Senior Tributes 2007

As Michael Mulligan, Head of School, reminded everyone present at the June 2 Commencement ceremonies celebrating the Class of 2007, Thacher's graduation isn't business as usual.  Each senior gets more than simply a diploma and a fare-thee-well: for a precious few minutes, he or she stands in the spotlight to hear a Senior Tribute. What follows is the preamble to the big event.

Good morning, said Head of School Michael K. Mulligan on the morning of June 2, 2007. Ladies and Gentleman, Families and Friends, Faculty and Staff, The Classes of 2007 and 2008:

We have yet another perfect day in the Ojai, befitting The Thacher School’s 118^th commencement exercises.

I start this morning by thanking Ms. McCarthy, Ms. Loney, and Ms. Edwards for preparing the details of this graduation. I thank the members of the grounds crew and maintenance staff who have prepared this campus and who have worked selflessly and largely without recognition. And I thank of those members of the Thacher Community—the Dining Room, the Business Staff, the Development Office—who  labor every day in this vineyard usually without the benefit of direct regard and appreciation.

And of course, I know you join me in thanking the faculty for preparing your sons and daughters for this day.  As I said at the All School Banquet two evenings past, our work here is not to make our students look good; it is to help them be good.  We do not work here merely to prepare your sons and daughters for college, although they are indeed well prepared. Like you, we work to help them become the best people they can be: the hardest working, the most thoughtful, the most creative, and yes, the most selfless.  We work to help them become the next generation of leaders – those who will make a significant difference to this world in need. . .

Those of you familiar with a Thacher graduation know that at this ceremony we will read a short paragraph about each senior. These comments are not intended to be full or exhaustive assessments of every detail about your children. They are not a recapitulation of their achievements here at the Academy.  Indeed, they are not balanced assessments of strengths and weaknesses; trust me, we could have done this,  and, I assure you, they, in turn could do the same – in excruciating detail and exact mimicry—for each of us.

Rather, these comments are insights into what we think are their finest qualities—what we find when we see and experience their best selves. They name the qualities that we think distinguish each senior and that will help them make their mark on this world and in their relationships. These comments help reflect light—now borrowing from Mr. Lipkis’s speech last night—on these adolescent redwood saplings that will grow into tall and stately trees: your sons and daughters who are about to become members of this ancient grove that dates back to 1889 – the oldest – and one of the finest—in the west.

 Please remember, diplomas are presented in what will seem to you to be a random fashion. Be ready. Faculty readers this morning—Sarah DelVecchio, Bo Manson, Jason Carney, and Elizabeth Mahoney CdeP 1988—will share the good work. I will read the tributes for faculty and staff children and my advisees.

So here we go!

Maxwell Baker Barbakow
One classmate, speaking of friendship, said of Max, “He will give you all of himself whenever you need it.” But those who’ve witnessed Max in action know that the same applies in matters of the mind, of the creative spirit, of the kinesthetic exigency of which he is made. Intellectual overdrive meets analytical incisiveness on daily assignments and major projects in virtually every academic discipline—and there’s still lots left for writing a swing-for-the-fences exam, a strikingly effective short story, or chasing down a topic that has snagged his curiosity outside of course confines. A wide-ranging thinker, Max is also a consistently superior doer: quarterbacking, screenwriting, filming and editing, acting “like a brother” to his best friends, sinking free-throws, snagging fly balls, or driving in runs, Max puts his versatility to work for his team or crew and leads others in his broad circle of influence and esteem to do the same. He’s a true impact player regardless of the field, athletic or intellectual. Though we’re sure he’ll fiddle and tweak the narrative line of his life ahead, we also know this: Max will always line up the 3-pointer or scamper for the end zone, trying his hardest, with the faith of many others speeding him forward, even as his own strong legs carry him towards a history of his own making.

Brittany Anne Barnard
Britt proves the big things/small packages canard. Put the reins of the unpredictable, wildly energetic Stitch in her hands and see how calm, patience and discipline merge to positive effect down the gymkhana field and around the Washington Poles. Give her space and time to help put together a program in therapeutic riding for local school kids in some way developmentally delayed, and watch the magic unfold among horse, child, and—in Britt—a caring mentor who takes pride and joy in the fact that (as she said) “they see that they can do it.” Listen to her poetry—insistent and intense, voluminous, distinctive—and hear the voice of a young woman unafraid to open hatches on shadowy places in order to understand the workings of human beings better, more deeply, more fully. In addition to a lively intelligence, Britt brings to her classes, in the words of one of her teachers, “fascinating insights and an appreciation for detail and nuance.” Said another, “Her comments teach us all.”  And what have we learned from this teacher? That the will informing Britt’s growth here is strong, enduring, and, we believe, capable of propelling her into all kinds of new worlds, real and imaginative, beyond our present reckoning. As poet Paul Jenkins wrote in This Horse: “The miracle’s not the body but the soul.”  And Britt’s soars.

Lucy Linden Bosche
Stick your toe in the water, check out the temperature, get into the lake gradually? Not if you’re this Lucy! It’s a race to the shore, splash screaming through the shallows, and dive in, complete immersion necessary. Lucy’s enthusiasm and energy are full-throttle when she’s doing what she loves: talking effortlessly “with anyone about anything” (as a classmate wrote), singing or strutting on stage like the pro she’s come to be, interpreting literature (English or French) at a deep level of complexity, barreling down a lacrosse field or kicking off an athletic event with a heartfelt and courageous a cappella Star Spangled Banner, instigating games around an EDT campfire after a long uphill slog, songfully sending for Peter Pan, her Number One Facbrat Fan Hayden Hooper, or any other of her legions of friends and acquaintances. All come running to her encompassing circle. Lucy lives her life with a powerful blend of candor, happiness and intentionality that brings delight and forward motion to whatever the endeavor or interchange. Further, Lucy is resilient and optimistic, a tiger and a lily, a comedic tour de force when the character calls for it. Like the tree of Lucy’s middle name, she is firmly rooted and, as important, generous in the shade she gives from beating sun, her heart-shaped leaves sheltering any and all, old or young. Sweet dreams are made of this—that is, Lucy’s—kind.  

Julia Hannah Bosson
At her center lives a force whose impulse, as far as we can tell, is irresistible: it is the urge to translate what Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk called “the inward gaze” into words for the rest of us to read, ponder, talk about, and—when it comes full circle—to act on. Julia’s wide-eyed gaze—which also looks critically outward—is sophisticated, informed, and appropriately skeptical. And her words, in memoir or short story? Consider the collective gasp of appreciation and awe when she finished reading her own short story as part of her Senior Exhibition: it was the sound of listeners who knew they’d have a chance, probably not too far down the road, to say, “We knew her when…”  Exceptionally modest about her creative gifts, even surprised when they are recognized by others, Julia is as courageous in making the private public as she is committed to balancing her long-held ardor for and excellence in language, English and history with her talent in math and science; in applying her intellectual faculties and meticulous work ethic to both, she activates a versatility that uplifts us all. Julia is, in the words we’ll borrow from one of her favorite contemporary scribblers, “suddenly light thrown upon the world.”

Bryan Scott Brockman
In between flying through the Keyhole Race on Rio to soloing in “Take Five” have been nearly four full years of unstoppable growth in Bryan—and not just skyward.  Doing the Day Student Dance isn’t necessarily easy, even when you’ve been eyeing it from the time you were eight, but Bryan has stepped lively and with a style all his own to keep the many parts moving in a positive direction. With clarity of purpose and a commitment to achieving daily consistency, Bryan has sought the best rhythm for achieving the results he wants. Though generally understated, Bryan nonetheless brings dedication and interest to everything from calculus conundrums and biology labs to basketball or baseball drills and competition, from yeehaw leaps off of lakeside cliffs to endless repetition of saxophone scales that wind up as extended jazz riffs a la Coltrane or Desmond. A devoted big brother, a loyal and stalwart friend, an in-the-swing ensemble player, an ace Mafia player and talented golfer, a shining exemplar of “team player,” Bryan will go forth from this school and his Ojai home with the kind of earned confidence that, even in sneakers, makes you six feet tall. Or more.

James Campbell Burton
James’ biggest problem? Too many pies; not enough fingers.  James is involved at the very center of this community. Selfless and energetic, from his place at the hub, he throws his arms wide, wide open to every activity and everyone, enlivening Indoor Committee announcements and events, drama productions, dorm hallways, corrals, gymkhana fields, campfires, and classrooms and laboratories from B to S1. James is not merely enthusiasm incarnate; he is as seriously dedicated to his own growth as he is to sustaining the vitality of his second home here. Inquisitiveness walks through the door with James when he enters as a student, whether the subject is physics or politics, Spanish or literature. Wrote one of his teacher-fans, “James gives off an intensely positive aura”—a great boon in any group. At Head Start or St. Joe’s, in the baseball dugout, around a dinner table or along a pack-trip trail, James creates a glow that both illuminates and warms. He is as willing to stand tall for what he believes is right, as to put in the long hours to make sure the show goes on. And when he sets to cutting through red tape and blasting through roadblocks in the way of a vision—say, to link kids and Thacher horses in a powerfully therapeutic way—stay clear. “Traaaaaaaaaack!!!!!!” means you’d best jump onto the highest bleacher and just watch what happens.

