June Remboldt Aprille won’t be at Everett Memorial Stadium tonight to see her alma mater play its homecoming game against Shorewood High School. Until recently, she hadn’t been back to Everett in years.
Since graduating from Everett High School in 1963, she’s been climbing academic ladders.
At Washington State University, she earned a bachelor’s degree in zoology. Then came her master’s and a doctorate in physiology at the University of Illinois. Aprille was a biology professor at Tufts University. In 2001, she became provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Richmond in Virginia.
As far as she’s gone up the ivory towers of academia, Aprille has never forgotten her roots at Everett High School.
“Thinking back, I owe the school and the community a tremendous amount,” she said Wednesday from Richmond. “That’s where the foundation was laid.”
In January, in a year when Aprille and many of her classmates began turning 60, she sent a letter to members of the class of 1963. “Let’s give back to EHS,” she wrote.
She sought donations to the nonprofit Blue &Gold Club. Founded in 1980, the organization of Everett High School alumni, parents and community leaders helps students with out-of-pocket costs needed for full participation in high school life.
Blue &Gold has paid for sports physical exams, scientific calculators, field trips, track shoes, even required books not provided at school. Aprille’s request set a goal of $10,000.
Her classmates – among them Everett historian Jack O’Donnell, business leader Peter Newland, Port of Everett Commissioner Jim Shaffer, real estate business owner Barbara Lamoureux and Mike Gregoire, husband of Gov. Christine Gregoire – came through, and then some.
Their gift of $11,482 will be presented to the Blue &Gold Club during tonight’s homecoming game.
Marc Baker, another 1963 Everett graduate, said his close-knit class has given before. “We gave $1,000 after a reunion about 10 years ago,” he said.
After high school, Baker left for WSU and the Navy, but unlike Aprille, he returned to Everett, where his family ran an ambulance business. Earlier this month, he joined Everett classmates at a collective 60th birthday party. “Everybody had such a great time at the 40th reunion, we didn’t want to wait another five years,” Baker said.
Aprille turned 60 on June 17. That milestone was cause for looking back in appreciation. “My ability isn’t my own, it’s a gift,” she said. “I think of all the people whose influence helped me get to where I ended up.”
One influence was Everett teacher Mary Jane Larimer. A PE instructor, Larimer encouraged young June Remboldt to go to college despite her family’s modest means.
June’s father, Chris Remboldt, was a laborer at Darigold. The family lived in an apartment on Broadway in Everett, and later in a company-owned house. Higher education, Aprille said, brought her “a very satisfying life of the mind.”
“Some kids can’t afford a student activities card,” Aprille said. “I was one of those kids.”
Lamoureux recalled Aprille as “just a brilliant girl. We all sort of lost touch with her.”
Baker said the class gift will be used for associated student body activities, yearbooks, music and technology camps, and to endow a shelf in the library with new books. Also, $5,000 will go to an endowment fund, with interest used as needs arise.
“It will help do for other kids what people helped me do for my son,” said Lori White, treasurer of Blue &Gold.
Her son, Andrew, was an Everett High School football player and student body president who graduated in 1999. And now? He’s at Arizona State University earning a master’s degree in metaphysics.
In her letter to classmates, Aprille expressed hope for a “friendly competition” with other classes. Baker, too, doesn’t want the giving to stop. “We challenge all the classes from Everett High,” he said.
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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