Jeanne Martin is a professional harpist, and she gave us a beautiful mini-concert on her Celtic Harp. She discussed her love for this instrument and some of the interesting history behind it. She also shared with us how she uses songs played on her harp to cue memories for people with Alzheimer’s. 

In addition to owning Santa Barbara Airbus, Eric Onnen serves on the Goleta City Council. He shared with us what is takes to be a public servant and how much he loves the city of Goleta. His passion for his work on the city council was inspiring!

Betsy Markle is a licensed dietician and entrepreneur. Her business is called Sunshine Wellness. She believes that we should try to have a balance in our diets, and she also recommended that we disperse our meals throughout the day. Sunshine Wellness is going to start delivering all organic lunches to schools and businesses.

Maritza Meija with the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara shared with us all of the scholarship opportunities available to students from Santa Barbara. She told us that money should never be the reason for students to not attend college. It was also wonderful to hear that even when students move away they can still get financial support from the Santa Barbara Foundation.

Dr. Fred Kass gave a very interesting presentation about how to prevent Colon Cancer. Although not many of us are at risk when it comes to colon cancer, he encouraged to tell our parents about what we learned.

Dr. Jeffery Lee, a research veterinarian at UCSB, dropped by to share great photos and stories of animal surgeries. He also expressed how much he loved working with animals. His passion for working with animals has taken him all over the world.

Roberto Gutierrez, our former work-study pro, came to speak to us about Che Guevara’s life and the influence Che has had on Latin American politics. He showed some wonderful photos that helped us all understand a little more about the man on all those t-shirts

Ryan Biornstad and Chris Swanson, both former science teachers at Anacapa, came by to tell us about their experiences in medical school. Ryan is in his first year at University of Texas at Houston, and Chris is currently completing his residency.

Everyone loves a man in a kilt! Tom Strelich, Anacapa dad, told us about his passion for Scotland and how he convinced his wife to buy him his very own bagpipe. He played some beautiful songs for us on this interesting instrument.

Tamsen Donner, a former French teacher at Anacapa, dropped in to tell us about her life as an artist. She showed us some beautiful slides of her work. It is clear that she loves making her living as an artist!

 photographer, and she particularly enjoys working with portraits.

Arceli Ardon shared her passion for the caves of Altamira with us. These caves are located in Spain and have paintings that are over 15,000 years old. She was able to visit the caves when she worked for a museum in Queretaro, Mexico. It was inspirational to see how much she loved these caves.

Liza Russell Reed and her dad, John Russell, stopped in to share a little bit about their photography. John has been a photographer for over thirty years, and he is honored to be Andre Agassi’s personal photographer. John also shared about his work as photographer for professional surfers and other sports. Liza is a local photographer, and she particularly enjoys working with portraits.

Carrie Cropley is a Communication Studies professor at Santa Barbara City College. She shared her passion for traveling with us. She takes college students around the world to study international communication, and her trips are completely paid for! She encouraged us all to travel whenever we get the opportunity.

Manny Raya told us about his program called “Hommie’s Turf to Surf.” He takes gang members from Goleta, Santa Barbara, and Carpinteria to go surfing for two weeks every summer. Through this all expense paid camp these students learn how to communicate beyond their gang affiliation. Manny hopes to obtain a Master’s degree in philosophy in the coming years.

Terra Wise, a counselor and self defense instructor, gave us excellent advice on how to be more aware of our surroundings, and she also gave us practical self defense tips. She loves that her work empowers people.

Park Williams from UCSB’s Geography Department, stopped in during our club period to gave a fascinating presentation on how tree rings provide insight into our world’s climate. Through statistics and taking tree core samples, Park is able to tell the temperature in a given thousands of years ago, and he can also predict what it will be in the years to come.

Emma and her harp teacher, Laurie Rasmussen, shared their love for the harp with us. In addition to telling us some of the history, they also serenaded us with some beautiful songs.

Mary Carroll, a biologist and Anacapa Mom, spoke to us about California’s diverse and beautiful plants. She brought in wonderful plants to show us some of the wildlife that is unique to our state.

Chip Snowden is a consultant for independent schools, and he was on campus for three days in December to tell us about our school. He ended his visit by stopping into Breakfast Club to tell us about his interesting job and all of the interesting schools he has visited around the world.

Phil Abram, President of Sonos, told us about their product. It was really cool to see how a system could be designed to play different songs in different rooms. He came from Sony to be the president of Sonos, and he is really enjoying being part of this small growth company.

Tyler Bodnar told us about his experience working with "Engineers without Borders" on a water project in Honduras.  It was fascinating to hear about the process of working with an Honduran village to provide clean, dirnkable water.  Charlotte Casebeer told us about her experiences as a student at Chico State.

Jack Flinterman is a student at Brown University, and an Anacapa brother.  He shared his final art project, a very creative animation short film, with us. He told us that he really didn't enjoy art very much until he discovered an art form with which he really connected.  He said he will be in in this class again next semester, and we hope to see his next project as well!

Carolyn Chriman, Class of "07, came back to visit us. It was wonderful to have her on campus again. She told us about her time at USC, and gave a fascinating presentation about procrastination.  We are so proud of her!

Dr. Pam Reeves, an Anacapa mom and psychiatrist, spoke about depression. She shared that it is a very challenging disease, but there several ways to treat it today, and it is very important to seek help and support.

