SALEM TOWNSHIP — Two Mt. Abram High School seniors shared a history-making honor.

On Friday, 65 students received diplomas, listened to advice from their elders, and cheered for their peers. At the end of the evening, two young women stood at the podium to deliver farewell addresses.

Holly Thomas, 18, of Freeman Township, and Wren Tooker, 17, of Phillips, have been close friends all their lives. As graduation neared, they learned their grade point averages were nearly identical at 96.6. Only 0.012 separated them. So they decided to do what made sense: They shared the spotlight.

Salutatorian Annah Houston, 18, of Kingfield, and daughter of Kathy and Bill Houston, started the evening by noting that Franklin County is an especially beautiful place to live. Such beauty should never be taken for granted, she said.

“It surrounds us, encompassing everything we see and know,” she said. “Beauty is not something we search for, it is how we live.”

Thomas, student council president, Nordic skier and soccer player, decided to tell the audience about British musical icon Des’ree, who had a hit with the song “You Gotta Be” in 1995.

The daughter of Robert and Nancy Thomas said, “You’re all probably sitting there wondering why the heck I’m standing here referencing ’90s pop culture at the class of 2011’s graduation,” she said. “It’s with good reason, I promise.”

The song’s wild success, she said, was not due to its catchy hook, but to its ever-inspiring message about bracing for life and one’s future.

She told classmates they’ve “gotta be bold, bad, wiser, hard and stay together,” suggesting that Bill Gates and other innovators didn’t let doubt and criticism discourage them.

“Gates became a multibillionaire in a job that didn’t even exist at a company that didn’t even exist in a field that didn’t even exist when he was born,” she said. “Mark Zuckerberg … became a household name at age 20, two short years from where most of my peers and I stand now. Pablo Picasso took a risk and said, ‘I’m sorry, school is not for me. I have better things to do. I like painting.’”

Tooker, daughter of Kiah and Tracie Tooker, travels to Dance Express in Farmington for ballet, jazz, tap, modern dance classes. She urged her classmates to stay involved and be adventurous.

“Go to college, join the Army, create a business, be innovative, move out West, chase the person you love, volunteer, ride horses, plant gardens, go back to college, or speak up for something you believe in,” she said. “Whatever you want to do, do. Never say you don’t know how because nobody ever told you.”

A total of 176 local and state scholarships, totaling $198,020, went to graduating seniors. After graduation, 45 students plan to continue their education; one student has enlisted in the U.S. Army.