MONMOUTH – “Dum Spiro, Spero.” Translation: “While I breathe, I hope.”

Lifted by the written Latin of that class motto hanging high behind them on a banner, 70 students graduated Sunday from Monmouth Academy.

The ceremony began with the class stepping to the music of “Pomp and Circumstance,” the women wearing white gowns, the men in maroon. They took the stage amidst the fury of flashing cameras.

The Monmouth Academy Concert Band played “Scarborough Fair.”

Bethany Perkins gave the fourth honor essay.

“This class is my family,” she said. “I love them and believe in them, and I know you do too.”

Lillian O’Donnell gave the third honor essay. “We’ve learned, laughed and grown,” she said.

But with her witty, sharp and sardonic speech, O’Donnell also lambasted all the cliches graduates get subjected to.

And she noted how graduates get peppered with the phrase: “the real world.

“I was unaware we kids were residing in a world of fakeness,” O’Donnell said.

Salutatorian Emily Gauthier likened Attention Deficit Disorder to Senioritis in her speech. If not detected quick enough, ADD can evolve into Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, she said. Likewise, if it goes undetected or untreated Senioritis can become Seniorosis, Gauthier said, sounding a Woody Allen type note which elicited laughs from the audience.

“Though it sounds like a skin disease, it is actually another authority and hyperactivity complex,” she said of Seniorosis.

Valedictorian Rebekah Bubier talked about her sister, Sarah.

“I thank God every day for sending me my sister,” she said. Bubier’s valedictory focused on friendship. She quoted Proverbs 18:24: “There are ‘friends’ who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.”

“Now as we leave this place, take with you those real friends and what you have learned from them,” Bubier said. “This is a great group of students,” said Principal Thomas J. Hanson.