News & Events 2004-2005

Katherine Brandwood Speaks at Commencement

The 157th Commencement Exercises at Blair Academy took place on Saturday, May 28, 2005, under sunny skies on Sharpe House Lawn. Katherine Brandwood was the class speaker. She will enter Princeton University in the fall; her speech follows.   

Welcome.

I would like to give a speech about the meaning of life… I think that would be gripping. Most people have invested something or other in life, so it’s a universally relevant topic. The thing is, I haven’t been alive for very long and I haven’t worked out exactly what the meaning of life is yet. My dad won’t tell me until after I’ve graduated.

I reviewed the meaningful milestones of my own life, like the births of my siblings and the advent of Subway in Blairstown – but I had trouble translating their significance into a profound greater understanding. It seemed like the meaning-of-life was the only significant hole in the Blair curriculum, but on a closer look I’ve decided that my time here has provided me with more clues than I’d realized. It’s clear to me that up to now Blair Academy has been the context of my own extremely privileged life. This is my 18th Blair graduation. Each May from pre-first on I would watch in awe as those ancient graduates processed under the arch with their diplomas – and then I’d be off to perform surgery on the cookies in my graduation box lunch, extracting all the macadamia nuts. The day when I would march myself, a graduate of the box lunch, and head off to the luncheon in the bowl armed with my own diploma, always seemed impossibly far-off.

On September 11, 2001, I became a member of this class of 2005 along with about 80 freshmen, most of whom are sitting here today. Our first experience of Blair was touched by the tragedy of that day, but in the face of tragedy we experienced the power of community and the comfort people find in one another. As our country looked inward for courage, our new Blair community tightened and embraced us as its newest members. We drew security and support from our new identity as Blair students, and in looking to one another we began to develop our identity as a class. We spent the Welcome Back Dance on the night we came back from our Freshman Retreat packed into a freshman huddle at the back of the can parking lot, and since then, though we all formed our groups of closest friends, our grade has been known on campus for its easygoing cohesiveness and unity.

Each year saw new additions to the class of 2005, and each year we came to terms with sad losses (including the eight dollars in freshman class council funds, which disappeared mysteriously with Alan Herbol.) Our time here saw the birth of the Headmaster’s Society games, the admission of sneakers to the dress code, the construction of the outdoor theater, the removal of the carpeting from the walls of Insley. Of all the hundreds of thousands of high school seniors being loosed on the world this month, we are the 122 who are graduates of Blair Academy. As different as each one of us is, we have such important influences in common, and wherever our separate futures lead, certain images that will always be in my memory will always be in yours. We’ll all remember donuts and hot chocolate at the bonfire, frisbie circles at cook-outs in the bowl, the whole school trouping over to Armstrong for school meeting in a blizzard, the wreaths on every lamppost at Christmastime, the three days of magnolia blossoms in spring, epic water balloon wars on the gutter lawn.

Whether or not we were aware of it, we grew up a lot in high school – not physically necessarily… I think I may even have gotten shorter – but I think under the guidance and example of the adults in our lives, and from the experience of living and working with one another, we’re much closer to the meaning of life today than we were as freshmen. Now, after four years of development, we can start to become comfortable with the results. Hopefully we’ve started to realize that parts of our personalities that were once sources of insecurity do actually make our individual characters richer. We’ll be making lots of first impressions next year, and the more we allow our true colors to recommend us, the easier it will be to discover the people who can understand and appreciate our idiosyncrasies – the people whose friendship, trust and counsel will take us through life. If you listen to Frank Sinatra and watch old movies with your parents, if you’ve seen nearly every episode of Spongebob, if you’re terrified of lightning, or even if you just have an embarrassing middle name – put it on display. The better you appear to like yourself, the more attractive a person you are. Hopefully we’ve gotten better at laughing at ourselves – I know I’ve been surrounded by helpful people who were more than willing to laugh at me until I learned how to do it myself. I’m still convinced every H Block lunch that I will actually be in the sandwich line for the rest of my whole entire life, but at least now my sensible half can laugh at my despair. I think we’re better at living and cooperating with other people, and that we’re more receptive to what they can teach us. I also think, as we move onward, that we have a better understanding now of what will drive us forward for the rest of our lives. We obviously have a compulsion to learn, and we’re lucky to have the opportunity to spend another four years on our education. At times in prep school, college has seemed like the light at the end of the tunnel – the ultimate end and the target of all ambitions. Today we’re there, and suddenly it’s clear that for the rest of our lives we can keep learning, for learning’s sake. Our choices come with responsibilities, as we’ve heard several times this year, but choices are also possibly our biggest luxuries. We have the means and the precious opportunity to fashion our own futures – that makes us some of the luckiest people in the world.

I think after watching us drool on ourselves in the throes of senioritis for the past few months, the faculty would argue that certain individual lives have no meaning at all. But they’ll miss us… over these four years, our faculty has been a group of devoted mentors, instructors and friends – if our lives do turn out to be meaningful on any level, we’ll owe a large part of that to them. Some of us sprinted home every night after dinner, doubled over under a backpack the size and weight of a small person. Some of us felt most at home on the fields, in the gym, in the wrestling room. Some of us were happiest on the stage or in the studio, and some of us were in our element just sitting in Meerwarth Courtyard with ice cream and a group of friends. Whatever our various niches at Blair, whatever our peculiar talents and loves, we were encouraged and aided in our development of unique personalities by the adults at Blair and at home. In their roles as coaches, advisors and academic instructors, the faculty members here were endlessly patient and always generous with their time, knowledge and experience as they guided us through a learning process that made the most of our own resources. Our parents, siblings and role models at home were instrumental in keeping us motivated and grounded—mine humored a lot of melodrama and gave absolutely unwavering support in the form of sympathy, patient counsel and, when I needed it, ridicule. We wouldn’t have come here to begin with if it weren’t for our families, and we definitely needed them along the way to get to this day.

I’m so honored to be speaking at our graduation; I know I’m blessed to be a part of this class. For four years, the character of our class and the personalities of each of the characters in it have contributed a unique energy to this community that we will take with us when we leave. I don’t mean that we won’t leave our mark – every class leaves something behind. In fact, fac brat scavengers scour every empty room after graduation in search of it: stickers, posters, loose change, sometimes pieces of unwanted furniture. On the intangible level, the vibrancy, humor, intellect and passion of this group will be remembered and missed, but as we move forward, so will this community. Each year, a new class will grow into itself here, and Blair will always be a place of nurturing, education and preparation for the future. We’re off to continue useful, exciting lives, even if we don’t know what they mean. My experiences at Blair – or I guess I should just say, my experiences – suggest to me that there must be a reason why we’re drawn to other people, there must be a reason for memory, there must be a reason why we’re compelled to learn. My dad, who claims to be the ultimate cosmic authority, has hinted that the answers may be pieced together between of Monty Python and The Bridge of San Luis Rey. If you’re too impatient to puzzle it out for yourself, find him at lunch, but I think that Blair is sending us out into the world fully prepared to let experience lead to wisdom. Thanks to the faculty for invaluable instruction, both academic and personal, to our parents and families for the love, criticism and support we needed to make it here, and thanks to the members of this class for being so much fun to grow up with. We’ll remember and love our friends from Blair forever, and they’ll always be our link to a period of our lives that we’ll look back on with real fondness. Best luck, you guys. May Chen be with you.

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