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Hunter Chase has big career plans in a field that focuses exclusively on tiny things. We’re talking really tiny, as in molecular-level tiny.

But first the senior has to settle on a college that will provide the science and engineering tools he’ll eventually need in the nanotechnology field.

“One of the schools I like the most for their science and chemical engineering programs is Vanderbilt in Tennessee,” Hunter said. “It also,” he added, “has a great D-3 wrestling program.” More on that later.

Another school of interest is the University of Tennessee. “Both schools are trailblazers in the nanotechnology field,” Hunter said, “with Vanderbilt actually having one of the first such academic programs in the country.”

Hunter’s keen interest in nanotechnology bloomed last year. “Not sure how it happened,” he said, “ I kind of stumbled across it and did some research on it and found it pretty interesting. Then I did a final AP Biology paper on it and I was hooked.”

With both of Hunter’s top choice schools located south of the Mason-Dixon line one might ask, What’s up with that?

The answer is simple: “I’m actually not a big fan of the cold,” he replied. Adding, “The winters aren’t brutal down there and the landscape has the same look and feel as Vermont.” An added bonus, he said, is having some family in Tennessee.

Hunter credits two activities for his learning about hard work and discipline early. The first is his dedication to the sport of wrestling. Last year he placed 6th in the States at 138 lbs; this year at 145 lbs, he’s aiming for at least a 3rd place. He also plays football and baseball.

The second activity was working summers with his father, a civil engineer who owns his own surveying and septic design business.

“Although I enjoyed working with his field crews,” he said, “and I learned what’s it’s like to work hard all day for something important, it helped me decide that it’s not the type of engineering career I want to go into.”

Hunter has a brother in 10th grade who is also a three-season athlete ( in football, basketball, and baseball.) What advice would the graduating senior have for his younger sibling? Well, after nearly drowning under the weight of three AP classes last year, Hunter has this to say: “Keep up with your work because life is going to get much harder when everything starts piling up. Then you have a mountain of work, and not enough time to get it done.” Amen brother. -Jim Higgins

Junior Ben Isabelle started his school career as a wisecracking, always-sent-to-the-principal’s-office kind of kid way back in 5th grade.

The biggest part of the problem, he recalls, was, “I was always saying funny things to make my friends laugh.” The teachers apparently did not share his sense of humor.

That wise-guy version of Ben persisted until high school. "I stopped being a pain when I got into high school around 9th grade," he said. "Around that time, I went from being a troublemaker to someone who does his work.”

One example of this transformation is the amount of time he now spends at the gaming console. Almost none. “In 9th and 10th grade,” he said, “I used to spend a lot of time playing video games; now as a junior it feels weird to do anything else but homework.”

Actually, that’s not quite true. Ben’s after school time is also taken up with some adventurous activities that – like doing homework – are quite new to him.

That includes wrestling and playing tennis for the school teams and becoming a member of the community service-oriented Key Club.

Wrestling, as most know, is rather intense. It’s mano a mano combat in front of a typically raucous crowd.

“This is my second year and I started out kind of afraid and had a hard time learning techniques,” he said, “but the coaches and my teammates stuck with me. They were helpful and they know what they’re talking about.”

Especially, he said, when, “They told me the first time getting pinned was going to be one of the most emotional moments of my life. They were right.”

But, in addition to teaching technique, Ben says the team drove home the message, “Keep at it! Don’t give up.” So he’s back at it this year in the 145-pound weight class for a second go round, and, he says, “This year I’m not afraid.”

Scholastic team tennis was another first-time adventure for Ben. Although he played “off and on” for years with his family, he never played competitively. He joined the team last year and came away with the classic tennis player’s positive attitude: “I lost all my matches, but I could’ve won them.”

As with wrestling, Ben fully intends to “keep at it,” and he’ll be back on the tennis courts this spring.

Ben’s Key Club activities started, he said, “Partly as a way to get my required ten hours of community service in.” But along the way, “I’ve come to realize that it also feels nice to help people out.”

Key Club’s current project is distributing donation boxes to area businesses to help newborns with medical issues.

Ben’s academics are finally on track for him to think seriously about college, although with one minor hiccup, “I’m not clear what my main interests are yet.” As he says, “In terms of my classes, I like the teachers a lot more than the actual subjects.”

