Civics and English teacher,
Kathryn Phillips, is new at Central
High School this year, but she has been teaching for 15 years. Phillips spent the early years of her life in Chicago, but right before high school, her parents split and she headed up to Traverse City. “Once I got to St. Francis High School, I was very outgoing. I talked a lot and made a ton of friends,” remembers Phillips. “In fact, I’m still friends with them now.” After college, she started working as an account executive in Dallas, Texas. “I had clients and I would write articles for them, try to get them positive media, and get radio stations and news stations to say good things about them,” she explained. “When I worked in public relations, there was a ton of traveling, so when I got married and had kids it was too much. I still stayed with the company, but just did the writing from home.” A few years passed and once her kids entered school, Phillips started volunteering at their school for fun. “After doing the writing from home and volunteering for a while, I realized I wanted to do more. I went back to school to be a teacher, graduated, and the rest is history.” Just this year, Phillips started working at Central High School. “Mr. Perkins [East Middle School principal] called me just a couple of days before school started and told me I was going to be working at CHS. I cried after the phone call because I loved my job at East. The staff, kids and the community was all familiar to me. Nothing at Central was.” The start of the school year was not easy for Phillips. “For the first two weeks when we were online, I was very lonely. No one came in to talk to me because they didn’t know who I was,” she said. Phillips has come a long way in little time. She has learned two new curriculums in just days and has met tons of new staff and students. “Now that all the kids are back I’m happy and getting to know people.” Though she loves meeting new students, she has also loved seeing her former students in the hallways, especially the ones she didn’t get to say goodbye to in the spring. //
12 // BGQ // November 2020
Ben Brewer ‘24 can’t remember a time when he wasn’t playing tennis. “I’ve been playing since kindergarten or first grade,” he recalled. The transition from Woodland to CHS has been easier because of his involvement on Central’s tennis team. “I have friends from tennis that I knew from a couple years ago,” he explained. With so much happening at the beginning of this school year, it was good for Brewer to have tennis there. “I can’t say [the transition] has been perfect but it hasn’t been terrible,” he expressed. Brewer enjoyed the experience he got from finally trying competitive tennis. “The tennis season finished a few weeks ago and I was glad and also a bit sad. Coming from a school where the only sport is cross country it was fun to try a sport that I had been playing for a long time, but never played competitively.” Brewer does not only focus on tennis, but he also takes part in other activities. “I like swimming and recently we got a ping pong table so I’ve been playing on that a lot,” he described. “I go on hikes with my family a lot too.” A perfect day for Brewer would be to “do nothing, just hang out at my house with family.” After having a busy tennis season Brewer is ready for a break. //
