K-Flash Update
Here's the latest from KMS!
Community Weekend - October 8-10
Our community offers a variety of mountain sports programs for athletes spanning a broad range of ages, skill sets and disciplines. From supporting our golf tournament or the KSC Monster Sale, to attending our Open House and Development Program Hike, your participation in this community ensures that it remains a center of excellence. On behalf of our athletes, students, faculty and staff, we thank you for supporting our passions and pursuit of success. We hope to see you this weekend!
33rd Annual Golf Tournament
We have had tremendous engagement from our community in support of our 33rd Annual Golf Tournament on Friday October 8
at the Killington Golf Course. Reception and awards will follow at the Clubhouse. We currently have 28 complete teams registered and are finalizing some composite teams of individual registrants. Sponsorships include Breakfast (Green Mountain Law), Lunch (One Digital & BCA Benefits), Scorecards (Jenne Construction and Skiology), Carts (Gurnet Consulting) and Putting Contest (Rutland Medical VOC).
In addition to KSC, KMS and Killington, our Tee sponsors this year include Bank of America, Clear River Tavern, Comm-Tract, Fort Hill Collision, Gurnet Consulting, Killington Valley Real Estate, Killington World Cup Foundation, New England Masters, Peak Performance Ski Shop, Ski Country Real Estate, Stifel Investment Services, Sushi Yoshi and World Cup Dreams Foundation. We have received many generous donations for prizes and items for gift bags. Thank you for the incredible support!
Don't forget about the Student Council Bake Sale during the tournament!
Save-the-Date: World Cup KMS Alumni and Community Social
Friday November 26, 2021 at Charity’s 4:00-6:00. Please join us to kick off World Cup weekend and reconnect with old classmates, faculty, coaches and KMS community! Please RSVP here.
Close race results in Herguth and Schultz victory
By Ian Groezinger, Social Studies Department Co-Chair
Early in September the Student Council Oversight Committee, consisting of faculty Emily Hudson, Eric Kuntz, and Ian Groezinger began the process of forming this year's Council. In typical fashion, the senior class presented three strong candidates, each promising to move the school forward in his own way. Candidates Aidan Herguth, Ray Lamlein, and Tucker Schultz brought up unique, thought provoking ideas as they hashed it out in the annual Student Council Presidential debate. With a strong showing from all three candidates the polls opened and the electorate made their voices heard. After a hotly contested election, the student body chose President Aidan Herguth and Vice President Tucker Schultz to bring KMS to new heights.
Once the new leadership was formed, each grade level held elections in search of their own representatives. Upon closing the polls, it was confirmed that the students once again chose wisely. Please join KMS in welcoming this year’s Student Council:
Middle. School/Freshman Representative: Liam Claffey
Sophomore Representative: Jason Sullivan
Junior Representative: Emily Gray
Senior Representative: Ray Lamlein
Vice President: Tucker Schultz
President: Aidan Herguth
Juniors start planning early: new course
By April Hayden, Director of Academics
Intro to College and Life After KMS" is being offered for the first time this fall. Facilitated by college advisors, Claire and April, it is designed for juniors to get a jump start on the college process. In addition, reflecting on career goals, gap year options, as well as exploring dreams and passions are aspects of this course. Guest speakers from CCV and college/career panels are planned. An important part of course participation is attending at least four college admissions visits.
The College Advising page on our KMS Intranet and the Parent Portal has a variety of helpful links and resources. The parent Portal is a password protected website just for parents. The website has been shared with the email address that we have on file for you. You must have or have created a Google Account with that email address. It does not need to be a Gmail account.
Student activities off campus once again
Check out this slideshow of our orientation trip to the shores of the Connecticut River and recent dorm outings, including a visit to the Tunbridge Fair and climbing at Green Mountain Rock Climbing!
KMS DH dominates the 2020-2021 season
By Jason DiDomenico, DH Program Director
The KMS DH team dedicated themselves to bettering their craft this season. We shared triumph after triumph with Riley Miller earning the stars and stripes jersey by winning the DH National Championship in Winter Park, CO, and Lenci Bogdan accumulating several decisive wins on the Eastern States Cup (ESC) circuit before and after injury. Sarah Hamlin is first in the East Coast Junior (ECJ) MTB Championship standings and is currently 4th overall in the ESC series for ameteur women. Teammate Victoria Johnson is second in the ECJ MTB Championship rankings and sits first in ESC series points for amateur women. Rounding out the charging womens team is Lucy Attebury, who encountered injury, but has rallied to claim sixth in the ESC point standings for amateur women.
The men have also dominated this year with Gabriel Johnson sitting consistently on the podium placing him as the leader for U15 boys and second for ECJ Championships. Henry Mix is also no stranger to the podium, visiting the steps often for the U15 boys and coming in second overall for ECJ Champs Dual Slalom. Seniors Mathew Krimmel and Evan Tighe posted successful seasons with Matt testing himself at US Nationals, showing real speed despite batting injuries, and Evan stepping onto the podium at numerous events, ranking fourth for the ESC Junior Expert Class. Bode Tracy sits in seventh overall for ESC Junior Experts and looks forward to continuing his consistency running into the last race in October. Liam Attebury got ninth at ECJ Champs and is finding more success as the season continues, alongside teammate Eli Kinsler, returning from injury and will be upping his game in fall XC races. Simon Miller earned 4th at ECJ Champs, has had several podium finishes in the ESC series and chronicles the adventures of the team’s mascot, #YunketheMonke. Jacob Manning and Maximus DiDomenico have also been charging with Jacob leading the U12 age group in ESC points and Maximus sitting in twelfth for ESC U15 boys.
