By Ben Burgess
Amidst cheers of ecstatic onlookers and the wild blaring of air horns, Morristown High School’s Class of 2013 was graduated Wednesday at the William G. Mennen Sports Arena in a ceremony that preached teamwork and practiced it, too–with a collaborative valediction.
The MHS Concert Band, led by Douglas Rutan and Michael Russo, and the MHS Senior Choir, led by Michael Nuzzo, set the tone with tunes ranging from Edward Elgar’s classic Pomp and Circumstance to Five for Fighting’s 2009 song Chances.
There was plenty of sage advice to go with the pomp and circumstance.
The evening’s first two speakers, MHS Student Government President Megan Angulo and MHS Interim Principal Ethel Minchello, both stressed the importance of keeping community close at heart.
“As you go out to make your mark on the world,” said Minchello, “remember those with whom you have listened to music and danced: Your hometown team. Your family, your classmates, your neighbors, your friends.”
Next, Morristown School District Superintendent Dr. Thomas J. Ficarra stepped up to the podium, with a message wrought from Dante’s Inferno.
“Don’t be neutral,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to fail.”
Twenty-four members of the MHS Class of 1963 were recognized in the ceremony. After Class President Charles Sanderson spoke briefly, continuing the night’s theme of interconnectedness, Valedictorian Catherine Wong and Salutatorian Brett Harvey took center stage together, and immediately launched into a hilarious description of the unreasonably high hopes they held for their speech.
“We didn’t just want to write a speech,” said Wong. “We wanted to design one that would whisk you all from applause to tears and back, that would play sonatas on your heartstrings, that would make even my mother laugh.”
Eventually, though, Wong and Harvey eased into a discussion of the little, everyday things that really make life such a special thing.
As Wong said: “The product of our four-year-long search to ask the right question has not always been easy answers, but an accumulation of smaller things: The lunchtime conversations, the crowded hallways, that one sketchy stairwell…
Harvey continued:
“…the lessons learned, the lessons forgotten, the in-class essays and the stacks of [tests], and those moments with the very best teachers, when everything came together, and some small part of the world finally made sense.”
Finally, Wong and Harvey, who both are bound for Stanford University, joined voices, declaring: “It’s a magical world out there.”
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By the time each student had his or her diploma securely in hand, the 349 members of the Class of 2013 couldn’t wait, either.
With a shout of joy, graduation caps flew high into the air, and the former MHS seniors began to mill about excitedly, drinking in the sheer magnitude of the experience.
When asked how he felt to be graduating, Class President Charles Sanderson, who plans to study engineering at Cornell University, replied: “It’s every bit as terrifying and wonderful as everyone said it would be.”
Ben Burgess, a 2012 graduate of Morristown High School, plays bass with Timeless Jazz and was a finalist in last year’s MorristownGreen.com Film Festival. He attends Carnegie Mellon University and is interning at MG this summer.
MORE COVERAGE OF THE 2013 GRADUATION
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