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News & Events 2007-2008
Valedictory Speech, May 22, 2008
Todd Lewis ’08
 Welcome.
Welcome to Blair Academy. Welcome to all those who watched
with pride as a loved one flourished. Welcome to those who
return here, nostalgic for seasons past. Welcome to those
who have struggled, those who have risen, those who are still
seeking. Welcome to those of us who, as the School's crest
states, have come, have studied, and have learned.
When
I came to Blair Academy in 2004, I hated it. I confess to
you all that every evening I threw myself woefully onto the
couch, bemoaning a lack of friends, of familiarity, of success.
I rarely attempted challenges until I was fully prepared;
inevitably, I found that high school was rapidly bulldozing
the many facades I had carefully constructed in middle school.
But the hand of fate, perhaps augmented by my parents' nonrefundable
deposit, suppressed my fears and I endured. For two months
I questioned my every step, a stranger in a foreign land.
And then came the bonfire.
We all watched as the seniors we
so admired surged forward in a continuous ring of fire. We
all watched as another generation lit the bonfire with their
torches, testifying to tradition, to the future, to the past.
The event sent chills down the collective backs of all who
witnessed what was so clearly "the
sealing of the deal." This was my beginning, our beginning.
As freshmen we thought about the future and about the past.
We contemplated who we might be in four years as we re-establish
our identities in this new frontier. Should I change my name?
Should I change my style? I certainly was looking forward to
leaving the years of braces and baby-fat far behind me. So
who will we become? Do we allow Blair to shape us, sort of
melt into the boarding school stream of consciousness? Do we
throw caution to the wind and rebel against the stereotypical
Blair type? We inevitably chose a middle ground, a fragile
limbo between whom we would and whom we did ultimately become.
We have each devoted precious minutes to our teams, our prefectees,
and our many generous dreams. Looking back, it would show incredible
hubris to assume we've left craters of impact, but in a sense,
there is no alternative. We have all been component parts.
We have all grown, regressed, re-established. We have haunted
the Blair halls for four years and have joined the ranks of
those who have doted on love and sought their dreams and willed
the passage of time before us. We are now inevitably entrenched.
This entrenchment is fortunate,
as we are the "Last of
the Mohicans." Blair is changing for the better, and we
will have to witness that change from a comfortable distance.
The center of campus is shifting north a few hundred yards.
The athletic center is growing larger and more muscular. Most
devastatingly, the Can is relocating for new days. The graffiti
we carved on the Can window sills may disappear. The places
where we made friends, had arguments, planned ahead may exist
only in the memories of those leaving here today by four PM.
But even when this year’s Freshman class has seen the
world from where we now stand, even when campus is devoid of
any recognizable face, even when we have traveled so far into
the future that our Blair years seem a mere "blip" on
the radar, our beloved memories will remain.
With the campus, we too have evolved
and continue to do so. We have had a hand in the process,
but we've also yielded control to our environment. I speak
for the class when I say that we have metamorphosed as a
unit. I'm sure you will all remember the evening when a certain
enthusiastic member of Senior Class Council forever renamed
us. From the Blair Academy Class of 2008 we became "The Ocho," and "The Ocho" we
shall remain.
When I think back on our time at Blair, I think of success,
but I also think of struggle. We recognize that Blair is not
a land of perfection. None of us will stand here and tell you
that we haven't flailed pitifully many times during the last
four years. Many of you will remember that fateful spring of
last year when I had the wild notion I would join the crew
team. It must have slipped my mind that I have not one ounce
of athleticism in my entire body. I think back on that week,
okay, day, when I went to crew practice and I feel slightly
embarrassed. I'm not proud that I quit. But as I struggled,
I learned, and this is the ultimate success for a Blair student.
This struggle breeds stoicism and compassion. Struggle sinks
one deeper into the soil, deeper into the earth where purpose
may be found. The Blair community is unique in that it thrives
and suffers as one body. There will be entire weeks during
the year when the school is in an adolescent funk, a small
rut that casts gloom throughout the campus. Alternately, when
one person feels the elation of success, it spreads through
campus like wildfire. There were times we faced separation,
loneliness, even death. We have lost much along the way, but
we have gained even more. With such drastic highs, such grounding
lows, how could one not fall in love? We have inevitably left
pieces of ourselves behind.
Where have we left these pieces? That is unique to each of
us. We have left them on the playing fields, on stage, and
in classrooms. We have left them with the Adirondack chairs
on the front hill and on the window sills in the Can. We have
left them with prefectees, friends, and mentors. Many of us
have left them in our wake, never realizing that a little part
of our being divorced us and chose to stay behind in memoriam,
or perhaps to ensure our eventual return. But we were not fragmented.
We were not decimated by these losses because we received pieces
of others in return, pieces we will always carry and that complete
us. Blair assured us that we would be sent off in four years
fully prepared for college. We would be elegantly educated.
We would be well-spoken and worldly. We would be respectful,
modest, ambitious or your money back. We have also emerged
in one complete and contented piece. For this, we are ever
grateful.
Blair is not the place for everyone;
we can all see that by the annual changes in our class demographic.
But every single one of you sitting in front of me in your
navy blazers or pure-white dresses had that "eureka" moment
at some point, that gut awareness that told you to remain.
We knew it would be trying and we knew our limitations would
have to dissolve. At some point, we each realized that Blair
would never be paradise in a tempest world, but that with
time it would be a place that we call home.
Recognizing that our identity has
changed, that we have a new home in the wide world we're
about to enter, that we are far from the children who first
walked through that arch requires a self-awareness of tangible
time that I am personally not sure I am ready to handle.
But I realize that our future is indebted to our past, that
the Todd of today, for example, is a direct correlation to
the Todd of yesterday, and the day before, and the day before,
until they all meld together into the being standing before
you. The past is therefore not a cold case, but a reflection
continually in process, yielding new information each time
it is analyzed. So if the past is consistently in flux, and
the future is designed by our personal hand of fate, the
present is truly the puppeteer of everything that has been,
is, and will be, and we can be happy for all that has passed
here and all that is to come. Personally, I am cautious as
I approach this future. We, as youths, are constantly inundated
with adulthood, children forcefully beguiled into a mélange of freedom and burden. Our reaction is often
the "Peter-Pan-effect." We obstinately declare we "will
not grow up." But we do. We take those first dangerous
steps away from home, into the classroom, into the crew boat.
And when we do, that future we simultaneously wooed and dreaded
has arrived. And it's coming, though our pasts are ever, always
Blair.
Thank you.
Posted 6/20/08
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