Link from the website: http://alumni.sas.edu.sg/?page=Sept09visitors
September 29, 2009: Today we had a very special visitor: Yenly Thach, 26, a Cambodian-American pursuing her masters at the University of California-Santa Barbara, is not an SAS alum, but she has a connection to Kendra Payne '02, an alum whose memory we celebrate on the Timeline Wall in the Memory Garden. Kendra was killed in 2006 while doing cycling training for a triathlon. Kendra's memory and her love for sports is celebrated at SAS with an annual biathlon in her name. Yenly has been awarded the Kendra Payne Memorial Foundation Scholarship established by Kendra's parents, Rick and Patricia Chiota Payne. You can read more of Yenly's story here.
Yenly was on her way to start a six-month research project in Cambodia, and had a short stopover in Singapore. Having met Kendra's parents several times, Yenly was keen to learn more about Singapore and about Kendra's life at SAS. We arranged for Yenly to meet Therese Vainius '11 and Ted Chritton '10, both powerful athletes and last year's winners of the Kendra Payne Memorial Biathlon.
Yenly also met with Athletic Director Mimi Molchan, who runs the biathlon each year and fondly remembers Kendra and her love for sports. Ms. Molchan tells Kendra's story to all the biathlon participants each year, and says that it is quite an emotional event for the participants. She was pleased to meet Yenly, who is carrying on another one of Kendra's passions: helping women in developing countries. Yenly and Ms. Molchan pose with Communications Director Beth Gribbon, who very kindly opened her home to Yenly during her two day visit to Singapore. The three ladies are pictured next to Kendra's memorial plaque in the SAS Memory Garden. Yenly loved Kendra's quote, picked out by Kendra's parents: "If anything is worth doing, do it with all your heart." She felt that it was something she lived by as well.
Our last stop with Yenly was to meet two special freshman at SAS, Rathana and Cherry Amelio. These ladies joined SAS in middle school. They had attended one of the Amelio schools in rural Cambodia, and joined the Amelio family in Singapore, where they will stay at SAS until they graduate. Both Rathana and Cherry are very involved at SAS, and getting used to the different rigors and pace of the high school. They were eager to hear about Yenly's story, and were surprised when they realized that she was Cambodian, but had never been to Cambodia. Yenly was very impressed with both girls, and said she imagined they'd have a very bright future. As they left the high school office, all three agreed to keep in touch via facebook. Yenly's visit reminded us just how interconnected the world is. Thank you for visiting Yenly, and for celebrating Kendra's spirit through your research in Cambodia. We'll continue to celebrate her memory here too!
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