About that hiccup: Ben’s growing interest in grammar, words, and “how a thought can be completed and then written out,” is tilting him ever so gradually toward actually “liking” his English classes!

And there’s yet another potential interest area that Ben let slip during this interview: psychology. “I really like learning about people,” he said.

“There are certain TV shows I like to watch that focus on the psychology of the bad guys, on criminal minds and how they think.”

For a self-proclaimed “wiseguy” from 5th to 9th grade, it could be that he’s already covered many of the prerequisites for that field of study. -JH

Even though she’s only a sophomore, Eleanor (aka “Elle”) Steinman, is well ahead of one particular curve. That’s the often daunting challenge of college choice.

“I toured a lot of colleges in the Northeast with my brother a few years ago,” she said, “and he picked UVM for its engineering program.”

And that’s where she now wants to go. “Plus, it’s a nice bonus that my family has history there,” she said. Her Dad went there in chemistry, her uncle for pre-law, and now her brother.

OK, check that off the list. What’s happening in Elle’s here and now life?

Plenty of creative and interesting things as it turns out, mostly in the music and theater realms.

“During summers I attend skill-building camps at places like UMass Amherst, and the George N. Parks Drum Major Academy, in Worcester, MA.”

The skills learned at the drum major academy are showcased with the Spaulding Marching Band, and numerous groups benefit from her music and theater talents, such as the Spaulding Jazz Band (where she plays alto sax) and Green Mountain Youth Symphony (flute, and piccolo).

The theater skill sets landed her parts in the school’s Drama Club productions. Last year, Elle played the intelligent and cultivated Mrs. Gardiner in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” and Little Red Riding Hood in the Stephen Sondheim musical, “Into the Woods.”

Another one of Elle’s creative adventures is her private study of mythology, especially Norse mythology.

“I’m a bit of a myth buff,” she says. “It’s something about learning other people’s beliefs and how they shaped their lives many years ago.”

One of her favorite Germanic myths involves the fierce wolf-like monster Fenrir and his battle with the heroic God, Tyr, an indefatigable upholder of law and honor. Tyr ultimately sacrifices his hand to the hungry Fenrir in order to save the mythic planet.

Elle's community service activities most recently involved coordinating the school’s blood drive, and she’s also a member of Ms. Carter’s Math Club, a long-time hangout for those students who enjoy cerebral challenges.

Circling back to Elle’s early decision to attend UVM, she’s also thinking ahead to a possible major field of study ‒ zoology.

Why zoology? “I’ve always admired animals and the natural structure of things, as in Darwin’s theories of natural selection,” she said. “Something clicked for me. I want to explore why different species of animals survive and why others don’t.”

On those days and homework nights when survival studies gets too heavy, she can always drift over to noodling in her other major field of interest at UVM ‒ music and the theater arts, of course. -JH

Spaulding’s commitment to helping every student develop a meaningful life has another powerful advocate in Margo Austin, the new Flexible Pathways and Community Service Coordinator.

The Flexible Pathways program helps students gain access to a wide variety of free college-level or high school classes on-line or at a local college site. Presently, 70 Spaulding students participate in the program.

“My job,” said Ms. Austin, “is to support our students gain access to this unique Dual Enrollment program and support their success within the program.”

In her role as Community Service coordinator (see Spreading Tide Pride) Ms. Austin helps students fulfill their new community service graduation requirement. “My job,” said Ms. Austin, “is to be an effective link between our students and the community.

It’s a dream job in many respects. We have young people seeking out meaningful volunteer opportunities and local businesses and community groups who have genuine needs to fill.”

Ms. Austin lives in Richmond with a daughter soon to graduate from Mt. Mansfield High School, and a son at Syracuse University. -Jim Higgins

Following a nine-year stint at Maple Hill School in Marshfield running their individual care program (AKA “The Farm Program”), Saul Gressor has a new day job here at Spaulding.

Actually, Mr. Gressor might describe his present posting as TWO new day jobs.

By day he is a Special Educator working with the Life Skills Program. Also by day he is working with other staff to quietly build a mindfulness program for the school. (Squeezed into the mix is his Advisory period.)

