Black Bear Awards

Date: March 8th, 2023 (Happy International Women’s Day!)

Presenters: Ana Araguas and Greg Hadley

The KMS community is proud to recognize several KMS members for our Black Bear Community Award this week! To review, our Black Bear Award is given in recognition to KMS members who go above and beyond to benefit their teammates, coworkers, friends, Coaches, Teachers, and overall school community. Dedicating their time and energy to leave our community better than they found it, these individuals step forward with no expectation of recognition or reward. We are proud to recognize this week’s Black Bear recipients, which come from both our student body as well as our faculty!

The first recipient of our Black Bear Community Award this week is U14 Alpine Coach Thea Young. Thea is being recognized for her recent support of our development program. As her nomination from Admissions Director, Boost Program Director, and Alpine Coaching Staff member Greg Hadley states, “I am happy to put forth a nomination for Thea this week for our Black Bear Award. Thea recently came to the rescue of our development program when a mass illness swept through our club coaching staff. We needed help overseeing many of their duties, and Thea came up on her day off and filled in for them, dedicating her free time to making sure that our U14 development program continued while our club coaches focused on getting back on their feet health wise.” This is not a surprise to many at KMS, who all acknowledge Thea’s selflessness, drive, and quiet grace. She is a true powerhouse that makes a positive impact on us all!

Our second recipients for our Black Bear Award is a group of students, plus one of our teaching faculty. We would like to acknowledge Spanish teacher Ana Araguas and students Cam Roy, Jack Kiedaisch, Aidan Williamson, Gwen Thomas, Nico Ditursi, and Colin Brown. This crew recently stepped forward to offer their time and energy to help us keep our building facilities looking great! As the school prepared for one of our annual Board of Trustees visits, Ana and these students tackled the challenge of cleaning our tramp room. It was not an easy task, involving extensive cleaning by hand as well as steaming. This group took all the challenges this cleaning project presented in stride and, through their elbow grease and willingness to step forward for our community, left the tramp room looking positively awesome. What better way to communicate how much we appreciate our campus’ facilities than this! A HUGE thank you to this team of hard workers!

Please join KMS in congratulating each recipient of this week’s Black Bear Community Award! It is great having such amazing members within our community. We cannot express how grateful we are for these incredible individuals! THANK YOU!