Aidan Z ’22

Many of you know Mr. Hartley and Profe Bensadon as friendly faces around campus. Others know Mr. Hartley as the director of athletics or Profe as a Spanish teacher and assistant director of equity and inclusion. Some of you even know that they are married to each other, and others might know about their pets. But, I will bet $10 that none of you knew how they met each other, who catered their wedding reception, or what Profe’s nickname for Mr. Hartley, “HB,” stands for. I certainly had no idea. So, here is a short Q&A to help you find out more about one of your favorite Lakeside faculty couples.

How did you guys first meet?

CH: We met here at Lakeside. She started teaching here in the fall of 2012. We happened to both be freshman advisors that year and we had to lead an activity at the Freshman retreat. We met to kind of plan it. After the freshman retreat, I asked her out on a date. She said yes, and then we started dating. Oh, and this is a pretty cool story: When we first started dating, I had a dog that we still have, Ranger, and she had a cat that we still have Oreo. We looked at each other and said this dating thing is great but if our dog and cat don’t get along… I said I’m not giving up my dog and she’s not giving up her cat. I guess we won’t date if our pets don’t get along. Profe brought Oreo over, met Ranger, and the two pets have been friends ever since.

What was your wedding like?

CH: We got married at Magnuson Park, on Kite Hill, so we just had our close friends and family. They made a circle around us while we said our vows. Profe’s mom and two brothers live in three houses that are all next to each other and they share a huge backyard. That is where we had our wedding reception. The best thing about our wedding reception was at 11:00 p.m. after people had been dancing and everything, we had Dick’s burgers, fries, and shakes delivered and everything. When we talk to people, that was their favorite part of the wedding.

What is it like working together? Do you see each other often?

DB: We never see each other.

CH: I think working together has some really great things about it, and it’s got some really bad things about it. The great things are that we are both invested in this work and that we both know this place. The really bad thing is that we can never get away. We’ll go to dinner, and say “no Lakeside talk.” But it’s all-consuming for all of us. We’ll get twenty minutes in and then realize we’re talking about Lakeside and we just broke our rule. 

DB: It’s really nice to get the same breaks though. If we are gonna get away from this place, at least we can do it at the same time of the year. But it’s really hard to escape work. It’s almost impossible. 

Any fun stories or anecdotes from being a couple at lakeside?

CH: Here’s one. Profe’s pet name for me is HB, so she calls me HB.

DB: You’re gonna put this in Tatler? Oh, no. There’s no going back. Oh, no.

CH: So when we first started dating, she would call me HB, and I would say, “Listen, let’s keep it at Coach Hartley, Mr. Hartley, or even Chris around the school. Let’s not use HB.” At the time I was the head lacrosse coach. One day, I walk past her classroom and she goes, “HB!” So, she told the kids that “HB” stands for Honey Bunny. You can imagine big tough coach Hartley’s nickname is Honey Bunny. My athletes had a field day.

DB: They could not believe it. I didn’t even mean to say it. They were in class, and they kept asking me what it meant. I just said that it was a nickname, Hartley-Bensadon, it doesn’t mean anything. Then, they caught me off guard and I said Honey Bunny, and they were dying. The kids who were in my class were actually his players, and they were like, “You do not, Profe, no that is not a thing.” Now the whole world is gonna know that HB means Honey Bunny. That story went dead after the players graduated.

What activities do you like to do together in your free time?

DB: We don’t have very much free time together, but when we do, we like to take walks with Ranger, we love to travel, and we love to cook. Mr. Hartley is such an amazing cook. He makes amazing pastas and amazing sauces. I’m more of a dessert person, and I make salads and sides. He’ll make the proteins, like fish or beef, and then I’ll do the sides.