SOUTH DEERFIELD — The Frontier Regional School class of 2021 was urged to embrace the changes that come after graduation because nothing could be more different than the pandemic-afflicted year they just experienced.
During a sunny Friday evening on the school’s football field, Class President Sofia Rossi delivered a speech emphasizing the unique challenges the class just faced.
“We are seniors in high school. We are not scientists, not politicians, not experts in any field, not prophets, fortune tellers or oracles. We had no idea what we would face going into our last year here at Frontier,” Rossi said. “It was confusing, annoying, frustrating, and frankly, terrifying, but we did it.”
Rossi highlighted the adaptability of her peers and herself, and said there is no reason to hold onto the anxieties of post-high school life.
“That deep dread of the future, the fear of change, of something new, you all just got a hell of a lot of practice overcoming it,” Rossi said. “We suffered through constant change, we know change … so all that anxiety you feel now, your greatest change yet, you can let it go.”
Malia Hanes, the class poet laureate, compared the students’ journey to a walk through the woods where new paths are revealed and the graduates must now pick a road to travel down.
“We have eventually come upon this new place, this fork in the road,” Hanes said. “And while these paths may be filled with mist, with fog chasing the edges, all we can do is stand before you, and smile”
Hanes described the graduates of the class of 2021 as “pioneers, ready to take on the next big challenge.”
“Watch us walk toward our unfolding future,” Hanes said, “one where we determine and defy the rules, and we will do it with the utmost grace and kindness.”
Commencement speaker Walter Flynn, a retired Frontier English teacher, said he is not the type of speaker to center a speech around profound lessons, and offered the graduates practical advice.
“Own the fact that you don’t know stuff,” Flynn said. “Tell the people that you love, that you love them.”
At the conclusion of the ceremony, a lone firework went off, signaling the graduates down that now-revealed forest path Hanes described.
Charlotte Doulette, who will be attending Denison University in Ohio, said the class has “gotten a lot closer” as a result of their unique experience.
“There’s been a lot of ups and downs,” Doulette said. “We came together as a class.”
Gates Tuttle, who will be pursuing a criminal justice degree at Western New England University, said the moment hasn’t really hit him yet.
“I haven’t had tears yet, but I think they’re coming tonight,” Tuttle said before the ceremony. “It’s been one hell of a year.”
Skyla Burniske, who will attend Westfield State University’s nursing program, said she is grateful to have had an in-person graduation.
“We spent the majority of the time behind a computer screen. To be able to come, to be fully vaccinated is great,” Burniske said. “This has been the best class to experience this with.”