Former Exchange Student Attends 50th H.S. Reunion
Begumsen Ergenekon attended Lake Mills High School and lived with a host family as an AFS Exchange Student. Ergenekon, who is from Turkey, recently returned to Wisconsin for the 50-year reunion of the Class of 1969. She is now a retired social anthropologist and archeologist, and married to a fellow AFS Returnee, who is from Norway. Class of 1969. Read more in the Lake Mills Reader.
The Lasting Impact of Christine Lagarde’s AFS Year
Named the third most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine in 2018, Chrstine Lagarde is the head of the IMF. She is also, notably, a former AFS Exchange Student who spent a year in Bethesda, Maryland in 1973-74. Lagarde worked as an intern at the US Capitol that year. Now, Lagarde has been nominated as the first woman president of the European Central Bank (ECB). Read more at the Law Society Gazette.
Exchange Student Describes the Charms of Sweden’s Midsommar
This past year, California-native Emma Millis was an AFS Exchange Student in Sweden. At the end of her stay, she experienced the Midsommar festival, complete with flower crowns, strawberry picking, maypole dances. “Midsommar was the best way to end my exchange year to Sweden,” Millis wrote. “Surrounded by family and friends I loved, and learning about a holiday (a pagan one) that is so widely celebrated here, and nowhere else. It not only excites me for the future I have but the possibility of returning to Sweden so that I may experience these holidays and celebrations again.” Read more in the Moab Sun News.