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6th grade rafting

Principal Spotlight

QES Principal Lara Hollister
Interview with QES Principal:
 
"I grew up in a rural, sawmill town in East Texas, and imagined from the earliest age I can remember that I would live in a big city. In fact, at age 5, I packed my Holly Hobbie suitcase, and when my mother asked where I was going I told her I was moving to New York, to become a writer.
 
 
Well, I did eventually live in New York and Portland, and then San Francisco, only to find myself in a town that looks a lot like where I started out with that Holly Hobbie suitcase. I haven’t become a professional writer yet, but there’s still time.”
 
"What makes me unique is that I have a breadth of experiences that not many people have regarding social class. I was raised in poverty by a single mother, and yet had very wealthy grandparents whom, in spite of not helping my mother support me, occasionally took me on their private jet to Saks Fifth Avenue in New York to buy school clothes, or took me on lavish vacations. Not many people have experienced those extremes of American culture. Many (of course, not all) educators were raised in the middle class and have a shared set of values. I had to think critically about my values and define them for myself. This helps me when communicating with people who have different belief systems than my own."
 
"My advice is to believe that just because you weren't successful today, doesn’t mean that you won’t be tomorrow. There’s no substitute for hard work. Show up every day and do your best, and believe you will get there eventually. Also remember that It takes as much energy to make excuses for why you can’t do something, as it does to do it. So, like the Nike commercial, 'Just Do It'."
 
Lara is an extensive traveler, she has been to 22 of the 50 states in the US, Mexico, Canada, Belize, France, Italy, Spain, and England. On her bucket list are hiking the Cinque Terra in Italy and publishing a novel. It is the “the love, hope, and promise of children” that gets her up in the morning every day and she thinks "Mountain kids are the best kids.”