Just as she had many times before when she used to teach English, Franklin High School principal Carrie Charette asked students to analyze a song. For this final high school assignment, though, students were given a more than doable time frame – a lifetime.
The 68 graduating seniors, patiently waiting to receive their diplomas at Franklin Middle School, were tasked with picking apart and using lessons from “Hall of Fame” by The Script. The song later closed the ceremony.
“Any evidence will be accepted, as long as you demonstrate competency,” Charette said. “The song states, ‘the world’s gonna know your name, because you burn with the brightest flame.’ Please connect this lyric to your future and continue to make us proud.”
Class officer Michayla Sharlow told students to follow their passions even if they hadn’t worked out quite what they were doing yet or if what they were planning on doing seemed a little far-fetched.
“Already this class has makings of nurses, chefs, entrepreneurs, rock-stars, athletes, soldiers and, in my case, even filmmakers,” she said. “Imagine being my parents and having to help pay the bill for that viable career.”
Sharlow said the students would be able to help each other pursue these passions because of their tightly knit community in Franklin.
“Franklin High School is a small school, our class has a total of 68 kids, and this has allowed us to get to know each other in a way that is not possible at a larger school,” she said. “We’ve watched each other grow up and spent a majority of our childhood together.”
Valedictorian Brianna Judkins said the Franklin High and the Franklin city community were second to none in helping students succeed.
“Between various events, we’ve won some and lost some, but regardless of the result we’ve done it together as a class,” she said. “We’ve made friends and we’ve made memories. … While we will hope to move on to bigger and better things, we will always hold a place in our heart for not only our friends in high school but the city of Franklin.”
The group of seniors served as something of a family for salutatorian Zoe Kaplan, who said this class was brought together through adversity.
“This class has braved the toughest of seas together, and for that we are much closer,” she said. “The struggles and abrupt awakenings have served as motivation to be great in every single thing we do … by our senior year we had it figured out.”
While the school served as a family for Kaplan, she said her biological family also played a crucial role in her success.
Kaplan’s seven older siblings had helped shape her, though she claimed her parents had saved, “the best for last.”
“I am not the first Kaplan up here giving a speech, but I am the last,” she said. “Thank you for the sacrifices you made for me day in and day out … you all played an instrumental role in reaching this point in life.”
The success of the Franklin community was illustrated by a bit of an off the wall analogy by English teacher Andrea Costanzo.
Costanzo said her favorite cartoon characters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, each embodied a trait, whether it be passion, intellect or good humor, that the graduates should take with them.
The turtles’ Renaissance artist namesakes helped describe the sort of Franklin Renaissance the students had experienced while at the school,” Costanzo said.
“The Renaissance was a time of new ideas, a flourishing of art and culture, discovery and philosophy,” she said. “I hope that you were exposed to new ideas and made new intellectual discoveries. I hope that you were challenged and lived all of your time to the fullest.”
Costanzo noted the Renaissance in Europe was followed by the Age of Exploration, in which sailors set forth to explore lands they had never previously visited.
For the students, Costanzo said, the next chapter in their lives would serve as a sort of personal age of exploration.
“I hope you are leaving here with your own sense of adventure and set forth to seek out new experiences and take advantage of new opportunities that come your way,” she said. “Go today and embark upon your age of discovery.”