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Summer 2008--View From the Woods

9/22/03

Lauren O'Niell, 8th grade graduate 1999, is currently a freshman at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. She wrote, about her Summer 2003 Service Project(pictured left):
For seven weeks I lived in Brazil in the small town of Angico Velho, which has no more than 100 residents living with electricity (non with running water). My partners, Emily and Mike, and I mainly worked in the school giving classes in Portuguese on such topics as dental hygiene, environmental health and appreciation, and English. We also started a walking group, planted a garden near the school and created a town book with genealogical information about all the members of Angico. However, the projet I am most proud of is our mural. Inspired by the children's drawings and ideas, the theme is "O mundo e uma communidade," translation "The world is one community." Each panel depicts a different community that the people of Angico Velho belong to: the world, Brasil, Rio Grande do Norte (a region of Brasil), Angico Velho and family. The final panel hods the handprints of the children of Angico. Through this mural, I know I left a lasting impression on Angico Velho and through my memories Angico has left a lasting impression on me.

7/15/03

Clay Chambers has been receiving praise from all of his teachers at St. Thomas. At Awards Night he was presented with an award for AP English, AP Calculus, AP Economics and Theology. He had perfect attendance for the four years he attended St. Thomas and was recognized as a National Merit Commended Scholar. He graduated 5 out of 144 boys. He played varsity tennis and has remained active in the Scouting program after making Eagle. He was accepted to Rice University and Texas A&M. He has decided to attend Texas A&M where he will major in mechanical engineering. A&M has awarded him a scholarship. He has also received a scholarship from the Texas Society of Professional Engineers. He is a finalist for the Texas Petroleum Engineers Scholasrship and for the Tall Texans Scholarship (he's 6'2").

6/12/03

Joe Fowler, who attended School of the Woods from 1974-1980, has just finished his first semester as an Assistant Professor of Physics at Princeton University. He works with the Princeton "Gravity Group" on telescopes and microwave detectors to study the radiation emitted in the aftermath of the Big Bang. Joe has on his desk a Montessori thousand cube, which his parents gave him in honor of his Ph. D. thesis defense in 1999. He will soon be looking for a Montessori school in the Princeton area for his 1-year-old son Joshua.

6/11/03

Will Russ has been accepted to the prestigious Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara. He was working closely with Gulf Coast Surf: Texas' Surfing Magazine and is the featured on there website. View his photography here.

6/9/03

Jennifer Frank, middle school class of 1997, has completed her first year at Texas A&M with a 4.0. She was inducted into the Honors Business Program there, where she is also a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma and Carpool.
Jeremy Frank will be a senior at Stratford High School, where he plays football, is a member of student council and will be serving as Vice President of Senior Men.

5/31/03

Former Woods student, Terri Pruitt, graduated from Magnolia High School.

5/31/03

Former Woods student, Brittany Boutwell, graduated from Stratford High School.

5/3/03

Another former Woods student, Martin Bost, has joined the ranks of valedictorian. He is graduating from Memorial High School.

5/19/03

We have just learned that Andy Chaumont has passed his Bar examination. Congratulations, Andy!

5/03/03

Andy Chaumont recently wrote us:
I wanted to send you an email detailing exactly how the education I received at School of the Woods has benefited my life. A few days after graduating from South Texas College of Law, I spent a couple hours one day reflecting upon the totality of my educational instruction, and concluded that I have been a lucky man when it comes to the schools I have attended over the years. From School of the Woods, to Episcopal High School, to The University of Texas, and finally South Texas College of Law, I have been blessed with the quality of instruction I have received throughout my academic career.
Now that I have finally entered “the real world,” as they say, I thank the faculty at School of the Woods for providing the educational foundation upon which I have relied for all subsequent educational institutions that I have attended. I have no doubt that the School of the Woods approach enabled me to become the independent thinker I am today. Since graduating from School of the Woods, I have approached and overcome nearly every obstacle which life has thrown in my path. I sincerely believe that the primary reason for some of the creative solutions I have come up with to deal with these obstacles are a result of the education I received at School of the Woods. If I could sum up School of the Woods in one sentence, it would be the following: School of the Woods creates leaders.
For example, during my undergraduate years at The University of Texas at Austin, I took a class called Management Information Technology. The format of the class was wholly different from any other class I had ever attended in college, in that we were responsible for creating a business and all that attempting such a feat entails. The class of about 500 people was randomly broken up into about 30 groups with around 16 people each. On the first day of class, the professor asked 2 people from each group to be leaders. Although being a leader was deemed as extra credit to be applied to our final grade, it also included a lot of added responsibility. We had to come up with a business plan, research and construct spreadsheets of data supporting whatever decisions we had made, facilitate communication between group members, and many other tasks too numerous to mention here. As you can guess, not many people volunteered to be leaders, despite the extra credit. However, Courtney Grosskopf , Pascal Arteaga and I, all of whom graduated from School of the Woods, chose to become leaders. I didn’t realize that Courtney or Pascal were even in my class until the first meeting of the leaders and the professor. It came as no surprise to me that all three School of the Woods graduates who were taking the class had chosen to take on the extra responsibility of being a leader. I can’t speak for the other two, but I imagine they chose to become leaders of their respective groups not because of the miniscule amount of extra credit involved, but rather because it needed to be done. I know it sounds like I am patting myself on the back, but organizing 16 people, all of whom have different ideas about how to run the business we were responsible for, identifying each person’s strengths and weaknesses and assigning work based on such an evaluation, staying in communication with the professor throughout the semester, and many other responsibilities was something I had never done before. Yet, I was confident that I would do a good job, and I think most of that confidence came from knowing there is always more than one solution to a problem. I learned this mantra from School of the Woods. Now I approach every tough situation carefully, but I also look through as many different perspectives as possible before implementing a solution.
All three of us remained leaders throughout the course, and I have no doubt School of the Woods had something to do with the outstanding praise our group mates gave us at the end of the semester.
There are many examples of how the education I received at School of the Woods has benefited my life, but unfortunately I don’t have the time to relate every one. I hope this has given you a sense of how I view my education at School of the Woods.

