On Friday, June 3rd, family, friends, teachers, and faculty gathered at Alumni Stadium to watch the Class of 2016 graduate from high school. After much speculation of cancellation due to poor weather forecasts, the show went on and the Class of 2016 moved on.

At 5:30 pm, the students, lead by Dean Robert Ware, as well as class advisors Brian Roark and Patrick Gendron, processed in to take their seats before the ceremony commenced. This class was a rather special class, as sixty-five students graduated with a  GPA of 4.0 or above. Throughout the ceremony, a few of the speakers recognized the kindness and humility of the students in the class.

The ceremony started with a welcome message from Principal James Antonelli. He began by thanking a variety of individuals, including the retiring WA teachers: history teachers Ron Koehler, math teacher Bob Carpenter, math curriculum coordinator Cathy Coughlin, and science curriculum coordinator Mary Bourdeau, who have a combined total of 96 years of teaching experience.

This speech was emotional for Antonelli, as he was thankful to the class for all that they had done as students, and for all that they had done for him personally.

“You are wonderful people and I’m proud of you. You make me a better person,” Antonelli said during his welcoming speech.

In addition, Antonelli also quoted a Tim McGraw song, “Humble and Kind.”  Before the end of his speech, Antonelli had a quick personal message for his daughter, Olivia, a 2016 graduate.

Following Antonelli’s speech, guidance counselor Wendy Pechacek recognized class salutatorian Alok Puranik for his accomplishments as a student at WA. Puranik had several impressive accomplishments as a WA student, one of them being the AAPC award for calculus. Puranik will attend MIT next fall.

Next, came guidance counselor Karen Halloran who recognized valedictorian Michael Colavita. Like Puranik, Colavita had several impressive accomplishments as a WA student. One of those accomplishments was receiving the most worthy representative of his class, during his junior year. Colavita will attend Harvard University in the fall.

After these awards, Class President Olivia Antonelli, Vice President Elijah Richards, Treasurer Stephen Wang, and Secretary Caroline Baggeroer personally thanked their class advisors (Roark and Gendron), the class dean (Ware), as well as Principal Antonelli.

These heartfelt thank you messages were followed by the singing of the WA Alma Mater, sung by the WA Honors Choir with music played by the WA band.

Class speaker Maia Cataldo then spoke to her classmates, reflecting on their time at WA. She recalled the unique parts of the building that they will all remember. Cataldo even talked about the M&M cookies sold in the cafeteria, and how every time they eat one from now on, they will think of WA.

Cataldo also noted that she doesn’t believe this class should think about saying goodbye, just the memories they have together.

“There are no goodbyes today, just memories,” Cataldo said. “[…] Here’s to not saying goodbye.”

After Cataldo spoke, two student students from every grade received the award for most worthy representative of their class. The first recipients were freshmen Cameron Ditto and Julianne Lee followed by sophomores Isaac Knight and Elizabeth Arnold. Juniors Max McGinty and Camille Desrochers were the recipients in their grade and Gregory Szypko and Hannah Rosenstein were the recipients for the senior class.

Several graduating seniors were also honored for academic excellence in different classes.

Right before students received their diplomas, Superintendent Everett V. Olsen spoke to the graduating seniors. He talked about the high achievements from the Class of 2016 and had a short message to the students.

“You can be successful at anything you do in life,” Olsen said.

In addition, Olsen recognized Tyler Silton, who will be joining the Marines. This was met by a roar of applause from all in attendance.

Right after Olsen’s speech, students were called up to receive their diplomas. One by one, from A to Z, students walked up to the platform, met by teachers and faculty members.

Once the last students received their diplomas, the new graduates threw balloons and beach balls around to the tune of “I Lived” by One Republic, performed by a group of graduates including, Marco Liguori, Caroline Lawlor, Cataldo, with Evan Doherty and Eric Taveniku both playing guitar.

The night ended with a speech from Class President Olivia Antonelli. Antonelli talked about how this was just the beginning of their journey. She compared it to a metaphor that she learned from WA English teacher, Jason Humphrey, who equated their lives to a 24-hour clock. At this point, Antonelli said that they were about 1/4 of the way through their lives. On a clock, she said, it is like 6am.

“It is 6am,” Antonelli said with emphasis.

Finally, before they departed from the turf field one last time, the student threw their caps into the air, officially ending their high school careers.

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