Nearly twenty years ago (my god — an adult lifetime ago), I attended a summer program called Shad Valley for high schoolers with an overachiever tendency. What of them/us since?
We were 16/17-year-old kids with a putative tendency toward entrepreneurship / engineering. We spent a month at a faraway university campus getting a brief taste of what classical liberal education might have been like: dormitories, science/computer labs, business lectures, arts, physical education. It was a wonderful, amazing experience for a geeky kid like young Frank – and great even for the similar extroverts. Then we returned to our home towns and generally worked for a sponsoring company on a brief summer internship. In my case, this was at IBM Toronto, under the influence of one Phil Ford (sadly taken in 2002, cancer). It helped start my career. This was to be no ordinary summer camp, but someplace to jump-start achievement. But how well does it work? What happened to everyone? Shouldn’t a bunch be at least a little bit famous?
What happened to everyone? It’s hard to say. Googling most of the closest kids’ names comes up with empty results. Marriage-related name change could account for some missing data. Other times, a name is too common, but none of the top bunch match an aged face from the past. Almost none of them connect themselves to Shad Valley. But there are at least a few clear hits. There’s a university prof (hi, Alan!); an artist (hi, Lalita!); a software entrepreneur/PhD (hi, Jeff!); a journalist (hi, N’Gai!); an analyst (hi, Feyrouz!); maybe a few doctors.
Maybe the world is simply too big for even ordinary overachievers to become google-level famous. Maybe, like my neighbours, they are happy to keep their lives off the published ether. Surely, it is folly to relive twenty-year-old memories with just a web browser and some old photographs.
I salute you, fellow students of Shad Valley 89BC, whatever your trajectories since our few weeks together so long ago.
| Alan Ableson |
| Laura Alexander |
| Neda Amani |
| Jon Bakker |
| Marc Benoit |
| David Brook |
| Rachel Carson |
| Jean Chen |
| Douglas Chow |
| Eddie Chung |
| N’Gai Croal |
| Feyrouz Damji |
| Jason Duggan |
| Mike Eby |
| Frank Eigler |
| Majid Ezzati |
| Steve Foster |
| Jennifer Gerritsen |
| David Gileff |
| Caroline Goyer |
| Lalita Hamill |
| Imran Haq |
| Karla Hopp |
| Erin Hunter |
| Erin Jeffery |
| Heidi-Lynne Jiry |
| Ed Kaine |
| Craig Kaplan |
| Aaron Kerklywich |
| Brian Kwon |
| Alex Lacoste |
| Blair Leggett |
| Steven Leong |
| Iris Li |
| Patrick Lum |
| Sarah MacPhee |
| Harjeet Manhas |
| Cameron Marr |
| Toni Martins |
| Steve Mathias |
| Bernard Merchant |
| Christi Moyle |
| Sumit Oberai |
| Jeff Oh |
| Scott Penner |
| Robbie Somers |
| Shawn Taylor |
| Stephanie Tsao |
| Jeff Tupper |
| Brad Vaillancourt |
| Lawrence Varga |
| Adriane Weller |
| Marc Wensauer |
| Darren Wooff |
| Omer Yukseker |