The DH Team is in great shape heading into the Final ESC race of the season at Mountain Creek, NJ on Oct 24, 2021. Come cheer us on and see what it's all about!
Freestyle sets their sights on Sweden
By Kris Pepe, Freestyle Program Director
The Freestyle Team’s first week of fall training concluded at the Olympic Jumping Complex in Lake Placid, New York. A group of Full and Winter Term athletes traveled to Lake Placid for two days of water ramp training. The trip was the team’s fourth and final visit to Lake Placid this year. We like to supplement our KMS Four Season Airbag training with a few trips to the water ramp each year. The change in jump shape, ramp and landing surface provide us with variety in our training and better prepares us for the varied conditions we see on snow.
The team will continue to make their final preparations and refinements in the air and in the gym before getting back on snow next month in Idre Fjäll, Sweden. KMS will host a final Four Season Airbag camp on October 9 &10.
Alpine hits the snow again!
By Micaela Holland, Alpine Program Director
This fall our alpine teams started the school year with a trip to Big Snow American Dream, an indoor ski facility in New Jersey. Since we privately rented the facility, our athletes were able to partake in a few days of skills progression, drills, free skiing and gate training. This was a great opportunity for our athletes to pick up where they left off with summer projects, or get some fundamental work done prior to fall training. The folks at Big Snow were psyched to have us and we had a really productive few days. After skiing we were even treated to a special rollerblading skills acquisition session in the parking lot from our friend and fellow Black Bear Myles Cotter- Sparrow ‘99 from RollerBlade.
Since our return to campus, our athletes have been hard at work in the gym with Marisa and Bastian getting strong and patiently waiting for the snow to fall in Vermont. Our fall round of Skills Quest Fitness Testing went exceptionally well and many athletes broke personal and school records! Several Full Term athletes have headed to Austria for a month of training in Hintertux. Additionally, our alpine PG group got a head start in Hintertux, training with World Cup and Europa Cup skiers in on world-class venues.
Freeski & Snowboard productive on airbag and dirt jumps
By Pete DuBois, Freeski Program Director and Devon Gulick, Snowboard Program Director
The Freeski team is off to a strong start this prep-period and it has been impressive to watch everyone improve in the gym. The squad is making excellent progress up at the airbag and these have been the most productive sessions we have ever had!
We also had the opportunity to get a bunch of biking under our belt over the past couple of weeks, enjoying local trails and Coach Jesse Peroline’s dirt jumps. Snowboard similarly has been taking full advantage of the airbag facility and recently organized a community “green up” day led by senior Kian Hauschildt.
Endurance competition is back!
By Brad Ramsay, Endurance Cycling Program Director
The KMS Endurance Cycling Team has taken full advantage of the return to a more typical cyclocross schedule this fall. The squad is excited to have USA Cycling and UCI race opportunities every weekend; including 3 World Cups and World Championships to be held in the United States!
The team started the season honing cyclocross skills at our practice venue and some awesome local races that offered a variety of challenges. Our first races were in Massachusetts, where The Grand Prix of Beverly tested everyone’s running legs as all were forced to run 4 beach sections. The next day at Quad Cross, riders were forced to navigate a number of tricky off-camber turns including one just before a forced dismount for the barriers. Weekend #2 saw the KMS squad at Deer Farm CX where riders had to conquer loose, sandy up-hills and slog through a boggy mud section lap after lap. With a few weeks of training and some race experience under their belts, the squad headed for their first UCI race weekend of the season in Rochester, NY. This is a course that has it all; long power sections, steep run-ups, barriers, stairs, tricky off-camber sections, and a number of man-made and natural obstacles. Finally, last weekend, the team headed down to Troy, NY for the Uncle Sam Grand Prix of Cyclocross, which challenged riders with numerous tire-threatening roots and a tricky off-camber traverse (made even more slippery by some mid-race rainfall). These early season races saw a number of KMS athletes experience successes in terms of personal race goals as well as on the podiums. Bridget Wilson, Chanah Katz, Owen Ballard, and Jason Sullivan have all been on the podiums multiple times, and all have occupied the top step at least once!
Between race weekends, the Endurance Cycling team has joined forces with some of the snow-sport athletes to compete in the Lakes Region Interscholastic Cycling League mountain bike series. Thus far, the squad has raced fast, flowy (and, yes, hilly!) races at both Proctor Academy, and at the Slate Valley Trails in Poultney, Vermont.
Looking forward, the Endurance Cyclists are headed west to compete over two World Cup weekends and one UCI race weekend. First up is the Trek Cup in Waterloo, WI. This is a notoriously power-intensive course on the grounds of the Trek Bicycle Factory. Weekend 2 is the Jingle Cross World Cup in Iowa City, Iowa, where racers must both climb and descend the formidable “Mt Crumpet”. Though all will be racing at all 3 venues, we are especially excited to cheer for (and, of course, offer some traditional cyclocross heckles to) KMS Athletes Hugo Brisebois and Matteo Oppizzi who both have been selected to represent their home countries of Canada and Switzerland, respectively, in the Trek and Jingle Cross World Cups!
Please join us in congratulating our NEW National Honor Society members!
The purpose of this chapter shall be to create an enthusiasm for scholarship, to stimulate a desire to render service, to promote worthy leadership, and to encourage the development of character in students of Killington Mountain School: Lucy Attebury, Owen Ballard, Lenci Bogdan, Conner Dinn, Jessica Duda, Shelby Graves, Emily Gray, Kian Hauschildt, Aidan Herguth, Chanah Katz, Rhiannon Lubaszewski, Benjamin McKenna, Jason Sullivan, Evan Tighe, Madelyn Wickless. Current members: Jamie Hamlin, Ray Lamlein, Tucker Schultz
