Online Magazine Home

Positioning teams to get the best out of athletes, spending untold hours helping with research and information, fine-tuning words and phrases into the perfect prayer, and being a nearly constant presence for students – these are all known and visible talents of retirees Scott Wilson ’75, Rev. Dan Scott, Bill McMahan ’67, and Carl Owens ’74. Less known, and often unseen, were the sacrifices they made to be the best that they could be in a lifetime of service that exemplifies magnanimitas for us all.

After 12 years of leading – and nearly a lifetime of vocally supporting – Baylor, Wilson retired this summer as the school’s headmaster. It is a moment that he admitted comes with a tinge of sadness, but also with a sense of great fulfillment.

On a blustery spring day in April, Coach Bill McMahan ’67 presided over a Middle School track meet against crosstown rivals GPS and McCallie as his final official athletic event of a 47-year teaching and coaching career.

Head Librarian Lauren Callihan paid tribute to Carl Owens '74 at the final faculty meeting of 2020-21in honor of his retirement.

Rev. Dan Scott, who has served as Baylor's chaplain since 2004, delivered his final chapel talk to the student body on May 3. He first spoke in Baylor’s chapel in 1982 when he was a young minister.

From astrophysics to ornithology, Baylor students have a proclivity to pursue their passions. Read why Niko Blanks ’17 is on a mission, how Zoë Hardnett ’21 made at-home learning meaningful through Baylor Research, and what made Niko Simpkins ’18 decide on dual engineering degrees. Adelle Pritchard ’22 found the perfect ingredients for creating something special, Lucia Jackson ’20 set her sights on the sea, and Luke Thompson ’24 has his eyes on the skies.

Niko Blanks ’17 knew as a young boy that he was interested in space, and will graduate in May 2022 from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where he is studying Spaceflight Operations and Engineering.

Niko Simpkins '18 is a rising senior at the University of Pennsylvania, completing his major in Mechanical Engineering and minor in Engineering Entrepreneurship.

While her classmates were navigating the challenges and chaos of starting college in the midst of the COVID- 19 pandemic last fall, Lucia Jackson ’20 stepped aboard a schooner to begin a journey that would cover 11,497 nautical miles.

When COVID-19 sent Baylor boarding student Zoë Hardnett ’21 home last March with the final semester of her junior year remaining, she was hoping not to lose the momentum she had gained on her Baylor Research project.

At the beginning of sixth grade, Adelle Pritchard ’22 and her  parents were discussing ways to animate their Southside event space during the day. Her idea? “Let’s open a creperie.”

At 16 years old, Luke Thompson '24 is an accomplished birder who spends his afternoons and weekends scanning the Tennessee River, marshes, mudflats, and fields and recording sightings.