After 38 years as a teacher 35 of them at Aspen School District Tana Rinaldi is preparing to bid farewell to the classroom when she retires at the end of the school year with plans to travel and spend time on the beach.
Alex Appleby, right, hugs Principal Sarah Strassburger after being presented with the Principal s Award during the Aspen High School senior awards and local scholarship ceremony on Monday, May 24, 2021, on the AHS turf field. Photo by Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times.
It may well be the marquee event of awards season at Aspen High School: Monday night’s senior awards and local scholarship ceremony recognized the accomplishments of the class of 2021 with dozens of honors and funds for college.
All told, 81 seniors walked away with more than $350,000 in college scholarships from nearly 40 local donor groups, according to Susanne Morrison, the administrative coordinator at Aspen High School’s post-secondary counseling department. Students also scored hundreds of thousands of dollars from regional and national awards, some of which include full ride scholarships for all four years of college (see sidebar).
We’ve all seen people on social media wishing 2020 away and hoping for a better year in 2021. However, I think there have been many bright spots. As a whole, we have learned that we are more resilient than we knew, more generous with our time and attention, and way luckier to be alive than we sometimes realized.
I continued working even after the world shut down, photographing a different kind of daily life. I had the unique opportunity to watch firsthand what our little community looked like when it was a bit slower and quieter. Neighbors came together to wish a child happy birthday in a drive-by celebration, teachers tried to make their students feel like important rights of passage were still honored, and restaurants did their best to stay open and keep their employees at work. Things are different, of course, but while we miss large gatherings and seeing each other’s faces without masks, I have found that I am more grateful than ever that I get to live in the Roaring Fork Va