Meet the graduates
Last Bridgetown Regional High School class asked to fix the world
The last graduating class at Bridgetown Regional High School was asked to fix the world.
On June 29, in a packed gymnasium, they were told to be brave.
They were urged to remember where they come from.
They were told to thank their moms.
And they were told credit cards suck.
When valedictorian Mary Baker got up to speak, her words assured the large crowd of family and friends that the future is in good hands.
She described her class as diverse and said that diversity is strength.
“It is something that prepares us for a world that is becoming increasingly diverse and unique. Just like us,” she said. “And that is what should motivate us to travel the world, meet different people, eat escargots just for the sake of it. We need to experience life, and never be afraid of the unknown.”
Baker, who earned both the Queen Elizabeth II Medal and the Governor General’s Award, spoke at the end of the evening after numerous awards were presented and guest speakers gave the graduates both high praise and challenges for the future.
Be Brave
Annapolis County Warden Timothy Habinski told students going off to college or university to be wary of smiling and pleasantly dressed people offering credit cards. He was perhaps only half joking. But he soon got serious.
“Be brave. You folks have an astonishing opportunity available to you over the course of the next few years,” said Habinski. “Never again in the course of your lives will you be as unencumbered as you are right now. You are heading off into the world and are able to make choices for yourself in a way that you never have before. And I would encourage you to do the things that scare you.”
He told them to take that spirit of adventure and project it further into the rest of their lives.
“As you study, as you go into your working careers, as you make families, tackle the things that scare you,” he said. “Try them, and I guarantee you this: in retrospect, in 20 years time you will look back on your lives and the things that you have done that have mattered the most, the things you have done of which you will feel most proud will be the things that at the beginning were frightening, or difficult, or both.”
Habinski told the graduates to remember where they’re from. He said 1,000 people in the town and another 20,000 in the county will be rooting for them and celebrating their successes. And if things go wrong, those people back home will pick them up, dust them off, help them, and set them on their path again.
Hope
“This is my school,” said Annapolis Valley Regional School Board member Peter Maxwell. He attended in the early 1960s.
“Education is the foundation of all human excellence,” he said. “Among the greatest of all services is the education of the children. And the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board wishes to extend a great thank you to the teachers and staff of this school for an excellent job with these students.”
Then Cromwell told the students the future rest with them.
“My mother’s middle name, I always speak of her, her name was Hope, and you are the hope,” he said. “You are the hope to really change the world. You’re the generation of Facebook. You have friends around the world. You talk to people in Africa, Europe, Asia. It’s nothing to you. You are the people who do that. Expand those friendships.”
He described the students as untainted and selfless.
“I’m going to lay one on you,” he said. “I think it’s this generation that’s going to clean up the planet. These are the kids of the We Day. They naturally think about the plant. They’ve grown up with that on them. They know that this is their responsibility.”
He told them to remember that at that moment in Africa there are 12-year-old child soldiers turning in their rifles for communications devices.
“They’re turning them in for communications devices so they can talk to you. So link up, expand your horizons,” he said.
He said his vision is of the world’s billions of people lifting together.
“So there’s a lot of hope going with these young people,” Cromwell said. “I want to applaud them because I know they can do this.”
Baker
As if anticipating Cromwell’s challenge, Valedictorian Mary Baker answered.
“We are a new generation of Canadians who will always try to be a little more accepting. This is our legacy,” she said. “This is what should push us to be better, to get out of bed in the morning knowing that we can change the world. And that is something to be proud of.”
Besides the Queen Elizabeth II Medal and the Governor General’s Award, Baker was presented with several other awards including the Miss Donalda Fraser Award in English, the Vernon Dakin Bursary, the Royal Canadian Legion Academic Award, the French Written Prize, and the Minnie Bent Scholarship.
Student Parker Chesley also received numerous awards including an award for Outstanding Work in Physics, the Dr. Carmen L. Piggott Memorial Science Prize, the Bradford E. Finigan Trophy, the Archdeacon Bullock Trophy, the Charles Fletcher Inglis Scholarship, the J.R. Mcisaac Memorial Bursary, the Colin Chipman Memorial Award, and the Max B. Young Memorial Award.
Olivia Whitman received the V.J. Rice Concrete Award for highest academic standing in Grade 12. She also won the Michelin BASE Award for scholastic excellence, the Macdonald Chisholm Social Studies award, and the French Oral Prize.
And in a special presentation, Aboriginal Lanyards were given to students Amber Budgell-tony, Destinee Rae, and Carlos Sack by RCH Native Student Advisor Pam Durling. Bear River First Nations Chief Carol Dee Potter also presented an Eagle Feather to Sack.
Kente sashes were presented to students of African descent Rae, Tanner Jackson, and Taylor Jackson.
Find a full list of award recipients at www.annapoliscountyspectator.ca
— valedictorian Mary Baker