Olivea Omalara Fayola Callender-Scott
Olivea is nothing if not ready: poised for the rebound under the basket or a creative rejoinder in the English discussion, for the light-bulb learning moment even in a class of two, for the best time and tone to help pitch another United Cultures of Thacher event or to get the Hill girls into clean-up mode. Unafraid of popular opinion or of the heavy lifting necessary to move activities, ideas, and people forward, Olivea matter-of-factly rolls up her sleeves and sets to the task, oblivious to what anyone else might think. Her example invites others to do the same. Olivea speaks her mind with the same passion and purpose that she sings her soul; both voices, clear and true, emanate from a center that does hold, a clear sense of the rightness of who she is and what part she wants to play in the communities she calls “home.”  As a guide, admissions or otherwise, Olivea points you towards the possible, her eyes sparkling, her inclusive smile—even when it’s just a little on the wry side—letting you know that if you live by “Don’t walk,” you get to run—and far—into a future of your own making. Ask yourself: Is anything better than that?

Benita Wing-Mun Chan
Caring to her core, Benita operates from a simple, two-part premise: everyone has a right to equal opportunity, and those enjoying it must protect those who do not. Not surprising then that Benita quietly, humbly balances every step forward in her own learning and growth with an act of benevolence outside of herself. One plus one equals more than two—a simple, completely logical calculus that has lifted Benita into the lives of people, named and nameless, who have benefited from her giving: Katrina-devastated families in Louisiana, the elderly and the homeless in Ojai, disabled children in China. On this campus, Benita dances easily and flexibly in all academic areas, capable of seeing how, say, mathematics and the social sciences intersect logically.  Her scholarly mind is lithe even as her attention is riveted, her response to others generous and helpful to the class as a whole. On the actual dance floor, as well as on the lacrosse field, Benita is quick-thinking and creative; her cheerfulness and to-the-second timing ensure both camaraderie and success. Patient and resilient, expressive on her feet or behind an easel, Benita—“a steady friend,” in the words of a classmate—has fulfilled her name’s meaning here: We have been, indeed, blessed by her.

Drew McRae Cole
Scoop up a silver dollar from the dirt, just months after you first learned the hind end of the horse from the front? Chalk up enough pass receiving yards, baskets, and base hits to render yourself both invaluable and very, very inspirational, regardless of the uniform du jour? Take on junior junk piles in the hallways, the effective presentation of a topic as complex as the evolution of the human brain, or a two-wheeler when you’re four years old? No problem, if you’re Drew.  Moving with the kind of athletic grace that makes fans and mere onlookers shake their heads in awe and envy, Drew helps to carry the teams he is part of with an intuitive understanding that real leadership emanates from the example you set of investing your best effort through victory and heartbreak. Drew also slides in behind the scenes to make good things happen for the community: pieces of the Parents Auction, a dance in his Upper School section. There, as in many other spots and moments in this community’s life, Drew’s impact springs from a well-honed ethical sense that calls out wrong or unkind action. He may tower, and in more than one way, but Drew’s not too tall for fist-pounds with Rob Carney or small talk with Riley. As one classmate wrote, “He is what a senior should be: instilling pride in our relationships and our role in this community, he is unabashed in his enthusiasm for his fellow students and his Thacher experience.”

Walter Kittredge Collins II
An easy smiler, a focused learner, a soccer, football, and baseball player for whom the term “aficionado” just doesn’t do justice, Redgie has, since his arrival four years ago, embraced the whole Thacher Experience, with a capital “E.” It is easy to imagine Redgie’s face among those sepia visages of end-of-the-century Thacher boys stored in the Archives: in the middle of the team photo, he’s the one looking like he’d much rather be playing than posing, his physical energy barely contained; hanging off the dorm porch, he grinningly seems to tempt fate, but look more closely and you see he’s got himself well-insured, keeping one strong leg—the one that kicks field goals and punts—hooked around the railing. Redgie’s dry wit and essential optimism shortstop any negativity and invite others into productive and happy collaboration, whether they’re in Los Padres, on the High Sierra trail, or in the soccer, football, or baseball huddle. He’s an organized and effective leader, one who models the important, life-sustaining balance of work hard/play hard, transforming your interests—say, shark migration—into a meaty research topic. In doing this, Redgie perfectly cooks up and generously serves to others Emerson’s simple recipe for happiness: “to fill the hour.”

Mary Garvey Connolly
The word frankly doesn’t need a place in Mary’s lexicon. She’s a look-you-in-the-eye, tell-you-what’s-what kind of Midwesterner, with a bold and sophisticated appreciation of life’s richness, even in its occasional unpredictability. When she buys a ticket, it’s for the whole ride. Hinting at Mary’s positive influence, a friend wrote, “Her strong personality and confidence have been inspirational.” Her surety is backed by some compelling attributes that she can call up with a snap of her fingers: fierce concentration, intellectual efficiency, sharp wit, mature insightfulness, unusual resilience.  According to her teachers, Mary prepares with uncompromising dedication and, when she stirs this with good old-fashioned smarts, she produces scholarship that impresses and pushes the whole conversation forward.  Lucky for those who’ve benefited from her Indoor Committee brainstorms, Mary has an inside track on fun, and she is great company, completely entertaining one-on-one or in a group. As a leader at the track or on the hiking trail or, less leaderly but inexplicably lost on horseback in the middle of the Soule Park Golf Course, she’ll keep you busting up with laughter—but she’ll also be ready for any emergency the backcountry might throw your way or to stand against the mistreatment of the wilderness she loves. After our short two years, “Oh, Mary, we hardly knew ye!”—but we know enough to wish we’d had far longer.

David Bryn Cook
“If you’re in a tight spot,” wrote one faculty member, “you can rely on David.” Although the circumstances of the comment were, in fact, quite dramatic (hint: ropes and ice axes were involved), this simple praise holds for other moments far away from a steep snow-slope—in a do-or-die football, soccer, or lacrosse game, at a Senior Exhibition podium, in an all-dorm evacuation, at the end of a few-thousand word research paper when you both need inspiration. David’s strong native intelligence and thoughtfulness combine with a potent analytical agility, consistently allowing him to see how best to accomplish what needs to be done, in group projects or alone, in classrooms or labs of several disciplines, on field, pitch, or mountainside. And then he follows through, deliberately, successfully, delivering the goods and doing his part to make the Thacher engine hum.  The images will remain even when David leaves: a smile at the conclusion of a psychology presentation on teen sleep habits, hands stretched out to soften a fellow climber’s landing, a precisely rendered Chinese character on the whiteboard in Room B, a picture-perfect cross that leads to a goal for the green, a silver dollar held high in the air, crumbs of dirt falling away to reveal the treasure.

Eliza Ingram Cope
Impassioned, eclectic, straight to Thacher via the New England of live-free-or-die, Eliza burns with the flame of desire: to reach beyond ordinariness, to challenge boundaries and beliefs, to leave us wondering and more alive than she found us.  You can’t spend a minute with Eliza without feeling her intensity—which is not, we hasten to add, without an ironic, humorous spin. Every subject area and global concern is worthy of her adventurer spirit and consideration; she revels in the volley of discussion, contained by classroom or Lit Society living room walls or not, on a cliff-side climbing perch or rumbling along on the driver’s seat of the hay wagon. Clean as a razor, Eliza’s mind cuts to the essential, and each cross-section leaves whomever she is with more knowledgeable and aware. And better off in other ways: witness her work in rural Honduras, on the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina ripped through, in Ojai’s shelter for the homeless. The many-faceted, highly creative Eliza can keep the stage managed to perfection during the most demanding PAC production, win poetry contests, and move an audience to tears with her exposition of roadside memorials. Ilya Kaminsky writes, “all I want is a human window/in a house whose roof is my life,” Eliza shows us all how to punch through to light.

Alexandria Chanel Dotson
For Alex, there’s no “as if”: Life is a cavalry charge, and there’s one clear, inimitable voice rousing the troops to action. Of course, you need a hat for that (as she’d tell you and then demonstrate), and for so many other occasions: for example, fuchsia or white, wide-brimmed, straw—or a helmet of black velvet. Irrepressible flair and personal style mark Alex’s sartorial choices and, more importantly, her words and deeds. She operates from an unusually centered self, one infused with confidence and the authority that attends it. Alex speaks her mind with conviction and clarity, her sense of fairness intense and matched by her willingness to invest the long hours it takes to put ideas into action, often in the name of positive change for the community weal. Visiting with the elderly every week, frying up chicken for a UCT event, lining up a van and driver for a lecture or performance off-campus, debating (aloud or on paper) a political issue or literary theme, running from Chick Barn to PAC, or urging Jackson or Davidoff over a 3-foot fence—these require discipline, organizational prowess, and a certain amount of courage—and Alex has them all. We end not with sight, but with sound: the “great big, hearty laugh” (as noted by a friend) that has rocked campus gathering places for four years. It will echo in our memories long after Alex sashays away.

