Greenhill Celebrates Founders’ Day

On Wednesday, September 11, 2019, Greenhill School celebrated Founders’ Day, also known as our 69th birthday. In a morning all-school assembly that brought every student from PK-12 together, our community celebrated Greenhill’s past, present, and future.

 

Head of School Lee Hark opened the ceremony and invited everyone to stand for the star-spangled banner. He also acknowledged the 18th anniversary of September 11, 2001. The entire community took a moment of silence to remember this tragedy.

 

In light of this somber day, Greenhill students always call for peace. Student Council President and senior Jeffrey Harberg spoke about our role as peacemakers in our world. “We are allowed and even encouraged to question things, so let’s be peacemakers and consider it our duty to advocate for what we believe in.”

 

This was followed by a community song of “Let There Be Peace on Earth.”

 

Next senior Josh Leffler gave a special introduction of the Estelle Dickens Service Project, and all-school community service initiative. In the next two weeks, Greenhill students will be collecting school supplies for neighboring Bush and Gooch Schools.

 

The youngest speaker, fourth grader Josie Selfridge, then told the community about a special Founders’ Day “yummy” tradition of an ice cream social after lunch.

 

Alumni Association President Lauren Pritchard Goodman ’04 represented the alumni portion of our community and introduced the song “Best Friends” where everyone links arms and sings together.

 

Assistant Head of School Tom Perryman ’81 continued the assembly with a special highlight on the primer class, the 50^th primer class in Greenhill history. He invited primer students Dani Chu and Cody Goodman to the stage to open a special “time capsule” of Greenhill history. Mr. Perryman used the metaphor of this time capsule to tell stories, from Finnegan’s Wake, the first Greenhill musical, to Science teacher Skip Kilmer’s bowling ball, used to explain physics to his students.

 

Following tradition, two Heart of the Hill (HOH) Groups were named after important figures and times in School history. Senior Veda Velamuri spoke about the “Save the Land” campaign, a fundraising initiative of $400K to keep the land that now holds our track, tennis courts, baseball and softball fields. Eighth-grader Zain Crumedy spoke about Rhea Wolfram, the first college counselor at Greenhill, who turned 100 recently, and was a special guest at the assembly.

 

New Greenhill Legends of 25 years Lesley Rucker (Upper School Art) and Johnny Thompson (Asst Director of Admission) were recognized along with faculty leaders Rachel Annunziata (Middle School math) and Amy Kasten Bresie ’96 (Lower School Spanish). The Penny Nicholson Award Recipient is Mel Curtis.

 

Heart of the Hill cross-divisional groups met for ice cream later in the afternoon to make the celebration complete. Happy Birthday Greenhill!