Kevin Kasch is an alumnus of Anacapa.  He is currently attending school in Beijing, and he stopped in to give us an update about his life.  He talked about many things including the food in China, his travels, and all of the speakers he was going to visit while in Santa Barbara

Mac Bakewell came for his annual visit to tell about the amazing trip he leads to Thailand each summer, that some of our Anacapa students have had the opportunity to enjoy while teaching English to Thai kids. His daughter also came to tell us how much she loves visiting her friends and family in Thailand.  Their passion for sharing Thailand's culture with others is contagious.

Linda Mathews stopped by to speak about Santa Barbara's sister city in Japan, Toba.  She has been involved in this program for a long time and, as the mother of an Anacapa graduate, she loves when Anacapa students go on a trip to Toba.  This trip is open to high school students under the age of fifteen.

Jerry Sigel and his Anacapa son shared their experiences in their recent trip to Egypt.  They told us about the amazing sight they were able to see, as well as about the extreme poverty present in this country.  They had a safe trip, and we were lucky to see all their wonderful photos of ancient sights.

Andrew Soliz, Anacapa dad, came in to share with us about his work with many individuals ranging from children to prison inmates. His organization, Sacred Ways, is about reincorporating Native American traditions into our lives. He shared with us the value of using these techniques to help himself and others.

Patricia Henley stopped by while she was in town to tell us her fascinating story about winning a lawsuit against Phillip Morris, the tobacco company.  She decide to sue Phillip Morris after she was diagnosed with Lung Cancer.  Her doctors told her she was going to die from this cancer, but that was ten years ago!  Her succes story was inspiring, and now she is helping children through the Patricia Henley Foundation in Santa Barbara.

In addition to being an Anacapa mom, Gay Brown is the founder of Greenopia.  Her company publishes city guides for the "Green Consumer."  These guides assess how environmentally conscientious restaurants, dry cleaners, hotels and a  variety of other businesses are in a given city.  Greenopia is currently available in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, and will be launched in many more major cities in 2008.

Jenna Clemens, Class of '99, came to speak to us about her experiences as an Anacapa student, and also about her post Anacapa life. After working in Brazil for a year after she received her undergraduate degree from UCLA, she went onto law school. She will start working for a law firm in San Francisco next Fall. We are excited to hear how she enjoys being a lawyer.

Mia Hultgen, Class of '98, came by to tell us about her job as a counselor at New Beginnings.  She is still in the process of getting her internship hours, but she loves working with her clients. She said she is still best friends with some of her classmates from Anacapa

Marty Robertson is pictured here with students who use to be in his class at Peabody elementary school.  He came in to tell us about his amazing trip to Egypt, Greece, France, and England.  He took a one year sabbatical to do research on a book he is writing and to develop a curriculum for his students.  His slideshow presentation was very interesting, and it is clear that he is a wonderful teacher.

Anacapa mom, Ashley Baker-Lee, shared with us her experience being a medical researcher at UCLA.  She told us about the process of testing animals and humans for specific pharmaceutical drugs.  It was a fascinating presentation that gave us a lot of insight as to how this system has been used to better science and medicine.

Evan Eltinge, Class of '04, is a student at West Point, and he shard with us his perspective on the war in Iraq.  He gave an informative presentation that alerted all of our attention to the complexiites of this conflict.  We wish him well s he heads out to North Korea, Iraq or Afghanistan in the fall.

Michelle Melendez, Anacapa mom, came to talk to us about her younger son's kidney transplant, and everything involved in that process

Beatriz Gularte and Elsa Rodriguez stopped in to get our opinions on city planning in Santa Barbara.  They gave us an interesting survey and shared with us how much they value young people's opinions on this issue.

We were glad to have a visit from Tom Sichi this year! He talked about his experience in Tanzania where he brought crucial education and medicine to a tribe living on Lake Victoria.

Ermilia Moodley came to give us a primer on novel writing and she shared with us her story and her wonderful book.  We hope she can come back when her next book is out!

Bruce Bebee came to talk about the Oil-Environmental Agreement and shared with us some beautiful slides of the Burton Mesa Preserve.

Laura Inks stopped by to get our opinions in the Youth Asset Survey:  Youth Violence and Gang Activity

Chris Benedict, DJ of Ability, came to share his Motivational Speaking about People with Disabilities, which included talk about our own stereotypes and assumptions. He works as a Disability Awareness Advocate and Speaker and our students were very interested in his job.

Austin Whitney gave an inspiring presentation about his personal experience with drink and driving. He was in an accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down, and now he speaks to young people about the dangers of alcohol.

Bonnie Blair stopped by to talk about her work in Romania:  Missions Work and gave us a beautiful presentation about what she does there.

Peggy Oki came back for a visit to tell us about how things were going with her efforts to stop whale poaching. Her efforts to stop these horrible crimes are inspiring for all of us!

Layne Wilson, Beth's sister, came to talk to us about her very interesting South American Travels.  Thanks for sharing those with us!

Allen Breithwaite who is a naturalist, gave a wonderful presentation about the value of our earth. He opened our eyes to new creatures and creations. He reminded that nature is a gift.

Bethany O'Donnell came to share with us her experiences in Europe.  She was gone for a semester in Cambridge, and on her weekends and free days traveled to Italy, Brussels, Spain and toured England!

Derek Moore is a Personal Trainer who came to talk to us and emphasize how important it is to take good care of our body to live a better life.