Mason Maurer ’26: When I was sitting in this theater three years ago, I was intimidated. Coming from a different school, I had heard rumors about how hard St Albans was going to be. When the prefects of the Class of 2023 advised my class to immerse ourselves and participate in school activities, I brushed them aside. All I cared about was grades. That’s why our parents sent us here, right? To get the grades and to get into a good school.

As a senior, I’m here to tell you that’s not completely true. Yes, grades do matter. But the way you approach this school is the most important thing about your time here.

There are two versions of St. Albans students that you can choose to embrace. The first student considers school a bore and the only thing that matters to him is that grade on his transcript. Flexes and ensembles are spent studying or scrolling through nonsense. No clubs are joined, and sports are played solely for the requirement on paper. Academically, he may have it easier than his peers, but the rest of his time here is empty. He has no connection. When he walks through the halls, he’ll get the obligatory wave, but he’ll also get the impression that no one really knows him. He doesn’t spend his weekends at recitals or BEEF events. He’s only a bulldog by name.

The other student, however, immerses himself in the culture of the school. He can be found singing his heart out in chapel or in a post-lunch yell. He can be seen stammering at the microphone while making his first lunch announcement or shirtless in the pouring rain at the back of the bleachers at a soccer game. You’ll spot him on Thursday nights in Gov Club or rehearsing for the upcoming play. This student may have more work to do when he gets home, but he has also realized something that the first student hasn’t. When he sought out friends and peers to lean on, the formidable workload of St. Albans seemed to lighten up. When his work, his game, and his play were spent with his fellow students, the challenges he faced changed in nature. His was no longer an individual undertaking.

Focusing on how you approach your life here at St. Albans is crucial. Assignments pile up. There are days when you stay up for hours studying and you feels like it’s never going to end. The truth is, it is never going to be easy, but it is a lot less hard when you don’t feel alone. When you celebrate every friend’s win like it’s your own, you do a lot of winning, and when you fail, it doesn’t sting as much. To the Class of 2029: Think about what you want out of this school. Involve yourself in lunch table conversations. Make small talk at Sam’s Bar. Play spike ball. Try to cut the line at Open City. To the Class of 2026: There is still time to get involved. Try out that sport instead of taking a cut. Start a random club. Ask that girl to Homecoming.

Walking to Steuart Field for football practice at the end of summer, I took a moment to take in the beauty of the grounds around me. It was 7:30 a.m. and the sun’s golden rays were peeking through the trees of Olmsted Woods. As I laced up my cleats, I reflected on the aura of the Cathedral. But as we started school last week, I realized that those aspects of our school, the stone buildings, lush greenery, and the mount we’re built on don’t matter as much as we think. Instead, it’s the people. It’s the ridiculously qualified faculty who entertain all our questions, even the stupid ones. It’s the coaches who take the time out of their day and put off their other responsibilities to help us win. And it’s the students who embrace the culture and values of this school. They form the lifeblood of this place. Embrace your people, embrace your culture, and embrace your school.

Kenechi Emuwa ’26: I like winning more than I like losing. We all know it’s impossible to win all the time, but I think we’ve all had experiences where it seems like all you’re doing is losing. You feel like you are regressing, and you can’t seem to cut your losses. It could be a string of bad test results or subpar athletic performances or even just some heavy days.

During these stretches, I have learned one thing and that’s that it’s important to give yourself a winnable game. A powerhouse college football team schedules a smaller school to establish some momentum at the start of the season. Now, I don’t literally mean you should find yourself an easy game to win, but you can find something you can work towards. For example, you may choose to focus one week, one month, or one quarter on a specific subject, or perhaps target something similar in the weight room. Over time, these incremental accomplishments will begin to offset those times where things felt unwinnable.

The next step is to stack these wins and gain momentum across multiple areas in your life. Let’s say you set a goal of benching 185, and you hit it. Don’t stop there; you will lose all your momentum. Instead, build on that. Push for 205. Then use those good feelings as momentum when you feel unmotivated.

