10/2/2007 - Seguin High’s first exchange student returns

For 40 years, Gary Burke has been dreaming of Seguin.

“I’ve wanted to come back for a very long time,” he said, with a thick Australian accent. “The year I spent in Seguin was such an important part of my life.”

by Jessica Sanders
The Gazette-Enterprise

Burke, Seguin High School’s first foreign exchange student, has returned to American soil at long last, ready to reunite with classmates at his 40th reunion.

“I’ve been concentrating on the familiar things,” said Burke. “The Southern drawl and the ability to find proper Mexican food, that’s a real treat.”

He’s even reconnected with his former host family and is staying in the same house where he spent his senior year. Gay Capper Carlson and her son Rusty Capper said they’re thrilled to have Burke return to Texas.

“Saturday night when I picked him up at the airport was a very emotional time,” said Capper, who now lives in Houston.

Burke said he reconnected with the Capper family a few years ago, shortly before the death of his “American sister” Iris Capper Strey McWatters.

“I was very close to Iris, as I am to Rusty,” he said. “I’m glad I got a chance to speak with her before she passed away.”

Her death also helped clarify Burke’s feelings about returning to the states. He very much wished to thank the people who made his visit so meaningful.

“When you’re 17, you say ‘Thank you’ and you’re polite but I didn’t really know yet how the experience would change my life,” said Burke, who graduated with the class of ‘67. “It wasn’t just great for one year, it was great for my whole life.”

He said the year studying abroad influenced his decision to attend college and aim high in his career. After spending several years working in multimedia, Burke is studying for a doctorate degree in economics at Murdoch University, where his wife is a professor. They live in Fremantle, a town near Perth in southeast Australia.

“The subtext of my visit to America is to encourage my friends here to come and see Australia,” he said. “I want to say, ‘thanks for making me welcome,’ and let them know anytime they’re in Australia, they’re welcome to pop in.”

Capper said the pair are planning are staying with his mother in the house where he and Iris grew up. During Burke’s two weeks in Texas, he and Capper attended Friday’s football game, several reunion activities and a tour of the high school on Saturday.

Though he was originally reluctant to host an exchange student, Capper said that Burke became like an older brother and also helped him make new friends.

“All of a sudden there was this guy from Australia who surfs and plays guitar who lived in my house,” he said. “It turned out that we got along really well and we had some great times together.”

Capper, who graduated in the class of ’68, said he’s also had a chance to reconnect with several friends in Burke’s class as they drop by the house for visits. He said everyone is instantly reminded of Burke’s intelligence and his musical ability.

“He’s really a Renaissance man,” he said with a laugh. “It’s amazing how many things we still have in common as far as our careers and our interests. He’s really quite out there in the intellectual world, he really has a great desire to focus on ideas that will make the world better.”

When Burke made plans to return to the United States, he contacted Karen Wallock, one of his classmates who was chairwoman of the American Field Service group that brought him to Seguin.

“I called her up and asked, ‘Is there a reunion on?’” he said. “I just told my family that I really, really needed to go and they were very understanding.”

Wallock said just about everyone in their class remembered Burke and she knew him as soon as she saw him at a reunion event.

“I recognized him right away, it was so nice to see him,” she said, adding that Seguin was lucky to have him as their first exchange student. “It was a good thing he spoke English — even if people here didn’t think he sounded like he was speaking English.”

Burke said he was very excited about seeing Seguin in it’s current form. He said his time here has been frozen, in a way, since his visit 40 years ago.

“All my Seguin friends have stayed 18 years old in my mind,” he said. “Being with my “American brother” Rusty reminds me of the American can-do attitude, the feeling that an idea is good and therefore must be possible. I think I took a lot of that back to Australia with me.”

You can view the original article here.