapaport has a master's degree from Rutgers University. She is also a contributing editor to Sculpture magazine.

Speaking to the students, she praised retired art teacher Suzanne Parmly's art appreciation course, which she said turned out to be one of the most demanding courses in the school, and that a broad spectrum of students loved it.

This illustrated her point to "go out of your comfort zone in this RFH setting, and test your interests in a different area. You will learn a great deal, and 30 years later you may, as I have, be able to reflect on solid beginnings to a lifelong passion."

Quigley is an associate professor in the History Department and acting associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston College. He holds a Master of Arts degree as well as a doctorate from New York University. He has written books, scholarly reviews, encyclopedia entries and other professional articles.

He is presently serving as chair of the College Board United States History Advisory Committee.

During the assembly, he stressed that the excellence of teaching at RFH "was encouraging us as writers and giving a sense of freedom and openness to culture that led to the kind of scholarship that I pursued in college." He added, "Faculty led us on to a larger world of ideas, and we benefited by the larger community's investment in the school."

RFH Principal Tracy Handerhan said, "These inductees walked these halls just as you walk these halls. I can't help but wonder who in this room will be inducted in the future, because some of you in this room will be selected for this Hall of Fame in the future."