Concord High School’s Class Of 2022 Prepares To Tackle The Future

CONCORD, NH — It was a brisk, chilly event on Saturday as the Concord High School Class of 2022 officially graduated.

Most graduations in Concord can be hot and sweaty affairs, with the June sun beaming down on both graduates and attendees. But not this year. The wind continually knocked down “Concord,” spelled out on the football field, blew noises into microphones, and sent caps flying off students' heads despite many being pinned.

But that did not mean the graduation of about 400 students on Saturday was not an optimistic affair.

From the artwork on the caps and the shoutouts to parents, students who spent the last 27 months adapting to various levels of the coronavirus pandemic were grateful to have gotten through it all.

Laura Houle and Jacob Orlen emceed the event, moving between graduation line and introductions of not only student speakers but officials, too, seamlessly.

2022 CHS Top 10 Students

• Elizabeth Anne Blinn
• Katherine Marie Martel
• Evelynn Rose Duggan
• Abigail Elizabeth Goulas
• Zachary Thomas Hooper
• Laura Aimee Houle
• Andrew Charles Kleiner
• James Joseph LeMahieu
• Eleanor Rachel Malette
• Ethan Douglas Nolet

Principal Michael Reardon specifically implored students to thank their parents and guardians for getting them to this point.

At the same time, there were still more challenges for students — whether it be competition from foreign workers or climate change.

Reardon thanked not only those students who strived for “excellence,” a word that gets bandied about all too frequently, and leaders, but also those who showed up each day and conducted themselves with decency and decorum.

“You are and will continue to be the backbone of our society,” he said.

Students who may have made mistakes, too, but learned from them, were thanked. They learned, he said, from the fundamental principle of America, “things get better.” New Americans, athletes, musicians, students who participated in clubs, and others, were also all thanked.

Reardon also gave a shoutout to graduating students who made it by the skin of their teeth.

“Thank you for the accuracy of your calculation,” he said, to laughter from the audience.

But, Reardon said, uncertainty awaits the graduates.

Especially, he said, when looking at the future and everything happening around the globe — strides made in technology, medicine, fighting hunger, civil rights, and other issues. Reardon said graduates needed to temper the stark reality that the students' contemporaries around the world were “preparing to steal your lunch money by working harder than I think you’re gonna work and dedicating themselves to knowing more than they think you’re gonna know” on transportation, climate, and innovations which have not even been invented yet.

“You and all the rest of us need to be sure that they are mistaken in those assumptions,” he said.

While some in the nation were fretting about poor people coming across a porous border or the price of gasoline, others worldwide will be working to find new ways of capturing carbon or other innovations that will shift the balance of global power.

“If we, that is you, are not competitive and indeed dominant, in this way of thinking of innovation,” he said, “the lives of all Americans will be inestimably diminished.”

2022 Class Representatives

• Rayya Skye Burns
• Samuel Thomas Hilts
• Zachary Thomas Hooper
• Kevin Joseph Jones
• Andrew Charles Kleiner
• Olivia Ann Koziell
• Cassie Sarah Pfitzenmayer
• Alexandria Ceyda Tobey
• Peyton Abigail Trento

After the Senior Class Choral Ensemble sang “Hail, Hail to Concord,” Madison Barton, as part of a Memory Chair speech, shared her thoughts about losing her friend, Carrigan Johnson, a Rundlett Middle School sixth-grader who died of a brain tumor in 2016. Had she not, she would have probably graduated with her today. Barton said everyone had lost someone they needed to acknowledge. The class had an empty chair with a single white rose to represent those who had been lost to classmates.

Peyton Trento offered the ceremony’s competitive speech — thanking all of the parents and guardians as well as educators who worked to get the students through the pandemic. They helped, she said, to make the students’ lives as close to normal as possible.

2022 Senior Class Leaders

• Mia Lilith Hand
• Katherine Marie Martell
• Jack Fenway Reynolds

Elizabeth Blinn, the class valedictorian, said there were many unknowns for the future.

However, students had already faced these uncertainties at the start of high school. They now had to plow through concerns and confusion and live life.

“It is the relationships with our family and friends that sustain us through challenging experiences and lead us to new adventures,” she said.

Blinn said while friend groups had changed since the beginning of their lives, students could circle back and rely on each other, even if they were not regularly involved directly in their friends’ lives. She challenged students to make new relationships with others and seek opportunities to broaden their horizons.

“You won’t know if you can unless you try,” she said. “Class of 2022 — go out there, take risks, don’t back down from the unknown, and prove to yourself that you can do it even if the journey looks different from the one envisioned.”

Jim Richards, the president of the board of education, also gave a speech to the students, as did Katherine Martel, a senior class leader.

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