Before he even received his diploma, Jacob Osborne was holding his family close. His little sister jittered with excitement while standing beside her big brother, adorned with a royal blue robe and a golden tassel during his graduation ceremony.
Despite being at Franklin High School for only two months, Osborne had no trouble finding his people at school. One of his favorite memories was being introduced to the hide-and-seek game Sardines during the after prom party.
“For me, it’s definitely a change of scenery. It’s a lot smaller of a school but … there’s a big family here,” he said. “They all care for each other like a big family.”
Franklin High’s climate specialist Jamie Smith noted Osborne’s dedication to showing up for his sister, without question. In fact, Smith mentioned one thing she learned about all of the 68 graduates of the Franklin High senior class during their graduation ceremony on June 12.
Smith mentioned how Sage Slocum spent hours on community service and showed up time and time again. She shared how proud Nathan Holmes’s mom was to see him in a championship meet in his first season of track. She remarked on how she noticed Brayden Turner’s talent on the piano since his freshman year.
Turner said he grew his talents at school, especially while learning under the new music teacher Christine Chaisson.
“She really pushes you, which is what I love the most is that she challenges you,” he said. “She doesn’t just let you fall into yourself … She pushes you beyond what you think you can do.”
Several students received senior awards that included academic excellence, sports accolades and even recognitions of loyalty and citizenship. Oliver Foskey won the drama award for working behind the scenes on several school productions.
Foskey fell in love with theater after seeing Franklin High’s production of “School of Rock.” Foskey did costume design for “Wizard of Oz” and transitioned to music technology, which they’ll study at Franklin Pierce University alongside psychology.
“I think the worst part about [graduating] is leaving theater, because it’s such a big community,” Foskey said.
Co-class president Maddie Doherty started her speech by telling her peers to take the moment in — you only graduate high school once, after all. She said she’s always looking back or ahead and never truly in the present, so she told her graduating class that “everything will eventually come to us” and to enjoy right now.
Doherty said in an interview that Franklin High gets a bad reputation a lot of times — but it has innovated in ways that allowed students to take classes at community and technical colleges and even build their own courses. That innovation earned them N.H. School of the Year, with the 2026 class being the first to graduate with that honor.
“Once we leave, take away the lesson of focusing on what’s right in front of you, rather than what you don’t have,” she said in her speech, “because one day the things you do have right in front of you will be the things that you don’t have.”
