It is my privilege to introduce to you this year’s Distinguished Alumna, Margaret Shepherd Ray ’61. Margaret grew up in an independent school family. Her parents, Jack and Peggy, attended single-sex boarding schools, so it was only natural that she, like her brother and sister, would complete high school in a firmly established Virginia boarding school. Surrounded as she is by Margarets (her mother, her daughter, and now one of her granddaughters), it was only natural that she would choose St. Margaret’s!
      At this luncheon, we have celebrated the service of our alumnae presidents and met two current St. Margaret’s students. What they have in common with our distinguished alumna, and what we will see as we consider Margaret’s path from high school to today, is a life lived in the spirit of St. Margaret’s mission. Listen to the last line of our mission statement: “St. Margaret’s seeks to inspire each student to make the best of herself and, in so doing, make a better world.”
      During her two years at SMS, Margaret was a cheerleader and yearbook staff member, both groups she led during her senior year. You won’t be surprised that she was voted “Best Dressed” her junior year and “Miss SMS” her senior year. You can hear her spirit in her senior quote, “Not that I love work less, I love fun more.”
     It is this combination of a sense of fun and a commitment to doing whatever it takes that has characterized Margaret’s extensive life of service to her community and her school. Margaret has devoted her time to Randolph- Macon Woman’s College (which both she and her mother attended), Norfolk Botanical Gardens, the Norfolk/Virginia Beach SPCA and Junior League, and the Chrysler Museum.

      Formally trained in mediation and conflict resolution, she also works in conjunction with the courts to resolve disputes. Of course, these skills are directly applicable to life as well!
      It was 31 years after her graduation that Margaret followed her father onto the St. Margaret’s School Board of Governors, and since that time in 1992, we have been the beneficiaries of all the experience Margaret has gained. With us she has served two full, six-year terms and continued her involvement as co-chair of the capital campaign for this Community/Technology Center during the year she was not on the board. In her roles as chair of the Development Committee, Board Secretary, Chair of the Committee on Governors and Executive Committee member, she has helped us write two strategic plans and formalize the vision statement we use today, “Educating young women for life.”
      In honoring Margaret, we also honor her family: her late father, Jack, whose faith in our school sustained me during my first years as head, and her mother, Peggy, who knows schools well and has never failed to express deep understanding for our unique mission in the independent school world. In addition, several of Margaret’s children and grandchildren are with us today: her son, Charles Gibbs, his wife, Holland, and their two children who are not here, Margaret and Charles 3rd. Her daughter, Peggy Foley, and her granddaughter, Marietta. Marietta, we hope you’ll look around today and imagine yourself here as a student in just a few years.
      In October 2000, at the dedication service for this Community/Technology Center, Margaret again combined her sense of work and fun when she and her parents surprised me by dedicating this room in my honor. Thank you, Margaret, for realizing that this room, which combines good food, enduring fellowship and the light reflected from the river, will always be where my spirit lives.
      I would like to close with an appreciation for Margaret’s friendship, to me and to so many. These are the words of Margaret’s friend and classmate, former board member Pat Kienzle Ross ’61, in her book, The Kinship of Women, A Celebration of Enduring Friendship:
      “‘As we grow in age, may we grow in grace.’ This is the motto of St. Margaret’s School, where I made friendships that have lasted a lifetime. When I was a student there, the idea of growing in grace fell on deaf ears. Yet grace is indeed an integral part of female friendship. My thesaurus gives 31 alternate words for ‘grace,’ among them ease, balance, goodness, compassion, blessing and praise. Ultimately, it is this combined grace that distinguishes the completion stage of women’s friendship.”
      Thank you, Pat, for providing the words that celebrate the friendship so very many of us have enjoyed with this year’s distinguished alumna.

This article is excerpted from remarks made by Head of School Margaret R. Broad at the award presentation.