About Our Speaker

Brooke Trible Weinmann is a 1975 graduate of St. Margaret's School where she was a five-year student, editor of the yearbook, The Current, president of the Glee Club, and was chosen "Most Likely to Succeed" in her senior class. At her own commencement, she was the recipient of the School Prize and the Bishop's Prize. From St. Margaret's she went to the College of William & Mary, graduating with a degree in history in 1979. In 1984 she received her MBA from The Harvard Business School in the field of general management and then worked for the IBM Corporation. Married to Winston Weinmann, she is the mother of four children: two sons, Tucker and Whit, and two daugters, Ginny and Eason. They live in Atlanta. She is past community vice-president of the Junior League of Atlanta, former president and board chair of The Harvard Business School Club of Atlanta, and received the Outstanding Young Atlantan Award in 1993. She has recently been selected to participate in Leadership Atlanta. Her current passion and all-encompassing endeavor is as co-founder of the Atlanta Girls' School, an independent day school for girls, the first of its kind in the Atlanta area in 50 years. AGS is scheduled to open in August.

Full text of Brooke Trible Weinmann's address to the St. Margaret's Class of 2000.

Graduates, today is YOUR day - applause for you.

And today is your parents' day. Please stand parents.

Applause for you.

Celebrate, Class of 2000 - You've earned it! (It's time to smell those roses!)

It's an honor to be here to congratulate you, and to tell you that you can survive and thrive as you go forth from St. Margaret's. And as one of you who graduated 25 years ago, I want to look with you at some of the myths in the lives of women.

So here are the myths:
* First: These are the best years of your life.
* Second: You can have it all.
* Third: Plan your work and work your plan.

Let's begin with myth #1: These are the best years of your life. True in some ways, false in others.

What is wonderful about your formative years is that you have been here, at St. Margaret's, a protected microcosm of real life. Let's look at the make-up of this school community. You are small: 151 students on opening day--49 day students and 102 boarding.

And you are diverse. 13% come from 7 countries . You come from 15 states and DC. 16% are African American or other U.S. minorities. You come from 10 Virginia counties. Your community spans all ages: from babies of faculty members to Miss Spears--who was a respected favorite back when I was a student and today, still revered, holds the esteemed title of "oldest living teacher still at SMS!" There are even a few good men--no, great men--in your community.

You have lived in and been a part of the best of all worlds: safe, healthy, diverse, with strong values and solid sense of history but very forward looking...remember the Latane Hall dining dungeon?...dark, low ceilings, tiny windows...what a contrast to the new Community Technology Center. It embodies the best of St. Margaret's: a place filled with conversations, light, learning, technology and nature. The CTC is a perfect initiation into the 21st century for you and for St. Margaret's School.

At St. Margaret's you learn to learn: These years of your life are critical to the development of your mind. What you studied in these old hallowed halls will help inform future studies and directions. I majored in history in college in part because Mrs. Sanborn, my history teacher here, challenged me, and made me believe learning history was relevant and critical to the future. When I was here, Mrs. Sanborn was famous for threatening daily quizzes, giving really hard tests and forbidding sandles in her classroom. Take heed Miss Veletri. You too could be remembered for forbidding those popular short shorts! But Mrs. Sanborn, like Miss Veletri today, made me learn history.

These are the formative years -- so important that in Atlanta, the new headmaster of Woodward Academy is the former President of Williams College. He left Williams and said that he wants to teach secondary school, that these are the most critical years of education.

They are critical -- they are not always fun. They are not, as the saying goes, "the best years of your life." These years of your life are brimming with experiences that invite memories -- both good and bad.

I share many St. Margaret's memories with you: May Ball, lantern sisters, chapel, signing in and out, sunbathing on A-House Beach, "man on the hall!". Moments we will never forget of our years at this special place.

