Class of 2023 Celebrates with Senior Banquet and Commencement
On Saturday, June 3rd, after an unseasonably cool and gray spring, the clouds parted and the sun shined upon the Class of 2023 for their Commencement ceremonies. A class who endured and triumphed in the face of a truncated 9th grade year due to the covid pandemic, to historic rainfall and floods this last year, their resilience and camaraderie formed the lifelong bonds that is the hallmark of a Thacher education.
In all, 66 seniors received their diplomas on the newly renovated dining hall pavilion. Each member of the class took their turn to stand upon the mainstage as heartwarming and personal accolades were read about them. Laughter, tears of joy, and pride were all on display from the family, friends, and schoolmates in attendance. Of note, five faculty and staff children graduated, all of these graduates were joined by their parents on stage in order to recognize everyone’s contributions to Thacher’s community.
Preceding Saturday’s event was the Senior Banquet, hosted in the same patio setting outside of the dining hall. There, with the fading light behind the distinctive Topatopa mountain range serving as a backdrop, the Class of 2023 and their invited guests celebrated with awards and a keynote speaker.
The Invocation by Elle O Hill was followed by a reading by classmate Clio Calvin. They read Don’t Hesitate and Swans, respectively, and both by Mary Oliver, as part of their Senior Banquet addresses.
The keynote speaker was Laurel Braitman, CdeP 1996, a New York Times bestselling author, a historian and an anthropologist of science who holds a PhD in Science, Technology, and Society from MIT. Her accomplishments are numerous: a Senior TED Fellow and a 2019 National Geographic Explorer; the first Writer-in-Residence and the Director of Writing and Storytelling at the Medicine & the Muse Program at the Stanford University School of Medicine; an affiliate at the Headlands Center for the Arts; a contributing author for Pop Up Magazine; and her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, among other publications.
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A college preparatory boarding school for grades 9-12
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