Julia Erin Fiske
Clear-visioned, steady-handed, Julia is one sure sharpshooter. She packs the kind of heat that comes from a probing mind, a work ethic as colossal as Yosemite, and a penetrating curiosity that dives many fathoms deep for answers.  Julia seems in perpetual motion, and often leading the way: backpacking on a 75-mile trans-Sierra trek, scuba diving in several oceans, crimping dime-edge holds in Joshua Tree—heck, even taking a shot at a poultry dinner flying in the rafters of the PAC, Julia spins, throws her rifle behind her back—and nails it. Yet as compelling to Julia as the joy of movement is, she also knows well how to be still, to open her books, to dig in for hours in preparation for productive discourse around the history or English circle, or for a biology dissection. With others, Julia is honorable, fair, kind and generous, reaching out with an empathetic heart, even as she uses a strong hand to help reestablish equilibrium for peers, younger students, orphans in Mexico. Alive to so many possibilities and eager to have a hand (or foot) in as many as a day will hold, Julia sees and understands the sea, the sky, and the earth in between, and, as she recently sang, appreciates “oh, so much beauty/each day, it begins again.” Ardent, awake, and aware. Bull-seye.

Mark John Crocker Frykman
Truth is, anything we can do he probably can do better. But it’s not in besting others that Mark’s value lies for us; rather, it’s in his sharing his varied and numerous aptitudes. He’s a seriously smart and conscientious worker in his classes, where he’s accrued an fine academic record that stands as concrete proof of what one faculty member said: “I’d love to fill my classes with Mark Frykmans.” An anchor in any discussion venue, abroad or Stateside, around a seminar circle in Room E or a dinner table in Beijing, Mark is also the reliable, upbeat man on the soccer field’s defensive end or in the LP dorm section, defending not just the goal but the very values that inform the whole notion of team and community. But for all these contributions, we may applaud loudest for the performer Mark. Eager to take any stage, coffeehouse intimate or PAC big, Mark can’t help it that musical and dramatic talent and endless rehearsal investment are rivaled by an thoroughly easy, natural charisma, the kind that draws the spotlight and holds it. Our defenses are down: Annie’s not the only one whose heart’s been roped by the tall guy in the black hat and chaps.

Christopher Holmes Gordon
Spend some time at Thacher, and you might believe there are two Chris Gordons inhabiting the campus. There’s one who’s out in front of endlessly cheering fans, the one who intercepts passes and frustrates the gridiron opposition, who, steely-eyed, acts as a lightning-fast, high-flying point guard, who aces tennis serves and slams in one point after another for his Toadly successful teams. He’s made an art out of rebounding, and watching him airborne is to see skill and natural talent as wings to the human body. In all of these venues, this Chris is blur of agility, speed, and passion for the work and play that add up to happy, successful team endeavors. Then there’s the guy-behind-the-curtain (or, in the case of the Outdoor Theatre, up in trees)—just as quick, just as captivated by the task before him, but here, his efforts result in applause for the schoolmates he is helping to keep well-lit and well-heard. Enter, from the wings, a comment from a classmate: “Chris has an inborn understanding of what really matters in life.” Conclusion: Chris finds the just-right place for his talent and, mixing discipline, assertiveness, resourcefulness, and caring, creates something both beautifully evanescent and lasting. Post-script, by another peer: “Whatever the situation, knowing that Chris is there puts me at ease.”

Quinn Hacker
Patient. Calm. Modest. Strong. Original. Athletic. Quiet. Any of these might well be preceded by the adverb “incredibly” – but actions do speak louder than, well, Quinn himself, so we’ll let them do the shouting.  During his four years with us, Quinn has impressed everyone watching with his unblinkingly meticulous attention to what engages him.  Seeking a precise balance of tone and exposure, he reprints and revises until he gets the exact photograph to match his mind’s-eye view. Wishing to say only what he intends, he chooses precise words to reflect his reliably insightful understanding of the literary or historical moment under discussion. Intending to put the competition out of its misery, he stands on the mound or at the plate with the eye of an eagle, the concentration of a coiled rattler.  Aiming for three perfect barrel-turns in gymkhana, he moves as one with his horse, willing them both into that place Wyoming author Mark Spragg calls “suspended moments, relaxed from effort.”  Moving down the football field, he’s unblockable, all intention and force—or camping down the Sespe, he ties his hitches tight and true. From one ranch home to another, the deeply reflective and uncommonly perceptive Quinn has moved with cautious deliberation but complete commitment to whatever he has chosen. For his path from Thacher, he needs neither map nor compass; it’s all inside.

Cecilia Raymond Hayne
A human exclamation point—that’s what some astute person once called CC. Actually, you don’t have to be especially observant—just have your eyes and ears open—to ascertain that CC is, hands-down, the best cheerleader on the Toads squad—on the field, in the bleachers, behind the clock, CC makes the middle of the action wherever she is. Irrepressibly enthusiastic, warm-hearted and welcoming to all ages and kinds, she sends out the kind of good, good, good, good vibrations that keep a village like Thacher on a positive upward spin and keep applicants pouring in the door. She considers it a communal necessity to know everyone’s name. For this and other reasons, “you [just] feel lucky to be CC’s friend,” as one classmate put it.  Steady dedication, gritty determination, and unadulterated eagerness mark CC’s take on her academics, as well as on opponents on any soccer or lacrosse field or volleyball court, where she can set, pass, and hit. And when the sun sets on the work week, the eminently dependable CC is raring to see to it that a good time is had by all: she makes sure that jolly jumps, 4-square tourneys, coffeehouses, and all-School Capture-the-Flag games happen.  The personality quiz results in AP Psych were spot-on: CC should be a Public Relations Specialist. And know this: we’ll hire her in two seconds flat!

Lillian Elizabeth Heilveil
To be attuned is to be in a particular and easy harmony with people, with the space around you, with the world close in and the rings of existence farther out. This is Lilly. Whether she is responding to a literary character or author whose motivation she is trying to parse, or talking with a friend in distress, flying through the air in grand jeté or on pointe, extending just one leg eloquently backwards in an arabesque, Lilly understands and elegantly expresses the complex relational geography of human interchange on the intellectual, emotional and physical level. To Lilly, the gesture—on stage or off—carries profound meaning, and she is unafraid to let others know she cares. Not surprising that, according to one fan, “Lilly is the most perceptive person I have ever met when it comes to other people’s emotions. She is a wonderful friend who gives astute and encouraging advice.”  Lilly is effective and strong in other ways: as someone who brings groups together and “directs them directly in the right direction” (as Lewis Carroll’s doorknob says), who crafts fluid prose and cogent theses, who avoids quick judgment, who she bears daily testimony to Pope’s truism: “Those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.”

Rocio Hernandez
Ask Rocio to name her favorite class at Thacher, and she’ll answer, “Impossible!” and go on to name three. Ask what she intends to do with her life, and without hesitation, she will give you another list of three, starting with “Disarm all nuclear weapons.” (The other two are no less weighty.) Bright, intuitive, independent, gutsy to the point of edgy (in a good way), Rocio has jumped into every part of Thacher, feet-first and in her signature pink cleats. She takes her work seriously, preparing for classes with an attitude all can-do and responding to suggestions for improvement by doing. She sits confidently at the command center of her own learning, translating incoming data logically and quickly. Fluent in three languages (Spanish, English, and Java), Rocio has a fourth: the language of the heart, which voices itself whenever she speaks for justice, local, national or global. “Rocio doesn’t try to hide anything,” said a classmate. “She is truthful and open with just about anybody.”  And open to any experience that will expand her, strengthen her: riding, rock-climbing on Crystal Crag, lacrosse, Teamsters. “Tenacity has got to be Rocio’s middle name,” wrote her outdoor instructor. We’d go for at least two more, to make three’s-a-charm: Rocio Tenaz Intrépida Inspirada Hernandez.

