HIGH RES GRADUATION PHOTOS FOR SALE HERE
SOUTH HADLEY – At the South Hadley High School graduation Sunday, student council President Stephanie Craven delivered her address to the 130 other soon-to-be-graduates in verse.
“What a wonderful ride it has been, on a scale of one to nine y’all are a ten,” she said.
The ceremony in the Chapin Auditorium of Mount Holyoke College also featured an address by valedictorian Thomas Shea, compared finishing high school as having completed the first couple of innings of a baseball game. He remembered the words of a coach who advised his team to win every inning.
“Work is even more crucial now as life will not get any easier,” he said.
Three co-salutatorians also spoke, including Justin Garon.
Garon said a takeaway message he got from school is that if you don’t use your brain cells they will die. Austin Ablicki told his classmates “when we fall, we must get up because failure is not an option,” and that “being average is not acceptable, because it will not help us achieve life-long success.”
The third, Benjamin Provost, got some warm-hearted laughs after telling the audience that he was taking the advice of a teacher to heart who said that students shouldn’t “peak” in high school.
“High school is not the best four years of our lives, at least I sure as hell hope not,” Provost said. His advice to the graduating seniors was to “be humble, remember your roots and don’t be afraid of success.”
Provost will attend the United States Naval Academy next year.
Another graduate choosing military service is Zackary Healy, who said he has known since sixth grade that he wants to join the Army.
“I knew there weren’t that many jobs after high school out there that I would enjoy,” he said. He has a few loose ends to tie up with his guidance counselor and his doctor before he can enlist at the end of June. Having scored well on the standardized Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test, he said he has several options for service. He is deciding between training as a combat engineer and an airborne ranger, he said.
Graduate Nicole Mann said she decided to take a year off from school to save money for college by working as a waitress at the Loomis Village retirement home. She said she enjoys the job she has held for more than a year and is looking forward to eventually studying early childhood education.
Class president, Jaclyn Doyle, capped off the nearly two-hour ceremony.
“This is not the end, but the beginning,” she said. “Life is short and no one knows what tomorrow can bring, so live life to the fullest.”