The Bush School

from thehead of school

Each school year begins with a sense of excitement, anticipation, and apprehension for the novel adventures ahead. Last fall, the students, faculty, and staff of The Bush School were filled with the same excitement and anticipation. However, watching the unpredictability and tumult of the prior 18 months fade into our rearview mirror, apprehension was replaced with courage.
 
Courage derives from the Latin ‘cor,’ meaning heart. The common 14th Century English use of the word (corage) meant ‘’the seat of emotions.” This seat is where we battle fears and emerge triumphant, where we make space for those who are different, and where we come together and take leaps of faith to accomplish difficult things for others’ sake.
 
Bush students face difficult tasks daily. They solve complex theorems, perform for enthusiastic audiences, scale Goat Wall bolstered only by rope and the belayer’s voice, and give their all on the field and the court to find strength and stamina they did not know they had. Bush faculty design authentic experiences in the classroom, throughout Seattle, and the Methow Valley that pique students’ passion, ignite their curiosities, and challenge them to become their best selves.
 
Throughout the year, these portraits of courage served as inspiration to our community. This collective ideal that we would persist in the face of the health and mental health pandemic and continued racial and political unrest moved the school forward in important ways.
 
As a school, we forged ahead together, attended to the needs of students and adults on campus, built new ways to connect, and reaffirmed our commitment to past traditions and educational opportunities that have been an integral part of being a student at Bush.
 
Venturing back into the wilderness, exploring the country on E-weeks and Cascades, our students again realized that the best learning comes from doing. Our theaters were alive with live music and performances that moved us to tears and lifted our spirits. We brought parents and guardians, faculty, and community members together to learn about the impact on mental health on our students and their generation during our first in-person Parent University in three years. We won championships. We published books of hope and triumph. And we celebrated our amazing faculty, staff, and students as they said good-bye to The Bush School and set their sights on new adventures.
 
Each day this year was an opportunity to redefine our purpose, recommit ourselves to the work ahead, and realize the power of being in community with each other once again. There were certainly acts of heroism and triumph throughout the year. However, Mary Anne Radmacher noted, “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.”
 
Thank you to all of you who made this year remarkable by simply deciding to try again.
Click below for ...
Letter from The Board of Trustees, Steve Rosen '84 
Letter from Experience Editor, Polly Fredlund

ExperienceFeatures

AlumniProfiles

Profile No. 1Sebastian Broussard ’18

Sebastian Broussard ’18 has become a vital part of the Seattle wheelchair ruby scene and making a name for himself nationally as one of the top players. 

Profile No. 2Tia Ho ’13

Fresh from graduating college in 2017, Tia Ho ’13 was faced with a choice: jump into the workforce, or pursue a path of self-discovery? Tia chose the latter, making the decision to move to Vietnam, a country she had never visited. 

Profile No. 3Anna Singer ’12

Since graduating Bush, Anna Singer ’12 has followed a courageous career  path that now has her working as a pediatric mental health specialist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, making a meaningful impact on many lives.

AroundCampus

InMemoriam

Below reflects The Bush School  Leaders, Faculty, and Staff from June 2021 and May 2022 that passed away. Please refer to the 2022 Experience Magazine for the list of Bush alums that have passed away. Please accept our deepest apologies if someone is inadvertently missing from this list, and contact alumni@bush.edu if you would like to share a memory or a treasured story of your friend or classmate. 
 


ClassNotes

1970s

List of 3 items.

  • Cornelia Duryée ’77

    Cornelia Duryée ’77 directed and released the film Portal Runner, which was recently recommended by The New York Times. You can watch it—and her four other films—at www.kairos-productions.com. 

  • Michael Hurshell ’77

    Michael Hurshell ’77 has taught conducting at the Music University (Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber) since he moved to Dresden, Germany, in 2002. In 2007 he became music director of the New Jewish Chamber Philharmonic (Neue Jüdische Kammerphilharmonie), an orchestra that was formed to revive the forgotten music written by persecuted Jewish composers and that calls Dresden’s New Synagogue home. 
     

  • Anne Gorsuch ’78

    Anne Gorsuch ’78 has such fond and grateful memories of Sis Pease, whose classes were one of the inspirations for her graduate work in history. Anne had twenty-five deeply satisfying years working as a historian of the Soviet Union and an academic leader at the University of British Columbia. Curious about how to better support deeper meaning, more perspective, and clearer purpose for herself and others, she also trained as an integral coach. Anne took early retirement in 2019 to open a coaching practice. Learn more at www.annegorsuch.com.

    • Michael Hersell

1980s

List of 1 items.

