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. 

A Proctor Fall

i arrived on a bright summer day,

of early september

sun rays pouring on the skirts of the trees, 

outside my street window

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. 

After several weeks exploring connections between course material and experienced history, culture, and language in their “home region” of Castilla y León, Proctor en Segovia students traveled south to Córdoba and Sevilla. There they experienced firsthand the history, culture, and architecture of the region of Andalucía.

II’s the night before we embark on our 2nd journey of the term, to Valencia, and I want to recap on the past week. Being here for the past month has been a dream, the art, the culture, and the food is all incredible.

Pictures tell you things that written history never will or perhaps can. On my wall in my office just behind my left shoulder is a photograph taken in 1895. It is of the Proctor and Carr families of Andover, NH. During the opening weeks of school, I spoke at great length to our community about members of this family, but John Proctor is the person from whom we as a school get our name. When the picture was taken, John Proctor was gone from the scene for 12 years, he died in 1883, but his extended family and relatives were alive and well represented in Andover. What Proctor planted, the regenerated seeds and start of a new school, still stands today. Vibrant and prosperous.

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.