Good morning and welcome to the 2023 Commencement Exercises at St. Christopher’s School, the 112th Commencement of our storied institution.

It is my pleasure to welcome all of you this morning, especially the parents, grandparents, family, and friends of our talented and accomplished Class of 2023.

As you can imagine, an event such as this involves many hands and hearts, and I am particularly grateful for the outstanding work of our Upper School Chaplain John Ohmer, for Mark Gentry and our entire maintenance team; for Cricket O’Connor and our entire Development and Communications teams; and also for Keith Dillard, Karen Glasco, Emily Keith, and Beth Wood. Will you please join me in thanking those individuals and the many others who helped make this day possible?

What a gift it is to come together, under spectacular weather conditions, for the first outdoor Commencement unencumbered by COVID since 2019. Thanks be to God for this day, for these young men, and for this remarkable community of Saints.

For the faculty of this school, including Extended Day, Lower, Middle, and Upper School, for our staff and administration, thank you for the manner in which you have raised these young men, intellectually, but also morally. The fruits of our labors are known and celebrated in short form, today, but they will become fully manifest in the decades to come.  

For our Board of Governors, and especially for Thomas Valentine, whose three-year term as Chairman of the Board comes to a close this summer, thank you for your leadership and stewardship of this community and for the unwavering support you have offered to me and to all of our faculty and staff. 

A special thanks, in addition, to our Alumni Association President Trip “Tolliver,” (Taliaferro) who today helps us welcome 93 new Saints into our alumni brotherhood, bestowing upon them an official St. Christopher’s necktie immediately following receipt of their diploma. 

I would also like to welcome and honor the new President of the Church Schools in the Diocese of VA, Henry Broaddus, who has made an immediate and positive impact through his presence, wisdom, and support. Will you all please join me in thanking Mr. Broaddus and welcoming him to the St. Christopher’s community?

I am grateful to our colleagues at St. Catherine’s School, especially to Head of School Cindy Trask and Upper School Head Lara Wulff, who join us in partnership this morning, and to the entire St. Catherine’s faculty for all that they do to enrich the experiences of our boys here at St. Christopher’s.

Last but certainly not least, I want to offer a special thanks to our Interim Head of Upper School Dr. Kim Hudson. Dr. Hudson, you have done a superb job this year leading this division with competence and compassion, and you have helped us bridge the first major leadership transition in the history of our Upper School. We are so grateful that you will continue to serve and lead this community in the years ahead as Associate Head of the Upper School and Director of the Center for the Study of Boys. Will everyone please join me in expressing thanks and respect to Dr. Hudson?

This year marks a seminal transition year for the St. Christopher’s Upper School, as we bid farewell and thanks to a number of outstanding educators who have served our community with distinction. In previous Commencement services, we have taken a moment to honor retiring faculty members or those individuals who have served St. Christopher’s for 25 years or more. Given the uniqueness of this transitional year, I am going to break from that tradition this year and ask all of our departing Upper School faculty member to please stand and be recognized. Please hold your applause until the end.

In order of seniority, they are as follows—David Geary, two years, and transitioning to our Middle School; Emily Burkot and Emily Nason, three years; JD Jump, 11 years; Carey Pohanka, 12 years; John Winn, 19 years; Sue Varner, 23 years, Billy Abbott, 27 years; Jim Jump, 33 years; and Ron Smith, 51 years. Will you please join me in thanking this extraordinary collection of Saints educators?

Parents of the Class of 2023: You deserve special recognition this morning. Thank you, first and foremost, for entrusting these young men into our care. It is a sacred trust and one we do not take for granted. Thank you, especially, for your patience and support over the past three years as we navigated the pandemic together. As difficult as it has been, your boys, all of us, really, have emerged from COVID stronger, more resilient and adaptive, and above all, grateful, grateful for gifts big and small that we all took too easily for granted prior to March 2020. 

