Cum Laude Society Induction

St. Andrew’s Cum Laude Society, established 31 years ago as the first Chapter in the state of Mississippi, celebrated the induction of 9 new junior members and 10 new senior members. Deriving its meaning from the Latin “with praise,” all our new members deserve high praise for demonstrating good character, honor, and integrity in all aspects of their school life along with outstanding academic achievement.

 

In keeping with this year’s 70th anniversary celebration, the current 9 members of the Society chose “time” as their theme, each one choosing a year with significance for them individually. Arko Dhar began with 1824, the year in which dinosaurs were first scientifically classified; Sarah Gerrets, an aspiring animator, followed with 1937, the year of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Charley Hutchison selected 1905, Einstein’s “miraculous year” of transforming the field of physics, and then because of the importance of her astronomy class, Elizabeth Angel focused on 1799, the year of the earliest recording of a North American meteor shower.

 

Dalton Dear spoke about 2016, the year he spent at the Mountain School in Vermont; Jack Smithson shared his experiences witnessing the 2012 Olympic swimming trials in Omaha, Nebraska; and Emily Kruse picked 2014, the year she moved to Mississippi. C.J. Carron encouraged the audience to not get so caught up in the future that you are missing the present: 2018,” and Jasmine Deng rejected the classification of time completely and expressed her wish that we could all “lose track of time entirely occasionally” and enjoy human existence.

 

Photos from the induction assembly are here. Congratulations to all Cum Laude members, new and old!