ACE 8

Hellooooo, ACE 8! Thanks a million to those of you who sent in updates. It is going to make for some extra juicy reading—truly, I have just been awed by the things folks are doing both in their professional and personal lives. It’s amazing what three years can bring! So, I know that one of the first rules of public speaking is not to apologize for what one is about to offer, but because this isn’t public speaking, I’m going to go ahead and apologize. I’m not a witty writer. I just have to own it. So below you’ll find not much beyond what folks offered me in their email updates…but I think that these updates are great enough to stand on their own. Happy reading!

Kate Brayko went to Dublin (ACE Ireland) post-ACE. Since finishing up in Dublin, she’s been on the faculty at Heritage University, which is a private college on the Yakama Indian Reservation in Toppenish, WA (she’s teaching teacher ed and sociology courses). She says it’s kind of a crazy place to live…on a farm on a rez…but it’s beautiful and she loves her students. Even though the college is on the reservation, the undergrad student body at Hertiage is about 2/3 Hispanic…the cultural dynamics in that valley are so interesting, she says. Her boyfriend recently hiked the Pacific Crest Trail (from Mexico to Canada), and after finishing up, he headed to Toppenish so that he and Kate could enjoy the novelty of each other’s company…finally!

Steve Kelleher is currently in his second year at the University of Virginia Law School and is planning on going to Nashville this summer for a summer associate position with a law firm.

After ACE graduation, Jennifer McEntee attended Tulane University for the joint MD/MPH (masters in public health) program. She completed her first year and then was offered an opportunity to teach teachers in Tanzania at a Teaching college, so she went to Tanzania (East Africa) for 6 months but had to cut her trip short due to a hospitalization there. She entered medical school the following year--just in time for Hurricane Katrina. After completing her second year of medical school at Tulane in Houston, she decided to transfer medical schools and is completing her clinical years of medical school at OUHSC in OKC. She hopes everyone is doing well and would love hear from anybody.

Jeremy Davies got married in May of 2006 to Ashley Tate -- some of us may remember her being at the Pensacola Labor Day parties. He recently received tenure at Westfield High School and is about to pursue his administrative certificate in the hopes of becoming an English Department Chairperson.

Katie (Gaffney) Earley married Mike Earley (ACE 7) in December, 2003, and they have been living in Seattle since August ‘03. Katie and Mike both taught there for a couple of years but have had recent career changes. Katie is working as the Program Director of a non-profit called Teens In Public Service and Mike has moved to the field of psychology and is working as the Research Coordinator for a study through University of Washington and Providence Hospital.

Ed Bowers’s life is the same. Meaning that he is still a doctoral student in Educational Psychology at Boston College. He spends his days doing statistical analyses for crazy stat classes that take all weekend.

Brian Hobbins moved to Chicago for a couple of years post-ACE and has returned home to Minneapolis, MN. There he has accepted a job with Cargill, Inc. to consult and conduct assessments around corporate social responsibility, strategic planning and communications.

After Maggie Remstad spent two years of ACE in the Valley, she realized that she was a lot less gringa than outward appearances suggest, so the ACE-Chile program was the perfect opportunity for her to continue to channel her inner latina. She loved her time teaching 4th grade English at St. George's in Santiago, and even better was the time they had off, which was spent road-tripping, backpacking, and exploring all that the South American continent has to offer. After the year and a half down in Chile, though, she became homesick and has since returned to Boulder, Colorado to be close to her family including her beautiful baby nephew. She made it back to South America this past summer to chaperone a high school service trip in rural Peru. Wanderlust seems to be a chronic condition, so who knows what continent she'll be on the next time updates come out!

RC Deer is now in his second year teaching middle school at Charlotte Country Day School after four years at his ACE school, Holy Trinity. He also coaches 8th grade girl’s basketball and 7th/8th grade boy’s baseball. He and his wife Kym welcomed their daughter Quinn Fagan Deer (their first child) into the world on October 17, 2006.

Michael Rinehart got married to Meghan Cooney (ND ‘01) on July 22nd of this year. He is teaching 6th grade science at Charlotte Country Day School, where he teaches with RC. Michael is also godfather to RC’s new baby.

Brigid (Baier) Esposito married a wonderful guy, Steve, in August. All three of her ACE Roommates (Emily Brill, Mike Zelenka, and Mike Riley) came to the wedding. She is in her sixth year of teaching and her third year at her Alma Mater (Fenwick High School) in Oak Park, Illinois. She teaches Physics and Chemistry and is about halfway through getting a Masters in Physics. Her husband is applying for dental school this year, and they are really hoping he gets in.

