ALUMNAE PROFILE – KERI ’15 AND KATELYN ’17 HEUER
The Indefatigable Heuer Sisters Keri Heuer ’15
Katelyn Heuer ’17
Finding Their Rhythm Sisters Keri Heuer ’15 and Katelyn Heuer ’17 have a lot in common. Both are accomplished pianists who performed at Carnegie Hall. They are STEM scholars who find balance through creative outlets. They agree that new experiences at Portsmouth Abbey – though sometimes uncomfortable at first (a new sport or public speaking) – are accompaniments to their lives. Yet each is forging her own path: Keri is a PhD candidate in astrophysics at Drexel University while Katelyn recently graduated from Bucknell University with a computer science degree and is starting a job as a computer scientist at the U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center. Sitting down to talk with Katelyn and Keri, one sister’s answer often seamlessly transitions into the other’s, like musical notes coming together to form a chord. Take the recitation assignment in their respective English classes – an impactful memory for both. “I would ask to go first every single time because I was so nervous and couldn’t just sit there waiting,” Keri says. “I didn’t enjoy public speaking, and though Mrs. Bonin would challenge me to get more comfortable, she would balance that with letting me go first. I
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slowly got better and ended up really enjoying doing the recitations.” Katelyn would also ask to go first when she took the same class with Mr. Barron two years later “just to get it over with.” But, she adds, “I eventually realized that, with practice, everything was going to be ok.” It’s that approach that helped both sisters get through their respective Carnegie Hall piano performances at age 16 (even though neither got to perform first). “I was one of the oldest people there and one of the second to last to perform,” Katelyn recalls. “It was really scary, seeing people leave one-by-one and I was just standing there. But I realized I was there to share something special.”
Working in Harmony Keri and Katelyn arrived at the Abbey having mostly focused on activities that were more individual in nature for the pianists and avid readers. It wasn’t long, though, before they both learned how to use their talents for a broader purpose, even in unexpected ways. Katelyn was co-captain of the Junior Varsity Field Hockey team during her Fourth-Form year. “I wasn’t
P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL
