A community celebrates graduation in 2021

*WUHS graduates toss their caps into the air at the end of Friday evening’s ceremony. Below the story, see our editorial and more photos. (Gareth Henderson Photos)*

From re-starting annual events, to the easing of mask mandates, we are progressing to more familiar ground. That light is shining brightly.

But that sense of momentum and progress takes on a special meaning when people experience it together, and that’s what graduation at Woodstock Union High School felt like on Friday evening. The graduates persevered through the challenges and limitations of 2020, and that night, their hard work met with great reward: that next step forward.

But for the class of 2021, the path to get wasn’t all about them, but stayed true to a commitment to service. From a winter coat drive, to setting up the first-ever health screening for a community in Panama, this class distinguished itself by helping others, as senior class advisors Jody and Sarina Henderson noted in their remarks. These graduates were also open to questioning the norms, and trying new things.

“They’ve been a class who’s grown as a result of the question, ‘What if?’” Jody said. The class gift, Sarina announced, was to establish a class legacy fund to help future students have some of the same opportunities they’ve had, starting with $2,000 the graduates raised themselves.

As salutatorian Lea Sperber said, a key part of the graduates’ growth — especially over the past year — has been the ability to trust others during the darkest times. She said you don’t need a perfect past to move forward, “if you can trust in the present moment and have faith in the people around you.”

“I hope each of the graduates take that faith with them, and find it again wherever they go,” Sperber said.

The pride of accomplishment — for the class and the community — was profound and tangible throughout the evening, after the year that was. But expressions of joy and gladness also blended with stark reality: Graduating speakers shone the spotlight on issues of racial and economic inequity, which were further exposed in the pandemic and still need to be addressed. Amid all the talk about getting back to normal, the WUHS Speakchorus performance offered the words of Ed Yong, from The Atlantic, who wrote we “must grapple with all the ways normal failed us”.

Co-valedictorian Noah Anderson quoted the great T.S. Eliot, who wrote, “This is how the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.”

“We’re whimpering right now … but we have the time to see what’s wrong and change it,” Anderson said.

Isabelle Hiller, co-valedictorian and senior class president, recited a poem and highlighted some lessons from the vastness of nature. She read, in part, “the sun is not concerned if someone has to squint their eyes. It will shine, and it will not apologize for its light. And like the trees teach us, it’s OK to lose our leaves as seasons change, and then come back to life.”

Life is what the class of 2021 has ahead of them, in abundance. Like many of us, they’re looking forward to a different kind of year, as graduate Wilbur Abrams III said minutes after the class threw their caps into the air. Abrams is working in Boston this summer, as an intern for the Spartan Races, and then it’s off to the University of Vermont, where he plans to major in English.

“I’m looking forward to going places and being where people are, without having all sorts of things in between, kind of a return to normal,” he said.

WUHS graduate Molly Maxham is going to St. Lawrence University in New York, where she is majoring in anthropology. But she gets to start her college journey abroad, spending the fall semester in London. For Maxham, it’s about moving forward.

“It’s been a great last few years, with a lot of great people,” she said. “But I think it’s going to be a great next few years, too.”

Paul Bremel, a math teacher who also coaches track for WUHS, was impressed at how the graduating class worked as a group to get through this past year, and do so with great success.

“The resilience of this group, the way they hung together, was just tremendous,” he said.

WUHS Principal Garon Smail remembered that some people had questioned the move to go to four days a week of in-person learning after spring break for the whole school — would it be worth it, so close to the end of the school year? A resounding “yes” was the answer, he said, capped by a special graduation evening.

“Any time together, it’s all so precious,” Smail said.

Editorial

Progress, shared

In a year like this, one can’t overstate the value of the shared experience that took place in Woodstock on Friday night, and how special it was. The graduates reached that uniquely special milestone in their lives, but the community, in a way, is doing the same. Everyone is emerging from that long year, in a their own way. The graduates’ triumph, was the community’s triumph.

As was the case since early 2020 — and perhaps, always — it was the little things that stood out. "Congrats, grad" balloons adorned several cars, families grinned and laughed at the more humorous parts of speeches, and older siblings of graduates proudly saw their brothers and sisters step onto the same stage they did, not too long ago. Teachers, families and peers joined the graduating class in this unforgettable moment, in the school’s natural amphitheater out back, where many classes have graduated before them. It was a joy to see.

One of the major statements of the night stuck with me, that we “must grapple with all the ways normal failed us”. We’re eager to move on, but it’s important to remember, there’s much grappling left to do, and we’ve only just begun that work as a nation. We can’t leave what we’ve learned to history, we have to use it to make a better future.

But after witnessing Friday evening, we can be glad that the WUHS graduates of 2021 are going into the world with a keen awareness of the issues we face, and a willingness to take action. These graduates have volunteered, protested, and given back to the community, and brought an overall focus on service that inspired the teachers who led them. Celebrating this tremendous step forward is not only progress for these graduates, but it’s a clear benefit to the world that awaits them. We can’t wait to see the great things they do.

— Gareth Henderson