Luke Canfora

Co-valedictorian of the Clayton A. Bouton Class of 2019, Luke Canfora was brief in his speech. He thanked his teachers, Principal Laura Schmitz, and his family. “Mom and Dad, I know that for every hour of work I put in, you put in just as many to make sure I was successful,” he said. 

Canfora was a varsity swimmer, member of the chess club and science Olympiad, and enjoyed trap shooting. In the fall, he will enter the University of Florida, where he will study aerospace engineering.

Regan Dennis

Regan Dennis, co-valedictorian of the Clayton A. Bouton Class of 2019, will be attending the University of Tulsa in the fall, where she will study biology. Dennis, who has a passion for horses, opened her commencement speech with a promise, “I’m going to keep this short because my family and I have reservations.”

In just a few months, she said, she and many of her fellow graduates will, again, be freshmen, and will have the opportunity to meet new people for the first time since kindergarten. “And you’ll be able who you want to be,” Dennis said.

Olivia Farney

Co-salutatorian of the Clayton A. Bouton Class of 2019 Olivia Farney began her speech by thanking her parents, older sister, and younger brother. Addressing her siblings, she joked, “Without you, I wouldn’t be the middle child I am today.” 

It had been 13 years, or 4,745 days, or 113,880 hours, since the Class of 2019 began kindergarten, Farney said, and, in that time, the world has changed quite a bit. 

When the Class of 2019 began kindergarten, for example, smartphones didn’t exist; Apple wouldn’t introduce the iPhone for another 7,104 hours, she said. In the meantime, she said, the Class of 2019 was making memories one hour at a time.

Farney was a varsity swimmer, member of the Key Club and Model United Nations, and was the treasurer of National Honor Society. In addition, she was the president and captain of the science Olympiad team. 

Farney will study biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan this fall.

Alicia Kelley

Alicia Kelley wanted for so long to get out if Voorheesville, but, now, as graduation was upon her, she realized how much she will miss being a kid. “It felt like just last week we were in the library getting yelled at for making too much noise—oh wait, it was,” she quipped. 

Kelley is co-salutatorian of the Class of 2019. 

In the fall, she will attend Quinnipiac University, where she will play for the school’s Division 1 ice hockey team. She plans on becoming a doctor of physical therapy.

As she spoke to the Class of 2019, Kelley referenced a quote often attributed to Mark Twain, “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did.” And so, Kelley told her classmates, “So if you do something and it doesn’t work out, you’ll at least have a good story to tell years from now. So, set your sights high.”