News & Events

Milla Avery '26 and David Martin '26 won the Bible Awards as valedictorians this school year. During Graduation on May 18, they gave their addresses to the family and friends at Wynne-Darden Stadium.

Milla Avery '26 will attend Stanford University. In addition to the Bible Award, she won the High Honors Award; Mary McCulloch Moore Mathematics Memorial Award; and Ann Carroll Breeden Fellowship Award.

Here is Milla's speech: 

Thank you, Mr. Larrabee. Thank you, also, Mrs. Goodson and the Board of Trustees for everything you have done for us and for the school. I am incredibly honored to be speaking here today, but, as requested by many of my peers, I need to keep my remarks short. So, in that vein, I’m going to jump right into it. 

While answering questions for my senior profile, I was asked “What is one thing you'd like other people to know about the Norfolk Academy experience?” and I had absolutely no idea how to answer it. I couldn’t figure out how to put into words what is “the Norfolk Academy experience” or what it means, as many teachers and coaches like to put it, to be a Bulldog. But, after reflecting on my years here, I recognized that I could not simply define it as if it were a static term. Instead, I realized that what it means “to be a Bulldog” is dynamic.

Being a student at Norfolk Academy has meant many different things to me in my 12 years as one. In Lower School, it meant knowing my friends would be there when I walked into school on the first day and seeing friendly faces every day as I signed into aftercare; it meant seeing old teachers and running to give them hugs in the hallways. Teachers, friends, and experiences there laid the foundations for the person I have become. In Middle School, it meant finding out how I fit into the school’s culture and struggling with being back in a classroom after Covid; it also meant discovering greater autonomy and a new version of myself. In Royster, I began to love learning. Through diving into my French and Latin classes and stumbling through sciences, I developed a true appreciation for how little I knew and an excitement for how much I had left to learn. But, in the Upper School, the “Norfolk Academy experience” became so much more. As I look back on my past three years in Tunstall, I can’t help but realize how profoundly they have touched my life. Being a student at NA now means constantly walking into the math, the history, and the science offices, sometimes in search of advice and sometimes just to hang out. It means looking forward to my hardest classes and even to the beep test I have to run later at practice. It means sitting with my advisee and discussing anything and everything, with conversations ranging from politics and morality to Dr. Rezelman’s theory on cheese. It means hanging out with my friends in the locker area before school and making new ones at practice afterwards. 

But more than anything, to me, being a Bulldog means being sad to say goodbye, not just to my friends, but to my teachers, to my coaches, and to the people who I got to know because of random advisory assignments and those I met on long bus rides to and from Richmond. The people I met in lab groups, through studying together for difficult tests or struggling together through a hard class. The people I met lining up alphabetically in Lower School and playing soccer games during aftercare, and the underclassmen I never would have met without sports. 

Thus, from my reflection, I reached two major conclusions. One: that “The Norfolk Academy Experience” means something different to everyone and that this meaning is bound to change, whether someone goes to NA for one year or if they go for 12. And two, that it is shaped by the people surrounding us. The people we sit with in class, the ones we pass in the hallways, and the people to whom we return home. At NA, the old adage is true, the people really do make the place.

So, to conclude this speech, I want to say thank you. Thank you to the teachers sitting in front of me who taught all of us so much more than just a curriculum. Thank you to the parents, friends, and family that helped each and every one of us through the long nights and the bad days and who smiled and rejoiced with us for the big wins and the great performances. But most of all, I want to thank my classmates sitting with me. Thank you for letting me represent you all today. I know, for a fact, that my Norfolk Academy experience does not speak for all of you; instead, it is one of one hundred and nine. So, thank you for letting me share mine. But, more importantly, thank you for how you all have shaped it. As I look back at Lower School, I see my sixth grade class celebrating Ottentober and singing the Ottengeria national anthem, while battling against 6A to win Gimkit. I remember putting on a play in aftercare and bragging about it to my class the next day. From Middle School, I see everyone in my Life Science class trying not to gag as we attempt our first dissections. I remember massive battles to win Latin Kahoots and French Blookets. As I look back at Upper School, I see my teammates and I celebrating together after a hard-fought TCIS win or lining up to cheer on a close 4x4. I hear my organic chemistry class laughing as the majority of us fail a lab that took days and that apparently produced no chemical change. These moments, the big and the small, that I have shared with you have not only defined my time at NA. They define the person I have become. So the importance of this thanks cannot be overstated. Thank you for shaping me into the person I am. However, along with my thanks, I want to challenge you. Reflect on your time here at NA and look for these moments. Look for the big, exciting ones and the small, seemingly forgettable ones, because these, and the people who stood next to you in those moments, have laid the foundations for who we are. 

