Senior Spotlight: Edward Brown (12-1)
Henry Margasak (10-4)
Photo courtesy of Edward Brown (12-1)
What will you miss most about Masterman?
Definitely my friends, and just the people in general. And Ultimate.
I hear that you’re a big deal in climate change activism, specifically with sunrise. Can you tell me a little about that, what you do there and how you got involved?
In August of 2019, I got an update from Ranim about a summit in Rhode Island. At that summit there were going to be trainings on how to take direct action and strike. There was also a protest at a Providence government building. Four juniors who are now seniors went, although I didn’t wind up going. I went to a Philly hub meeting in September, so that’s how I got involved, and then the first time that I did any big volunteering that wasn’t just going to a meeting was on election day in 2019, some other Masterman students and I watched the polls and phone banked for Kendra Brooks and Nicholas O'rourke who were running in the working families party (they supported a green new deal). And then in February 2020, I got to facilitate phone banks with Sunrise’s national program for Rory Newmann and Jessica Sissineros. Since we’ve been home from school, we haven’t been able to canvas in person, so we’ve been shifting towards phone banking, which I already had a little bit of experience with.
Can you tell me a bit about Ultimate? What got you into it, and how has it changed in the times of the Pandemic?
I got into Ultimate from my transition to Masterman from Penn Alexander, some of my friends
and I would take us to practice. In 6th grade, Dr. Shapiro brought up the Masterman team to the class, and I joined then and haven’t stopped playing. In June or July I started paying pickup in the suburbs with masks and hand sanitizers, but with these new COVID restrictions I don’t think I’ll be out there anytime soon.
Favorite Cheesy Joke?
I have one, but it’s extremely long.
In a remote place far away, there is a forest. In that forest, there is a small village. The village is quiet, an goes about its business everyday, with little outside contact, until one day, a band of travelling friars appear in the village. They immediately settle into one of the biggest houses in the village, and plant an enormous, impressive garden of plants that the villagers have never seen before. The friar’s gardening is so impressive and renowned that their plants make headlines outside of the forest, which brings a ton of publicity to the villagers, who are totally happy about it. One day, a group of kids go and play in the friar’s garden. One of these kids is snatched and eaten by one of the Friar’s biggest venus fly-traps. The people in the village are outraged, but they eventually settle down, until the two kids left go and play in the driar’s garden, and another one is eaten. The villagers immediately go to Hugh, the super intimidating blacksmith of the village, and ask him to get the driars to leave, but Hugh says that he wants to stay out of it. There is even a riot at the Friars house, but they don’t leave. The last kid goes to the friars garden to look for his two friends, and is promptly eaten. The villagers have had enough, and riot again, forming a mob outside of the Friar’s house. They are all screaming, banging on the walls, and hilding signs when none other that Hugh parts the crowd and walks up to their door. With his big, broad arms, he bangs on the door, and when one of the friar’s answers, he says: “You need to get out.” The next day the friars pack up and leave.
The moral of the story is, that Hugh, and only Hugh, can prevent forest friars.