Reflecting on her years at Hastings, Ms. Kipper stressed that “sometimes we’re all running so fast to try to do the best that we can do, and we’re constantly thinking, that we just don’t pause for a minute and just appreciate how incredibly fortunate we are. I mean I knew I was fortunate beyond belief to have this job as principal in Hastings in Farragut Middle School, and I knew that, and I knew it all along. Never took it for granted. And I think I would tell my younger self to just appreciate it even more, because it just goes by so quickly.”

For Ms. Kipper, being a principal had not been an initial career goal: “In my generation, in my house, I was really raised with a mom and dad whose goal for me wasn’t career-oriented; their goal for me was that I was going to get married and have children and that someone was going to take care of me. So I had really no idea of all of the possibilities that you have now, that my daughter had, that my grandchildren will have. My possibilities in my home—and of course I didn’t push beyond that—felt very limited. I could be a nurse, I could be a teacher, I think I thought about airline stewardess, too, but I was too short; at the time you needed to be taller. But I didn’t think in terms of career. As I got older and I broadened my own perspective, that’s when I began to understand that there were so many possibilities.”

She had been working as a teacher in New York City when her “whole situation changed dramatically,” and she “actually needed to move forward financially in ways that teaching wouldn’t afford me...the opportunity [for the position of principal] came up and there was a significant increase in money, so it was something I felt I needed to do. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it, but I knew that I needed to do it. And sometimes when there’s this driving need, that sort of perpetuates and pushes you forward.”

She ended up landing a job in Hastings, and it soon occurred to her that “while there was a need for me to make this move financially, I needed to support my daughter and myself, it was ‘Oh my goodness, I never would have thought of doing this, and how incredibly lucky I am.’ And that’s why I stayed for 21 years.”

In fact, Ms. Kipper also realized that “students taught me how to be a better mother. Being a mother enabled me to have a perspective. So I think gaining the perspective of being a mom and a principal and a teacher enabled me to understand children in a broader context than I would have.”

One of Ms. Kipper’s proudest moment was when FMS received the Blue Ribbon in 2007. “The moment that Farragut Middle School was recognized on a national level, that was when really the community came together. There were celebrations, we were able to showcase our children in ways that they should be showcased; it was a moment in time that I will always remember, I believe our faculty will always remember and the kids at that time will always remember.”

She is also very proud of the Courageous Conversations class in FMS. She said, “Unfortunately there were a few incidents that happened in Hastings just like they do happen across the country, so a group of teachers came to recognize that we really needed to be addressing these issues head-on and created the Race Matters Committee. And out of that came the notion of these Courageous Conversation classes. I just think that our community supported it, there was a need to really develop curriculum around race and racial literacy and we did it. Our teachers did it, they developed curriculum and now it’s a requirement—it’s in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, and it’s groundbreaking and our children are finding it incredibly useful.”

Senior Friends day was also one of her favorite events in FMS. When she first arrived at FMS she remembers “looking out into the audience thinking about my own grandparents. And then, this last Senior Friend Day and the year before that, it occurred to me that all of a sudden I had become a senior, and I was one of the senior friends. I was looking out, and I was no longer thinking of my grandma, my grandpa—I was thinking that I was a grandma and I could be sitting on the other side of the audience. That was quite poignant for me.”

Ms. Kipper thinks her biggest mission has been to build community and make FMS a “family.” She said, “You build community one step at a time. You build community living your values and by living the values of caring about your colleagues, by caring about children, and by demonstrating that every single day, every single moment; being a role model, there’s an honesty and authenticity about that...That sort of holding of hands in good times and in bad times, and supporting people and allowing people and encouraging people to take risks even if those risks don’t succeed. In time, I think that passion communicates itself...it brings out the best in people. You build community by walking the talk and being real about it.”

She concludes, “The values that I see in this community are values that I would hope to see our young people carry into their future. I can go back to the times when we have had tragedy in our community, when we had 9/11, when we had the tragic death of an eighth grader, Skylar Tancredi, when our music teacher Dan Kerness passed away. The ways in which our community came together to support one another, the humanity that was demonstrated was so profound. I will carry that with me forever— it was a gift for me to be part of it and to witness it. So that sense of community; the ways in which we all came together to support the Tancredi family, to support the Kerness family, to support all the children and colleagues and families that had [been impacted by] 9/11, the way that we came together, it was just profound.”

