“Stetsons and Snowball Fights:” Unusual Commencement Setting Highlights WCC’s Unique Educational Vision
It takes an unusual kind of student to attend Wyoming Catholic College. Nestled in the foothills of the stunning Wind River Mountains, the College’s rigorous Great Books curriculum, world-class outdoor program, and visionary technology policy attracts a particularly adventurous kind of student—young men and women of “grit and grace” who are eager for something electrifying and transformative in the increasingly-homogeneous world of higher education.
This year, the forty-three seniors who processed across the stage of the Lander Valley Community Center to receive their diplomas experienced a particularly unusual Commencement even in WCC terms, as an unusually late Spring snowstorm blew into town Sunday evening, depositing over 8” of powder on the town between its arrival and the end of the Graduation festivities.
This year’s Commencement Speaker, CatholicVote’s Kelsey Reinhardt, who declared the opportunity to speak at the Lander-based institution’s year-end ceremonies “the honor of a lifetime,” used much of her speech to reflect on the ways in which the College’s graduating seniors have been influence by all three nouns in the College’s name, and the unpredictable (but beautiful) weather made her Wyoming remarks particularly relevant:
You have spent four years here in the womb of a people made by this land. You have drunk from its streams and its views. You have ridden horseback across plains that acquaint you with limitation and call you to community, while also preparing you for isolation and hardship. You have learned, not abstractly but bodily, that freedom is not the absence of limits. Freedom is the habit of moving well within reality.
…Where land has shaped you, memory must now guide you. Take with you the stars unfettered by light pollution. Take with you the crispness of fall air at the beginning of each academic year. Take with you the coziness of an all-too-early snow and an all-too-long winter (is it still winter?). Take with you the daring heights of mountain vistas, the ridiculous thrill of wearing shorts in spring when it is fifty degrees, and the fun of summer campouts in scorching heat.
Take also the discipline Wyoming gave you. Take the knowledge that not everything worth having is convenient. Take the reflex to help your neighbor without making a speech about it. Take the capacity to endure weather, silence, distance, and discomfort. In an age increasingly engineered to spare us from friction, you have received the gift of friction. Do not cease to remember it.
Earlier in the ceremony, during her Senior Address, Isabella Ramsey (’26), from Austin, TX, reflected on that same gift of “friction,” and on the way in which the snow falling softly outside seemed a particularly fitting finale to her class’s time at the College. She reminded them of their “21-Day Expedition” trek, back in July, 2022—each class of Wyoming Catholic College students spends its first month in the Wyoming backcountry, which the College likes to describe as “The Best Freshman Orientation in the Country—and of the fact that the groups struggled to bond until they experienced a torrential downpour. “It was that shared adversity, that shared struggle,” she noted, “that drew us together and formed us as a class.”
She also reminded them of their first winter in Lander (in late 2022), which was one of the harshest in recent memory, and that for many of the Californians or Texans in their class, it was their first real brush with the cold and with the snow. The “friction” of those conditions, again, drew them together, she said, helping them to overcome that adversity and bond more closely. But following upon that shared adversity and bonding, she pointed out, was something else that was even more important to their time at Wyoming Catholic: Love. Thanks to their time in Lander and to the 10+ weeks they spent in the beauty and challenge of the Rocky Mountain West, “We know about the created world,” she said. “We know about reality; that God looked at it and saw that it was very good. Reality itself is always drawing us in to fall in love. It’s always asking us to fall in love.” She exhorted them to remember their struggle, their shared adversity, and that love as they move on from their time at the College.
Later, after the conferral of degrees and the formal class picture. taken on the Community Center stage this year rather than outside, in a nod to the conditions) brought the ceremony to a close, the Class of 2026 found the perfect way to embody Ramsey’s and Reinhardt’s exhortations. Heading outside into the feathery whiteness for a final class photo, they finished off their time at Wyoming Catholic College with a spontaneous, riotous snowball fight, pelting one another furiously for several moments, including the assembled friends, family, and professors who were standing by. The blanketing white backdrop threw the black robes, blue hoods, and legendary black Stetsons each student was wearing into sharp relief, producing some of the most striking and joyous graduation photos we’ve seen at Wyoming Catholic College—or anywhere else, for that matter.
Graduates of Wyoming Catholic College celebrate in 10 inches of fresh snow after the ceremony.
An unforgettable experience ❤️ pic.twitter.com/5RnooRC8lZ
— CatholicVote (@CatholicVote) May 19, 2026
Amy Welborn, Catholic columnist and author, was in Lander for the occasion—her son is a member of the Class of 2026—and in addition to capturing the snowy carnage for Instagram, she noted how fitting the moment was. “Fitting, not only because, well, it’s Wyoming, and as the college’s social media said, it’s a state full of surprises, including with the weather. But also – and more importantly – the snowfall, and the students’ – and faculty’s and guest’s – interaction with the unexpected blanketing – became an expression of what the school, and by extension, the best of Catholic life, is about: Accepting the gift of life and recognizing the grace of each moment – and going with it, in joy.”
Joy and grace, indeed, and a uniquely memorable and fitting farewell to the Class of 2026!
Sintia Maribel Albeño (Benque Viejo del Carman, Belize)
Annika Marie Allan-Burke (Ave Maria, FL)
Jessica Michelle Atkins (San Diego, CA)
Ray Barrett Baldwin V (Brewster, NY)
Michael Thomas Barrow (Austin, TX)
Emma Victoria Bleisch (Sammamish, WA)
Vivian Grace Borges (Wasilla, AK)
Annmarie Elizabeth Bridge (Delafield, WI)
Diego Alejandro Charles (Adkins, TX)
Nathan Joseph Clark (Orange, CA)
Benedict Karol Collins (Ojai, CA)
Grace Katharine Coughlin (Villa Park, CA)
Florian Athanasius Covington (Liberty, SC)
Gemma Justine Davidson (Aurora, CO)
Cecilia Seton Dax (Hartford, WI)
Aeja Magdelena DeKuiper (Twin Lake, MI)
Michael Jacob Dubruiel (Birmingham, AL)
Isabella Kate Ecoff Wagner (Indianapolis, IN)
Maile Alana Escalona (Maxwell, TX)
Liam Ignatius Federoff (Vail, AZ)
Patrick Theodore Gleason (Charlotte, NC)
Anna Marie Grumbine (La Crescenta, CA)
Carolina Laurel Gutierrez (Camarillo, CA)
Joseph Thomas Henderson (Basehor, KS)
Paxton Elijah Huemiller (Algona, IA)
Alden Francisco Jewell (Kennewick, WA)
Quinn Riley Lynch (Des Moines, IA)
Rose Elizabeth Malinoski (Indianapolis, IN)
Tessa Argi Mallona (Lewisville, TX)
Stallings Kathryn Marosy (Tyrone, GA)
Genevieve Saint Clare Martin (Wallace, ID)
Joseph James Erik McAleer (Fairhope, AL)
Magdalena Marie Mortensen (Lander, WY)
John Paul Theodore Nemec (Taylor, TX)
Matthew O’Shea (Dublin, Ireland)
Austin Christopher Penny (Saratoga Springs, NY)
Isabella Shalom Ramsay (Lockhart, TX)
James Lawrence Steven Sidloski (Saskatoon, SK Canada)
Kaitlin Mary Sponseller (Ann Arbor, MI)
Jessa Elizabeth Stommes (Spokane, WA)
Mark Toland Susanka (Lander, WY)
Claire Louise White (Roberts, MT)
Grace Katherine Wiesner (Vallejo, CA)
