Coming home is an experience that brings a multitude of emotions for people. For author and actress Hilarie Burton, coming home to Sterling Park is an intimidating and emotional experience. Returning to a town full of memories of your childhood and adolescence can either be exciting or dreadful, and for Burton, home is full of love and memories.

“Everywhere else I go people have maybe a perception of who I am because of something they’ve seen on TV or something they’ve read,” said Burton. “The people that are gonna be here tonight are like my teachers, and my friends, and they know when I’m bullshitting,” said Burton.

Park View was the last stop of Burton’s book tour for her latest book Grimoire Girl. The audience was full of her high school teachers, retired Loudoun County administrators, and of course loving fans. The event started at 2 PM and led into the meet and greet portion at 4:30 PM. 

Before the event, Burton spoke to a few dozen Park View band kids, theater kids, and cheerleaders backstage in the black box theater. She was reminded a lot of her time here at Park View in the late 80s.

“I think that’s something that’s really special about Park View. There is a crossover here, whereas some other schools might be a little more cliquey. It’s important to cross those bridges and like to meet each other in the middle,” said Burton.

Burton also talked about how Sterling Park is like her Ithaca, a mythological homeland she has spent her life trying to return to and being proud of her work and how she described her hometown. Sterling Park had so much of an impact on Burton that she continues to search for bits of her home everywhere she goes, and makes sure to find a version of what Sterling Park was to her, and how her childhood was, for her children to experience.

 “I started just making lists of all things I loved about my home, and I started to see parallels between the things that I love about [Sterling Park] and the town that I live in now, where my husband and I moved to raise our kids. It’s basically like I found a carbon copy of what Sterling was when I was growing up in the late 80s and early 90s, and I moved there,” said Burton.