By Rachel Dinh
The annual TPA reunion during Winter Break is a morning full of pancakes, people, and of course, reunions. Alumni from all different graduating years showed up. They caught up with good friends and exchanged stories about the adventures and experiences they’ve gone through. I had the opportunity to meet several alumni at the TPA reunion. Several are still in school, and several have graduated and moved on to bigger projects.
Kaitlyn Zidar (2014) – Kaitlyn is currently studying at ASU and her major is family and human development. She has an internship at the Child Crisis Center. She is getting her master’s degree this spring.
Stephanie Zidar (2012) – Stephanie graduated from ASU with a degree in the biological sciences. She has been a caregiver for 4.5 years.
Leo Lin (2015) – Leo currently attends ASU and is studying mechanical engineering. He is also a teacher’s assistant for the Intro. to Engineering class. He says “all of my English classes are easy because of TPA.”
Sophie Kniaz (2016) – Sophie is studying medieval history at University of St.Andrews in Scotland. She enjoys traveling with her friends, most of whom are Americans studying at the university. One thing she likes about the university is that she does not have to take core classes and can “spend the whole day studying history.”
Katherine Riffle (2016) – Katherine is studying mechanical engineering at Northern Arizona University on a Lumberjack Scholarship. She is involved in clubs such as Women in STEM and the Light Saber Club where “you literally battle at night with giant light sabers.”
Melissa Scheuch (2008) and Vince Bevilacqua (2009) are married. Melissa studied ecology
and evolutionary biology at University of Arizona. She recently just got her nursing degree. Vince works at Viasat, where he is a satellite developer. They met at TPA when Tom Brittain told his football players to ask someone to homecoming, or else they would have to run laps. Vince asked Melissa; they started dating when they were in college.
Kevin Wilkison (2011) – Kevin was in the U.S. Army bomb squad for five years after he graduated from TPA. Some of the things he did include traveling to Asia, training other units all over the globe, doing missions for the Secret Service, and completing “a lot of paperwork.” He says TPA football helped give him discipline. He is currently a freshman at Drexel University and is studying construction management.
Rachel Matsumoto(2015) – Rachel is studying abroad in the city of Toulouse, France where she is taking art history, French literature, and French. She says her major will “possibly be psychology, but that’s a very tentative possibility.”
These alumni all started at one small liberal arts school, but are now doing great things around the world.
