Indian Springs School

74 graduates 190 Woodward Drive • Indian Springs, AL 35124 315 students • Ranked the best private high school in Alabama five years in a row

Ryan Aldaher Jonathan Raghav Arora Trey Asher Atkins Catherine Wells Baker Catherine Louis Belser River Avalon Cardwell Frances Vivian Carraway Gilder Scout Carruthers Yiqing Cheng Hunter Maxwell Crawford Hendrik Dahlmeier Matthew Lafayette Dale Cathleen Rose Dawson Elizabeth Lawrence DePalma Carson Alexander DeSocio Catherine Edith Driscoll Ashton Eleanor Dudley Evan Martin Dunbar Haden Colette Embry Jacqueline Taylor Antonia Ferrari Molly Sarah Frohsin Giovanni Enrique Garza Alice Hudson Goff Julia Rose Goldberg

JOHN DAVID LOTT HAWS

Mayor

Catherine Cole Goodrich Virginia Carwile Gray Andrew Frederick Hall John David Lott Haws Benedikt Heine Marleigh Alexandra Hill Luke Meikai Hillegass Alexandra Grace Hodson Rebecca Marie House Katherine Isabel Hutchinson Zichao Jiang Avary Lanier Dylan Le

ARTHUR JOHN BALFOUR SLAUGHTER

Mayor

Alek Raine Ledvina Yichen Lu Jingru Lyu McClellan Dodd Maharrey John Noah Maloy Jorge Anton Maninang Benjamin William Mathis Grace Marie McCarty Alex M. McFadden Aidan Wash Meador-Woodruff Labdhi Yogesh Mehta Peyton Grace Miller Shauna Davy Moore

Deven Patel Daniel Kelley Perkins Sophie Caroline Reiff Jessica McKenzie Riha Miles Schiele Robinson Sabra Murrell Rogers Finn Laurenz Schallenberg Thomas Parker Schell Arthur John Balfour Slaughter Laura Anne Sovacool Benjamin George Standaert Ryan Wallace Standaert Forrest Clayton Terrell Hampton Scott Terrell Ethan Joseph Thomas Maxime Alexandre Thompson James Tyler Tozzi Bryce James Trible Jack Henry Walley Kexin Wang MaryElla Woolf Chenran Xu Ariana Dionne Young Run Yang Zhang

Dear Class of 2020:

You are no doubt familiar with the story of the religious woman who felt pressed by several urgencies in her life and prayed the following: “Lord, give me patience, please. And give it to me right now.”

This woman, like most of us perhaps, had long known the value of patience but had always thought it was a skill or mindset she could develop later. And then she found herself needing patience, immediately.

You may have made the same prayer in the last few weeks. The spread of COVID-19 has been rapid and virulent, but what it has wrought in your lives has been a dramatic slowdown, a radically different way of learning, and some significant losses.

Patience has been required. So too resilience. Creativity, as you have adjusted to a different way of learning and have found new ways of maintaining contact with your friends and extended family, which is essential to the human soul. Those new skills will hold you in good stead in the future, for this will not be the only time in your life when they will be required of you.

What you are experiencing now, what the world is experiencing now, is historic. In her column in the April 18 weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, columnist Peggy Noonan wrote this line: “History doesn’t get any bigger than this.” Recognizing this context for what your life is like now may provide scarce solace, but there is truth to the sometimes glibly offered statement that we are all going through this together.

I know you will survive this. I know you will learn important lessons from this experience. I know you will thrive in the coming years.

But I do have one concern, and that is that the final weeks of your senior year may, in your minds, overshadow what you accomplished and contributed to the life and work of Indian Springs School in the time leading up to the onset of the virus.

There is an old saying in the independent school world that as the year goes for the senior class, so it goes for the whole school. That is because the leadership of the senior class sets the tone for the entire school. This has been a great year for Indian Springs School, and the leadership of the Class of 2020 has everything to do with that success. Hard work, intellectual curiosity, strong moral leadership, commitment to the School and the School’s values, healthy ambition—these and others are what you have provided the Indian Springs School community this year. And we have all benefitted from those qualities. All of us here are proud of you. We salute you, we thank you, and we hope that as you reflect on your experience at Indian Springs School this year, you will remember all the good that you have contributed to the School.

With respect and gratitude, Don North Interim Head of School Indian Springs School