PORT TOWNSEND — There are places in the country where audiences are instructed to hold their applause until the last graduate is honored in order to save time and maintain decorum, but Port Townsend isn’t one of them.
At Friday night’s graduation ceremony in Fort Worden State Park’s McCurdy Pavilion, the whooping and yelling began as soon as the 117 graduates began their in-bound promenade and continued throughout the two-hour ceremony.
There were applause spikes, such as when student speaker Mackenzie Sepler called the group “one bad-ass class” or when guitarist James Campbell had trouble finding his way through “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” before belting out the final line with passion and power.
In a sense, graduations are all the same, and this one followed what Principal Carrie Ehrhardt called a “pattern” that remains consistent every year.
There was the recognition of valedictorians (Madeline Levy and Kylen Solvik), salutatorians (Emilina Berkshire and Bella Fox Garrison), a student speaker (Sepler), student soloists (Rose Burt and Campbell) and the procession of graduates.
There was a steady stream of reminiscences, from Kerri Evalt recalling her days in elementary school to faculty speaker Ben Dow reciting a poem that name-checked nearly every senior in a way that was only apparent to those who were there at the time.
Special for all
Even with these expectations, the night was special for every graduate.
“It’s strange to know that we are actually graduating, that we are finally taking those elusive steps into that elusive real world,” Sepler said.
There was conventional wisdom expressed spontaneously, such as when Solvik said, “There were many times when I looked back to see what an idiot last year’s Kylen really was.”
Accomplishments
Vice Principal Patrick Kane demonstrated the individual and collective accomplishments of the class by asking those with various distinctions to stand and be recognized.
Among these were those who received honors, those who played sports, those who are getting scholarships and those who worked in student government.
There were those who spent their whole career in Port Townsend schools and those whose parents, grandparents and great-grandparents received a local education.
But when Kane asked those who participated in extracurricular activities to stand, the whole class came to its feet in one motion.
No graduation would be complete without a wise quote from the past, which Evalt supplied early in the ceremony.
“Some of us are sad this is happening, while others couldn’t be happier,” she said.
“But it is important to remember what Eleanor Roosevelt said: ‘The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.’”
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