At night, well, perhaps he does homework.

As one of two faculty members working in the Life Skills Program, Mr. Gressor's curriculum is a mix of many interesting subjects.

“One of the things we're doing right now, for example, is a geography unit that includes working with Google Earth and learning about the costs of traveling to these exotic places, alone or as a class.”

Coming up soon will be a more local curriculum piece, he said.

“We’d like to take students downtown to meet interesting people, and also explore the Vermont Historical Society building, among other noteworthy places.”

Building a school-wide focus on mindfulness, his other day job is more low key. "It's really about developing inroads into the idea," he said, "so people think it’s a worthy thing to do.”

Mr. Gressor referenced a highly successful mindfulness program/curriculum developed at South Burlington High School ten years ago.

Thus far, Mr. Gressor, who has a B.A. from Marlboro College and a graduate degree from Keene State, is planning more brief visits to classes to introduce students and teachers to mindfulness practice and ideas.

Also, he noted several staff attended a course at St. Michael’s developed by SBHS, and there are hopes of developing a staff Mindfulness Committee to keep the idea moving ahead. -JH

“Livin’ the dream” has become the stock ironic response to “How ya doin?”

But every once in a while someone really is living their dream.

A candidate for that rare treat is Spaulding’s new athletic director, Natalie Soffen, a 2000 Spaulding grad.

The dream?

“My dream,” said Ms. Soffen, “was always to come back to Barre and work at Spaulding. I grew up here and it’s a great opportunity to give back and be a part of what’s to come.”

“It’s also gives me a better balance as a parent,” she added. She and her husband, a police officer in South Burlington, are the parents of two kiddoes, a 7-year-old boy, and a 10-year-old girl.

“We live two minutes from Spaulding so it really helps with our schedules and the need for a sort of ‘platoon parenting’ around work schedules.”

Yes, there is the “dream” nature of her returning happily back where she launched nearly 20 years ago. But a look at the career trajectory that returned Ms. Soffen to Spaulding as Athletic Director is, in fact, a highly predictable, gracefully curving arc that points right back to Barre, Vermont.

Backing up a tad, Ms. Soffen’s years at Spaulding fit right into the storybook narrative. While notching a stellar academic record that got her into Nichols College, she played both SHS softball and basketball, where she continued nailing the “A” game.

The highlight reel in softball includes Spaulding winning the state championship in 1999 under coach April Bliss. Ms. Soffen, a catcher, then played in the North-South Vermont game and the Twin State Vermont-New Hampshire tournament where she was won the MNP award. (Her older sister, also a catcher, set a high bar five years earlier when she was awarded an MVP in the Twin State.

At Nichols College, Ms. Soffen played basketball and softball and even tried one year of soccer. Her college athletic career was not with injury, however. She tallied up one broken jaw and two shoulder surgeries (those from overuse as a softball catcher.) In basketball, however, she was a 1000-point scorer and later inducted into their Hall of Fame in 2009. (Fun fact: Her dad, Gary Lavin, SHS ’64, is a longtime basketball official and was inducted into the VPA Hall of Fame in 2018.)

Ms. Soffen stayed at Nichols to coach the women’s basketball team for seven years and it was then she had her life changing moment. “A men’s soccer player,” she recalls, “who had watched me play and coach over the years asked me if I’d ever considered being an athletic director.”

That seed was planted in 2011. The next year she landed the AD job at Peoples Academy for the subsequent seven years. (Fun fact: “The People’s AD job also included the middle school,” Ms. Soffen said, “so I got to know those kids from a very young age in 5th grade, and now those kids are seniors and I get to watch them as mature athletes.”

Now at Spaulding she has finally returned to the scene of some of her greatest memories. “By far my favorite part of the job is building relationships with student athletes,” she said. “Mentoring these athletes and even other young coaches is another aspect of the job I love.”

As AD she is required to attend all home games which she also enjoys. “Going to games and seeing kids in a different light than everyday school is awesome too,” she said.

One final “What’s not to love about this job?” point. “Both my kids play soccer with BYSA on weekends,” Ms Soffen said, “and I’ve not missed any of my daughter’s games and only one of my son’s games.”

Yup, livin’ the dream. -JH