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In her address to her peers, Zala Smalls likened their journey through high school to an ascent she made of Capitol Peak before their freshman year.
Smalls, appropriately named the Capitol Speaker of the commencement ceremony for the Aspen High School class of 2024, noted how the start of her climb in August 2020 was “atypical,” just as the class’ start of high school that same month was, thanks to COVID-19.
“I began bushwacking my way off the trail and navigating the unfamiliar landscape of Capitol’s backside,” Smalls said. “Using the same attitude, I distinctly remember logging onto my first class in high school, sitting in the waiting room, seeing all of my classmates in their tiny little squares.”
AHS sent 135 graduates off in its 135th commencement, principal Sarah Strassburger said in her opening remarks.
Within the group, 20 students are candidates for International Baccalaureate diplomas after all juniors and seniors in the school were enrolled in IB coursework this year. Fifty-three students were members of the National Honor Society and 26 received Career Technical Education certificates, according to the commencement program. Strassburger noted that the leader this year in community service hours had 301.
In the second year of the school’s use of the Latin Laude system, 19 students graduated Cum Laude, 12 graduated Magna Cum Laude and 20 graduated Summa Cum Laude.
Speakers noted the resiliency and grit of the class on multiple occasions — something the group had to learn out of necessity. The migration from the middle school to the high school was delayed by COVID-19, setting them back from the start.
Also making the transition to the high school for the first time that year was Strassburger, along with Assistant Principal Becky Oliver.
“We have watched you grow from tiny little faces in small squares on the screen to the incredible humans we see before us,” Strassburger said in her remarks. “No longer the shy, unsure freshmen, you have all risen to challenges you never imagined and now you are ready to face all that this world has to offer you.”
Edwin Ryerson was named the district’s Pyramid Speaker, selected by his fellow graduates to speak at the commencement.
Ryerson, headed to Harvard to study computer sciences while competing in Nordic skiing, began his remarks with the slogan of telemark skiing, “free the heel and ski for real,” before waxing about the Toilet Bowl on Buttermilk, his competitions with his twin sister, Adelaide, also graduating — from being born first to walking and talking first, to developing sleep apnea.
“The nature of tele-skiing lends itself to a freer mind. As we shift from one turn to another, one knee drop to another, we pass through phases, maybe percentages but perhaps this scale is confining,” Ryerson said. “As we move through our fourth dimension of time, we can achieve any three-dimensional position: an XYZ coordinate on Earth.
“That is the beauty of skiing in nature. There is spontaneity and uncertainty, but you do have control over your actions and dictate the life you live,” he added.
The invited commencement speaker was Darcy Gaechter, AHS class of 1996 and known as the first and only woman to kayak the Amazon River from source to sea, when she started in the Peruvian Andes in 2013, embarking on a journey just shy of 148 days.
She spoke of overcoming her doubters, who told her she was too short, not strong enough or “too female” to achieve her goals.
“When I was told I was too short to play volleyball or not strong enough to be a good kayaker, I just set out to do everything in my power to do everything I knew I was capable of doing,” Gaechter said. “And in not listening to these preconceived notions about what I could or could not do, I found my own kind of triumphs.”
Saturday marked the last commencement for David Baugh in his role as ASD superintendent. Baugh is leaving at the end of June to take the executive director position at Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club — right across the street from his former office. He turns the reins over to Tharyn Mulberry.
Baugh joined the district in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, and Mulberry was promoted from AHS principal to assistant superintendent at the same time. Both learned to administer the district on Zoom, just as the students learned math and English.
“What is special about this graduating class is you’re gritty, you’re resilient,” Baugh said. “I know many of you, and you are funny and generally pretty darn kind. Those are traits that will serve you well in the future, regardless of your chosen paths. Having attended one or two of these commencements in my life, I can attest that this is a special, special class.”
The class will send its graduates off across the world, with college commitments to 59 different schools in 23 states and three countries — Italy, Scotland and Spain. Four students signed their letters of intent to compete athletically in college in May — with others sure to join them via additional commitments or walk-ons — and one, Joaquin Ladron De Guevara Vera, signed on to pursue becoming a Naval officer via an NROTC scholarship.
Five students said they are entering technical training or apprenticeship, 11 are entering the workforce and 14 are taking a gap year to travel, compete in sports or enter some form of service.