BENNINGTON – The Mount Anthony Union High School class of 2024 has edged past that defining moment called graduation and into a wider world and the rest of their lives.
Principal Tim Payne congratulated the 186 departing seniors and advised them to engage in life with people outside their comfort zone of family, friends and acquaintances -- especially those who don’t likely share their worldview.
Payne quoted filmmaker Ken Burns, who speaking at a recent college commencement, told Brandeis University graduates that he’d learned in life, '''There's only us. There is no them.'"
As the MAU seniors move on, Payne added, “I strongly encourage you to cultivate a wide variety of friends, with different backgrounds and different views of the world,” including some of those people “sitting with you today.”
The principal then recounted several positive acts or gestures he had witnessed from members of the class that were memorable to him.
Payne said he described some laudable examples to help graduates resist the societal forces that “encourage us daily to gather only friends that look just like us. I truly believe your lives will be richer if we remember that we are all human and all deserving of respect.”
Riley Thurber, president of the Class of 2024, said he wasn’t sure what to expect entering high school, especially in light of the pandemic-imposed restrictions disrupting the traditional student experience during his first years at MAU.
“It wasn’t necessarily what I had expected,” he said, adding that “what was supposed to be the best four years of our lives” slowly did, however, take shape, despite the imposed social distancing prompted by COVID-19.
Their sophom*ore year “was a little more normal," Thurber said, “and as we transitioned into the upper classes, we finally gained a little more confidence,” including walking the halls and interacting with others.
“And now here we are,” he said, “at the finish line. Or is it the starting line? Who knew these years would really fly by like all our parents said?”
In the familiar school halls, the class of 2024 found comfort and “knowledge and understanding that will propel us wherever we go,” Thurber said, and “our small-town roots have woven into the very fabric of who we are.”
While leaving high school behind, “we are about to embark on a journey of a lifetime,” he said, also urging the graduates not to settle into the idea that those years will turn out to the “best years of our lives.”
Quoting Abraham Lincoln, he said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it,” adding, “I challenge each and everyone of you to create your own future.”
Salutatorian Thomas Scheetz related his experience as a sophom*ore cross-country runner, when he needed to be alone to prepare himself mentally for a race inside a course porta potty – turning that into a metaphor for overcoming self-doubt before a difficult task.
“As long as I was in there, there was no preparing, no warming up, no walking the course, no racing, no meet, no outside – just me and my own claustrophobic corner of the cross-country meet,” Scheetz said.
But when another runner one day barged in on him in the portable john, he said, “That was the day I realized, in a mortifying way, that hiding cannot be forever. The world will not let you be permanently reclusive, with no exceptions.”
Scheetz also urged his classmates not to fall for the notion that being from rural Bennington should foster any inhibitions in the outside world, citing the many accomplishments of people through history who were raised here.
“As you leave this high school, recognize that you deserve a seat at the table,” he said. “Don’t lock yourself in your own personal porta potty, like I did ... Be bold, be audacious. Do not let preconceived restrictions weigh you down.”
Valedictorian Sophia Anisman said, “Let’s take a moment to thank the individuals in our lives that have helped us get to this point. There is a patchwork quilt of parents, teachers, friends and everyone in-between, who have supported us, believed in us, and bought us poster boards before a project was due.”
She added, “However, even with their help, we also have ourselves to thank.”
Despite the many potential pitfalls, Anisman said, “We made it here, and I think that deserves a round of applause.”
The amount of work it took to “be sitting in these chairs, is truly impressive,” she said, adding, “We all decided, every day, that this is something worth working for. We decided that we are worth investing in ... The only advice I can give you all is to keep making those decisions every day because they will add up to something big.”
Faculty speaker Laura Krause recalled her own experiences as a student at MAUHS, saying, “Tonight I am here to cheer you on," she said. "And I am doing so in the hope that each of you begins your next journey inspired to see what [poet] Mary Oliver calls ‘your one wild and precious life.’”
She said the graduates should also keep in mind that she and others in the MAU community will still be available to offer encouragement as their go on through their lives, discovering “what you are capable of.”
Payne also announced during the ceremonies Friday evening that Samuel Tock was the winner of the Senior Patriot Award.
The event was held in Kates Gymnasium because of threat of rain showers.
