In one week we will welcome our returning and new students to Mead Hall. I hope that
everyone has had a summer full of blessings, rest, and refreshment! Our faculty return on
Monday for our in-service and preparations for the academic year. I am thankful for our
teachers and their dedication to creating classrooms that are centers of excellence in learning
and expressions of God’s love.
There are many dates, times, and details to digest as we begin the school year. The division
heads, Mrs. Morton, Head of Lower School (PS-4), and Dr. Buck, Head of Middle and Upper
School (5-12), will communicate all the details of the beginning of the school year, including the
Opening Day ceremonies that celebrate the beginning of school. Please reach out to the school if
you have any questions. I am grateful for Mrs. Morton’s leadership, as she enters her third year
as lower school head, and for the beginning of Dr. Buck’s leadership as the middle and upper
school head this year.
We have some events coming up that I would like to highlight. First, St. Thaddeus Church is
having a First Friday event with the Blessing of the Backpacks on Saturday – information is
below and RSVPs are required by 2pm on Friday. On August 24 th , the Panther Club will host the
community on the Aiken Prep Campus for a rededication, reception and the annual Panther
Club meeting. We will celebrate the renovation of the floor and walls of the Aiken Prep
Gymnasium, provided by the Panther Club through their golf tournaments, and the renovation
of the tennis court, through a gift from the Kevin and Brittany Kisner Foundation. On August
30th , we will host our Lower School Open House on the St. Thaddeus Campus and our annual
PTO meeting in the church.
As a parish day school, our students attend chapel services each week. PS-K worship each
Tuesday in the St. Thaddeus Chapel, and 1st -4th and 5th -12th worship each Wednesday in St.
Thaddeus Church. Chapel is the center of our worship and community life as Mead Hall.
Chapel always includes the words of scripture and a message that speaks to our threefold pursuit
of academic excellence, moral integrity and spiritual growth. I have spent most of my ministry
in schools with a Christian identity and I believe that we provide an education that feeds both
the mind and soul, and prepares students for successful and meaningful lives inspired by faith
and love. Our parish, St. Thaddeus, has entered an interim period as the church searches for a
new rector to pastor the congregation. During this interim, we have welcomed the Reverend
Canon Douglas Renegar as the Priest-in-Charge of St. Thaddeus, and you can read his
introduction below. During the interim period, the Senior Warden serves in place of the Rector
as the President of the school, so we welcome Mrs. Jennifer Huff into this role.
As we return to school, I am mindful of the passage from Ecclesiastes 3, and the Byrds’ version is
humming in my head, that “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under
heaven.” We have been through 2 ¼ school years in the pandemic and while Covid continues to
linger and the world is pressed with many issues, Mead Hall is moving into a post-pandemic
season. This is a fresh season of hope, of rebuilding our community life and restoring the
emotional and social lives of our students, of reawakening beloved traditions of civility and our
school life, all while taking the best of what we have learned and making things new in ways that
will bless our students and our school. It is my prayer that we all are energized by the breath,
wisdom, and joy of the Holy Spirit, and move forward into this year full of faith, hope and love!
Yours faithfully in Christ,
Frank Sawyer
