Page 22 - Priorities #73

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Upper left: At the 1998 yearbook release party.
Left: Tim always had a special connection with the monastic community, including this fun photoshoot promoting a 1950s themed gala.
Top: One of Tim’s many talents as an auctioneer at the 2013 gala.
science teacher at Priory for 36 years, tells a story of being Tim’s neighbor on campus. One year when Trudelle’s house flooded, Tim appeared “in yellow rain slicker with a broom to push out the water.” Tim, he says, goes “beyond the role of headmaster.”
Besides his tireless beautification and expansion of campus and his concierge-level care for colleagues and students, Tim has increased Priory’s presence on a larger stage. Since 1993, in our local community, Tim has shepherded groups of volunteers each April to renovate a local house with Rebuilding Together. “It was something I knew about and wanted to do, so I just started it,” Tim recalls. “Lenten talents came out of this,” he says about the program where everyone at Priory receives a dollar and is urged to use their talents to turn that dollar into ten or twenty to donate to Rebuilding Together for the renovation. “For people to know that someone cares enough to put time and effort into their homes feels good,” he adds. Rebuilding Together’s Associate Director Cari Pang Chen shares that Tim is consistently “providing a positive tone and grounding all the students in the importance of their service to the homeowner they are working with.” Tim is always quick to don a hard hat and work gloves, to open his wallet for every lemonade stand, and to inspire others to work alongside him.
Tim also just celebrated 25 years collaborating with Peninsula Bridge, which helps prepare
you dream what the possibilities are to help different groups on campus.” The Molak years will certainly be remembered as a time of immense growth for the entire school.
You might imagine that someone who spearheaded so many projects would be invisible on campus, locked in meetings or poring over blueprints. But that’s not Tim. When Nancy Newman was Dean of Faculty, she said she’d be at Tim’s desk at seven a.m., and he “was always up, positive, ready for the day, an inspiration to her and others.” Affectionately nicknamed “Tidy Tim,” (a name his family also uses for him), he’d soon be out on campus “picking up trash everywhere, putting up flags and lights over the weekends,” says long-time teacher Todd Turner. Tim attends alumni events, performances, athletic games, parent gatherings, and is “always quick with a greeting,” adds Turner. Over the summer, Tim might buy a new faculty coffeemaker or office rug, and these are his ways of saying to faculty and staff “We appreciate you,” says Newman. “Even without money, he always thought about how to make things warmer, more hospitable.” Nate Spears, who has worked at Priory longer than Tim, illustrates Tim’s generosity: When Tim gave Nate his traditional gasoline card on his birthday, and Nate pointed to his giant van, Tim tripled the card’s value! “He always made us feel special,” says Spears. To add to that, Paul Trudelle,
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