Nkechi

Of all of us who made up the 80 of '84, Nkechi was the one I found the most interesting.

Others smoldered with obvious scientific talent; a few had been tapped by the D.o.D. to work on special projects in the coming year. Everybody in the group was well above average intelligence, near the upper percentiles of any such measurement. Our games of Trivial Pursuit were something to see. Many of us were exhilarated to be in the company of 79 other people we could relate to completely, to be able to express ourselves without the constant self-censoring we needed to do to get along in our High Schools. Some people were more socially awkward than others, but there was not a dullard in the bunch.

But Nkechi stood out. She carried with her more than just the superior intelligence which was common to our group, more than just all the beauty that could be stuffed into the body of a sixteen-year-old girl. She had a grace, a charm, an elegance, an exuberance. She was more wildly alive than most of us, and more expressive by far; she clearly embraced both the artistic and the scientific, the creative and the analytical. I made sure I got her phone number before we split up in August of 1984.

I spoke to her once afterwards, later that Summer or maybe in the following school year. I don't think she was at our reunion in the Summer of 1985, the only reunion we have had as far as I know. I thought about her from time to time but never put my people-finding skills to work finding her, not until a few years ago when I chanced upon her name about three layers down on a multiply-forwarded e-mail that had been sent to me by a major new client, finalizing their specifications. Her name was there as a name only, no e-mail address attached. I mentioned her in one of our getting-to-know-you conference calls, but the lead person at the other end thought it was very unlikely that she would have been at Carnegie-Mellon University in 1984 - the person she knew of by that name would have only been about seventeen. "Sixteen, actually," I replied, but let it go. The climate was not conducive to pursuing it further.

I tried looking her up online, the first time I had ever thought to do this. This was three or four years ago. I didn't find many definite hits, though it did look like she had provided a voice for a video game. Not much to go on. Was she perhaps a video game designer?

The other day, inspired by the events described here, I decided to look her up again. I found her Facebook site. I looked further.

Bingo.

Yes, it's her. I've verified her identity several different ways. She has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, but it looks like after that she pursued studies in more artistic fields. It looks like she's based out of San Francisco now, which is a hell of a lot farther away than her old hometown of Philadelphia.

I still haven't gotten in touch with her. She has a bunch of ways of getting in touch with her, but I haven't done any of them yet. What would I say? I suppose I could start with "Hello."

Here are some links to her site. I'll leave you with some videos of Nkechi performing.

NKECHI
http://www.nkechi.com/

Nkechi's blog

Videos from her site:

"In Its Entirety"


Jam: "We Beauty"


So I wonder what the rest of the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Sciences Class of 1984 is up to?