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Celebrating the 2018-19 Opening Day of School

One-hundred-one new students begin their GPS stories.
Students, faculty, and staff kick off the 2018-19 school year at Girls Preparatory School on Wednesday morning, August 15. Wearing their class colors and seated by grade, nearly 600 GPS students started the school year with much excitement, lots of cheering and applause, and of course, dancing and singing. 

After the underclassmen were seated, the Grand Old Seniors filed into the front rows of Frierson Theatre to the sounds of “Unwritten,” by Natasha Bedingfield. In turn, the Class of 2019 celebrated the entrance of the faculty and staff. And then the Class of 2025, our Sixth-Grade Babies, entered the theater to much fanfare and applause.

An Official Welcome

Dr. Autumn Graves, Head of School, welcomed students and introduced Head of Middle School Lynne Macziewski who opened with a prayer. Then Holly Lynch Harwell ’84, Chair of the Board of Trustees, issued a challenge to everyone in the room: to be your best self and to be a best friend. “When you’re the best friend to someone, you are selfless, you are positive, you are uplifting,” she said. “Be the best friend you can be this year and have a great year.”

Dr. Graves introduced new faculty and staff members to the student body and thanked the girls who came into school this summer to model classes during the interview process for new faculty. She then welcomed 101 new students to GPS, including 68 new sixth-graders, and implored that our school community reach out to those who are new.

Celebratory congratulations were extended to two faculty members who had babies this spring: Sarah Young Jackson ’06 (baby Isla Katherine) and Catherine Ingalls (Rowan Elizabeth). And a special #YGG (You Go, Girl!) was issued to Larkin Brown ’19, GPS Rowing co-captain, for winning a silver medal in Women’s 8+ at the World Rowing Junior Championships this summer in Racice, Czech Republic.

Next, significant GPS scholarships were awarded to senior Olivia Combs and junior Astra Burke. Combs is the recipient of the Grace McCallie Scholarship, awarded to the rising senior who has maintained the highest GPA during her Upper School years. Burke is the recipient of the school’s Duffy-Jarnagin Scholarship, awarded annually to a rising junior who is “highly respected by her class” and has qualities of integrity and loyalty.

Telling Y(our) Stories

Three members of the leadership committee of the Class of 2019—Molly Ballenger, Molly Milam, and Claire Calhoun—along with Jenise Gordon, Head of Upper School, presented the theme of the year to the student body and faculty.

This year’s theme, Y(our) Story, chosen by the senior leaders, acknowledges and celebrates who they are—84 individual girls with different and distinct personalities, strengths, weaknesses, and passions who together make up one unique yet beautiful group.

Ballenger, Milam, and Calhoun were chosen to deliver the message because of the contributions they made during the selection of the theme. “We are 84 completely unique and distinct personalities who make our own way in the world,” Ballenger said. “We are all so wonderfully different from each other, and we want to celebrate that.”

“Unwritten” proves to be a fitting anthem to begin a year of telling Y(our) Story. As Bedingfield sings: I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined. I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned, it’s evident how many stories our girls have yet to tell.

Crossing the Lawn

To close the opening day ceremonies, students and faculty lined the Middle and Upper School hallways and main lawn as the Class of 2022 left the open doors of the Middle School to cross the lawn to the entrance of the Upper School. Lynne Macziewski, Head of Middle School, said, before they departed from her charge, “They are wickedly smart, they are amazingly kind, and we know they will do amazing things across the lawn. Ninth-graders, we wish you much luck in all your future endeavors. Welcome to the Upper School.”

For more photos of opening day festivities, click here, and you can watch a video of the morning here.
 
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