New First Year Students Bring Worldly Experiences

Author: Gale Berninghausen

What do a Junior National Champion kayaker, a pitcher-magician-pianist-composer, a best selling children's book author and wildlife preservationist from Kenya, a documentary film maker and volunteer at the Tibetan Children's Village in Dharamsala, India and a Junior Olympic freestyle skier have in common? They are all members of Middlebury's Class of 2006.
Austin Krissoff, from Reno, Nev., is a swimmer and water polo player here at Middlebury. He has also been a competitive member of the U.S. Junior National Downriver Kayak Team since 1998. Krissoff has kayaked in two pre-World Championships, one World Championship and was the U.S. Junior National Champion in 2000. These competitions, and his kayaking training and adventures, have taken him all over the country and world, including various rivers in California, Washington, Colorado, Austria, Italy, Germany, British Columbia and Indonesia. Krissoff remarked that his favorite thing about kayaking "is the places it takes you and things you get to see!"
Downriver kayaking is bigger in Europe than in the U.S. It is a timed race, usually lasting about 20 minutes, in which the kayaker must navigate through class III-class IV rapids in the speediest time possible. Austin spends the majority of his summer training to build up endurance and hone his technique. He is excited about the World Cup, which will be held in California in June 2003, and plans to train for it on the Otter Creek during the spring. Krissoff gave his approval for the water around here, saying that, "the Otter Creek is good white water!"
Alex Casnocha is the newest pitcher on Middlebury's baseball team. "Baseball is America's favorite past time…I love baseball." he says with a giant grin. He also happens to be a magician, in the style of David Blaine. Casnocha has been doing magic since the seventh grade when a new magic shop moved into his hometown of San Francisco. He began studying magic books and developing card tricks and routines. Casnocha says that good presentation and an interesting storyline are essential in magic and music, his other favorite hobby.
Casnocha began playing the piano at a young age and was composing piano and full orchestral music by the eighth grade. He describes his music as "New Age." After his freshman year of high school he recorded his first CD. During high school he composed pieces for school concerts, a school fight song and his own response to Sept. 11, 2001, called "Rhapsody in Black." These songs were recorded on a second CD during his senior year.
Alex enjoys being a baseball player-magician-pianist-composer. With baseball he can impress people but, he says, with "music and magic you can connect to people in so many different ways. You touch people and you don't have to even speak the same language."
Xan Hopcraft's home is about 45 minutes from Nairobi, Kenya, on his family's 20,000-acre game ranch. He is bilingual, fluent in English and Swahili. Hopcraft's family had an adopted male cheetah named Dooms until Hopcraft was seven. In 1994, when Xan was 10 years old, he co-authored a children's book, "How It Was with Dooms," which was published by Simon and Schuster. The book became a best seller and won the Children's Book Council and Notable Children's Trade Book prizes. Warner Bros. has since bought the rights for "How It Was with Dooms."
For several years, Hopcraft has participated in the annual Rhino Charge, a daylong road race. This race is a fundraiser to build an electric fence around Aberdares National Park, which would protect the wildlife from poachers. In the Rhino Charge, teams of four or five use an all-terrain vehicle to try to make it between a series of 10 checkpoints in the shortest time possible.
This past June, Hopcraft raised 339,000 Kenyan shillings, or about $4,250, in the Rhino Charge.
He mentioned that someday his father would like to organize a program that brings Middlebury students to their ranch in Kenya to study the wildlife and African plains preservation. Hopcraft encourages people to "be open minded and go to Africa to learn more about it."
Divya Khosla, from Saddle River, N.J., was very active in Students For a Free Tibet during high school and founded her school's Human Rights Organization her freshman year. The organization grew from four to 65 people during her four years at Dwight Englewood School. Khosla's experiences with activism for human rights have not only occurred during the school year.
Since 1998, Divya has spent three summers in Dharamsala, India, where the Tibetan government is stationed in exile. Khosla was "impressed by the fusion of Tibetan and Indian culture" and remarks that "this sparked a lot of curiosity."
She became a volunteer at the Tibetan Children's Village (TCV), which is the home of 2,500 orphaned children, and is directed by the sister of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. During her summers there, Khosla spoke with the Dalai Lama about Students For a Free Tibet.
While at TCV, Divya made a three-and-one-half hour documentary film about the children. The film has appeared in museums throughout New York City and Khosla has spoken at several events. She is still in the process of editing the documentary but she hopes to eventually send it to an independent film festival. Divya has plans: "I hope to organize a program that will bring students to work in TCV during the summer."
Jono Berliner lives an interesting double life. He's from Connecticut where he attended the Hopkins School in New Haven. Since the age of eight, Jono has traveled to Mount Snow, Vt., every weekend during the months of November through March. When Berliner was 12 he joined the Mount Snow Ski Team as a freestyle skier. He has competed throughout Vermont and New England and at the 2001 Junior Olympics in Big Mountain, Mont. Freestyle skiing is judged for turns in moguls, air off two jumps and time (about 30 seconds). For Berliner, "half of skiing is learning how to cope with the pressure of competing. It's really tough but it's a good learning experience."
Berliner plans to train at Mount Snow during winter break this year. While at Middlebury, he hopes to compete on Vermont's mountains such as Killington and Sugarbush. Berliner's biggest goal is to someday make the U.S. Ski Team, and to be a competitive force in the Winter Olympics.
Berliner has already qualified as one of the top 50 skiers in country for the U.S. Ski Team. Until then, you can count on seeing Jono at the Middlebury's Snow Bowl as he pursues a spot on the Ski Patrol.
At Middlebury, you often discover someone who has a talent, experience or interest that you've never heard of, imagined or talked about. The Campus discovered these five unique first years and we know that there are many more from the Class of 2006 with fascinating stories to tell.