FORT WORTH COUNTRY DAY
WORDS TO FLY HIGHER by
CLASS OF 2020 FROM HERE
anywhere…
Dear Class of 2020, Congratulations on your graduation! The Fort Worth Country Day Alumni Council is so proud of you, and we are excited to welcome you as the newest members of the Alumni Association. As graduates of FWCD, you are not only a part of the School’s past, you are an important part of its future. As you take your knowledge and experiences into the world, you provide inspiration to the Falcons who follow you. Falcon alumni are the heart and soul of the FWCD family. You are joining a worldwide network of alumni more than 4,000 strong. The bond you share with the alumni community is life long, and it can be a tremendous support to you as you pursue new adventures in college and beyond. We asked FWCD faculty, staff and Alumni Council members to share favorite quotes and words of wisdom with you in honor of your graduation. We hope you will find inspiration in their advice! The FWCD community cares deeply about you, and we want to keep in touch! Share your achievements, milestones and triumphs with us. We encourage you to attend reunions, Alumni Association events and to remain engaged in the life of the School. After all, the FWCD campus will always be your home no matter how far you fly. Congratulations and Go Falcons!
Alexandra Stevens ’85 Alumni Association President
Steve Stackhouse Head of Upper School Let’s watch the sun come up in another town Try our luck a little further down Leave the cards on the table Leave the bread on the plate Put your hand on the gearshift Put your foot off the break And take one last look At the place that you are leaving Take one last look Oh, take one last look At the place that you are leaving Take one last look ~ Tom Waits, Take One Last Look lyrics
Laura Bonnell Alexander ’88 FWCD Board of Trustee President “In the end, just three things matter: How well we have lived How well we have loved How well we have learned to let go”
~ Jack Kornfield
Christy Alvear Upper School Science “When you see a pot of crazy, don’t stir it.”
~ Unknown
Bill Arnold ’86 Director of Strategic Projects “If you get down about the state of American culture, just remember there are still more public libraries in this country than there are McDonalds.” ~ David McCullough
Crisanne Potts Barker ’93 Middle School Math “The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart, it will all turn out alright.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh “Two roads diverged in a wood, and, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” ~ Robert Frost
Chelsy Beninate Director of Fine Arts “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” ~ Maya Angelou
Dan Bloch H’06 Middle School Science “What happens to people who keep to the middle of the road? They get run over.” ~ Ambrose Bierce “Pay attention to where you are going because without meaning you might get nowhere.” ~ Winnie-the-Pooh “If you can’t sing, don’t.”
~ Dan Bloch
Joe Breedlove ’78 Breakthrough Fort Worth Executive Director and Basketball Director/Coach “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” ~ Unknown
Jimmy Brockway Middle School Science “Hey, you know the best place to be? Where you are right now!” ~ Ken Kershaw
Sarah Brockway Lower School Teacher “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose ...” ~ Coach Taylor, Friday Night Lights
Natalie Bracken ’05 Ballet and Theatre “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.” ~ Chuang Tzu
Lynette Burleson Middle School English “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” ~ William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well
Anjie Landreth Butler ’94 Alumni Council Member “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies within you.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Carrie Cheng Director of Ballet “Work hard in silence. Let success make the noise.”
~ Frank Ocean
Paige Farris Chisholm ’87 Lower School Physical Education and Field Hockey Program Director “Don’t be afraid to dream big.”
~ Author Unknown
“The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!” ~ Randy Pausch
Holly Clifford Upper School Art “Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”
~ Suzy Kassem
“Never fear the shadows, they simply mean there is a light shining somewhere nearby.” ~ Winnie-the-Pooh “Don’t promise when you’re happy, don’t reply when you’re angry, and don’t decide when you’re sad.” ~ Ziad K. Abdelnour
Catherine Collins-Vecino Upper School English and English Department Chair “And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.” ~ Max Ehrmann, excerpted from Desiderata (1927)
Tyler Crumley Junior Kindergarten Assistant “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” ~ Walt Disney
Asad Dean ’90 Alumni Council President-Elect Embedded within your DNA are the base pairs F, W, C, D. As a result, success for Falcons is genetic.
