ESA's Class of 2019

ESA Commencement
May 2019
Seniors who have attended ESA every year since kindergarten or before:
 
Addison Chrysler (PK4)
Landon Chrysler (PK4)
Reuben Egan (PK4)
Ella Frantzen (K)
Anna LeGoullon (K)
Samantha Withers who is the first student to attend ESA every grade since PreK-3
 

Legacy graduates
The Class of 2019 has three legacy graduates – graduates who are the children of ESA alumni. These additions to the alumni body will bring the total number of ESA legacy graduates to 20.

Ethan Boagni, son of Kenny Boagni  ‘91
Ella Frantzen, daughter of Kohlie Frantzen ‘87
Nathan Mouton, son of Ginger Courvelle Mouton ‘95
    
Honor Roll and Headmaster’s List
To earn a place on the Year-end Honor Roll, a student must earn a final grade of at least a B in every course attempted.
Forrest Clarke 
Matthew Disher  
Taylore Louviere  
    
To be named to the Year-end Headmaster’s List, a student must earn at least an A- average (3.67) for the year and earn a final grade of at least a B in every course attempted.
Olivia Andry Angela Frey
Cassie Beyer Anna LeGoullon 
Lucas Blanchard Maggie Menard 
Cassie Bowers Nathan Mouton 
Tommy Burns Katie Osborne 
Matthew Carey Jake Sledge 
Addison Chrysler Casey Swize 
Landon Chrysler Madeline Turner 
Katie Clement Hailie Williams 
Reuben Egan Kailie Williams 
Hiba Fazal-ur-Rehman Samantha Withers 
Joshua Feist   
Ella Frantzen   
    
National Honor Society
These are ESA’s Honor Graduates who maintained a grade point average of at least 3.50 and, in the opinion of the faculty, have exhibited leadership, strength of character, and service to the community.

Lucas Blanchard
Ethan Boagni
Cassie Bowers
Matthew Carey
Katie Clement
Hiba Fazal-ur-Rehman
Joshua Feist
Ella Frantzen
Anna LeGoullon
Taylore Louviere
Katie Osborne
Jake Sledge
Casey Swize
Samantha Withers
 
Cum Laude Society
This fall, ESA received the honor of being granted a Cum Laude Society chapter. Founded in 1906 to recognize exceptional scholastic achievement in secondary schools, it is modeled after the Phi Beta Kappa Society that recognizes academic excellence at the college level. A student must have above a 4.00 GPA to be considered for induction and membership cannot exceed 20% of a graduating class. ESA’s inaugural Cum Laude members are:
 
Lucas Blanchard
Joshua Feist
Anna LeGoullon
Jake Sledge
Samantha Withers

National Merit
The National Merit® Scholarship Program is an academic competition for recognition and scholarships that began in 1955. Each September, about 50,000 seniors who earned the highest scores on the PSAT country are notified of their advancement in the program.  About 34,000 of these students receive Letters of Commendation in recognition of their outstanding academic promise.

 ESA had two National Merit Commended students in the Class of 2019:
 
Anna LeGoullon            Jake Sledge

The additional 16,000 high scorers are named National Merit Semi-finalists. Of this group some 15,000 are named finalists. ESA had a National Merit Finalist in the Class of 2019.

Joshua Feist
 
Each fall The College Board recognizes about 7,000 senior Hispanic and Latino scholars for their exceptional achievement on the PSAT as juniors through the National Hispanic Recognition Program. ESA had a senior recognized for this achievement this year.

Jake Sledge

Senior Year Academic Awards

Senior Scholar Athlete Award…………………………………………. Matthew Carey & Anna LeGoullon
AP English Literature Award…………………………….……………… Jake Sledge
AP Calculus BC Award……………………………………………….……. Jake Sledge
AP Statistics Award…………………………………………………….….. Lucas Blanchard
Physics Award …………………………………………………….…………. Ethan Boagni
Environmental Science Award………………………………….……. Nathan Mouton
AP Chemistry Award …………………………………………………….. Joshua Feist & Jake Sledge
Civics Award …………………………………………………………………. Maggie Menard
AP U.S. Government & Politics Award ………………………….. Samantha Withers
AP French Language Award ………………………………………….. Joshua Feist
    
Senior Art Exhibition Award
Katie Osborne

Performing Arts Awards
Madeline Turner and Adam Musemeche

Literature, Social Studies, Performing Arts, Science, and the Math Awards
Jake Sledge

Math and Science Awards
Joshua Feist

Cecile Garboushian World Languages Award
     Joshua Feist

 Daughter of the American Revolution Good Citizen Award
Samantha Withers

Shriner’s Patriotism Awards
Matthew Huval and Hiba Fazal-ur-Rehman
 
Sydney Hebert Award
Female (Male Athlete of the Year was awarded to junior Oliver Nickel at Upper School Awards)

Kailie Williams and Samantha Withers

Bishop & Mrs. Henton Award
This award is named in honor of The Right Reverend Willis R. Henton, first Bishop of the Diocese of Western Louisiana, Chaplain Emeritus of Episcopal School of Acadiana, and his wife, Martha - friendly souls who made it their lives’ vocation to love their fellow man. The Bishop and Mrs. Henton Award is presented at graduation to a member of the senior class who exemplifies the fundamental virtues of care, love, and service to the ESA family and the greater community as did the Bishop and Mrs. Henton.

