By Andrew J. Barnes ’12
THE ROUNDUP
Having been a student here just four years ago, Alumni Service Corp member Mr. Caleb Alpaugh ’07 said he has really enjoyed being back at Brophy.
“It’s been amazing,” Mr. Alpaugh said. “I’ve enjoyed experiencing the other side of this place.”
After graduating, he bounced around different colleges including Arizona State University, Wright State in Ohio and Cleveland State, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree.
“At ASU I just felt like a number so I was really sort of struggling there,” Mr. Alpaugh said.
“And my parents needed to move to Ohio for job opportunities, so we moved to Ohio, where I’m from.”
He first moved to Arizona in the summer of 2000 when his dad found a job opportunity as well as “just wanting to head west.”
As a faculty member at Brophy, Mr. Alpaugh’s main tasks are teaching Latin at the Loyola Academy on Mondays and Wednesdays, and coordinating and directing the Freshman Breakaway program.
“His involvement and overall friendliness make him a terrific addition to the Alumni Service Corps,” Sunil Kataria ’12 said.
Mr. Alpaugh said working with the kids as a teacher is a “very interesting task, and I enjoy helping them through their lives and guiding them on their Brophy journeys.”
Mr. Alpaugh also said he still senses the same level of community he experienced when he was a student.
“That’s really the greatest part I felt about Brophy when I was here as a student is you can just walk up to any of your friends and student here in your class and just talk to them,” Mr. Alpaugh said.
He said he believes that Brophy really brought the students together and that the community experience has been “a strong part of Brophy that I really love and keep coming back to.”
Mr. Alpaugh said that his favorite parts about being a part of the ASC group this year has been having the opportunity to help out with the Freshman Retreat in September and go on the Kairos Retreat in November.
“I think of Mr. Alpaugh as a leader-type person who really belongs here at Brophy,” Kataria said, who was on his Kairos in November.
Attending these retreats and knowing that he has affected students in a very positive way has really “affirmed his desire to be a teacher.”
“My desire is to come back either here or another Jesuit school because I really believe in the Jesuit mission so I’m definitely going to be a teacher in a Jesuit school,” Mr. Alpaugh said. “I know that I’m on the right path.”