Nayelly Domínguez ’11 Alumni Council Member Dear Class of 2020, I am so proud of y’all for graduating from Fort Worth Country Day! Wherever your journey of life takes you, know you will always be a part of this amazing community. Have faith in yourself, in what you have learned, and on the road that lies ahead. Life will throw you curveballs, but you are well prepared and whatever happens, keep moving forward. This
chapter of your life may be over, but the memories will be forever with you! Never ever hesitate to reach out, your fellow Falcons will be here for you. Congrats, new Falcon alums! ~ Nayelly Domínguez, Class of 2011
Colin Douglas ’06 Upper School Histor y and Histor y Department Chair “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
~ Lao Tzu
Theresa Fuss Lower School Health and Wellness Counselor One of my favorite quotes is written by Leo Buscaglia. I would like to pass it on to you, our seniors of 2020: “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” Always remember there is great strength in kindness. May you go out into the world and let your light shine. Warmly, Theresa Fuss
Janie Garrett Middle School Spanish For the graduating Class of 2020: When you don’t know what to do; there is one thing that you can do; that is what you should do --- PRAY. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts. Philippians 4:6-7 You will find answers. May you go boldly into your future, Janie Garrett
Jennifer Giroir Upper School Histor y “It is not the critic who counts ... the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement...” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
Heather Goldman Lower School Teacher “The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!” ~ Randy Pausch
Travis Guba Upper School Theatre Director “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle
Clint Hagen Middle School Latin “Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts.” ~ Wendell Berry, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
DeAnn Hall PE, Cross Countr y Program Director, Softball Program Director “Courage is not defined by those who fought and did not fall, but by those who fought, fell and rose again.” ~ Adrienne Rich
Caren Handleman Advancement Planning “Everything can be taken from a man but...the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ~ Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning “Old ways won’t open new doors.” ~ Outdoor sign at the Summer Moon Coffee Shoppe, Austin
Keri DeVos Hickman ’94 Alumni Council Member “The best things in life are free. And it is important never to lose sight of that. So look around you. Wherever you see friendship, loyalty, laughter and love...there is your treasure.” ~ Neale Donald Walsch
Nolan Hightower Plant Operations “Everyone who has achieved success ran the risk of failure, step out on faith and don’t look back.” ~ Nolan Hightower
Mel Hurst Communications Systems Specialist Listen, then listen some more before you speak. The person speaking has the same longing to be heard as you.
Catherine Lampka Middle School Math “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.” ~ Dr. Seuss
Deb Lawson Middle School and Fine Arts Administrative Assistant “Let go of what holds you back and embrace what awaits you. There is a time to hold on and a time to let go. The most successful people let go of what was, accept what is, and have faith in what will be.” ~ Author Unknown
Kristin Larsen Director of College Counseling “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ~ Mark Twain “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead “Be strong enough to stand alone, smart enough to know when you need help, and brave enough to ask for it.” ~ Ziad K. Abdelnour “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt “Introduce yourself to your professors at the beginning of the semester and take advantage of Office Hours!” ~ Mrs. Larsen “Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson “We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.” ~ Barack Obama
“Bad days happen to everyone, but when one happens to you, just keep doing your best and never let a bad day make you feel bad about yourself.” ~ Big Bird “Whatever you are, be a good one.”
~ Abraham Lincoln
“You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt “And will you succeed? Yes you will indeed! 98 and 3/4 percent ~ Dr. Seuss guaranteed.”
Letty Mantilla Upper School Spanish “The biggest asset in the world is your mindset.”
~ Author Unknown
Joan Massey Lower School Teacher Hello Friends, “I don’t think I’d have been in such a hurry to reach adulthood if I’d known the whole thing was going to be ad-libbed.” ~ Bill Watterson Happy futures to these wonderful Falcons! Soar high...
Sara McCullough Lower School Teacher “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can! I could!” ~ The Little Engine That Could
Laura Michaelides Upper School Learning Specialist “May your worries be like clouds in the sky -- far away and not leaving a trace behind.” ~ Heard in a toast many years ago
Sean Morrow Middle School Band “Failure simply means you are on the path to success.” ~ Sean Morrow (someone else has probably said something similar before!) “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.” ~ Fortune Cookie Story of quote: I found this quote on the day I decided on a final major for college. I was struggling with what to choose and this showed up during lunch that day, which is why I chose to go with music. Words of wisdom: You can find words of wisdom in the most unlikely of places and at the most needed times. Don’t stop looking for them when you’re in dire need of some. You never know if something as trivial as a fortune cookie could change your life forever.
Rob Napier Middle School French and Spanish “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” ~ Walt Disney
Kathr yn Perkins “Take pride in how far you have come, and have faith in how far you can go.” ~ Author Unknown
Brian Phelps Director of Athletics “There are only two things you can do. Prove them right or you can prove them wrong.” ~ Julian Edelman “Today, you have 100% of your life left.”
~ Tom Landry
“If plan ‘A’ does not work, stay cool, the alphabet has 25 other letters.” ~ Anonymous
Patrick Powers ’05 Alumni Relations Manager and Boys Volleyball Program Director “Deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.” ~ Aragorn, Lord of the Rings
Denise Pulido Kindergarten Assistant Believe in YOU!
James Rains Middle School Athletic Director “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” ~ Unknown
Sherri Reed Upper School Science “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.” ~ Albert Einstein You guys have the creativity to solve the problems of the world! Go for it! Never give up! Love you all.
Molly Risewick Upper School Spanish “Never underestimate your ability to make a difference, be it in your own life or in someone else’s.” ~ Author
Alison Robinson Upper School Spanish/Modern and Classical Languages Department Chair “Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!” ~ Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Kathy Roemer Upper School Health and Wellness Counselor “Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love.”