I want to call special attention this morning to our “lifer” families, those who have been with us for 13 or even 14 years—your commitment and loyalty to this school and community is remarkable, and we thank you for that. Seniors and parents, if you joined this community in either Junior Kindergarten or Kindergarten will you please stand and be recognized at this time?

For our remaining senior families, approximately half of you, thank you for joining this community either later in Lower School or in Middle or Upper School. Thank you for the gifts and perspective that you brought to this class and this community—we are better for being a collection of dynamic and diverse families from all over the Richmond community. Seniors and parents, if you joined St. Christopher’s in First Grade or later, will you please stand and be recognized at this time?

Now, to the Class of 2023. How to capture the essence of this special group of seniors, who have experienced four years of high school unlike any other in the history of our country? 

In the fall of 2019, you were freshmen, and school and life were humming along with what we would now describe as pre-COVID normalcy. Here at St. Christopher’s, we were benefiting from outstanding leadership from a strong senior class, the Class of 2020.

Seniors, I am so grateful that your first glimpse of high school and St. Christopher’s spirit and leadership was established that fall and winter, by a terrific class and an epic year of spirit, excitement, and positivity. That all changed in March of 2020, of course, but we are not going back there on this joyful day.

Instead, let’s jump to this fall, the beginning of your senior year. I sincerely believe that you all have led this school with the same sense of spirit, positivity, and gratitude that I remember three years ago from the Class of 2020. If anything, our spirit and positivity has been even stronger, because we all know what it felt like in 2020 and 2021 when so much was taken from us.

We have set attendance records at just about every event this school year; we had more seniors request to offer Chapel talks than we could accommodate on our schedule; we just enjoyed a wonderful and celebratory carnival at our new Community Pavilion, sponsored by your parents; and you all bonded through a first-ever senior retreat to Camp River’s Bend, an experience that we hope becomes a beloved tradition in the years to come.

And I must mention an epic fall Pep Rally, followed by our first-ever home football game under the lights, which resulted in a win on the field, but even more importantly, a win in the stands and throughout the extended St. Christopher’s community. 

But there is something else that strikes me as distinctive about this class, and that is your greatness, combined with your goodness. Allow me to explain.

My alma mater, the University of Virginia, uses the same phrasing to describe its current strategic plan, which is to say that it aspires to be a university that is objectively great—excelling in numerous and measurable success markers—but also strives to be more than that. Like St. Christopher’s, it seeks to be a force for good in its community and in producing graduates with a sense of civic purpose and an ethical framework. 

By just about any measure—scholastically, artistically, athletically—this class is objectively talented and great. We have heard of your many accomplishments over the past week at our Arts, Athletics, and House celebrations and at yesterday’s Upper School Awards ceremony.

Here are but a few examples—

Three particularly talented seniors engaged in intellectually enriching capstone projects this year, independently—and through pure intellectual curiosity—focusing on topics as varied as chemistry and computer programming, the internet as viewed through theology and philosophical inquiry, and poetry and creative writing. Your intellectual accomplishments in those fields were superb, gentlemen.

You also boast a laudable number of AP Scholars—more than twice the national average. You fared beautifully in what was likely the most competitive college application year in American history, with just over a third of you matriculating at some of the finest colleges and universities here in the Commonwealth, with the balance matriculating at nearly three dozen outstanding colleges and universities spread among 20 states and two foreign countries. All in all, you earned just under 300 individual acceptances to 98 different colleges and universities. You did something no other St. Christopher’s class has done since at least WWII, which is to send not one, not two, but three graduates to a prestigious service academy—all three to the US Naval Academy. 

Artistically, among you are outstanding musicians, actors, painters, photographers, and creative writers. This group of student-artists has the unique honor of serving in principal roles at debut performances last year in the St. Christopher’s Arts Center and this year in St. Catherine’s Endeavour Hall—you all graced those spaces with artistic excellence and set a high bar for future classes to follow.

