On Thursday, May 23, 2024, families, faculty, alumni, and friends of The Colorado Springs School gathered on the Quad to celebrate the Class of 2024 at the 59th Commencement Exercises.
The ceremony opened with live music from CSS's combined band featuring Middle and Upper School performers along with alumni musicians and directed by Brent Moorhead P'34.
Following a procession of the graduating seniors, the event kicked off with back-to-back performances of the National Anthem and the CSS Alma Mater performed by the combined band, Middle School Choir, and the Upper School Vocal Ensemble. The Vocal Ensemble also performed "For Good" from the musical Wicked. The performances were conducted by Music Teacher Emily Michielutti.
Dr. John Longo, retired CSS English teacher, was nominated by the Class of 2024 to present this year's faculty Commencement Address (see full Commencement Address below). Dr. Longo pulled from Shakespeare's Hamlet in which the king's old advisor, Polonius, gives his blessing to his son, Laertes, as the young man is about to leave familiar Denmark and embark on an extended stay in France. Dr. Longo read Polonius's advice to his son including, "Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment, and "to thine own self be true.” Dr. Longo then offered his own list based on Polonius's but then felt an additional list was more fitting.
"Polonius’s advice is relentlessly and almost exclusively practical or prudential, obsessed with ideas of fitting in and getting along, avoiding trouble and, most importantly, protecting your reputation," Dr. Longo said. "Such things have their place, but I thought I owed you more than that." He turned to Hamlet, who is famous for his soliloquies, those solitary acts of self-reflection.
"And the driving force in those self-reflections is the question, real not rhetorical questions. 'To be or not to be?' is the most famous, but there are others," Dr. Longo said, before proposing a list based on Hamlet such as "Why am I here?" and "Am I a good person, and how do I know if I am?"
"At CSS you have been encouraged to be critical thinkers and not mindless list followers, if I may put it that way," Dr. Longo told the graduates. "I hope that over the next four years, you will nurture the habit of asking some of Hamlet’s questions even as you explore what history, philosophy, art and science have to offer as possible answers. Unlike poor Hamlet, you won’t need to ask your questions in isolation. You will find plenty of smart, interesting people of different stripes and backgrounds eager to share this enterprise with you, both in and outside the classroom. Take full advantage of this amazing opportunity before you!"
Families of each graduate were then called to the Trianon Terrace, where they presented their senior with a single-stem rose to recognize the ways in which their student has thrived at CSS.
Upper School Director Tom Torrance presented the Longevity Award to Catcher Griffin and Jaiden Shtatman, who attended CSS since PreKindergarten. Additional student awards, the Faculty Cup and the Margaret White Campbell Award, were granted to graduates Mia Lybecker and Adhista Eadala, respectively (see Student Awards below) for their community involvement and overall sense of character. The latter was presented by Kathy Young Karsting, a 1976 CSS graduate and past recipient of the Margaret White Campbell Award.
In his farewell remarks, senior Nathan Sobral (see Senior Farewell below) began his speech with seemingly random numbers noting how insignificant they are out of context.
"These numbers, much like the events of life, carry whatever significance we individually bestow upon them; something that one person may find completely invaluable may prove to be of extreme significance to someone else," he said. "We all live vastly different lives, yet they are remarkably similar. There’s a common phrase that I’m sure most of you have heard: 'seeing the world through rose-colored glasses,' which refers to individuals who tend to see everything in a positive light. Now, I’m not saying that we all should go about each day with relentless optimism all the time, but we may choose to look at life through various colored lenses (put on rose-colored glasses), and we are all deciding to choose which lens to use, just the same."
Nathan reflected on how everyone who supported members of the Class of 2024 viewed them "through a lens of optimism, admiration, and belief that propelled us to new academic, athletic, and personal heights, and without them, we would not be gathered here today."
