Holly Stark, the work-study coordinator at Mary Johnson Children’s Center, has traveled a long, winding path from Vermont and back again.
Stark grew up in Westford, Vt., “a small farm town,” and she went to Essex High School, which Stark described as “one of Vermont’s bigger high schools.” After graduating, Stark, who did gymnastics, track, cross-country and soccer as a high-school student, hopped on her bicycle and rode across the country. She first went down to North Carolina, and then she made her way to Washington State, traveling back and forth between the two places for a few years and taking some time to explore the world before settling down for college.
“Nowadays there’s some of that stigma surrounding those that take some time off between high school and college,” she added. “I started college four years after high school.”
After receiving her undergraduate degree in French from the University of Utah, Stark spent time in both Vermont and Colorado working as a bike tour leader. She went on to receive her graduate degree from the Monterey Institute back before it was affiliated with the College, intending to teach either French or English as a Second Language, but she was not finished roaming the globe.
“I taught at a lot of colleges,” Stark said, including the University of Denver; Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland; the University of Pittsburgh; and even Yale. “That’s my big résumé-builder,” Stark said, laughing.
So what finally brought Stark back to Middlebury and Vermont?
“In the Asian economic crisis, a lot of ESL teachers got laid off and I was among them,” Stark said. “My husband was working for a dot-com and when that bubble burst, he got a job at Midd.”
Her husband, Bryan Carson, is now the Electronic Services Librarian at the College, while Stark started working for Mary Johnson Children’s Center, which her now eight-year-old son, Max, attended six years ago. With Stark and her husband finding job stability, Middlebury became their new home.
Stark’s job includes interviewing and hiring work-study students from the College as well as substitute teachers.
“I also do a lot of communicating between the office and the teachers,” she said. Her job also includes “a lot of clerical and administrative stuff” such as answering telephones, organizing paperwork, and managing the long wait-list for children to get into Mary Johnson.
Working at Mary Johnson, which accepts children from 18 months to five years old, has given Stark a lot of experience with local families from all parts of the socioeconomic spectrum here in Middlebury
“We have children of professors and children of parents with other professional jobs,” Stark said. “But about 50 percent of our children here receive subsidies from the state. There is definitely a difference.”
Stark attributed some of the broad range in income levels to the College’s presence, a factor which contributes diversity and opportunities to the town.
“I’ve lived in lots of different cities and so I really appreciate being in a small town — and yet having the addition of the College really enriches a small town experience,” Stark said. “There are really different elements here that you normally wouldn’t get in a small town.”
After living and teaching in so many different places, Stark has finally come home to stay, where Middlebury represents a compromise between the urban aspects of a place like Pittsburgh and the farm-town-feel of a place like Westford, Vt.
“I spent most of my adult life elsewhere — most of it in the United States, but some time in Europe as well,” Stark said. “And coming back, it’s like, ‘Yeah, this is really a good spot.’ So you grow to appreciate that. Spending a lot of time away makes you appreciate Vermont more. I no longer feel that ‘Oh, I gotta get out of here’ feeling.”
“I really enjoy living in Middlebury,” Stark said. “It’s a great place to raise a child.”
One in 8,700: Where the personalities of Middlebury proper are celebrated
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