Congratulations to the Class of 2025!
Four years ago, it was nearly impossible for the Class of 2025 to imagine a day when they would be on a stage in the Nicholas Athletic Center, only an hour away from graduating. In that same room in 2021, they had spread out classes and cohorts of students sitting six feet apart due to COVID-19 restrictions. Less than four years later, most of those students sat, surrounded by their friends, families, and teachers–and decidedly not six feet apart–ready to start their next chapter away from BB&N.
As is tradition, graduating class president Haley Hicks ’25 chose a poem to open the ceremony. This year, Robert Frost’s short and sweet poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay ” was featured, an apt poem about change through the four seasons. Following that poignant reading, class speaker Chloe Taft ’25 took to the podium to reminisce on her thirteen years at BB&N.
In her speech, Taft referenced an episode of FX’s “The Bear,” specifically the scene where the sous chef, Sydney, asks her father about the potential success of opening her restaurant. While her father notes that she may not accomplish her dreams, Sydney retorts, “Why can’t we put everything we have into everything we can?” Following this revelation, Taft told her peers that the Class of 2025 did just that for four years.
From reinvigorating school traditions after the stifling of community by COVID, to making 5 NEPSAC championships and a High School Quiz Show final this year, the 138 graduating seniors really did put everything they had into everything they could throughout their time on campus. In closing, Taft noted that their academic, artistic, and athletic accomplishments were impressive over their four years at the Upper School. Still, she urged the class to measure their “two to thirteen years at BB&N not by your accomplishments, but by the moments of joy.” Graduating from high school can be a bittersweet moment, but Taft concluded, “The Class of 2025 has found joy, on the field, in the classroom, and even on the three-hour bus ride from a debate tournament we didn’t win.”
After a lyrical interlude by a chamber group of graduating orchestra students, this year’s parent speaker and Lower School Director, Anthony Reppucci P’25, ’31, reflected on the graduating class and their time on his campus and beyond. While their time in Reppucci’s beginners class was long ago, many of the lessons from that age apply to the burgeoning adults they are today.
Among the lessons learned on carpet squares in the Morse building were the building blocks of the BB&N core values. Reppucci reminded students of the kindness they learned in preschool, even something as simple as “sharing your Cheez-Itz.” Another essential thing to remember is to ask for help. Reppucci noted that “asking is powerful…asking is a strength, not a weakness.” His final reminder to students was about failing, stating that “the core of growth comes from feedback… how we fail matters.” In closing his poignant remarks to his daughter and the rest of the Class of 2025, Reppucci reminded students, “what you learned in those first years… was never just about childhood, it was always about life.”
After the senior jazz band’s relaxed rendition of “Fly Me to the Moon,” Head of School Dr. Jennifer Price delivered her address to the students. Echoing the parent speaker, Dr. Price noted that this particular class embodied the values of BB&N perfectly. What stood out, especially over their final weeks on campus, was their kindness and caring, and how inquiry followed them throughout their careers.
From challenging the Lower School’s energy use and building a bike to generate enough power to light a lightbulb in fourth grade, to qual lab work in eighth grade, and guessing federal reserve interest rates in a twelfth-grade AP Macroeconomics class, the seniors embodied inquiry. In a time when those values are often under attack, Dr. Price urged the students, “My challenge to you as you leave our school today is to keep centering inquiry, especially in this next phase of your life.” As the students head onto their next adventure and remain the inquisitive and kind people they grew to be at BB&N, Dr. Price reminded them, “wherever you go, you will always be a knight.”
The a cappella group then pulled on the audience’s heartstrings with a performance of “In My Life” by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The final speaker was Trustee Jason Hafler ’00 P’34 ’36, who advised students to remember the feelings their time at BB&N created, and that the BB&N alumni community will always be there for them.
After the Director of the Upper School, Jess Keimowitz, called the names of the 138 graduating class members, the now former seniors processed out of the gym to greet their families for their first celebration as BB&N alumni.
