JUNE 6 WAS TRULY A CHELSEA morning. At 10:30 on that cool, clear Friday, the First Daughter and 121 fellow seniors at the private Sidwell Friends School in Washington strode into the school's intimate garden. After being escorted to her seat by fellow senior Rory Eakin, Chelsea listened as her father, President Bill Clinton, delivered a commencement speech both poignant ("A part of us longs to hold you once more as we did when you could barely walk, to read to you just one more time Goodnight Moon") and concise (14 minutes—thanks to his daughter's urging him to be "wise, briefly"). Then, after hugging school principal Bernard T. Noe and her dad, Chelsea, wearing a simple, floor-length white dress, received her diploma from headmaster Earl Harrison Jr.
For Chelsea, 17, the ceremony capped a month of soirees. On June 3, she wore a sleeveless black top and long silver skirt with red poppies to the senior prom, an 11:30 p.m. cruise on the Potomac, which was followed by a party at the Montgomery Mall that lasted till dawn. Her escort that night, Bobby Lutzker, is "a part of the group of superbright [Sidwell] boys and girls that are Chelsea's closest friends," says a source close to the school.
Despite being trailed by Secret Service agents, Chelsea, a ballet dancer and yearbook editor, has led an impressively normal high school life. "She's blossomed there," says former Sidwell admissions director Georgia Irvin. "It's probably one of the few schools where her parents are listed as Bill and Hillary, not 'The President and Mrs.' "
And, like other parents of graduates, Bill and Hillary are feeling separation pangs. While Chelsea, who heads for Stanford University in the fall, spent last week with pals in Rehobeth Beach, Del, her parents stayed home, perhaps perusing the book reportedly on the First Lady's bedstand: Letting Go: A Parents' Guide to Understanding the College Years.
DAN JEWEL
MARGERY SELLINGER in Washington
- Contributors:
- Margery Sellinger.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
