Class Dismissed

As clichéd as the word “community” has become at Breck, I still have to admit that it’s accurate.

There is a degree of trust and mutual respect among students that separates Breck from larger schools where you’re lucky if you’re able to recognize everyone in your class let alone name them. The comfortable environment makes it much easier to be an individual. And because the trusting atmosphere originates in the classroom, those who succeed academically are as accepted and admired as those who excel in athletics.

I would always laugh when I walked into the library to find half a dozen students, jocks, thespians, math nerds, and student council members, arguing over the best way to solve a physics problem. “No, damn it, you have the magnetic field rotating the wrong direction about the electric current,” I’d hear someone scream jokingly.

More often than not, the person at the center of the table madly scribbling the answer was a guy named Jonathan. In addition to being the biggest geek ever to wield a TI-89 scientific graphing calculator, Jonathan was the most respected kid in the school.

My proudest moment in the seven years I spent at Breck was when Jonathan was elected homecoming king. We could have voted for the leading scorer on the hockey team or the class president, but we chose Jonathan because we admired him for his intelligence and friendliness.

The bonds among students were equaled by the strong relationships between students and the faculty. Most teachers’ doors were always open and many students socialized with teachers when class wasn’t in session. One of the most popular senior hangouts was the office of the Dean of Students. With several cushioned chairs and a basketball hoop, Mr. Bergene’s office was always open to students who wanted to lounge around or play a game of hall-hockey with one of his many confiscated hockey sticks. The chess board in the upper-school office always had a crowd around it, too. Dozens gathered to see Mr. Anderson mercilessly checkmate anyone who dared challenge him.

But the thing I enjoyed the most during my time at Breck was the camaraderie and spirit of the students. Breck has had a surprising amount of athletic success for its small student body. And rarely is there a sporting event without several dozen rowdy fans. The biggest athletic event of the year is always the hockey game between our noble Mustangs and the despised Blake Bears. Last year, my friend Jon and I, the self-appointed tailgating superfans, set up a pre-game fiesta in the parking lot of Blake’s ice arena. More than a third of the school stood in the bitter cold blasting music from car stereos and eating burgers hot off the grill. And when our team arrived, we followed them into the arena with drums, trombones, trumpets, kazoos, and whistles. We outnumbered the home crowd by a large margin. As the game ended, the Mustangs scored their sixth goal while we sang the Alma Mater.

The camaraderie at Breck extended beyond athletics, though. On our traditional senior skip day, I hosted the entire class at my house for breakfast. Jon and I organized 10 cooks to turn out pancakes, waffles, eggs, bacon, sausage, and hash browns for 80 people. We spent the rest of the day together picnicking on Lake Calhoun before returning to school in the afternoon to watch a lacrosse match. As a gift to the seniors, the freshman class paid for the entire day out of their class fund.

We were unified as a school and as a class, but we also celebrated individual victories. When Mike, the hardest working student in my class, was finally accepted to Notre Dame after being put on the waiting list, I remember several students being more excited for Mike than they were about getting into college themselves.

It was especially difficult leaving a place like Breck where many of the graduates had seen each other every day for as many as 15 years. I feel the growing tension in my classmates’ minds as we spread apart in anticipation of a new life. But having finally become adults, there is a sense of accomplishment that makes us closer now than we’ve ever been. The fellowship formed in our years at Breck will not be easily replaced or forgotten.