Nicholas James Hubbard
Nick and Thacher are a match made in this heaven known as Ojai. Horses, good books, artists easels, dorm living, 8-man-football, burgers on the grill, skulls and bones in the backcountry, knives and guns—What more could a boy want? It would be one thing if Nick had come just to soak it all up. But along the way, Nick quite naturally became a leader, on the sports field, in the hills of the Los Padres, on foot and on horseback, in Casa. Easy-going, uniquely good-natured, calm and composed (with a touch of the mischievous), flexible in style but adamant about the big stuff of honor, fairness, kindness, and truth, Nick mysteriously both fills the space he’s in and leaves room for you. Inevitably, you respect, admire, want to be him. But Nick’s not just a sunny-skies compadre: he’s ridden through rain, camped in blazing heat, known the rocky trail of tough academics. Yet in even adverse conditions, external or internal, Nick keeps his wits close and his perspective clear, rebounding from derailment, disappointment or injury somehow bigger than before. From backstage, he hauls rope so others may fly; but on the gymkhana field, it is Nick who flies, and for real, rounding barrels or poles, and, knocking us breathless, spearing one orange ring after another at Eddie’s top speed. The silver dollar? Shiny icing on the cake. One teacher spoke for many when she said, “As a person to share the planet with, there may be few better.”

Charlotte Gibson Hunt
Get Charlotte to tell you about something—anything even mildly interesting—that happened to her or someone else today, and typically, you’ll be treated to a hand-and-arms waving, lightning-fast barrage of words and gasps, exclamations and laughter. When she stops to breathe, she’s usually smiling.  So are you. As motivated as she is ebullient, Charlotte is quick to connect and quick to see connections: between one historic event and another, among complex literary characters, from one gesture here (say, tutoring an elementary schoolgirl) to a possible outcome there (a doorway open to an education). Serious and committed, Charlotte genuinely wonders and worries about this world, steps forward to be of use in ways open to her, applying compassion and empathy like a soothing compress. Other “e” words—enthusiastic, energetic, engaged—describe what Charlotte packs in her courier bag for classes and her athletic duffel for basketball practice and games.  There, as in the Courts where she acts as friend and counselor to many, her modus operandi is actually a modus vivendi, her optimism and good humor infusing the very atmosphere. One of her long-time chums wrote, “Charlotte upholds the ideals of the School, which is, to me, a sign of her unmarred character and sparkling moral compass.” The friend is right.

Alexis Autumn Jackson
A new and sometimes quirky Thacher world awaited Alexis when she and her family agreed that this would become her school and home away from home. But, irrefutable proof of Anais Nin’s statement that “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage,” Alexis took each step with strong legs and a brave heart—even those, shortly after her arrival, that took her through Sespe snow and over mountains that must have seemed like another world. She added gumption and resolve to an already honed conscientiousness, taking advantage of every opportunity for knowledge and growth, as a student, as a volleyball and basketball player, as a UCT activist, and as a member of a community that relies on the many-leveled benefits of self-improvement. Discerning and alert, Alexis has an almost elemental grasp of how theory and reality link, in biology or psychology, in language study, in creating her own writing voice, “authentic and thoughtful,” in the words of one of her teachers.  Abiding loyalty and compassion undergird her friendships with both close buddies in her class and those down the road a piece at Ojai’s retirement homes, and, ipso facto, she again reveals the force of fine character, with the kind of effortlessness that bespeaks its genuineness. All this sounds deadly serious, but if you know Alexis, you also know that, as one friend confirmed, “She is a riot.”  Lucky us to have witnessed, even for just three years, all facets of this gem glistening in the Ojai sun.

Olivia LaRoche Jacobsen
Olivia is like quicksilver: Inimitably serene in a moment of quiescent contemplation or conversation, she turns up the heat in less than half a heartbeat when, wearing the orange, she slings herself up into Cuttin’ Wild’s saddle and aims him down the Hurry Scurry course, all intentionality and fearlessness.  She is as quietly content when she’s lost in a book as she is enlivened and impassioned when confronted by an unsubstantiated opinion, a challenging idea, a gross human injustice—or oil drilling in her beloved backyard. Olivia looks closely and discerns with an eye both curious and insistent; whether it’s in literature, photography, socio-political issues, or the Spanish language, she seeks full immersion.  Put Olivia in SCUBA gear or chaps, hiking shorts or Wranglers, running shoes, soccer cleats, or cowboy boots, and she is happy—and in mud, muck, or slot-canyon sand, she is not just uncomplaining, but acts as a leader towards the positive. Put a pen in her hand, and she is persuasive, poignant, artful.  Pull up a chair and she is, as one friend wrote, “just wonderful—extremely caring, like family.” This family—the extended one Olivia has been a part of since she was three—sends her off, ser querida, with poet Derek Walcott’s words and the fervent hope that she will continue to know “the beat of both hands rowing that bear the two/vessels of the heart with balance, weight, and design.”

Thomas Halbower Johnson
For the way he saunters through his days, it’s easy to look up to Tom. This was true even when he first arrived and was shorter by about two feet: he has always carried himself with an enviable ease. He’s an almost organic part of any social environment he inhabits, and his natural warmth and perpetual humor invite others into the fun. For Tom, both sides of the street are sunny. Cheerful meets earnest, though, when Tom goes after thorough understanding: how to create a credible fictional character, how to measure human impact on the environment, how to see Supreme Court decisions from multiple perspectives. An effective collaborator, he is genuinely inquisitive, enjoying “aha!” and “haha!” moments with equal zest. Tom inspires others when he’s out running up hill and down dale in cross-country, leading the pack and modeling a positive work ethic in both practices and races—or when he decides, for (of course) the fun of it—to try a new winter sport or revisit a familiar spring one.  Fans and teammates can’t get enough of Tom loping down the court or around the bases. Wrote one faculty member about hiking and camping with Tom, “I am making a new rule that requires Tom to go on every trip I lead.” Responsible, ethical, balanced, Tom has something that psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls flow: “What you feel when you’re doing things that are so enjoyable that you want to pursue them for their own sake.”  

Andrew Kirk Jordan
One classmate captured what many value in Andrew: “He is very excitable, enthused over projects or ideas.”  We count on Andrew for just this reason: his mind, which can wrap itself around just about any concept (and fast)—acts as flint for the spark of his imagination, resulting in what one teacher called “flashes of brilliance” that, more and more, he fans into blazing fire. Endowed with “an innate understanding of science,” Andrew tackles the complex—in biology, mathematics, computer science, as well as in history and English—with talent, perspicuity, and intellectual independence—yet he takes delight in the ideas others toss into the ring. Andrew knows the meaning and benefit of hard work—on the football field, in the hallways of Casa, in a Senior Ex Q & A, high up in the high-tech booth. The miles of cable and cords he has run, the running around he has done, the hours he has given all add up to an over-the-top commitment. Andrew’s expertise matches his generosity, and his selflessness in this arena is mirrored in his long-term service to others, young and old, both in Ojai and at home. He is steadfast and unfailing, his actions bearing out his at-heart belief in the cornerstone values Mr. Thacher laid out long ago. As another classmate mused, “Andrew is everyone’s favorite person to be around.”  We don’t wonder why.

Anjali Jane Joseph
Worldly and cosmopolitan, Anjali is nonetheless sophistithachered, as we sometimes say around here. She is unassailably international in lots of ways, but even as she has criss-crossed oceans and sought new vistas, Anjali has kept Thacher close, taking her commitment to this little community seriously and showing that you can have your feet firmly planted as long as you keep your running shoes tied on. Anjali holds herself to high standards, chasing down understanding the same way she goes after a groundball in lacrosse. With intensity and fierce deliberateness, she puts her dynamic, mature mind to work, letting it roil and rumble in subjects ranging the gamut. She often goes beyond what’s expected, discovering in that terra incognita much of value. Her approach to any and all of it—physics and calculus, Spanish and ceramics, history and English—is joyful, her smile a ready reflection of her pleasure in discovery.  On the volleyball court or lacrosse field, on a wilderness trek or in the dormitory, it’s the same blend of cheerfulness and absorption that gives Anjali power and effectiveness. And when she stands on principle—about campus issues or global concerns—she is forceful, persuasive, taller by yards. How glad we are for Anjali’s return, and how confident in her going forth again!

Molly Rose Katz
While the creative and the competitive impulses in Molly alternately run free and wrestle, we who watch and listen benefit from her expansion of our boundaries. As a writer, Molly ambitiously transmutes the unheard into the heard—her wry and lucid poems, short essays, stories, each word considered, placed, moved, finally to become, as Gary Snyder wrote, a solid riprap “set /Before the body of the mind/in space and time.” (Remarked a peer, “She has an amazing ability to turn fatally embarrassing moments into great stories–and her storytelling is first-class.”) As an artist, Molly translates the unseen into the vibrantly visible—her sketches, oils, and multimedia pieces. What is a mermaid, anyway? Molly asks the question, then attempts an answer to it in a way audaciously, resplendently her own. As an athlete, Molly is a fiery and fierce competitor, and in the words of a coach, “a really good teammate, supportive of everyone and a player who puts the team first.” Yet even though she sees with an unblinking eye the ephemeral nature of sports, she accepts her role, in part, because of the relationships she builds on the field and court. It’s another example of Molly’s taking one thing and turning it into another of even greater value.  About having, as a writer, an “appetite for truth,” Toni Morrison wrote, “I see your life as already artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art.” She must have had Molly in mind.

