The past year was about as busy as a year can get for a school: a transition in leadership amidst navigating a global pandemic for a second consecutive year served as a backdrop for many of the normal highlights of the school year. As we look back at the ten most viewed blog posts of 2021, we remember just how dynamic life at Proctor is! Enjoy this window into the top ten posts of 2021!
On a quiet Sunday afternoon, filled with final exam preparations, we reflect on the past two days and all that transpired within our remarkable little community. Starting on Friday morning with the arrival of our Board of Trustees on campus for the first time in two years, we enjoyed a 48 hour sprint that included our final Fall Term classes, a Holderness Day pep rally in assembly, Fall Term Art Show, Dance and Jazz/Rock Ensemble performances, and a full day of competitions for Holderness Day 2021.
When our students step into the studio, the wood shop, the forge, or on the stage, they shed the invisible weight of the world around them and immerse themselves in the identity-forming process of creating art.
The Class of 2021 was filled with talented students, each of whom will pursue their passions in college, professionally, or during a gap year. Check out these members of the class who will either play competitive athletics next year or study a specific art discipline in college and be sure to follow their careers in the years to come!
"Dwight", the van, whipping through the grand fields of New Mexico. I’m currently losing the “guess who’s song is playing” game run by Leo my beloved, our leader this week. Lars and I are amped up on Dunk's coffee which is pretty exciting considering we have seen nothing but Starbucks for two months (every New Englander's nightmare).
Thirty days. After bouncing in and out of quarantine and waiting for a full cast and crew to finally be available, Proctor’s Drama Department had less than thirty days to rehearse for this spring’s production of Mamma Mia!. But if you have the opportunity to watch the production live during the next four nights, odds are you would never know how compressed a rehearsal schedule this group navigated. The show is energetic, spunky, loud, funny, and clever, and as is always the case with Proctor’s theater productions, a reminder of how talented our students and faculty are.
And so we’ve come to our final week in the oh so wonderful pan flat, burning Hellscape of Casa Grande, AZ, and our final week of high school classes. There could have been no more perfect way to finish it off, everyone scrambling to complete a final project before leaving for Santa Fe on Sunday.
Taking an early evening tour around campus Thursday in the spectacular light of a mid-May evening, I happened to pass the woodshop where Greg Allen holds “extra help” sessions on Tuesday and Thursday. The pool of light spilling out, the sound of the bandsaw and table saw, the hum of the vacuum system for dust mitigation, exerts a kind of gravitational pull.