3/23/03

Victoria Jones is currently a junior at Stratford High School. She is a girl scout and is currently working on her Gold Award. (A Gold Award is the highest and most prestigious honor in Girl Scouts, equivalent ot the Eagle Scout Award in Boy Scouts.) Her project is Breast Cancer Awareness. As part of her project she had the Mobile Mammography van from M.D. Anderson come to the Memorial Drive Methodist Chuch to perform mammograms.

3/12/03

Lauren O'Niell, who is currently attending St. Agnes Academy, is a finalist in the National Merit Scholarship Program. She will be competing for one of over 8,000 scholarships that will be awarded in the spring.

1/23/03

Shayne Hurst Newell attended School of the Woods from 1975 through 1985. She and her husband, David, are now the proud parents of a little boy, Peter Andrew, born on December 21, 2001. She practices bankruptcy law here in Houston and is currently involved in the Enron case, among others.

12/12/02

Suzanne Kathleen Williams graduated from Texas A&M with a Bachelor of Science in Biology December 20th, 2002.

11/26/02

Todd Marek graduated in December 2001 from Stephen F. Austin State University with a BA in agriculture, majoring in horticulture and landscape design. Todd has owned his own lawn and landscape company since 1993 and is a member of the American Landscape contractors Association. At SFA, he was on the Dean’s List for six semesters and held an Angelina baseball scholarship for two years.

Olivia Gierman, graduated from Klein in the Class of 2002 and is off to attend Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fl., on an Air Force college scholarship, where she’ll study aerospace engineering. Olivia earned this through her participation in Air Force Junior ROTC at Klein, where she rose through the ranks to graduate as a Major. Meanwhile, Olivia and her pony, Jubilee, have had a spectacular year culminating in the U.S. Equestrian Pony Hunter Finals this past month in Lexington, KY. Her mother writes, “It seems like only yesterday that (Olivia) entered Mrs. Miller’s preschool class with her My Little Pony lunch kit.”

Former parent, Edie Overtree, reports that Chris graduated from Princeton (he now has his Ph.D. in psychology); Kim graduated from Bryn Mawr (she has a Master’s degree in math and music); and Lee graduated from Northwestern University and is now at Yale.

Jason Ahuja, who graduated from the eight grade at School of the Woods in 1997, is a sophomore this fall at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.

Brandon Green, who graduated from eight grade in 1998, graduated this past spring from Awty International School, where he received a National Merit Scholarship. Brandon is attending Columbia University this Fall.

“I still remember my years at School of the Woods.” writes Elizabeth Sitomer. “I would love to come and visit.” Elizabeth attended the school from 1985 to 1993 and is now at Trinity University, San Antonio, majoring in Elementary Education with emphasis on Special Education—Special Needs Children, and minoring in Voice/Music Performance.

Cara Frisbie graduated eight grade in 1992. Since then she has earned an undergraduate degree at Rice University with a double major in Economics and Policy Studies, and is now studying at Harvard Law School in Cambridge MA.

Abigail Teich entered School of the Woods in 1982; she graduated from Memorial High School in ’97, and from Princeton University in ’01 with a BA in Molecular Biology. Now she’s in the MD/Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan Medical School and is married to Danny Fahim, a fellow Princeton grad who’s also at University of Michigan Medical. She writes that she has really great memories from School of the Woods.

Elizabeth Garrett-Linhart, who attended School of the Woods from 1977-1986, married Neal Patrick Linhart of Laredo, TX on October 5, 2002 at Chapelwood United Methodist Church in Houston. Elizabeth graduated from Memorial High School in 1992, Texas A&M University in 1997 and the University of Houston Law Center in 2000. Elizabeth presently resides in Las Vegas, NV and is employed as an attorney with NextWave Wireless Inc.

Mitchell Garrett, who attended School of the Woods from 1976-1979, attended Memorial High School and graduated from Muskogee High School in Muskogee, OK in 1989, and graduated from Texas A&M University in 1993. Mitchell’s Marine Reserve Unit was activated during the Gulf War in 1990 and Mitchell took one semester off from college to serve his country. After working with the Democratic National Committee in Texas, Mitchell joined President Clinton’s reelection campaign tour in 1996 and served on his inaugural committee in 1997. After 5 subsequent years of success in technology headhunting in the DC area, Mitchell returned to his father’s alma mater, the University of Tulsa Law School, to pursue a juris doctorate degree in the fall of 2002.

9/18/02

Cara Frisbie, who attended School of the Woods from 1980 to 1990, announces her engagement to Thomas Clayton of West Sacramento, California.
Cara graduated from McCullough High School in TheWoodlands in 1996, and received degrees in Economics and Policy Studies from Rice University in 2000. She spent two years with Deloittle Consulting in San Francisco and is currently attending Harvard Law School.
The wedding is planned for May, 2003. Hilary Frisbie, who attedned School of the Woods and is currently attending The Univerisy of Texas School of Law, will serve as her sister's Maid of Honor.

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