"As we embark on our new journeys and adventures, we must remember all those who helped us stand strong in the winds of life and remember that they chose to see more than what may have appeared on the surface. I encourage my fellow classmates and all who may benefit from this advice to follow the example of many who surround us and to choose the lens with which you view life’s events, ourselves, and others with wisdom, courage, optimism, gratitude, and a little bit of curiosity," Nathan said. "If you are not happy with the picture painted in front of you, it is in your power to create a new masterpiece and define your own meaning."
Mr. Torrance, Board of Trustees President Heather Kelly P'30, P'27, Interim Head of School Dr. Mike Edmonds, and College and Career Counselor Erik Playe joined in the presentation of diplomas. The 26 graduating seniors then participated in a cap toss signifying their rite of passage beyond the walls of CSS.
Congratulations to the Class of 2024: Noah Bagnall, John Baldwin, Mulka Bhatti*, Adhista Eadala*, Emmit Gaul, Catcher Griffin, Scott Hayes, Paige Heck*, Alexander Hill*, Celina Kim*, Ryan Lissy, Mia Lybecker*, Sofie McKeen, Imogen Melton*, Hannah Momber, Caleb Pelanne*, Katelyn Ragsdale*, Micah Reickert*, Jaiden Shtatman*, Nathan Sobral*, Lucia Stevens*, Xander Taylor, Matilda Verruso*, Nora Vincent*, Ahna Wolff*, and Isabelle Zamundu*.
*National Honor Society Member
Commencement Address
Student Awards
Senior Farewell
Commencement Address
Presented by Dr. John Longo, retired CSS English teacher
Good morning parents, esteemed faculty and staff, Dr. Edmonds, trustees, and, of course, students. Thank you, seniors, for extending to me the honor of speaking to you briefly today. Of course, I feel very gratified that you all still remember me. I confess that when Nora contacted me with the offer to speak today, I felt both humbled by the invitation and, to be honest, a bit inadequate to it after a year away from the classroom, a bit embarrassed by the thought of standing here before a smart, accomplished group like you all and presuming to have some wisdom or advice you haven’t already worked out for yourself.
As I searched for something I could talk about today, a scene from Shakespeare’s Hamlet kept intruding on my thoughts. It’s the scene where the king's old advisor, Polonius, gives his blessing to his son, Laertes, as the young man is about to leave familiar Denmark and embark on an extended stay in France. Laertes is eager to sail, but Polonius holds him back with a long list of “do’s and don'ts” to take with him on his journey. This scene nagged at me, I realized, because it seemed distressing and congruent to our present situation, with me as old guy Polonius and you, all of you, as the eager-to-depart Laertes. I say “distressing” because the scene is often played for laughs: Polonius, pompous old windbag yaks away self-importantly while his son smiles indulgently and increasingly impatiently until the old fellow finally shuts up and lets Laertes depart.
In other words, the scene, or my memory of it, fashioned forth my own anxieties about having something useful to say to you today. I couldn’t get it out of my mind, so I finally grabbed my Hamlet with the thought of exorcizing my anxiety by confronting it directly. In the next few minutes, I’d like to share with you what I found and where it led me. If in the end, perhaps like Polonius, I will have taken a convoluted route to the obvious, well, as you may remember from English class, that’s just the way I roll.
So, here is Polonius's advice to his son Laertes in Act I:
Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man . . . .
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!
A few of Polonius’ maxims have taken on a life of their own, detached from their context. We’ve all heard, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” and perhaps, “to thine own self be true.” The sayings are rather pithy and rhetorically accomplished, as befits a public man like Polonius. Beyond that, I have to say, I was somewhat surprised in re-reading this speech to find that Polonius’ advice is actually not bad. For a time, I imagined that I had found the angle for my speech, one I hadn’t expected, a defense of the maligned old man and a new appreciation for his advice, refurbished, of course, for the contemporary college freshman, a list that you could keep discreetly in a desk drawer in your dorm room for easy reference as you navigate the early trials and temptations of college life. Leaving out the bit about fighting, my version of the list would be something like this:
-Think before you speak.
