The television cameras
may have been focused
on John F. Kennedy Jr., but parents and friends gathered on campus for graduation on May 23 demonstrated that this day belonged to the members of the Class of 1999. They rushed to the platform to snap pictures of their sons and daughters receiving their hard-earned diplomas.
The seniors cheered loudly when their classmates were honored, and again when Kennedy described his “little epiphany” that morning. “Here I’ve named my magazine after you, you've got this nice town Kennedyville down the road, and I’m thinking: why didn’t I go to Washington College?”
Founder of Reaching Up, a nonprofit organization that helps train and educate the working poor in order to advance their careers in providing health services for people with disabilities, Kennedy praised Washington College students for their own acts of service to others—tutoring schoolchildren, volunteering for Casey

John F. Kennedy Jr., founder of Reaching Up, made a rare commencement appearance to accept a citation in recognition of his charitable service on behalf of people with disabilities.

those in our nation who are oppressed, underprivileged, or forgotten. Washington College applauds Reaching Up for positively changing lives and salutes John F. Kennedy Jr. as a model humanitarian who has put his ideals to work.”
The model figure of George Washington loomed large too, as an Award for Excellence was presented to Don Higginbotham, a distinguished military historian and a George Washington scholar. Higginbotham, the Dowd Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, encouraged the graduating class to maintain their curiosity—to ask questions, to challenge the status quo. “As you go through life continuing your process of education that began at Washington College,

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