  • Claire Dederer ’85

    Claire Dederer ’85 is the author of two critically acclaimed memoirs: Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning and Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses, which was a New York Times best seller and has been translated into eleven languages, optioned for television by Warner Bros., and adapted for the stage. Claire will release her next work in 2023—a nonfiction book called Monsters based on her 2017 essay for The Paris Review, “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?” The essay went globally viral and has repeatedly been cited as one of the most influential and insightful pieces of writing on the Me Too movement to date.

    Dederer is a long-time contributor to The New York Times, and her work has also appeared in The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The Nation, Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle, Real Simple, Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, Slate, Salon, and many other publications. She is currently on the faculty of the creative writing Master of Fine Arts program at Pacific University. She has two children, Lucy and Willie, and lives in Seattle.

    • Karis Campbell ’94

1990s

List of 5 items.

  • Benjamin Lukoff ’93

    Benjamin Lukoff ’93 has been senior web producer for Seattle Children’s Hospital for almost thirteen years and has two children with his wife, Jenni Ross: Ivy (seven) and Lev (three). As a creative outlet during the pandemic, Benjamin created a blog called Writes of Way (www.writesofway.org), which explores the history of Seattle street names. Look for mention of The Bush School in his article about Republican Street!

  • Steve Banks ’94 

    Steve Banks ’94 is founder and president of Banks Sports Ventures, where since 2010 he has been a business manager to professional athletes. Among others, his clients have included NBA players Jamal Crawford, Rodney Stuckey, Peyton Siva, and current projected 2022 lottery pick Marjon Beauchamp. Steve is also head of sports at Mind Riot Entertainment, where he is bringing the worlds of sports and entertainment together. Lastly, Steve graduated this spring from Georgetown University with a Master’s degree in sports industry management. He has two children, Alfred III (six) and Christian (three) with his wife, Maryjane Banks.

  • Karis Campbell ’94

    Karis Campbell ’94 wrote, directed, and acted in the short film Tomorrow, which she hopes “opens the eyes and quiets the minds of our viewers long enough to process a deeper awareness of how each one of us filters information and how generating unsupported narratives can lead us down dangerous paths, paved with our own narrow assumptions.” The film was nominated for and won multiple audience awards, and Karis and her team recently released a companion piece that continues the conversations that were sparked during their festival run. Learn more at www.tomorrowthemovie.com.

  • Kate Bayley ’96

    Kate Bayley ’96 is an actor and producer at Exit 54 Films, producing short and long content for local and national organizations. Some of her films and clients include The Glamour and the Squalor, Wolf Haven International, Beyond Type 1, Vroom, Airlift NW, Dexcom, Crohns and Colitis Foundation, the Huntington’s Disease Society of America, and Sonic Evolution. Kate produced a documentary with fellow alum Liz (Weber) McConnell ’96 and Claire Bigbie ’96 that followed the lives of seven individuals or families affected by Huntington’s Disease called Alive and Well. Kate is currently prepping to begin shooting a documentary following a unique wolf pack in Montana.

    Recently, she co-hosted The Bush School’s annual fundraiser, Celebrate Bush, with alums Alice (Ryland) ’89 and Karim ’89 Lessard. Kate is a parent to two Bush students, Dorothy Grey ’28 and Finley ’31.

  • Ben Ryan ’97

    Ben Ryan ’97 is an independent journalist in New York City covering science and health care for outlets such as The New York Times, The Guardian, NBC News and the Thomson Reuters Foundation. People are often excited to learn that he’s interviewed Dr. Fauci several times. See what else he’s been up to at benryan.net or @benryanwriter on Twitter.

    • Tiffany Lewis ’00

2000s

List of 11 items.

  • Tiffany Lewis ’00

    Tiffany Lewis ’00 launched her company, Cookies With Tiffany, in June 2020. A quick success—within months she was shipping cookies both locally and across the country—Tiffany jumped on an opportunity to renovate a storefront space in Madrona and opened a brick-and-mortar Cookies With Tiffany location in February 2022. 

  • Molly Kent ’02

    Molly Kent ’02 is now front end engineer II at Flexe.

  • Whitney Phillips ’02

    Whitney Phillips ’02 was nominated for a 2022 Grammy Award for her work as a songwriter and producer on Justin Bieber’s album, Justice. The nomination is her third since 2019. Whitney moved to L.A. after graduating from Bush, where she attended Loyola Marymount University. Just a few years after graduating, she wrote a piano ballad with Swedish producer Harry Sommerdahl, which was picked up by Lil Wayne and cut into a track called “Hello,” featuring him and Christina Milian. The release led to Whitney securing a publishing deal with BMG and then Clio Massey’s Work of Art, and she’s since written songs for artists including Christina Aguilera, Kylie Minogue, Celine Dion, Red Velvet, Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber.

