{"id":116090,"date":"2018-05-25T10:46:33","date_gmt":"2018-05-25T14:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=116090"},"modified":"2018-05-25T13:56:19","modified_gmt":"2018-05-25T17:56:19","slug":"a-decade-of-depews-at-bates-draws-to-a-close-at-commencement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2018\/05\/25\/a-decade-of-depews-at-bates-draws-to-a-close-at-commencement\/","title":{"rendered":"At Commencement, the ‘Depew decade’ at Bates draws to a close"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senior year is a parade of lasting moments: The last Gala. The last class. The last meal in Commons. The last night with friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a year of a lot of lasts,\u201d says Jonathan Depew \u201918 as Senior Week winds down. \u201cAnd not just for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s referring to his mom and dad, Brenda and Mark Depew of Hudson, Ohio. In fall 2008, the first of their four children, Nathaniel ’12, arrived at Bates. At two-year intervals, he was followed by Emily \u201914, Caroline \u201916, and, finally, Jonathan.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Commencement Livestream May 28
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bates’ Commencement on Sunday,<\/a> May 28, will be livestreamed beginning at 10 a.m.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/section>\n

Which means that Mark and Brenda have moved to the beat of Bates life for nearly a decade.<\/p>\n

And it’s been a strong beat: All four Depews have been varsity swimmers at Bates, with their parents mighty involved with and supportive of the program. \u201cMark and Brenda have played a big role for the team since Day 1,\u201d says Peter Casares, head coach of swimming and diving.<\/p>\n

This Sunday at Commencement, the Depew chapter at Bates draws to close. \u201cI feel what they must feel,\u201d says Jonathan. \u201cIt\u2019s hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jonathan Depew ’18 and his parents, Brenda and Mark, talk with Professor of French and Francophone Studies Kirk Read (right) during Back to Bates Weekend in 2017. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of years of driving and flying to meets, and sitting in the stands and cheering,\u201d says Brenda Depew. \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of moments of being really proud parents, and some moments of helping them pick themselves up when things didn\u2019t go their way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Siblings have been coming to the college ever since Bates was Bates. Of the 473 seniors set to graduate Sunday, about 10 percent have a sibling who\u2019s a current student or alum. (The family with the most Bates siblings is the Chace family: Todd \u201975, Melinda Chace Bracken \u201976, Paul \u201977, Jesse \u201980, and Melissa Chace Trace \u201982.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Depew family poses at the 2018 NCAA Division III Swimming and Diving Championships. From left, Brenda, Jonathan ’18, Caroline ’16, Emily ’14, Nathaniel \u201812, and Mark. (Larry Radloff for Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

The very first Bates sibs were the Stockbridge brothers of Mexico, Maine. Winfield graduated in the first Bates class, in 1867. He became a preacher and, later, a restaurateur in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

George Stockbridge graduated in 1872. He was a mathematical engineer, patent attorney, and a published poet.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the Stockbridge brothers were siblings, but very different individuals. Brenda Depew can relate to that. Her children share a college and a sport, \u201cbut that\u2019s the only real similarity. Each has different interests and passions. And Bates supported each of them in their own endeavor.\u201d<\/p>\n

“And I fell in love with Bates \u2014 by myself.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jonathan graduates Sunday with a mathematics major and geology minor. He\u2019s also a FAA-certified drone operator and has been a leader in the college\u2019s Big Brothers\/Big Sisters \u201cCats and Cubs\u201d program.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jonathan Depew ’18. (Theophil Syslo\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n

Four years ago, he didn\u2019t want to follow his siblings to Bates. So he looked at larger universities, but then decided he\u2019d prefer a smaller college. Despite his wariness about following his sibs\u2019 path to Bates, he visited campus, something he\u2019d done many times. \u201cBut I hadn\u2019t looked at Bates by myself. And I fell in love with Bates \u2014 by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Depews aren\u2019t the only ones affected by the end of an era at Bates. \u00a0\u201cThey\u2019ve supported their kids and all the swimmers,\u201d Casares says. \u201cThey came to every meet. They organized parent groups and senior dinners. They\u2019ve made gifts to the program and helped us chase after things that this program needs in order to improve.<\/p>\n

In an era when cautionary tales abound about parents, their children, and sports, the Depews have always been part of the solution for Casares, his swimming and diving program, and the Bates athletic department overall.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur own parents were very involved in our lives but allowed us to grow along the way and become independent people,\u201d says Brenda. \u201cNathaniel started competitive swimming when he was 5. You look around the pool, and you know you don\u2019t want to be \u2018that parent.\u2019 That\u2019s where it starts. The coach is there for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve simply done everything they could, in their roles as parents, to help Bates swimmers have a top-class experience,\u201d says Casares. \u201cFor me, when you see parents send four kids to your program and to Bates, you feel trust. Their confidence inspired me.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bittersweet time of endings. But also beginnings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cBittersweet\u201d comes up a lot as the Depew parents talk about Jonathan\u2019s approaching graduation. A decade being around Bates means that \u201cwe\u2019ve been able to make some very good friends among Bates parents,\u201d Mark says. \u201cBut we may never see them again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re seeing your babies leave their undergraduate experience,\u201d says Brenda. \u201cBut they\u2019re also doing exactly what you hope they would do \u2014 become contributing, resourceful members of their communities. It\u2019s a bittersweet combination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or, as Jonathan dubs the situation, noting that he and his sibs are now spread out from Chicago to Boston, \u201cit\u2019s a mom\u2019s worst nightmare!\u201d<\/p>\n

Yep, it\u2019s a bittersweet time of endings. But also beginnings. Jonathan heads to Boston for his first job, with Toast, Inc., a cloud-based restaurant software company. And in August, Nathaniel will get married, to Katelyn Drake \u201910.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of unknowns,\u201d says Jonathan, who will be his brother\u2019s best man. \u201cBecause we\u2019re all young.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At Commencement, the last of four Depew siblings graduates from Bates. For their parents, it’s a bittersweet time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":116092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[7,24,11012,11009],"tags":[11314],"class_list":["post-116090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-athletics","category-student-life","category-the-college","tag-peter-casares"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116090"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116160,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116090\/revisions\/116160"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}