Thoughts Of Ceremonies On The Pajarito Plateau

Commencement in Graduation Canyon, 1921 (Courtesy of Los Alamos Historical Society Archive)

By Sharon Snyder
Los Alamos Historical Society

In this time of disrupted events, including the graduation ceremony for the Los Alamos
High School Class of 2020, I chose to do this column on Graduation Canyon to coincide
with a time when many teens in our town had looked forward to wearing caps and gowns
to their ceremony. Fate handed them a disappointment, but commencement is more than
the celebration.

The first graduations on the Pajarito Plateau were held in the early 1920s as the Los
Alamos Ranch School began to send some of its young men off to college. Not all of the
boys who came to the school had intentions of graduating here. Some families sent their
sons for a year or two of “toughening up” to gain stamina, in some cases because the
boys had been ill and needed the fresh mountain air and exercise to improve their health.
The ranch school opened in 1917, and in 1921 it held its first graduation for two
boys—Bill Rose of Santa Fe and Wallace Kieselhorst of St. Louis.

The 1921 ceremony was held in “a rock amphitheater, pillared with swaying, majestic
pines,” as the Santa Fe New Mexican reported, a setting that is still known today as
Graduation Canyon. Dressed in the uniforms of Boy Scout Troop 22, the students rode
their horses into the canyon, with the lead riders carrying the Stars and Stripes and the
Los Alamos Ranch School flag. New Mexico Gov. Merritt C. Mechem spoke at that first
ceremony that was attended by approximately 100 guests seated on boulders or “Indian
blankets spread on the ground.” There were young men from nearby pueblos in their
colorful native dress, singing to drumbeats, and “a brown-robed Franciscan with hands
uplifted in invocation before the silent throng.” The school’s founder, Ashley Pond Jr.,
handed out the diplomas, and the flair of this first outdoor ceremony set the pattern for
the next eight years until Fuller Lodge was opened and the graduations were then held on
the east portal.

There were no graduates in 1922, so the next ceremony in the canyon was in 1923 when
three boys graduated—George T. May III of Chicago, Earl Kieselhorst of St. Louis, and
Robert Lewis of New York. The proceedings were much as they had been in 1921, with
the exception of the commencement speaker. That year, Ashley Pond Jr. spoke to the
boys and their guests, saying, “Keep your sense of values straight, boys. The world is full
of selfishness, and there are strenuous times ahead of you. Follow the Scout Ideal of a
good turn daily and then double and triple it. Don’t aim at being able to brag about mere
business and commercial success: lend a helping hand and gauge your success by what
you do for your fellow man.”

​George T. May Jr, father of a 1923 graduate, shared inspiring words as well, noting that
“no boy can live under the honor system which prevails at Los Alamos without acquiring
a basis of honorable character that means more to him than fine gold.”

Returning to thoughts of the Class of 2020, you are going forth into a difficult time, one
that has no precedent in recent history, but you have been prepared for the future in one
of the best public school systems in our country. You are capable of wonderful
contributions in return, and those contributions many of you will make to our nation and
the world. The words of George May Jr. in 1923 were delivered to young men, but they
apply to us all, male and female.

​Congratulations, Class of 2020, from a member of the Los Alamos High School Class of
1965. You didn’t have a commencement ceremony, but you go forth with all that you’ve
learned and the friendships you’ve made. Those are the important things, and they last a
lifetime.