  • Nikki Scott ’03

    Nikki Scott ’03 was promoted to implementation consultant III at Avalara after just a year with the company.

  • Luke Barry ’04

    Luke Barry ’04 and his wife, Jenny, welcomed a son, Lukas Hudson Barry, this March.

  • Emily Henke ’05

    Emily Henke ’05 is the executive director of the Oregon Public Health Institute. She was named to the DeBeaumont Foundation’s National “40 Under 40 in Public Health” list in 2021 in recognition for her work responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, diversifying the public health workforce, and advancing health equity in Oregon, Washington, and California.

  • Jasmine (Jarvis) Klock ’05

    Jasmine (Jarvis) Klock ’05 and her husband, Daniel, welcomed a daughter, Eloise, in December.

  • Liz Lewis Symington ’07

    Liz Lewis Symington ’07 and her husband, Mark, welcomed a son, Thomas, in December.

  • Lucas Epling ’08

    Lucas Epling ’08 was promoted to senior sales manager–charter schools and early childhood education at Amazon Business.

  • Max McGrath-Horn ’08

    Max McGrath-Horn ’08 accepted a new position as senior climate finance advisor at Chemonics International.

  • Charlotte Scott ’08

    Charlotte Scott ’08 completed her Ed.M. at Oregon State University and accepted a position at her undergraduate alma mater, Whitman College, as the care coordinator in the Dean of Students Office.

2010s

List of 12 items.

  • Charlotte Hechler ’10

    Charlotte Hechler ’10, MSW, LCSW, is now a trauma therapist at Children’s Advocacy Services of Greater St. Louis at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.

  • Chloe Cross ’11

    Chloe Cross ’11 is a surgery intern at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and will begin an interventional radiology residency this July.

  • Thomas Russell ’11

    Thomas Russell ’11 is now executive director at the YMCA Silicon Valley. After graduating from Bush in 2011, Thomas attended the University of Washington, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in art history. While there, Thomas put the lifeguard certification he earned during AMPS to use, working at a Seattle YMCA pool. Thomas became the director of aquatics a few years later.

    Thomas accepted a senior program director position with the YMCA in San Jose in 2016 and has been there since. Now, in his role as the executive director at the YMCA, Thomas’s scope far exceeds aquatics programs.

  • Ari Naggar ’14

    Ari Naggar ’14 is now senior program manager for residential energy Products at Tesla.

  • Emma Dubery ’15

    Emma Dubery ’15 is now the Annual Giving Manager at The Bush School.

  • Benjamin Cape ’16

    Benjamin Cape ’16 accepted a position as software engineer at Anduril Industries.

  • Shyanne Yellowbird ’16

    Shyanne Yellowbird ’16 began working at Amazon Web Services straight out of college, and has recently accepted a role with Amazon Music as community operations manager on the AMP project. The new role, which allows her to pursue her interests in entertainment, means relocating to L.A. She also works on creating music in her downtime, and has experimented with launching her own sustainable fashion line. Shyanne shared that overall, she plans to continue exploring different business and creative ventures while she’s young and can take risks.

  • Katherine deCourcy ’17

    Katherine deCourcy ’17 accepted a position as research assistant at the Economic Policy Institute.

  • Rumi Robinson ’18

    Rumi Robinson ’18 was selected to join the YouTube Black Voices Fund Creator Class of 2022 as one of 135 of the most popular Black creators and designers on the platform, recognized for their innovative and creative work.

    While studying at Bush and since graduating from The George Washington University with a Bachelor’s degree in communications in 2022, he has grown his own business, creating weekly original video content for over 102,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, imuRgency. 

  • Eve Muratore ’19

    Eve Muratore ’19 is now the current events writer at the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review. This fall, she will enter her senior year at Columbia University, where she will earn a Bachelor of Arts in political science and sociology. As an undergraduate student she has been on the Dean’s List and has or continues to hold several titles, including human resources director of Kappa Alpha Theta Epsilon, president of CU Women in Law and Politics, business team member of Columbia Undergraduate Law Review, staff writer at Columbia Political Review, and member of the Columbia Pre-Law Society.

  • Kalan Woods-Torrez ’19

    Kalan Woods-Torrez ’19 was admitted to the University of Edinburgh’s veterinary school and will begin her studies there this August.

  • Elise Anstey ’20

    Elise Anstey ’20 accepted a summer 2022 Boeing communications intern position.


