Chelsea
The group of 14 will pursue careers and educations in fields as varied as culinary arts, dairy farming, electrical work, radiography and early childhood education.
Six of the graduates will be foregoing further education to go directly into the workforce.
Of the remaining eight, some will continue to work while they study.
Among those in the latter category is Brooke Moses. She said she struggled for the first two years of high school in Chelsea.
“I didn’t really do well academically those two years,” Moses said.
But, things turned around in eleventh grade, once she began taking classes at Randolph Technical Career Center.
“At Chelsea, there’s nothing really hands-on and I’m a hands-on learner,” Moses said. “I wasn’t learning what I actually want to do after I graduate.”
Moses, a Tunbridge resident who has been raised by her grandparents, Penny and David Russell, has known since very early on that she wants to be a dairy farmer.
“I’ve always had a thing for cows,” she said.
She got her first team of oxen when she was 9. To pay for room and board for her oxen at Seize the Day Farm — owned by Gary Mullen and Lori Berger — in Tunbridge, Moses has helped out with chores for years.
More recently, she has added doing the evening milking several nights a week at Beidler Family Farm in Randolph Center to her workload.
Moses plans to pursue an associate degree in business at the Community College of Vermont next year. She’ll do so online and in person at CCV’s Montpelier location, she said.
“I have a lot of actual farming experience, but I don’t know much about the business portion,” Moses said.
Moses’ classmate Luke Durkee also chose to attend Randolph’s technical center for the final two years of his high school career. Durkee, who studied building trades, said he chose to attend the tech center because he struggled to sit at a desk for long periods of time.
At the technical center, “stuff is hard, but it’s challenging you in a different way,” he said.
This year, Durkee has been a part of the crew building Morgan Orchards independent living facility in Randolph Center.
So far, the group has framed the building, and now they’re installing cabinets and doors, Durkee said.
“It’s pretty cool to see what goes into the building,” Durkee said. “All the systems hiding in the walls.”
Durkee demonstrated his carpentry skills by winning gold in a statewide competition, SkillsUSA Vermont, earlier this year. As a result, he is headed to compete in a national competition in Louisville, Ky., later this month.
Next year, Durkee plans to attend Vermont Technical College, where he aims to earn an associate degree in electrical engineering. After completing his coursework at Vermont Tech, Durkee plans to move to North Carolina and either apprentice as an electrician or study mechanical engineering, he said.
“I don’t enjoy the cold,” he said.
Though students are entering a new phase of their lives when they leave high school, science and timber framing teacher Erik Anderson, in his remarks on Friday evening, said he dislikes when graduation speakers say that graduates are entering the real world for the first time.
“Graduation is not some magic portal to the real world,” he said.
The same things that have helped — working hard, trying new things and treating others with respect — will continue to aid in graduates’ success in the future, and the same things that have hindered it, such as negativity and procrastination, will continue to act as road blocks, he said.
“The only thing that changes is your role in this world,” he said.
In her remarks on Friday, valedictorian Heather Peterson spoke of Chelsea’s close-knit community. While in Chelsea, she came to know her classmates over their years together.
But, this past year while she attended the Vermont Academy of Science and Technology at Vermont Tech, a program in which high school students can earn both high school and college credit, she learned how to introduce herself to new people.
“I did not know how to do that,” she said.
Speaker Matt Nerney, a former Chelsea social studies teacher, encouraged students to turn away from their phones or other electronic devices and turn to Vermont traditions such as sugaring, quilting or playing music.
“I want you to think about the traditions that you’ve grown up with,” Nerney said. “I want you to consider helping to carry on those traditions.”
Moses is set to carry on the tradition of dairy farming. As a graduation present, Mullen and Berger gave her a Jersey heifer calf, the first of her own herd.
Though Moses is young and may have more to learn about the business of farming, she already knows the importance of showing up.
“You’ve got to be there,” she said. “You can’t just tell the cows to hold on.”
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
Chelsea Class of 2017
Alexis Rori Allen, University of Vermont; Luke Jonathan Durkee, Vermont Technical College; Kierstin Elizabeth Mae Ellsworth, workforce; Kylie Flye, workforce; Grace Ann Kay, UVM; Tristan Aaron Larocque, workforce; TJ Moreno, workforce; Elisha Hale Mattoon, Vermont Tech; Brooke Lynn Moses, Community College of Vermont; Heather June Peterson, Norwich University; Roger L. Remacle III, U.S. Air Force; Dario James Spinella, River Valley Community College; Molly Beth Stetson, workforce; Makayla Lyn Tiffany, workforce.