David O’Hanlon Kepner
The lens Dave sees the world and its workings through is one part Nikon, ninety-nine parts heart. Like many who successfully document the lives of others, Dave begins in front of his camera. He investigates, considers, wonders much before he frames up and takes the shot. But his success—and perhaps his enduring influence—is ensured in the next courageous step, when Dave puts his camera aside, to engage with subjects who by now are people he cares about.  No one lives more completely in the understanding that “compassion,” as Hannah Arendt wrote, “abolishes the distance, which always exists in human [relations].”  Dave has worked to close that gap in Ojai, Ventura, Santa Barbara, LA and its environs, as well as in Louisiana and Mexico, raising money and gathering goods for children and adults in need, reaching across boundaries of language and class. Open-minded and open-hearted, he connects forcefully, too, sitting around dining table or a seminar circle in conversation with peers or teachers, researching photojournalistic role models, presenting his Senior Exhibition work to an SRO crowd, or standing at home plate, waiting for a just-right pitch to blast it out of the park. Dave, mindful of the blessings of his life, embodies Mr. Thacher’s wish “to educate boys in the art of living for their own greatest good and for the greatest good of their fellow citizens.” SDT would be proud—and so are we.

Bennett Edwin Kissel
Bennett puts all 6’4” of himself in everything he does, bounding gleefully onto basketball or tennis court, into science lab or field, the electronic music studio, behind the debate podium, onto the Smart Start playground, up steep mountain trails, into the loyal friendships that sustain him. A risk-taker of the best sort, Bennett’s willing to gamble on the occasional error if it means he’ll learn something. From provocative theses to difficult postulates, complex political or social issues to a million possibilities on a synthesizer, Bennett applies his special mix of intellectual depth, discernment, and engagement to emerge with a fresh perspective or creative solution. As his Senior Exhibition advisor said, “He knows how to really get underneath it.” When Bennett’s enthusiasm gets clothed in an athletic uniform, it becomes a mighty thing, especially when height, strength, and bulldog tenacity are factored in, in the words of his coach, “night in, night out.”  Honest, sincere, he is also just plain fun, “born to entertain,” as a faculty member said, as well as to educate the young and the older by the example he sets.  But here’s the best present Bennett gives: He helps us all perk up our ears and open our minds to the possibility that “there just might be sounds out there we can’t hear.” “Palabras con pajaros” (“words with birds”) is just the start of the conversation.

Elizabeth Louise Knutsen
Watching Elizabeth in action is like watching an expert—we mean really first-class—juggler keep a hundred little balls in the air while watching the sun sink s-l-o-w-l-y under the horizon. You must have exquisite centeredness and the mental capacity for both minutiae and the big picture; you must love both the feel of the round reality in your hands and the sight of fleeting beauty. (You also must love changing outfits!) Elizabeth is something beyond sharp and able, and her most reliable gift, among many, to those she shares the classroom with is the way she pushes at the edges of her own understanding, extending outward an envelope that never had a hope of containing her. When she speaks her mind, she does so with conviction that comes from knowing the facts and courage that arises from knowing what’s right and what’s wrong in and with the world. Elizabeth questions actively and uses methodical persuasion to argue her points. (In other words, that business in Arcadia wasn’t just acting!) In her equine dealings, she applies patience and fortitude, earning silver bridles and commemorative saddles for her dedication to learning horse-speak. That patience plays well in Middle School shenanigans; the perseverance propels her up long East End hills in cross-country. Elizabeth may burn the candle at both ends, but oh, what brightness and warmth she gives off!

Alexander Hardwick Krey
Bucking the pull of the east coast preps in favor of the chance to get bucked off here on the left coast, Alexander came west four years ago with an eagerness that makes “rarin’ to go” look like standing still.  That he has what we in the biz call “a really big brain” didn’t hurt, but it’s been as much AKrey’s A-plus sensibility that has accounted for his stunning achievements.  For all his being, indisputably, a consummate, first-rank scholar, a ring-spearer, ribbon-racer, admissions ambassador, Habitat hammerer, horse packer, stage hand, fly-boy, Adam or angel, and for all it takes to do each one exceptionally well, it is Alexander’s ardent and expressed desire “to do the best work in this [little] world that he can” that earns him the many votes of confidence his peers, schoolmates, and teachers have given. And this is where his leadership—by election and by example—stands apart and above, even as he humbly dismantles any laurels in order to share them with those he sees as part of his success. In this way, he follows Lao Tzu’s paradoxical advice: “To lead people, walk behind them.” Alexander’s ethic of self- and community improvement engages his head, hands, and heart in uncommon concert, and when you share a class, dorm, or campsite with him, you come away knowing how many lustrous strands there are to the fabric of excellence, and how strong and lasting it can be, how completely it can enfold you when it is shared.

Sophie Matilda LaRocque
Whether it’s a race or not, Sophie’s the one we’d want to come to our rescue: she’s steady as an Alberta summer day is long, cool as a cucumber dipped in ranch, skilled, experienced, willing, and able. Steeped in the hard-work values that living where Mother Nature can be frighteningly moody and where your and your family’s fate often depends on your quick thinking and fast acting, Sophie knows what “come early/stay late” and even “go without sleep” really mean. “I can tell her to meet me in such-and-such camp with this-that-and-the-other,” holds one teacher, “and I know she’ll be there with everything in order.” Sophie’s word is her bond, and come hell or high water, she’ll greet the devil with a smile and run the bucket brigade. Maturity and steadiness have marked all of her pursuits here: solving problems in short story narrative or in math functions, figuring out how to rally Jed or the Green Team with just the right combination of carrot, stick and lasso, unknotting the Italian language or culture so as to squeeze the most out of her time abroad, Sophie keeps her eyes and mind open to possibilities, A friend marvels, referring to Sophie’s well-drawn internal map, “Sophie holds her own. She’s a very tough girl, but also an affectionate friend.” Sophie’s always had that long, sure reach—see her fetch up that sack?—and, as she read in the Baghavad Gita, “They who reach do not fade away nor fall.”

Samuel George Lino
There’s hardly a slice of Thacher life that Sam hasn’t taken a bite of. Look for him in any classroom and find a devoted student whose admiring teachers call “talented, energetic, confident,” “creative and lucid, “bright, inquisitive and hardworking.” Check out the woodshop, where curly oak and lacewood morph, step by careful step, into an elegant wall cabinet under his skilled and creative hand. Head to some point on the wilderness map and see Sam celebrate the merging of gear management, group dynamics, and outdoor splendor.  Or the homeless shelter in town, or the soccer or baseball field or cross-country course, or an LP dorm room, the Pergola and dining room, most recently on the Spring Sing stage – in all these places, on the beaten path or off it, Sam commits and connects, beaming with the kind of delight that diffuses through the air for all to breathe in. From under a chef’s toque or through safety goggles, he sees with unusually clear vision how the parts fit to make the whole. In a repeated and happy exercise of mind and heart, he joins piece to piece, person to person, with judiciousness, care, and dependability. As one classmate attested, “He is one of those truly nice guys.” It might be cheesy, but we’ll say it: Sam, we wish you could play it all over again.

Brigid Erin McCarthy
There’s a Celtic saying that holds There is no luck except where there is discipline. No surer proof than what we see behind the achievements of this bonny lass. Brigid, even-keeled and methodical, approaches every aspect of her Thacher life with unswerving and unstinting determination. She chooses the challenging over the easy every time, and her teachers praise the immutable qualities that inform her success: diligence, preparedness, dedication, refinement, analytical and creative intelligence.  Finely crafted writing matches finely tuned riding when Brigid fetches her beloved Irish, grooms and tacks him with utmost care, jogs him out to the gymkhana field, then urges him around the course and over fences. Together, they seek and find the right pace and rhythm, creating a tah-dah-dum tah-dah-dum that becomes Brigid’s late-night lullaby, long after she’s returned to the barns, put Irish away, and gone back to books-to-read and essays-to-write.  True-blue loyal even when she’s wearing the orange-and-green on the tennis court, Brigid offers “the hand of a friend always near,” helping others up when they fall, creating with her close buddies an unbreakable circle of mutual esteem and thoughtful support.  In short, Brigid makes her own luck. Appreciative of the contributions Brigid has made, we end with an Irish blessing:
May you have a full moon on a dark night,
And the road downhill all the way to your door.