The Bush SchoolSupport Us

Donor SpotlightDeciding Now to Give to The Future

There is no greater demonstration of trust in an organization and its mission than a family making plans to ensure its future. Legacy or planned giving is the act of including a charitable organization in your estate plans. It is a contribution that is arranged in the present and allocated at a future date. There are over fifty families at The Bush School who are members of the Helen Taylor Bush Society, which was established to recognize and thank all those who have chosen to honor Bush in their estate plans.   
Emily ’94 and Aaron Alhadeff have made the decision to include Bush in their estate plans. Their gift is grounded in their passion for the school. Their philanthropy is grounded in Judaism, was modeled by their parents, and started when they were young.  Aaron remembers vividly going to Sunday school and, before getting out of the car, having his mom or dad give him a dollar to give Sadaqah. He said “those roots at a very young age make a lasting impression.” Once Emily and Aaron had children of their own, they wanted to be sure philanthropy was part of their ecosystem at home, too.
They talk openly with their children, Max ’24 and Charlie ’27, about philanthropy. “It’s like a Monday or a Thursday,” Emily explained. “Giving is just part of life. And it makes the most sense to give to the places you’re most connected to. It also makes sense to give to places where the work inspires you. That is what our parents taught us, and hopefully that is what we are teaching our children.”
One of the things that inspires Aaron and Emily is Bush’s commitment to access and diversity. But this, Aaron pointed out, takes investment. They believe there is no better way to show their gratitude than by investing in the school’s future so that more children can access a transformative education.
Emily reiterated that “between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., we trust the school to help raise our children, and they are doing a fantastic job. The place where our kids spend the majority of their time so perfectly complements our values and hopes and dreams for them. There’s no tangible thank you strong enough. This place has significantly impacted our lives in a positive way. And I just think of all the mentors and teachers, tears and laughter and joy and friendships that these kids are going to have for hopefully the rest of their lives.”
Aaron said that “because Bush has had people before us who have thought of the school in their legacy plans, the school has had the ability to invest in our kids. And, therefore, if we have the ability, we need to pay that forward. Having an endowment that is built up and strong will allow the school to be even stronger in future generations.” 
Deciding to include an organization in your estate plans is powerful and relatively easy. It does not have to be a complicated matter. As Aaron explained, “you check a box and have a twenty-minute conversation with an advisor or attorney.”  
“And,” he said, “it can be changed. This is just, at this moment in time, what feels right.” Emily further explained, “when you think about legacy, it is the arc of your life. And, for us, a big, gigantic asterisk is The Bush School. And we feel our legacy should reflect that.”

Event SpotlightAlumni Day 2022

More than 80 alums and friends spanning the classes of 1967 through 2020 returned to campus for Bush Alumni Day on Saturday, June 11, 2022. The former classmates gathered in the Urban Courtyard for an afternoon filled with laughter, reminiscing, and campus tours, as well as recording their memories on video  to lend their voices to the telling of the 100 year history of The Bush School.
The Class of 1972 Celebrates Their 50th Reunion
The Class of 1972 celebrated their 50th reunion this year. Although they were unable to celebrate their reunion during Alumni Day, Board of Trustees President Steve Rosen ’84 led a toast in honor of the class. The toast acknowledged the many historical moments in Bush history that coincided with the graduates earning their diplomas, including that theirs was the first to class to graduate a male student, Mohamed Souaiaia (The Bush School began enrolling boys in the Upper School in 1970.)
Alumni of the Class of 1972: Norm Armbruster, Lisa Burgett, Kenan Block, Janet (Taylor) Boyd, Katie (Weeks) Bracilano, Nancy (Burns) Clark, Terri (Huff) Constant, Huberta DeWitty, Lisa Driscoll, Candace (Kennedy) Filer, Maya (Hofer) Hauswirth, Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, Robin Nellist, Karen Nordeng, Susie Potter-Heuscher, Elizabeth Pugh, Valerie (Ove) Roberts, Theiline (Wright) Rolfe, Mohamed Souaiaia, Sunny Speidel, Ann (Thomas) Walters, Kathy Whele, Merrill Wright.
Experience the full 2022 edition of Experience by clicking here for more articles, photos and content.
Please contact communications@bush.edu with any corrections, errors or updates.
The Bush School
The Bush School is an independent, coeducational day school located in Seattle, WA enrolling 710 students in grades K–12. The mission of The Bush School is to spark in students of diverse backgrounds and talents a passion for learning, accomplishment, and contribution to their communities.

3400 East Harrison Street, Seattle WA 98112    (206) 322-7978
The Bush School does not discriminate in matters of employment, recruitment, admissions, or administration of any of its programs on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national or ethnic origin, disability, gender, or sexual orientation. In addition, The Bush School does not discriminate in matters of employment on the basis of age or marital status.
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