Join the Club

Life at a 100% boarding school is 24/7. Between classes, Chapel, seated meals, afternoon options, flexperiences, and more, students often are on the move. But they make sure to carve out room for fun and relaxation in the form of clubs and extracurricular activities. The School bakes time into the schedule for clubs to meet on Tuesday mornings, and encourages students to go out for leadership positions in the clubs they love and to lead the creation of new clubs based on their interests and passions.

GRILL N CHILL • The Grill N Chill Club learned something quickly this year: Almost every student on campus will show up to an event that serves free food, especially after two tough years of quasi-social isolation due to Covid-19. “People our age are motivated by food and good weather,” president of the club Will Schenck ’22 joked. “And the club has definitely brought back some of the community that was lost during Covid.”

Grill N Chill might seem self-explanatory. You grill, then you chill. But at the heart of it, the club is focused on building community. “It’s all about the atmosphere created by food and Lilly ’22. “When the grill is rolling, people tend to congregate nearby and spark conversation. Often a football is thrown around, and people talk with members of our community they might not be as familiar with.”

Generously funded by the Student Activities Committee, led by Director of Activities Cabell Doswell, the club doesn’t charge for the food. “That’s not what the club is about,” according to Schenck. Students can donate to the club’s expenses, but it’s not a requirement.

Lilly and Schenck do most of the grilling. Sometimes they help train the incoming members of the club, but they mostly view it as their responsibility to make the food while others relax and enjoy the day. While it can be stressful managing the long lines, the wait times, the guests’ expectations, and more, Schenck and Lilly remain calm under pressure.

The Grill N Chill club gives students a much-needed reprieve on warm days, especially during a busy sports season in the Hummel Bowl or on a beautiful weekend afternoon on the Dalrymple patio. While it’s a lot of work to get the grill fired up and find the necessary supplies, it’s worth it at the end of the day. “As long as the grillers can find the time, everyone else will, too,” Schenck says.

HISTORY CLUB • The History Club began as a direct message on Instagram. Walter Liu ’24 was a virtual student his freshman year, beaming into his classes from Taipa, Macao, and he was hoping to get to know some like-minded friends from the other side of the world. He sent a message to his advisory brother Ian Crews ’24, who was also in his history class. Crews immediately was interested, and he’s now Liu’s vice president.

With thirty members, the History Club is divided into groups according to interests — from writing think pieces for The Chronicle to bringing in guest speakers. As vice president, Crews is responsible for finding those speakers and bringing them to The Holy Hill. He recently arranged a virtual session with his uncle Robert Crews, a Stanford University history professor, who discussed the historical context behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The club doesn’t solely focus on world history; it also has a vested interest in the School’s own history, given the richness and weight of a 182-year legacy. Five members, Damian Kearns ’23, Monte Berman ’24, James Hong ’24, Xiangyi Guo ’24, and Liu, recently took home first place at the regional event for the Virginia National History Day Contest for their video on Senator John McCain ’54: “John McCain: The Maverick Debate.”

In their movie, the students endeavored to showcase how McCain represented a generation of bi-partisan politicians. “He was less extreme on the political spectrum and considered both perspectives on both the left and the right,” Liu said. “He embodied the example of a moderate, or balanced approach to governing the country.”

“It’s easy to join clubs,” Crews realized, “but to be able to invest your time outside of school, you actually have to really enjoy the topic.” The club is fortunate to have many different history enthusiasts with a wide breadth of talents and interests. According to Liu, “That is what makes the club stronger… We have so many people able to do so many things.”

ROBOTICS • While robotics is an afternoon option during the fall season (like volleyball or photography), the robotics team puts in copious work outside of their official “season.” They often travel to weekend competitions that last all day and stay late in Baker Science Center to perfect their robots and ready their kits and notebooks. While it is a significant time commitment, the robotics team members are driven by their love for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).

Team members are responsible for designing and building a robot from the ground up, which then competes against opposing robots from other schools. On each team of two or three students, there is a programmer, a designer, a builder, and a scout. The scout is responsible for going around to each team’s robot at competitions and asking questions about what their individual group might do better. But it isn’t competitive; it’s collaborative. “We learn from each other,” sophomore Vicky Zhou said. “That’s the biggest part of it.”

Zhou first became interested in the STEM-based activity while building Legos in elementary school. “I have the basics down, but I’m not a programmer,” she stated. That’s where the rest of the team’s strengths come in. To build a competition-worthy robot, they need to work together and lean on each other’s different skill sets. As for Zhou, she likes to work with her hands, so she’s the builder. She learned to solder in computer science class in the sixth grade, and she grew up playing with circuit boards in her spare time. “It’s just a lot of fun,” Zhou told us.

Faculty advisor to the team and science teacher Dr. Kacey Meaker spoke of the benefits of being on the team for students who want to go on to jobs in STEM: “It truly gives you the skills you’ll directly need for a job.” A member of her high school robotics team, Dr. Meaker continued using those skills all the way to earning her PhD.

A standout moment for Dr. Meaker was the team’s performance during a competition earlier this year in what’s called the “autonomous” round. At the beginning of each match, the robots have an autonomous fifteen seconds, which the students work on for weeks. “It was so successful because they spent two hours every day, week after week, sitting in the room resetting and running the program and saying, ‘Okay, that didn’t work; let me tweak this one thing,’” said Dr. Meaker. Their dedication to perfecting those fifteen seconds is what keeps her and the students coming back year after year.

STUDENT INVESTMENT GROUP • The Student Investment Group (SIG) began in 2009, when H. Woltz P’04 ’05 ’10 donated an initial $25,000 for Episcopal students to learn about investing in a hands-on way, with real money at stake. Since then, the fund has grown to roughly $90,000 and enables the students to give back to communities in need.

Students cannot simply sign up for SIG. They must apply and the process is rigorous. Audrey Davies ’22 didn’t get into the group her sophomore year. It was a competitive year for membership with only a few coveted spots. "I didn't make the cut,” she said, but that only fueled her fire. Two years later, she’s the president.

Davies' dad works in investing, and all three of her brothers also are interested in the field. “I just wanted to be in the conversation,” Davies commented on her desire to get involved with SIG.

Davies' passion for the club also is intrinsically motivated. She sees her work in the group as an investment in her future self. “I want to make that passive income when I’m older.” Bound for Duke University, she plans to major in economics with a concentration in finance.

Students meet in Bryan Library to make their pitches to the rest of the group. It often gets animated with students making passionate presentations and sometimes disagreeing. “It’s always interesting,” said faculty advisor to the group and CFO Boota deButts ’76 P’08 ’10 ’12.

Their portfolio is a time capsule of what has been popular over the years since the club launched. deButts (who has been the faculty advisor to the group since 2009) likes to give them free rein. Even if he might not necessarily agree with the purchase, he will execute the buy.

Their first purchase in 2009 was Goldman Sachs, which has proved to be a very profitable move over the years. They bought shares of Boeing in 2012, and they bought into workout giant Lululemon in 2020, when office wear sales were on the decline and athleisure sales were increasing significantly. The group bought Tesla in 2018, and recently GM in 2022, because they predict a big boom with GM’s foray into electric vehicles.

The SIG also is passionate about giving back to communities. As their holdings boomed in 2021, the group earmarked $20,000 as a donation for St. Thomas, Episcopal's sister school in Haiti.