Drayden Nyambo had already addressed fellow students in his public speaking class and made public comments during a school board meeting. He participated in talent shows for Project S.T.O.R.Y. and emceed at International Night two years in a row.
Concord High School’s graduation ceremony may have been his biggest stage yet.
The journey didn’t come easy to Nyambo: Since elementary school, he struggled in his English courses. He came to high school and found methods that worked for him and practiced enough to receive high grades in his courses and even win an award for public speaking.
“Getting the award kind of finalized my achievement of not being able to read and write very well to being able to read and write out loud, and do it in a way that it was good enough to get an award,” Nyambo said to the class of 2026 on Saturday at NHTI.
Many other Concord High graduates said they grew in their education, their talents and their identity while part of the Crimson Tide. For Caledonia Mahon, that meant growing her confidence.
Mahon moved to Concord High at the start of freshman year. She felt out of her element after being homeschooled until third grade and attending a Montessori school until eighth. But this year, she remembered a kayak and camping trip along the Merrimack River, finally landing on shore after 12 hours of paddling, and talking to peers she never thought she would become friends.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about my attitude in those early years, and how I was pretty reserved,” Mahon said. “I don’t think I’ve really become comfortable with myself until this past year. Senior year has really been a year of just confidence and comfortability for me, and I wish I wasn’t so closed off to becoming friends with people I had preconceived notions of.”
Gabriella Provencher grew her cooking skills, something she didn’t expect to love. When applying to the Concord Regional Technical Center junior year, her first choice was the theater and film program, but she ended up in the culinary track.
Provencher’s two years in the program were so impactful that she committed to Johnson and Wales in Rhode Island to study baking and pastry arts for two years. Her favorite thing to make is cheesecake, she said.
“I had a lot of opportunity to do hands-on learning, and we did catering events … and competitions,” Provencher said. “I did a chili competition and I ended up making one of my best friends while there, and we ended up winning the competition.”
Through classes and clubs, Wyaitt Buteau found a passion for business, which he will study at Suffolk University in Boston. He was president of Concord High’s LGBTQ+ club and said the school gave students a chance to express themselves however they chose.
“I think identity is just about everything that makes us human, honestly,” Buteau said. “I feel like without being able to respect each other’s identities and also being able to respect our own identities, I feel like we just lose what the purpose of being human even is.”
Salutatorian Maddie Short, in her speech, likened her class’s growth and experience at Concord High to a mosaic: a vast collection of memories that create “one big, beautiful detail.”
“I hope you can all see now that, whether you knew it or not, you just spent four years crafting a mosaic of moments,” she told her peers. “And sure, this one may be done, but you’ve still got the whole gallery of your life left to fill.”