-Don’t spend too much money on clothes and things you don’t need, but don’t be a total slob either.
-Stick by your friends, but be careful who you make friends with.
-Don’t max out the credit card.
-If people criticize you, listen with an open mind; but keep your own thoughts about people to yourself.
-Just be yourself, and everything will be fine!
Really, there is worse advice to be found in Shakespeare. I certainly wish my freshman roommate had read the slob part.
On closer examination, though, my initial enthusiasm waned. Polonius’s advice is relentlessly and almost exclusively practical or prudential, obsessed with ideas of fitting in and getting along, avoiding trouble and, most importantly, protecting your reputation. Such things have their place, but I thought I owed you more than that. The play does not record Laertes’ reaction to his father’s advice, but I began to wonder. Does he indeed, as Polonius encourages him, “character” this advice in his memory, that is, take it to heart? Does he dismiss it as just another of the old man’s high-toned but ultimately empty rhetorical performances, the kind he must have heard him utter repeatedly at court? It is pleasant to imagine Laertes, leaning over the railing of his ship, breathing in the sharp sea air, his eyes fixed on the horizon, his imagination conjuring up images of the France that lay before him, talking back to his father, “Fine, dad, but is that all? Is there nothing nobler, higher, more inspiring and meaningful, more exciting for me to pursue beyond managing my image and staying out of trouble?” Good questions, but the play suggests that Laertes is not the sort of person who asks questions like these, or indeed who asks any probing questions at all. He is, for all his determination to avenge the death of his father at the hands of Hamlet in Act III, a conventional and docile figure. His own death in Act V, in the rigged duel with Hamlet, stems directly from his uncritical submission to the schemes of his new substitute father, the king, who fills Laertes’ pliant, eager, and unreflecting heart with murderous instructions.
But of course, there is a character in the play who questions, a character who, from the start, instinctively rebels against the conventional advice of his compromised elders – Hamlet. And when Hamlet is confronted by his father’s ghost, and the world he thought he knew is unmasked as illusion and fraud, fundamental uncertainties begin to press on him. Not only such practical maxims as offered by Polonius, but all received truths, all conventional assumptions, become open to interrogation. Hamlet is famous for his soliloquies, those solitary acts of self-reflection, and the driving force in those self-reflections is the question, real not rhetorical questions. “To be or not to be?” is the most famous, but there are others. What happens to us after we die? What is the purpose of a life? Is there anything in the world worth fighting and dying for? What does it mean to act with nobility and honor? What are we really–beasts, cowards, angels, devils, all of these together, or none of these?
As we did with Polonius' catalog of do’s and don’ts, it’s possible to construct a list of Hamlet-like questions, perhaps to place in our desk drawers next to Polonius's. A partial list might include some of the following:
-Why am I here?
-What is the purpose of my actions? Can I articulate it honestly? Can I respect it?
-Am I a good person, and how do I know if I am?
-What do I owe, if anything, to the people in my life and to those around me? -How do I act on that debt?
-Finally, since we’ve been hard on Polonius, let’s add one more question, -based on an item from his list:
-What does it mean for me to be true to myself? And how do I begin to do that?
I’m sure you can add more questions like these of your own.
It’s interesting to me to think of these two lists sitting side by side, one that offers a recipe for action as clear and defined as the recipe for a cake, the other an invitation to open-ended self-reflection and moral speculation. Is one list superior to the other? Is one kind of list superior to the other? Is asking questions a higher, more respectable activity than following a code or a received guide of conduct? No doubt there are ”code” people and there are “question” people. But most of us are both, and perhaps the course of wisdom, or at least intellectual vitality, is not in choosing one or the other but in putting them into a dynamic relation with one another, allowing both to change over time.
