AMENIA — Kildonan School hosted its annual Founders Day on Saturday, May 14. Founders Day celebrates the school’s founders, Kurt Goldman and Diana Hanbury King, as well as the students’ accomplishments during the year.Founders Day encompasses a range of events, including a student art exhibit, a horse show, a tennis match and a lacrosse game. More than 200 students, parents, educators and other visitors attended.The theme of this year’s event was “My Journey,” which focused on the individual journey every person takes with dyslexia.In support of this theme, the school held a private screening of the film “Journey into Dyslexia,” created by Academy Award-winning filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond. The film debuted on HBO earlier this month and is currently available on-demand.The Raymonds’ son, who is dyslexic, previously attended Kildonan.The movie, which features past Kildonan students, was followed by a panel discussion. Afterward, parents, students and friends were given the chance to film themselves talking about their own journey with dyslexia.“It was a spontaneous reaction to the film,” said Susan Raymond. “I wasn’t aware it would happen that way, but I’m thrilled. Talking about it helps heal you and hearing about it gives the students a role model.”The student art showAnother important part of the Founders Day celebration is the student art show. “Art is a big part of the school,” said academic dean Robert Lane.All students from the school have the opportunity to showcase their work. The elementary students focus on installation art while the middle and high school students complete personal projects during the year.August Hunt was one of the students showing his work in the exhibit. Hunt, an articulate sophomore from Texas, was on hand at the exhibit to discuss his work with the visitors. He had five portraits and a large installation piece on display.The theme that ran through his work was size. The portraits were larger-than-life sized at 6 feet by 4 feet. The installation piece included a panorama made of more than 60 photographs, which, if laid flat, would measure 17.4 feet by 9 feet.The horse showHorseback riding has always been a part of Kildonan School. Students have the opportunity to ride nearly every day.The horse show portion of Founders Day is used to showcase the riding skills of the students. This year, nine students participated, demonstrating their ability to control the horses and playing games on horseback, like “Musical Stalls,” which is similar to musical chairs.The foundersCo-founder King was present at the event, but Goldman, who lives in Florida, was unable to attend.After working at the Sidwell Friends School and Camp Mansfield, both of which had programs designed specifically for dyslexic students, King was inspired to open her own camp.King, originally from England, talked happily about the creation of her first camp. “In the wilds of western Pennsylvania, not far from Uniontown, on top of a mountain, I got a place that was 7 acres with eight little cabins, a lodge, a bar and some outhouses,” she said. “The first summer, we had seven students, and then it grew rapidly to 40 — both boys and girls.” She ran that camp every summer for 28 years.Then Kurt Goldman, the father of one of her students, encouraged her to open a school and offered to donate the money needed to fund its creation.After spending its first 11 years in Pennsylvania, the Kildonan School was moved to Amenia in 1980. It continues to use many of the extracurricular activities — horseback riding, skiing, art — as important elements in the learning plan that was developed in Pennsylvania.King continues to teach and tutor at Kildonan. She also trains other teachers around the world.According to the school’s mission statement, Kildonan strives “to empower students with dyslexia to reach their academic potential and to equip them for future success.” The school uses Orton-Gillingham tutoring, which is a multi-sensory, direct and effective method of one-on-one teaching.According to the International Dyslexia Association, dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities.
Latest News
Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
Provided
Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
