Milton awarded diplomas to 189 seniors during the School’s commencement exercises on June 10, 2016. One longstanding tradition of the ceremony is students electing their student speakers, which assures seniors that they will, at their last Milton gathering, hear from classmates they have chosen. This year, students selected Juan Diego Jaramillo and Melody Tan. Delivering the commencement address was alumnus Conor French, Milton Academy Class of 1999. Click here to read speeches, watch the ceremony, and view photos from the day.

One major accomplishment of the sailing team’s successful season (19-3-1) occurred off the coast of Charleston, at the ISSA High School Double Handed Championship for the Mallory Trophy. Milton’s A Division fleet racing boat, skippered by Henry Burnes (II) with Peter Baron (II) as crew, placed fourth out of 20 boats—the best result for a Milton fleet racing boat in team history.

Over two days, Henry and Peter sailed 20 races. Both sailors cite strong communication and race-to-race consistency as keys to their success as a team.

“I describe sailing as trying to do sit-ups while going through little hills and playing chess—all with one armed tied behind your back,” says Peter, pointing to the physical and mental rigors of the sport.

At the Championship event, Milton’s Division B boat was skippered by Eli Burnes (II) and crewed by Charlie Hibben (III). The two teams earned Mallory spots after qualifying in a New England regional event.

This week, students kicked off a campus-wide Green Move Out. The goal: Develop a more concerted approach—as students leave campus for the summer—to decreasing the amount of trash and waste left behind. This means finding new homes for donate-able items, and educating students, faculty and staff about wasteful consumption.

Inevitably collecting “stuff” over the school year, students and adults “need to be thoughtful and deliberate about how to get rid of the things we no longer want or need,” says Karin Roethke-Kahn, head of Hathaway House. “The Green Move Out gives those items a new home, or helps recycle them appropriately. It also challenges people to think about their patterns of consumption.”

Donation stations—in the Schwarz Student Center and in the dorms through June 10—invite students to deposit unwanted, but reusable, items. Bins are marked for clothing, linens, school supplies, sports equipment, books, unopened food, bulbs and batteries, CDs/DVDs. Collected items will be donated to Milton’s community service partners or recycled responsibly. Students, staff and faculty are also encouraged to use recycle bins around campus for papers and plastics as they clean up their spaces for the summer.

Milton seniors Domenic Cozier and Nat Deacon each earned one of the top awards in high school football on May 15. Both were recognized as outstanding Scholar-Athletes by the Jack Grinold Eastern Massachusetts Chapter of the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame.

“Coach Mac nominating us is a huge honor,” Nat said, referring to Coach Kevin MacDonald. “The night of the awards, there was a banquet at the Boston Marriott, and we heard from people who have been involved with high school sports in Massachusetts for a long time, which was incredible.” Domenic added, “This award is such an honor, because it recognizes not only your athleticism, but also your academic abilities and who you are as a person.”

Discussing topics ranging from Revolutionary battlefields to post-World War II fashion, student winners of the Bisbee Prize gathered with history department faculty last Thursday afternoon for tea. The 12 winners, selected by their teachers for outstanding research on their U.S. History papers, gave brief introductions to their work and fielded questions from faculty and their peers.

Several prize winners were inspired in choosing their research topics by this year’s Henry R. Heyburn ’39 Speaker, Professor Bonnie Miller, who talked about how images and other popular images can shape the politics of gender and race. Brie Lawson (II) researched the role that propaganda and mass media had in leading the United States into the Spanish-American War, saying, “The American media pushed the U.S. into the war by influencing popular opinion with sensationalism and entertainment.” Students also studied how negative, stereotypical images of racial and ethnic groups played a role in systemic discrimination and oppression, as well as how propaganda stirred up mass fear of communism and nuclear war in the mid-20th century.

A “tough contest” is how English faculty member Lisa Baker describes the Bennington College Young Writers Award. But Letitia Chan’s (II) collection of poems stood out in over 2,000 entries and she was awarded the first place poetry prize, a tremendous accomplishment.

Her poems cover topics such as a distant relationship between a mother and daughter to a grandfather who favors men over women, but only has granddaughters. “Most of my writing is only partly autobiographical. Often it is a version of something or an experience I took inspiration from,” says Letitia. She gives credit to Ms. Baker’s Advanced Creative Writing class and the workshop style of the classes where students receive “amazing feedback” on their work.

Letitia’s work was also recognized in another national contest, the Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest, where she earned a runner-up award.

A young poet in terms of national student prize-winners, Andrew Chan (III) received a Silver Medal in the national Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for his poem “Falling Asleep.” “I was pleasantly surprised when I won. It was my first swing at poetry in Creative Writing class. I have to thank Ms. Baker and the class for the guidance and feedback that shaped the poem as it is.”