Commencement … ending and beginning

The School’s hallmark event, Commencement for the Class of 2025, occurred on its usual second Friday in May on the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary campus. The celebration was bookended before we began by an impressive, brief torrent of rain, and, for the 20 minutes after the ceremony, by our now traditional single-file “receiving line” of faculty farewells to our newest alumni. 

We both honored the end of the Class of 2025’s impressive runs as K-12 students, athletes, artists and maturing young people, and we celebrated, through the final hugs and handshakes of the receiving line, the new beginnings these young people were headed toward. “From Here, Anywhere …” came up a lot at this year’s graduation: Our latest alums head off to college careers at schools from Europe to Oregon, and from New Hampshire to Fort Worth, with so many states and cities in between, and with one alum going from 4200 Country Day Lane to a professional career as a jiu-jitsu fighter. 

Between the precociously wise words of our Salutatorian (Murphy Hoefer), Valedictorian (Alex Seiden) and Class Speaker (Chappell Carter), we heard from a newly-minted Graduation Chorus (thanks Lindy Heath, Erin Ypya, accompanist Julie Dean, and violinist Luci Gonzalez ’26). We were treated to the wit and wisdom of the Class of 2025’s chosen faculty speaker, Upper School English Teacher Myrna Sam. Some of the more poignant words were from our outgoing Board President, Brian Crumley ’92, to a class he knew especially well as the parent of Lyle ’25. View the graduation video to hear these speeches; the procession starts at approximately 42:25.

The most powerful words, though, were saved for honoring Peggy Wakeland and her 31 years as the heart of the FWCD Upper School. Senior Class President Elizabeth Dike was joined at the podium by Student Council Vice-President Nara Acuña Guba and President Chappell Carter to announce that Ms. Wakeland was becoming an honorary member of the Class of 2025, and to establish funding for the School’s highest award, the Falcon Award, which they had asked to officially rename and endow as The Peggy Wakeland H’25 Falcon Award. The renamed award reads: 

The Peggy Wakeland H’25 Falcon Award is presented annually to that senior student who, in the opinion of the faculty, best symbolizes Fort Worth Country Day's ideal of participation in school life. 

As Ms. Wakeland noted, the Class of 2025 had impacted her in so many ways during their Upper School years, right down to the spirit poster they painted and left behind in the Bass Upper School Commons a few weeks earlier. The sign read, simply, “With love, Class of 2025.”  Ms. Wakeland noted that she had accompanied her own teacher in her junior year (1968) to the theater to see Sidney Poitier in “To Sir, with Love.” The full circle moment of students honoring their teachers and their school “with love,” as so much of the sentiment from the Class of 2025, touched us all. 

You can find all of our 2025 Commencement news, including videos and slideshows, at fwcd.org/graduation.