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Words Of Wisdom

Southwestern Central School Celebrates 70th Annual Commencement Ceremony

Graduates of Southwestern’s class of 2017 packed the first nine rows of the Reg Lenna Center for the Arts. P-J photo by Remington Whitcomb

On Friday, the first nine rows of the Reg Lenna Center for the Arts were transformed into a mosaic of red and blue mortarboards as Southwestern Central School graduated its senior class of 2017.

The ceremony began with the soon-to-be graduates proceeding down the aisles, two-by-two, while the Southwestern High School Concert Band performed a traditional playing of “Pomp and Circumstance” by Edward Elgar.

Once seated, Megan Powers, class salutatorian, delivered a droll yet eloquent address about the lessons she learned during her time at Southwestern Central School.

“I’ve learned that nothing is easy when you procrastinate,” Powers said. “For example, I wrote this in the car on the way here. It was difficult with the wheel in the way, but I made it here, so it’s fine. Learning to write down things that you need to remember is also incredibly helpful — spoken by someone who has double-booked most of their life. A good place to write these things is your hand — oh shoot, I’m supposed to be somewhere right now.”

Powers went on to dial back the humor and focused her address on the importance of taking control of one’s own life, and living in the moment rather than in the past. She emphasized this point by quoting Pink Floyd’s song “Time,” and concluded with her own poignant statement about the topic.

“Someday, 60 years from now, our tassels and our diplomas will be dusty and lost in attics and basements, another casualty of time, and all we will have left from graduation is the mere fact that we did it,” Powers said.”

Following Powers, Alyssa Carlson, class valedictorian, delivered a speech that reflected on the accomplishments of her entire class.

“We should be proud of everything we’ve accomplished as Trojans,” Carlson said. “As athletes, musicians, scholars and everything in between — and we should be excited to see what we will all do now that the world is in our hands, whether that means going to college, going directly into the workforce, or any other endeavors we may have.

“There is no doubt that the class of 2017 is a special class,” Carlson continued. “We will be remembered as a class that carried pride, courage and commitment with us wherever we went.”

As the keynote speaker, Rev. Amy J. Rohler recalled a traumatic occasion in her life for the sake of using it as a metaphor. While she was 40 weeks pregnant, she slipped on a puddle of water and severely dislocated her knee. Due to being so late in her pregnancy, the doctor responsible for putting her knee back in joint warned that the use of narcotics for pain control could cause respiratory complications for her unborn child. Caring more about her child than the imminent pain of joint relocation, she refused pain medication and let the doctor put the joint back in place without so much as an aspirin to comfort her.

The metaphor went: every single graduate at the ceremony will experience dislocation at some point in the near future, whether through geographical relocation, loss of family, financial hardship, or complication in a relationship. And much like Rohler’s knee dislocation, it will hurt. But eventually every metaphorical dislocation in life will get put back into place, and we will be the better for it. Furthermore, we will never forget those who helped us put our dislocation back into place.

After every graduate walked across the stage with their diploma in hand, superintendent Maureen Donahue instructed the graduates to flip their tassels to the other side of their mortarboards. With this action, the class of 2017 concluded their time at Southwestern Central School, and the class of 2018 gained the privilege of calling themselves seniors.

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