Holy Trinity Classical Christian School
Bright Hearts for a Bright Future
story by ERIN WALLACE photos courtesy of HTCCS
People say there is strength in numbers, but it isn’t always the case! Though Beaufort is small in number, it remains the charming town that we know and love. I would dare to say that strength isn’t always as it seems. Strength doesn’t derive from being loud, and it certainly doesn’t always come from being large in number. Beaufort’s strength is the pillar of a community that it holds. That community is not large in scale as compared to a city. It is the smallness that creates a closeness among Beaufortorians; one tends to never meet a stranger walking along the Lowcountry. This is not just southern hospitality! One feels loved and known in Beaufort’s borders, which is rare to experience in a world that makes you feel incredibly small with how fast it moves, and how quickly multitudes pop up across your feed on social media. There is strength in community, no matter the size. The strength is found in the coming together itself, not the quantity of how many come.
A group that intentionally came together within Beaufort’s already tight-knit community is located at Holy Trinity Classical Christian School (HTCCS). This school is made up of 350+ students from preschool through 12th grade. It houses seven seniors who are making a splash with college offers and accomplishments both academically and spiritually. These seven seniors make up the entire graduating class of 2024. These seven seniors hold many differences. They have different passions, hobbies, strengths, and weaknesses. Some have been at the school for years, while others transferred in through the years. The group made the decision to be tightly knit, welcoming in anyone and deciding to find common ground to encourage one another.
One area of common ground is their shared experience receiving extraordinary guidance from their School Counselor Tara Gaillard. Before moving to Beaufort, Tara served as a teacher/counselor in Columbia, Charleston, and Myrtle Beach. When she began with Holy Trinity, she was a kindergarten aide in 2017 and quickly pivoted to her current role as guidance counselor the next year in 2018. It makes Tara incredibly proud to see her students succeed, but not only when it comes to college. She desires to see them equipped for all areas of life. HTCCS as a school is distinctive when it comes to what they hope for their students in the long run: the formation of their students’ hearts. That is where everything pours out from. According to the school’s website, their vision statement is this: “We cultivate joyful, virtuous, and wise citizens whose lives are built upon the bedrock of faith in Christ, taking His Gospel to the ends of the earth.” This is an understanding Tara is entirely in step with as she guides students forward.
Tara’s guidance counselor meetings with students, or heart to hearts, begin in seventh grade. She meets with Upper School students periodically and seniors twice a month during the school year, until their twelfth grade graduation. It is during these meetings that Tara aids her students in seeing where God is calling and equipping them. Tara says, “If they know the Lord, then He connects their path for the rest of their life.” During these integral years, she intentionally pursues them as she is relational, joyful, and genuine. At this stage of a high schoolers life, the path forward can seem hazy. Having purposeful guidance with matters of the heart in mind for success—not solely toward college—is a game changer. It has the trajectory to bring hope in continuing to forge on, no matter what life throws your way, whether it be the good or the bad. If you ask me, that sounds like the definition of success and a lesson so many wish they had learned earlier in life.
When I asked Tara what she hoped her students would take away from her time with her and not just HTCCS, in general, she specifically pointed to a passage that God led her to not too long ago: “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his ; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” (Psalm 100:1) Tara feels this passage is impactful on her students because how one serves the Lord is an expression of one’s worship. Therefore, no matter what her students end up doing, God has specifically made them for the life they are going to live and already have lived. Tara captured it beautifully, “He’s not going to send us out ill-equipped, He has us in the palm of His hands.” She trusts that whatever the future holds for her students, it is a life of worship.
This became a groundwork for the tight-knit group of senior students. Their hearts and minds have been formed by the school structure and Tara, herself, to be set on what is true and good. Despite differences in hobby or passion, the students shared a more essential factor for community building: a firm foundation that any pursuit is built upon. This is a firm foundation they can encourage one another in, regardless of the differences in what the path holds after graduation.
These seven seniors are an impressive group of scholars. Out of the seven, five are pursuing college and two are going into the workforce. These five have submitted 45 college applications among them. Talk about dedication! It doesn’t end there as the list of colleges that these seniors have been accepted to is very long and unique. It includes a vast range of schools, like, the Nascar Technical Institute, Georgia Tech, Clemson Honors College and Lyceum Scholars, UNC-Chapel Hill, UVA, University of Pennsylvania, NYU, Furman, Hillsdale College, College of Charleston, Wheaton, and so many more. In response to these applications, they have already received well over 1.5 million dollars in scholarship offers.
On top of the overwhelming response to the group’s college applications, they also have one member who is a National Merit Commended Scholar. This is a scholarship competition that began in 1955. This non-for-profit private program initially screens over 1.3 million student entries year by year. This means the student has placed in the top 50,000 scores of the 1.5 million who took the PSAT for their academic year. Though it sounds like a large number, it means being in the .033% of PSAT scores. This is an immense academic achievement for any student finishing their high school education.
Other achievements that these seven seniors accomplished include: directed a prayer gathering at waterfront park for the Beaufort community; created a non profit that raises funds for their sister school, Good Shepherd Academy in South Sudan; and logged hundreds of hours of documented volunteer work in Beaufort, the US, and internationally. Lastly and most importantly for the school, they serve in their churches and in the community.
This year marks the first year that the seniors will have their award ceremony in the new Hathaway Hall. This is a newly built arts and athletics facility named for the Holy Trinity legendary couple: Bishop and Barbara Hathaway. They have been involved since the dream of a distinctly classical and christian school was born in 2007. Bishop and Barbara Hathaway are a couple who have been steadily alongside the school from being part of the initial “dream team” and are fully immersed in the HTCCS campus life and culture to this day. Barbara is currently the school’s librarian, and Bishop goes to Chapel and frequents the halls of the school. This special group of seven students will get to be the first ones celebrated in this new and meaningful space.
Often, high school graduating classes have more people to know. The more people to know, the more shared interests and a natural selectiveness to the friends and relationships you invest in during those pivotal years. With a smaller group, you have to find common ground and work together. Having linked arms with one another, propelled by the dedicated teaching and mentoring of the faculty, and with the guidance of Tara Gaillard, this group of seven scholars has found their common ground: hearts filled with wisdom and a trajectory of worship and trust. This small but mighty group of teenagers discovered a common purpose and encouraged one another; we could learn a lot from them. It sounds like their futures are bright, but I would dare to say their hearts are even brighter after an education where they were constantly pursued and poured into by educators who love and support students. Cheers to you HTCCS graduating class of 2024. We can’t wait to see where your paths take you!
