STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Peter Wolter stood at a podium on the stage of the Sun Valley Pavilion Sunday afternoon, and got blunt as he looked over his shoulder at 47 seniors who make up the Sun Valley Community School's Class of 2026.

"Most, if not all of you, know exactly what you're doing next," he said. "Me? I'm 27 years old, unemployed, wearing Nikes. On the hunt for a job that will at least pay my rent."

The crowd that filled the 1,500-seat Pavilion loved it.

Peter Wolter told graduates that “If you seek what interests you and what you’re good at, you should be okay.”

But Wolter, a 2017 Community School graduate who spent 16 years at the school--from kindergarten to 12th grade--hadn't come back to his alma mater to talk about career planning. He'd come back because this spring, guiding visually impaired skier Jake Adicoff to cross-country skiing medals at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Paralympics, he'd learned something about life that no economics degree from Middlebury College had taught him.

"The wins in Italy were a materialization of Jake's dreams," Wolter told the graduates. "He trusted me enough to bring me along for the ride. To play a part in his dreams. And in the end, we got to share that victory together."

Adicoff, a Sun Valley native, won four gold medals at the Paralympics — the most dominant performance in Paralympic Nordic skiing history. Wolter guided him to two of those golds. But standing on that podium in Italy, surrounded by gold medals and $20,000 worth of Nike gear and MVP interviews, Wolter said none of it would have mattered if he'd been alone.

"Achieving your own dreams is one thing," he said. "But if you're ever bored and looking for something to do, I'd say: Go help someone else achieve their dreams. It feels just as good, if not better."

Two of the students took quick photo snaps as they made their way onto stage, while another couple enacted what resembled a marriage proposal.

The message landed with particular weight because Wolter had also carried a sense of loss to the podium. His friend Guro Jordheim, a former All-American skier from the University of Utah, died in an avalanche in Norway this spring, and the collision of grief and glory had crystallized something for the young athlete who'd competed on the World Cup circuit and been a two-time NCAA All-American at Middlebury.

"What matters are the relationships you have with the people you care most about," he said. "It feels crazy to seemingly boil all of life down to a single belief when I'm only 27 years old. But I don't think I've ever felt a conviction this strong."

It was a conviction the rest of the ceremony echoed.

Head of School Ben Pettit opened the outdoor ceremony by telling graduates they were ready — not because the future was certain, but because they'd learned to navigate uncertainty. He quoted University of Minnesota football coach P.J. Fleck: "Fear is often mistaken for danger, but sometimes fear is simply a signal that the opportunity in front of you is large enough to change your life for the good."

Upper School Head Jessica Wailewski, a 1998 graduate of the Sun Valley Community School, said that students at the school have learned that community is not something you inherit but something you create.

Pettit reminded parents of what they'd given: "You celebrated the triumphs, studied them through disappointments, drove countless miles through south central Idaho high desert landscapes and across the Mountain West. You answered late night phone calls, packed lunches and ski bags and camping gear."

Upper School Head Jessica Wasilewski then painted a portrait of a class defined not by its résumé but by its range. Twenty of the graduates came through the Sun Valley Ski Academy. Eight completed the Creative Arts Academy. Eighteen graduated from the Outdoor Leadership Academy.

Together they'd rafted 81 miles down the Main Salmon as ninth graders, spent two nights alone in the Utah desert as juniors, performed in more than 25 productions and concerts and competed in 12 athletic seasons.

"In this group are national ski champions and snowboard champions, students who have traveled here from Ukraine, Finland, and Canada, singers whose voices can bring a room to tears," Wasilewski said. "Different talents, different passions, different paths. Together, one class, one community."

“Batter up!” was among the short skits the students presented as they faced the audience.

The senior speakers proved her point.

Addison Parmenter opened her speech talking about desks, rather than accomplishments--those worn wooden surfaces carved with initials and permanent marker jokes "absolutely not PG" that made students laugh when they weren't supposed to. The real marks, she said, weren't the ones scratched into wood.

"You are what you love," Parmenter told her classmates. "Not your grades, not your achievements, not the name of the college printed on the sweatshirts you've been wearing since March. You are made up of the people who changed you."

She thanked parents for loving their children "through every version of ourselves that we tried on," and teachers for reading "our terrible first drafts and calling them promising."

"There's something quietly devastating about realizing, only now, at the end, how much you were being loved the whole time," she said.

Anders Coulter took a different route to the same destination. He told the story of waking early on his final Quest trip down the Green River in southern Utah, finding the canyon walls glowing orange and the water perfectly still. No phones, no schedules, no pressure.

"I think so many of us right now feel so much pressure to have everything figured out perfectly," Coulter said. Then he asked the audience to raise their hands if they'd changed majors, switched schools, or ended up somewhere completely different than they'd imagined at graduation.

Hands went up across the Pavilion.

"There's the proof," he said. "Things change. People change. Plans change. And honestly, that's probably what it's supposed to be."

The class also dedicated their yearbook to three members of the school community — Richard Whitelaw, a staff member who has worked at the school for 34 years and has a tattoo of the Cutthroat mascot on his leg; Sean McCollum, a teacher whose passion for computer science changed students who never thought they'd enjoy coding; and Sarah, whose smile at the front door each morning gave students a sense of belonging before their day even began.

Then the graduates stood, and the Sun Valley Pavilion filled with applause — for 47 young people heading toward colleges, gap years, careers and adventures, carrying with them the lessons of Idaho rivers and Utah deserts, of campfires and quad conversations, of teachers who stayed after class and parents who kept asking "How was your day?" even when the answer was one word.

Wolter put it simply: "You do not have favorite places or moments. You have favorite people that make those places or moments your favorite."

The Class of 2026 had found their people. Now they were ready to go find the rest.