The weather was simply perfect, and the atmosphere was festive at “my” picnic last Friday.  The picnic is one of my favorites among all the various community-building events we put on each year at CWA.  For returning families, it’s an opportunity to reconnect with families they haven’t seen much since the previous school year.  For families new to the school, it’s a wonderful opportunity to meet the families of some of the students their new-to-Charles-Wright child is talking about.

The Headmaster’s picnic has grown tremendously in the dozen years I have been at Charles Wright.  In my early days, it was primarily an opportunity to watch an athletic event in the afternoon, grab dinner in the Dome, and then stay for a football game in the evening.  Lower School families rarely came, and even Middle School families found that it felt more oriented toward the Upper School.

The big change in the nature of the event came when the Middle School had the brainstorm of putting on a carnival for Lower School students.  That changed the picnic from one primarily geared toward older students to a true gathering of the entire CWA clan.  Over the years we’ve added a number of additional sporting contests to the mix, so that in any given moment between about 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., there is a great deal happening on nearly every part of campus.  A true community dinner follows, and the event is capped off with a perennially well-attended football game.

Adding to the excitement this year was the opportunity to be KIRO-TV’s “Game of the Week.”  Each week the KIRO staff picks seven games as candidates for the GoTW, and the game chosen to be filmed and highlighted is determined by the number of votes cast on the KIRO website.  Thanks to the enthusiasm and ingenuity of CWA students, we won the most votes and a KIRO news van was here filming the game.  You can watch the highlights through September 19 at http://www.kirotv.com/hsfootball/index.html

After the game, the KIRO team expressed both surprise and gratitude at the atmosphere of the whole event,  particularly at the game.  They were invited for dinner, talked to repeatedly by members of our community, and made to feel at home.  The positive behavior of the fans they noted with pleasant surprise, with a comment to the effect that “we don’t always find things this way.”  The tone suggested that this may have been an understatement.

We have a truly wonderful community of adults and children that enthusiastically support and thoroughly enjoy the company of each other.  I am pleased and proud to be a part of this place that makes such a difference in the lives of so many.