No doubt, life demands that we make choices and commitments, that we declare a place to stand. But the willingness to question, and to continue questioning, is the lifeblood of a healthy, growing mind. Laertes’ tragedy is that for too long he is a pawn, the victim, we might say, of someone else’s agenda, someone else’s to-do list. That’s why he’s not the hero of the play! At CSS you have been encouraged to be critical thinkers and not mindless list followers, if I may put it that way. I hope that over the next four years, you will nurture the habit of asking some of Hamlet’s questions even as you explore what history, philosophy, art and science have to offer as possible answers. Unlike poor Hamlet, you won’t need to ask your questions in isolation. You will find plenty of smart, interesting people of different stripes and backgrounds eager to share this enterprise with you, both in and outside the classroom. Take full advantage of this amazing opportunity before you!
Finally, let your answers be your answers. Hamlet, for all his tortured and vertiginous introspection, finally emerges in Act V with a core belief that he feels he can stand on and act from with integrity. “The readiness is all,” he says. “Let be.” You may not agree with him, but his answer is hard-earned, and it is his own. Let that be true for your answers as well. It seems to me that Shakespeare is telling us, at least in this play, that this is our unavoidable task if we really aspire to be true to ourselves. Thank you.
Student Awards
The Faculty Cup
Presented by Tom Torrance, Upper School Director
The Faculty Cup is awarded to one individual whom the faculty recognizes as an exemplary representative of the CSS community.
This year’s recipient of the Faculty Cup embodies all that is best about The Colorado Springs School. As a soccer player, she won the Coaches Award as a freshman, made all-league as a sophomore, and helped her team qualify for the state playoffs as a junior and senior. She’s been an all-conference volleyball player. And she’s made the academic all-state team in both soccer and basketball.
In addition to having been the volleyball team captain and basketball team co-captain, Mia Lybecker has been a member of the National Honor Society, a Full Steam Ahead mentor in soccer and culinary arts, a basketball camp counselor, a class officer, and has helped coach the Kodiak Kickers. She was a yearbook editor during her junior and senior years. And this doesn’t even begin to cover all of the things that Mia did to help the class of 2024 during her time at CSS every time no one else was stepping up to do it.
Mia’s friends describe her as an outgoing person who is always willing to help them out. Coach De describes Mia as someone who can almost instantly implement feedback and who places deep importance on personal improvement.
If you had to pick a single student who embodies everything that CSS aspires to, you simply could not do better than Mia Lybecker. Congratulations, Mia!
Margaret White Campbell Award
Presented by Kathy Young Karsting with the Class of 1976 and a past recipient of the Margaret White Campbell Award
Thank you for the honor and pleasure of being with you this morning, celebrating these graduates and their achievements! Congratulations!
I was on this stage in 1976, receiving the Margaret White Campbell Award. I will take this full-circle moment to report that I believe I went on to fulfill my leadership destiny. Briefly, in my field of public health nursing, I supervised, managed, directed, and mentored. I have collaborated, authored, taught, and innovated. I have also parented, volunteered, and served. I have been recognized by my peers on various stages and also thanked sincerely by grateful patients.
Today also is an opportunity to look down the long trajectory of time and experience and to confer with my 15-17-year-old self. What seeds or beginnings do we see here, then, that resonates with me through the decades that have followed? What attribute or attributes of leadership or character did I acquire here at CSS that seemed to last?
Well, the answer is that I learned courage here. Courage to scale the wall, reach the summit, and finish the distance. Courage to take the stage, to express a well-thought opinion. Courage to be unconventional. Courage to persist.
Graduates, years from now, I hope you will look back and see yourselves gaining a similar gift or gifts of such impact. Now, I will not claim that I was astute enough as a teenager to grasp much about Margaret White Campbell’s leadership style. I do have the recollection however that silence snapped into place when she entered the room. However, from the vantage point of today, I can make two sound observations.