One of my happiest memories is that of my Latin teacher, Mrs. Blair, who felt that a summer at Phillips Exeter Academy would give me, a day student, a faculty brat exposure to other worlds. With her support, a scholarship and my parents' blessing, I flew for the first time to a taste of this brand new world. Can you believe, as a seventeen-year-old, that was my first ever airplane flight. What a dinosaur I was!
But these are not the best years of your life...they are traumatic years. One of my worst memories is the Senior Slave Auction. Thank God you don't have that anymore. I was "bought" at the Slave Auction (an archaic ritual where Seniors were "purchased" by members of the school community to perform various tasks-usually carrying books or lunch trays or making up a bed. The money went toward our class gift). Well, I won't name names, but the bidding was intense. I was bought by a classmate. She made me clean her bathroom. It was a humbling, humiliating ordeal. I grit my teeth. I did it and I will never forget it. A quarter of a century later, how terrible that whole thing still makes me feel.

I was one of two day students in my class, the daughter of the academic dean and a pretty good student. I was not by any stretch of the imagination an "in" member of a particular group. And I was probably a very typical, insecure teenage girl.

I know now that the feelings of isolation, uptightness, self-consciousness were not unique to me, but are just plain part, I suspect, of these years of one's life. Some of these feelings may sound familiar to you. As a student at SMS, I was struggling to understand the big picture. Where did I fit?

Are these the best years of your life? Some good memories, others more painful. But now, from experience I can promise you that "the best is yet to come..."...so on to Myth #2: You can have it all.

What a challenge! This year's Senior Class has earned an incredible reputation. As I understand from Mrs. Broad, Mrs. McDowell, Beth Crowther (a St. Margaret's alumna and rising college senior) and many others, you have been superb leaders in every area of the school, great examples for the younger girls and exemplary students. Your future is more school. It is work. It is family. It looks bright. The challenge is to find balance in your life. In the years after St. Margaret's you will learn the lessons of life ... Sometimes by hard knocks. Sometimes by success. Very often by mistakes. You have begun your lessons here.

Given your accomplishments, indications are that you can have it all--a happy marriage, many children, a career with a huge paycheck and a leadership role in the community. 25 years ago I sat where you sit now in my long white dress with roses on my lap. Then I finished college, then graduate school. I went to work and got married. My life had begun its seasons.

At the advent of child #2, I decided that an IBM career was not a fit with my family plans. When I told my boss I wanted to resign, towing the company line, he tried to persuade me to consider part-time work, but he had eight children, so he understood.

With first one and then two children and no more 8-5 job outside the home, I took on a multitude of volunteer positions. My not-for-pay obligations slipped into the 40 hour per week range--another season had arrived.

At the advent of child #3, I trained my lips to say "no"and when #4 was born, the word "no" was so firmly planted in my vocabulary, I was not certain my mouth would be able to form the word "yes" again when the time came.

The time did come. St. Margaret's invited me to consider a seat on the Board of Governors. Now at the end of six grand years on the Board, I fervently believe I was meant to serve St. Margaret's in this way...


My service to St. Margaret's reinforced the lessons and benefits of girls' schools in general -- and of St. Margaret's in particular. Two years ago, I became a founder of the Atlanta Girls' School. My SMS experience as a student, daughter of a faculty member and Trustee is a tremendous asset in our developing the Atlanta Girls' School.

It's funny how these things work out--our board chair Emily Ellison had the idea that a girls' school ought to exist in Atlanta. Originally, upon reading the research and learning the benefits of single-sex education, she settled on the idea of sending her then 4th grade daughter, Elli, to a women's college.

Further study caused her to believe that Elli and other girls ought to be able to have the this type of education before college. When my path crossed Emily's, it was as if the project had reached out, put its arms around me and said, "this is yours, Brooke Weinmann, you must work to make this happen."

All of you at St. Margaret's--past and present-- along with all that St. Margaret's has given me is the source of my dedication to the Atlanta Girls' School.

