FROM THE HEADMASTER
TRADITION Tradition. Just the word itself stirs images of Tevya (or maybe WCS alumnus Bailey Burcham) in Fiddler on the Roof, bellowing out the word as he strolls about the city of Anatevka. Tradition. Webster defines tradition as “the passing down of elements of a culture from generation to generation; a coherent body of precedents influencing the present.”
“It is all these things that tie us together as a family from one generation to the next and cement our families together.” By Tom Davis // Headmaster
I am sure we can all think of family traditions that we have cherished, passed down through our parents and grandparents, and maybe even some that we are passing on to our children. It is father carving the Thanksgiving turkey. It is grandmother singing lullabies to a newborn baby in a well-worn blanket. It is cooking out on the grill on the 4th of July before the fireworks. It is all these things that tie us together as a family from one generation to the next and cement our families together. It truly is the legacies of the past influencing our present. At Collegiate, we have these traditions as well. We have events and practices, which we have faithfully done and continue to do, that tie our current Collegiate family to our past. Things like Honors Day and Dinner Theater. Things like Homecoming and class trips. Things like academic honor rolls and the motto Proba Te Dignum. Things like singing “Dear Collegiate” or the National Anthem at sporting events. These are just some of the traditions that define and bind Collegiate over its history. And they represent just part of the tradition of excellence that is a hallmark of our school. And how are traditions maintained, appreciated, understood, and passed on? They become engrained in the culture. They become embodied in its family members. At Collegiate, our faculty and staff protect, promote, and proclaim our traditions. Long-standing faculty like we have at Collegiate, like those featured in this issue, not only maintain our great traditions, but they create new ones along the way. We never want traditions to inhibit our future, but we never want our traditions to be lost in the past. The legacy of our school and the legacy for our school are the traditions of excellence in all things. Doing it well. Doing it right. Doing it faithfully. To quote Mike Gehrer,
“At Collegiate, tradition never graduates.” May it always be so.
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