Thaden Blue

May 31, 2024

Barnstormers,

Greetings from the road to New Jersey. Today is my last as your founding head of school. It is hard to leave Northwest Arkansas while our community is still reeling from the tornadoes that have uprooted many lives, but Margaret and I had to make haste to join the celebration of our son’s engagement. 

On Monday evening, with no more daylight inside for packing boxes, we wandered over to Crystal Bridges to visit James Turrell’s The Way of Color. Quarried from native limestone, this temple to the mutability of light over time makes dawn and dusk palpable as it bends light in ways that dilate and saturate our sense of possibility. During my earliest explorations of this place, Turrell’s oculus became a magical space for blue-sky thinking, Thaden Blue. 

I soon discovered many other sources of inspiration in the natural beauty and culture of this region. The Buffalo River carried me on its turquoise waters through the Boxley Valley so that I could bow before its majestic bluffs. I acquired a taste for sorghum sausage, pimento cheese, and other morsels of the sweet Southern palate. Cooling breezes on summer nights called me into town for “Picking on the Square.” The lively tunes flowing from the strings of the mandolins, banjos, and fiddles made me happy to be in Arkansas with its rich musical history.  

The tempo of the region also worked its charms on my wife Margaret just as soon as she arrived at the airport on a one-way ticket from Newark. While riding the escalator down to baggage claim, she quickly moved to her right, assuming the person behind her needed to pass. “Don’t worry, ma’am,” a gentle voice assured her, “you’re in Arkansas now.” With that assurance, we flowed into easy conversation with the greatest treasure of the Natural State, the people. 

Today, even as we bend our life course back to the east, we are still in Arkansas, now and forever. The beauty of this place is rooted in our hearts. As I reminded our graduates at commencement, we are not leaving Thaden: we are taking it with us. And we will come back, early and often, to visit the place that is for us what I hope Thaden will be for all Barnstormers, a home where they can discover a sense of blue-sky possibility and belonging.

Together, we fly far and stay close. 

Clayton K. Marsh

Founding Head of School