A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

IN 1969 OR SO, someone—perhaps Maryann Akin, a professional photographer whose daughter Rima (Akin) Little is an MLC alumna and was a young student at the time—took this iconic photograph. It has consistently found its place at the top of our every list of early photos, appearing on the 50th Anniversary poster and magazine cover—so we will give it its own page.

Emil and Helen Abramovic stand just outside their classroom, Rm. 22, at the southeast corner of the Couch building's upper floor. Sixteen students, from earliest grades to high school, present a perfect early MLC base-station grouping.

The students, dramatically side-lit, with one amusing exception have somber expressions that make them seem part of an undertaking serious and intimate.

The teachers gaze at angles to their students, Helen in scholarly black, Emil beatific in white shirt, fully illuminated. Nothing disrupts the old-school interior architectural lines but a drinking fountain.

We are just drawn to the faces.

Back row: Ricia (Smith) Parcher, Lisa (Liz Kaye) Michaelson, Andy Haight, Nicholas Hill. Middle rows: Kristi Daggett, Therese Bottomly (?), Jason Lynch, Ken Dragoon. Front rows: Linnea King (?), Mike Brooks, Melissa Hibbard, Emily Spray, Delia (Lane) Paine, Andy Paget, Paula Hunt, Jonathan Dubay.

This second photo, of Ehrick Wheeler's base station, taken in the exact same spot and presumably by the same photographer (consensus still pointing to Maryann Akin), came to light in October 2025 when alumnus David Chelsea reposted it to the MLC Alumni Facebook page, where he had originally posted it in May 2007 when the page was just getting going. The resolution is less good, the composition less remarkable, but it draws you in in the same way.

Identified so far. Back row: Jimmy Hodgins, Lisa Abramovic, Sarah Berry, Carlee Smith. Middle row: (?), (?), Charles Schultz, Gregory Dubay, (?). Front row: (?????). Somewhere: David Miller. HELP US OUT?