Palisadian Grads Receive Honors at Marymount

Palisadian Margaret Slattery received Marymount High School’s ‘Outstanding Scholar Award’ and delivered the valedictorian address at the school’s 83rd Commencement on May 26. Earlier in the year, Miss Slattery had been designated as a National Merit Scholar, and had also been awarded the Bank of America Plaque for her achievement in the Liberal Arts. Other Pacific Palisades residents receiving Gold Medal academic awards at graduation were Stephanie Fowlkes in Mathematics, Alexis Hoffman in Science, Cyra Kang in English and Isabel Parkes in Spanish. Also among the 30 Palisadians out of the 101 graduates were Madison Akerblom, Breanna Baraff, Michelle Barrett, Kendall Bird, Kelsey Bjelajac, Hannah Boyle, Kirsten Crowe, Alexi deVogelaere, Marlene Feil, Caitlin Gallo, Katherine Hinds, Kelly Irvin, Kate Jameson, Kira Keating, Ani Mardirossian, Margaret MacDonald, Jessica Mead, Elizabeth Mullan, Bonnie Ogilvie, Olivia Parkes, Kristen Partipilo, Erica Sanborn, Johanna Spooner, Christine Takacs, Elizabeth Tauro and Madison Wojciechowski. The graduates were given an inspiring send-off by commencement speaker Lee Woodruff, co-author with her husband, ABC correspondent Bob Woodruff, of ‘In an Instant ‘A Family’s Journey of Love and Healing.’ The book recounts the family’s harrowing experience as Mr. Woodruff recovered from a near-fatal brain injury incurred while he was covering the war in Iraq in January 2006. In her speech, Ms. Woodruff shared her personal insights on being a woman thrown into an unimaginable crisis and her conviction that her young audience will also meet similar challenges if necessary. ‘I know that if you ever find yourself up against an unexpected wall, seemingly with no way out, you too will discover a self that was waiting for the right moment– the right instant–to emerge.’ Marymount graduates from the Palisades will attend the following colleges and universities: The American Musical and Dramatic Academy, University of Arizona, Boston University, Brown, Dartmouth, Duke, University of California (at Berkeley, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz), Colorado, Drew, Emory, Fairfield, Penn, University of San Francisco, Santa Clara, USC, Southern Methodist, Vanderbilt, Villanova, Virginia, Washington University in St. Louis, Wesleyan, Wisconsin and Yale.