Lakeside Magazine
“Immersive Hands-On Education”
The 2024-2025 academic year marks the 50th anniversary of Lakeside’s Outdoor Program and 20th anniversary of its Global Service Learning Program — significant milestones for two of the school’s signature offerings. Along with the Service Learning Program, these parts of the Lakeside curriculum represent experiential education at its most powerful. This issue offers a taste of the fruits of that immersive, hands-on education, including, importantly, stories, reflections, and perspectives from the students and alumni who were moved by their experiences.
“Hold on a minute,” one student said. “We decided to do this. It’s on us.” It was the shortest statement of personal responsibility — and sign of growth — either adult could ever contrive. Nothing else needed to be said.”— Evelyn Spence ’94, from “Uncharted Territory”
Elsewhere in the issue
A special fold-out section helps lay out the key elements of Lakeside’s two-years-in-the-making strategic plan, “Hope in Action.” The plan, in the words of Head of School Kai Bynum, “connects us to our deeply rooted values and inspires us to imagine how we can broaden our reach to make the most of the amazing community we are building.”
Readers get a peek at one of the extraordinary teaching tools in a Middle School classroom: a painted wooden storage trunk with personal contents from World War II Japanese American incarceration camps in California and Idaho. The trunk — on long-term loan at the Middle School — was owned by the grandmother of Director of Student and Family Support Jamie Asaka ’96.
Alumni spotlights include a landmark environmental victory led by Seattle attorney Laura MacColl ’73 Wishik and the return of hometown soccer star (and Seattle Sounders starter) Paul Rothrock ’17. And we share the citation that honors this year’s recipient of the Lakeside Distinguished Alumni Award, Ronnie Cunningham ’86.
Contributors
Alum board member Evelyn Callahan ’94 Spence (“Uncharted Territory,” Page 22 and “The Narrative Landscape,” Page 28) writes frequently for national magazines about adventure travel, fitness, health, and the outdoors. For the sake of a story, she has kayaked to first ski descents throughout Alaska’s Prince William Sound, traversed Slovakia’s High Tatra Mountains on telemark gear, completed the Bataan Memorial Death March in New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, and skied with reindeer herders in northern Mongolia. She has a B.A. in art history from Williams College and a master of fine arts in fiction from Brooklyn College, where she was editor-in-chief of The Brooklyn Review.
Belami Cardenás (“The Heart of the Andes,” Pages 23-25) is a professional photographer based in Cusco, Perú. You can see more of his work on Instagram at @belamicardenas
Choreographer and photographer Roy Arauz (“Service Perspectives,” Pages 40-41) shot this arresting background image in “Jane’s Fighting Garden” during a 9th grade service-learning day in October 2024 at the Lake City Collective Center in northeast Seattle.
Born and raised in Seattle, Beniam Yetbarek (“Alumni Events,” Page 42) is an artist inspired by a dedication to storytelling, cultural exploration, and activism. His work has been showcased in galleries around the world, including Paris, Ethiopia, New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, and has been featured by Africa News, BBC, Fox13 Seattle, Converge Media, and KOMO.
Service Learning Coordinator Aly Counsell-Torres ’13 (“What Does It Mean To Be a Good Community Member?,” Page 38) is passionate about building connections across communities. She brings a variety of experiences to her role, including as a mentor to college students, a criminal defense paralegal, and a teacher for refugee youth.
Tom Reese (“Made You Look,” Page 2; still-life photos, Page 3, 26; “Connie’s Trunk,” Page 6; “Chip Mehring,” Page 13; “Class Connections,” Page 45) shows up throughout this issue. A long-time Lakeside magazine and campus photographer and occasional substitute Lakeside photography teacher, Reese is an independent photographer and editor in Seattle whose work as a photojournalist has been nominated for Pulitzer Prizes in breaking news photography, feature photography, and explanatory reporting, and also honored by World Press Photo, Pictures of the Year International, and International Conservation Photography Awards. An ongoing documentary environmental essay of his, “Choosing Hope: Reclaiming the Duwamish River,” was on recent exhibit at the Burke Museum of History and Industry . His most recent exhibition, “tʔáwi: Creek of Hope,” highlights his work along West Seattle’s Longfellow Creek.
Editor: Jim Collins
Director of Communications: Amanda Darling
Alumni Relations News: Amanda Campbell
Art Director: Carol Nakagawa
Editorial Assistant: Lorelei S. ’25
Copy Editor: Mark Watanabe
Proof Readers: Judy Bauer, Kathleen Triesch Saul
Fall/Winter 2024 issue writers: Lorelei S. ’25, Rohan D. ’25, Kat Yorks, Leslie Schuyler, Kai Bynum, Evelyn Spence ’94, Jim Collins, Aly Counsell-Torres ’13, Samara N. ’26, Elizabeth Shepherd, Emerson K. ’27, Connor D. ’27
Fall/Winter 2024 issue artists and photographers: Erick Ingraham, Tom Reese, David O. Smith ’04, Amber P. ’25, Jordan Kines, Lia S. ’25, Chloe Collyer, Scott Malagold, Belami Cárdenas, Roy Arauz, Beniam Yetbarek, Brady L. ’26
Lakeside magazine is published twice yearly, in winter and summer, by the communications office of Lakeside School. To view past issues, visit us on issuu.
Circle of Excellence Awards from the Council for Advancement & Support of Education
| 2024 | Independent and International School Alumni Magazines BEST OF CASE DISTRICT VIII |
| 2023 | Independent and International School Alumni Magazines GOLD MEDAL |
| Robert Sibley Magazine of the Year FINALIST |
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| 2022 | Single-Topic Issue, CASE District VIII GOLD MEDAL “Black @ Lakeside” |
Send Us Your News.
We’ll put it in ink!
Instagram and Facebook are great for sharing your latest and greatest, though the screen-life of news on those scrolling digital platforms is typically measured in seconds. Share it with us, too — we’re interested in all kinds of news, big or small, professional and personal, chance meetings, recent adventures, new hobbies, new babies(!) — and we’ll print it in soy-based ink on FSC-certified 70# Accent Opaque Text* for all of the Lakeside family to see. Reach all of your classmates, including those you’re fond of but not “following.” Become part of the record.
Share it with us at alumni@lakesideschool.org. Our Spring/Summer issue deadline for “Class Notes” and “In Memoriam” is April 14, 2025. Photos, too. (And remember: If you send in your baby announcement and photo, we’ll outfit your little lion with a Lakeside bib.) Thanks for sharing!
* That’s a pleasing, uncoated paper stock made from responsibly managed forests. Photos on this stock are reproduced with especially high fidelity.
Talk to us!
Lakeside magazine welcomes your suggestions and letters to the editor. Please send them to magazine@lakesideschool.org or via social media.
