Photograph by Kevin A. Roberts
"Where’d you go to high school?”
Neal Bascomb laughed when I inadvertently asked, one minute into our conversation.
“The classic St. Louis question, eh?” he chuckled. “You know you’re from St. Louis when…”
In the years since graduating from St. Louis, Bascomb had attended college in Ohio, worked as a journalist in London and Dublin, and settled in Philadelphia with his wife and two daughters. He’d become a bestselling author, writing about a notorious Nazi fleeing through Europe and Argentina, the rise of New York City during the Roaring ’20s, and most recently, the growing popularity of a high-school robotics competition.
Yet he couldn’t escape the question.
It wasn’t that I’d planned to ask. In fact, I often cringe when others pose the query. It usually falls third after shaking hands with an acquaintance: name, job, high school—leapfrogging ahead of spouse or current neighborhood. Having grown up in southwest Missouri and attended a public high school, I’m never sure how to answer. Perhaps I should create a stock response, as a college friend did for his Greek affiliation: “Alpha Fig Newton.”
The question is asked so frequently, of course, because it tells so much—it’s as revealing as the full-body scanners at Lambert–St. Louis International Airport. In a single sentence, you’ve managed to inquire about a complete stranger’s socioeconomic status, religious affiliation, and mutual friends.
For this issue, we provide a 27-page look into that quintessential question. St. Louis Public Schools superintendent Kelvin Adams discusses the state of the public-school system with freelancer D.J. Wilson. Staff writer Jeannette Cooperman offers a peek inside the smartest school you’ve never heard of. And our exclusive charts (starting on p. 76) compare 134 schools—K–12, public and private.
Just where might that education eventually lead? For Dr. William Guyol (graduate of De Smet Jesuit High School), it was to the ravaged country of Haiti to save lives in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and cholera outbreak (see p. 108). For Jim McKelvey (graduate of Ladue Horton Watkins High School), it was to a career as a glass blower, inventor, and Renaissance man (see p. 118). For Bascomb, it was to his current gig as a full-time author.
As for Bascomb’s alma mater? Flip to p. 28 to find out.