The doors will open this Fall. Our team has spent three years building a firm foundation for AGS. The original group of three founders has grown into a full-fledged board, an advisory board of over 20 and Atlanta area college presidents who serve as our Honorary Advisory Council. We have raised three and a half million dollars. We hired an outstanding 30-year educator who, like Mrs. Broad, is passionate about girls' education. She came to Atlanta to lead the charge as founding head. We have 60 girls in grades 6-9. Next year the school adds 10th grade and we will keep adding thru 12th.

Bottom line: this effort is, bar none, the most challenging and enriching of my life. Through it I have leveraged my own single-sex school experience and my skills--including confidence born right here. As a result, Atlanta's girls will now benefit from an experience similar to mine--to ours. I would have never undertaken this without my years at St. Margaret's.

Today, in yet another season, I balance the responsibility for raising four young children, driving many carpools, volunteer work at my children's school and Board Vice Chair at AGS. I have made conscious, open-eyed decisions at each point along the way. At the moment, I'm not earning a penny. Yet, the psychic income I receive makes me a billionaire. Who knows what the next challenge will be. Maybe I'll become an Internet Billionaire!

You may be billionaires too. You will learn that life is a series of trade offs and decisions coupled with consequences. Life will demand that you cope, shift, reprioritize. Look for balance. Enjoy each of the seasons of your life.

You can have it all. You can't have it all at once.

Myth #3: Plan your work and work your plan and you will succeed.

Be open to this possibility: Life just isn't a straight road. After college I worked for VA State government. Next with a partner, I discovered a need for helping companies find women and minority candidates for professional positions. We founded a company; this led to business school. Who would have ever thought a farm girl from Virginia would end up at Harvard Business School?

How did it happen? My supportive family, friends and teachers, hard work, and a sense of connectedness reinforced by my years at SMS. You also need mentors, role models and passions--and I've had mentors. Just like at St. Margaret's...you've got to find people to turn to.

In Atlanta a woman who, much like an older sister, 20 years my senior, showed me the ropes. Carolyn Hatcher, a graduate of St. Agnes in Northern Virginia and Smith College, had been around the block in Atlanta and in life. She knew the players, the written and unwritten rules. She taught me a lot including the fact that people are people with the same feelings and needs. With this knowledge, you can relate to anyone--millionaires, the homeless and everyone in between. Importantly, her willingness to share herself with me gave me direction and courage to establish myself in a new city. She was my life teacher... .

Mentor/sister relationships, like some you may have begun here at St. Margaret's, are gifts. Look for the Carolyn Hatchers in your lives. Look for role models too.

My own mother, Anne Davis Bedinger Trible, is my role model, my hero--vibrant, smart, insightful and always positive. She has been my role model every step of my 43 years. After a long career at St. Margaret's, she moved on to her next career as the coordinator of an area adult education/literacy program. Her next career was helping to establish the Presbyterian Chapel four miles from here, the first Presbyterian Church in this part of rural VA. My mother will be 80 this December. I want to be just like her when I grow up. Look for role models. Cherish role models.

Finally, find different passions. Passions create energy and enhance life. For me, the Girls' School start-up is a passion. Racewalking is an olympic sport I discovered five years ago. It is another passion. This exercise gives me mental, physical and sometimes spiritual lifts. Find your passions and pursue them. Dare to dream, dare to risk, dare to try. Be passionate. Go for it.

I am sure that even Mrs. Farmer would agree, plan your work and work your plan does not account for changing times. New opportunities may take you down new and better paths than the ones you painstakingly planned. There are unlimited options waiting for you. With the right positive attitude, throughout your life you will see that bold, educated risks can be exciting and profitable. Take educated risks. You can seize the moment or as Robin Williams put it in the film "Dead Poets Society" "Carpe Diem." Seize the Day.

So, congratulations to you. With the wonderful start you have had at St. Margaret's, you can go on not just to survive but thrive in the bigger world.

In closing, remember--these are not the best years of your life. In fact, the best is yet to come!

You can have it all, but not all at once!

And you can't always plan your work and work your plan -- you must SEIZE THE DAY!

Welcome to the world of St. Margaret's graduates.