On the first Monday of October, when the United States Supreme Court begins a new term, the Marshal of the Court will pound the gavel and all will rise. From behind the red curtains, nine robed justices will emerge and move to their places, according to seniority. And in the center, flanked by four justices on either side, in a position held by only 16 others in American history, including John Jay, John Marshall and William Howard Taft, there will be a La Lumiere boy, sitting in the seat of Chief Justice . . .
Let's go back to a quiet July day last summer. Early in the morning on that day, Rachel Uryga, who has been with La Lumiere since 1986 doing the work that we older graduates associate with Mrs. Costello, drove onto campus wondering about what it meant that President Bush had selected John Roberts, a La Lumiere graduate, for the Supreme Court.
Rachel didn't have to wonder long. There were 40 news vans, cars and trucks parked all over the campus, with dozens of reporters and camera crews traipsing through the grounds, all wanting an answer to the same question, "What is this place?"
Of course, their concern was with John Roberts, his character and how it was formed. But they knew that in order to discover the answers to those questions, they needed to learn about La Lumiere.
A few hours later, Headmaster Michael Kennedy, as well as Headmaster Emeritus Larry Sullivan, and Joe Linnen, chairman of the board of trustees, held a news conference and calmly informed the media that La Lumiere was a distinguished college preparatory school that has been around since 1963.
They said the emphasis has been on providing a quality education and the development of character. They also said that John Roberts was an exceptional student: absolutely brilliant, disciplined and determined to succeed.
The next morning, from my office in Los Angeles, I "Googled" the name La Lumiere School and found thousands of entries, including favorable stories in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Detroit Free Press, London Guardian and hundreds of others.
Lightning really had struck.
Millions of people from around the world were being told about La Lumiere. Since that fateful morning, inquiries on the school's website have soared. When those of you who are seniors apply to college this year, I'm sure you will identify the school as the one John Roberts attended before he went to Harvard.
The whole world is discovering what some of us have known for years -- that La Lumiere is like the Olympics, that every student and graduate is an Olympic athlete, and that John Roberts was the legendary athlete who won gold medals in every event he entered and broke all the world records.
But it is important that we frame the issue correctly when asking these two questions -- what is La Lumiere, and where did John Roberts fit in?
Is this a provincial school in the backwoods of Indiana that didn't know what to do with this one smart kid?
Or is it one of the finest, most challenging prep schools in America that helped John Roberts acquire the skills he needed to become so successful?
In other words, is the association of John Roberts with this school a fluke, or is it a logical extension of La Lumiere's commitment to excellence?
I submit it is the latter. My thesis is that John Roberts was an exceptional student at an exceptional school -- that La Lumiere was the best and John Roberts was the best of the best.
I believe that John Roberts' character was shaped at La Lumiere, just as mine was, and just as it was for all the other graduates in the school's short history.
One of those graduates is Tom Rosshirt, who went on to study at Notre Dame before earning a master's degree at Harvard. I mention Tom because he has made such a perceptive prediction about the school's future, which is that La Lumiere will only grow in stature the longer John Roberts serves as chief justice.
As Tom puts it, "La Lumiere is helping to shape the history of America through shaping John Roberts' character." After all, Judge Roberts is only 50, and the youngest chief justice since John Marshall was appointed in 1801. Chief Justice Roberts could easily head the third branch of government for the next 30-40 years.
If you'd like evidence that John Roberts' character was shaped at La Lumiere, ask Bob Bush, who was John's roommate for three years at Harvard. Mr. Bush told The Washington Post: "If you are looking for influences, the vast majority of them were in play before he got to college."
To prove my thesis that La Lumiere is great and that John Roberts was the greatest, as opposed to the school’s having been incidental in his life, let's start by looking at how he dominated, not only at La Lumiere but also at Harvard, and Harvard Law School, and then in his career. Then we will look at La Lumiere as a whole, to see how wonderfully successful the graduates have become over the years.
We have all heard that he was reading Virgil in Latin during his senior year at La Lumiere. My brother Doug wrote an inspiring column called "The John Roberts I Remember," which was reprinted across the country in more than three dozen newspapers and websites, and another version of the same column was reprinted in the La Lumiere magazine.
Doug told about the time that Mr. Sullivan gave an exceptionally difficult calculus exam, but he told the students not to worry because he would grade on a curve. Then, when he returned the graded exams, he looked a little dispirited, because he said he had to give all D's and F's because one student had scored 100 percent. Doug said everyone knew it was John Roberts who had the perfect score.
I asked Doug, "Were you guys mad at Roberts?" And he said, "Believe it or not, we weren't. We all sort of laughed when Mr. Sullivan gave us the news because we knew it was John. We liked him. He was so helpful to all of us. John worked so hard. There really wasn't any resentment at all."
