HILLTOWNS — Besides memorializing students’ achievements, high school graduations are often a time for people to reflect on the state of the world — as it is for the graduating class, and as it had been for those who are watching them. 
Some things (like quoting dictionaries in speeches) never change. Most everything else changes so slowly as to be imperceptible year-to-year, especially to 18-year-olds, who are often too busy with their cognitive and physical development to pay much attention to the other stuff.

So, it inevitably falls on the adults in the room to point out these differences, and identify the timeless things so they can convert their own lived experience from another era into some lesson that might be applicable.

“About 20 years ago, I sat on a stage similar to these graduates, listening to the remarks from a gentleman from the class of 1953,” Berne-Knox-Westerlo’s high school principal, Bonnie Kane, told the graduating class on June 24, at The Egg in Albany. “He provided us with direct, honest wisdom, much of which my classmates still remember to this day.

“So, I enlisted the help of the Class of 2003,” she said. “Twenty years may not seem like a lengthy amount of time to be out in the real world, but I assure you, lessons were learned. The following remarks come from a fair amount of wisdom, tireless trial and error, and some major blunders, some of which have left lasting scars …

“It seems like a lifetime ago, but 20 years have flown by [since] the Class of 2003, and they were gracious enough to offer a few words of advice as you begin to enter a world that changes as quickly as ours did.”

The lessons were that words matter, all the more so with the permanent transcription of social media; kindness matters; relationships matter; and money matters, but chasing opportunity matters more.

School board P{resident Matthew Tedeschi told the class that, “in the era that we live in, you will be given information 24/7, and you will be asked to discern fact from fiction.” He went on to recap what tools the students had been given to help them with this.

“We believe school exists for the children,” he said. “We’re here today to celebrate their journey, because as Mark Twain once said, ‘Out of public school grows the greatness of a nation.’ It’s our honor to bear witness to this this morning.”

Superintendent Timothy Mundell talked about the components that make up resilience, and recalled his late father telling him about the value of hard work, honesty, and faith in the process.

“This was a remarkable year by any measure that we can find to judge our schools and make an assessment of their validity and their worth to our students,” he said. “This group of students have taken advantage of every opportunity that has emerged throughout the last eight years, and actually taken leadership in creating new opportunities and working with our staff.”

Mundell said that members of the class had obtained a grant for an outdoor learning space that was designed by students, and that they also got materials to build a pavilion “wherein we’ll have bench seating and classes can take place to teach about how to grow things in the greenhouse.”

He said that the seniors had demonstrated strong collaborative skills as they worked with younger students on the project. 

“Keep paying things forward with your wisdom and your knowledge,” he said.

Mundell also noted that the class had demonstrated resilience throughout the pandemic, and that, when the seniors “came back to a normal year this year, they demonstrated that they did not miss a beat.”

At the end of his speech, Mundell told the graduates, “Good luck, and go forth,” which was a phrase he said came from a mentor of his when he was a teacher at a Long Island school district.

Salutatorian Katie Morseman said she was keeping her speech “as short and sweet as possible because I’m as ready as my fellow classmates to grab the diploma and run, or if your name is Lucy, then you’ll probably be hitting the griddy out of here.”

She spoke of the connection between all the students, many of whom had been together since their elementary days.

“We all knew each other’s names, which is something that people from most schools cannot say,” she said. 

Morseman also shared some of her favorite memories of school, which were “dancing and singing … in the lounge, Aaron Carr being mistaken for an Amish man on a [Future Farmers of America] trip, blowing up balloons for hours for the senior prank, blasting music in the lot, both junior and senior prom, and being given nicknames that I will not name at this time.”

Valedictorian Emma Gardiner talked about the importance of failure in the pursuit of success, how strange she felt speaking for a class she had only joined recently when she skipped a grade, and the cost of her achievements.

“If my grades were not above a certain point, I would consider that a failure,” she said. “This mindset made me dread school. It also made me stressed constantly, and I couldn’t find any peace of mind … I wished I’d learned sooner that it wasn’t correct.”

“People might say I’m too young to be valedictorian, which made me reconsider whether I should stand in front of you today,” she also said. “But due to the support of BKW teachers, I’m up here addressing you all. As you all leave here today, know that your success is what you make it, criticizing others’ success does not make your own success greater, and most of all, work silently and let your success be your voice.”

Class President Trevor Stempel, before announcing teacher of the year Jeffrey Muller, compared school to a hallway, and said that, as students, their job was to stop at every classroom alongside their peers. 

“But when you walk outside and make it to the door, suddenly you have to find something to do with yourself,” he said. “This is the point in time when you have to take a step back and say, ‘Wow, it’s really time for the next chapter.’”

Stempel said that knowledge, memories, lessons, and friendships from BKW will carry forward, despite the upcoming changes.

Muller, a first-year physical education teacher who had previously been a long-term substitute, said he was surprised by the teacher-of-the-year designation, and thanked the students, calling them a “wonderful group.”

“Berne-Knox-Westerlo I think is like a best-kept secret,” he said. “I didn’t even know where it was three years ago, when I lived in Rotterdam. I was looking for a P.E. position, I looked on OLAS [Online Application System] for a job that said Berne-Knox-Westerlo.

“And I said, ‘Where is Berne-Knox-Westerlo?’ I took a drive, loved it — it was a country drive that had, like, two red lights going all the way up, and I’m like, I like this. I was fortunate enough to get hired.”

Muller said he was “completely humbled” by the award, and, adding to the many lessons delivered that morning, said that it’s nice to be important, but more important to be nice.

Commencement speaker and BKW teacher Andrew Wright, introduced by class Vice President Ashlee Stevens, told the class that he enjoyed getting to know them over the years, having taught several different grades, before moving on to his advice to them. 

Of goals, Wright said that any goal without a plan is a dream — “a longshot dream” — and that he would often advise his students that they’d “have to get real at some point.”

“You can always hold on to your dreams, but to turn it into any kind of reality for yourself, you’re going to need to put a reasonable plan into place that would always be able to keep setting the bar higher and attacking those dreams,” he said.

His main message, though, was for students to always be “genuine articles,” which he defined as “a person or thing considered to be an authentic, excellent example of their kind.”

Wright said that people can tell when someone is being inauthentic very quickly, and that authenticity is crucial to finding love.

“If you’re inspired by real love, and the pure and untainted power of the connections it gives you, you will know, in and through those moments, that love is more than a word,” he said. “Love is more than an interaction or a feeling. Love is more than an expression. Love is a gift, but it’s bigger than any one of us. Love is an example. Love inspires. We are all loved.

“So I’ll leave you with this and, as you walk across the stage here in a moment, and then you make your way out into this world as high school graduates, please remember these things from today,” he said. 

“Be thankful, and always embrace the life of gratitude,” he said. “Be the genuine article. Love will point to what is real. Always, and most importantly, love. Oliver Wendell Holmes said it best when he left this quote for us. ‘Love is the master key which opens the gates of happiness ….’ Be blessed. I love you all.”