Anna LeGoullon

Tom Olverson Award
The Tom Olverson Award is awarded at commencement to a member of the graduating class by a vote of the faculty. Named for Thomas P. Olverson, the first Assistant Headmaster of ESA, the award is given to a student who has a strong commitment to academics. This specifically does not mean a student who excels in achievement by being on the Honor Roll or Headmaster’s List consistently. Rather, the award recognizes a student who works hard at taking advantage of the opportunity available at ESA and makes an awardable effort. The award recognizes a senior who exemplifies the same passion for learning, love of the institution, and genuine desire to maximize the opportunities offered at ESA as Mr. Olverson did while serving here.

Landon Chrysler

Bishop’s Medal
At commencement each year, Episcopal School of Acadiana recognizes the graduating senior with the highest cumulative GPA with the Bishop’s Medal.

Jake Sledge

Headmaster’s Award
The Headmaster’s Award is given to a student who has made an outstanding contribution to the school; who takes responsibility for the community or some aspect of community life; and who voluntarily, with care and concern, gives consistently, effectively and positively to help build the community.  The closest synonym is probably leadership. The award also includes the criterion of strong academic leadership.
This year marks the 5th time in the past 37 years that we will honor two outstanding students as Headmaster’s Award winners.

Jake Sledge and Samantha Withers

Trustees’ Award
The ESA Trustee award is not given every year. When given, it is to honor a person or a group of people who have gone above and beyond in their service to ESA. This year, as we begin the celebration of ESA’s 40th birthday, the current Board of Trustees chose to honor the Founders of ESA, that group of visionaries who were instrumental in starting this school and charting the path forward to today.
 
Headmaster Remarks
We’ve heard a couple of intertwined themes here today from the founding of this school to stories honoring you amazing “almost graduates.” I want to take a brief couple of minutes to highlight some of those themes and wrap them up with some work that we, as a faculty, did earlier this year. And I’ll use Jake’s favorite book as my vehicle. The question that was asked 40 something years ago went something like this. What if we built a nationally recognized college preparatory school in Cade, Louisiana, a state that ranks near the bottom in practically every measure of educational excellence? What if we were committed to making that education available to students based on their talent and not their family’s income level? What if we put our money into people instead of beautiful buildings? What could we achieve? On some really important levels, those questions were absurd. They bordered on impossible. But, the world is changed not by people following a well-worn pathway. The world is changed by people following a compelling vision. And that vision of the very best education for our children right here in Acadiana is so powerful that it suddenly and seemingly effortlessly appeared (although, we who work here, know a good bit about the effort required). We were able to attract a phenomenally talented faculty who brought their passion for teaching to eager and curious students. When you do that, magic happens. As I’m fond of saying, when you put students into a culture of achievement and high ideals, the most natural thing is for them become high achieving, ethical giants. Seniors, you join over 1400 ESA graduates who are creating ripples in this world, some giant, some smaller, but all ripples that will affect the lives of others. It’s kind of a big responsibility, and we are really excited and proud to send you out there to join our alumni. As I mentioned earlier, we worked this year to refine our portrait of an ESA graduate. I offer you some of the words that we, your faculty, believe about you and all of our ESA grads.

ESA graduates students who:
 
Believe they can learn anything, and have the sense of wonder and resourcefulness to make it happen.
 
ESA graduates students who:
 
Believe they can change the world, and work hard to turn knowledge into action in their communities and beyond.
 
ESA graduates students who:
 
Believe in individuality, as well as in the power of communities built on respect, empathy and trust.
 
ESA graduates students who:
 
Believe in creativity and in taking risks, and have the resilience to learn from their mistakes.
 
I hope you see yourself reflected in those statements. It is what we believe about you. It is what we hope for you. I will end today with a quote from Randall Munroe, from the book, What If? I think it sums up a lot of what we hope for and believe about you as well. He writes this after talking about a version of the Icarus story. He was answering a question about flying a small plane on other planets in our solar system. You may remember the story of Icarus, the son of the famous craftsman, Daedalus, in Greek mythology. They were imprisoned and escaped by flying out using wings that were glued together with wax. Icarus flew too high, against the warning of his father, the wax melted, and he plunged to his death. Randall Munroe writes: “I’ve never seen the Icarus story as a lesson about the limitations of humans. I see it as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an adhesive.” That’s great—that sounds like Tony Stark to me. So, “almost graduates,” your world has no limitations if you use the right glue. Find your compelling vision. Build your wings. And please fix this crazy world we live in! Congratulations.
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Episcopal School of Acadiana

Episcopal School of Acadiana is a private coeducational day school for students in grades PK3 through 12. Our mission is to instill in every student the habits of scholarship and honor.

Episcopal School of Acadiana (Lafayette Campus)

Episcopal School of Acadiana (Cade Campus)

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