By Allie Goodrich ’13
Groton, MA— English enthusiast, history buff, crew captain, math and science peer tutor, and now the recipient of a National Merit Scholarship. Meet Maddox Angerhofer ’18.
Come this fall, Maddox will be studying at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington D.C, as well as rowing for the women’s crew program. She has her sights set. “I will get a Bachelor of Science and foreign service, and my major will probably be international politics,” she said, smiling. “But we’ll see.”
A strong interest in security studies and US and global foreign policy has drawn her in this direction. As a junior, she wrote a twelve-page research paper for her US History class on the South China Sea, getting into “some very nitty-gritty details about international navigation legislation in international waters.”
“Mr. Sheehan was a huge help,” she reflected. “I’m very grateful to him for his help with that.”
Maddox posing with her mom after receiving the Thompson English Prize at Cum Laude Day.
Speaking of her teachers, Maddox was quick to point to Honors Literature with Doc Haman as a particular favorite, who is retiring after thirty-six years at the school. “It’s really fantastic,” she said. “He just loves the books that we read, and really works hard to get everyone talking about them when we have our discussions.”
Above all, she said, “he is really good at listening to students. It’s a very good class—I enjoy it a lot.”
The humanities are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Maddox’s pursuits. Her activities on the LA campus have included serving as founder and president of LA’s Environmental Sustainability Council; touring prospective students and families as a member of the Elm Tree Society; serving as a peer counselor and tutor; playing clarinet in the Student Jazz Ensemble; co-editing LA’s literary magazine; and co-heading the Lawrence Academy Sock Club.
In addition to captaining LA Girls’ Varsity Hockey, she started LA’s crew co-op program with Westford Academy and captained the Westford Community Rowing Program. “We row on Forge Pond in Westford,” she said. “It’s pretty small, but it does the trick.”
Twice she has traveled to the Wintergreen Dog Sledding Lodge in Minnesota, first as part of a group Winterim trip and then returning for a Winterim professional this year to work as a staff intern.
“It’s the largest Canadian Inuit sled dog kennel in the world,” she explained. “They have 73 dogs, and there were two eight-week-old puppies this spring. It basically consisted of waking up in the morning and feeding and playing with all the dogs, then skiing about ten to twenty miles alongside the guests who were dogsledding and coming back and cooking dinner and playing with the puppies more—pretty much a dream come true.”
After being named a national semifinalist in the 2018 National Merit Scholarship Competition back in the fall, Maddox received news in early May that she had been selected as a scholarship recipient out of the finalist pool. High school students enter the National Merit Program by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test PSAT/NMSQT—which serves an initial screen of approximately 1.6 million entrants each year—and by meeting published program entry and participation requirements.
During LA’s graduation exercises this year, Maddox received the Benjamin Davis Williams Prize, which is awarded by the faculty “to that senior whose leadership qualities, innovative ideas, and varied interests in the numerous areas of Lawrence Academy life all make this a better place in which to live, to experience, and to learn.”
As she heads to D.C., there is no doubt Maddox will be taking these qualities with her as she heads off to pursue her interests in international relations and politics.
Congratulations Maddox, and may you continue to inspire others through your actions and kind nature.