BETHEL – “What I wish for you, the Class of 2010, is happiness. Honestly, what is life if you’re not happy?” asked Megan Bonney in her salutatorian address to Telstar Regional High School graduates at Friday night’s commencement exercises.
Forty-eight students received their diplomas from Principal Daniel Hart during the outside ceremony. Thirty-five of them received more than $665,000 in scholarships, Hart said as he opened the festivities. Thirty-eight graduates will continue their education in a college setting, while two will go into the military and eight will be employed.
The 24 boys and 24 girls went out to the field shortly before 7 p.m. and handed their parents flowers before the processional Pomp and Circumstance march.
Third Honors student Amy Jane Mahar called her classmates “incredibly diverse” and asked them to “embrace these differences.”
“Be grateful to live in a society as wonderful as ours,” she said before singing her rendition of the Beatles tune “In My Life.”
Valedictorian Kara Zadakis, who also serves as co-president of the Class of 2010, said she was given a number of ideas about what to say in her speech but she came down to one fact: “We are all individuals … We are many things.” She described the students as architects, sculptors, painters, astronauts, doctors and other professionals.
Seniors Carin Donachie, Michael Fitzmorris and Ethan Morin gave the class reflections from the three elementary schools, middle school and high school, remembering such incidents as “Miriah running away all the time,” the snow box derby, Molly and Sponge Bob Square Pants losing the hamster, getting their licenses as soon as possible and being scared of all seniors.
The students sang the Tom Petty song, “I Won’t Back Down,” before listening to congratulatory remarks by School Board Chairman Sidney Pew. He told them to remember their past as they go into the future.
“That’s the most important thing,” he said.
Superintendent David Murphy certified the graduates just before Hart presented diplomas.
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