Contact: Jenni Brockman
Telephone: 804-443-3357
Fax: 804-443-6781
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SMS Offers Global Benefits to Students, Community
Tappahannock, VA (February 10, 2001) - Don't let St. Margaret's peaceful location on the banks of the Rappahannock fool you. SMS students already are taking their places in the same "global culture" that challenges many college graduates - and they are sharing what they have learned with the community.
Students participating in international exchanges at St. Margaret's this year include, front row: Shannon Wilkie of Australia, Kathryn Riddell of New Zealand, Olivia Longest of Tappahannock, Katie Jess of Australia, Claire Hopkins of Oak Grove; back row: Sarah Taliaferro of Center Cross, Lindsay Neist of Tappahannock, Emily Rosetti of Australia, Antonia Prebble of New Zealand.
"St. Margaret's is one of a very small number of independent schools that are part of an international network," said Headmistress Margaret R. Broad. "As a result, we can offer opportunities to both students and area residents that they simply will not get anywhere else."
Those benefits include exchange programs with other schools named for Queen Margaret of Scotland. The exchanges not only allow local girls and their families to experience another culture by hosting a student; they also enrich the greater community through educational and service activities. Last week, for example, two students from Australia spoke to Carol Ann Neist's history classes at Aylett Country Day School.
Five students from Australia and New Zealand are visiting the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula this winter, and attending or working at SMS. New Zealanders Kathryn Riddell and Antonia Prebble, rising seniors at Queen Margaret College in Wellington ("college" is a British word for secondary school), arrived in mid-December for a 10-week stay with the families of juniors Sarah Taliaferro of Center Cross and Olivia Longest of Tappahannock. Taliaferro and Longest will leave in June for an equivalent visit to New Zealand's capital city.
Another program started in January, when Shannon Wilkie, a November graduate of St. Margaret's School in Berwick, Australia, arrived for a 10-month internship between high school and college. Wilkie is working in the administrative offices and assisting teachers and dormitory staff.
She was joined in her trip to the U.S. by Katie Jess and Emily Rosetti, participants in the third annual academic exchange between the Australian school and SMS. The tenth-graders are staying for three months with Claire Hopkins of Oak Grove and Lindsay Neist of Tappahannock. In June, the Tappahannock girls will attend St. Margaret's School in Berwick, a suburban town approximately 45 minutes from the territorial capital of Melbourne.
St. Margaret's is a founding member of the Queen Margaret of Scotland Girls' Schools Association, which comprises 10 schools in six countries. It is the only American school in the association, and will host the first international gathering of the group's headmistresses in Tappahannock this June.
