2025 Awards Celebration

Gathering in the David E. and Stacey L. Goel Theater, the Winsor community came together for the 2024–25 Awards Celebration in which Upper School and Lower School students are recognized for achievements in athletics, academics, community, and leadership.

The awards celebration is a day the whole community looks forward to. While parents and guardians of award winners filtered into the balcony, their presence was a surprise. Between the Lower School and Upper School, over 40 awards are handed out, and their winners are a closely guarded secret until the ceremony. For some awards, such as the Hemenway Prize for Speaking Competition and the Brooks Poetry Prize Competition, finalists presented in front of peers, a panel of judges, and the entire school at assembly earlier in the school year. 

Head of Upper School Kimberly Ramos pointed out that “while many of today’s awards recognize individual achievement, perhaps one of the best parts of a Winsor education is the way in which we work together as a community to encourage, to challenge, and to inspire one another.”

Conferring first the athletic awards and then the academic and community awards, Head of School Sarah Pelmas shared, “One of the things I love about Winsor and about you is that you like being smart; you enjoy thinking, learning, and reading. You are good at it!… Every accomplishment that we are proud of is only possible because of the collective strength of every single student here.”

The final award is always the Virginia Wing Outstanding Teacher Award. This year the prize went to English Department Head Courtney Jackson, who received a standing ovation not only from the seniors on stage, but the entire auditorium. 

With the awards conferred, Director of Community and Inclusion Julian Braxton shared an unexpected announcement. Starting in the 2025–26 school year, and thanks to the generosity of the Winsor Board of Trustees, a new award will honor the legacy of Winsor’s eighth head of school, Sarah Pelmas. The Sarah Pelmas Prize, selected by the class advisors and Winsor’s director of community and inclusion, will honor a student whose commitment to inclusion and service has made Winsor a stronger, warmer, and more connected place.

Following the surprise announcement, Senior Class Vice President Bibi Noury-Ello ’25 introduced a very special speaker selected by the senior class: Institutional Researcher and Science Faculty Denise Labieniec. Calling her “kind-hearted, energetic, and compassionate,” Bibi shared that “Ms. Labin” is responsible for inspiring a number of seniors to pursue physics in college. Teaching senior year AP Physics at Winsor as well as Lower School courses, Ms. Labieniec “is beloved by the students who have the pleasure of taking her course. Although she can be hard to spot (even when she’s wearing her five inch heels) Ms. Labin’s energy is palpable within the Winsor community,” she said.

Despite a sabbatical, “Ms. Labin” returned to campus to deliver an address on the importance of thinking in community. Using baking as a vehicle and brownies as a metaphor, she urged everyone to use the “toothpick test” in their thinking.

“Think of your ideas like a brownie,” she explained. If a toothpick “comes out with gooey, crumby goodness attached? Perfect. That’s when you take it out. Not when it’s completely done—there are no clean toothpicks in brownie making…You take it out when the inside is still warm and even a little mushy.” The alternative, baking too long, risks brownies (and ideas) becoming “dry and overcooked…they maybe even harden and stick to the pan. We entrench,” she warned.

Having the courage to share ideas when they aren’t fully formed—half baked, if you will—is perhaps the most productive thinking any of us can do. “Then you have a different kind of conversation,” she explained, “one where you can engage and question and refine one another’s thinking before those ideas become fully set, letting them instead congeal out there in the pan. You get smarter together.”

To conclude the awards celebration, Ms. Labieniec thanked the seniors. “Thank you, truly, for every moment you’ve let me share in your thinking—whether it was fully formed, half-baked, or still batter in the bowl,” she joked. “It has been my honor to think, and learn, in community with you. Now go out there and share your ‘crumby’ ideas,” she quipped.