By Danielle Kolin, Claire Lew and Tiffanie Young

A serious runner, a tennis and basketball player and a golfer and baseball player have transferred to the Upper School in their junior year.

After two years of boarding school, incoming junior Kathryn Turner ’08 begins her first year at Harvard-Westlake today.Turner is transferring from the Thacher School, a coeducational boarding high school in Ojai.

Originally from Pacific Palisades, where she attended Saint Matthew’s Parish School, she went to Thacher in ninth and 10th grade. Turner chose to leave Thacher because she wanted to return home, she said.

Turner, a serious runner with a lot of potential, is likely to run for varsity girls’ cross country, Head Coach of girls’ cross country Kim Hieatt said.

“She wants to know what the goal of every single practice is, and that’s what I like to see,” Hieatt said.

Turner ran cross country for six years including her freshman and sophomore years at Thacher. By sophomore year, she was the fastest on her team. Her personal record (fastest time for three miles) is 20.54 minutes.

She considers herself one of the seven fastest runners currently on the girls’ cross country team.

Turner is definitely one of the top two, Hieatt said, and she might run in the state meet this year.

Julian Plough ’08, one of three new juniors at the Upper School this year, didn’t leave Seattle until two days before the start of school.

“I’m not very happy about [moving] because I am leaving everything and everyone I know,” he said. “It’s really late in my high school career, and I was happy where I was.”

Although he was born in Boston, Plough moved to Seattle at the age of 6 because of his father’s job. Eleven years later, he moved again; this time from Seattle to Los Angeles.

Moving again became necessary when Plough’s father, who was the Public Health Director for King County in Washington, became Vice President of The California Endowment, an organization that gives medical grants and provides access to affordable health care to underserved communities.

While attending Lakeside School, Plough discovered Harvard-Westlake through his father’s co-workers and decided to apply after getting “several recommendations and [hearing about] its reputation.”

“Harvard-Westlake is larger [than Lakeside] and a lot better at sports,” he said.
“All I know [about Los Angeles in general] is what I’ve seen in movies. I don’t really know what there is to do besides go to the beach, and I’m not a big swimmer.”

Plough plays tennis and basketball. He was on both teams at his previous school and plans to continue playing at the Upper School.

Plough hopes to visit Seattle often. “We don’t have any family there [but] I’ll go back when I can just to see my friends.”

Colin Weidmann ’08 moved from Cleveland, Ohio to Los Angeles less than a month ago and will be one of three new juniors to join the class of 2008.

Weidmann, a self-described athlete, is passionate about golf and baseball, two sports he plays daily.

In Ohio he played on both school teams, but at Harvard-Westlake baseball and golf are both spring sports and Weidmann will have to choose between them.

He has been unable to play any baseball since his move to Los Angeles, but he has practiced his golf on the driving range daily.

Because all of his friends live in Ohio, Weidmann has been spending his days unpacking and hitting golf balls, and just waiting for his junior year to begin.

“I’m really excited for school to start,” Weidmann said. “I can’t wait.”

When Weidmann originally began researching high schools in the Los Angeles area, he was looking for a public school similar to the one he attended in Cleveland. He decided to apply here when the student bodies at the local public schools were larger than he anticipated.
At first, driving in Los Angeles was a shock for Weidmann because of the increased traffic and the crowded freeways.

“You could drive miles in Cleveland and only see two cars,” Weidmann said. The weather is another drastic change.

In Cleveland, “if it didn’t rain for a week, there would be a drought alert,” Weidmann said. In Los Angeles, he says the weather is more temperate and is optimal for playing baseball and golf year round.

Weidmann notes that moving to California was difficult.

“I thought I would be able to just pick up and go,” Weidmann said. “The move was harder than I expected.”