Homecoming Fun

While the Homecoming dance is the culminating homecoming event, the entire week leading up to the dance is full of activities. All three divisions get involved in capturing the spirit of homecoming week.


Homecoming Friday is the penultimate day in the week's activities. There are a variety of events that day and they truly put the "home" in homecoming. Upper School students engage in a number of service activities on Friday, there is an all-school pep assembly, the many BA sports teams begin playing immediately after school, and the night culminates with the BA football game.


As part of the festivities, there is an all-BA chili tailgate. Attended by students, parents, and alumni of the Academy, the tailgate has become an important part of the homecoming tradition. It is a time for the entire BA community to come together in the spirit of homecoming and celebrate. Perhaps some attendees can remember that so many people attended the first tailgate that BA ran out of food and drinks! Over 1000 loyal BA supporters attend the tailgate, including a large number of alumni for whom homecoming has special meaning.



As part of the fun this year, tailgate volunteer co-Chair Connie Peppel has put together an amazing "Ultimate Sports and Entertainment Basket" to be raffled to one lucky winner. Included in the basket are tickets to a 2009 Brewers game (sorry playoff tickets are not part of the basket), various Brewer items such as a bags, hats, and clothing, Wisconsin Badgers clothing, an NFL game football, gift certificates to various Brookfield area restaurants, BA spirit merchandise and a 60 quart cooler on wheels. Oh, and by the way, there are autographed Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun baseballs! How about that for great timing?! We thank Connie and co-chair Gigi Balkhy for their hard work in organizing this fun event for all BA families and alums.


There are two ways to enter the "Ultimate Sports and Entertainment Basket" raffle. Purchase an $8.00 ticket to the chili tailgate or buy a separate raffle ticket for $5.00. Pre-sale $5.00 tickets are available at Four Season coffee or you can purchase at the door on Friday night. Winners need not be present, but must include their name on the back of the raffle ticket.


We hope all BA supporters, especially BA alumni, will return for the Friday night festivities. The tailgate starts at 5:30 and kick off for the football game is 7:00 PM. Field hockey, soccer, and volleyball are all in action prior to the football game. BA will also be officially opening the new team rooms. Ribbon cutting for that event will take place at 6:45.


And, of course, the 28th annual Five Star Run takes place at 12:00 noon on Saturday. Honorary Chair Bob Bair and co-chair Cindy Reiske welcome all to that BA tradition. Bob wants everyone to know that being in shape is not a requirement for participation.


To learn more about the timing of all the BA activities happening this week, visit http://www.brookfieldacademy.org/. We hope you will take part in the fun!

BA Tradition

On September 10, 1962, Brookfield Academy opened its doors to 33 students and five faculty members. Since then it has become a tradition to hold the Founders Day assembly every year on September 10th. All students, faculty, parents, and guests assemble at the same location where the original 38 stood and commemorate the founding with a guest speaker and induction of past faculty and staff into the Brookfield Academy Honor Roll of Distinguished Service.



Renowned educational theorist Thomas Sergiovanni talks about the importance of shared values, beliefs, and norms in creating an authentic school community. He believes that knowledge of a school's history, the people, events, and anecdotes that helped shape a school's identity, is an essential component of a healthy and successful school. Through its well-organized archives, written histories of the Academy, and personal stories that have been passed down through the years, Brookfield Academy's rich tradition continues to give the school meaning and quietly contributes to its success. The Founders Day celebration reflects the school's emphasis on mission, tradition, and history.


This year the Academy welcomed as its speaker Miss Cindy Davis. A 1998 graduate of Brookfield Academy, Cindy is currently practicing law with the firm of Foley and Lardner. Cindy has a special and unique connection to Founders Day as it was her grandparents, Walter and Betty Davis, who were among the founding families of the Academy. Indeed, Cindy's father was one of the 33 students who stood at the top of the hill in 1962. As a BA student Cindy herself attended 14 Founders Days assemblies. While her return as guest speaker may have seemed surreal, in her speech Cindy captured the spirit and essence of Brookfield Academy. Here are some excerpts from Cindy's speech:



It feels like not too long ago I was a student standing on the blacktop right where you are all standing. I have many memories of Founders Day, some of which consist of commiserating with fellow students about how the teachers made us trek to the top of this windy hill and stand patiently while we listened to some speaker carry on about how great Brookfield Academy is. Well, you know the saying, what goes around, comes around. I do realize, now that I have the distinct honor of speaking to all of you on Founders Day, that maybe those speakers really did know what they were talking about.



