Often, outside observers assess value to our athletics seasons based on our win/loss record or standings at the league championships, but for Proctor’s Mountain Biking team, it was both their final results and the bold, remarkable actions of sportsmanships that helped define their success at Saturday’s Northern New England Mountain Biking League Championships held at Kennett High School.
Sometimes the busiest weekends are the ones where our community shines most brightly. The past 72 hours were packed with games, activities, races, and moments where the best of Proctor was on display.
Proctor’s Varsity Football program has been the winningest program at the school over the past twenty years, year after year boasting a winning record. With their most recent NEPSAC Bowl Appearance taking place in the fall of 2019, Head Coach Ben Rulli and his staff are looking to make another run at a Bowl Game appearance behind a veteran, talented senior class.
During Monday’s assembly, five new members of the Class of 2023 were inducted into the Allan S. Bursaw Chapter of the National Honor Society. Recognized for their scholarship, character, service, and citizenship, these twelve students (Grace, Kally, Emma, Eliza, Ella, Grace, Sophie, Samantha, Ingrid, Phoenix, Henry, and Jonathan) include some of the highest academic achievers in the senior class, but perhaps more importantly represent the variety of experiences that makeup the Proctor journey.
When our time on this earth ends, we can only hope that we did our best to positively impact the lives of others. Our hope is that as former Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees Bill Peabody P’82, ‘86 understood the scope and depth of impact he had on those within the Proctor community. His ability to inspire, to spread kindness, to encourage, to hug, to love without condition, to create, to believe in the inherent goodness of others not only shaped Proctor, but will sit at our very core for generations to come.
During assembly this morning, guest Elena Terry, Executive Chef/Founder of Wild Bearies, a non-profit community outreach catering organization that supports participants to overcome alcohol and other drug abuse issues or emotional traumas, shared a story about her work gathering indigenous seeds and the importance of understanding the history and source of the food that nourishes us.
As the forecast for Friday morning waffled between rain and potential clearing, we decided to move our planned outdoor assembly for Fall Family Weekend into the Wilkins Meeting House for the first time since the fall of 2019. Only the parents of our four-year seniors had experienced assembly in the theater, and we realized in that moment how much we had missed the shared energy of this space.
If you spend enough time in the New England woods, you will run across old stone walls bisecting a dense forest. Follow those walls and you will likely find an old cellar hole that will immediately transport you back in time to a different era when Proctor’s 2,500 acres were clear cut pastures sprinkled with farms of hardworking families scraping a living off the rocky soil.
