Distinguished Alumni Honored

The Scarsdale Distinguished Alumni of 2009 will be honored this Saturday, October 17th at 10:30 outside the cafeteria at Scarsdale High School. The public is invited to attend the event and light refreshments will be served. Below please find the bios of these twelve exceptional and accomplished honorees:

Charlie Alterman ’93 -Orchestrator, Music Director and Conductor: Charlie Alterman discovered music early on and involved in high school and summer theater.

He attended Brown University and went on to become the musical director of the Williamstown Theater Festival.  Now he has received numerous awards for orchestrating Next to Normal and Almost Heaven: the Songs of John Denver.

Danielle Dreifuss Butin ’81 - Founder and Executive Director of the AFYA Foundation.  The foundation partners with a network of donor hospitals, health organizations, corporations, and individual households for the collection of medical supplies that they send to Africa and other areas in need. Butin, started the Afya foundation in 2007 after a visit to Africa. She recognized the profound need for medical supplies in a country that had very little. Danielle collects medical supplies from hospitals in the New York area and sends them by container to Africa and the Caribbean. To date, she has sent 20 containers of supplies that would have ended up in United States landfills to Sierra Leone, Cape Verde, Haiti, Malawi and four to Rwanda. In two years of shipping, Afya has sent over $2,000,000 worth of supplies and has diverted over 600,000 pounds from landfill and medical waste incineration.

Nicole Eisenman ’83 – Artist - Eisenman is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and has an MFA in Painting.  She is a prolific artist whose work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. 

David Feldshuh ’61 – Physician and Dramatist --David Feldshuh attended Dartmouth College and later studied at the London Academy of Dramatic Arts.  He acted and directed at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and toured with Isaac Bashevis Singer.

At the age of thirty-two, Feldshuh decided to become a doctor, passing the necessary courses and becoming a certified emergency room physician and worked in the emergency room at Ithaca Hospital.  In addition he was appointed Director of Dramatic Arts at Cornell University and is the author of a Pulitzer nominated play, “Miss Evers Boys.” 

Deborah Slaner Larkin ’66 – Leader in Women’s Sports -- LARKIN ’66 –Slaner is the founder of the White House Project whose  goal is to advance women’s leadership in all aspects of American life including the presidency. She served as that organization’s Executive Officer for eight years.   At the same time, she was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.  She also created National Girls and Women in Sports Day. 

Victoria Redel ’76 – Writer, Poet and Professor - A graduate of Dartmouth College, Redel also earned a Masters in Fine Arts from Columbia University. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, and at the graduate writing program at Columbia University.  Among her works are a collection of short stories, two novels, and a collection of poetry.

Daniel Reingold ’72 – Advocate for the elderly, CEO Hebrew Home for the Aged - Reingold received a bachelor’s degree from Hobart College, a masters degree in social work from Columbia University and a law degree from Cardozo Law School. Since Reingold joined the Hebrew Home for the Aged twenty years ago he has done much to improve the facility and the lives of the residents who call it home. He built the state’s first swimming pool designed for aquatic therapy as well as a comprehensive elder abuse shelter. In addition, The Hebrew Home for the Aged is classified with the IRS as a museum. It holds over 4,500 pieces of art including Ben Shahn, Matisse, Warhol, and Chagall. 

Elisabeth Rosenthal ’74 – Journalist and Physician – Dr. Rosenthal attended Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. In 1998, “Libby” was assigned to the China desk by the New York Times.  From that  perspective she wrote long, detailed and thoughtful pieces on SARS and AIDS and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. 

Nancy Roth ’54 Episcopal Minister, Musician, Dancer, Teacher and Writer -- Roth holds a BA in music from Oberlin College and a Masters Degree in Divinity from the General Theological Seminary. She is an ordained Episcopal Minister.  Today she travels widely as a retreat conductor and workshop leader, emphasizing “the relationship of Christian faith and ethics to environmental issues.” Her most recent book, Grounded in Love, won the Nautilus Silver Award

Douglas Rushkoff ’70 Documentarian, Author, and Teacher - Rushkoff earned his BA at Princeton University where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and then received a masters in fine arts in Directing from the California Institute for the Arts.  Today he teaches at the N.Y.U. Interactive Telecommunications Program.  He has written eleven books including How the World Became a Corporation And How To Take It Back. He has also produced documentaries including Life Inc. The Movie, and is now working on a new project Digital Nation, Life on the Virtual Frontier.

David Scobey ’72 Historian, Rhodes Scholar, Professor - Scobey is a graduate of Yale University and Oxford University where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

After completing his award winning dissertation and teaching at Brandies University, David moved on to the University of Michigan where he was an Associate Professor of Architecture.  Presently he the Director of the Harvard Center for Community Partnerships and a professor of 19th century American History at Bates College.

Bob Wilber ’45 Jazz Clarinetist and Saxophonist – Wilber has performed with Benny Goodman, Woody Herman and Eddie Condon, and produced a number of albums, the best known of which are Bob Wilber And His Jazz Band (1950), Spreading Joy1957), Bob Wilber and his All-Star Band  (1959) and The World’s Greatest Jazz Band (1969)     He performed at the fifty year anniversary concert of Benny Goodman’s famous 1938 recording.