David Turpin, Team Leader
The Momentum Team is led by attorney turned educator David Turpin, who studied philosophy and Spanish at UCLA prior to earning a JD, with honors, from the University of Texas School of Law. Since passing the Texas Bar, Turpin has wholly devoted himself to education, teaching a wide range of subjects at the Heritage School in Fredericksburg, Texas, subjects including American Government, Life of Christ, Rhetoric, Spanish, Speech, and the Senior Thesis. Turpin has led students on ten mission trips to locations in Texas, Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru, has led students camping at the bottom of the Grand Canyon as well as ascending the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, co-leads a leadership fellowship, has stood as a groomsman in the wedding of a former student and has officiated the wedding of another.
When not in the classroom, David can be found unsuccessfully attempting to corral his three exuberant children at the local farmer’s market, coaxing his wife Katie into a game of tennis, or scouring the pages of inordinately geeky yet life-giving books such as The Talent Code, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, How Children Succeed, or Getting Things Done.
LINDA WILLIAMS
Linda Williams served as principal of Fredericksburg Christian School for 33 years. She was a teaching principal, teaching math, high school physics, and chemistry and helping students prepare to compete in oratorical contests. With a degree from Rice University and graduate work at the University of Chicago, she is familiar with admission requirements for highly selective colleges.
Linda loves to tutor students for college entrance exams. Of her own five children, four daughters became National Merit scholars and all of them graduated from Rice University. Her son was National Merit commended and graduated from the Air Force Academy.
Linda has been helping students with these exams since before most of the current high school generation was born. She has been working with these tests long enough to think like the test makers. She can identify vintage SAT and ACT questions and give an insider’s view of tips on taking these tests. Several of Linda’s students have asked her why she doesn’t go to work for ACT or SAT to create test questions. Her response is always, “I don’t want to go over to the dark side!” Her joy is to help demystify the college entrance exams and enable students to do their personal best on them.
DOUG COMSTOCK
In the 70’s Doug earned a BA in Religious Studies from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Il; his hometown. After ten years as a System Engineer for EDS in Dallas, Doug left the corporate world to invest in the future.
Loving to learn, Doug immersed himself in the learning process and achieved a Masters of Arts in Teaching from National-Louis University in 1993. Since then, Doug has taught on the mission field at Black Forest Academy, in public schools; even designing and implementing educational opportunities for students overlooked in the Wheaton schools, private institutions, Heritage School and Ambleside in Fredericksburg and with the Navajo at Rehoboth Academy outside of Gallup, New Mexico, in addition to assisting with starting Providence Hall. Doug has taught a wide variety of classes from Ancient History to Literature and has settled on Mathematics.
These days you will find Doug either practicing ‘Hugelkulture’ (regenerative farming) on his acreage on the Pedernales River or tutoring in math. He loves spending time with his sons in their diverse locations. In his free time Doug is either reading, recently completing a variety of books: The Hidden Half of Nature, Range, Sapiens or running along the river.
The interaction with students at Momentum Camp is one of Doug’s yearly highlights!