The GPS lacrosse team travels to Memphis Monday, May 5 for a quarterfinal game with Houston High School. This is the second year that the team has qualified for the TGLA state tournament, and after playing some of the top teams from Memphis in the regular season, the team feels better prepared this year for the post season rematches. The regular season ended with a 19-3 victory over Father Ryan and a 14-8 win over Franklin. Senior members of the team, pictured, are Channing Adkins, Abby Ellis, Perri Fine, Maya Healy, and Brielle Leary. Ellis will play for the U.S. Naval Academy next year, and Healy will play for Savannah College of Art and Design.

“Brain food, soul food, comfort food” is the subtitle for the first-ever GPS cookbook, Food for Thought. The recipes that seek to deliver on that promise come from a year-long, school-wide collaboration among alumnae, faculty and staff, students, parents, and other friends of GPS. The cookbook goes on sale Wednesday, April 30 during the GPS May Day celebration, but a copy was presented early to Headmaster Randy Tucker by members of the cookbook committee. The committee, led by senior Meredith MacLean, whittled down the submissions, tested recipes, and prepared samples to serve at GPS events and in the GPS cafeteria, during which students cast votes on the dishes served. Committee members also worked with art department faculty to design the cookbook’s cover (an illustration by AP Art teacher Mary Carrithers) and to collect images to illustrate interior pages. The five hundred recipes found within the cookbook’s pages come from as near as East Brainerd and Signal Mountain and as far as Indonesia and Kenya. Several are from the collections of beloved former GPS cooks “Miss Gertrude” Oehmig and Dene Donald.
The result of the committee’s hard work is a culinary treasury to be cherished by cooks of all ages and abilities. Among the recipes sure to make your mouth water and your taste buds sing are Ooey Gooey Chocolate Oat Cookies, Easy Spinach Artichoke Dip, Shrimp Jambalaya, Melt-in-Your-Mouth Brown Butter Pancakes, Lemony Hot Chicken Salad, Cranberry Orange Scones, Brie Basil Summer Pasta, Almond-Lemon Macaroons, and Brown Sugar and Pecan-Crusted Salmon.

It was never GPS history teacher Paige Weichbrodt’s intention to draw attention to herself with a trip in March to the Jaach region of the Sudan. Since the trip, however, Weichbrodt has been asked to present to community groups and has had her trip covered in the local newspaper. The National Coalition of Girls’ Schools picked up the story and now has a link to her story on their site as well.
In spite of the dangers of the trip, Weichbrodt's goal was to increase awareness of the living conditions of the refugees. She went into the region with representatives of the Persecution Project Foundation, gained knowledge to share with her students, and distributed beaded necklaces, a gift idea of GPS senior Catherine Garvey and crafted by GPS students.
The idea for the trip began with a visit last semester from David Johnson, a documentary photographer whose images of refugees in Darfur and other regions made an impact on the students, faculty, and parents who heard him speak.

GPS senior Hannah Shadrick is pleased with the artwork and creative poetry that resulted from a March workshop with the homeless that she organized. She’s even more pleased that the exhibit of the work will be on display at City Hall until May 30 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Hannah organized the workshop at the Community Kitchen with help from classmates, the Kitchen's Brother Ron Fender, several GPS art teachers, and with donations of time and material from UTC professor Earl Bragg and Tony Mines, the owner of Art Creations on Frazier Ave.
After attending a Furman University “Emerging Public Leaders” program last summer, Hannah came back ready to organize an Art & Creative Writing Workshop to give dignity and pride to the homeless of Chattanooga. “I didn’t plan on a classroom setting,” says Hannah, “but rather just an open space for the attendees to work and ask for help.” GPS teacher Debbie Glasscock helped Hannah develop some basic projects to catalyze the drawing side of the workshop, and Professor Braggs shared ideas with Hannah to generate poetry and other creative writing.
“We are honored to have this exhibit in City Hall and congratulate Hannah on her exemplary work,” said Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield. “This is an opportunity for us to appreciate and better understand Chattanooga’s homeless population.”
Hannah’s hoping that the workshop and display will indeed “make the homeless more human and multi-dimensional” in the eyes of others. For her community service efforts, Hannah received an Honorable Mention in the Furman University community service competition.

