COMMENCEMENT: JUNE 10, 2021 As the graduating class looks toward the future, here are some words of wisdom that were shared with the entire school community.
TRUMAN NOONEY, Class of 2021
Members of the CSB faculty, staff and student body, families, friends, and class- mates. My name is Truman Nooney, and I am a proud member of the CSB Class of 2021. It is such an honor to address you today. Every year, as we gather together in Grace Cathedral to send another group of boys off to high school, you hear from a graduating 8th grader. Most of them talk about how CSB has prepared them well for high school and beyond, and in the case of our class that is certainly true. CSB is a school that has given us so much more than learning to read and write. We may not have always appreciated it, but those Lower School chapels, religion class, learning how to tie a tie, and all those other things that we thought were annoying at the time, taught us valuable skills that will come in handy later in life. A major reason that we are so well- prepared is the absolutely amazing teachers we have had throughout our years at CSB. It all started with M rs. Juer gens in Kindergarten, using songs, cooking, and pretty much anything else that seemed like fun to teach us to read, write, and do basic math. Even in later years, we didn’t just get boring worksheets and lectures. Creating our own civilization in 6th grade history, learning math through fantasy basketball, explaining the science behind Iron Man in science this year. Our teachers really made learning fun. I know that we will thrive in high school because of how well our teachers taught us. So on behalf of all of my classmates, thank you to every teacher who has helped us along the way.
And when it comes to thanks, I want to be sure to include our families. In our early years, we had all the usual reasons to say thanks. They often drove us to and from school, to sports practices, to those early-morning choir rehearsals, and they dutifully came and watched every perfor- mance from Peter Rabbit to the Odyssey . But when they signed up for parenting, I don’t think any of them could have predicted we would be spending the end of our 7th grade year and the beginning of 8th at home. I’m sure it tested their patience having to deal with us all day, not to mention that feeding us is quite a task. But more about the pandemic later. For now I want to say thank you to our families for the incredible support they have shown us throughout the years. But as grateful as we all are for the adults around us, what I would really like to talk about today is what makes our class special. Each class has its own person- ality and stories, and when it comes to our class, I think our defining trait is our spirit. From our earliest days at CSB, we seemed to have a fire inside. It showed up as early as kindergarten. That entire year,
we would divide ourselves into the red and gold teams and try to outperform each other. It all culminated in field day, when the red team pushed through and emerged victorious. But the gold team didn’t despair. They came back stronger the next year and won. I think that really shows the essence of our class. We don’t take no for an answer. We keep going until we succeed. That same spirit showed up in the fifth grade basketball B team, which I was on. We lost the very first game of the season to our rivals, Stuart Hall. But we didn’t let that discourage us. Instead, we worked hard to improve, and at the end of the season we beat Stuart Hall in the finals and won the league. For those of you who were on the A team that year, winning is when you end the game with a higher score than the opposing team. But seriously, that game was just one example of the many times that the Class of ’21 spirit shone through. Throughout the years our class kept burning bright, and when we got new classmates in Upper School, they made us even better. We embraced them in every way...they joined choir, our sports
FALL 2021 • RED & GOLD | 21
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online