There’s something special about growing up in a small town like Pittsfield, Kyle Hamel said.
Hamel, the Pittsfield Middle High School Valedictorian, received his diploma at the school’s graduation ceremony Saturday morning. He stood on stage alongside his 22 classmates – the people he called his “dysfunctional family.”
“We all have our piece in the class puzzle,” he said. “We all know each other’s names, likes and dislikes.”
But that’s not all – the students also knew the names of their classmates’ parents, siblings, friends and neighbors. It’s one of those things that happens when you grow up together, senior Joe Cox said.
“For the past 13 years, I have watched my friends grow their own individual personalities,” he said. “I have learned what foods they like, what Netflix shows they like to binge on and what they want to do after they leave the ceremony today.”
Superintendent John Freeman described the Class of 2016 as a group of varied personalities that accepts one another for who they are.
“I think people tend to be more strongly supported in a small town, a small high school,” he added. “There’s just something a large high school could not offer.”
Next year, the graduates will go on to colleges, technical programs, the Air Force or the workforce.
Salutatorian Chase Gaudette said Pittsfield has prepared them for whatever’s in store.
“That’s why we’re here,” he said. “To celebrate – not the past, but our futures.”
English teacher Jenny Wellington left the graduates with three pieces of advice for those future endeavors: don’t be lazy, don’t be mean and don’t be scared.
“I think this advice gets you a life that you choose,” she said in her keynote speech. “It gets you an intentional life – one that you are responsible for and one that you will, therefore, get to enjoy.”
At the ceremony, speakers named recipients of Rotary scholarships and the Foss Family Pittsfield Town Scholarships – both of which were funded by people locally, in the hopes that students will someday return to their hometown and give back to the community.
For senior Zac Bissonette, that day may come sooner than expected. Bissonette will attend New Hampshire Technical Institute in the fall. He hopes to earn an early childhood education degree and, eventually, land a teaching job.
Freeman shook Bissonette’s hand after graduation – and told him if he ever needed a place to work as a student-teacher, to come back home to Pittsfield.
“I was hoping you would say that,” Bissonette said with a laugh.
The graduates presented carnations to the people who supported them throughout their educational journey – including their teachers, their friends, their parents and their friends’ parents.
Then they watched a slideshow of photos to recap all the time – 13 years, for some – they’d spent with their Pittsfield classmates.
“No matter where we go or who we end up as, we will always be able to look back at the school and the town that made us who we are,” Hamel said.
(Katie Galioto can be reached at 369-3302, kgalioto@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @katiegalioto.)