FARMINGTON — Under a cloudless blue sky late Saturday morning, a few thousand people endured gusting winds as they watched 387 University of Maine at Farmington students receive master’s and bachelor’s degrees.

They also witnessed the 18th and last commencement ceremony for UMF President Theodora J. Kalikow, who is retiring.

With temperatures topping 70 degrees at 10:30 a.m., a group of local bagpipers led the procession of university faculty, administrators, dignitaries and graduates down High Street to the parking lot venue.

Following the singing of the National Anthem by graduates Christy Carle of Farmington and Laura Pons of Scarborough, Kalikow welcomed everyone.

Then, after recognizing graduate Kelly Greene of Farmington, who is among the first Outdoor Recreation Business Administration program graduates, Kalikow was interrupted by Interim Provost Daniel P. Gunn.

She started to scold him, then realized it was the annual “trick” played on the president during commencement.

Only this time, everyone recognized a surprised Kalikow for her achievements.

“On behalf of everyone at UMF, I want to thank Theo for her extraordinary dedication to our campus, for her creative, energetic, sane and courageous leadership, and for her warm humanity and sense of community, which have influenced every corner of our campus and helped to define who we are and which will continue to do so, long after she retires this summer,” Gunn said.

The huge crowd, graduates and university officials gave Kalikow a standing ovation.

Senior class speaker Melissa “Moe” Beaulieu of Monmouth, got just about everyone laughing, taking off her cap and putting on her trademark bandanna while apologizing to her mother before starting her speech.

She compared UMF to author J.K. Rowling’s Hogwarts School from the infamous “Harry Potter” series.

Quoting from Rowling’s book that began it all, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,” Beaulieu said, “’Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of No. 4 Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

“’They were the last people you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.’

“Those two lines changed most of our lives forever; we are the Harry Potter generation,” she said.

Beaulieu compared UMF and Farmington to Hogwarts and Potter’s world, then got many to laugh aloud again when she likened 8 a.m. classes to Potter’s nemesis, Voldemort.

“Some of us were rescued from cupboards under the stairs, others from Muggle parents who didn’t fully understand the ‘liberal arts,’” she said.

Beaulieu, who studied in Krakow, Poland, during her time at UMF, will now return to Poland to volunteer with youth groups at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp Education Center.

Olympic gold medalist Seth Wescott and Maine Poet Laureate Wesley McNair received honorary degrees.

Then it was McNair’s turn to start the crowd laughing with his commencement speech, in which he read three of his poems, each about a car and a journey.

He urged the graduates to develop a Plan B to go with their Plan A. Marriage and children interrupted his Plan A of becoming a poet.

“It’s been my experience that life has a very limited patience for Plan A,” McNair said.

Life is mostly Plan B, which so often is “life’s true source of opportunity,” he said.

“Our life journey really begins when we come up against obstacles, and they force us to discover our true path, adjusting our Plan A. When unforeseen obstacles get in the way of your dream, find another way to dream it.”

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