Molly Posedel says that life is good. She is teaching at a Catholic High School in Los Angeles, taking online classes (through ACE's new ENL program), and is renting a house in Redondo Beach with two other teachers. So in many ways, it feels like ACE for Molly all over again!

Kaileen Sanner is still living in Boston and bought a place this summer, so she’s in debt until she dies, but that's fine. She switched jobs and is now teaching Spanish at Boston College High School, the Jesuit Prep school in Boston. It's a great place and she LOVES IT! She took a group of kids to the Dominican Republic on a service trip last year and is taking a group of faculty from BC High this year to the same place to work with Haitian sugar cane workers and their families.

Adam Anderson is in his 2nd year at Dakota Wesleyan University. He’s married and has 7 kids!! BIG Catholic Family!!! …haha (he was joking) …In all honesty, he’s still single and in no rush to have kids or get married. Click here if you want to see him…http://www.dwu.edu/athletics/mgolf/coaches.htm

Tricia (Nutter) Menzhuber is still teaching religion and is the Religion Department Chair at Visitation in the Twin Cities, MN. She’s also the advisor to the school’s Voices for Justice program--student-led initiative groups (one focusing on the environment, one on service, one on social justice, one on philanthropy to Africa, and one on life issues)—which is really rewarding. She recently went to Michigan on her first accreditation team to assess a Catholic school there, which was a neat opportunity and allowed her to learn a lot. She was married in February (the 18th) to her long time sweetheart, Eric Menzhuber, so she’s still a newlywed:) Aileen Socrates, Katie Earley, Nick Emanual, and Eric Amato were all able to get to MN for the wedding on the coldest weekend in 3 years. They just bought their first house in a suburb (Eagan) and have been remodeling (bathroom, kitchen), which is a chore and a learning experience. Tricia’s looking forward to continuing to meet with ACE alumni/ACE Fellowship in the Twin Cities to talk about what they can do to support Catholic education.

After selfishly reading classmates updates, Brick Maier, was overcome with a sense of obligation to share some of his adventures in a succinct manner with his ACE buddies. He is recently returned from two and half years in Dublin, where he conducted action based research on new media authoring techniques to engage marginalised communities in building literacy skills. This allowed him to coordinate an inner-city Dublin film festival, teach a film course in a local prison, and lecture in digital learning at a university. He misses Ireland, and will likely find a way back there. In about 4 weeks he is moving to Perugia in central Italy to sip coffee and practice wearing tight pants and multi-colored scarves with confidence. He is also enrolled in a university to help him learn Italian. Having benefited from the hospitality of countless friends' floors, futons, couches, and even the odd bed, he encourages anyone with an interest in visiting central Italy to stop by. Fly to Rome take the DaVinci express into Termini, find track 14 and get on the train to Assisi. He'll meet you at the station. Seriously.

Ed and Angela (Chaput) Foy are doing well in Wisconsin with their family! Ed and Angela got married over two years ago, in August 2004. Their daughter, Grace, was born in September 2005, so she just celebrated her first birthday. Ed works for Dominican High School--his third year there—where he is currently director of admissions and still able to teach one finance class. Angela graduated from Marquette Law School, and is beginning work for a firm, Halling & Cayo, S.C., doing mostly family law. She and Karena Creten (ACE 7) are still working on their ACE Fellows project, Opening Doors, Raising a Voice, which focuses on identifying local and legal resources for children with special needs in local Catholic schools. Grace is doing great; she is the love of their life and so much fun.

Casey McCluskey has been teaching computers at St. Hilary Catholic school for the past four years. She gets to be the cool specials teacher while not having to employ too much classroom management, which is brilliant. Last year, she went back to school full time as well to do her pre-med requirements and hopefully will be starting med school in Fall 2008. This past summer, she and Jess Gray spent the summer in Africa (Bar Dahir, Ethiopia) teaching English and Teaching skills at Catholic school, which was quite a cool experience.

Karen Wiener is still a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Tim and Caroline (Marino) Kuhn are doing well and are loving being parents. Tim is in his second year of law school at the University of Michigan and will be working for a Detroit firm in the summer '07. Caroline is a stay at home mom to their daughter, Leah, who is almost 19 months. They live in Ann Arbor, Michigan.