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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

‘Family’ is helping with next step for St. George’s Stamper

Varied interests inform her future

Senior Taryn Stamper has attended St. George’s since kindergarten.

Taryn Stamper is one of those students teachers just love.

She takes courses because she’s interested in the subject, not just for the grade, and she pushes hard to learn all she can.

“She’s just a great student, a model student really, at the top of her class and a four-sport athlete besides,” said Russell Werkman, head of the upper school at St. George’s School.

The 18-year-old Stamper is enthusiastic about her school. “Having been here since kindergarten, it’s like another home; it’s like family,” she said. “Everyone in every class feels like a brother and sister to me.”

A stellar student academically, Stamper is taking AP economics, calculus, literature and art at St. George’s. She especially loves the balance she gets between the sciences and the arts. “I push to do things I like, and love the logic of mathematics but also the leeway that you have in art,” she said. And sometime she combines the two.

For an art portfolio piece she drew portions of the skeletal system – the back, legs and hands. She works with different art media on assorted projects – coffee cups, for one, plus the life-size piece in which she wrapped her patient mother in clear wrap, cut her out of the mold and turned it into a statue.

An accomplished musician, she held a piano recital this spring, and is involved in a variety of sports, including cross country, basketball, track and volleyball. She enjoys the outdoors, where she runs and bikes, and has been training for a half-marathon. In the summers she has been a coach for the St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church basketball camp. And she loves to read, currently finishing “Stiff,” a book about cadavers.

She is nothing if not varied in interests and outlook.

She admits that sometimes she overdoes it. During her junior year, what with a full course load, three sports, piano lessons and an SAT-preparation class, she knew she’d taken on too much. But she pushed through and learned something about capacity and balance.

She is looking at the University of Washington, the University of Notre Dame and Lewis and Clark College for next fall. Her brother Britton attends the UW. “Since we went to a small school, going bigger for college seems like a good idea,” she said. As for Lewis and Clark, “what a beautiful campus with an artsy nature.” And Notre Dame, well, that’s where her father, Randy, attended, “so I’ve certainly grown up with it and the football tradition.”

Whatever the college choice, Stamper is approaching it with balance, with mathematical logic and with a bit of artistic flair thrown in besides.