Celebrating Passing of the Light: An Honored Villa Tradition

Passing of the Light is one of our most cherished Villa traditions. During this ceremony, the eighth grade graduating class symbolically passes on the light of leadership of the school to the seventh grade class. Thank you for your dedicated service, girls.

Congratulations to our eighth graders who were inducted into the Alumnae Association yesterday afternoon at Villa’s beautiful Passing of the Light Ceremony! A big thanks to our alumnae who came back to share in this ceremony and present the graduates with their pins.

Thank you to alumnae, Annie Shaw ’18, for her inspiring words of wisdom for our graduates. Annie joined us as our alumnae speaker at Passing of the Light to share her memories about Villa and how Villa has helped her to become the young woman she is today.

Another annual tradition during Passing of the Light is the presentation of the Emily Koenig Award. Emily Koenig was a seventh grader at Villa when she passed away suddenly of bacterial meningitis. The selected student embodies Emily’s spirit of kindness and inclusion and is nominated by her seventh grade peers. Congratulations to Stella S. who was honored with this award. We are grateful to the Koenig family for their continued support of our Villa girls.

Passing of the Light also includes the presentation of two scholarships named in the honor of Margaret McAleer, grandmother of the Meriwether girls. The scholarships were merited to two deserving students based upon a written essay. Congratulations to Rachel P. and Laura S. We are grateful to Margaret McAleer and the Meriwether family for their support of our students.