It’s a cliche that slow and steady wins the race, but I encourage you to think about its merits. The school year is hundreds of days long. It would be a mistake to sprint the whole time. To the juniors, sophomores, and freshmen, you have a lot of time ahead of you to forge the high school career you want. So take control of your future. My suggestion is, don’t be afraid to test yourself. Try something new. Push yourself in class and on the fields, and then, once you feel yourself settling in, give yourself a second to assess where you are and where you have room for growth. Satisfaction comes from knowing you gave it all you had. So do your best and the rest will fall into place.

Nino Al-Sabah ’26, Class Vice President: If I could start high school all over again, what would I do differently? There are definitely numerous things—including not losing my car keys—but one that stands out to me is engagement in school life. In my freshman and sophomore years, I was so focused on keeping up with schoolwork and all my other responsibilities that I missed out on so many of the opportunities. Yes, I went to class. I did my work. I hung out with my friends and classmates, but I didn’t really push myself outside of my comfort zone and try any new things.

I stuck to the same sport I’ve played all my life and followed a daily routine that made most days feel like a blur. I know more than anyone how easy it is to get hyper focused on what’s right in front of you—the next assignment, the next test, the next practice. You convince yourself that you’re too busy and that you’ll find some time later, but honestly, it never feels less busy. If there’s one thing I’ve learned is that the things you remember most aren’t the grades you got or the assignments you turn in, it’s the moments you step in and immerse yourself. Want to  play a sport you’ve never tried? Go to that first practice. Want to join Gov Club even though it’ll make you start your homework later? Go to that meeting. Are you thinking about going to a BEEF game? Show up and be loud.

This is what transforms St. Albans from a school to a community, to a place where you can truly find yourself. Until you step in, you will never know which of these moments will end up shaping your high school experience or even changing the way you view yourself.

For me, that moment came during my sophomore year. I was walking the halls, chatting it up about homecoming, when  suddenly I was pulled to the side by Dr. Schaffer, the previous head of the Upper School, who said, ominously, “Meet me in my office during flex.” I thought it was over for me. I sat down, opened my computer, and immediately fired up some other school’s admissions portals, preparing to seal my fate.  But when I sat down in Dr. Schaffer’s office, he simply asked: “Why aren’t you running for prefect this year?” This completely caught me off guard. I had been a prefect freshman year, but I lost the election to serve sophomore year, so I figured my time was over. Plus it was literally the last day to sign up. I hadn’t written a speech and hadn’t even considered what I’d write about, but he encouraged me to run and said, if I submitted a speech by the end of the day, I could run.

That one conversation with Dr. Schaffer completely changed my perspective on engagement. I realized that it wasn’t about having the perfect timing and knowing exactly how things would turn out. It was about trying and experimenting.

Sometimes the best opportunities show up at the most inconvenient moments, the times when you feel unprepared and have every reason to say no. But with even one yes, you might open the door to experiences that will entirely shape your time here.

Will Martin ’26, Senior Class President: Everyone at this school has gone through struggles in life, failed a test, lost a sports event, or even just had a bad guess at a lunch table question. We all have things that we are striving for, and sometimes we fail. That is part of being human. But I’m not going to focus on failing. Instead, I’m going to talk about resilience, failing and getting back up.

Without help, getting up can be one of the hardest things to do in life. But luckily our community offers us so much support through its many different resources, whether it’s a teacher who lets you retake a quiz, a teammate who lifts your head up when you are down, or a friend who comforts you after listening to all your problems. If we want to make it through all the challenges we will face this year, we must rely on each other and everyone that is here to support us.

The fall of my sophomore year was one of the hardest times in my life. I had two broken fingers and was unable to write because of a cast on my right hand. I was forced out of playing football and was not reaching any of my goals in the classroom. And on top of all of that, one Sunday night, my girlfriend broke up with me.

The next Monday was rough. I was down all day, talking to none of my friends, and just wanting to go home. But at lunch, former prefect Kenny Dilanian ’25 noticed something was off. He let me explain all my problems to him and comforted me, telling me that he had been there and that it was all going to get better. He then gave me some advice: Control what you can control, and don’t dwell in the past. He told me to focus on what I could change.

