Alumni Profile: Wyatt Garratt

Wyatt Garratt graduated from High Meadow in 2011. After earning his degree in English, he’s back in the Hudson Valley, exercising his creative side while seeking his fortune on the land.

Wyatt (left) and Eli McClatchy sharing headphones on their class trip to Washington DC.

Wyatt Garratt’s parents moved to Woodstock from Brooklyn when he was about three years old. “They did it for me,” he says. “They didn’t want to raise a kid in the city.” Through friends at his preschool, they learned about High Meadow, and Wyatt started in Kindergarten, circa 2003.

Wyatt’s era at High Meadow was a time of expansion, laying the groundwork for the campus we know today. His memories of his time at HMS come to him like lines of a poem:

I remember playing kick ball by the arts building.

I remember that tree that drops all those stinky fruits.

I remember sometimes in the mornings there would be a new shipment of wood chips and they’d be steaming because it was cold out.

I remember sitting on the stairs for private reading time, letting you read whatever you want.

He remembers Popo Village, relocated now, which lives on as a student-governed space created entirely from natural materials.

He remembers, in 2nd grade, “reading a book series that I’m still kind of interested in, looking back. I started my love of writing at High Meadow for sure. In 7th and 8th grade, my teachers would tell me what a great writer I was.” That encouragement has stuck with him to this day.

After High Meadow, Wyatt attended Onteora High School. It was a rough start there as his parents worked to get him appropriate course placements without previous public school experience. He spent his second freshman semester at Coleman Catholic school, ultimately finding success in honors classes at Onteora.

At the University of Vermont – where he was roommates for a time with HMS classmate, Eli McClatchy – Wyatt majored in English. Today, he continues to write short stories, mostly horror, and has a novel in development. “Not for money,” he points out. That he’s pursuing separately: “I’m starting a weed company. I have a license now. I moved back to New York to do that.”

After growing cannabis as a hobby, “I got really good at it, and when it started being legalized here, I thought I could make some money.” Last season’s harvest, grown on his parents’ farm, was a test run. This summer, Wyatt will be building a small processing facility on the property. In time, Kaaterskill Cannabis will distribute through local dispensaries.

Wyatt hasn’t been back to High Meadow in some time, but living in the area, reminders are never far. “I actually ran into a couple people out in Kingston from two grades above me like last week.”