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Mercersbu rg Magazi n e suMMer 2012
(L-R) Payton Lissette ’14, Stacie Rice Lissette ’85, Dylan Lissette, Max Lissette ’14
Chip(s) Off the BlOCk for Stacie Rice lissette ’85, all roads lead to (or from) Mercersburg By lee Owen
Behind every educational institution, regardless of size, there are countless people working behind the scenes. Like all its counterparts in the school world, Mercersburg is in perpetual motion thanks to its faculty and staff, parents, volunteers, donors, and volunteer leaders. At Mercersburg, Stacie Rice Lissette ’85 is the only current member of the Board of Regents who is also a graduate of the school and the parent of enrolled students. She and her husband, Dylan, sent their eldest son and only daughter—twins Max ’14 and Payton ’14—to the Academy as ninth-graders; they will enter the 11th grade in the fall. In 1921, Lissette’s great-grandparents, Bill and Salie Utz, began making potato chips in the kitchen of their home
in Hanover, Pennsylvania. That endeavor grew into Utz Quality Foods Inc., which manufactures more than 90 varieties of snack foods for distribution across the United States. Lissette serves on the Utz board of directors; her parents, Mike and Jane Rice, continue to run the company, while Dylan Lissette is the chief operating officer. “Just like at Mercersburg, our family business has been blessed with great people in key positions, which has made all the difference,” she says. “Every generation has grown the business.” Growing up in Hanover (about 60 miles east of Mercersburg, between Gettysburg and York), Lissette watched her best friend from home, Beth Jones Sisca ’82,