Annika (LGB, 1986) and Bill Woehr (LGB, 1984), a family affair
William (Bill) and Annika both went to Ecolint and graduated from La Grande Boissière, respectively in 1984 and 1986 but it was not until after the summer of 1986 “with the stress of the exams over” that they started to date.
Annika did her International Baccalaureate and they met through Bill’s sister, Ana, who was in Annika’s year. Typical third culture kids, Annika is Swedish, now naturalised Swiss and Bill is Spanish and American. After his graduation, Bill went back to the USA in 1987 to study at the University of Florida and Annika would follow him two years after starting her studies in Université de Neuchâtel.
During an evening at “The Aube” with two of Bill’s best friends, Erik Ringaby (’84) and William Beck (’84), they exchanged their driver’s licences to have a look at them. Bill recalls: “I looked at Erik’s and saw that his last name was Ringaby. I thought it was funny and told him that my girlfriend was also named Ringaby. And that she went to Ecolint too… Well, it turned out that she is his sister!”
A few years later, Erik became Bill’s brother-in-law at the marriage which took place in Switzerland, and William his best man. Although they were living in the US at the time, with friends scattered around the world, Switzerland was the easiest place to gather the Ecolintians for the celebrations. Many “old” classmates were present at the wedding.
After living in the USA, Sweden and Belgium for a few years, the couple came back to Switzerland and currently live near Vevey. Annika is a teacher (she got her PGCE through Ecolint in 2017) and she is writing a children’s book together with a friend in Sweden. Bill is now self-employed after having worked for big corporations like Nestle and Hewlett-Packard.
Ecolint has been and still is an important part of their life. They catch-up regularly with their friends from Ecolint and organised Zoom with up to 30 alumni during the first lockdown.
Their international education had such an influence on them that they wanted to offer the same experience to their children who also went to International Schools.
Although their favourite hangout place in Geneva, L’Auberge de la Poste, has now been replaced with a somewhat more refined restaurant, they still regularly catch-up with their international Ecolint friends wherever they are.