King School is pleased to announce Julie Sheetz ’03 as this year’s Commencement keynote speaker. 

Julie Sheetz currently serves as the Chief of Staff for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In this role, Sheetz oversees an organization of nearly 100 people that provides the Secretary of Defense with policy recommendations and advice spanning the management of the United States’ treaty alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region. 

Every year, alumni are invited to return to King School for Career Day to share their professions and life experiences with upper school students. This year’s featured alumni reflected an array of career paths including marketing, sales, finance, theater, and medicine. The panelists offered advice to the students as they consider life after King. 

“The framework of education is to produce the skills you need to be a part of any environment,” said Jesse Freedman KLHT’00, who is a Magic and Illusions Associate for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway and the Founding Artistic Director of the Meta-Phys Ed. Performance Group.

This fall, 12 inquiring juniors and seniors have embarked on a yearlong mentorship program that pairs them with a diverse group of accomplished alumni to explore industries and career paths beyond their high school journey. King Connects, a new student and alumni mentorship program, follows an intentional curriculum designed by history teacher Lindsey Rossler, the Director of Talent Development.

When Erica Cunningham ’20 filled out the paperwork to join the rowing team at the University of Alabama, she was doubtful. Having played three sports at King, she was a proven athlete, but this was the Crimson Tide. The deck was further stacked when the school invited all 20,000 women enrolled to try out for 11 openings on the team. 

King alumna Dr. Joy Gaylinn Reidenberg LHT’79 was raised by extraordinarily patient parents. Her father, naturally squeamish and prone to seasickness, braved persistent nausea to serve as captain of the skiff that ferried her on childhood fishing voyages. Reidenberg followed her curiosity to become a world-renowned biomedical research scientist who studies comparative anatomy. Today, she is a professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and has served as a guest investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and as an associate scientist at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution.

At first glance, brothers Jeff Becker K’83 and Jim Becker K’80 are opposites. Jeff is a financial sector CEO living on the East Coast, and Jim is a community foundation CEO living on the West Coast. Jeff races McLarens and Jim casts flies. Jeff skis among spruce trees and Jim studies family trees. But look closer and their similarities emerge. They are innovative leaders within their industries. They are steeped in philanthropy, Jeff through his role on the board of Americares, Jim through his work on the front lines of the community foundation RCF Connects. 

Katharina Focke ’15 loves to run. She runs around Central Park every chance she gets, maximizing her limited free time. The breaks serve as the perfect counterpoint to her demanding professional life as an Investment Banking Associate at the financial advisory firm Lazard, where her workweek averages 60 to 80 hours.

Inclement weather did not deter a group of King School's Trustees and Administrators from commemorating the naming of the redesigned outdoor sports complex on campus. The complex is in the heart of the campus on four acres of multi-sport turf fields. At a ribbon-cutting ceremony held on Tuesday, June 8, the fields were formally recognized as the Armstrong and King Family Fields and the Feinberg Field. 

King School is delighted to welcome alumnus Ahmed Fattouh '91 as the keynote speaker at the commencement ceremony on Friday, June 4, 2021. "Ahmed embodies King School's virtues and is a loyal and supportive member of our community," said Director of Development Lauren Fredette. A newly elected member of King School's Board of Trustees, Ahmed Fattouh is also an inspiring example of a King education.