ATHE GIFT OF THE SENIOR TRIP
s we celebrate the Class of 2025, we mark a milestone anniversary of Baylor’s Senior Trip. What began as a bold and generous gift from former Headmaster Dr. Herb Barks ’51 has become a rite of passage.
In their article on page 13, Tim Laramore, Perry Key ’81, and Tim Williams explain how the Senior Trip is, at its core, a gift. A gift of time, of trust, and of stories. It is a week that removes students from the noise of daily life and places them in the quiet clarity of nature—where the only agenda is to be present with one another. It is a time when students begin to realize they are not just leaving a school, but a community. And in that realization, something shifts. They begin to treat each other—and the moment—with a new kind of reverence.
This year’s seniors embraced that moment with the same spirit they brought to every part of their Baylor journey. Throughout the year, their senior speeches offered a window into their experiences. Many of them spoke candidly about personal challenges that became turning points. Others talked about “home” being less about a place and more about the people around them. They reflected on friendship, and about being seen,
supported, and changed. Some reminded us that authenticity is not a fixed trait, but a daily practice—one that requires courage and self-awareness.
The Senior Trip, like a student’s time at Baylor, is not about what we tell them to learn it is about what they discover about themselves. It is a tradition that trusts each student to find meaning in their own way. For some, the impact is immediate. For others, it may take years to fully understand.
And for our alumni, the memories of their own Senior Trips remain vivid—etched in stories of section IV of the Chattooga, shared laughter, and quiet moments of reflection. Many speak of that week as a turning point, a time when friendships deepened and the meaning of community came into sharper focus. Their recollections remind us that while each trip is unique, the spirit of the experience endures across generations.
Here’s to the journey, the tradition, and the stories still to come. GBR!
Chris Angel ’89, Head of School
Credits
E DI TORS
Barbara Kennedy
Rachel Schulson
DESIGNER
Angela Rich
WRITERS
Christopher B. Angel ’89
Eddie Davis
Barbara Kennedy
Perry Key ’81
Tim Laramore ’99
Rachel Schulson
Tim Williams
PHOTOGRAPHY
Michael Clevenger/ Imagn Images/Reuters
Walt Kean
Donna Marie Siegel ’14
Molly Glascock Smith ’12
Daniel Stefaniuk
THANKS TO
Susan Collins
Maggie Corey ’04
Allyson McMahan LaPorta ’01
Melissa Love Snyder ’90
Tiffany Townsend ’99
PRESIDENT AND HEAD OF SCHOOL
Christopher B. Angel ’89
CHAIR, BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Alexis Guerry Bogo ’89
PRESIDENT, ALUMNI COUNCIL
Andy Tucker ’86
PRESIDENT, PARENT ALLIANCE
Lucy Sawrie
On the Cover
photo: Donna Marie Siegel ’14
(below) Chris Angel ’89
celebrates with his daughter, Abigail Angel ’25
4 FAREWELL TO RETIREES
Retirees Betsy Carmichael, Austin Clark, Bill Cox, Don Curtis, Jean Lau, Heather Ott, and Tim Williams conclude their Baylor careers.
by Eddie Davis, Barbara Kennedy, and Rachel Schulson
13 THE SENIOR TRIP REACHES MILESTONE 50TH ANNIVERSARY
For seven days, students are given the gift of time to spend with each other before their graduation.
by Perry Key ’81, Tim Laramore ’99, and Tim Williams
18 WINTER AND SPRING ATHLETICS
Read about Baylor’s teams and state champions.
30 AWARDS DAY 2025
Outstanding student leadership and departmental awards were announced in May.
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Asher Kimpel ’41 enjoying Baylor magazine.
A GI FT TO BAYLOR SENI ORS
by Tim Laramore ’99, Perry Key ’81, and Tim Williams
When the Senior Trip was conceived, it was a gift to the class of 1975. Since that time, we have been telling the story of a legendary surprise assembly in late spring when former headmaster Dr. Herb Barks ’51 told the seniors they would be spending a week together in the wilderness instead of taking exams. That event occurred long before the authors of this article were working at Baylor — and in many ways, that is the point. There is a long list of characters, guides, architects, and storytellers who have been faithful to his vision and worked diligently to preserve this tradition for the past 50 years.
