Commencement #99: Cold, Windy, and Wonderful!

Foxcroft Head of School Mary Louise Leipheimer presented diplomas to 36 students from nine states, the District of Columbia, and six countries. All told, these girls have been offered 139 acceptances and nearly $1.2 million in merit scholarships from 100 colleges and universities in England, France, Scotland, and the United States, including Barnard, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Purdue, UCLA, Virginia Tech, Wofford, and the state universities of Delaware, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Virginia.

Thursday’s Awards Assembly and Dinner had been moved inside due to the weather, and administrators and support staff prepared for the Commencement ceremonies to take place in the Athletic/Student Center if need be. But at 9am, just an hour before the event's start, the decision to hold the event outside came, driven largely by the Senior Class itself. No matter that they were wearing mostly sleeveless, white summer dresses or that their shoes might get very wet, they were determined to make the traditional walk “through the Garden” that they had long anticipated and worked so hard to earn.

Fittingly, the featured speaker chosen by the class, Stewart Chapman Herbert '77, had made that trek through the Garden two dozen times: four times as a member of the Foxcroft’s Class of 1977, 19 times as a member of the faculty, and once to get married. An English teacher and a coach, Herbert retires this month as one of the most respected and caring, albeit challenging, educators encountered by students. She drew on her passions -- family, teaching and learning, gardening, and sports -- as well as iconic characters and authors from her vaunted American Literature class in her speech.