Betsy Gordon
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Betsy Gordon graduated from Silverwood School in 1996. She attended Central Kitsap Junior High (Magnet Program for Gifted Students), then Klahowya Secondary School, where she was a medal winner in the state debate team as well as an AP scholar with distinction. She graduated from the Evergreen State College. She is now attending the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Betsy loves to explore other cultures and has lived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Kampala, Uganda, and in both Rennes and Paris, France and has traveled throughout Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Now in South Africa, she is working on her masters in African literature. She and her husband Kristopher Blessum, an executive chef at one of Johannesburg's premier steak houses, are also commercial fishermen and spend most of their summers on boat pursuing salmon in Alaska.
Betsy has many fond memories of Silverwood. Her favorite times include the early morning collections for the salt water fish tank. She remembers waiting on the beach for the volunteer scuba divers to come back with their catches. The octopus was a particular favorite. Art classes were another highlight, "I may be biased because of my mother (Silverwood's beloved art teacher), but it was wonderful to attend a school where art was valued as much as the more traditional subjects. Silverwood's art classes were integral in augmenting my love of beauty and are perhaps the reason why I now study literature." Betsy praises her Silverwood education for, "giving me a love for knowledge and learning, as well as the confidence for any undertaking."
Not fluent in any foreign language (though passable in French), her travels necessitated a smattering of several including Amharic, Kiswahili, Lugandan, and Xhosa. She is currently working on her Zulu. "The clicks are really hard to master!" She enjoys knitting (her work can be seen on ravelry.com), eating all types of cuisine (hence the husband), traveling, and of course reading.
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