Homecoming, Reunions and FWCD students of 2024-25

If you’re not my mother, you’re likely reading this as a parent of a current Falcon. As parents, you need to know about our Alumni Homecoming events and reunions last week. Considering those Fort Worth Country Day experiences in 2024, I think you have a lot to be proud of and grateful for. Your students had the chance to gather with the other 1,110 students to share real pride in their school last week, and their predecessors, alumni celebrating decade landmarks from the Class of 1974 to the Class of 2014, showed up in great numbers to say that spirit stays around for years and years to come. 

At school, Homecoming 2024 was highlighted by a remarkable pep rally. Under the direction of Fourth Grade Teacher, Cheerleading Varsity Coach and member of the FWCD Class of 2006 Courtney Corbeille Krauss, the pep rally brought everybody except junior kindergarten into the Sid W. Richardson Round Gym on Friday afternoon. Courtney played executive producer extraordinaire. In addition to preparing the cheer team to give a fabulous performance for a 1,400-person audience, she created a flash mob out of some 40 FWCD faculty and staff. The young men of the Class of 2025 highlighted the gathering with their very spirited and quite smartly choreographed routine (thanks, ’24 cheer team members, for finding a way to unveil the some hidden talents). In addition to the flash mob, Ms. Kraus also introduced alumni cheerleaders in the crowd. 

All told, the energy created by a great cheer routine, the efforts of 40 or more of the students’ favorite K-12 teachers, and staff “spontaneously” dancing (together), the senior boys’ great spirit, along with the great ambiance-setting piece in the Round Gym – our new, huge and really remarkable Falcon blow up tunnel – generated an unusually enthusiastic spirit and gave everyone in that gym a palpable sense of community. All-School gatherings are always a reminder of the Falcons outside of our own corner of the campus, but the 2024 Homecoming Pep Rally was noteworthy for the joy and enthusiasm we had the chance to share all together.

Upper School students donned mums and pajama pants as their dress code and experienced a winning night under the lights on the Howard Family Field in Rosacker Stadium throughout the Friday festivities,while Saturday brought alumni to campus for an art class (and a visit from former faculty member Evelyn Siegel H’99) and Breakthrough Career Huddles with Joe Breedlove ’78, and a night of reunion-celebrating classes across the city. I had the chance to be with the School’s eighth 50th reunion group, the Class of 1974, in addition to joining the Classes of ’79, ’84, ’94, ’04 and ’2014 at their respective gatherings. What an inspiration to be among people celebrating the friendships they made and sharing the stories they had with those friends while recalling the amazing teachers and coaches who inspired them while they were FWCD students. At those gatherings, I regularly ask which alum traveled the furthest. There was a clear winner among all of the classes: the Class of 1984’s one-year exchange student, Samantha Over, came back from Australia for the occasion. Samantha’s presence made a point: FWCD reunions are as full of alumni who came just for high school as they are of our “Originals.”  It does not take 13 years for our graduates to appreciate the lifelong impact Fort Worth Country Day can have.