An Academic Legacy Valedictorian Daniel Tardiff ‘16 joins his father, mother, and sister in an incredible achievement On June 10, Commencement Day for Thayer Academy, Dan Tardiff walked onto the stage in front of his classmates, their families, and Thayer faculty and staff to deliver his valedictorian speech, marking not only an individual achievement of earning the highest grade point average in his class, but also a familial achievement. Dan became the fourth in his family to become valedictorian—his sister Kate was valedictorian of Thayer’s class of 2013, and their father Richard was the 1976 Thayer valedictorian. And not to be left out-- their mother, Joy, was valedictorian of her own high school class.
Richard Tardiff
Valedictorian Thayer Class of 1976
Kate Tardiff
Valedictorian Thayer Class of 2013
Dan Tardiff
Valedictorian Thayer Class of 2016
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Thayer Magazine Summer / Fall 2016
Dan, who will attend Brown University in the fall, spoke about his experience in the Games Club during his speech—and how lessons learned in board games can be used more broadly in life. Sometimes players need to reevaluate their strategies in the middle of a game, he said, and in the same way, his classmates may have to change course if their major or career plans aren't panning out. "I urge you to remember, if your strategy for life isn't working out, there's more than one way to win a game," he said. Tardiff recounted playing chess with players much better than he is when he visited Brown, and encouraged his classmates to learn from those who are smarter, faster, or more experienced. "If we're smart, we'll take advantage of those opportunities," he said. Kate went on to Williams College after graduation, where she's majoring in psychology and political science, and participates in the Concert Choir and the student a cappella group, the Aristocows (the group sings only Disney songs and the name is a pun on the Disney movie The Aristocats and the school mascot, the Purple Cow). While at Thayer, Kate earned a GPA of 4.55, the highest GPA since the school began using the system in 2003. In her speech at the 2013 Commencement, Kate also spoke about adaptability. “Teenagers, especially those of us about to graduate, often live in a world of uncertainty. We have endless daydreams about our future lives, but we don’t really know how we’ll make our dreams happen or what obstacles will redirect us….My advice is this: don’t try to prepare yourself for any specific changes, but anticipate them and embrace them when they come.” Richard says he and his wife didn’t expressly teach their children the importance of adapting to whatever life throws their way, “but we may have inadvertently modeled it in the course of various job and career changes for both Joy and me.” Looking back over his academic career so far, Dan says there wasn’t overt pressure from his family to become the next Tardiff valedictorian, but it was always on his mind. “Grades in general tend to go undiscussed in the Tardiff household," he says. “But when every member of your immediate family has been valedictorian, you don't need anyone's help feeling pressured.” Now that he’s given his own Valedictory speech and he’s off to Providence to forge his path at Brown, it’s a load off his mind, he says. “It's a lot more fun now that I'm on the other side of the legacy.”