Kenny’s advice really got to me. I started to reach out for help. I went to teachers to talk about my situation and asked how I could improve. I went to the trainers to see if I could get back on the football field earlier, and I spent more time with friends who comforted me. Everyone helped. Ms. Dunn let me audit my math homework and tests since I could still not write the answers to the problems. Mr. Henry excused me from his daily quizzes (I still don’t know how I got out of those). Ms. George came in on the weekends to write my chemistry test for me. Ms. Pierce and Dr. Drewry let me take notes on my computer during class and stayed late into office hours to make sure I had the material down, and Ms. Hagler and Mr. Virtue figured out a way to wrap my cast in foam and get me back on the field after missing only one game. Others, many in the Class of 2026, helped by just asking me how I was doing. They moved me forward.

One goal I have for this year is not only to move forward myself, but to be present for those who are struggling. This is a special place made even more special by the people here and the efforts to keep us moving forward, especially during tough times. Counselors, administrators, teachers, coaches, chaplains and more will simply let you plop down in their office, decompress, and reset. We never have to go through our struggles alone because we have hundreds of people we can rely on.

So this year, when you fail, when you fall down, when you need support, ask for it. Every single person in this room will help you.

Tyler Barren ’26, Head Prefect: One thing I’ve always struggled with is balance, the balance of my homework, athletics, and social life. At various points in my high school experience, certain aspects seemed to take over. During the spring of my freshman year, I put so much thought and time into the crew season without spending enough time on schoolwork. During the fall of that same year, I was so focused on trying to get the best GPA possible that I was actually hurt socially by not spending time with other guys in my grade.

I thought everything in my life was binary. You’re either smart or social. You’re either athletic or lazy. But it was this school and the people around me that showed me I was wrong. Someone—honestly I have no idea who—once said:   “The key to keeping your balance is knowing when you’ve lost it.” This quote relates balance to another key aspect that I began to understand during my sophomore year, and that is accountability. When things don’t seem to be going well or you know you need to make a change, don’t be afraid to make a change. Lean on the people at this school because the support system we talk about is very real.

As more of a math and science person, I knew that sophomore year history would be one of my more challenging classes, but I leaned on the people in the St. Albans community to help me achieve my goals. I met with Mr. Campbell, my history teacher, enough for him to get tired of me, but he was always there to talk about ideas and help me understand concepts from class. My classmates and I had FaceTime calls to go over each key term that could appear on a test.

These experiences reminded me of how much of a blessing it is to be here, how blessed we are to go to school in a safe environment with others who push us to be our best selves every day, who are always there to pick you up when you’re in need, and who genuinely want the best for you.

I truly began to appreciate our school a little more during a summer trip to Uganda. To be honest, I signed up for the trip so I could knock out thirty service hours while teaching underprivileged children at a school in Uganda. We taught some math, English, and American culture, but what stuck with me was their chemistry lab. While the St. Albans chemistry labs are filled with instruments, passionate and well- educated teachers, and so many different types of chemicals, the lab at the Ugandan school was a small room with only a few instruments in a cardboard box sitting on a table. The doorway didn’t even have a door to separate the indoor space from the outdoors.

One of the students was able to write from memory several elements in order from the periodic table. I, the future AP chemistry student, could barely do half of what she did. This eye-opening experience made me wonder why I deserves to attend St. Albans when there was a child who seemed more interested in and knew more about chemistry than me. For this reason, I made a promise to lead the chemistry club the following year at St. Albans, not for the reputation, and not even for myself, but for the kids in the world who deserve the opportunities that I often took for granted.

Leading the club not only fulfilled a promise I made to myself, but added balance to my life, gave me an interest to pursue apart from schoolwork, and allowed me to spend with some friends and Ms. George, which brings me to my final point: appreciation.

We have been blessed with the opportunity to attend this school, to benefit from the faculty and staff here, and to become strong men of the future. It is necessary to make the most out of what we’ve been given. When it’s time to lock in, work hard in the classroom and work hard studying for tests. When it’s time to take a break, spend time with others. Find your own balance in your own lives and commit to it one hundred percent. As we begin this school year, stay focused on bringing strong energy every day and remember those around you, the classmates, the teachers, and the numerous people behind the scenes who make the school function. Remember these ideas of balance, accountability, and appreciation, and hold them tight. I guarantee they will make your experience at St. Albans so much better.