HPEF’s latest effort, a series of KCS alumni profiles, is meant to show current students the variety of futures that await them and inform Keene community members of the cool things their fellow Keene natives are doing with their lives.

Barbara Strowger, former longtime HPEF board member, interviews the alumni and writes the profiles.

“I got to thinking that there’s so many of our graduates who have gone on different paths. They’re not just this or just that,” she said. “What I wanted to do was to make the community and also our current students aware of the different paths that our former students, our alumni, had taken and what different things they’re doing.”

Strowger asks the alumni two simple questions and writes up their answers in the form of a Facebook post, which she also posts on Nextdoor Keene:

1) What was your path to what you are doing now?

2) What influence did living in Keene or going to KCS have on your decisions?

The idea came from Strowger’s conversations around town.

“I have been involved in the school since I moved here full-time, in one way or another, quite consistently,” she said. “I did a lot of volunteering in the school, particularly with this kind of range of alumni that I’ve gotten their profiles so far, and I just, whenever I see a parent of a student I used to know, I always ask how they are and what they’re doing. I think that’s really where I thought, ‘Wow, this little school realy produces a lot of interesting people.'”

So far, Strowger has written six profiles, with the hope of writing plenty more. She’s interviewed Morgan Goodwin, the senior director of the Sierra Club’s Angeles Chapter; Megan Papineau, a helicopter flight nurse; Alexandra Oliva, a novelist; Emma Nye, an athletic trainer and instructor; Ryan Hathaway, owner of Hometown Electrical Systems in Elizabethtown; Madeline Hooper, a sports media advertising account manager; and Torey Patenaude, the community engagement and outreach manager at Champlain Area Trails. To read the profiles, visit High Peaks Education Foundation’s Facebook page at tinyurl.com/2n7sjut

Strowger said she’s always on the hunt for more alumni who are willing to share their stories with her and the greater KCS community.

In its day-to-day work, HPEF provides grants to teachers and students at Keene Central School. In the past, it has paid for everything from clubs like the Science Olympiad team to trips to Europe to a marine biology class’s trip to the ocean. To donate to HPEF, visit the Adirondack Foundation’s website at adirondackfoundation.org.