A picture-perfect day greeted the members of Foxcroft School's Class of 2010 in Miss Charlotte's Garden Friday morning (May 21) when Head of School Mary Louise Leipheimer presented 51 girls their diplomas at the School's 96th commencement.

The Class, which includes young women from 12 states and six foreign countries, includes four National Merit Scholarship Program Commended Students and a University of Virginia Echols Scholar. Members of the Class have been offered an impressive 191 acceptances and more than $1.25 million in merit scholarship from 129 colleges and universities, including Barnard, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Kenyon, Lehigh, Parsons School of Design, Southern Cal, University of Texas (Austin), Vanderbilt, Virginia, William & Mary, and the University of Wisconsin.

Ambassador David M. Abshire, the President of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress and of the Richard Lounsbery Foundation and Vice Chair of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was the featured speaker, selected by the graduating class, which includes his granddaughter Mary Lee Bowman of Warrenton, VA. Dr. Abshire, who served as Ambassador to NATO, a member of President Ronald Reagan's Cabinet, and Assistant Secretary of State, explored the nature of female leadership, especially those "characteristics that men may be lacking," and urged the graduates to accept the challenge of leadership and aspire to great heights. "You have to find out what you do best and follow your dreams in your own way," he said, adding, "You need to be the new Greatest Generation because the world needs you to lead. . . There might be, sitting in one of these chairs, a future President of the United States. Why not?"

Senior Class Speaker Hunter Wilhoit of Mount Pleasant, SC, reminisced about the Class's four-year journey through high school and the connection its members will always share. "We did it together and together we will remain," she concluded.

The Rev. Katherine S. Bryant of St. James' Episcopal Church in Leesburg, VA, gave the invocation and prestigious prizes were awarded.

Terry Lynne Garvey of Bloomsbury, NJ, who had received the top athletic award the day before at the Annual Awards Assembly, received the most coveted honor, the Charlotte Haxall Noland Award for best combining the qualities that Miss Charlotte (Foxcroft's founder) valued: high purpose, leadership, integrity, accomplishment, and understanding. Martina Caputy (Louisa, VA) and Alexandra Garner (Marshall, VA) shared the Head's Prize, which recognizes "special kinds of moral courage, often private, seldom notices and therefore, the more deeply cherished."

Senior Class President Grace Murphy (Middleburg) was class Valedictorian and winner of the Pillsbury Prize, for scholarship, and the Dudley Award as the senior who, in the opinion of the faculty, has been most willing and cooperative in her unselfish efforts for the good of the School. Murphy, who will be an Echols Scholar at the University of Virginia in the fall, also is one of four National Merit Commended Scholars in the Class; the others are Lindsay Allardyce (Arlington, VA), Katherine Fox (Mercer Island, WA) and Robyn Low (Philadelphia) who was the Class Salutatorian.

Allardyce, Fox, and Low also were among the 10 students inducted into the Cum Laude Society by chapter President and Mathematics Department Chair Susan Erba. Also inducted were Jayne Gunter (Lucedale, MS), Su Bin Lee (South Korea), Meghan Thomas (Carlisle, PA), Lindsey Yales (Charlotte, NC), Wilhoit and members of the Class of 2011 Margaret Brown (Boyce, VA) and Jae Yeon Ham (South Korea). Murphy and Rachel Giampa (Warrenton, VA) became members of the academic honor society, as juniors.

Gunter also received the Ida Applegate Award, for courtesy, from Foxcroft Board Chair Stewart D. Thayer, while Meredith Harris (Middleburg, VA) took home the Josie Betner Mallace Prize, for courage and humor. Junior Sou Hyun (Joanna) Park (South Korea), sophomore Samantha Nelson (Oak Hill, VA) and freshman Emma All (Middleburg, VA) received the top prizes for their respective classes.