Just this past Wednesday, the 6th of April, the class of 2018 embarked on a trip to Camp Copass for a memorable experience with their Jesuit brothers. There were many students and faculty members that spoke to the crowd about a variety of different things. Mr. and Mrs. Williams, Mr. Ortiz, Mr. Ornelas, and even Coach Hill were some of the speakers among the different faculty member in attendance.
“The most powerful part of the retreat was the idea of the keys, we have keys to our lives, and the retreat helped me to reflect and see what some of my keys are.” – Cole Bengston ’18.
The retreat seemed to bring the entire class closer together as one and introduce to each other sides of themselves that had never been spoken of before to fellow classmates. The keys represented something more than something that’s meant to unlock a door, but something leads you to open new doors in your life and also the idea of keeping good company, hence the words ‘The Company’ on one side of the key and a Jesuit logo on the other. Although we may just think of keys as any other objects or something that DJ Khaled likes to talk about on Snapchat, they truly are a symbol for the things you can achieve, which is probably the reason DJ Khaled focuses on them so much and refers to many ‘keys to success.’
“I feel closer to everyone, even the people I didn’t specifically speak to” – Reid Hatzmann ’18.
The activities brought all the group members closer together, and it was almost as if you could feel it too. The small groups and personal discussions seemed to emit a sense of safety and refuge for any of the group members to talk about personal experiences or feelings. The ‘Stand up’ activity seemed to be the most uniting activity, in which the speaker, Mr. Ortiz, asked a variety of questions from if you were born in the State of Texas to if you have ever felt victimized by racial comments from other Jesuit classmates, and if this applied to you, then you would stand up. The most powerful thing was that even on the toughest questions, there were always people standing up, and it gave a sense of comfort to everyone else standing, or even sitting, that they were not alone in their struggles and that they have experienced the same thing. The best thing about these kinds of things is that everyone gets a different experience out of it, good or bad.
According to Chase Kengott ’18, “The best part was when we got to eat.” And in his defense, the chicken fried steak was 
pretty good.
After returning from the retreat, the students were greeted by their parents sitting in the Terry Center for a closing mass. In the end, the retreat left many members of the sophomore class feeling and thinking different from when they arrived.
This is just one of the many things that aren’t necessary that Jesuit does anyway for the greater good in our lives that we should be proud of for being lucky enough to go to such a great school as ours.
