Tag: home

Categories
Family and Community

Room 110 for Rent

By John Trout
Fourth Grade Teacher, Lakehill Preparatory School

This is my fourteenth year teaching fourth grade at Lakehill. Same hall for fourteen years.  Same room for fourteen years. Same desk for fourteen years. It’s been my home away from home. In fact, I’ve “lived” in room 110 longer than any of my actual homes over the years! It has been a familiar, comfortable place for me even when other parts of my life have been in transition.

Of course, the room itself has changed. New windows, new desks, new tiles, and every year, a new crop of eager learners to share this home away from home with me for a year. Together, we’ve created memories of adventure, realization, and triumph. Together, we’ve enjoyed days of excitement, accomplishment, and determination. And, peppered in amongst them, there have been days with frustration, setbacks, and uncertainty. But, like a family, we’ve been there for each other through thick and thin, making the best days even better and even the lowest days less intimidating. That’s what families do, and Lakehill has, since day one, felt like my extended family.

Fourteen years of memories, home, and family. That’s going to be hard to beat! Part of me yearns for a fifteenth year (and a sixteenth, and a seventeenth) in room 110. But, a bigger part of me is excited at the notion of new adventures, new challenges, and a hike down the road less traveled. And, that’s exactly what I’ll get next year as I take on my new role as Head of Lower School. And, I’m not losing my home-and-family-away-from-home. Instead, it’s growing! It’s always a little scary leaving behind the comfortable and familiar. But, I’ve got a huge and loving family to help me along the way.

John Trout
Categories
Alumni

Home for the Holidays

By Ray Dent
Director of Development and Alumni Relations, Lakehill Preparatory School

Regardless of one’s age or background, the concept of being home for the holidays creates a buoyant state in our minds and a warm glow in our hearts. The phenomenon was very evident last month through the twinkling eyes and big smiles at Lakehill as students, faculty, and parents anticipated a holiday break shared with family and friends. This first week back at school the halls and classrooms have been filled with cheery tales and audacious stories created from the holiday break memories.

Home gives us a place to belong. It is a comfortable place to share fond memories and build new ones. Home is a place filled with the people for whom we care most and who care most for us. In many ways, for many people, Lakehill Preparatory School is an element of home.

The community of students, parents, faculty, and staff at this school are often referred to as the Lakehill family. The size of the institution and the intensity of its many activities create profound bonds between classmates and often between their parents, as well. For most of the “Lakehill Family” there is a feeling of closeness and belonging very rare in today’s educational environment.

On January 7, twenty-eight Lakehill graduates, who are attending various universities around the country, came for an evening of Warrior Basketball and pizza. Lakehill parents made it possible for these Alumni, who were still on their respective holiday breaks from college, to spend an evening with current students and faculty, and with one another. As they hugged, laughed, cheered for the Warriors and shared their college experiences with each other, current students, and faculty, it was heartwarming to see these particular members of the Lakehill family… Home for the Holidays.

Lakehill college-age alumni gather at the January 7 basketball game.
Lakehill college-age alumni gather at the January 7 basketball game.
Categories
Family and Community

A Pause for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of the most important holidays of the year. It represents a pause in our activities to focus on the importance of goodness and family in our lives. As families, we actually take time from our hectic and active schedules to slow the pace, consider the wonders of our lives, and to pass on oral histories of our place and role in the world. The determination of our elders, to share the lessons they have learned, should be a continuing signal to us of how important our family history is and how it has shaped our lives and, in many cases, our opportunities.

This special time of the year encourages all of us to thank others for the things they do to have a positive impact on our lives. All of us at Lakehill Prep are fortunate that you have chosen to share your children with us. Each of us on the faculty and staff also chose this school, because we want children to find successes and to be prepared for the opportunities and challenges of the future. This school is a special place for children, and I appreciate everyone who gives of their time, energy, and finances to provide moments of “specialness” for all who enter our doors.  In keeping with the season of thanking those people who enhance our lives, special thanks goes to my wife, Virginia, who has continued to be understanding of the commitment I have to the profession of helping children.

I encourage you, during this season of Thanksgiving, to take a moment to thank your child for making your life challenging, exciting, and meaningful. And when an elder starts to recite that story you have heard many times, pause to remember that they probably had a great deal to do with making you who you are today and how you will handle the challenges of tomorrow.  This time in our lives will never pass this way again, so let’s enjoy it to the fullest.

Best wishes to you and your family for a thankful and memorable Thanksgiving season.

 

Categories
Middle School Traditions

Magical Moments Away From Home

By Kaye Hauschild
Middle School Coordinator, Lakehill Preparatory School

I am excited! Next week, I will share an adventure with my faculty members and our Middle School students. We are traveling – east, west, and south – to give our students an opportunity to have a first-hand walk through natural and historical sites, taking our classrooms on the road. As the students are studying their packing lists, we chaperones are looking forward to the magical moments we are going to share with our classes.

What will those moments look like? There is the thrill of watching fifth graders traverse the ropes course at Mo Ranch with burgeoning confidence, filled with the joy of conquering a challenge.

There is the fun for sixth graders of experiencing life as a Texas pioneer, making rope and weaving cloth, and standing in the places where the heroes of the Texas Revolution fought for freedom.

For seventh graders, there is the sheer magnificence of the hiking from the rim to the base of Palo Duro Canyon and horseback riding in the canyon itself.

And our eighth graders will walk into the past with experiences at the battlefield at Shiloh, in the hallways of Central High in Little Rock, and the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

For all of us, the memories of these adventures will last long after the trips are back home.

Categories
Family and Community

Home Is Where The Heart Is

By Lara Gajkowski
Assistant Head of School, Lakehill Preparatory School

Home is where the heart is . . .

This past weekend my family had a wonderful homecoming reunion in celebration of my mother’s 90th birthday. Sisters, husbands, brothers, wives, children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews gathered in McKinney for a new kind of family homecoming. My mother, the matriarch of the family, has always been the glue that has kept my huge family together. Her home was always welcoming, lively, and a place of stimulating conversation as well as raucous play. My mother no longer owns her own home but rather shares a home with me and my husband Russ. So, though my siblings and I had a few moments of trepidation about amassing so many people outside my mother’s home for a weekend, we forged a new path, a new tradition. We all stayed in McKinney for the weekend and a most excellent time was had by all, far exceeding our expectations.

Most every morning I have the pleasure of traveling to what has become my home away from home for the past fourteen years, Lakehill.  My connection to my Lakehill family is deep and I revel daily in the accomplishments of the members who share or have shared this home. Tomorrow, Lakehill will be having its wonderful homecoming reunion in celebration of its 40th anniversary. Students, alumni, parents, grandparents, friends, family members, and faculty will gather together to celebrate the successes Lakehill has had over the years. Yet, while we celebrate the past, we forge ahead with the new. Amongst just a few moments of trepidation, this year the students, alumni, and faculty forged a new path, a new tradition, a homecoming parade. The planning and implementation of our parade, including floats, the homecoming court, and alumni homecoming queens, has created some wonderful moments of bonding across the generations and some memories to be laughed about in the years to come. This new experience has far exceeded our expectations.

In many ways, I see a kindred relationship between my Lakehill family and my biological family.

The Lakehill experience is the glue that keeps us all connected much as my mother has been the glue that has kept my family connected.

Home is where the heart is and Lakehill has our hearts. See you at the homecoming parade, pep rally, and game!