Special to the Sentinel –
Christchurch School celebrated its 100th graduation exercise on Friday, May 7, at 9 a.m. under the school’s Great Red Oak on Bell Tower Hill. Due to COVID-19 protocols, only graduates, their families, and faculty/staff attended. The event was streamed live on the Internet. There were 58 graduates in this Centennial Class, including two from Middlesex County — Mikie Lawson of Saluda and Orie Bullard of Christchurch.
Head of School John E. Byers delivered the commencement address.
“Does it make you special to be the 100th?” Byers asked in his address. “To us it does, but if we want the world to notice, you as a class have to change the world so triumphantly that the whole world has to ask, ‘where did they come from?’ ”
Byers continued, “After all, we have been strong enough, resilient enough, and confident enough to weather the Great Depression, World War II, Vietnam, 9/11, the Great Recession, national calamities, world crises, and all manner of hurricanes and storms, an evacuation, and even a twister and an earthquake.
“And now you … we … have weathered a pandemic, a plague. A once-in-a-century horror, here in our 100th year. And yet here we are, together as one. We are surely, one scrappy, resilient, tough, grind-it-out bunch of people. Some days felt pretty bleak … anxiety lay heavy on us … there was fear and despair.
“But we continued to see and find a light, a way forward, and remember the reasons why we were here.
As the Gospel lesson says in our Lessons and Carols service, ‘The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.’
“Hallelujah! It seems some sort of miracle to regroup, battered but unbowed on this magical spot, to embrace a moment of joy. We carry on in spite of obstacles, because we believe in what we do, and why we do it, and how we do it.
“And that is to focus on you; all of you; the whole you. Because you are unique. You are valuable. Power comes from believing in yourself and with that power comes the responsibility to others. If you take away that same core belief in your own worth and, at the same time, commit yourself to making the world better, then we all win, we’re all better.
“Thank you for being the ones who closed out our first one hundred years with such resolve, so much grit, bravely adapting to challenges that none of us could have even imagined. You have truly earned this moment.
“And from here, we do want your lives to be so meaningful, rich, and productive that indeed people will ask, ‘Where did you come from?’ Godspeed, Class of 2021!”
In what has become a hallmark of the ceremony, Byers closed by addressing every one of the graduates personally, remarking on the special gifts each brought to the school community.
Byers, along with Associate Head of School Neal Keesee, conferred diplomas. Following the ceremony, each graduate rang the Second Century Bell and passed through the faculty receiving line.
Graduates included Progress Award winner Clare Elizabeth Elden Gaule of Vermilion, Ohio, and Chaplain’s Award winner Sara Noelle Grieb of Wilmington, N.C.
The school’s highest honor, the Bishop’s Award, for the first time in 100 years was awarded to two students, Jaden Khizhay Malik Baker of Parsonsburg, Md., and Yifan Sally Shang of Beijing, China.
Students graduating with honors include Jaden Khizhay Malik Baker (Parsonsburg, Md.), Reese Virginia Bragg (Irvington), Hope Kennedy Carr (Virginia Beach), Clare Elizabeth Elden Gaule (Vermilion, Ohio), Carl Francis Erickson (Ewing, N.J.), Lai Shanrou (Dong Guan, China), Emmett Oliver Makarushka (Durham, N.C.), Margaret Ann Mathews (Ocean Pines, Md.), Oluwatosin Kehinde Adesuwa Okoh (Dacula, Ga.), Yifan Sally Shang (Beijing, China), Song Zhewei (Wenzhou, China), Tran Thao My (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam), Wang Yingru (Beijing, China), Ashton James Willcox (Great Falls) and Yu Zichen (Nanjing, China).
