Boundless individual potential
Published 10:57 am Thursday, May 24, 2018
The Class of 2018 is full of people who I have grown up with. I started at Fuqua when I was in kindergarten and I’ve always felt like my class is a part of my family. Fuqua’s motto is “Boundless Individual Potential” and this thinking has helped me to become a better student, leader and all-around person. I’m certain that my Fuqua family can agree with me.
The Class of 2018 has done a lot of amazing things. Our journey truly started in the elementary school at Fuqua. Since my starting year at Fuqua, there has been many people who have come and gone. Most of the people who I started school with 13 years ago are going to graduate with me on the 25th of this year, in fact, 23 of the 40 graduating. Personally, I was scared to go to school here and I was afraid of meeting new people. However, my teachers and classmates almost immediately accepted me and greeted me with kindness and compassion. We all had some great times back then like when we got to play with the parachute during PE class or the Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser. One of my greatest memories was field day on the last day of school. We’d all go sign each others shirts, get ready to go outside for the whole day, and then compete against each other to win events. My class was always the fastest and always won the 50-meter dash. As I’m sure my classmates who were there with me can attest, one the greatest achievements of elementary school was making it out of the fifth grade, and moving up the hill to the middle school to start sixth grade. Middle school was exactly as most people probably remember it, but one thing was always our saving grace: Pennies for Patients fundraiser. We had the biggest class and we would always raise the most money, so we always got the pizza party that was rewarded to the class who raised the most money. We can’t forget the tradition our class started of planting a tree for the six grade classes moving up the hill. We planted a River Birch tree in front of Gilmer Gym and it has grown and so have we. But, as all things must come to an end, our middle school years ran out and it was time to move up to the high school. High school was something that I’m sure most of us were ready for because we have always had a good academic standing in the school as a class and our academic standing has only improved. As a graduating class of 40, we have been offered collectively over $10 million in college scholarships; we will use over $2 million or an average of $50 thousand each. The Class of 2018 has done so much during our high school years that it’s impossible for me to tell you all of our accomplishments from starring on TV for Battle of the Brains, and bringing home academic wins for Debate, Model General Assembly, Model United Nations and Envirothon. A few other examples could be our classes’ amazing job of setting up prom for our junior year, making it through Mrs. Womack’s Edgar Allen Poe lectures and her research paper, actually help build a plane in aviation class, and we can’t forget Custis’ speeches, quotes and court cases. Another great example is all the funny and weird conversations that we have had during our mornings in the library. These are things that will stick with me for the rest of my life. And we can’t forget that our class is a very athletic one in which almost every person in my class plays at least one sport. A good number of people in this class are three sport student athletes and seven will move on to play college ball.
Let’s reflect on our senior year beginning with the tradition of painting our parking spots and first day senior breakfast, drive in then our Bell Tower photo, then the senior privilege of jumping in the pool together, every Thursday dress down, flip flops to finishing with senior breakfast, yes – we like to eat, commencement practice, retracing our steps at the lower school, baccalaureate then the big day, commencement. As this school year begins to come to a close, I can say with absolute certainty that the people of the Class of 2018 will forever be a part of my family. We will leave behind many things for students of future classes to look up to just as we did when we were in their shoes. The Class of 2018 of Fuqua School truly does have Boundless Individual Potential.