So did this hurt the other students' chances of getting into good colleges? Not at all, Doug said. He went to Vassar. Rick Everist went to Stanford. Bob MacLaverty went to Boston College before earning his doctorate at Georgetown. Mark Magness went to Notre Dame. And Doug said there were plenty of other good schools where his classmates landed.
So what happened to John Roberts at Harvard? I suspect he found it easy. I suspect he discovered that La Lumiere had over-prepared him for college. How else to explain his success? Here he was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in class with some of the smartest kids from around the world, and he raced through in three years, graduating summa cum laude.
Then he went to Harvard Law School, where he was managing editor of the law review and one of the top students in his class.
There is the well-known story of the student who was in John Roberts' study group and almost dropped out of law school because he found it too difficult. He decided to switch study groups instead, and he fit right in. "The problem wasn't Harvard Law School," he said. "The problem was John Roberts."
After law school, Judge Roberts' career has been nothing short of spectacular -- clerking for some of the most distinguished jurists in the country, working in the White House for two different presidents, succeeding magnificently in private practice, earning a seven-figure annual income, and then serving as a federal appeals court judge before being named to the Supreme Court, and then, a few weeks later, being selected as chief justice. You really can't top that.
Regardless of the setting, John Roberts excelled. He brought out the best in everyone around him by demanding the best of himself.
And it all started at La Lumiere -- a school that brings out the best in every student who attends. As Doug Newcombe put it in his essay, "La Lumiere set incredibly high standards, and John Roberts raised the bar."
I graduated from La Lumiere in May 1969, just a few months before John Roberts started as a freshman. I did not break the records the way John did; in fact, I don't remember breaking any records at all. Nonetheless, I too was over-prepared for college and had a strong foundation laid for future success -- all because of this school.
I had enrolled as a Fifth Former. I was repeating my junior year in high school. The year before, I had been a junior at New Trier High School in suburban Chicago, barely maintaining a C average. I really wanted to study more and do better, but there were too many distractions.
After two years at La Lumiere, I was sailing through Georgetown with pretty close to a straight A average. I remember once being in the registrar's office during my second year at Georgetown, and the student next to me asked the woman behind the counter if she could please tell him his class rank. She pulled out a giant IBM printout of names and numbers, asked him his name and Social Security number, and then told him his class rank.
I watched in disbelief. I don't know why. It just never occurred to me that you could do this, so I asked her if she could tell me mine. After I gave her my name and Social Security number, she flipped through the pages and looked up at me, a little surprised, "Oh, you're a smart one, huh? You're second." I said, "Second what?" And she said, "You're second -- No. 2 in the class."
I was dumbfounded. I walked out of that office on Cloud Nine, wondering how I had catapulted from C's at a public high school to A's at Georgetown, from the bottom of an average class to the top of a brilliant class.
Now here we are, 35 years later, and I have only one answer as to how this happened: It was because of my experience at La Lumiere.
It was because of the environment that Jim Moore had created aimed at bringing out the best in each student. It was an environment that stressed excellence in all areas of one's life: mind, body and spirit.
It was because of the dedication and excellent teaching skills of Larry Sullivan, Dave Kirkby, Paul Rumely, Ron DeNardo, Ed Breslin, John Malia, Dick Magenis, Jim Coppens, Chris Balawender, Bryan Smith and many others. La Lumiere has always had some of the best faculty members of any school in the country, and that is just as true today as it was in the early years.
It was because of the small class size and personal attention. I cannot stress this last point strongly enough: The fact that teachers cared about our success made all the difference in the world.
And it was because of the way our days were structured. These were lifetime lessons in time management, with one productive activity following another, whether it was classes, sports, meals, study halls, or even free time, where we made close friendships. It's hard not to get to know someone when you brush your teeth side by side every day.
There were only 16 students in my graduating class -- the second class since the school was founded. One was Bennett Smith, who made a perfect score of 800 on his math SAT at the same time that John Roberts applied for admission to La Lumiere.
Let me repeat this for emphasis -- as a way to prove my point that our newest Supreme Court chief justice was the first among equals at La Lumiere and not a fluke for the school: While John Roberts was hoping that La Lumiere would accept him for admission, Bennett Smith was scoring 800 on his math SAT.
I remember from the Charter Class a student named Tom Verkuillen. I remember Tom so well because we engaged in so many passionate political discussions. Tom introduced me to the works of Ayn Rand, and they made my head spin -- and I say that as a compliment.
Tom earned his degree at Notre Dame before joining the Peace Corps and working in Morocco. Today, Tom is a successful systems analyst in Los Angeles, and we are still close friends.
Tom is a true intellectual, always reading books, magazines, newspapers and Internet news sites. He is fluent in French and Spanish and learning Russian in his mid-50s. His constant desire to learn, an insatiable curiosity, is the ultimate compliment to La Lumiere.
