BlackRock Center for the Art and its Chief Executive Officer Katie Hecklinger .
PHOTOS : Above : Oxley Photography ; right : Third Act Images .
The HeARTbeat of a Community
Memories of Germantown are some of my earliest recollections . I remember the winding drive down Germantown and Clopper Roads to St . Rose of Lima Parish ( which by the way , was John Denver ’ s inspiration for the hit Country Roads ) in my father ’ s Oldsmobile , velvety seats and the faint smell of cigars . Germantown had the Great Skate . I would couples skate , hand in hand with a ten-year-old boy in parachute pants under a disco ball on Sunday afternoons . On Route 355 there was the Germantown Inn that dished up my first decadent slice of pecan pie on a date
By Katie Hecklinger
with my dad . The signs that I was nearing close to home after a family camping trip were passing the dairy farms , MARC train station , and old post office . My family made upper Montgomery County home in 1977 , and rural Germantown was growing up along with me . My first year of college was at Montgomery College , Germantown Campus after graduating from Quince Orchard High in 1992 ( today I am a PROUD Northwest Jag Mom !) and can recall the short but chaotic commute with perpetual road construction on route 118 .
When I left the area in 1993 to
attend the University of Maryland , I had no intention of returning to Germantown . I was ready for more . More learning , more people , more places , more arts , more culture — I was thirsty for all things different from the predominantly white suburban upbringing I had experienced . So that ’ s what I did . I soaked up every learning opportunity . I taught in Turin , Italy and traveled . I sang with the Master Chorale of Washington for ten years at the Kennedy Center . I fell in love with my apartment in Adams Morgan on Columbia Road , the diversity in Washington , DC , and the richness and fulfillment of shared cultural experiences that come with it . I thrived in a twenty-two-year career in Montgomery Public Schools as a teacher , instructional special-
plenty I spring sowing 2024 13