CARIBOU, Maine — Cars filled every parking spot, and most of the grass, outside of Caribou High School as 105 seniors graduated last Sunday afternoon during commencement exercises.
Choosing Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird” as their song, many members of the class received awards, medals, and scholarships for their academic success.
Salutatorian Donovan Savage gave the first speech of the ceremony, joking that the website “Urban Dictionary” defines Salutatorian as “first loser,” and later discussed the difficulty of choosing a path in life.
“We are now at a stage in our lives in which we must close several doors at once, and enter only through one, which is not an easy task,” Savage said. “If not already, we must soon choose a college major and determine the path of work we will pursue, simply a warm-up to our future decisions. Not too long after that, most of us will be choosing a life partner, and then it is time to decide if we wish to have children, and when it is the right time to do so.
“When you have this power of deciding which doors open and which doors close, responsibility is key. It is well known that when one door closes, another opens. This cycle of close door, open door is essentially never-ending and I guess I’m trying to say is: embrace it. Embrace having the power of choosing which door you can open, follow your passions until the day you die, and reward yourself for your work by opening the doors that will benefit you most when it is all said and done,” he added.
After a musical selection from the CHS Senior Chorus and a presentation of Valedictory and Salutatory awards from Principal Travis Barnes, Valedictorian Chathu Karunasiri gave a speech involving personal anecdotes and the nature of cliched statements.
“By this point you are probably thinking ‘can this speech get any more cliche?’ Karunasiri said. “Probably not, because it’s extremely cliche already. However, think back to freshman year. As the season of graduation came by, the seniors we looked up to would tell us, ‘enjoy every minute in high school, because it will fly by.’ Look how accurate that came to be.
“Cliche sayings are known to be so because they appear again and again in life. They are overused because they hold merit. So let’s put our minds to work and go build our idea of the perfect life — it is within reach.”
