By Elizabeth A. Davis ’86
Mimi Vance started Bright School in first grade. On the first day of school, her teacher, Carol Cutrer, said to her: “I am just tickled pink you are in my class.”
“I always remember that,” Vance said. “Everything I remember was so fun.”
Vance ’10 is now a senior at GPS and president of Partnerships in the Community (PIC), a community service council in which the entire school votes on the leader. She is one of three Bright alumnae in senior leadership at GPS, including Tia Kemp as senior class president and Phoebe Warren as Honor Council president. Vance, Kemp and Elisabeth Hale, another Bright alumna, are members of the GPS May Court as well.
Vance’s older sister, Caroline ’07, and younger sister, Charlotte ’12, also went to Bright, and her mother, Jan, is currently the assistant librarian. Vance invited two of her Bright teachers, Kathleen Hughes and Vicki Luhowiak, to her GPS chapel talk in the fall.
Bright prepared Vance for life in middle and high school, she said. “The foundation I got from Bright was key to where I am now as a leader and as a student. I was encouraged by my teachers and classmates at Bright,” she said.
The state project in fourth grade had a particular impact. Vance’s state was Hawaii. “I think it is so cool. I learned how to lead in my own capacity. Every student’s project was different, and that was OK,” she said.
Vance jumped into leadership roles as early as seventh grade when she was a member of the Honor Council. She was on the Student Council in ninth grade and served on PIC as a sophomore and junior.
Vance was elected president of PIC after giving a speech before the school about her goals. “GPS girls are so eager to serve but so busy,” is how she began her speech. She said she wanted to continue with the school-wide event Mission Remission, a walk for childhood cancer research, and to limit supply and fund drives to four a year.
She began a new project this year that has turned out to be part of her future aspirations. Each Monday and Thursday, Vance joins 20 girls who tutor children at the Glenwood Community Center after school. The GPS volunteers help the students with their homework, read with them for 30 minutes and then play.
“Our goal as a council is to be friends with the people who we might not otherwise be friends with and go places we might not otherwise go into,” Vance said. “I think we are achieving our goal by going in and forming relationships with people.”
Tutoring has gone on through both normal and trying days, she said. “Our relationships there are stronger because of it. Our eyes were opened by different experiences, and we’ve formed relationships out of trust,” Vance said.
After GPS, Vance plans to attend Lipscomb University in Nashville and wants to study in the Institute for Law, Justice and Society to prepare for a career perhaps working in education policy. She is contemplating working for Teach for America and dreams of living and teaching abroad. This summer, she will get a head start on that goal by working with a ministry in Uganda that serves women and children. She will help take care of the children while the women are in classes.
In the meantime, Vance looks forward to seeing other members of the class of 2010 when they gather this spring before going off to college.
