Senior Annabelle Lessard looks out the front door of Woodstock Union High School for the last time as a student while waiting for a friend before graduation in Woodstock, Vt., on June 8, 2018. (Rick Russell photograph)
Senior Annabelle Lessard looks out the front door of Woodstock Union High School for the last time as a student while waiting for a friend before graduation in Woodstock, Vt., on June 8, 2018. (Rick Russell photograph) Credit: Rick Russell photograph

Woodstock — Call it the “graduation stretch” — both arms raised 120 degrees overhead, elevating a fully zoomed smartphone camera above a sea of eager faces. Scores of parents, siblings, friends and extended family members deployed it Friday night during the Woodstock Union High School senior processional, straining to snap the perfect photo of their graduate-to-be.

For valedictorian Ella MacMaster, the ceremony marked not only an end to her time in high school, but also a beginning: “We are the first of a new millennium to face the world,” she said, noting most of her classmates were born in either 1999 or 2000.

MacMaster acknowledged the impact technology had had on her class and her generation, but said a “21st-century learner” must cultivate four timeless traits: curiosity, adaptability, persistence and passion.

The passions of MacMaster’s peers were the subject of a spoken-word performance by seniors Margaret Burns, Claire Saunders, Stephen Scherer, and Emily Surrell. In what’s become a Woodstock tradition, the “speakchorus” paid tribute, in rapid-fire staccato, to each member of the graduating class.

The quartet dubbed Emily Dupont the “dancing queen,” called Lily Allen “tender-hearted to all four-footed animals,” and noted Ethan Earle’s “computer genius.”

The four students combined the superlatives and predictions common to high school yearbooks, injecting them with specific reflections on their classmates’ personalities and accomplishments. They interspersed these comments with pronouncements about “the perspective of time,” the theme of the performance.

“To pay attention: this is our endless and proper work,” they declared.

They ended with an exhortation to their classmates: “We are a world in pieces; we need to be a world at peace. Tell me: what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

In his salutatory address, Kyle Weirether also addressed the question of time, specifically that of how to spend it.

While he flashed a winning smile on Friday night, he said prioritizing academic work over his social life this year had negatively affected his mental well-being.

“I had not only forgotten how to make myself happy, but how to put myself first,” he said. “We must be self-aware enough and responsible enough to take care of ourselves.”

Weirether used his platform to encourage students to take “personal days” as needed, much like some employers offer their staff. He conceded everybody has numerous responsibilities, but said the most important was to keep oneself “whole and healthy.”

Of the 14 seniors graduating summa cum laude, Weirether was the only male. He and MacMaster were joined by two-sport captains Olivia Brooks, Sadie Kuhn, Annabelle Lessard, and Grace Vollers, decorated Latin scholar Burns, and classmates Kiara Buker, Rory Haff, Brook Heston, Kennedy Moore, Hailey Napier, Cameron Rediker and Jessica van de Ven.

The range of license plates in the makeshift parking lot behind the school — Florida, Maryland, Ohio — revealed the distances traveled by some of the 500-plus attendees at Friday’s ceremony.

The provided seating wasn’t nearly enough to accommodate all the attendees, many of whom lounged on blankets and in folding chairs on a grassy berm leading down from the building’s rear.

Principal Garon Smail concluded the ceremony by quoting talk-show host Jimmy Fallon’s recent commencement address at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, site of a February mass shooting.

“Most commencement speakers, they say, ‘You are the future,’ ” he recited. “But I’m not going to say that because you’re not the future. You’re the present. You are succeeding, you are making us proud, you are changing the world.”

Smail then certified the senior class as graduates of Woodstock Union High School, whereupon the students heaved their caps into the sky.

Someone tossed up a beach ball as well, and the class kept it aloft for 10 to 15 seconds as applause rained down from the crowd.

Gabe Brison-Trezise can be reached at g.brisontrezise@gmail.com.

Woodstock High Class of 2018

Lily Grace Adler, University of Vermont; Melissa Page Bauman, Bluegrass Community College; Jack Paris Beaty; Katrina Holland Boswell, Roanoke College; Olivia G Brooks, University of Vermont; Reiner Brown, Vermont Technical College; Kiara Shea Buker, Drexel University; Margaret Hope Burns, Roger Williams University; Dylan Carnehammar, University of Vermont; Thomas Patrick Carroll, work then Coast Guard; Micah James Cole; Andrew Lawrence Crossman, excavation; Austin Tyler Crossman; Sophia DeDell, gap year; Emily Ann Dupont, Nutmeg Conservatory for Dance (deferred); Ethan James Earle, Champlain College; Angus Wilson Farrand; Lauren Nicole Forgione, University of Arizona (deferred); Grace Cranston Frazier, Community College of Vermont; Alexander Patrick Frenchman; Robin Goodwin; Gardner Jackson Gottsegen, The New School; Robert Aivars Grots, Norwich University; Rory Keenan Haff, Smith College; Anna Rae Haley, School of Visual Arts; Brook D. Heston, Skidmore College; William Christopher Higgins, Montserrat College of Art; Olivia Marie Johannensen, Saint Michael’s College; Abigail Cecile Keller, Drexel University; Joshua Benjamin Kennedy; Carissa Hope Kinsman, Husson University; Justin Theodore Kopf, Xavier University; Sadie Elaina Kuhn, Colby College; Annabelle Eva Lessard, Wentworth Institute of Technology; Van J Lory, gap year; Levi William Lynds, welding classes; Ella Jeanne MacMaster, University of Vermont; Caoimhe Evelyn Lyons Markey, Connecticut College (deferred); Cullen Michael McCarthy, Fordham University; Kennedy Alexis Moore, Colby-Sawyer College; Hailey Collis Napier, Kenyon College; Tylor A. Nass; Brielle Aislinn Nestler, Champlain College; Owen Patrick Nestor; Olivia Merie Newcity, Vermont Technical College; Andrew Michael Pierce, River City Machine; Brittney Ann Poljacik, Norwich University; Patrick James Potter, University of New Hampshire; Cameron Gail Rediker, Saint Michael’s College; Gianna Victoria Sauco, Curry College; Claire Ann Gaudet Saunders, Drew University; Stephen C. Scherer, University of Colorado Boulder; Brendan Schwartz, gap year; Andrew James Seiple, Wentworth Institute of Technology; Ben D. Shearer, gap year; Elliot Shoemaker, Uni versity of Vermont; Maria Marion Shontz , University of Vermont; Cian Patrick Smith, welding; Meghan Lin Snide, Vermont Technical College; Emily Simonne Surrell, Vermont Technical College/UVM; Owen Charles Tarleton, Fisher College; Leah Marie Titus, Billings Farm and Museum; Rudy David Torrijos, IV, Oregon State University; Steven Patrick Townley, hockey; Jessica Lynn van de Ven, Northeastern University; Griffin Merrill Van Niel, Castleton University; William Joseph Vicar; Grace Margaret Vollers, University of St. Andrews, Scotland; Emma Grace Walker; Joshua Andrew Webb; Caleb Daniel Macleod Webb, Castleton University; Kyle Klaus Josef Weirether, Northeastern University; Daniel James Whittaker, travel; Morgan Thayer Willis, Hobart and William Smith Colleges; Christian Nolan Wood, Gordon College (deferred).

Correction

Woodstock High graduate Sadie Kuhn will attend Colby College, while Olivia Brooks is headed to University of Vermont. An earlier photo caption incorrectly described their college plans.