BETHEL – In a drenching rainstorm, 62 Gould Academy seniors marched out of Ordway Hall on Saturday morning and into their futures as graduates during an outdoor commencement under a sprawling canopy.
Joining them for the two-hour ceremony were faculty and administrators, including commencement address speakers Harry “Dutch” Dresser Jr. and Jay Mac Davis.
Dresser, associate head of school, and Davis, English teacher and dean of faculty, are both retiring after, respectively, 26- and 35-year careers at the private secondary school.
“It’s taken you four years to graduate from Gould Academy, while it’s taken me 27,” Dresser said during his “have a clue” speech.
Dresser and Davis have each touched thousands of student lives through their work, said Gould Board of Trustees President Deborah F. Hammond.
At Gould, Dresser has been a teacher, founder and director of a summer school, director of studies, and chief information officer. During the 1980s, he brought computer technology to the school, and, in the early 1990s, Internet connectivity to Gould, public schools in Bethel and the town itself, Hammond said.
Davis, a master Maine guide, has led Gould’s junior Four Point winter camping expeditions for 22 consecutive years, and has headed the faculty since 1997.
Dresser told the graduates to always find themselves at the heart of constructive change. Education, he said, is showing signs of major transformation.
“You are in a remarkable position. With fundamental technologies in a state of exponential change, major advances in the things we can do, will occur at very short intervals during your lives,” he said.
He gave them four suggestions to further their lives: don’t get stuck in your age bracket, have a clue, avoid seeing change as a demonstration of society run amok, and make certain that you find fun in the things you choose to do.
Fun is what everyone enjoyed during Davis’ speech, which preceded Dresser’s.
Davis poked fun at himself and the new bruise on his face while imparting words of wisdom and sharing personal anecdotes.
The swollen bruise, he said, happened when he walked into a brick wall while working on his commencement speech.
At one point, Davis explained that he was wearing the same Paris tweed coat he had on the day he started teaching in 1971 at Gould. He then removed his glasses and put on his thick black-frame “Woody Allen” glasses that he wore that day. The crowd erupted into laughter, more so when he admitted he can no longer see out of them.
Like Dresser, Gould shared his own points of wisdom:
• Find out what it is in life that you would look forward to doing every day, and make that your career.
• Don’t take yourself too seriously; listen to the “cosmic chuckle.”
• Accept who you are, even as you try to be the kind of person you want to be.
• Accept people around you as what you want them to be.
• Pay attention to the little things that are given without thought.
“Farewell, hello, and watch out for brick walls,” Davis said in closing.
Both Dresser and Davis received long, loud, standing ovations from the graduates and the crowd of hundreds.
Graduate Charles M. Mele gave the senior student address, followed by Julia H. Rhinelander with her valedictory speech.
Mele, a musician, likened Gould to a huge band, wherein students work off each other, melding into a blend.
“As we progress through our lives, we learn how to play our own song….Forget about the lyrics, just play,” he said.
Rhinelander, an actress, described their diplomas as certificates of emancipation.
“This is our day to step onto a new stage,” she said.
Comments are no longer available on this story