LIVERMORE FALLS -Outnumbering graduates by more than 10-to-1, friends and family packed the Livermore Falls High School gymnasium Saturday night to honor the 58 members of the Class of 2005.
With programs fanning the heat away, the capacity crowd filled the high school gym with their presence and their enthusiasm.
“Cry on,” Wendy Davis told her classmates in her welcoming remarks. “We may never again get the chance to join together in a celebration of pride.”
Salutatorian Andrew Moreau talked to his classmates about responsibility. While in school, when he forgot his homework, it was his parents’ fault; flunked a test, the teacher’s, he said. Excuses “may have worked before,” he said. But, “Now it is time to realize that we are in control, we are accountable, it is our fault, for good or bad,” he told fellow graduates. “Our lives are in our own hands. We pave our own path.”
“But anyway,” he concluded, “this speech wasn’t my fault, my mom forgot to put the good one in my backpack,” he said to appreciative laughter and applause.
“Please ask for directions,” math teacher Eric Jewett told them, making a face. “You will find the wisest people have the healthiest realization of their own place in the world, which is, `Compared to what’s out there, I know very little.’ This is called humility. It takes humility to ask for directions. It takes pride not to,” he said.
Amy Damon, giving the valedictory address, used athletic metaphors to deliver her message.
“Track is a way of life,” said the graduating long-distance runner. Her coach told her, “When you approach a hurdle, never hesitate, lengthen your stride,” she said. It’s just like life. Those who hesitate miss their opportunity.
“Never hesitate and lengthen your stride,” she told them in closing.
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