Sister City History: Arlington and Reims

Third President Muriel Dominguez’s recollections

In 2006, then Deputy Mayor Roger Vache of Reims, asked Harry Amos to find out if an exchange between a private high school in Reims and a private high school in Arlington was possible and feasible. Of course, he had the approval from the former Mayor of Reims, M. Jean-Louis Schneiter, who was always so hospitable and generous to our delegations. At Harry’s request, I did some “groundwork” and learned that the Vice President for Academic Affairs at Bishop O’Connell had been a French teacher and had accompanied students abroad. So, I thought that we would have a good chance of convincing her to agree to the Bishop O’Connell – Jean XXIII exchange. Arnauld Desplanques, Harry’s counterpart in Reims and loyal friend to our committee, was very helpful in this regard. 

When Arnauld came to Arlington with a delegation from Reims, I made an appointment to see the VP of Academic Affairs. Fortunately, the Bishop O’Connell administration ultimately approved the private high school exchange with Reims, which was ongoing for 10 years. Clearly, such an exchange can only be successful with the committed planning of the teachers and their counterparts in Reims. Our committee was fortunate to have on board Joan McCarty, retired French teacher at Bishop O’Connell, and to profit from the stellar organizational skills of her counterpart in Reims, Christine Berthou. 

The second year that I was president of the Reims Committee, I invited Alicia Kenworthy, a young woman working for a French company, to speak about her experience as a student who participated in the Lycée Chagall – APS exchange. ASCA participated in the Annual Convention of Sister Cities International held in March 2011 at the Marriott Gateway Hotel in Arlington. On March 4, 2011, ASCA gave a reception at the Marriott for the event and each sister city committee set up an information table and organized activities related to the respective sister city. Visitors were invited to stop by each booth to learn more about ASCA and our Sister Cities. Alicia, a graduate of Washington and Lee High School (now Washington-Liberty), accepted my invitation. We subsequently created a PowerPoint presentation showcasing the Reims Committee activities since August 2004 which the SCI Convention attendees saw on a large screen. After we presented an overview of Reims, highlights of significant events related to the Arlington/Reims sister city relationship, and slides of the Sister City signing ceremony and committee activities, Alicia discussed her participation in the Lycée Chagall exchange. Many attendees commented about how convincing Alicia’s presentation was regarding the importance of her academic and cultural experience in Reims.

Fast forward to April of 2012: As president of the Reims Committee, I organized a fundraiser/wine tasting reception with the help of NOVA Chapter President of the American Association of Teachers of French, Margaret Ann Kassen, who offered her lovely home as our venue. Some members of our committee and of the AATF agreed that we should try to help students who were unable to pay the entire fee required to go abroad as participants in Reims exchanges. Consequently, we had a wine-tasting reception and modest fundraiser to contribute to the ASCA Ruth White scholarship fund to send one student to Reims. Furthermore, the committee wanted to give a warm welcome to the middle school teachers from the Collège Schumann in Reims who had just arrived in Arlington. Melissa Cabocel was the organizer of this Arlington-Reims middle school in-bound trip. The reception was a perfect way to do so. Finally, the Reims Committee had something important to celebrate. The Commonwealth of Virginia had recently signed an MOU (Memo of Understanding) with the Académie de Reims, whose mission is to foster, encourage, and nurture cultural and educational exchanges.

County Board members, Walter Tejada and Christopher Zimmerman, attended the reception and a representative from the French Embassy also joined us. We all raised our glasses to friendship and projects between Reims and the Commonwealth of Virginia – it was a wine tasting after all! Brinton Rowdybush, a member of the Reims committee and former American Consul to the city of Bordeaux, gave an excellent presentation on the wines of the Bordeaux region of France. In fact, the representative from the French Education Attaché’s Office remarked: “I think Brinton knows more about the wines from France than I do!” In short, it was an enjoyable evening, and we raised enough funds to help one APS student participate in the Arlington/Reims student exchange and pay for the airfare.

Fourth and Seventh President Elizabeth Schollaert’s report for 2013-15 and 2020-23.

By Elizabeth Schollaert                                   

During the 1990s, I was teaching Advanced Placement French (AP) at Yorktown and was also the Foreign Language Department Chair. My students were making good progress in French. Because of this, I realized that what they needed was a deep experience with native French speakers. I previously had contact with teachers of English in France, one of whom was teaching English in the town of Annecy. This teacher asked me if I would like to organize an exchange with her for our students. I immediately responded positively, talked to my principal who agreed, and started organizing students for the program. Unfortunately, the principal must have mentioned this plan to the Superintendent of the Arlington Public School (APS) system, who rejected it completely, fearing a major problem if it didn’t all go well. 

