Buckfield resident Leland Barker Jr. is honored with the Hebron Cup.
By Gail Geraghty
Staff Writer

HEBRON – The close-knit bond among faculty, parents and students at Hebron Academy filled Robinson Arena Saturday during graduation ceremonies for the 56 members of the class of 2003.

Those bonds are more remarkable given the widely diverse student population, class President Corey Michael O’Neill said in his graduation message.

“Everyone here is so close, even though we come from so many different backgrounds and ethnicities,” said O’Neill, of Brewster, Mass., which is on Cape Cod.

The arena was filled to capacity with parents, family and friends as faculty members, then the seniors, marched inside, led by bagpiper J. Christopher Pinchbeck, an alumnus of the class of 1987.

In his address, O’Neill said he saw a shark while fishing on the same day he learned he had been accepted at Hebron Academy. The fear he felt then was similar to the day he was dropped off by his parents at the academy, he said, and he knew “it was time for me to test the waters on my own.”

Living on campus, spending Friday and Saturday nights hanging out with friends at the student union, he said, “You learn how to entertain yourself with the simplest of things.”

Now that graduation time has come, he said, “I’m just your average Cape Codder, and it’s my home water. Now I need to go back,” just as his fellow classmates “will all be on a way that is distinctly our own.”

O’Neill said he expects that he, and many others in his class, will keep intact the memories of their time spent at the academy.

“I am haunted by the water, and I know something will lead us back. For the waters of Hebron are flowing in all of us,” O’Neill said.

John King, head of the school, said Saturday’s rain couldn’t dampen the strong spirit of the class of 2003, which endured many other days of rain, and one of the coldest winters on record.

“Hebron is working. Twenty-one of you have been here four years or more,” King said. “Think of the new students you welcome each year.”

What makes the private academy so special, he said, is its emphasis on relationships – both among students and between the students and their teachers.

“The connections you make here will last a lifetime,” King said.

Every single graduating student has something he or she can point to and be proud of, even if it’s as simple as learning from your mistakes, King said.

“You proved you could do it. Hebron is working because of you, class of 2003,” King said.

King then presented the senior awards. The honor of the Hebron Cup, voted on by the faculty, went to a local student, Buckfield resident Leland Barker Jr.

Ggeraghty@sunjournal.com