Student Life
Teacher Spotlight - Ms. Beretto
By Danielle Bartholet ('23)
Behind every addition of the Weekly Word, each IWA Instagram post, and the bi annual IWA magazine, is the marketing and communications director for IWA, Ms. Holly Beretto. I was able to sit down with her and discuss her role at the Academy, and how the wide scope of projects she undertakes helps present our school to the public. She describes her job as being “responsible for all of the communications and marketing efforts for IWA.” This entails working with admissions to create materials for middle school students interested in IWA, sending out emails to parents, creating the Weekly Word, managing the IWA website, and running the school’s social media accounts. She also works closely with IWA’s graphic designer and photographer, Mr. Hawkins.
For her, the highlight of her job is her work on the IWA magazine, as she enjoys being able to find stories and “put them into a place…that shows us at our best.” She is currently working on a video presentation for the IWA gala, another of her favorite activities due to her love of broadcast video production. She values helping IWA to have a “contemporary look and feel…that retains our femininity and intelligence,” which has been a steady process for her since coming to IWA in the fall of 2019. These efforts constantly remind her of why she came to IWA: she wanted to work for a place that was “mission driven,” and she believes giving her talents to this space is her own unique way to live out her faith.
She approaches her tasks from a journalistic background, and says that has allowed her to “segue” into doing work for IWA. Her initial understanding of electronic journalism came from the first hand learning she gained as it was developing in the mid 90’s, which gives her “a unique perspective” on how we can use those medias at IWA. Before coming to IWA, she worked as a freelance writer and at Rice University for ten years, in the admissions office and marketing efforts for the school of engineering.
Her absolute favorite part of IWA is the students, seeing what we do and sharing our stories to the community around us. She is always looking for stories about student and club activities at IWA, so feel free to email her if you have ideas or topics!
Student Spotlight - Kendy Taylor
By Mary Flaherty ('23)
Drawn to the sisterhood of Incarnate Word Academy, freshman Kendy Taylor has given us an insight into her life at IWA. The community here is Kendy’s favorite thing about IWA because of the classmates you grow to rely on, and the teachers always there with a helping hand. She enjoys math the most out of all the subjects because it comes naturally to her and it gives her a nice change of scenery from words to numbers.
“The tight knit community makes you feel at home.”
Kendy is an active member in the Made 4 Medicine club, student council, and the women’s empowerment club HERd. Regarding sports, she plays outfield and 2nd base for softball and does gymnastics! When she is not participating in these sports and organizations, she takes the time to rest and recharge in the best way possible, sleep! Incarnate Word Academy has allowed her to make friends in all grade levels and have people to constantly be there for her, she would not have it any other way!