However, all was not lost as I soon learned about the Arlington Sister City Association (ASCA). At the time there were only two cities: Aachen and Coyoacán. No French sister city? Impossible! I talked to Harry Amos, whom I knew was a fellow Francophile, and both of us were fired up to find a sister city in France for Arlington. I knew Harry would not disappoint us because he had the time and the contacts. In fact, he had retired from the U.S. Army and knew some of the people on ASCA’s Board. He in fact did a wonderful job keeping me up on his progress. Harry made a trip to Aachen where he met Jurgen Linden, who in turn suggested that Aachen, Reims, and Arlington could be a triumvirate. Mr. Linden said he would help us contact officials from the city of Reims, with which Aachen already was “twinned.” This way, Harry met Arnaud Desplanques, a dynamic Frenchman, who was very interested in the US and American culture. Together, with the help of others, the Sister City accords between Arlington and Reims were finally signed in Reims in 2004 and in Arlington in 2005.

Of course, during those years, I still advocatedz for a student exchange and decided to get ready in case the time came. It was 1998 and I was president of the Northern Virginia chapter of American Association of Teachers of French (AATF). I fortunately made contacts at the French Embassy because of that position. Given this, I scheduled an appointment with Cultural Attaché Dominique Malicet to discuss the student exchange issue with him. I asked Harry Amos if he wanted to accompany me, a suggestion he enthusiastically accepted. From Dominique, I obtained the names of principals of all the classical high schools in Reims. I then wrote to them, asking them to let me know if they had an English language teacher interested in starting an exchange with Arlington high schools. Conversations continued between Arlington and Reims. All of us—Dominique, Harry, and I—thought a student exchange between the two cities could encourage a beneficial relationship. And we were right!

I wrote to all the principals and received a few answers. Most said they already had enough exchanges. However, Kristine Vial, an English teacher at Lycée Marc Chagall, was very interested. We began exchanging letters by snail mail, as we didn’t have email yet at either school (hers or mine). It was slow but promising and by 2000 we had decided to start the exchange. The Chagall group visited Arlington in February 2001 with 35 students and 3 teachers. The Arlington group went to Reims in April 2001 with 20 students and 3 teachers. Initially, only Yorktown, Wakefield, and HB Woodlawn high schools participated in the exchange, but for the next trip Washington and Lee (W-L) High School students and staff also joined us.

Margarita Cruz, assistant principal at W-L, French teacher Ali Akache and I went to Reims with a group of APS students in 2003. Margarita and I began working together with the support of her principal, her secretary, and her treasurer. What a great relief for me, as we all worked as a team with Margarita and I arranging the trip to Reims, Paris, as well as other nearby places in France. We worked together for the next 11 years, until 2013 when there was a brief pause, due to concerns expressed by the APS administration. At that time, I was president of the Reims Committee, and we held off on the exchange for a year to write a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between ASCA and APS. Anne-Marie Daris and I attended meetings with the Superintendent’s designee to write a MOU. I was a chaperone on each exchange through 2011, along with other teachers and administrators. 

The Reims Committee also sponsored a trip of middle school students from Reims to Arlington, organized by Melissa Cabocel. The trip consisted of three teachers and about 30 students who were hosted by APS middle school students’ families. This trip was not an exchange as there was no corresponding outgoing trip for Arlington middle school families. The trip went on for about 10 years and ended when Melissa and her family moved away from Northern Virginia. 

I was president of the Reims Committee from 2013 until 2015. During that time, I went to Reims for events sponsored by their committee on two occasions, both for the Joan of Arc Festival. This was a lavish event honoring the medieval saint who saved France from the English when she braved their armies and led the Dauphin to Reims to be crowned at the beautiful Gothic cathedral. One event during the festival was a high Mass held in the cathedral and the arrival on horseback of a lovely girl dressed as the 15th century Jeanne. I don’t think she and her horse stayed for the entire Mass! I was accompanied on this trip by County Board Member Walter Tejada and wife, as well as Virginia state Senator Barbara Favola and her husband. 

I was also president of the Reims Committee after the departure of Melissa Cabocel from 2020 to 2023. The pandemic caused a pause in most in-person activities, including the Chagall exchange, the festival of Joan of Arc, and most trips back and forth between our two cities. We held numerous events for our ASCA members as well as for the Reims-Arlington Committee, such as an expert-led comparison of our two cities’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic on October 15, 2021, and of the Washington and Reims Cathedrals in 2023. In 2022, we hosted a free, educational session at Arlington Central Library that discussed the upcoming two-round French presidential election.

We also sponsored two teachers from Reims who were recipients of an Erasmus grant to visit APS secondary schools in the fall of 2023. This work included hosting a welcome dinner for them, coordinating visits to various APS schools, and answering any questions they had about touring the National Capital Region.

I was unfortunately unable to attend the events in Reims in May of 2024 due to illness but was represented by President of the Committee, Kevin Newak, who assumed this position in October 2023. Kevin went to an outdoor concert featuring gospel music, met Mayor Arnauld Robinet, went on a walking tour of Reims with Deputy Mayor Dimitri Oudin, toured the museum dedicated to Germany’s surrender at the end of World War II, and attended an outdoor exhibit on the relationship between Reims and the United States from World War I to the present.   

Fortunately, the relationship between Reims and Arlington remains healthy and strong!