Each year, the National Junior Honor Society and National Honor Society sponsor a GPS walk to raise funds for research into the causes and prevention of Multiple Sclerosis. This year’s theme, “A World without MS,” even fit into the school’s global theme. For a minimum donation of one dollar, students and faculty spent anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes or more on April 16 walking laps in the GPS gym. They were rewarded with a civilian day (a day without the GPS uniform) and a red-ribbon medallion. The Multiple Sclerosis Society was rewarded with over $2,200.
As always, P.E. department chair Peggy Michaels, who has MS, joined in the festivities, as did several parents whose spouses live with the disease. Mrs. Michaels is a role model for students who witness daily her positive attitude, and they were more than willing to show up one hour early on their “late Wednesday” to walk for her and others. Additional money was raised from the sale of muffins, doughnuts, and other breakfast pastries.

Girls Preparatory School honored recipients of the 2008 Distinguished Alumna Award, the Margaret Rawlings Lupton Award of Excellence, and inductees into the Athletic Hall of Fame on Friday, April 11 at the start of Alumnae Weekend festivities.
The 2008 Distinguished Alumna of GPS is Margaret Churchwell Card ’69, who as one of Chattanooga’s first female business owners established Southern Temp, a temporary staffing agency. With 15 years of involvement in the Chattanooga area Chamber of Commerce, the former Jaycees Outstanding Woman of the Year is a graduate of Leadership Chattanooga and a member of the Hamilton Place Rotary Club. Her contributions to the business community led former governor Don Sundquist in 1995 to name Card commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Employment Security.
Two alumnae are the recipients of the 2008 Margaret Rawlings Lupton Award of Excellence. Women chosen for this honor have made a significant impact in their communities in professional and/or voluntary activities.
Dr. Andrea Hayes ’83 is an endocrinologist in private practice in Nashville. As a sophomore at GPS, Dr. Hayes developed Type I diabetes; her personal experience with the disease has shaped her professional life and instilled in her a strong commitment to helping others with diabetes live full, productive, and healthy lives. She currently owns and directs Hayes Endocrine and Diabetes Center which serves a large population in Middle Tennessee. In addition to her private practice, Dr. Hayes is owner and medical director of a weight management program, The Nashville Solution.
Margaret Cleary Dean ’93 is currently a systems engineer on the senior professional staff at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, and, as a Naval reservist, will mobilize to Afghanistan this month as an Information Operations Staff Officer on the International Security Assistance Force. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Dean focuses on Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (C41) for Navy Undersea Warfare Systems at the Johns Hopkins lab. As a reservist, Dean assumed command in January 2007 of the USS Stephen W. Groves, one of four ships in the Atlantic Fleet that serve as training platforms for Naval Reservists.

The Athletic Hall of Fame honors selected alumnae/athletes and former coaches for their outstanding achievements and contributions to the GPS athletic program.
Laura Holt Strang ‘72 is a resident of Chattanooga who played seemingly every intramural sport offered at GPS. As a member of the four-year state championship varsity swim team, she held the GPS record in the 100 meter butterfly, swam on several state championship relays, and finished in the top six in the state in her individual events. Her dedication to athletics and love of intramurals led former GPS Headmaster Nat Hughes and PE teacher Peggy Thomas to initiate the Laura Holt Award which is presented each year to a junior who is an outstanding multi-sport athlete and who possesses the qualities of sportsmanship, dedication, and loyalty to GPS.
For Dr. Rebecca Stimson ’73, her induction into the GPS Hall of Fame follows her 1996 induction into the Davidson College Athletic Hall of Fame and being named this year to the “25 of Distinction Team” as part of the Southern Conference celebration of women’s athletics. At GPS, Stimson played on the varsity tennis, volleyball, and field hockey teams. At Davidson College, Stimson lettered in tennis and was named the team’s most valuable player. She also earned three letters in basketball. In 1977 she received the Wildcats’ Most Valuable Female Athlete Award. That award, now called the Rebecca E. Stimson Award, is given annually to the Davidson woman who best typifies the Davidson spirit in athletic competition and campus leadership.
Katherine “Kitty” Fisher Delany ’85 swam competitively at GPS and earned state championship medals in two events. She was a member of the winning 400-meter freestyle relay that shattered a state record, leading GPS to a 1975 state swimming and diving championship. The captain of the swim team and Most Valuable Swimmer, she was also a member of the varsity tennis team.
Among the awards that Delany received at GPS were the Sandra Martin award, given to a senior who distinguished herself in athletics, extracurricular activities, scholarship, and citizenship; and the DAR Citizenship Award.