Two years ago, I had the amazing opportunity to serve as the judicial law clerk to Justice David Prosser in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. I worked in the majestic State Capitol in Madison and got to listen to the parties’ oral arguments in the grand courtroom. I thought the cases that the Supreme Court would hear would be really substantive and controversial—dealing with constitutional law like freedom of speech and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. The court did have a lot of cases like those. But, the court also had one case that brought me back to Mrs. Daane’s grammar class in Middle School and those two weeks or so when we studied commas and how commas can change the meaning of a sentence. We learned about restrictive versus non-restrictive clauses, and I still remember Mrs. Daane’s catchy phrase to help us remember when we use a comma and when we don’t. The case that the Justices heard involved a medical malpractice and wrongful death claim. Thousands of dollars were at stake for a family who had just lost a mother and a wife as a result of a doctor’s mistake. Instead of arguing about lofty principles and ideals, the case came down to a single sentence found in the Wisconsin Statutes drafted by the Legislature. The Legislature ended up using a comma followed by the word “which” and for those of you grammar buffs out there, it thus created a non-restrictive clause. And the question that the court had to decide was whether the Legislature really meant to use a comma. Now, I won’t bore you with all the details of the case. The point I want to make is that a case made it all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court because a law was not written as clearly as it should have been. Commas were used when they allegedly should not have been. And all the while I was thinking, wow, that two week session on commas in Middle School class really did matter.


Brookfield Academy is a constant reminder to me that the conventional route isn’t always the best route—that you don’t always have to follow the crowd or accept the status quo. By its very example, Brookfield Academy has taught me to check the assumptions when I don’t agree with the conclusions, and it has provided me the wherewithal when presented with “Option A” or “Option B” to say with quiet confidence, “Thanks, but no thanks, I’m going with ‘Option C’.” And finally, Brookfield Academy has prepared me for the hard work and responsibility that go along with making Option C happen.



As we embark on this next stage of BA’s history with a brand new high school and state-of-the -art athletic facilities, we cannot and should not become complacent, take this success for granted or forget what makes this school so special. As my dad said in his Founders Day speech in 1989, “While the Academy has seen many changes in its life since the first opening day, the most important things are unchanged and are just as alive today as they were 27 years ago.” And so I say to you today: While the Academy is experiencing many new and exciting changes, the most important things are unchanged and will continue to be just as alive today and tomorrow as they were 46 years ago, so as long as we continue to cherish and hold tight to those things that make Brookfield Academy so special to us. Too often we forget what we have or how much something means to us until it’s gone or jeopardized. Let’s not make that mistake here. Nor let us forget all the hard work that has been put into this school and continues to be put into this school ever since the Founders paved the way for us and chose Option C way back in 1962. From the outside looking in, it looks pretty easy. But, we all know it isn’t. I know that my grandfather and the rest of the Founders would be very proud of the Brookfield Academy today. So, let’s be proud of ourselves too and show that pride to others.

And finally, as you begin another school year, I would like to leave you with a quote from a book that has provided me with inspiration and has challenged me to reach for the stars and believe that this life can be whatever it is that I want it to be. It is a quote by Ayn Rand, from her famous book, Atlas Shrugged:

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.”

BA's First Blog

Welcome to the Brookfield Academy blog. We will be using this blog as a way to share information, keep you abreast of happenings, provide links to our growing library of BA You Tube™ videos, and give you another way to communicate with Brookfield Academy.

Take a look at the following link. (http://www.youtube.com/v/_PquXYvh1WY) It is a short video of the site preparation that is occurring as the first step to building "Patriots Hall." Site preparation began Monday, September 8th, following the groundbreaking ceremony on Friday, September 5th. Patriots Hall is a 100,000+ square foot building that will house the new Upper School. State-of-the-art in every way, it is part of a campus-wide campaign to benefit all the students. When Patriots Hall is complete, it will lead to the doubling of space available to Upper, Middle and Lower School students. The site grading may not seem like much, but it is generating some real excitement here on campus. It signals that Patriots Hall has gone from a dream to a reality. The grading is occurring on the west side of the campus (almost directly across from the Middle School). Patriots Hall will be the first academic building located on the land west of Brookfield Road.

We will be using this blog in conjunction with the BA website (http://www.brookfieldacademy.org/) to stay abreast of the building progress, as well as many other facets of the Academy. We hope you will take advantage of the opportunity to stay informed about BA and all that is happening at the school.