For a decade, when you walked into the upper school office, you would see Administrative Assistant Mr. Holt’s bright smile welcoming you to Saint Stephen’s.

As you can imagine, Mr. Holt’s departure left a huge hole in our community, but fortunately, that gap has been filled by the amazing Ms. Gabrielle Gillard, the new Upper School Administrative Assistant.

Ms. Gillard is now in charge of organizing the front office, handling issues from attendance to dress code to event planning.

To get to know Ms. Gillard more, The Gauntlet sat down with our new wonder-assistant for a session of “10 Questions in 10 Minutes.” 

Q. What college did you go to and what did you major in?

 A. I went to the University of Miami and majored in International relations and Political Science and minored in business law.

Q. What made you decide to work at Saint Stephen’s?

A. I actually went to Saint Stephen’s in first grade, and I ended up transferring to Pineview,  I was there for a while and then I decided that I wanted to keep working in a school and then I remembered that I had gone here and ended up here.

Q. What do you do outside of school?

A. I play a lot of pickleball. I also have a lot of pets. I have 3 dogs and 2 guinea pigs so I spend a lot of time with them. Since I just got back from Texas I like to see a lot of my friends since I’ve been missing them for the last year, so just hanging out with my friends.

 Q. Where are you from?

A. I grew up in Sarasota and I spent a few years living in Maryland before moving back to Florida for college. After I graduated I moved to Austin, Texas for a year.

Q. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?

A. My best friend lives in LA, so I’d probably go to LA to see him.

Q. Who’s on your playlist?

A. Lots of SZA but I listen to a lot of Kanye West. I’ve been really into classical music lately so I’ve been listening to a lot of soundtracks. Unfortunately, a lot of Justin Beiber.

Q. What do you love about Saint Stephen’s so far?

A. I think the culture is nice. And everybody, all of my coworkers, are really nice and really helpful and so it’s really fun to come into work everyday. All of the students have been genuinely excited to be here so it is really nice to work in a place where everybody loves to come too.

Q. What movie or show could you watch every day?

A. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, specifically Return of the King, is my favorite movie of all time.

Q. If you had one message to the world what would it be?

A. Be kind.

Q. Why or why not would you survive a zombie apocalypse?

A.  I think I would survive a zombie apocalypse because I’m very competitive and I would want to outlive everybody else.