A Unique Perspective: Sally Poutiatine '80

Posted on: June 30

Hang around Saint George’s long enough and you might find as many ways to connect to the school as has Sally (Stanton) Poutiatine ’80. Although her list will be tough to beat.

“I came in the fall of 1974 and met my best friend — Nancy Harris — on the first day of classes,” says Sally. “Now we are both back as parents of Lower School students.”

As a student herself, Sally appreciated her core group of friends and the opportunity to try a bit of everything, including an ill-fated attempt to play basketball. “The teachers also pushed you, since they knew what you could do and wouldn’t let you hide or get away with anything less than your best.”

After crossing Graduation Bridge in 1980, she headed to the University of Washington — “the biggest university I could find” — and earned a political science degree. She returned to Saint George’s in 1988 as the school’s Admission Director.

“We were desperate for bodies, since the school had severe money issues from paying off debt and buying the property,” she remembers. “One time before a big Admissions open house, Head of School George Edwards and I took a pickup full of gravel and filled the potholes in the road leading to campus. Now there is a whole different level of professional care for the campus, but back then administrators had some unusual duties.”

Those also were the years when Mike Poutiatine, whom Sally had known since they worked together at a summer camp after high school, came to Saint George’s as Outdoor Director. Mike coordinated — and Sally chaperoned — many floating proms, student campouts on Priest Lake, and even a holiday break trip to New Zealand.

Their wedding present, a trip to Nepal, continued the travel theme and sparked an interest in Himalayan culture. So when she left Saint George’s in 1993 to become Gonzaga Law School’s Assistant Dean for Admissions, she first took a sabbatical break for six months in Asia. “Carrying a backpack through Tibet, Bhutan, Thailand, and Indonesia — it was a big adventure and fed my lifelong love of travel.”

In 1999 their daughter Hailey was born and at the age of five was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. That inspired Sally to dust off her political science degree and act as an advocate for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. “We go to Washington, DC once a year and also visit members of Congress in their districts.”

Hailey started at Saint George’s in Kindergarten and has now finished fourth grade. “She loves the school and it’s a great fit, since she marches to a different drummer — writing, being creative, exploring outside,” says Sally. “It’s fun to get to know the Lower School, since I wasn’t part of it when I was a student.”

As a parent, Sally volunteers for the Merci (now Gracias) program, in the classroom, and on field trips such as the fourth grade’s three-day journey to Montana in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark. In 2007 she was asked to join the Board of Trustees, which tries to keep a balance of current parents and alumni from different eras. “I fit the bill in several areas,” she says. “It’s been a great experience. I get to take off my ‘parent’ hat, get outside my ‘alumni’ viewpoint, and see the school from a bigger perspective.”

So now Sally’s perspective includes that of student, Admission Director, parent, board member, and alumna — joining her classmates for their 30-year reunion this spring. “I was even baptized in the old Saint George’s chapel,” she adds. “It’s been a long history with this place.”
– John Carter

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