First, she surrounded herself with a fantastic team of independent-thinking, talented, and dedicated faculty and staff. The experiences I had here at CSS were delivered and inspired by the likes of John Pittman, Ava Heindrichsdorff, Colonel Rupp, Judy Von Ahlefeldt, Susan Grimm, Susan Colville, and many others. Today, I thank the faculty who have invested themselves equally, as remarkably, in today’s graduates.
The second, amazing, aspect of Margaret White Campbell’s leadership is that her legacy lives on these many years later. One of my later lessons in life has been that the sustainability of institutions is a great challenge, and she was integral to setting all this in motion. For that, as a leader, she has my lasting respect and admiration.
Presented in honor of the founding headmistress of The Colorado Springs School, The Margaret White Campbell Award today is granted to one student on behalf of the Upper School Faculty and recognizes academic excellence, leadership, service to the CSS community, and general character. Each year, this award is presented to the senior deemed by the Upper School faculty as that young person who best exemplifies the highest model of excellence in all areas.
Adhista Eadala is the winner of this year’s Margaret White Campbell Award.
As a member of the National Honor Society, winner of the NHS Scholarship Award in 2023, winner of the Upper School Spanish Award, two-time recipient of the Upper School Mathematics Award, winner of the division 2A Matchwits national championship, a successful participant in the High School Mathematics Competition in Modeling, a lab assistant at UCCS, and a National Merit finalist, Adhista exemplifies academic excellence.
Adhista has been a leader among the student body, having served as class president, Forum vice president, and peer mentor for Full Steam Ahead.
Most importantly, Adhista has lived up to the highest standards of academic integrity and personal character. For four years, the faculty has watched Adhista develop into a student who arrives every day with a great attitude, a desire to learn, a willingness to express gratitude, and compassion for other members of the CSS community.
Working with someone like Adhista is the reward that educators hope to find in the profession. Congratulations, Adhista!
Senior Farewell
Presented by Nathan Sobral '24
1,361; 72; 30; 26; 5. Without context, these numbers carry no immediate significance to any of us and are basically meaningless. Asking one of our math teachers here today such as Mr. Takacs or Dr. Gillon, would likely beckon an inquiry into the intended context of these numbers in order to respond to the question “What do these numbers mean?” …. “What does anything mean?” When we first encounter new faces, new places, new feelings, and new opportunities, many of us eventually arrive at the question, “What is the meaning of this?” “Why am I here?” A lot of people will be quick to give you their definition of meaning based on their assumed context and understanding. Some truths remain collectively evident and easy to comprehend. Others challenge your perspective and plunge you into a world of new understanding. However, the most powerful and meaningful option when attempting to answer these questions is the one in which we assign our own meaning to life’s many seemingly meaningless occurrences. 1,361; 72; 30; 26; and 5 may not mean anything to you all. But to me, 1,361 is the number of school days that this class has completed since we first entered El Pomar as high schoolers. 72 is the number of days each of us has spent spread across the world expanding our horizons and acquiring invaluable skills through our Experience-Centered Seminars. Roughly 30 minutes is all that remains until we all walk away as graduates and the next chapter of life begins. 26 students represent this class of 2024, and 5 is the number of dollars that our classmate Ryan has asked for every day since the beginning of high school.
These numbers, much like the events of life, carry whatever significance we individually bestow upon them; something that one person may find completely invaluable may prove to be of extreme significance to someone else. We all live vastly different lives, yet they are remarkably similar. There’s a common phrase that I’m sure most of you have heard: “seeing the world through rose-colored glasses,” which refers to individuals who tend to see everything in a positive light. Now, I’m not saying that we all should go about each day with relentless optimism all the time, but we may choose to look at life through various colored lenses (put on rose-colored glasses), and we are all deciding to choose which lens to use, just the same. I make this point as I, like many of you here today, have been presented with a bit of information, a feeling, or an opportunity that I did not know what to do with. Whether in my school life or my personal life, that to which I did not know how to immediately respond left me in search of the meaning or the value that I was intended to attain. One thing that I have learned from my time at CSS is that we are all able to command our own destiny as long as we choose the correct lens of meaning to do so.