Athletically, I am proud to share that you have led St. Christopher’s to a school-record seventh consecutive Director’s Cup, awarded to the school in the Virginia Preparatory League with the most successful overall athletic season, measured equally among all fall, winter, and spring varsity sports. You should know that no other school in Prep League history has won seven consecutive Director’s Cups outright. 25 student-athletes, approximately 27% of this class, will continue their athletic career at the college level, competing in 13 different sports.  And I should say that the faculty experienced your athleticism first-hand when you comfortably defeated us in the annual seniors vs. faculty basketball game, for a School-record third consecutive year.

So, I will repeat my assertion that this class is great, by just about any objective measure.

Now, let me digress for just a moment and tell you about a St. Christopher’s alumnus I got to know over the past seven years. His name is Gil Minor, and he sat very close to where you are sitting now, gentlemen, at his St. Christopher’s Commencement back in 1959.

I suspect many of you in this audience knew Gil Minor, and you probably do because of his remarkable business achievements here in Richmond. For 25 years, Mr. Minor led Owens & Minor, a Fortune 500 business headquartered here in our city. During his tenure, he helped increase revenues over 16-fold, from approximately $300 million in 1981 to nearly $5 billion in 2005. That is the mark of a great businessman.

Along with several St. Christopher’s colleagues, less than two weeks ago, I attended Mr. Minor’s funeral service. The church was packed, and friends and family told stories about Mr. Minor—they were all fond and heartfelt remembrances. 

Not one of them mentioned that 16-fold increase in company revenue during Mr. Minor’s leadership tenure. There was little to no mention of his business acumen. Instead, they talked about the way Mr. Minor made colleagues, friends, and families feel. They talked about how he treated every person at his company and throughout his personal life with respect and dignity. Mr. Minor was a quintessential Virginia Gentleman and a Great Saint. He was great in life, but more importantly, he was good.

New York Times columnist and social commentator David Brooks has described what he considers “Résumé Virtues” and “Eulogy Virtues.” You may have heard of them.

Gentlemen, think of Résumé Virtues as the accomplishments and accolades that either Mr. Jump or Dr. Hudson read aloud during our House celebration services this week. They include things like academic honors, appointed leadership roles, scholarly, artistic, or athletic awards or recognition. 

Those things matter. They matter, in particular, early in your life, when you are engaged in the sifting, sorting, and deciphering that takes place in high school, college, graduate school, and early in your professional career. 

However, as you age, and as you gain in wisdom and life experience, you will learn that those Résumé Virtues pale in comparison to what Brooks calls Eulogy Virtues—those things that are read or said about you at your funeral. 

With apologies for invoking one’s funeral at a high school Commencement, I will leave you with this point, gentlemen. All those adjectives and phrases I had the honor of reading about you at this week’s House celebrations—those are your Eulogy Virtues, as formed through what is likely only the first 20% of your life. I encourage you to embrace those virtues and know that each of you is on your way to leading a good, a truly good, life.

To close, here are three Good things I will remember about this class—First, I will remember that you gave each other not one but two standing ovations in Chapel when one of your classmates spoke so bravely and vulnerably. They were the first and second standing ovations I have ever witnessed in our Chapel.

Second, I will remember your mentorship and kindness to your Kindergarten buddies all year and especially at the Massey Mile event—your compassion to those little guys, who so look up to you, means more than you will ever know.

Finally, I will remember hiking with you to the top of Baldface Rock, at Camp River’s Bend. I will remember that for some of you, that hike was not so challenging. For others, it was particularly difficult, even stressful. I will remember several of you—too many to count—who showed kindness, consideration, and compassion in waiting for those classmates who were struggling to catch up so they could remain part of the group. 

All of that, gentlemen, is Goodness personified.

Thank you for sharing it so freely with all of us over these years, and God Bless You. It is my honor now to introduce the Class of 2023 Salutatorian, Teddy Price.