Summer is ending and.....A Teacher's Dance
Dear Margaret,
Going back to school usually marks the end of Summer, regardless of the calendar. Monday was the first day of school in Miami-Dade where roughly 330,000 attended in person. The headlines in the Miami-Herald read “I’m happy that we’re back…..Miami- area students return to school, fully masked and with no complaints”. That’s the most positive headline I’ve read in a while! So far, so good.
Jessica's daughter Leah: 1st day of Kindergarten
Scott and Melissa are taking son, Jesse, to start at Michigan (where else?) …..And to add to the good news, Roger and I got our Covid booster shot too!
Since school is uppermost in our minds, I’m handing the rest of this Musing to Bruce who will share a special and meaningful school life experience ….
A Teacher's Dance
As many of you know, I grew up in Kennebunk, Maine, a small town that is the inland, middle-class-neighbor to Kennebunkport; a coastal village known for being the summer home of President Bush. Since my family was low-income, I qualified for daily free school breakfast and lunch. As a result, I spent a lot of time at the school cafeteria, which is where I first met William (Bill) Hovey, during my junior year of high school.
Mr. Hovey was young and energetic, barely 9 years older than I. As a newer teacher, he often worked cafeteria duty to earn extra money. We instantly hit it off because of our mutual love of sports. He was from Lake Placid, NY, and a fervent NY Yankees Fan. As an equally-fervent Mets fan, we had a lot of fun arguments about which NY team was better (I always lost). Mr. Hovey was also the soccer coach and I was a goalie on the team, so we spent nearly every afternoon together on the field. Like most in those days, his nickname for me was “Cacho.”
Mr. Hovey taught history and psychology. I was too old to take his history class, however, psychology was an elective, so I enrolled at my first opportunity to do so, even though I had little interest in the subject matter. During that course, I came to appreciate Mr. Hovey as a remarkable teacher. Though he did focus on “standard curriculum” such as Freud and Jung, he spent much of the class trying to help us understand the psychology of “ourselves." In other words, he taught us self-awareness, not an easy task for teenagers. A memorable assignment was to pick a song that “represents you” and to explain why. Oddly, I can’t remember which song I picked, but I remember Mr. Hovey’s: “For a Dancer” by Jackson Browne. The song is about a friend of Browne’s who died in a fire. In Browne’s words:
“I was making a metaphor out of the dance. Just the idea that your life is a dance. And there's a line in it, 'In the end, there is one dance you do alone.'…It’s a sad song, but at the same time, it feels good to sort through that reality and touch base with it…”
I fell in love with the song, both the beautiful melody and the sentiment. Mr. Hovey’s family had experienced a tragedy years earlier, which is why I think the message resonated so much with him. He stressed the idea that our lives will be full of dance partners…some romantic, some professional, some friends, and that our challenge was to learn from them and treat them the way we would want to be treated. I always find myself listening to “For a Dancer” when someone close to me dies.
Another memorable psychology assignment was to establish a “buddy” at the local nursing home…someone who was closer to the end of their “dance.” Mr. Hovey actually went to the home and gathered information about which residents were infrequently visited. He then turned this info into “resumes” so that we could pick a buddy with similar interests. Unfortunately, many of us had little experience with the elderly and desperately tried to find excuses to skip our weekly visits. Mr. Hovey wouldn’t take "no" for an answer. He knew that successful adults needed to know how to work outside of their comfort zones.
After senior year, Mr. Hovey gave me two graduation presents. First, he took me to my first Jackson Browne concert! Second, he gave me a “Writer’s Notebook” to capture my thoughts. Each page had a quote from a famous writer. Mr. Hovey was convinced I could write the great American Novel if I tried. He signed the inscription “always your friend.”
Writer's Notebook gift from Mr. Hovey
In the years that followed, I stayed in touch with Bill (he stressed that I needed to use his first name once I graduated, though I typically called him “Hov”). First, via letters from college, and eventually via e-mail. We saw each other during summers, until he moved to Europe to teach, where he met his wife Carmen, and had two sons, Sam and Alexsander. A few years ago, with both of his sons out of high school, Bill took an assignment teaching in China. He was always eager to experience new cultures and to share his unique teaching style.
Bill was still in China when COVID hit. He stayed safe, and often posted Facebook pictures of Chinese life during the pandemic, until he fell ill in the fall of 2020. At first, his family thought he had suffered a mild stroke, but on October 1, 2020, Bill was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. The next few weeks were a whirlwind as Bill’s family struggled to get him out of China given quarantine rules. On November 12, Bill finally made it to Switzerland. In the months that followed, I (and many of his students) stayed in touch with Bill via Facebook and texting. He didn’t have the ability to type messages, but he sent notes full of emoji’s to express his feelings. Carmen gave us detailed online updates weekly. A few times, he texted me indecipherable voice recordings… my heart broke to hear that my brilliant, eloquent teacher could no longer piece together a coherent sentence.
Bill died on May 1, 2021 at the age of 59. At his service, Carmen shared a classic Bill quote on his prayer card…one final lesson:
Prayer Card from Bill's Service
As we send our children back to school, my sincerest hope is that each and every one of them has the opportunity to experience a life-changing teacher like Mr. Hovey.
You danced a great life, Hov.