Fifty years of Senior Trips. It would be tempting to pat ourselves on the back for such an accomplishment, but we know the success of the Senior Trip is in the hands of the students and how they embrace their last week together. It is the responsibility of the architects and guides to maintain the integrity of the trip — they are the stewards that take care of risk management, logistics, and activities — but the trip belongs to one entity: the senior class.
THE GIFT OF TIME AND TIMING
Late May is the most inconvenient time in the school calendar to take an entire class out into the wilderness for a week. It is also the only time it’s worth doing. Senior Trip at any other time of year would just be entertainment. Entertainment has its value, but spending the last week together as a class sharing wonderfully uncomfortable wilderness adventures is the source of subtle magic.
With a 50-year tradition of Walkabout guiding outdoor adventures, it is tempting to consider backpacking, whitewater, and rock climbing as the critical elements of the Senior Trip. In reality, the timing is the key element. At some point during the week, students realize they are about to cast off into the unknown of life after Baylor, and more importantly, they are about to say goodbye to each other. They are ready to treat each other in a different way and think about things in a different way during the Senior Trip thanks to a unique combination of timing, fatigue, adventure, isolation, discomfort, and fellowship.
The Senior Trip is a gift of time. In the busy and scheduled lives of our students, we give them seven days when all they have to do — all they can do — is spend time with each other. No phones. No computers. No social media. Just enjoying each other’s company while sharing an unfamiliar adventure and the many stories that grow out of each day. That cannot happen in a weekend or on campus. The Senior Trip needs to be a week removed from technology and the busyness and business of striving.
THE GIFT OF TRUST
It would be much easier to not do a Senior Trip. It occurs at a difficult time. It is expensive. It is a behemoth to plan. It involves culturally unfamiliar risk. It is often misunderstood. Before experiencing the trip, a significant number of seniors do not look forward to the trip and wonder how it could be worth the effort. The trip’s 50-year run is a testament to the value of this odd tradition. With the dominance of social media,
marketing of self, and dedication to screens, the Senior Trip is more important to do and harder to pull off each year.
The magic of the trip lies in its simplicity for trusting each senior to interpret their own experience. The impact it has on each senior may be immediate or it may take years to emerge. It may light a fire that determines life's direction, or it may be remembered as a time of contemplation and being with friends at this pivotal junction in life.
The Senior Trip is not a time for Baylor to tell students what they should learn. Baylor School trusts its seniors to embrace and interpret the trip and trusts the vision of Dr. Barks to know it is worth doing.
THE GIFT OF STORIES
The Senior Trip gives the gift of stories. Some students have never spent a night under the stars or in the rain. Some have never navigated whitewater rapids or scaled a cliff. By the end of the week, students have so many new stories to tell and remember with one another. Donna Marie Siegel ’14, Baylor’s multimedia communications specialist, said hearing Arlene Burns speak on her senior trip changed the trajectory of her life. “I never knew that the careers she described were an option. Now I am an adventure filmmaker. I travel the world documenting scientists, pioneers, and creatives.”
In his valedictory address, Michael Schulson ’08 talked about using principles he learned in Physics to free a pinned canoe on the Chattooga River. Marc Lyle ’80 remembers how a day of adventure on Section IV turned him from a wrestler to a world-class kayaker and boat designer.
As the trip progresses, new friendships grow out of a simple question: “What did you do today?” And when Baylor alumni gather, stories from Senior Trip are a kind of special currency they exchange.
THE GIFT OF A CONCLUSION
The list of Senior Trip stewards would be too long to articulate here. Fifty years is a long time. But, if you were to ask those stewards which names are synonymous with the Senior Trip, two would recur — Dr. Herb Barks ’51 and Bill Cushman ’59 (previous page center top). “Rather than simply stop or end, a great work of art concludes by drawing together all the strands that have gone before into a brief but coherent and cogent whole,” said Cushman. “One sees here another manifestation of the Senior Trip as a gift to the seniors, a gathering into coherent themes that compose the experience the seniors have had: the spiritual, the intellectual, the social, the physical. They are all there on the Senior Trip—one group, one place, one time, one shared experience.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: In 1974 and 1975, Dr. Herb Barks ’51 took small groups of seniors to the Chattooga River over several weekends in the spring, for a couple of nights and a day on Section IV of the Chattooga. Pictured above, far left, are Larry Roberts ’65 and Dr. Chris Moore ’68, designers of Walkabout. Dr. Moore grew and expanded Dr. Bark’s vision for the Senior Trip to include the entire senior class starting in 1976 and began to assemble an outstanding and energetic staff.
