JAY – Jay High School’s Class of 2005 tigers went out with a roar Sunday.
Eighty-one graduates were cheered, lauded and air-horned in the packed and humid gymnasium.
In her welcoming comments, class President Kasey Simoneau warned her classmates they will face disappointments and will have to overcome obstacles on their paths in adult life.
“If you keep trying, you will succeed,” she assured them.
Valedictorian Ashley Uhuad, who referred to her class as multicolored, used painting metaphors to describe their histories and futures.
“We all painted our way to our success today,” she said.
Echoing Simoneau’s message of success, Uhuad read from “Oh, The Places You Will Go,” by Dr. Seuss.
“Yes, you will succeed, indeed,” she read.
“Be a smart driver,” she told her fellow graduates. “Floor it at times but take time to enjoy the scenery, too.”
Music for the ceremony included Uhuad, Angela Courchesney and Cashmeira Robinson singing “A Whole New World” from the Disney movie “Aladdin,” accompanied by Uhuad’s sister and fellow graduate, Kristen Uhuad. Courchesney also sang “I Hope You Dance,” accompanied by Rachel Rier.
And for the first time in the principal’s 20 years at the school, an entire graduating class sang together, performing the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends.”
Scholarship recognition took more than an hour. Graduates received more than $304,000 in awards nearly doubling last year’s total, the most a Jay graduating class has received to date, according to Peter Brown, the school’s principal.
Wearing black or white robes festooned with orange-ribboned gold medals, graduates received diplomas from Brown, each handing the principal a signed golf ball as he or she shook Brown’s hand. By the end of the ceremony, Brown’s trouser pockets bulged with 81 golf balls.
It’s just something they did, he said with a smile as he shook graduates’ hands during the recessional.
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