Taking Note

by Colin Campbell ’20

The notes app on my phone is, well, lets just call it interesting. Various passwords intermixed with random NFL mock draft article links. The item by item checklist for the day of a lacrosse game (I seemingly always forget my mouthguard). An unfinished poem gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Anyways, I'm not entirely proud of this scattered and haphazard collection of thoughts. But, as my senior year has gone by at a pace quicker than my rapid demise as a self-proclaimed poet, one in particular has become increasingly important: "Graduation Speech," created April 17, 2019, the day I was fortunate enough to become senior class president.

The goal was to add on to the note any time an idea, phrase, or memory popped into my head that could eventually be useful when it was actually time to draft my speech for the Class of 2020's Commencement, a task I firmly believe is the greatest honor of my career as a Marksmen: to speak to the incredible nature of our class on the final time we gathered as students. A night I imagine as the perfect May evening with an appropriate, not-too-hot temperature and even a timely sunset.

As that phantom evening approaches, some of my 2020 brothers are questioning the likelihood that a traditionally formatted Commencement occurs given the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic. And they very well could be right to do so. And I could very well be correct in beginning to wonder about the chances that hundreds of family and friends actually hear my nervous words, as I have so often dreamed they would.

But, to be frank, I'm not worried.

The last thing I want to do is let hypotheticals create stress and anxiety when I need it least. I'm slightly beyond 35/36 the way through my time at 10600 Preston Rd, approximately 97.2222 percent, if you're wondering. And given the diminishing portion left ahead of me, it seems as pertinent as ever to take things a day at a time and maximize the now, even if from my at-home desk instead of a bean bag in the senior lounge.

Coming from a place of complete respect for the magnitude of the current situation, I urge all my fellow Marksmen to do the same, to take things a day at a time. Nobody definitively knows where this is headed or how long it is going to last, but what I do know is that the school is going to properly assess every new development day by day, week by week, and we should to the same. Worry about today and leave the month-out projections and hypotheticals to the "expert" NFL draft writers whose articles populate my incoherent -- and slightly embarrassing -- notes app.

St. Mark’s School of Texas

10600 Preston Road
Dallas, Texas 75230
214-346-8000

About Us

St. Mark’s School of Texas is a private, nonsectarian college-preparatory boys’ day school for students in grades 1 through 12, located in Dallas, Texas. St. Mark’s aims to prepare young men to assume leadership and responsibility in a competitive and changing world.

St. Mark’s does not discriminate in the administration of its admission and education policies on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, or national or ethnic origin.