Armstrong World Industries' second quarter was, in one sentence, the cleanest proof yet that a building-products business built in 1861 can grow at double-digit revenue rates, sustain mid-30s adjusted EBITDA margins, and return capital with conviction at the same time. Net sales of $472.0 million rose 11.2% year over year, GAAP operating income rose 8.6% to $133.8 million, adjusted EBITDA rose 7.5% to $166 million at a 35.2% margin, GAAP diluted EPS rose 12.4% to $2.26, and adjusted diluted EPS rose 12.9% to $2.36. Both segments delivered: Mineral Fiber grew 7.9% on a second consecutive quarter of volume growth and continued favorable like-for-like price-and-mix, and Architectural Specialties grew 16.6% with $11 million of inorganic contribution layered on top of $15 million of organic growth. The forward read is equally important - management raised full-year guidance midpoints across all load-bearing metrics: net sales of $1,770–$1,800 million, adjusted EBITDA of $605–$620 million, adjusted diluted EPS of $8.30–$8.50. And the *quiet* second-act is the post-quarter capital allocation: on July 21 the board added $800 million to the existing share repurchase authorization and extended the program through December 2029, lifting cumulative authorization since 2016 to $2.5 billion. With $398 million already on the balance sheet at quarter-end, AWI now sits on roughly $1.2 billion of dry repurchase powder - a deliberate signal that the buyback is the management team's view of the share price, not a check-the-box return. The load-bearing question the quarter answers is whether the volume-led Mineral Fiber recovery and the inorganic-into-organic ramp in Architectural Specialties can carry the second half; the load-bearing question the *post-quarter* events raise is whether $1.2 billion of buyback authority will compress the float fast enough to outrun the tariff-and-input-cost backdrop the IEEPA refunds are only partially masking.