No more kids in this house!

Well that's a wrap on our 14 years having a student in Loudoun County Public Schools!

It's been a super busy time as the school year wound down. And we had lots of reasons to celebrate Amy – enough that I need to make a bulleted list!

• Commended student at the Blue Ridge Cappies Awards
• Freedom Theatre Student of the Year (teacher choice)
• Freedom Theatre Most Valuable Thespian (student choice)
• Freedom Theatre Best Head Tech Mentor (student choice)
• Freedom Theatre Boosters scholarship winner ($1,000)
• Freedom High School Parent Teacher Student Association scholarship winner ($500)
• International Honor Thespian
  

When you tell your friends a certain word (slay) annoys you,
it becomes a nickname. 

I'll start with the last one, since it is the one she's most proud of. She was the first person in Freedom High School's history to earn the distinction of International Honor Thespian, which required putting in more than 1,800 hours in the theatre program. It is quite an accomplishment! One other student this year earned National Honor Thespian (1,200 hours) so the two of them got to wear the white ITS stole at graduation; Amy's was accented with a pin for her achievement. (And don't get us started on the fact that it looked like she might not be allowed to wear the stole at graduation!) Amy's wonderful Theatre teacher, Mrs. Wickham (formerly Novi) tried to get Amy's achievement recognized during the graduation ceremony, but had no luck with that. She will, however, have her photo in the Fine Arts Wall of Fame, so we will have to check that out next year. Because this was such an incredible achievement, Mrs. Wickham coordinated a surprise get-together on Amy's last day of school, where she gave a little speech and they showed a short, fun video about Amy. She was a little overwhelmed with the attention, but I think she enjoyed it. 

School scholarship night

Working backwards through the list, next up is the PTSA scholarship. Any student who was a member of the PTSA could apply, which included detailing your activities during high school as well as a short essay about what you'd tell Freedom students if you had the chance. Amy wrote about being more understanding of people with disabilities, which is an important topic to her as her friend Tree faced relentless bullying for their use of crutches. She wants people to know that sometimes people with disabilities have good days and bad days, and we should all be understanding and accepting. There were several winners for this scholarship, most of whom wrote about sunny, happy "be your best self" sorts of things...I think Amy was the only one who was basically telling people "bet better". I love that she wrote about that and was chosen for a scholarship! And the $500 is nice too. This scholarship was presented at the school-wide scholarship night, which was so interesting to attend – so many incredible students being rewarded!

Next is the Theatre Boosters scholarship. For this one, she was a shoo-in, since it is mainly based on the number of hours you put into theatre and no one has put in more hours than Amy. 

ITS banquet awards with Mrs. Wickham

Amy was presented with the Boosters scholarship at the annual ITS banquet, which is a lovely dinner and awards ceremony. They do paper plate awards (Amy's was a Super Glue award for keeping things together) and then the "real" awards, which are voted on by the students, during a ceremony. She was surprised to win Best Head Tech Mentor, but probably not as much surprised to win Most Valuable Thespian. Many times Mrs. Wickham has referenced Amy being half her brain, so it was great to see this acknowledgement by her peers. 

The Freedom Theatre Student of the Year was announced during a school-wide assembly. Interestingly she didn't even get a certificate for that one!

This year the school moved out of the National Capital Area Cappies (a huge group, covering schools in Virginia, Maryland and DC) and into a new Blue Ridge Cappies group, which is just Loudoun schools. Amy had really hoped to be nominated for a Cappie for her work marketing the show Matilda, so it was a disappointment not to be acknowledged in that way. But Mrs. Wickham was asked to choose students who weren't up for awards but whom she thought should be recognized, and Amy was one of the two students she picked. So that meant she was mentioned as a comendee, and she also got to present one of the awards. The event was held at the Hylton Center for Performing Arts, which is a beautiful venue in Manassas. She did a great job presenting. They didn't win all of the awards they were nominated for, but they did come away with some great wins for individual performances. I got to chaperone that day-long field trip, and I was so glad to be there. 

Most of her graduation attendees

We got so lucky with Reed's graduation. Because of covid it needed to be outdoors, so they held it at the school football stadium, and the weather was absolutely perfect. Unfortunately now they've gone back to holding the ceremony at the EagleBank Arena on the campus of George Mason University. It's understandable that the school prefers this (all the administrators have to do is show up and participate, they don't have to rent a stage, sound system, chairs, etc....plus the main benefit that they don't have to be concerned about the weather) but it is just so impersonal. One school has their graduation, then another school files in, then another. Very hard to make it feel special. But Amy had a good crowd on hand. We were so grateful that Martha, Kenny and Poppy came out to celebrate Amy. At graduation we also had the Kippers, Aly, Jennifer and Kyla, plus the Conners and Wenzells watching online. 

Amy finished 187 out of her class of 497 students, with a 4.14 GPA. Very impressive!

With friends Kayla Zee,
Bella and Tree

Our house renovations still aren't complete but they were done enough that we were able to host a lovely graduation party for Amy the next day. Lots of friends, family and good food. 

Now summer is underway and soon we will be visiting Shenandoah for her orientation, and starting to gather all the things she'll need for college. It's hard to believe this chapter of our lives has come to an end, but it's so exciting to think of the opportunities ahead for her, and the new world it will open up for Tod and me as empty nesters. 

We have a couple of pretty terrific (grown up) kids.