Ryan William McMorrow
Ryan has capitalized on just about every minute of the last four years, developing a clear idea of the path ahead even while glancing backward at where he’s been and the lessons along the way. He strides with confidence, covering a distance that isn’t merely about miles (though Beijing is half-way around the globe), but more, about self-discovery.  What was true about Ryan before he crossed and recrossed the Pacific is only truer: he loves bringing the conceptual into the practical, the theoretical into the concrete, so, for example, physics and mathematics find their ideal union in an elegant and effective surfboard. Form meets function, too, in an artful and complex Chinese character, a creative stab at emulating, say, Safran Foer, or a run down the soccer field capped by a just-right cross to a teammate. Friendships matter to Ryan, too, and even as he honors the preciousness of old buddies, he is aware of the value of new ones to the richness of his life—those who reach only to his knees and those whose wait eagerly for his company at St. Joseph’s, just as the middle schoolers in Palo Alto did in his summer service last year. It feels as if we just welcomed Ryan back from his year abroad, and we’re saying farewell again. We hope that, just as you Velcro your board leash to your ankle, you’ll keep an invisible tether to Thacher. Hang ten!

Ji Sun Min
With thoughtful—that is, full-of-thought—care has Alex carved her place here. Appreciated in our community for her tenacity, preparedness, and sheer, prolific intelligence, Alex has sought challenge after challenge, trying not to slake her thirst for knowledge but to keep it whetted. Gifted especially in mathematics and science, Alex uses those hefty textbooks to climb on, relying on the strength of her motivation to help her stack them, as she reaches more lofty heights of understanding. Her approach is thorough; to paraphrase a Korean proverb, Alex tests even a stone bridge before crossing it. Actually, she’s likely to design the bridge, chisel the rocks to place them well, set up weight-bearing experiments, double check the data, assess validity, add a chemical analysis, then cross it. Alex is good-humored about this sort of ribbing, because she trusts its source: our respect and affection. Fond are we, too, of the ways the affable Alex finds to share the wealth: sending silvery flute-notes high into the PAC rafters (solo, in ensemble or pit band), helping others towards their own academic success, traipsing the campus over and over again (“a world record,” according to the Admission folk) to show prospective families what Thacher’s about.  And, for her finale, a return to the horse program--who’da guessed?—where, three springs ago, with a horse named Peppy, she first felt herself expand. That same year, Alex recalled in an essay a time when, standing at ocean’s edge, “The waves shrank, the wind died down, and I grew bigger.” And so, we are pleased to say, she certainly has.

Kathryn Anna Padgett
It takes a special kind of balance to land on your feet when you arrive at the gates of CdeP as a sophomore. Kathryn’s got it, though, another expression of her composure—the sort that even, when pinned up against a Wheel-of-Fortunesque prop on stage, allows you to sing your duet with aplomb and credibility.  Of course, when you’re Kathryn, singing wherever, however, whenever, is just part of who you are, a gift you give freely—in the follow-spot, the glow of a Sierra campfire, around the Hill dorms, or in the hallways of a convalescent home, to an audience of 400 or 10 or none. Inclusive by nature and by nurture, Kathryn holds a valuable seat in any discussion, formal or informal, bringing not only her far-reaching, superlative intellect, thoroughly scholarly approach, and penetrating inquisitiveness, but also her lived-in understanding of diversity, as it applies to people and politics, ideas, opinions, and world-views. Little wonder that her Senior Exhibition on Creation Myths was, in the words of a faculty member, “thorough, confidently presented, and courageous.” That bravery extends on the soccer field, where she takes impressive control of the midfield action like a Lost Boy on a mission to find Wendy.  Here, as elsewhere in her rich Thacher life, Kathryn blends tact with discipline, grace with grit. Add “witty” and “insightful” (the words of her classmates), and you begin to understand why three years with Kathryn was one too few.

John Nicholas Pearce
Thacher has been, for Jack, a very different way to spend his high school years, yet the restive spirit and discrimination he showed in choosing the road to these gates, and ultimately to this field today, have served him well. One friend shared, “Jack stays up late expanding his intellect. He questions the world around him, he stands by his convictions, and he is never satisfied with his [momentary] best.” This seeking expresses itself in math and science especially, but isn’t limited to these, where he is known as “the answer man,” a careful thinker with an inner frequency tuned to nuance and subtlety. Jack also finds challenge and joy in discoveries about, say, the interface between Hemingway’s worldview and his writing, or how looking at objects, people, or scenes through the lens of a camera can reveal new angles and unanticipated possibilities. The same “amazing eye” that informs his photography allows him an important role in his creative writing and his athletics. He is resourceful, quick and skilled on the soccer pitch and tennis court (old stomping grounds for him) and on the lacrosse field (a new one); his energies are as unbounded as his sense of camaraderie is trussed tightly.  According to a peer, “Jack has a kind of craziness he shares”—but he’s also generous with his kindness, to kids at Smart Start, to classmates, to faculty who get to know him. The “dreamer and idealist with a fiercely competitive spirit and a powerful ability to understand” –more words from that friend—has his head in the sky and his feet securely planted.

Kensey Erin Pease
What is it about Kensey that, when you merely hear her name, you breathe easier, rest more assured? United in Kensey are qualities rare enough when they come singularly, exceptional en masse: common sense, maturity, balance, calm, endless good humor. While one faculty member’s statement that “I sometimes trust Kensey’s judgment more than my own” might give pause, it does point to the respect in which she is held by everyone who has felt her potent influence, from the most senior teachers to her peers, schoolmates, and even wee Hoopers. Classmates gain from her uncanny ability to analyze and synthesize, across the whole academic spectrum and with an unrivaled conscientiousness.  Walking on blisters fore and aft or bushwhacking an extra nine miles on a camping trip, putting on an Open House with fluttering freshmen as your crew, adjudicating a tricky or sensitive JC case, or dealing with pettiness at a lunch table—Kensey copes with patience and equanimity; she is “always conscious,” writes one admirer, “of how what she is doing will affect others.”  She understands intuitively—and acts on the impulse—that the strength of this community is the result of many bricks laid just so over time. That knowledge ties back to the characteristics we listed at the start. They add up to one word—wisdom—not often used in tandem with another word--“teenager.” But there you go, and there you’ve got Kensey.

Samuel Frederick Purcell
If gusto can be reticent, then Sam’s the quiet conveyor of a gentle but persistent enthusiasm for his every pursuit at Thacher. “He keeps a low profile,” said a classmate accurately, “and I think he’d prefer not getting a lot of attention for his accomplishments and fantastic personality.” (Sam does wear modesty like a favorite t-shirt, but since graduation from Thacher comes but once a lifetime, he’ll just have to put up with this basking.) What one faculty member called “a sweet shyness,” however, is mere scrim when you look through it to see what informs his reputation: unimpeachable integrity, commitment to follow through, selflessness, moral rectitude, generosity with the elderly, the young, and all ages in between. Sam’s talents—an ability to anticipate what’s around the next curve, insightfulness that approaches x-ray vision, facility in multiple disciplines, artful creativity behind the lens of a camera—glint like chunks of gold in a mine trace, and he applies them in a line-up of courses that would daunt most high schoolers. When he takes to cross-country course, soccer pitch, or lacrosse field, he loosens the reins on his athletic passion, letting it lope and gallop, spin and stop-on-a-dime. His kinesthetic intelligence is as potent as his good sportsmanship and as compelling as his sense of team. “The secret of success,” contended Benjamin Disraeli, “is constancy of purpose.” Sam’s fidelity to his purpose here—to rise to any challenge, to do his best work, to provide an example to others in black-and-white action—speaks far louder than chatter ever could.

Anna Mae Reeser
When, as one faculty member said about Anna, “She’s who I want to be in my next life,” you might want a few reasons. Well, we’ve got them. She has a questing, questioning spirit. She’s witty, fun, and funny, the best pal. She’s simultaneously mature and ingenuous. She’s a scholarly thinker and a thinkerly scholar, who can carry on a conversation while rallying in tennis. She’s a probing researcher who turns every rock for possible treasure beneath, seeking with the magnifying glass of her eye. She has a work ethic, applied to her academics or El Archivero, as huge as the big, gentle beasts she knows how to harness and drive. She’s a steadfast friend. She got pizzazz. She is self-assured, and with good cause. And perhaps our number one reason? She can translate both her inner life—one imaginatively robust, luminously colored—as well as realities out there—people, objects, slices of life others might overlook—into dancing poetry, dazzling drama or prose, or works of art that, frankly, stop our breath as we see what Lawrence Ferlinghetti called “the shook foil of the imagination.” Anna’s creativity, recognized not just by family and friends here on campus but by masters in other realms outside our gates and valley, spills from what must be an awesome fountainhead, its waters crystal and perpetual. In fact, her artistic soul is the opposite of tortured and solitary; it delights in the company of others and sings, full-throated and long, when, in woodcut or lithograph, oil, or charcoal, it takes flight. We count ourselves privileged to have listened and watched these many years.

