Catching up with Naomi Botkin
If Naomi Botkin’s old Huntington teachers could see her now they sure would be proud. That’s because the Class of 1987 valedictorian has probably met every expectation that faculty members and classmates had for her that warm June afternoon when she walked off the stage with her diploma in hand.
Ms. Botkin went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree at Harvard and then obtained her MD at Yale University. Today the Huntington grad is an assistant professor and staff cardiologist at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center.
“I like that every day is a little different,” she said about her career. “One day I might read echocardiograms, the next I might supervise stress tests, and the next I might see patients in the office or the hospital. I also direct the cardiac rehabilitation program, which helps people recover from heart attacks or heart surgery. We teach people how to prevent future heart problems using exercise, dietary changes and stress reduction techniques. I feel very fortunate to have a career that allows me to have an impact on people's lives.”
At the senior awards assembly in the Huntington High School auditorium on May 29, 1987, Ms. Botkin walked away with an armful of honors, including the Robert K. Toaz Memorial Award, Emma Downs Carter Prize, Phi Beta Kappa certificate, Merrill Lynch Social Studies Award, National Orchestra Award, Edna Van Wart Mathematics Award, Atlantic Symphony Band Award, American Association of Physics Teachers Award, Students Against Drunk Driving certificate and Peer Leadership Award.
As a Huntington senior, Ms. Botkin earned Regents College and Empire State scholarships, the Presidential Academic Fitness Award and she was a National Merit Commended Scholar. Principal James Salvatore presented her as the valedictorian at the high school graduation on Sun. June 21 on the athletic field.
“In high school I was very involved in music,” Dr. Botkin said. “I played clarinet in the band, wind ensemble and orchestra and sang in the choir. I have recently reconnected with a number of band alumni and Linda Shoemaker, our former band director, through Facebook. It's fun to see the old photos that people have uploaded and to hear what everyone is up to now.”
Today, Dr. Botkin is married to Joshua Gordon, a classical musician, and the couple has a two-year old daughter, Susannah. They reside in Westborough, MA. “While I don't make music much nowadays, I get to live vicariously through my husband,” she said.
The Huntington alum said her most memorable high school class was AP computer science, taught by Tom Garbrick. “Many Friday afternoons during my senior year, I could be found loading a school computer into my trunk so that I could write programs at home over the weekend,” Dr. Botkin recalled.
“After high school I went to Harvard College and majored in psychology,” she said. “I played in the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and was thrilled to be able to travel to Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong on an orchestra tour.”
After graduating from Harvard she returned to Huntington to map out her future plans and worked at Book Revue for a few months. “I decided I wanted to become a physician and after some pre-med courses at Stony Brook, entered Yale Medical School,” Dr. Botkin said. “Following a residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, I moved to Worcester, MA, for a fellowship in cardiology at UMass Medical School. I liked UMass so much that I joined the faculty after my training ended.”
Huntington’s Class of 1987 counts among its members those that have gone on to notch impressive achievements in every possible field of human endeavor, including future NCAA Division I tennis champion Sandra Birch. But, atop the list, just as she was as valedictorian, is Naomi Botkin, who has made her alma mater plenty proud.
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