The Buzzer would like to thank Ms. Kipper enormously for her devotion to the Hastings community for so long, and wishes her the best in her retirement.

By Kaylee Oppenheimer

For Micah, joining the track team was prompted by growing out of the weight room; his first season of spring track was “pretty non-competitive.” After being convinced to run cross country in the fall, Micah was forced to push himself to the limit, as before training for cross country he could “literally not run a mile at a time.” According to Micah, his progression to cross country made him move from “really bad to very mediocre.” However, that all changed when he reached Winter Track in his junior year. In his first Indoor Track meet at the Armory, Micah qualified for the Westchester County Championships and immediately his mindset changed. He began to think, “I’m insane now, I qualified for counties. I’m just a beast!”

At the Westchester County Championships, Micah felt that there was no pressure in the race, and he ended up getting a Personal Record by around 5 seconds in the 600 meter race. His time was around .1 of a second off of the school record, so in a day Micah went from “I’m on the track team and I’m really mediocre” to “Wow, this is something I’m actually pretty good at.”

Coach Guilfoyle said, “Relatively speaking, Micah was late joining the track bandwagon. He started running spring of his sophomore year as a 100 and 200m runner. I saw something in him that screamed mid-distance, and convinced him to try the 400 by the end of that season. One or two races, and he was hooked! After running cross country the next fall, he exploded onto the 600m scene in his debut indoor season, where he came within 0.1 seconds of the school record. He saw continued success that spring in the 400m and the 400m hurdles. He held the 400m school record that spring (before Arlo reset it!) and made it to the spring state qualifier in the 400m hurdles (as well as being the league champ in that event)."

A lot of people ask him how he is able to balance track and academics, but Micah has never felt “I’m so screwed for school this week because I have to go to practice.” Instead, he believes that productivity is the key to not being stressed. He says, “It’s not about how much time you have, it’s about how motivated you are in the time that you have...Just because you have more time doesn’t mean you’re more productive.”

Micah added, “I’ve never been someone who’s been very competitive at school. I’ve wanted to do well, but I’ve never competed against other people.”

Another frequently asked question for Micah is “How do you like running; in fact, how does anyone like running?” Micah gives a surprising answer: “I don’t think I like running that much. If I wasn’t on the track team, I would not just go out for runs—it’s just not that enjoyable to me—but the part that is enjoyable is competing and getting better and improving, and so I love doing workouts and going to track practice, but not because I like running and I’m like ‘Wow! This feels so good!’ I love doing it because it doesn’t feel good, like, it hurts, and that makes me feel better about myself. Running in meets makes me feel better about myself.”

Still though, Micah feels like the mental part of running is “always something I’m going to struggle with, and there’s no way around it. Doing a hard workout is really hard, and if it was easy, then you would never really be getting better. So, there are still days when I have really crappy workouts and I’m not able to really push through, and that’s just how it is, and other days you just like to try to channel everything that you have, but I think those are less common. The majority of workouts I don’t walk away from feeling like it was an amazing workout. It usually doesn’t feel good.”

After high school, Micah plans to go to Grinnell and run track for them; “it’s honestly such an insane opportunity. I’m really, really excited for it.” Micah went on a trip to Grinnell in December and “everyone that I met was so cool and so nice, and I’m really hyped to be on the track team.” He plans to major in computer science, and “Grinnell has a really good program for it—it’s their most popular major.”

Micah isn’t sure what is the largest factor to his success, but he “showed up to practice every day, and I wanted to be at practice, and I tried in every workout, and I just have slowly gotten better every day. In my first season, I was just kind of there to get in shape, but I think I very quickly realized that it would be more fun to just get in shape and actually feel like I’m improving in the sport and maybe even doing well in a race at some point.”

Coach Guilfoyle added, “He continued building his endurance base as a key member of the xc team his senior year, and it was not long into the indoor season before he lowered the school record for the first of many times. He went into the state qualifier with nothing to lose and a season of strategic acumen at his disposal.”

Micah’s advice for any novice runner is this: “People think that track practice is, like running miles around the track, but I think if you’re someone who likes being good at things, for the sake of being good at them, or likes getting better at things, then track is basically the perfect sport for you—like, that’s all it’s about. It’s not about team dynamics really, it’s about personal improvement. So I think if I was going to give advice to someone, if you like getting better at something, then track is actually really rewarding.”

By Kaylee Oppenheimer