ST SEBASTIAN’S

is a remarkable place, and it is real. We alumni love our School for
what it has done for us, and so now we share our stories in the hopes
that it will remind us all of the good this School continues to do.
“Arma virumque cano Troiae…”
It’s the spring of 2009 and Ned Kingsley ’10 is exhausted.
Slumped over his annotated copy of the Aeneid in the library, the
adventures of Aeneas, man of pietas, pervade his every thought.
After three hours of sitting at the same wooden library table, lines
of Latin are starting to blend together. Beside him at the table,
nine of his fellow Latin IV AP students struggle along with him to
cram the AP-required books of
Virgil’s epic into their brains.
They have been studying all
year for this, 30 lines a night.
But now time runs short, the
test hours away. These are the
moments in which brotherhood
is formed.
Looking back to his years at
St. Sebastian’s, Kingsley, now a
junior at Dartmouth College,
sees shared struggle as a major
part of what cemented the
brotherhood with his classmates
that he still cherishes.
“I will never forget Latin IV AP with Mr. Albertson, especially
the days leading up to the AP test,” Kingsley said. “One of the
memories I have of junior year is sitting in the library with nine guys
trying to translate the lines of Virgil’s Aeneid. We had spent all year
doing 30 lines a night, we read through it a million times, but we still
felt compelled to work hard right up until the time of the test.”
That hard work definitely paid off for Kingsley and his
classmates. When the College Board revealed the scores from the
Latin IV AP Exam, Kingsley, along with several of his classmates,
had earned a 5, the highest score possible.
Now looking forward to graduation from Dartmouth College as
a member of the Class of 2014, Kingsley is thankful to Mr. Albertson
and all of the other teachers who prepared him for the grueling
routine of college.
“St. Sebastian’s prepared me infinitely well for all of the
challenges—both academically and socially—that I’ve faced up
here,” he said.
Not simply a scholar, Kingsley was also a two sport athlete at
St. Sebastian’s, lettering in sailing and football. He also edited the
Walrus, argued valiantly on the debate team, and participated in
Moot Court, exemplifying the type of well-rounded young man
the School is proud to produce. Kingsley’s experience on the St.
Sebastian’s athletic field has been etched in his memory indelibly,
and he joined the rugby team at Dartmouth in order to continue his
passion for athletic competition.
“All of my experiences with athletics were a big show of
brotherhood,” noted Kingsley. “Whether it was on the playing field,
One of the things I took from Seb’s...
is the power of the friendships I
make. Those are the most important
things in life. And I have these
awesome memories with my friends
from high school. Nobody can take
that away from me.
just being in the locker room with the guys, or sitting in the stands
at a hockey game—it was all an incredible experience. I still think
about it. At St. Sebastian’s, wherever we were, we were focused on
being good people and being together.”
The camaraderie at St. Sebastian’s between members of different
grades and social groups still impresses Kingsley. Coming from a
family of four boys—including his twin brother Max ’10, who is now
a classmate at Dartmouth—Kingsley understands the bond between
brothers, and he maintains that the St. Sebastian’s bond is as strong
as advertised.
“It really is like 360 brothers,” he said. “Any time Max and I
would have our friends over,
they would hang out and joke
around with my younger
brothers just as much as they did
with us.
“All the guys in my class,
whether or not we were best
friends, we all got along really
well.”
Kingsley was eager to hold
onto that fraternal bond at
Dartmouth College, so he joined
the Darmouth rugby team and
the fraternity Beta Alpha Omega,
where Will Connolly ’10 is also a brother.
“I love having that fraternal bond with a big group of guys who
are together for a singular purpose,” he stated. “That is why I joined
the rugby team my freshman year. It’s hard to explain the type of
bond that you have when you just get a bunch of guys all together
for the same reason. The St. Sebastian’s brotherhood is something
that I’ve tried to emulate during my time up here, although it hasn’t
come up quite to St. Sebastian’s levels.”
At Dartmouth College, each student stays at the school for
a summer term during their sophomore year. For Kingsley’s
sophomore summer term, he served as Sophomore President of Beta
Alpha Omega.
“I was in charge of all of the fraternity’s communications with
the college, making sure the house was running smoothly,” Kingsley
said. “I coordinated the outreach chairs, the service chairs. It was
a really good experience and it was something that St. Sebastian’s
taught me—this natural tendency to try to be a leader in anything
you do.”
Although Kingsley worried the distance would put a strain on
his relationships with his high school friends, he found that fear to
be unwarranted once he returned home for his first extended break
from college.
“I knew I would still be close with the Seb’s guys who were at
Dartmouth with me, but I was definitely concerned about how I
would maintain relationships with other guys who went to school
hours and hours away. But I quickly found that when we’re all home
for breaks—for Christmas, for the summer—it is crazy how we can
just pick back up like no time has passed. I can pick up the phone
WWW.STSEBASTIANSSCHOOL.ORG | 23