~ Brene Brown
Myrna Sam Upper School English Teacher “Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe and stronger than you seem and smarter than you think and loved more than you can imagine.” ~ Anonymous
Michael Settle ’99 Lower School Physical Education and Baseball Program Director “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” ~ Mark Twain
Mar y Hallman Smith ’03 Alumni Council Member “Every time you’re given a choice between disappointing someone else and disappointing yourself, your duty is to disappoint that someone else. Your job, throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself.” ~ Glennon Doyle
Spencer Kyle Smith Upper School English Make it a habit to start and finish every single day in a spirit of gratitude. Be kind to yourself by being honest with yourself, especially about your motives. The best things will come with some difficulty. Train yourself away from the inclination to avoid hard things. Remember this valuable but implied lesson about saving money/resources from a modern classic: There isn’t always money in the banana stand.
Christine Spikes Middle School Science “Goodness is about character -- integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people.” ~ Dennis Prager
Alexandra Stevens ’85 Alumni Association President “Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.” ~ Henry David Thoreau “Life is amazing. And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it’s ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That’s just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it’s breathtakingly beautiful.” ~ L.R. Knost “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.” ~ Mark Twain
Laura Terr y Middle School Math Specialist “Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance.” ~ Steve Maraboli
Eric Tysinger FWCD Scott Theater Manager, Upper School Theatre Tech
“It well may be that we may never meet again in this lifetime, but let me say before we part that so much of me is what I’ve learned from you. I have been changed for good.” ~ Stephen Schwartz, “For Good” Wicked the musical.
Sara Teegarden Upper School Histor y “Quality, not quantity. In everything.”
~ Sara Teegarden
Andrew Vernon ’05 Alumni Council Member “Officers (Leaders) eat last.” “It’s not about you.” “You joined Us.” ~ U.S. Marine Corps “Luck is the combination of preparation and opportunity.” ~ Author Unknown “Be a volunteer, not a victim.”
~ Author Unknown
More of my own perspective, for what it’s worth: “You have been given the tools to be a decent, civil, thoughtful and caring citizen of whatever community you affiliate with - on your college campus, your chosen neighborhood, city, state, nation and the world. The adult world can be a nasty place, full of brokenness, unethical and irresponsible actors, or just people yelling at each other from their entrenched viewpoints. I hope you realize that FWCD has armed and equipped you to push back against the negativity and indecency, and to fix what is broken in front of you. You won’t always be successful, but I would encourage you to carve out your little niche in whatever stage of life you are in, own it, and leave it better than you found it. Last but not least, don’t forget where you came from there will always be someone less fortunate and less equipped than you, so make a habit of finding little ways to give back whenever possible. Godspeed and good luck.”
Mike Vincent Boys Soccer Program Director/Varsity Coach, PE “Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.” ~ John Wayne “In the pursuit of excellence, there is no finish line.”
~ Robert H. Forman
Stacy Bourne Walsh ’02 Associate Athletic Trainer “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
~ Laozi
Lisa Wallace Journalism and Student Publications “Follow your arrow wherever it points.” ~ Kacey Musgraves, Country Music Artist It is so important as you head off on your next adventure, be it college or any decision moving forward, that you remember to do you. Do YOU. Not anyone else. Follow your dreams and your passions and see where they take you! “Life is like a camera. Focus on what’s important. Capture the good times. Develop from the negatives. And if things don’t work out, just take another shot.” ~ Author Unknown You all know me because I am all things photo. I am constantly reminding you about photos, making announcements about photos, capturing your lives for the yearbook and the newspaper and Instagram because I love capturing your memories. So I had to be a little philosophical about the importance of the camera. :) Love you all - this sweet senior class - and so proud of each of you. ~ Mrs. Wallace
Austin Walton Middle School Histor y “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy
cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
Tammy Wolford Lower School Librarian “Happiness is not a goal … it’s a by-product of a life well-lived.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Melissa Williams Upper School Math For the Class of 2020, Your senior year had strange things aplenty, Looking ahead to life after FWCD, A bright future for each of you is what I see!!
Carlisle Wysong ’89 Alumni Council Member “Pressure is playing for 10 dollars when you don’t have a dime in your pocket.” ~ Lee Trevino
Rita Zawalnicki Upper School Registrar and Community Ser vice Director “Oh The Places You’ll Go!”
~ Dr. Seuss
Let your heart of service shine as you go off to wonderful places! Mrs. Z
Class of 2020: In addition to reading the selected, inspirational, thoughtful quotes in this collection, take a careful look at the people who have submitted those quotes. Adults from every single part of our School, and even alums no longer at the School, have put significant time and thought into contributing to this collection because of two things: (1) They are devoted to Fort Worth Country Day, and (2) they are devoted to you. That they chose to contribute to this collection is just one symbol standing for all the other places and ways they have been on the Class of 2020 Team for years. We are all on that team. We care about you, appreciate you and wish you the best. Thanks for reading with care. Sincerely,
Eric Lombardi