Hannah Ellen Rich
If Hannah has, in her own words, become more of the person she wants to be during her time at Thacher, well, we could not be more pleased. Honest, encouraging of others, persistent, and positive, Hannah opened herself early to the possibilities for growth here and has been loyal to that precept ever since. It is for the love of learning that Hannah reads and writes, calculates, translates, postulates, and evaluates (note attempt at rap). From A (alert, astute) to Z (zestful, zealous), Hannah’s creative method yields success she measures mostly by how many new doors it flings wide for her curiosity to stride through. She can laugh at her own foibles, and she’s not afraid of falling, trusting that she can gather her wits, regroup, and pick up where she left off, modeling how toughness and resilience can meet reality head-on. Donning basketball, volleyball, or lacrosse uniform, Hannah sets it up so she can play to win, but always with honor and good sportsmanship. To friends and classmates, she’s a great listener, a soft shoulder, a mature perspective, but, as well, a staunch believer in doing what’s right, even when it’s the hardest thing to do. Her particular magic is in the balance: knowing the internal rewards of standing straight, while taking giddy pleasure in completely doubling over in laughter and silliness, hula hoop at your ankles. Since you asked, Hannah: Where is the love? Right here, y’all.

Virginia Salem Shannon
Once in a while, faculty use the term “the real deal” about a student. It’s been heard about Virginia. “Real” because she operates out of an authenticity you sense immediately. “Deal” because you always feel that you’ve gotten more than you probably deserve in the bargain. Virginia has crammed much into her too-brief time with us. As talented as she is brimming with energy, she thrives in both collaborative and independent pursuits, the team player—lacrosse, soccer, the Courts, Drill Team V, in Room E, K or M1, on snowy or sunny Extra Day Trips—and the soloist—writing an analytical essay or research paper, outlining a Senior Exhibition, painting. Virginia can bring the mountains of Maine or California to richly colorful life with her brush or pastels, or motivate a team to its finest play by her example of grace under pressure. She can instigate moral action on behalf of people and wild places, or teach a game of footsies with the waves to a faculty child. All gears in Virginia, low-calm or highly-revved, move her and those around her forward. “I am thankful,” said one teacher, “when I see her name on my camping roster or my class list.” This holds true for her peers and younger schoolmates, too. We only wish that the Thacher directory had squeezed Shannon in not two years ago, but a full four. Still, we’ll take what we got, and gladly, hopeful that maybe she’ll someday be a teacher for real and return to inspire another generation of Toads.

Claire Elizabeth Shaw
With unbridled optimism, buoyancy, and practicality always packed in her bags, Claire has logged many miles to make and keep Thacher her second home. Here, she has endeared herself to everyone in her wide circle of influence, lifting them up, their faces and hers to the sun. She inspires others in many ways: a classmate penned, “Claire is brimming with wit, always laughing.” Another concurred, “I never laugh harder or more often than when I am with her.” Convivial and consistently kind, Claire is also discerning: though she’ll suffer a fool gladly, she knows what’s foolish or just plain wrong and is sufficiently courageous to hammer straight what may be bent. Just as younger students and peers adore her, they—and her teachers—admire and respect her: they see over and over how steadfastly she adheres to principles of justice and honor, how willingly she volunteers for the unglamorous jobs and how cheerfully she follows through. Claire brings to her coursework, from Thacher to Beijing and back again, a bright and active intelligence that looks around corners and into crannies, questing beyond, swimming upstream with strokes sure and strong when there’s something there to pursue. Linked to others inextricably, Claire is also highly independent—the shepherd and the solo trekker. Alaska’s state flower is a perennial both exquisite and hardy, the wild forget-me-not. Forget Claire? We couldn’t if we tried.  

Leslie Anne Sligh
Just as her hometown honey horse, Blanca, choose Leslie as an owner several years ago, so Leslie chose Thacher—with a strongly beating heart that told her head, “Yes, this is the one.” During her time in this community—and farther back, counting her visits as a little sister—Leslie has secured her place absolutely.  She meets the many responsibilities for which she merrily signs on as friends to know better, attending to each with the time and care it requires. To academics, she gives front-of-the-class focus, the result of which are lucid, precise prose, nuanced interpretation in English or French, of Joyce or Antoinette, and flexible applications of the conceptual to the practical.  To her work in front of and behind the green curtain, in the dark or under the lights, she dedicates countless hours of energetic practice, making for the perfect delivery of lines or props, entrechats or enter-stage-lefts. To Bombay, she devotes loving preparation, so that together, they may properly pace their way in dressage or soar over jumps; in alternate gear and on a new mount, she can gallop the Single Stake or Figure-8 Flag to a number one place for the day. As a peer or younger student under her warm wing, you feel secure, safe, honored for just who you are. The benefit goes to all who watch and wonder at Leslie’s unaffected expertise and limitless can-do attitude. Your right-hand help, Leslie is selfless, unassuming, inclusive, and kind, Lipizzaner lovely and just as spectacular in performance. She trots out of this arena, ready for the next event, with our affection and respect.

Lesley Wei-Yee Sun
Lesley greets each day with delight and hope. Both are well-founded (and not merely because of her apt surname) for at Thacher, she has cherished that which she arrived here already loving—riding, drawing, creative writing—and welcomed those aspects brand new and potentially daunting—communal living, camping in the Sespe and the Sierra, singing in front of an audience of hundreds. Generous, sweet, helpful, and humble, Lesley is, in the words of a classmate, “a saint.”  And when she marches in, it’s often to do something thoughtful and kind for someone else without being asked: help a new rider learn leather and latigo, gently tutor a friend struggling in French, sing to an elderly crowd whose weekly highlight is just this moment. In her schoolwork, Lesley takes full advantage of opportunities to expand her knowledge; in her artwork, she is abundantly creative and exceptionally detailed, her drawings evocative of hidden worlds brought to light by skillful brushstroke. But, as Lesley well knows, there’s no business like show business, and the shows that must go on are, for this equine devotee, all about speaking the language of horse, and getting him—Newbury, or some picked-from-a-hat mount in an IEA competition—to listen attentively. Lesley has enjoyed considerable success, in great part because she relishes the challenge of ever-higher standards and fences, and is controlled and laser-focused on each successive jump. Big horse, big heart: a blue-ribbon winner.

Della Connelly Taylor
Waxed one of her classmates, “Della’s tiny figure is one of the most masterful deceptions of the 21st century: this girl’s personality, energy, natural beauty, and inquisitiveness are broader and deeper than all the seven seas combined.”  Even if you divide such an emphatic assertion by half (considering the source is a good friend), you know you’ve got something special in Della. Spunky and spirited, she subscribes to the where-there’s-a-will-there’s-a-way philosophy of life, and when Della uses her significant drive at full throttle to her advantage, better to get out of the way than try any Katie-bar-the-doors technique.  If she wants to push her writing skills to the next level, or send her scientific inquiry deeper, she doesn’t pause to ask, “May I?” Nor need she, for the decision to progress and the no fear attitude, she well knows, are all her own to engage in ways she herself determines. The reward for her mental toughness and discipline is an increasingly greater impact, and nowhere is this more evident than in the gym or on the sports field where, in volleyball, hoops, or lacrosse, Della supplies dexterity, skill, and nerve, serving up opportunities for team success one after another. “Della,” mused a classmate, “keeps a clear perspective and articulates it expertly.”  As she accepts the necessity of change and the necessity of what psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski called “the evolution of conscious life,” Della is nothing if not completely dauntless.

Anna Mackenzie Teague
Anna knows, by nature and training, how to be still. Even as you know her brain is whirring away, her eye is quietly taking in the grand, the minute, and everything betwixt, measuring, appraising, absorbing. This quality of quietness allows Anna to see the world uniquely; it is her highly developed skill and her gentle spirit of sharing that allow others into that vision, through print and web media, via El Archivero. Sensible, stable, bright as a noontime August sun in Ojai, Anna moves from one academic discipline to another with point-and-shoot ease and speed, her work across the board consistent and eminently scholarly, no placebo but the real thing. While she’s diversely gifted, though, she’s also notably conscientious, a student who reaches to pluck more fruit even as she packs what she’s already picked with great care and exactitude. Reading, writing, ‘rithmatic—Anna’s devotion extends to a fourth: riding. There, her smile isn’t dimmed by the inevitable dust, but broadened in the effort of badgering a colt along or moving an unwilling steed safely past trail course cans-in-a-bag. And, last, a fifth “R”—recording the vitality of this community, looking with thoughtful acumen and artful discernment at the people and places that comprise it, whittling down thousands of images to the truest, the finest, and then offering them back to us. Anna thus delineates a circle so perfect it defies description by even a thousand words.

Claire Meiping Vinson
Ask any of her friends or schoolmates: Claire has a million facial expressions. In that lively visage can be unadulterated goofiness—or exceptional concentration. It can hold a broad, magnetic smile or a sly winking grin. Unconstrained in some ways--“She never fails to make me laugh. . .or, actually, giggle,” said a friend—Claire is utterly resolute in others.  Put her in a key back-row spot in a volleyball match against a highly ranked cross-town rival team, and she will amaze the crowd and rescue the play with her powerful digs. Or send her down a lacrosse or soccer field, and she becomes a fierce player on a scoring mission. Ask her to translate a complicated French text, scrutinize a work of literature, or take on a comprehensive research or photography project, and she will put into action what our founder himself called “sound habits of thought and study,” earning the praise of her teachers and moving herself along a path she takes responsibility for and justifiable pride in. The soft, sometimes silly side of Claire charms and pleases; the steely side astonishes. The amalgam of both—fired with a large measure of cleverness and tempered with an unusual self-awareness—will last her long after she walks, with poise and maturity, back down the road she decided would bring her here, a little Holly-Golightly girl, four falls ago.

