Forever Rockwood: Jan. 16, 2025
"Forever Rockwood" is a series in which the Rockwood School District features alumni from Eureka, Lafayette, Marquette and Rockwood Summit high schools who make a lasting impact on their communities.
Read some of their stories below. If you have a "Forever Rockwood" candidate in mind, please send information about them to commdept@rsdmo.org.
Stephanie Jetensky (Rockwood Summit Class of 1997), reading teacher, Eureka and Geggie elementary schools
Stephanie Jetensky was in middle school at the time the new Rockwood Summit High was being built just down the road from her house. By the time Rockwood Summit opened in 1993, she and her sister were in the first two classes to walk the halls.
"I remember voting on the school colors and the mascot in Freshman Advisory. That first year was amazing," said Jetensky, who was in the first class of students who spent all four years of high school at Rockwood Summit. "The classes of '96' and '97 bonded so quickly since most of us shared classes with each other, and it was easy to get to know people with only two classes in such a huge building. I made lifelong friends at Summit, and I'll always have fond memories of my time spent there."
Jetensky attended Rockwood schools from preschool through graduation, going through the Vandover Early Childhood Center, Kellison Elementary and Rockwood South Middle before Rockwood Summit.
She remembers one educator at Kellison, in particular, who went on to make a name for herself outside of Rockwood: music teacher and future Grammy Award-winning artist Sheryl Crow.
"She came back for a visit one year, and we thought she would bring Michael Jackson with her since we heard she was one of his backup singers," Jetensky said, with a laugh. "One of my favorite teachers there was my sixth-grade teacher, Ms. Schembre. She made each one of us ornaments for Christmas, and I still put mine on my tree after all these years. I remember thinking how special that was and how much time that must have taken her. It makes me smile every year."
Jetensky, now a reading intervention specialist at Eureka and Geggie elementary schools, and her family have moved back into the district, and she excited about the prospect of their twin 3-year-old daughters attending the same schools she did.
Her parents, in fact, still live in the same house down the street from Rockwood Summit.
"I am very proud of my time in Rockwood and love that my family and I have moved back into the district," Jetensky said. "I know our daughters will love it as much as I did. The teachers, staff and facilities are all top-notch."
Lynn Richardson (Eureka Class of 1998), social studies teacher, Marquette
Teaching was a profession that was near and dear to Lynn Richardson growing up. Her father was a history teacher at Eureka High, and she had him as an AP US History teacher as well as working as his teacher's aide.
"I felt that his class really prepared me for writing in college as well as the importance of reading," she said. "I enjoyed spending extra time with him before I left for college."
Richardson was a K-12 Rockwood student going through school, at Eureka and Geggie elementary schools, Eureka Junior High, LaSalle Springs Middle and Eureka High.
She did not go directly into teaching after college -- starting her career in the corporate world -- but it was always in the back of her mind.
"I decided I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my dad," she said.
She started in Rockwood as a student teacher at Lafayette High with Jamie Waeckerle -- now the district's success ready counselor -- and got her first full-time post at Eureka High.
Now, she teaches psychology and AP Economics at Marquette.
"It was awesome and weird to walk the hallways with some of my former teachers and to call them my colleagues. Calling them by their first names was quite an adjustment," she said. "(Eureka High social studies teacher) Bryan Clar's first year of teaching was my eighth-grade year at LaSalle, which I liked to remind him of while I worked at Eureka."
Joshua Samuel (Eureka Class of 2019), chief operating officer, Dynaris
Joshua Samuel first came to work at Dynaris -- the Chesterfield-based home oxygen therapy technology company -- in the summer of 2018, as a summer intern through Rockwood's Partners in Education (PIE) program.
Samuel, then going into his senior year at Eureka High, and his fellow PIE intern worked closely with company chief executive officer Lon Aylsworth, learning about the journey from idea to marketplace for biomedical devices such as a magnetic brace used to help injuries heal faster.
"I wanted to study biomedical engineering through undergrad, so I was trying to see if that was the area I wanted to go into," Samuel said. "That whole experience was really rewarding. We were there every day, so we saw what was going on. I became pretty interested in how the company was running and all the developments going on."
Less than six years later, Samuel is Dynaris' chief operating officer. He was promoted to a leadership position within the company in November and will oversee all operational aspects of the business, scale manufacturing capabilities, enhance systems and ensure product and service deliveries. Dynaris' main product is the Apogee, an oxygen delivery device that is paired with oxygen cylinders to provide "Dynamic Oxygen Delivery" that allows patients to receive their full prescription of oxygen, have their oxygen cylinders last longer and decrease discomfort from their nasal airways drying up.
"It feels really good. The company has some revolutionary technology that I believe is going to be leading the industry in the future and advancing therapy for everyone around the world," Samuel said. "I am pretty blessed to have the opportunity to be paired with this company at an early age when it was still very much a new idea."
Samuel was a Rockwood student from kindergarten through graduation, at Blevins Elementary, LaSalle Springs and Eureka High. He earned his undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology in Indianapolis, working part-time for Dynaris remotely while school was in session and full-time over the summer. He helped develop devices and produce product realization paperwork for the company.
Once he graduated and returned to St. Louis, Samuel continued to work for Dynaris while pursuing a Master of Business Administration from Washington University. He earned his MBA this fall, and the promotion to COO followed.
"I am pretty grateful for Partners in Education for their ability to find great companies in the St. Louis area and pair students with them," he said. "Going into the future, I would love to be able to give back and do the same thing, bring any students from the high school who are interested in biomedical engineering and show them what’s going on and what it looks like in the real world."
Outside of his PIE experience, Samuel said that Project Lead the Way (PLTW) classes at Eureka High were especially impactful in solidifying his post-graduate plans. Medical Interventions with teacher Keith Baremore was a particular favorite.
"PLTW classes were really helpful for me to dive into the major I wanted to do and understand what I really liked to do," Samuel said. "Eureka High School did a really good job with the classes of showing me that I was really interested in that design process. That’s what really sold me on trying biomedical engineering because I wanted to see how to bring a device from an idea to actually being able to take it to market."
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