ENDURING GRATITUDE
A Lesson in Perseverance
A month after she arrived at Hotchkiss, Rhonda R. Trotter ’79 was ready to pack up and head home. Her mother convinced her to stick it out, and the tenacity she developed at Hotchkiss continues to serve her well in her career as a trailblazing attorney in the Los Angeles legal community. Now, she is giving back through service as a trustee and through generous gifts to the School. B Y W E N DY C A R L S O N
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H E N R H O N D A T R O T T E R arrived in Lakeville as a lower mid in 1976, she walked onto a nearly vacant campus. The snap of cool fall air was a departure from the sunny skies of Los Angeles, where she grew up. She remembers stepping out of the taxi with her suitcase in hand, finding her way to Buehler Hall, walking into her empty dorm room, and thinking,
PH OTO: WENDY C A R L S O N
At Hotchkiss, Rhonda Trotter ’79 Faltered at First; Then Her Mother Set Her Straight
‘Oh, wow, what did I sign myself up for?’” Once the campus filled with students and classes got underway, she began to feel more comfortable. Then, in mid-October, she received a dismal report card, and her spirits plummeted: two Cs, one C+, and two Ds. She was devastated. In her public school, she had been a straight-A student; suddenly, she was close to failing several
subjects. That evening, she fished a dime out of her pocket and called her mother from the payphone in her dorm. Her words came tumbling out in fits and starts: “I told her I’d done the best I could, but clearly I wasn’t capable, that these kids are smarter than me ... that I needed to come home,” she says. Her mother, a public school teacher FALL 2021
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