KENT – Students in the Class of 2024 who attend all three of Kent’s independent schools have graduated.
Marvelwood School awarded diplomas to 31 students at its 66th annual commencement exercise June 1. The school’s highest award, the Wittenberg Cup, was awarded to Ashley Grace Wilkins of Kent. Ashley was also Marvelwood’s valedictorian. The salutatorian was Victor Lukich of Dover Plains, NY.
In her valedictorian speech, Wilkins reflected that, after COVID cast a shadow on the beginning of their Marvelwood experience, ” …this morning, we are celebrating a sliver of good that found the light at the end of the tunnel.” She expressed gratitude for the faculty who believed in “the potential all of us have to spread our own slivers of light.”
Echoing Wilkins’ speech, Head of School Blythe Everett P’14, ’16 encouraged the class to shine brightly.
“As you leave Marvelwood and move out into the world, you will continue to add, by way of experience, tiny brushstrokes of light and color and shadow to your own self-portrait, while that evolving portrait simultaneously contributes a tiny fleck of color on a similarly evolving and increasingly global canvas. Your brightness and your hope are needed on what is a complex and challenging universal tapestry. We wish for you a masterpiece of a life, defined by harmony and flecks of brilliant color, and enough light to balance the occasional shadow,” Everett said.
The commencement speaker was Father Mark Connell, executive director of San Miguel Academy, a school for students in grades 5-8 located in Newburgh, NY. Its mission is to break the cycle of poverty through education. Father Mark advised the Class of 2024, “If you want meaning and purpose, love selflessly without counting the cost, and never be comfortable with the world as it is. Leave it better than you found it.”
Wilkins was recognized for her dedication to the school. The Wittenberg Cup is given to that graduating senior who, in the opinion of the faculty, has achieved the most in all areas of Marvelwood life–academics, athletics, dormitory life, and extracurricular activities. The student honored with the prize has also “evidenced personal qualities and virtues that represent those ideals of character that we want our graduates to strive to attain,” according to the prize description.
Wyatt Francis Lee of South Kent was the recipient of the Bodkin Cup, named in honor of Robert and Cornelia Bodkin, the founding Headmaster and his wife. The Bodkin Cup is awarded to a graduate “who has been unusually loyal to the school, who has been overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic, who has participated actively and constructively in school affairs, and whose good citizenship, courage, determination, and love for our school reflect the qualities of character which were always identified with the Bodkins and espoused by them.”
The other local graduates were Sydney Mims of Sherman and Rufus Churchill of Sharon.
The occasion culminated with the traditional ringing of the Piper Bell, a moment that symbolizes both an ending and a new beginning.
Kent School’s graduating class said farewell during a June 2 ceremony (see related story).
South Kent School graduated its Class of 2024 May 18. There were 60 students who participated in the Prize Day ceremony. None of the graduates were local students. Efforts to receive additional information from the school were not successful.
