Little Girl Pals Now Doctors in the House

Little Girl Pals Now Doctors in the House

By Carina Elgin

Six-year-olds Megan Cassidy and Katherine “Kaki” Elgin quickly became best friends and soon were thriving in the creatively cluttered first-grade classroom at the old Northwestern Elementary School in Rectortown in 1997.

Now called Claude Thompson Elementary, the long brick building is one of Fauquier County’s eleven public elementary schools. The respect and friendship between the two girls and their first-grade teacher, Kathleen “Kay” Piper, has lasted 22 years. Recently, they were all re-united on Zoom, celebrating both young women earning doctorate degrees.

Megan now admits to being a bit out of sorts starting first grade, having just moved from Pennsylvania to The Plains, where her dad was huntsman for the Orange County Hounds. However, she and Kaki, a dairy farmer’s daughter, bonded quickly. Outside the classroom, they spent countless hours playing with their plastic Breyer horses and real ponies on the farm.

Mrs. Piper’s classroom was a magical haven. Books were everywhere, with a quiet reading nook full of pillows. There was art on the walls, and a captivating craft table in back of the room.

“Mrs. Piper taught us to love reading,” Megan recalled. “We would sit in a big circle and each read a sentence out of a book.”

And Mrs. Piper’s “extras” also made learning so much fun. Kaki still remembers her first time Kaki Elgin and Megan Cassidy (in cap and gown).

tasting star fruit. Megan recalled trying maple sugar candy. The whole class learned to knit, and both girls remember Mrs. Piper discussing great artists like Georgia O’Keefe. They learned about different cultures and holidays, and both were most impressed by Santa Lucia’s visit, burning candles and all.

The girls stayed friends as Megan went to Highland in Warrenton, and the University of Kentucky, where she studied animal science. She worked as a veterinarian tech, and persevered in applying to vet schools, her childhood goal.

Kaki went to Fauquier High for one year, before heading to Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. She did her undergraduate degree at Princeton in politics, worked at the Brookings Institution, and attended Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs for her PhD, fitting in plenty of international travel.

The girls always stayed in touch.

Earlier this year, Megan became an equine veterinarian, with a “virtual” graduation. She watched with her family on a big screen in their Culpeper home as professors and fellow graduates from the Western University of Health Science, College of Veterinary Medicine, in Pomona, California were creatively honored and celebrated. And she was totally surprised when the photographer her mother booked was actually her best friend—Kaki.

In October, a few months later, Kaki used Zoom to defend her PhD dissertation from Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. She was upstairs in her family’s farmhouse, while far-flung examining professors and the audience looked on. Mrs. Piper was in that “gallery,” listening to the discussion of Russian foreign policy.

They even held a Zoom “after-party,” with family and friends from all walks of Kaki’s life, including Mrs. Piper in Warrenton and Dr. Cassidy in Lexington, with a stethoscope around her neck.

Dr. Megan Cassidy now practices at the highlyregarded Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington. Dr. Katherine Elgin is doing a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Study in Washington.

Quite an accomplishment for two young girls from the little school in Rectortown, and their remarkable first-grade teacher.