Scholarship Stories: Kerry Luft ’82

[FULL STORY]

Approximately 20 percent of current students receive financial support in the form of scholarships to help with their Newman education. Throughout the School’s history, many students have been the recipients of scholarships thanks to the generosity of others.

 

In what we hope will be the first of a series, Kerry Luft ’82 shares in his own words what the Newman experience meant to him. Kerry and his family received financial support to help with his Newman education. After graduating, Kerry attended Northwestern University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. He is now a senior editor at the Chicago Tribune with responsibility for the Nation and World desk. He frequently lectures on journalism in the U.S. and overseas, and he was a part of a Tribune reporting team that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.

 

“Almost every day of my high school career, I passed a poster that hung outside of Dr. Elizabeth Francis’ English classroom. It was a painting of a clown dressed in white – Pagliacci, perhaps – gazing at a crescent moon in a starry sky. The caption: “To be good is not enough, when you dream of being great.”

 

To me, that poster still captures my Newman experience. More than 30 years after my graduation, I remember that poster perfectly, and more to the point, I remember the people who exemplified its spirit.

 

Early on, there was Warreene Dart, my second grade teacher, who steered me toward books she knew I would love and fueled what became a lifelong obsession with reading.

 

Then came H. Davis Prescott, who taught me the value of performing my first paid job quietly, thoughtfully and well. I remember him telling me once that no one noticed when a book had been properly shelved in the Newman library – but everyone would notice when it wasn’t in the right place.

 

David Waters, Patrick McWilliams, and Dr. Francis from the English Department recognized my love of writing and encouraged me to think about making a living from it. David Derbes taught physics, which I never quite understood, but he also taught kindness and decency, which I understood completely.

 

And of course there was Coach Fitz. He taught me tenacity and perseverance, to savor the redemption that comes from hard work, and to accept responsibility for all of my actions, not just the admirable ones. Those values guided me as I grew up and steer me today as I reluctantly embrace middle age. 

 

I wish many good things for my own children, but most of all I hope that they will have teachers like mine.

 

I am grateful to all of them, as well as many of the fellow students I encountered during my 12 years at Newman. Above all I am grateful to Newman itself, for I cannot imagine what my life would have been like without its generosity.

 

Obviously Newman gave me a first-rate education – but more importantly, it encouraged me to dream. The fact that some of those dreams came true is in no small part due to an amazing institution that decided to take a chance on a 6-year-old boy just entering first grade.”

 

                       -Kerry Luft ’82

 

If you would like to support a Newman student through a scholarship gift or share your own story, please contact Kristin Blanchfield, Assistant Head of School for External Affairs, at (504) 896-6337 or at kristinblanchfield@newmanschool.org.