Thrive here,
then everywhere

Brewster Academy is pleased to announce Dee-Dee Sanders as its new Director of College Counseling. Sanders brings a depth of experience and a clear sense of purpose to the role, along with a genuine commitment to students and the families she serves.

Most recently, Sanders served as Director of College Counseling at Brentwood School in Los Angeles, where she led a comprehensive program for students in grades nine through twelve while managing and mentoring a team of counselors. Prior to Brentwood, she built and led college counseling programs at GEMS World Academy in Chicago and Great Hearts Academies, a national network where she oversaw college counseling across multiple campuses. She has also remained closely connected to the broader college admissions landscape through her involvement in professional organizations and her ongoing work supporting college access across the country.

"Dee-Dee brings a depth of experience and a clear sense of purpose to her work," said Matt Butcher, Academic Dean and Director of Summer Programs. "That perspective aligns closely with who we are and how we support our students at Brewster."

What distinguished Sanders throughout the search process was her belief that college counseling is not a process that runs parallel to a school's academic life. It is an extension of it. She speaks about her work as bringing together a student's academic journey, interests, growth, and character into a clear and authentic story.

Sanders began her career as an English teacher and still carries a deep love for conversation, literature, and the power of dialogue in learning. She has coached athletics, led student programs, and built community in every school she has served.

She will be relocating to Wolfeboro this summer and will begin her work at the start of the Brewster Summer Institute. In the meantime, she will be partnering closely with the team to support a thoughtful transition in the College Office, with particular care for rising seniors and their families.

Brewster is excited to welcome Dee-Dee Sanders to the community and looks forward to what lies ahead.

Some people just have a way of making your day better. You don’t always realize it in the moment, but you come to count on it over time. You find that you seek out opportunities with those people for a quick conversation, a warm smile, a meaningful exchange, and a consistent way of being.

This year, we’ve talked a lot about commitment. It’s easy to think of that in terms of big moments or visible impact. But more often, commitment is simpler and quieter. It means showing up every day with care, consistency, and a kind of presence that lifts up people around you.

As I continue this two part series on commitment, I’ve been thinking about three people who are retiring at the end of this school year and who embody that kind of commitment for me.

Jimmy Mongovan: 26 Years

Jimmy Mongovan has been a key member of Brewster’s Buildings & Grounds team for twenty-six years. A graduate of the University of New Hampshire with a degree in horticulture, he takes real pride in his work, grounded in years of experience in landscaping and even time as a ski instructor up at Waterville Valley.

If you pass him while he’s out mowing lawns, he’ll stop, wave you through, and greet you with a smile. It’s a small thing, but it reflects the way he cares for our campus and the way he treats people. Even with just a few words, Jimmy’s warmth communicates so much.

Kids know how to find genuine people. So it is not surprising that Jimmy is a favorite of many of the faculty children on campus. Toddlers can be heard running up to him in the dining hall, shouting “Jimmy!” with delight. His warmth is something that kids feel and adults remember. 

Ron Dunbar: 16 Years

I often see Ron Dunbar (left) early in the morning, usually as I’m just getting started with my day and he has already been at work for hours as our early morning Housekeeping Supervisor. Ron and I often cross paths as he makes his early morning rounds from building to building. I’m usually rushing, having just launched three teenagers off to school, mentally reviewing my to-do list as I head into the Academic Building. But when I see Ron, I’m always glad for the moment to pause for a hello and conversation.

Ron brings a wide range of experiences to his work. He has been with Brewster since 2010.  Prior to that, he was a business owner, worked at summer camps, served as an interim pastor, worked as an apprentice mechanic at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and served in the US Navy as a Radarman/Operations Specialist as a Petty Officer 2nd Class.

Ron is thoughtful and observant, someone who notices the details that others might miss. He is one of the first employees to respond when we send out surveys or ask for input. He shares his observations with a great deal of care and with a unique perspective. He always wants to make Brewster better, and he recognizes that small things matter. Ron is dependable and quietly but deeply invested in his work and in the community at large. Simply put, my day is always better when our paths cross.

Wes Matchett: 15 Years

And then there’s Wes Matchett, our Database Administrator and Robotics Coach, whose energy is impossible to miss. Spend even a few minutes in the robotics space with him and you’ll understand. (In fact, a “few minutes” rarely stays that way as his enthusiasm has a way of pulling you in.)

His enthusiasm is infectious – youthful, joyful, constantly thinking about what is next, what more we can build, and what else is possible. It’s the product of a lifetime spent building and creating, including decades as a programmer and entrepreneur, and years at Brewster in roles that have ranged from the snack shop to the classroom to the systems that keep us running.

His ideas often come with a pitch for what we could build next (he could easily be a professional fundraiser in his next career!) and more often than not, he convinces me. He makes it hard to say no because his curiosity fuels the experience of the students around him. He pulls people in, invites them to see possibility, and helps them engage. It’s hard not to get caught up in it. Wes is a big reason that the Tyler Balint Robotics Lab is one of my favorite spaces on campus. 

Our Lasting Gratitude

Each of these three colleagues expresses commitment in a different way, but the impact is the same. People want to be around them, and they make our community better through thousands of small moments and interactions, just by being who they are. They are the people who make the systems work. They show up early, stay late, notice the details, and create the conditions for others to thrive. They are the kind of people who don’t seek recognition, but who shape our school in lasting ways.

We will deeply miss their presence next year, and the daily ways they make this place feel like Brewster.

