Fountain Valley School Announces 2025 Commencement Speaker: Journalist And Author Ben Ryder Howe ’89 (Photo) -05/13/25

Fountain Valley School (FVS) proudly announces that journalist Ben Ryder Howe will deliver the keynote address at its 95th Commencement Exercises on Saturday, May 24, 2025, beginning at 10 a.m. on the School’s graduation lawn (6155 Fountain Valley School Rd., Colorado Springs, CO 80911). 

 

Howe, a graduate of the Fountain Valley School Class of 1989 and current president of the FVS Alumni Association, is a regular contributor to The New York Times and New York, having produced widely read articles on topics ranging from environmental issues and the luxury economy to disruptive technology.

 

After graduating from the University of Chicago, where he edited the student literary magazine and wrote for the student newspaper, Howe launched his writing career at The Paris Review. There he edited prize-winning stories and essays as well as the celebrated interview series, Writers at Work, before becoming a senior editor at Town & Country and Departures magazines.

As a freelance journalist, Howe has reported worldwide for publications such as The Atlantic Monthly and Outside. His travel writing, in particular, has earned him recognition in the Best American Travel Writing anthology.

 

In addition to reporting, Howe has written a memoir, “My Korean Deli: Risking It All for a Convenience Store," which became a New York Times bestseller and one of Amazon’s “Top 100 Books of 2011.” His latest project involves an expansion of his reporting on a deadly car crash outside Albany, N.Y.  

 

Fountain Valley School looks forward to welcoming Howe back to campus and to the insight, humor, and inspiration he will share with the graduating Class of 2025.

 

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Founded in 1930, Fountain Valley School of Colorado is a boarding and day school for grades 9-12. Situated on 1,100 acres of rolling prairie in Colorado Springs, the School provides a rigorous, global curriculum in academics, arts, athletics, and the outdoors to develop young adults who are courageous, open-minded, self-reliant, curious, and compassionate. Enrollment is approximately 240 students from 20 countries, 26 states, and the Pikes Peak Region. www.fvs.edu

Fountain Valley Seniors Dominate Nicholas A. Virgilio Memorial Haiku And Senryu Competition, Taking Three Of Six Prizes Among 2,100 Entries Worldwide (Photo) -05/08/25

Since 1990, the annual Nicholas A. Virgilio Memorial Haiku and Senryu Competition has celebrated the work of students in grades seven to 12 whose teachers have gone beyond the stereotypical haiku lesson plan emphasizing only one dimension of haiku. This year, the contest, co-sponsored by the Haiku Society of America and Nic Virgilio Haiku Association, received over 2,100 entries from 44 US states and 18 countries, with only six students selected as winners. A true demonstration of the high caliber of teaching found only at Fountain Valley School (FVS), a boarding and day high school located in Colorado Springs, Colo., three of the six winners in 2025 were FVS students! 

 

Each hailing from Colorado, seniors Phoebe Bain of Colorado Springs, Tenzin Tinley of Erie, and Brynn Jensen of Centennial are delighted to be considered among some of the top high school haiku writers worldwide. They will matriculate to Lewis and Clark College, the University of Colorado Boulder, and Emerson College, respectively, in the fall.

 

Under the tutelage of English Department Chair David Reynolds—author of the 2024 haiku collection Coming Storm—FVS students benefit from a range of literary opportunities beyond the classroom each school year. These include submitting work to publications such as Modern Haiku and Fountain Valley’s award-winning student literary magazine, Athenaea; competing in Poetry Out Loud and the school’s annual city-wide poetry contest; and participating in a one-act ShakespeareFest performance, to name a few.

 

In recognition of their writing, each winner has been awarded a $250 prize and published in the journal Frogpond. “We believe the judges’ commentaries add a valuable layer of meaning as we see how leaders, editors, writers, and members of the Haiku Society of America carefully consider the significance of each award-winning poem,” said editor of the Nicholas A. Virgilio Memorial Haiku and Senryu Competition Anthology, Randy M. Brooks.

 

In their remarks, the judges described the winning poems below as a “reminder of how precious it is to pick up the phone and make contact,” as a “form uncommon in haiku, but also with its incredible use of consonance,” and as helping “us imagine a stronger connection between what a society asks soldiers to do and how it treats them when their service has ended.” 

 

autumn leaves

her last words heard

in a voicemail
 

— Phoebe Bain

 

blood moon

keys between my knuckles

like my mother before me

 

— Brynn Jensen

 

war victory

the names of the dead

misspelled

 

— Tenzin Tinley

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Founded in 1930, Fountain Valley School of Colorado is a boarding and day school for grades 9-12. Situated on 1,100 acres of rolling prairie in Colorado Springs, the School provides a rigorous, global curriculum in academics, arts, athletics, and the outdoors to develop young adults who are courageous, open-minded, self-reliant, curious, and compassionate. Enrollment is approximately 240 students from 20 countries, 26 states, and the Pikes Peak Region. www.fvs.edu