Chelsea
“At Chelsea, I learned what it meant to become part of a community,” Blodgett said in her address. “Looking at the row of graduates before you, you see young adults. I see a family.”
Well over 200 friends, relatives, teachers and community members filled the school gymnasium on Friday to celebrate just 17 graduates — a close-knit group whose members promised to cherish their upbringing as they struck out into the wider world.
“Honestly, I can’t wait to get out of rural Vermont to see something new,” co-valedictorian Fiona Milchman said, “but I always know that I will come back to small-town Vermont to revisit the community that shaped me.”
Milchman, who is headed to Beloit College in Wisconsin, where she plans to study elementary education, shared her class’ top rank with Sydnie Allen and Eliza Amber.
They processed in and out of the packed room in black robes, their white and red tassels swaying to the strains of Tom Petty’s Learning to Fly — one of their class songs.
This year’s choice of guest speaker reunited the class with an old friend and mentor: Cass Bath, a former math teacher in Chelsea who, when she taught the 2016 class, used to mix life lessons into her curriculum.
The class was small enough — and Bath knew them well enough — that the math teacher asked each student to stand in turn, praising him or her and offering tailor-made advice for the future.
But the most important morsel she could give, she said, was that each person holds the solution to his or her own challenges.
“You look to me for advice; I ask you to look for yourselves,” she said.
Just before Principal Mark Blount handed out diplomas, seniors stepped off the podium for a new tradition.
To recognize their bond to the community, the soon-to-be graduates sought out those who had helped them — friends, family and teachers alike — and offered them flowers. All over the gymnasium, to the tune of Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide, students and their supporters embraced.
When it was Amber’s turn, the co-valedictorian found her way to the very back corner of the room, where track coach Donald Wilcox — a man wearing overalls, a tie-dye headband and a long beard — was sitting alone.
“I see you hiding back here,” she said, grinning and handing him a red rose.
They hugged, and the grizzled Wilcox cracked a smile.
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or at 603-727-3242.
Sydnie Christine Allen, University of Vermont; Eliza C. Amber, Oberlin College; Chance Edward Ballou, entering a career in construction; Erica Jo Blodgett, University of New England; Tailor Ann Chapin, New England College; Austin James Coburn, Community College of Vermont; Jasmine Fay Doyle, Lyndon State College; Scott Loren Durkee, Vermont Technical College; Lauren Jane Halaquist, University of Delaware; Tylor E. Harley, entering a career in event management; MaCaden Nolan Lyford, New Castle School of Trades; Fiona R. Milchman, Beloit College; Kaitlyn Marie Pierpont, University of New Haven; Jasmine R. Rosalbo, Evergreen College; Morgan Taylor Shirlock, Vermont Technical College; Alexis Ann Trombley, Community College of Vermont; James Waterman, Community College of Vermont