Brookwood students garner life-changing experiences

Thomasville Times-Enterprise, Staff Report
The school year may be well on its way but several Brookwood students had transformative experiences this summer that they’ll now carry with them into college and beyond.Nicholas Lauderdale ‘19, who traveled to Mexico on a mission trip with the First Presbyterian Church, spent much of his time with local children attending vacation bible school there. Many of the kids walked from their homes — some up to a mile away — to attend.Lauderdale said he’d always remember seeing how content the children were, despite the fact that they had limited resources. “It didn’t matter what was happening or what they had with them — they were always smiling, and that left more of an impact on me than I could everleave on them.” Ella Grace Squires ‘22, w ho has been playing basketball since her sixth grade year, was invited by an assistant coach from Wofford College to attend a girls’ basketball camp there for three days in late June.
“It was a great chance to improve in basketball and to see what it takes to play at the collegiate level,” she said.On a daily basis, Squires said the girls worked with Wofford’s coaches as they ran basketball drills. The college basketball team also joined the girls for several question-and-answer sessions, which she said stood out as most important.
“I got to hear the perspectives of the current players who are living out what I’d like to do someday,” she said. “It was great to hear the highs and lows of being a collegiate athlete.”
It helped, Squires said, to better understand what it takes to play at the division- one level.
“I also saw what I personally needed to improve in my game and got better at basketball. It was great to be surrounded by a bunch of girls who have the same dream as me and that I could possibly be playing with one day” The camp took place in Wofford’s new Jerry Richardson Stadium, “one of the nicest gyms I’ve ever been in,” she said.
When the annual trip to the Philmont Scout ranch in New Mexico was canceled due to wildfires, Will Porter ‘22 joined his fellow Boy Scouts on a hiking trip to the Rocky Mountain National Park. “Our trip was designed to get us to the Rocky Mountains, but we were able to do so much more,” Porter said. “We visited Mount Rushmore and Devil’s Tower in South Dakota.”
The group also went mountain biking in Bentonville, Arkansas, he said.
Porter said two highlights of his trip were his four-day backpacking hike in the Rocky Mountains and the opportunity to summit the Continental Divide.
Brianna Beach ‘19 attended the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program(GHP) in Visual Arts at Berry College over the summer. GHP is a monthlong residential summer program for gifted and talented high school students — all rising juniors and seniors during the program.
The program offers instruction that is significantly different from the typical high school classroom and that is designed to provide students with academic, cultural, and social enrichment necessary to become the next generation of global critical thinkers, innovators and leaders.
Beach studied under the tutelage of college professors, attending courses in the mornings, followed by a wide variety of social and instructional opportunities each evening. The daily schedule at Governor’s Honors Program was rigid, Beach said. “We had to be out of our dorms by 8:15 and at our majors classes by 8:30. My major was art, so my day from 8:30 to 1 consisted of alternating classes of drawing, sculpture, and painting, as well as some research at the Berry College library” Attendees also had the chance to select a minor focus of studies — for Beach, it was communicative arts — whose classes she attended after lunch.
“The experiences that I always go back to when I reflect on GHP are all of the unbelievable student performances,” Beach said. “There is something poignant and inspiring about watching people your age and younger than you perform their crafts at the highest levels and succeed in the things that they are passionate about.” Beach said she wanted to emphasize the opportunity to others, who may not feel they have time to concentrate on their special areas of interest. “During the school year we often feel bombarded with and exhausted from classes and extracurriculars, which can lead us to feel unable to pursue these passions to the fullest extent,” she said. “GHP creates a bubble where your sole purpose is to explore what you are capable of around other students who are doing exactly the same thing.”
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Located in Thomasville, GA, Brookwood School is a private school for grades JK-12. Students benefit from a challenging academic program, fine and performing arts, competitive athletics, and a wide selection of extracurricular activities.