8:00 a.m. classes aren’t easy. They’re especially difficult in the middle of the winter, when your clothes are soaked with snow, dripping on the stairs as you trudge to the fourth floor of Phillips Hall. Yet, as students make their way into one classroom in particular, the smell of freshly baked banana bread wafts through the seams of the door. A warmly lit room welcomes them, the dark wood of the Harkness table cooling the mood. On the other end sits Instructor in Modern Languages Katherine “Kitty” Fair, her familiar face bringing an end to the shivers and fatigue of the morning. This year, Fair has announced her retirement from the Academy, leaving a bittersweet gap in the hearts of Exonians across campus.

Sounds of splashes echo in the Nekton Championship Pool; teammates stand at the edge of the pool, encouragingly hollering to their fellow swimmers. They dive, they glide, and they vigorously sprint. They are Phillips Exeter’s victorious varsity girls’ and boys’ swimming and diving team.

Providing a backdrop to the harmony of singing Bancroftians, experienced hands strum the steel strings of an archaic guitar, its cracked corners and peeling paint reveal recent years of extensive usage. Girls sit crisscrossed in a circle around the Bancroft common room, swaying along with the music, breathing in the waft of zucchini bread freshly baked by the dorm faculty. Leading Dorm Evening Prayer, a tradition where songs are sung late at night in the common room, is Aveen Burney.

When the Class of 2020 left Exeter for spring break in their senior year, they packed light with a few books, some clothes, and plans to enjoy their short vacation. No one expected that the goodbyes would be permanent. Not their teachers, not themselves, not even Principal Bill Rawson. They never came back.

The couple. The myths. The legends. For almost 40 years, Russell and Jackie Weatherspoon have been pillars of kindness, wisdom, and non-sibi that held up Phillips Exeter Academy; their presence on campus is not forgotten, and their legacy continues within Exonians every day.

On April 15, students were beckoned inside the Assembly Hall for an unforgettable assembly — one that not only inspired an appreciation for the fight against racial inequity in the United States but also challenged each listener to reflect on their own role in building a more just community at Exeter. Rev. Wheeler Parker, the last living witness of the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955, stood at the podium and delivered a Tuesday assembly speech like no other, recounting the chilling facts of his late cousin’s fate.

On Friday, Feb. 7, following the Student Council’s presidential debate, Phillips Exeter Academy’s 16th principal, Bill K. Rawson, walked onto the stage. The lingering chatter of faculty and students dissecting the heated moments of the debate faltered into uneasy silence. As shoulders stiffened and eyes tracked his every step, the school was held in anticipation — no one knew it yet, but everything was about to change.

brutal: that moment when i get my test back…

On Sunday April 20, certain members of the Academy community participated in a variety of services in celebration of Easter.

By ALEX LIM, CHLOÉ LIND, ADELLE PITTS and MEGHAN TATE ZEEDay, day, principal’s day! Once a