LIVE LIKE KERRY

Late last summer, Holderness lost its longtime chef, Kerry O’Connell, in a tragic motorcycle accident. Kerry was a pillar of the dining services team, feeding and sustaining the community from 1983 until his retirement in 2018. He was also a fixture of the school’s Out Back program for more than 10 years, providing fresh meals to adults at the program’s winter base camp deep in the White Mountains.

As this year’s juniors embarked on their own Out Back journeys, Holderness honored Kerry by naming its base camp kitchen “Kerry’s Kitchen.” Each junior was also given a sticker with the Out Back logo and the words “Live Like Kerry'' emblazoned across the top. Many students placed the stickers on their water bottles —a potent reminder of how Kerry embodied the pledge all juniors take before embarking on Out Back: to live in good fellowship with others.

“Kerry was a big, burly, Harley-riding guy. He looked tough, almost scary. But if you knew him, you knew that he was gentle and kind. He was, as they say, a big teddy bear,” said Out Back Director Randy Houseman in a Chapel talk to juniors before this year’s Out Back. “Kerry was the base camp cook. He prepared delicious food for all of the adults during the solo period of Out Back. But Kerry did not cook for the group as a whole—he cooked for each person, each individual at base camp.”

As they faced their 11-day journey through the White Mountains, Randy asked the junior class to think of Kerry on their own Out Back journeys, and try to live up to the example he set. “Kerry made us all feel special. Is that good fellowship?

I think it is,” Randy said. |

“What does 'To live in good fellowship' mean? I think that is easy. Living in good fellowship is living like Kerry. Can you live like Kerry?” – Out Back Director Randy Houseman, in a Chapel talk to juniors the night before the start of Out Back.