Then there was Jay Nawrocki in that class, who went to Williams College, then earned his MBA at the University of Chicago, before launching a successful career in finance based in London. Bill O'Connor, a successful Chicago attorney who has been active in Illinois politics, was also in that class. There was Jim Flannery, who is now Judge Jim Flannery. Jim is on the board of trustees, and we address him as "Your Honor."
In my class, there was Michael Paul, who went to Dartmouth before earning two master's degrees at MIT and is now a prominent structural engineer on the East Coast. Jerry Noel went to Cornell, and John Rumely studied at Boston College before getting his master's degree at Harvard. I name these three because they have all been involved with the board of trustees over the years as a way to give back to the school that gave them so much.
Some reporters have questioned whether La Lumiere has a political agenda, especially because John Roberts has been identified as a conservative Republican. And John Hiler, another graduate, is a conservative Republican who served with distinction as a United States Congressman for 10 years, and Andy McKenna, another graduate, is chairman of the Illinois Republican Party.
But what about liberal Paris Barclay, another La Lumiere graduate who also went to Harvard? Paris is an Emmy award-winning director and producer in Hollywood, involved in shows such as “NYPD Blue” and “The West Wing." He recently was interviewed by the Chicago Tribune and said that he likes John Roberts as a person but not his politics. Then there is staunch Democrat Tom Rosshirt, whom I quoted earlier, who was a speechwriter for President Clinton and Vice President Gore.
I'm sure there are plenty of other liberals, conservatives, libertarians -- whatever. There has never been a political agenda at La Lumiere -- only a demand that we apply logic to our arguments.
Beyond politics, a number of La Lumiere graduates have earned Ph.D.s and M.D.s, and I know of at least one graduate, Don Boles, who earned both.
La Lumiere alumni include corporate executives, entrepreneurs, educators, university professors, doctors, biological and chemical researchers, lawyers, accountants, financiers, bankers, insurance specialists, engineers, architects, journalists, computer experts, museum curators and foreign diplomats.
Remember, we're talking about people who were La Lumiere students not so long ago. They were no different from you students, going through all the things you are going through today.
These graduates also include writers, news anchors, rock stars, actors, comedians, restaurateurs, ranchers, international business people, airline pilots, both commercial and military, including the Blue Angels, small business owners and inventors. One of those inventors even figured out a way to insulate porta-potties, and if you've been here in February, you know that's an important invention!
You name the field, and I'm sure we can find La Lumiere graduates who are succeeding in it and making the world a better place because of their efforts.
Do you realize there have been fewer than a thousand graduates since the school was founded four decades ago? Now that makes sense when you consider how small each graduating class is -- somewhere between 20 and 30 students. Only a thousand graduates in its entire history.
Talk about an exclusive club!
Imagine a typical high school class of a thousand graduates, and you were told that they would all be going to college. I suspect you'd find that hard to believe.
So, you might ask, which colleges, and you would be told that the list includes Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, John Hopkins, Williams, Emory, MIT, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Boston College, Marquette, John Carroll, Holy Cross, USC, Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Colgate, Drexel, Vanderbilt, Tufts, Tulane, Bucknell, Purdue, Pepperdine, Hillsdale, Valparaiso, DePauw, Wabash, Wheaton, Loyola, Loyola Marymount, St. Mary's, Xavier, De Paul, Villanova, Northwestern, NYU, Swarthmore, Skidmore, Syracuse, Washington University in St. Louis, Boston University, Penn State, Michigan State and the Universities of Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Colorado, Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia. And that's just a small sampling.
Of course, at this point, you would want to know the name of that high school to find out how you could become a part of it.
I could spend the entire day reeling off the accomplishments of the alumni, and you wouldn't believe it possible that one class of a thousand students could have so many success stories.
But that is the story of La Lumiere. That is the history of La Lumiere. This school has an incredible track record.
And the fact that Michael Kennedy, our new headmaster, is a La Lumiere graduate himself, the fact that he once sat where you students are sitting today, that he went through what you are going through, is a wonderful testimonial to the greatness of the school.
I really believe that we are all lucky to be here. I was lucky to have found this school when I did. John Roberts was lucky to have found it when he did (and I am sure he would be the first to tell you that). And you are lucky to be here today -- to be a student at one of the finest college preparatory schools in the country.
The fact that La Lumiere is co-ed is wonderful. Did you know that it has been co-ed longer than it was an all-boys school?
The fact that La Lumiere has become one of the most international high schools in America makes perfect sense. The school was never provincial, and it always had an emphasis on world-class academic studies and achievement. We never saw ourselves as a local or regional school.
Now that you know a little about the past, at least from the perspective of one graduate, you know that John Roberts was not an accident but a logical result of La Lumiere's high standards.
I would urge you to go forward knowing that the whole world is watching, knowing that you are part of a remarkable history, and knowing that if you give it your best shot, and make the most of your time at La Lumiere, you won't believe how successful you will become.