When the Venezuelan flag was raised on stage, Eva cheered. When the Mexican flag appeared, Amelie screamed. And when the Puerto Rican flag went up, Anika smiled ear to ear.

That is what a room full of belonging looks like.

In April, Brewster students joined World Languages teacher Cristina Salazar and Department Chair Margarita Proulx for an evening at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. The event was a cultural showcase produced by two student organizations, the Caribbean Students Association and Raíces Unidas, Bates' Hispanic and Latino club. For two hours, performers filled the stage with Brazilian samba, spoken word poetry, singing, dancing, and a shared sense of community that had the entire crowd on their feet. The show was performed in Spanglish. Not one person was quiet for the duration.

For Salazar, the night carried personal weight. As a Bates alum, she helped build the cultural showcase tradition from the ground up, leading coordination of the event for two consecutive years and successfully advocating for a dedicated budget for affinity groups and cultural programming at the college. Seeing that legacy continue, and now seeing Brewster students inside it, stopped her in her tracks.

"This show is representation," Salazar said. "A reminder of home away from home. These students come from so many different backgrounds and cultures, and the show allowed them to truly connect with learning through art and storytelling."

For Proulx, the evening offered something she hopes students carry back with them. "They were grateful for the opportunity to see a cultural perspective they would not have had otherwise," she said. "The Brazilian Samba stood out as a highlight, but the spoken word was a profound moment for us all."

The students did not just watch. They cheered, they danced, they went on stage. And when it was over, many of them said the same thing: they felt good about themselves.

That response is exactly what Brewster hopes for when students step outside the classroom and into experiences like this one. A school that already celebrates its community of students from more than 24 countries, Brewster continues to look for ways to deepen that cultural richness, whether through events, exchanges, or evenings like this one that students bring back with them long after they leave.

The conversation about how to expand those opportunities is ongoing. But it starts, as the best ones do, with a room full of people celebrating where they come from.

For the first time, Brewster Academy sent students to compete at the New Hampshire State Finals of National History Day, held this spring at Plymouth State University. It would not be a quiet debut.

Four students represented the school in the Senior Division, competing alongside hundreds of middle and high schoolers from across the state in five categories: Paper, Documentary, Exhibit, Website, and Performance. By the end of the day, Brewster had earned top placements in three of them, and multiple students had secured invitations to the National Competition in June.

The energy was palpable even before the awards were announced. Over lunch, students buzzed with stories from their judge interviews, sharing the conversations that had grown out of months of deep, original research and the historical arguments they had worked so hard to build.

Graham Jerke ’28 and Jack Cuddy ’28, boarding students from the United Kingdom and Massachusetts, respectively, brought one of the day's most unexpected stories to the stage. Their Group Website entry, "The Pig War: The Bloodless Conflict That Shaped America," introduced judges to a little-known period of escalating tensions along the U.S.-Canada border in what is now the Pacific Northwest. Judges praised the pair for their topic choice and the genuine curiosity driving their research.

Ava Lincender ’28, an international student from Bosnia and Herzegovina, turned in one of the most memorable performances of the day. Competing in Individual Performance, she delivered an originally crafted letter imagining the words Abigail Adams might have wished to send to her husband, John Adams, while he was away helping write the Declaration of Independence. The letter gave voice to Adams' frustration that women's rights had been left behind by the very revolution her husband was shaping.

Ava's performance was so convincing that judges initially believed the letter was authentic. She earned 2nd Place in Individual Performance and the prestigious Outstanding Revolutionary War History Award, presented by the Society of the Cincinnati of New Hampshire to the best submission across the entire competition tied to a Revolutionary Era topic. With America marking the 250th anniversary of its founding and this year's theme centered on Revolution, Reaction, Reform, the recognition felt especially fitting.

Michael Jozokos ’27, a Lowell, Mass. native, closed out the day with a first-place finish. His paper, "Hear With Our Eyes: The Revolutionary Reform of Closed Captioning in American Media," earned top honors in the Papers category of the Senior Division, widely considered the most competitive in the field. Michael prevailed over 22 entries from students at some of New Hampshire's highest-performing schools. His paper told the story of the fight for accessibility in television and made the case that closed captioning represented a revolutionary shift in how America recognized and included its deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Judges took notice of how skillfully he wove together the elements of this year's theme.

When his name was called, the moment hit hard. "When they call first place, I'm like, oh my god, it's me," Michael ’27 said. "I got there on stage and was like, this is amazing." He found his teacher shortly after the announcement. "When I saw Mr. Browher afterwards, it was the biggest smile I've ever seen on a teacher's face."

Ava ’28 shared a similar excitement about her second place finish. “This was an incredible experience for me,” she said. “I will remember and cherish it for a very long time."

History teacher Jon Browher, who guided the students through Brewster's inaugural year at the competition, reflected on what the day meant. “I am so proud of our student competitors, who earned some of the top awards representing Brewster as pioneers of the event,” Browher said. “What especially distinguished our students was how much heart and soul they brought to their process of inquiry, and how they shared with judges the ways in which their topic aligned with their values. For me, that exemplifies what Brewster is all about."

Michael demonstrated the truth in his history teacher’s words. “For me, history is a mode of thinking," the junior student said, "one cultivated by my time at Brewster."

From June 14 through 18, students from all 50 states and territories will gather at the University of Maryland College Park for the National Finals. Brewster will be among them.