Over the last few months, I asked each of my classmates to give me a number that represents them as a person or something they are proud of, so I am now going to momentarily reduce this absolutely phenomenal class of 2024, my classmates and my friends, to numbers.
Catcher Griffin: 1,400,000 vertical feet while skiing
Katelyn Ragsdale: 38,751 boxes of Girl Scout cookies she has sold
Imogen Melton: 4,000, the number of minutes she has played 1st team for field hockey
Mia Lybecker: 2,166 days since her brain surgery
Ryan Lissy: 1979, the year the concept of the Star Taker was thought up which is the project that got him interested in aerospace engineering
Lucia Stevens: 176 selfies with her mom
Scott Hayes: 100 percent acceptance rate into the colleges that he applied to
Caleb Pelanne: 100, his claimed percentage of friendship-making
Matilda Verruso: 89, her lowest scoring round of golf
Emmit Gaul: 37, the spot he finished in during his first season of mountain biking
Noah Bagnall:19, he was accepted into 19/19 of the colleges he applied to which for him means starting a new chapter in his life with many opportunities
Sofie McKeen: 13. The number 13 has historically been seen as unlucky, but she was born on the 13th, and she likes to flex that she was born on Friday the 13th.
Ahna Wolff: 9, the number of full archive boxes she has accessioned at the Manitou Springs Historical Society
Nora Vincent: 8. The number of people who have supported her through high school plus it’s her lucky number!
Alex Hill: 7, for his seven wonderful years at CSS
Celina Kim: 6. Her favorite number is 6 and she likes it because it is her birthday month and is around the time that she gets to fly back to Korea and reunite with her family!
Adhista Eadala: 6, number of years they have been a part of the Matchwits team
Paige Heck: 6, number of first-place award-winning art entries
Mulka Bhatti: 6, the grade she came to CSS
Jaiden Shtatman: 3, for the times she has been to state in tennis.
Hannah Momber: 3, the number of people who have helped her navigate high school
Micah Reickert: 2 times he has led the Matchwits team to a national championship
Xander Taylor: 1 for his division one athletic scholarship
John Baldwin: 1 swimming state championship
Isabelle Zamundu: 1, the number of times she left CSS and came back marking her most life-changing academic experience
If you know any of the people I just mentioned, you probably know that the topic related to the number they gave plays a significant role in their life, but you were probably not aware of the number itself at all which shows again that without associated meaning, each of these values is entirely useless. I think it’s fair to say we have all struggled with seemingly meaningless tests that we did not feel prepared for or with balancing numerous sports and academics or most recently the debilitating disease that is senioritis. However, as I learned from my mom, the strongest trees with the thickest trunks are made stronger by their resilience in the harshest of winds. To truly live is to suffer, and to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. Our families, friends, teachers, coaches, teammates, and all the CSS faculty were able to see meaning, purpose, and value in all of us and helped us to weather every storm we encountered.
All who supported us through our endeavor of graduating from The Colorado Springs School chose to view us through a lens of optimism, admiration, and belief that propelled us to new academic, athletic, and personal heights, and without them, we would not be gathered here today. As we embark on our new journeys and adventures, we must remember all those who helped us stand strong in the winds of life and remember that they chose to see more than what may have appeared on the surface. I encourage my fellow classmates and all who may benefit from this advice to follow the example of many who surround us and to choose the lens with which you view life’s events, ourselves, and others with wisdom, courage, optimism, gratitude, and a little bit of curiosity. If you are not happy with the picture painted in front of you, it is in your power to create a new masterpiece and define your own meaning. I wish you all the best in your upcoming endeavors. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to represent this senior class in saying thank you for preparing us to approach all that life throws at us, confident that the world is ours to create. Congratulations, Class of 2024!