Brooke Megan Wharton
Come early, be loud, stay late. Brooke wears her personal philosophy on the back of her T-shirt—and she lives it in everything she does. She’s as honest as a straight fence line (except when playing poker), as even-keeled and balanced as a well-made saddle. Brooke keeps her eye on the target: sorting out why who does what in a work of literature or a political issue, weighing the consequences of this way to solve a problem versus that, considering the impact of humans on their world, acing a tennis serve. A winning combination of serious and slightly silly, Brooke knows well and practices often the art of mixing work and play. Witness her indefatigable work to keep events hopping on campus, or how she turns mucking into a beautiful way to start a new day, or her breathing life into a first-ever community service project, Therapeutic Riding of Thacher, which linked her old best friends (four-hoofed, furry) with some new ones.  But for the best (if occasionally heart-stopping) views, go wherever she’s riding: running the flags to open a sports event, jumping fences in English duds, changing into chaps and weaving through poles or racing the Birangle in record time. There, she’s a bold hot shot who’s all about Green, wrangling new meaning out of “hell-bent-for-leather.” A friend’s words are true: “She loves the things she loves with her whole heart.” When Brooke temporarily traded Texas for Ojai four years ago, she had an inkling that the stars at night would be big and bright in both places. Her intuition was right—but to those, she has added her own bright-burning star.

Joseph Tyler Winters
“Joe is a gentleman,” begins one comment submitted by a classmate. She means, we guess (having watched Joe in action for three years now) that he is considerate, polite, mindful of how his behavior affects others. All accurate. But this is where Joe and the other high-falutin’ definitions of the word part company—and good thing for us all. Knowing that there’s a direct proportion between investment and outcome, Joe digs wholeheartedly into the job—painstakingly crafting a coherent thesis and supporting it, diligently preparing his math or chem homework, puzzling the details together to make the concepts clear, perfecting the tackle, crossing the Sierra one steady step at a time, a pack the size of a small car on his back and skateboard sneakers on his feet. Joe has a brawny work ethic matched by a natural athleticism; and learning the rules, all new to him when he arrived as a sophomore, was just preamble to the fun parts: the clapping on of pads, the sweat dripping from underneath a helmet, the engagement of mind and muscle, the matchless camaraderie of team practice and play. Strong in all the most useful and lasting ways, Joe has his priorities lined out right: abiding loyalty to friends and family, hard work and honest effort, trying your hardest to set the best example, not to cast the longest shadow but to give the greatest light.

Mark Oliver Wolcott
Mark meets the world with the most open of souls, impeccable comic timing, and a “Who, me?” look of genuine surprise when the audience cheers his jazz solo or his best go at playing a proper butler in Arcadia. What we all most admire—aw, heck, love—about Mark was captured by a schoolmate: “Mark is himself no matter what the situation—and that, along with his earnest smile, is what makes him such a great guy.” No pretense, no mask, just humble, kind, charming good nature—and the kind of “huge grin” that, continues a classmate, “brightens my day.” But there’s real dynamism, too: when Mark hooks into an idea, he’s exhaustive in his pursuit of it. He’s been called “the intellectual center of a high-energy, fun group of students,” and Chinese or math, English, Biology, or history, he’s always asking for more, going farther than halfway to meet you. Running seven miles uphill after a morning of kayaking, facing off in lacrosse, mastering the “Maple Leaf Rag,” wiping counters after a particularly messy Open House, training for cross-country, or backpacking up an endless set of switchbacks—typically with the lion’s share of community gear—Mark gives his every atom to the endeavor. Gentle and considerate, playful and endlessly good-humored, Mark’s is the picture next to “team player” in the dictionary.

Elizabeth Louise Woolf-Willis
EDub is, like her unique moniker, “undeniably unique,” in the words of a classmate. “She does everything her own way, making no attempt to follow any style but her own.” That style is highly creative, its vibrancy evidenced in artistic expression of all varieties: sketching and painting, stage set design, yearbook layout, writing of all genres. EDub’s creations make manifest an imagination that explores enthusiastically and a sensibility that has self-improvement and finding a rightful, right-feel place in this earth as its goal. She does not shy from asking the big questions, and she proposes answers through thoughtful, informing artwork. As happy amid the pots and brushes of the art studio as among the costumes and props of the PAC, EDub knows the pleasures and rewards of both individual and collaborative pursuit, and how necessary individuality is in enhancing one’s value to the collective. This also holds true in her classes, and there, her acute reading ability and fresh, original interpretations inevitably yield astute commentary—or breathtakingly fine creative and analytical essays. “A genuinely nice person,” a classmate wrote, EDub is also a faithful friend, unflappable and efficient even as she is inventive—and always ready, when the muse whispers in her ear, to smile, extricate herself from her loving friends and admirers, and follow.

Simon Aaron Wu
If inner growth were measured, you could multiply the number of nicknames Simon has by the number of tennis matches he’s won for CdeP, and you’d be at just about the correct number to calculate how this boy has developed. “Simon,” contends a classmate, “has emerged during his time here as a considerate, incredibly funny, smart guy everyone loves to spend time with.” The Simonator” is company, “outgoing, easy-going and friendly,” as another peer writes, always on the lookout for the next little adventure, using his charm—and sometimes pebbles pitched at windows—to involve others in the shenanigans and fun. His teachers appreciate an intellect capable of following through on even complex, multi-step integration problems or a complex historical topic, noting, “Nothing’s too tricky for him.”  Nor is any opponent across the tennis net too formidable. There, Simon is his coach’s secret weapon: he is so thoroughly unassuming that he lulls the competition into a kind of unsuspecting torpor, only then to spring his power and intensity and “sneaky smart” moves. Outer composure masks the tiger within—and Simon has the victories to prove its effectiveness. Modest and reluctant to accept praise, Simon is, we’d guess, eager to get off this dais and back into his seat among his friends. In handing him his diploma, we turn him loose to those fans and their back-slapping approbation, but we hope he knows we’ll be here, should he ever send out an SOS.

Joseph Christopher Wyatt
“He’s like a hidden pot of gold,” said a classmate of Joseph. It’s true that Joseph does nothing to tout his myriad and splendid strengths; true, too, that he is solid treasure once you discover him. Joseph’s mind hums with the precision of a fine timepiece: intricate, exact, every gear working with elegant accuracy and functionality. Joseph observes the universe in its small workings and grand sweep with exceptional lucidity and deductive powers of the nth degree. But far from letting raw intelligence act alone, he applies a prodigious ethic of care and commitment to excellence.  “I find myself enraptured by his ideas,” wrote a history teacher. Said another, “He never waivers.” In classroom debate and discourse, Joseph elevates the standard by several notches, stretching his intellectual muscles to take him over ever-higher hurdles. Yet his reaching is not just about his own finish line. Rather, he finds fulfillment and gladness in the communal effort: his part on track, football, and soccer teams, his work with the county’s Special Olympics in track and field, and in Upper School hallways—all reveal a dedication that not only contributes hugely to each group’s achievement, but that inspires others to their better selves. Joseph’s style—understated, quiet, no fanfare please, no fuss—belies a “quick and clever humor.” One peer nailed it when she wrote, “When he speaks, it is so worth the wait.”  He came. He spoke. We so listened.

Xiaoshi Stone Yu
Stone’s journey to and through Thacher has looped and wound like a many-footed dragon in a Chinese New Year parade. Along the way, he’s kept a cheerful confidence that has allowed him to meet whatever’s been around the corner with an outstretched hand and a willing mind. That mind is supple and sharp, capable of taking in and giving back, and it works with highly attuned sensitivity. Microeconomics and statistics, stock-trading—the lad who, as a child, routinely (but graciously) bested Mr. Klausler at strategy-based games, is also the capable analytical and creative writer whose originality and sophistication often wow his teachers. On alpine rock wall or soccer field, Stone stays focused and calm, knowing that finesse and style follow disciplined practice. He is cool-headed in situations like these, but operates from a warm and embracing heart and sterling character; he is intolerant of discrimination or injustice.  Beloved by his classmates, Stone has, in the words of one, “a quirky sense of humor that somehow works.”  The boy who wrote, as a young Thacher smut, about moonlight “mark[ing] a streak of white/On the smooth, gravelly ground,” has become a young man, ready to follow the path he himself, like Harold of purple crayon fame, delineates. As he leaves this place that he has made his home, we have only one request: Send news; your family wants to hear from you.