Each of us will leave here today as a member of Norfolk Academy’s Class of 2026, never to return again as students, but our experiences here will remain with us, for many years to come. So, as you drive home today, ending this chapter of your life, look back at what your time at NA has meant. Because each of us, no matter where life takes us, is and always will be a Bulldog.

David Martin '26 will attend the United States Naval Academy. In addition to the Bible Award, he won the John H. Ingram Memorial Award; Robert W. Tunstall Memorial Award; and Robert Gatewood Fellowship Award.

Here is David's speech:

Thank you and congratulations to the Class of 2026. Ours is no small feat, and every one of you should be proud of your accomplishment and thrilled for what comes next. I know I certainly am. Today should be a day for celebrating our successes and giving thanks to those who have given so much for us. So I will take a moment to give my heartfelt thanks to some of the people who have been so instrumental in getting us here today. First and foremost our parents, whom we could never praise enough, who gave us their time, their care, their effort and expected nothing in return. Our teachers and coaches, more devoted to our development than we are ourselves, inspiring us second-semester seniors to put in just enough effort to finish the year strong. Let us not forget those working behind the scenes to make this special place possible. The administrators, the grounds staff, the bus drivers and refectory workers, all of whom work together to iron out the wrinkles, bearing unseen burdens so that we do not have to. All of these people deserve our highest praises and more, and not thanking them today would be doing an injustice to the hard work that they continue to do for us every day. A final thank you, not from us as a class, but from me as an individual, is owed to these fine men and women I see sitting around me today. The impact you my classmates have had on me is beyond words, and having the chance to learn and grow alongside such a talented group of people has been one of the greatest blessings of my life, so thank all of you for shaping me into the person you see now.

I wanted also to take a moment to reflect on what makes Norfolk Academy such a special place. Having been here for 12 years, I certainly feel that it is special, and I am sure that many of you share that same feeling. Norfolk Academy is so much more than just a school. Yes, it did teach us, and it did a fine job at that, but that’s not what sets it apart, and our education is not what sets us apart. The intangible pieces of our time here are what make us so unique. The bonds I formed during Leadership Lab continue to this day. The memories I made on my Maymester trips will be with me forever. But more importantly the changes I underwent, the lessons I learned, the things I discovered about myself, showed the fantastic impact that this place can have and the truly astounding wisdom that has been at our fingertips all this time. Norfolk Academy has taught us how to think, how to act not for the betterment of ourselves, but for the betterment of others, how to take part in improving ourselves, our communities, and eventually our society. We have all of the skills we need to do something truly fantastic; it is up to each and every one of us to use what we’ve learned and to do what it takes to make a profound difference.

But another lesson that this place has taught us is to always be resilient. You would not be Norfolk Academy graduates if you never experienced failure, but you would also not be Norfolk Academy graduates if you never got back up. Everyone here has had their share of setbacks, and yet everyone here made it to the finish line. Throughout the coming chapter in our lives, we are bound to encounter harder obstacles than ever before, and to stumble as we continue striving towards our goals. The easy thing to do would be to accept defeat, to encounter failure and decide that this path is too challenging, or that it is not the right one for you. But as we encounter adversity, I would remind you that Norfolk Academy has made you strong enough to face even the toughest of challenges. Mr. Acra often reminds us that we are far, far above average, and that our futures are much brighter than any of us know. It is our duty to all of those teachers who have realized that potential and who have poured so much time and effort into us to push past the obstacles that we encounter as we continue along on our path to something greater.

And here we are, sitting in our dresses and our tuxedos, taking it all in. It is easy to think of this as the ending of a chapter, the closing of a door. Just last night, after Vespers, we saw the sun set on our lives as Norfolk Academy students. But I would pose to you all, that we have not closed a door today, but have opened one. As we go forth from the comfort and safety of Norfolk Academy and through that door to the next step along our journeys, I implore you to bring with you the lessons you’ve learned here: to push through the challenges, and to dare to make a difference. And remember, though last night we watched the sun set on our time here at Norfolk Academy, just this morning we watched the sun rise on the rest of our lives.