Alums in the News

Isabelle Ruane ’09 was awarded one of the New Venture Seed Grants to start her own business at Wake Forest University. She was part of a group of WFU students and faculty who were honored at an Entrepreneurial banquet last week. She was given $1,000 in seed money to develop a prototype for her business. She is currently working with professors at the Business and Law schools to make her dream a reality. Isabelle is focused on bringing her goal of a successful company to fruition, and has a business plan in place that she is refining with the help of many advisors and a lot of hard work. Wake Forest’s Black and Gold newspaper featured the winners with a front page article. Her parents commented that the leadership skills and a strong work ethic that she learned at VES continue to support her in this endeavor.

To read an article from the Wake Forest school newspaper about Isabelle’s story, please click here.

David C. Lane `03 of Lynchburg, VA has been granted a teaching fellowship with Phillips Academy in Andover, MA. A standout student and wrestler at VES, David graduated from Rhodes College in 2007 with a degree in economics and German. He also earned a Fulbright Scholarship and has been working on a Master’s program in Berlin Germany. Although VES had dropped the formal study of German from its curriculum, David’s interest in German and his desire to study the language at advanced levels led David to petition the school for the chance to study more German in a special program. VES hired a Randolph College professor to come to campus weekly to offer David an independent study course in German which David completed successfully before heading off to Rhodes College for more study. David’s responsibilities at Andover will include teaching first and second level German and coaching tennis and wrestling.

 Congratulations to both David and Isabelle for a job well done.