Science Department

Department head
William J. John, MD, FACP
Courses: Physics, Biology

Dr. John, who has held the science department to high standards since Mars Hill’s inception, is currently a lead drug developer for Eli Lilly. He received his medical degree at UK, then after post-graduate training in medical oncology, he became the associate medical director at the Markey Cancer Center. He and his wife, Catherine, have had 6 children graduate from the Mars Hill program, and are educating 3 more to follow.

Brenda Henderson
Courses: Seventh-grade Life Science

Brenda Henderson has taught Life Science since Mars Hill began in 1993. She also is the coordinator of the Fayette-Jessamine County Home School Science Fair, which sends winners to the KY American District Science Fair. She received a bachelor’s from UK in microbiology and worked as a lab technician in biochemistry at the UK Medical Center and in plant pathology in the UK Department of Agriculture. She homeschooled her 5 grown children, who all graduated from Mars Hill.

Math Department

Department Head
Melissa Pittard, PhD

C. Andy Martin, MSCS, BSCS, BSEE
Courses:

Andy Martin has been a firmware engineer at Lexmark for 7 years. For 3 years pervious, he worked as a software engineer at Lumenware. He received his master’s of science in computer science, bachelor’s of science in computer science and bachelor’s of science in electrical engineering from UK. He also minored in mathematics and graduated Summa Cum Laude with Honors in the Honors Program.

English Department

Department Head
Ben Hughes
Courses: Eleventh-grade English/Rhetoric

Kent Pittard
Courses:Tenth-grade English

Kelly Hahn
Courses: Ninth-grade English

Kelly Hahn is the associate director of communications for the University of Kentucky College of Engineering. He received a bachelor’s degree in English from Indiana University in 1997 and a Master of Divinity degree from Asbury Theological Seminary in 2008. He and his wife, Dawn, have four children: Samuel, Carter, Ian and Emily. Kelly has taught at Mars Hill since 2006.

Shannon Grissom
Courses: Eight-grade English

Keren Henderson
Courses: Seventh-grade English

Mars Hill graduate Keren Henderson is currently the administrator for the Christian Fellowship churches and executive director of Stop Predatory Gambling Kentucky. She received her bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Kentucky as well as minors in Spanish and political science. She then worked for several years as news editor of Frankfort’s State Journal. She began teaching Latin at Mars Hill in 1999 and switched to the English department once she earned her writing degree.

Trivium

Department Head
Dan Sheffler

Rebecca M. Hughes, RN, BSN
Courses: First and second year Latin

Rebecca Hughes is a Mars Hill graduate, class of 2002. She received her bachelor’s of science in nursing from UK in 2007 and works as a Registered Nurse in the Emergency Department at Baptist Health Lexington. While at Mars Hill she studied Latin, Spanish and Koine Greek. During her studies at UK, she continued on in Latin prose and poetry classes, as well as taking a few classes in Russian. Most recently she has been studying Haitian Creole, and now classifies herself as a “language junkie”. She has a growing interest in spoken Latin and Latin used in liturgical music.

History Department

Kate Flannery
Courses: U.S. History

Kate Flannery, who teaches U.S. History and Art History at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, received her bachelor’s in Secondary Social Studies Education from Asbury College and her master’s in Educational Leadership Studies from UK. Mrs. Flannery has also studied and developed a lecture series on the philosophy of modern education.