Alumni Spotlight

Education in Kenya

Education in Kenya1

Doug Granger at the Brine Academy In July, Doug Granger (Educ ’06) visited Kenya with his wife and a couple of friends to take part in a mission conference through his church in Charlottesville. While in Kenya he visited a small school in the heart of Nairobi that provides education for children living in poverty. As an assistant principal in Albemarle County, Doug brought home a vision for excellent education and a desire to make Nairobi’s South B Slums a better place. Most children who attend the Brine Academy walk to school through narrow alleyways cut through the...

An Alumni Couple Goes for Gold

An Alumni Couple Goes for Gold3

John and Shannon St. Clair John St. Clair (Col ’99) and Shannon St. Clair (Col ’99) met at the U.Va. bookstore in August 1995. “Out of 5000 freshmen, John was in two of my classes our first semester and his dorm was Lile, which was right behind my dorm Tuttle,” says Shannon. John was a football player at U.Va. for five years. In 2000, he was drafted in the third round by the Rams and both he and Shannon moved to St. Louis. Shannon worked as a marketing coordinator for a commercial real estate firm and John proposed to...

It Ain’t Easy Being Green

It Ain’t Easy Being Green1

Frogs are disappearing and Kerry Kriger (Engr ‘96) says their extinctions are a bellwether for the survival of other species and ecosystems. In 2008, he founded the nonprofit, Save the Frogs, which unifies the efforts of scientists, educators, policymakers and naturalists because “when we save the frogs, we’re protecting all our wildlife, all our ecosystems and all humans,” says Kriger. Save the Frogs campaigns against pesticides, habitat destruction and climate change. The organization and its supporters have held 143 events in 24 states and 21 countries. In the U.S., Save the Frogs has called on the Environmental Protection Agency to ban Atrazine, a...

The Case for Plain Talk0

From his experience in Texas as a judge, trial lawyer and supervisor of an 800-lawyer public agency, Kent C. Sullivan (Col ’78, Law ’82) knows the value of plain language in court cases. Sullivan, who has served as a justice for the Texas Court of Appeals in Houston, First Assistant Attorney General and a district judge, has been instrumental in working on the state’s Pattern Jury Charge Committee, a group responsible for formulating standardized jury instructions and questions for use in trials throughout the state. “There is no bigger nightmare, in my view, than finding out that you’re instructing people...

Career Change Pays Off0

Working the long hours necessary to advance at a New York law firm made Rosena Sammi (Law ’01) appreciate that life is too short not to pursue one’s passion. “I wanted to do something I truly loved,” Sammi says. “I had been taking night classes at Parsons School of Design as an outlet for my creativity, and I began to realize that I could turn my hobby into a career.” Her hobby—her passion—is jewelry design, and after a year spent developing a business plan, she launched Rosena Sammi Jewelry in January 2006. Her jewelry now is available at major...

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