Always your friend,
Cacho
Bruce Cacho-Negrete
Senior VP - Financial Planning
2333 Ponce de Leon Blvd. Suite 500
Coral Gables, FL 33134
Margaret C. Starner
Senior VP - Financial Planning
2333 Ponce de Leon Blvd. Suite 500
Coral Gables, FL 33134
BARRON'S Hall Of Fame Advisor
BARRON'S 2021 Top 1200 Financial Advisor
BARRON'S 2021 Top 100 Women Financial Advisor
2021 ForbesTOP WOMEN Wealth Advisor list
2021ForbesBEST-IN-STATE Wealth Advisor list
2021ForbesTOP 250 Wealth Advisor list
Investment News - Lifetime Achievement in Excellence in Diversity & Inclusion Award
Barron’s is a registered trademark of Dow Jones & Company, L.P. All rights reserved. "Barron's Hall of Fame" is an award honoring a group of advisors who exemplify long-term success and commitment to their clients. Each member of the Hall of Fame has appeared in 10 or more of Barron's annual Top 100 Advisor rankings, and their long-looking commitment to excellence is a hopeful example for the industry to follow. The Top 100 Advisor rankings are based on data provided by individual advisors and their firms and include qualitative and quantitative criteria. Data points that relate to quality of practice include professionals with a minimum of 7 years financial services experience, acceptable compliance records (no criminal U4 issues), client retention reports, charitable and philanthropic work, quality of practice, designations held, offering services beyond investments offered including estates and trusts, and more. Financial Advisors are quantitatively rated based on varying types of revenues produced and assets under management by the financial professional, with weightings associated for each. Investment performance is not an explicit component because not all advisors have audited results and because performance figures often are influenced more by clients’ risk tolerance than by an advisor’s investment picking abilities. The ranking may not be representative of any one client’s experience, is not an endorsement, and is not indicative of advisor’s future performance. Neither Raymond James nor any of its Financial Advisors pay a fee in exchange for this award/rating. Barron’s is not affiliated with Raymond James.
Source: Barron’s “Top 1,200 Financial Advisors,” March 2021. Barron’s is a registered trademark of Dow Jones & Company, L.P. All rights reserved. The rankings are based on data provided by over 5,000 individual advisors and their firms and include qualitative and quantitative criteria. Factors included in the rankings: assets under management, revenue produced for the firm, regulatory record, quality of practice and philanthropic work. Investment performance is not an explicit component because not all advisors have audited results and because performance figures often are influenced more by clients’ risk tolerance than by an advisor’s investment picking abilities. The ranking may not be representative of any one client’s experience, is not an endorsement, and is not indicative of advisor’s future performance. Neither Raymond James nor any of its Financial Advisors pay a fee in exchange for this award/rating. Barron’s is not affiliated with Raymond James.
Barron’s Top 100 Women Financial Advisors, (2021). Barron’s is a registered trademark of Dow Jones & Company, L.P. All rights reserved. The rankings are based on data provided by individual advisors and their firms and include qualitative and quantitative criteria. Data points that relate to quality of practice include professionals with a minimum of 7 years financial services experience, acceptable compliance records (no criminal U4 issues), client retention reports, charitable and philanthropic work, quality of practice, designations held, offering services beyond investments offered including estates and trusts, and more. Financial Advisors are quantitatively rated based on varying types of revenues produced and assets under management by the financial professional, with weightings associated for each. Investment performance is not an explicit component because not all advisors have audited results and because performance figures often are influenced more by clients’ risk tolerance than by an advisor’s investment picking abilities. The ranking may not be representative of any one client’s experience, is not an endorsement, and is not indicative of an advisor’s future performance. Neither Raymond James nor any of its Financial Advisors pay a fee in exchange for this award/rating. Barron’s is not affiliated with Raymond James.
Source: Forbes.com (January, 2021). The Forbes ranking of Best-In-State Wealth Advisors, developed by SHOOK Research, is based on an algorithm of qualitative criteria, mostly gained through telephone and in-person due diligence interviews, and quantitative data. Those advisors that are considered have a minimum of seven years' experience, and the algorithm weights factors like revenue trends, assets under management, compliance records, industry experience and those that encompass best practices in their practices and approach to working with clients. Out of approximately 32,725 nominations received, based on thresholds, more than 5,000 advisors received the award. Portfolio performance is not a criteria due to varying client objectives and lack of audited data. Neither Forbes nor SHOOK receives a fee in exchange for rankings. This ranking is not indicative of advisor's future performance, is not an endorsement, and may not be representative of individual clients' experience. Neither Raymond James nor any of its Financial Advisors or RIA firms pay a fee in exchange for this award/rating. Raymond James is not affiliated with Forbes or Shook Research, LLC. For more information: www.SHOOKresearch.com.
The Forbes ranking of America’s Top 1,000 Women Wealth Advisors, developed by SHOOK Research, is based on an algorithm of qualitative and quantitative data, rating thousands of wealth advisors with a minimum of 7 years of experience and weighing factors like revenue trends, AUM, compliance records, industry experience and best practices learned through telephone and in-person interviews. Portfolio performance is not a criteria due to varying client objectives and lack of audited data. Research Summary (as of April 2019): 32,000 nominations were received based on thresholds (9,654 women) and 1,000 won. This ranking is not indicative of advisor’s future performance, is not an endorsement, and may not be representative of individual clients’ experience. Neither Forbes nor SHOOK receive a fee in exchange for rankings. Raymond James is not affiliated with Forbes or Shook Research, LLC. Please visit https://www.forbes.com/top-women-advisors/#28abc5bd51f4 for more info.
Nominees for the InvestmentNews Diversity & Inclusion Lifetime Achievement Award must currently be working as financial planners, registered representatives or registered investment advisers, or as industry professionals in a role that supports financial advisers. Judges will consider management, team development, achievement and a minimum 15-year commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion. InvestmentNews received about 130 nominations for the Diversity & Inclusions awards and selected 1 individual for the Lifetime Achievement award. The ranking may not be representative of any one client's experience, is not an endorsement, and is not indicative of future performance. Neither Raymond James nor any of its Financial Advisors pay a fee in exchange for this award/rating nor is Raymond James affiliated with InvestmentNews.
