Alumni Spotlight

It has been ten years since Frances Ellerbe graduated from Heathwood Hall, but she remembers certain things as if they happened yesterday.  Of course, as a “lifer” who spent 14 years on the Heathwood campus, Frances has a lot of great experiences to recall!  There was Miss Susie’s kindergarten class, participating in the PEAK outdoor program, playing the flute in the band, and remembering headmasters Bob Shirley and Steve Hickman.  Frances especially appreciated the continuity of getting to know students, teachers and the campus across many years, and experiencing some favorite Heathwood traditions from different perspectives as she advanced through the grades.  She remembers the Christmas book project, first with her middle-school “buddy,” and then later as a buddy herself.  Similarly, she loved exploring the PEAK outdoor learning space as a young student, and then later having the opportunity to help young students herself as a Peak Student Leader.  One of her fondest memories, however, was of dressing up as a 4-year-old in her Highlander best and cheering for the Homecoming parade.  She loved the event every year, but has a special memory, immortalized in a picture, of herself and her good friend Catherine Walker decked out in kilts and ready to cheer.

After graduating in 2008, Frances went west, studying at Stanford University.  She says she knew that California and its big cities would be quite different from the east coast and Columbia, and recalls being a bit nervous: “I wondered what it would be like in a big, different pond.”  Her worries were unfounded, however.  She says, “As it turns out, my worries fell away immediately; Heathwood prepared me very well.” She had such a good experience, in fact, that she ended up getting both her BS and MS in Environmental Engineering there.

Still, the call of the east coast, and Columbia, remained, and in 2013 Frances returned to Columbia to work for Woolpert, a national geospatial architecture and engineering firm.  Her focus is on stormwater...