AUGUSTA — Ninety-seven Oak Hill High School seniors graduated Monday during a sometimes funny, sometimes reflective ceremony at the Augusta Civic Center.

In his graduation speech, valedictorian Derek Gamage of Sabattus joked about working only “moderately hard” in school, and stepping up his game in recent weeks to finish 117.6 days worth of English IV and a senior project in four weeks in order to graduate.

Gamage is an honor student who played center for the Oak Hill Raiders, and was routinely among the top points scorers through his senior basketball season. He was also the top scorer on the math team for all four of his high school years.

Noting that seniors commonly hear graduation speakers proclaim “you are the future,” he suggested “you can’t be the future as an individual, but rather as a group, a collective body of people with varying skills.”

The future needs carpenters, welders and chefs, he said, to balance people like him who is “proud of myself when I remember to put eggs in out-of-the-box brownie mix, don’t set the car on fire or nail two boards without smashing my fingers.”

Rather than coming up with an inspirational quote “from Hamlet or some Greek philosopher” to leave with his peers, Gamage turned to a quote from “South Park’s” Jerome “Chef” McElroy character in the 1998 “Ike’s Wee Wee” episode: “Kids, there’s a time and place for everything. It’s called college.”

Salutatorian Brady Dion of Sabattus also went for a couple laughs before turning introspective.

“High school is a wild ride,” he said, “that can easily surface every emotion you possess in a matter of just one class period. You can go from passing to failing, from frustrated to relieved, from friends to enemies, all in the blink of an eye.”

Dion, an honor roll student and member of the school’s varsity baseball team, reminded his fellow students that just four years prior, “we were scrawny freshmen timidly walking through the ‘big’ hallways of Oak Hill High School clenching onto our course schedules with white knuckles.”

The students worked hard and had plenty of fun, he reminded them, and their shared experience prepared each of them for what Dion called “the real world.”

“High school has taught us how to be leaders when we need to be, and followers when we should be,” he said. It also taught seniors “how to tweet.”

“It has taught us how to overcome adversity and stand up for what we believe in. … Most essentially though, it has taught us who we truly are,” Dion said.

Although everyone’s experience at Oak Hill was different, Dion said seniors’ shared experience is “part of us now. Just remember no matter where you are going or what you are doing in life, the experiences and the people in high school helped pave the road for you along the way.

“Always keep in mind that it is difficult to have a future,” he said, “without the acknowledgement of a past.”

Of the graduates, who live in Sabattus, Wales and Litchfield, 32 plan to continue their education at four-year colleges, 30 plan to attend two-year colleges, six have committed to military service and the remaining 29 students plan to enter the workforce.

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