Before members of the Belmont High School Class of 2016 received their diplomas on Sunday afternoon, they went out into the audience at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford, flowers in hand.
The “Presentation of Flowers” ceremony is a tradition at Belmont High School that occurs right before the end of graduation as students are about to receive their diplomas. The school provides each student with two carnations to give to people they are grateful to for supporting them during their high school career. It’s an emotional 15 minutes, as photos of the class as children and current school photos are projected onto screens at the front of the stage, and sentimental music plays through loudspeakers around the amphitheater.
Megan Prescott, 17, of Canterbury brought letters written to her mother, father, cousins and friends to give to them during the ceremony along with the flowers. “I wrote letters to tell them how I’ve enjoyed them through the years,” she said. “Graduation is a time to give family and friends the recognition they deserve.”
“It’s a good opportunity to give thanks to everyone who’s been there for you throughout your life,” agreed Anna Scott, 18, also of Canterbury, who brought flowers for not only her parents, but also bouquets for her grandparents, her sister and her boyfriend’s mother, too.
The presentation of flowers ceremony is representative of the tight-knit bond that exists between the students at Belmont High School. Despite being secluded to the first hundred rows of the 8,000-seat Meadowbrook pavilion, the graduation was an intimate one. As Belmont’s 86 graduates walked across the stage to receive their diplomas from Principal Dan Clary and Assistant Principal Rick Acquilano, they offered their administrators high fives, hugs and even chest bumps.
Student and faculty speakers offered the Class of 2016 a plethora of advice for the next chapters in their lives during their addresses. A recurring theme in several speeches was the message of living in the moment.
The Class of 2016’s senior class adviser, Ben Hill, told the graduates that they are responsible for creating their own adventure and happiness in life, however they define it.
“My suggestion to you is this,” Hill said. “Not that you create a bucket list of things you’d like to do later on, but instead that you live by dumping the bucket over your own head, making each day count and making your life adventurous, fun and fulfilling.”
“Live each day with positive energy and you will find that you are living a very fulfilling life,” he said.
Valedictorian Carol Lipshultz, who will be attending Colby College in the fall to study biochemistry, warned students of being resistant to “rivers of change” in the future.
“Resistance is the natural reaction to change, as we prefer to stay near our rivers’ stable shoreline rather than shift into the daunting unknown of deeper waters. . . . But we can influence change, moving with it, instead of against it,” she said.
Lipshultz said it’s normal to feel uncertain about the life after high school. But what is more dangerous is ignoring and fighting against change as it comes.
“If we fight against the flow of our own river, we could end of drowning in lost opportunities,” she warned. Instead, “it’s time to grab our oars and start moving around the next great riverbend: graduation.”
(Leah Willingham can be reached at 369-3305 or lwillingham@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @LeahMWillingham.)