The Francis W. Parker School sent six graduates from Harvard and Devens out into world, after they graduated in a Wednesday, June 6, ceremony.

Michael Bernklow, son of Richard and Kathleen Bernklow of Walnut Street in Devens, will attend Fitchburg State College this fall. He has been a member of the Parker school community for seven years.

Bernklow said that he enjoyed Parker and its “style of hands-on learning and individualized attention” because he is not “interested in exactly what happens so much as why it does.” He explained that he is “incredibly happy” he went to Parker and has always felt welcomed and supported by the community.

Bernklow drew comics themed around environmental issues, specifically global warming, for his senior project. “It was mainly designed to get people conscious about [these issues] and to talk about the consequences without alarming anyone,” Bernklow explained. He has long been interested in environmental issues and is thinking he will pursue the field of biology in college, he added.

Bernklow was recently honored as an Eagle Scout, having participating in scouting through Troop 1 Stow for eight years. He ran cross-country for Parker this year, and has run track and played hockey in the past. He enjoys playing Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer, and video games. Bernklow describes this summer as “low key.” He will be working at Olive Garden and spending time with friends.

Michael Bernklow’s younger brother, Marshall, was also a ’07 Parker graduate, but was not available for an interview. Marshall will attend Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the fall.

Lydia Enriquez, daughter of Mark and Nancy Enriquez of Harvard, will enter the Foundation Program of Rhode Island School of Design in September. For her senior project at Parker, Lydia investigated the contemporary culture of Crow and Northern Cheyenne people. As part of her research she traveled to the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC, the Western Heritage Center of Billings, Montana, and she volunteered at the St. Labre School in Ashland, Montana. Historically, American Indians have been portrayed in textbooks in narrow and inaccurate ways. Lydia created a high school arts and humanities course to explore a more comprehensive look at contemporary American Indian culture. This class will be taught next year at the Parker School at the 11th and 12th grade level.

Douglas Burton Levering, son of Deborah and Jeffery Levering of Finn Road, attended Parker for seven years. He will study cultural anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson next fall.

Levering has always been “fascinated with humanity,” he said, and cultural anthropology seems to be a good fit. This particular social science inspired his senior project, he explained: Levering sought to better understand why people participate in war reenactments. In Arizona, Levering will do hands-on fieldwork on local Indian reservations.

Levering is also interested in physics and linguistics, and is an avid reader. He, too, enjoys video games and role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons.

Parker, Levering said, has an “admirable interest” in forcing students to think critically, use analysis, and discover answers themselves. He also emphasized that his school has “extremely good teachers” who are so “placid and intuitive …it’s kind of scary.”

Devens resident Emily Lindbeck, daughter of Cathy and John Lindbeck, will attend Clark University in the fall with an undeclared major, but her prospective majors include marine biology and psychology. Lindbeck does know that she will work in Clark’s Community Engagement and Volunteering (CEV) Center next year, a group she came to know through her work for her Parker senior project. The driving question for her senior project was “why does community service thrive in a college environment and how can this be transferred to a high school environment?” Lindbeck worked with Clark’s CEV Center and its director, Micki Davis. Armed with research from her study and her own conclusions, Lindbeck created a guidebook for community service in the Parker community.

Lindbeck also identified the tight-knit community, passionate teachers, and project curricula as the most important characteristics of Parker. She explained that Parker is a place where there is “a lot of respect and individuality,” where the teachers are “real” and passionate, and where she was able to push herself academically and find her own passions.

Lindbeck left for a six-week internship in the Caribbean Sunday. She will work on the Buck Island Reef National Monument, an island off the coast of St. Croix, for federally funded programs set up to preserve the wildlife that inhabit this reef ecosystem.

Still River Road resident McKenzie Thomas Ursch, son of Sharon and Thomas Ursch, is still deciding between the Eugene Lang College of The New School in New York City and McGill University in Montreal. Ursch is drawn to The New School because of its similarities to his high school learning experience; however, he is interested in the traditional learning offered at McGill University and its premed program.

Ursch wants to pursue medicine and become an ER physician, inspired by local emergency physician Dr. Michael Shear, a role model Ursch met his senior year through Shear’s wife, Laura Rogers, who is director of student services at Parker and one of the school’s founders.

Last spring, Ursch said, he had fallen behind on his work and was staying late in Rogers’s office to complete some assignments. He was still working when she was getting ready to go home, so she invited him home with her. Ursch said, “It was the first time in my life that I worked for so long and got my work done. I had all these social opportunities and I passed them up—another first.” Both Rogers and Ursch realized that these firsts should not be lasts. So, for his senior year, Rogers had Ursch over to work at 5 p.m. sharp, three days a week, every week.

For Ursch it was life changing. Working hard, valuing his work, and spending time with himself began taking the place of constant social activity. He learned discipline and pride in good work. “[Being a good student and being disciplined] is more important than any other stuff I learned about—all the physics and algebra and whatever else,” Ursch said.

From left: Marshall Bernklow, Lydia Enriquez, Emily Lindbeck, McKenzie Ursch, Michael Bernklow, and Douglas Levering. (Courtesy photo)