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Retired teacher to embark on 50th anniversary ascent of Graduation Peak

Published 12:30 pm Wednesday, July 1, 2026

By Alexander Vaz

Retired educator Hal Neace will be attempting a 50-year reunion ascent of Graduation Peak alongside his children and grandchildren on July 6. He began the tradition with his senior students at Susan B. English School while teaching an outdoor education class called Project Adventure. (Hal Neace)
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Retired educator Hal Neace will be attempting a 50-year reunion ascent of Graduation Peak alongside his children and grandchildren on July 6. He began the tradition with his senior students at Susan B. English School while teaching an outdoor education class called Project Adventure. (Hal Neace)

Retired educator Hal Neace will be attempting a 50-year reunion ascent of Graduation Peak alongside his children and grandchildren on July 6. He began the tradition with his senior students at Susan B. English School while teaching an outdoor education class called Project Adventure. (Hal Neace)
Retired educator Hal Neace will be attempting a 50-year reunion ascent of Graduation Peak alongside his children and grandchildren on July 6. He began the tradition with his senior students at Susan B. English School while teaching an outdoor education class called Project Adventure. (Hal Neace)
Retired educator Hal Neace will be attempting a 50-year reunion ascent of Graduation Peak alongside his children and grandchildren on July 6. He began the tradition with his senior students at Susan B. English School while teaching an outdoor education class called Project Adventure. (Hal Neace)
Retired educator Hal Neace will be attempting a 50-year reunion ascent of Graduation Peak alongside his children and grandchildren on July 6. He began the tradition with his senior students at Susan B. English School while teaching an outdoor education class called Project Adventure. (Hal Neace)
Retired educator Hal Neace will be attempting a 50-year reunion ascent of Graduation Peak alongside his children and grandchildren on July 6. He began the tradition with his senior students at Susan B. English School while teaching an outdoor education class called Project Adventure. (Hal Neace) Retired educator Hal Neace will be attempting a 50-year reunion ascent of Graduation Peak alongside his children and grandchildren on July 6. He began the tradition with his senior students at Susan B. English School while teaching an outdoor education class called Project Adventure. (Hal Neace)

A retired educator of 49 years is set to embark on an anniversary climb on Graduation Peak behind Soldovia next week.

Hal Neace will be attempting a 50-year reunion ascent of the peak alongside his children and grandchildren on July 6.

He began the tradition with his senior students at Susan B. English School while teaching an outdoor education class called Project Adventure — a nationally recognized educational curriculum which originated back east.

“I began a ritual of taking the graduating seniors in my outdoor class to the top of Graduation Peak,” he recalled.

“It was not named such until I began leading these climbs, all on graduation day, and we would leave at 3 a.m. to make the summit and back in time for the evening speeches and ceremonies.”

This year’s climb marks the 50th anniversary of Neace coming to Alaska to live and teach. Neace will be joined by his daughter Sally, her husband, and their three teenage children from Boise, and his daughter Heather and her husband.

Valissa Higman from Seldovia, Heather’s first grade classmate in 1986, will guide Neace and his family up the peak as a new trail has been cut on a different route than the one he always took.

“Plus, other students living in Seldovia will meet us and one or two may climb with us,” Neace said.

They will be returning to Homer in the evening on the same day of the ascent.

“A full day it will be,” Neace added.

Neace also taught Grade 7 to 12 science at Susan B. English School from 1976 to 1986, before transferring to Homer where he continued teaching at Homer Middle School until 2009 and then mentored new educators in 39 villages as a teacher mentor for the Alaska Statewide Mentor Program at the University if Alaska Fairbanks for 15 years. “Our main goals in the program were to increase teacher retention to increase students achievement,” he said.

Even though he is now retired, Neace is still looking to increase achievement — this time, his family’s — through the same experiences he first started with his students 50 years ago.

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