"Cape proud of Rita Karapurkar and Andrew Williams

Rita Karapurkar and Andrew Williams are a match made in “Cape Heaven”, although they did not realize that until long after they graced the halls of Cape schools.

Both are Cape alumni of 1994, the “Prom King” and “Prom Queen” were good friends twenty some years ago, but not dates for homecoming or anything else at the time.

Rita was a newcomer to Cape her freshman year, while Andrew’s roots ran deep in our local community.  His great grandfather, James Beebe was a co-founder of Beebe Hospital.

Their ninth grade class was “a type of experiment for Cape” according to Rita.  The new ninth grade class attended their first year of high school in an annex building, the old Lewes Middle School.  According to both Rita and Andrew, this “separation” from the rest of the high school brought their class close together.  To this day, the duo is still friends with many other ’94 Cape Alums.

Although the two were friends in high school, they parted ways after graduation.  Rita headed to the University of Richmond to major in Biology and Pre-Med while Andrew moved north to Dickinson College to major in History.

During Andrew’s time at Dickinson, he played for the soccer team, which was the first Dickinson team to ever be nationally ranked.  In 2012, his team was inducted into the Dickinson Hall of Fame.

Meanwhile, Rita obtained her degree from University of Richmond and then landed in New York City where she accepted a position at a health care communications company.

Andrew headed to Stanford in California to do market research for executive programs for Fortune 500 companies.

The two did not cross paths again until the unfortunate events of 9/11.  On that day, Andrew reached out to Rita, knowing that she was currently in NYC, to make sure she and a fellow Cape grad were okay.

After that, Andrew visited Rita for Christmas and the rest was “history” so to speak.  The duo officially began dating and began a long distance relationship for a time.

When Andrew found an opportunity, he moved back to Delaware to be closer to Rita and the couple eventually married.  But initially, they landed back in New York City to pursue their individual career opportunities.

It wasn’t until they had children of their own that they considered moving back to the Cape region.  Although their careers were on the fast track, they knew their roots were grounded in Delaware.

After Rita obtained her Masters Degree from Colombia University in Health Education and Behavior Change, the two decided to attempt to “head home”.

Andrew mentions that they knew there was “proof of concept” that well-educated successful peers could live in the Cape region and thrive.  Armed with this knowledge, the couple moved their two young sons back to Delaware.

Andrew remained with his company, Global Data, a market research company for the health care industry, but moved into a telecommunications position that allowed him to work primarily from Delaware.  He is currently a Director for the company.

Rita accepted a position at Beebe as a Health Care Coach.

The two feel they have come full circle as their two sons 8 year old Keenan and five year old Bodhi attend Shields Elementary School.

In addition, Rita is part of the newly formed “Minds Over Matters” team that encourages mindfulness for kids during the school day.

Both are proud to be Cape graduates and they fondly remember the staff at Cape.  Gwen Sharp, their biology teacher, and a Cape staff member who was also mentioned in a previous blog, profoundly impacted both of them as did former high school teacher, Chris King.

These two highly successful individuals are outstanding examples of successful Cape graduates.  As a community, there are so many reasons to be “Cape Proud” of people like Andrew Williams and Rita Karapurkur.

Please visit our website at chef-cape.org for information about our programs.