26       

LAGUNA BLANCA SCHOOL

At commencement, Erica 
Keane ’14 was honored with the 
2014 Senior Project Award for
teaching, tutoring, and mentoring 
young men placed by the courts in 
an intensive treatment program at 
St. John’s Residence for Boys in 
Rockaway Park, New York. The top 
senior project award goes to the 
student who demonstrates activity 
that goes significantly beyond the 
required work and outstanding 
participation in all senior project 
requirements.
      The purpose of the senior 
project program is for seniors 
to depart from the conventional 
school day and broaden their 
learning experiences outside 
the classroom. After two weeks 
of focusing on an area of 
interest, students deliver formal 
presentations in Spaulding 
Auditorium to classmates, faculty 
and their families. Seniors 
also write and submit a senior 
project final assessment paper 

which reflects their experiences
and insights gained during their 
projects. 
 Erica’s first realization at 
St. John’s was that these young 
people—brutalized, beaten, and
violent—had a common thread.
They were bound together by a 
sense of hopelessness. Unable 
to relate, Erica searched for a 
way to connect and found it in the 
Laguna curriculum. She says she 
took what she had learned about 
the Harlem Renaissance and 
introduced the poem “A Dream 
Deferred” by Langston Hughes. 
The result? “It was almost tangible 
in the air and in the classroom,” 
she says. “A newly founded 
optimism for a better future.”

THE FOLLOWING STUDENTS 
ALSO EARNED HONORS 
FOR THEIR OUTSTANDING 
PARTICIPATION IN THEIR 
SENIOR PROJECT ACTIVITIES.

Grace Copeland 
Intern with Dr. Barbara Donnelly

Ian Bankhead 
Santa Barbara Symphony

Erica Keane 
Student to Teacher

Caty Lafitte 
Intern with Dr. Dominic Tedesco

Margaret Lazarovits 
Detecting Cosmic Ray Muons

Molly Nylen 
Intern at Storyteller

Allison Lewis Towbes 
The Miracle Project

Grace Woolf
Intern at Santa Barbara Magazine
 

SENIOR PROJECT AWARD WINNER 

ERICA KEANE ’14 

“I am always inspired 
by the senior project 
presentations. They 
are a reflection of 
the quality education 
students receive at 
Laguna Blanca.” 

- TRISH MCHALE

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9/5/14 5:20 PM