MSC grads go out on top
Members of Class of 2017 leave their mark at Mount
WOONSOCKET— Mount St. Charles Academy is a school steeped in traditions, but it was the unique personality and achievement of the Class of 2017 that stood out during its 93rd commencement in Brother Adelard Ice Arena on Sunday.
The 131 graduating members of the class included students like Emily Mercier, who served as mistress of ceremonies and ran the show from the stage before her classmates and the assembled family members and friends. There was also Meghan O’Brien, who took her time giving the salutatorian address to recall a kind gesture she received upon arriving at the school in the seventh grade, and then Ngan “Kim” Le, the valedictorian and also the recipient of Mount’s prized Excelsior Award for academics, leadership and “good human relations.”
Le gave an, at times, humorous but insightful look at where the graduates will be driving themselves as they head off to their future successes.
The school also honored its graduating class from 50 years ago, as is its tradition, giving new diplomas to the members of the Class of 1967 attending, and also highlighted its role as a private, Catholic high school, run by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. Deacon Anthony Gagliani gave the opening prayer, and Principal Edwin Burke included observations of the role of faith in the graduates’ future lives during his remarks as the ceremony neared its conclusion.
And as has been the case for a number of years, Mount St. Charles Senior Band Conductor Marc Blanchette, led his freshmen, sophomore and junior band members through the entrance march and a lively recessional to send the Class of 2017 on its way.
Mercier described her time at Mount as time spent in a “second home,” as she opened the ceremonies with a greeting to those in attendance. “It is a place where we are all allowed to explore new interests, gifts, and talents, and are nurtured and guided to reach our full potential,” she said.
“At Mount, the values of hard work, scholarship, kindness, humility, and charity are instilled in each student through their own unique experiences,” Mercier said.
She also offered her classmates a look into her own challenges in seeking success at Mount while relating how there had been times while working on her academic endeavors and participation in athletics that she had felt “completely overwhelmed with my responsibilities.” But her “so many good days” in school fully outweighed those challenging days, she offered. “I have experienced so many moments of pure joy during my time at Mount – all of the walk-a-thons, Mount Days, proms, semi-formals, sports games, and even ordinary school days are good memories, ones that make me proud to be a Mountie, and proud that for years I have been surrounded by the people here today,” she said.
Mercier also asked her classmates to “think of a moment, an event, a day that you experienced at Mount that was full of joy. I encourage you to think of as many as you can, and take them with you as you leave this arena and go off to wherever it is you’re going, for however long you’ll be there,” she said.
Class Salutatorian Meghan O’Brien said that all of the recent “lasts” in the closing days of the school year, the last Mount Day, the last prom and last meets and games, had set her to thinking about when she started at the school as a seventh-grader and went to
orientation day.
“I was too nervous to talk to anyone else so I started to eat lunch alone,” O’Brien said. “Upon noticing that I was eating alone, two members of Campus Ministry sat down and talked to me for the rest of lunch,” she recalled. “At the time I was grateful they had spared me some of the embarrassment of eating by myself. However, as I look back on the last six years, I understand that this anecdote isn’t all that unique,” she added.
Other experiences at Mount helped her to understand that she and her classmates changed as they attended the school. “We are not just older or smarter than we were when we first came here. We became more compassionate, more driven, more confident. We grew more concerned about our roles in the world,” O’Brien said.
“We became the type of people who sit with terrified seventh-graders on their first days,” she added.
And what factors led to such changes? O’Brien said she believes her classmates all share “a common factor— people.
“The people around us taught us more than the pages of a textbook could have. With their patience and encouragement, our families taught us that we are more capable than we could imagine. Our friends ensured that we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Our teachers set high expectations, but always gave us the tools we need to succeed,” she said.
O’Brien said the class members changed because “throughout our time at Mount, we’ve been encouraged to consider how we affect the people around us.”
The students spent hours volunteering at nursing homes and elementary schools, cheered each other on the athletic fields and managed their own service projects, she said.
In the future, she said the Class of 2017 “will continue to support others, whether it be through service or simply being present when we are needed most,” she said. “At our cores, we will continue to be Mounties – bound by friendship, united by faith, forever family,” O’Brien said.
After their principal, Edwin Burke, read off their names, Mount President Herve Richer and Guidance Director Susan Tessier passed the members of the Class of 2017 their diplomas and when all of them were in hand, the crowd erupted in a round of applause for the newest Mountie graduates.
Ngan “Kim” Le set out on her Valedictorian speech telling crowd filling the arena that her task loomed as a “really nerve racking” one, but also that it left her feeling “blessed and humbled,” to be chosen for the role.
She didn’t disappoint her listeners either as she told of how the staff at Mount had “made our school not only a place for learning, but also a community,” and thanking the graduates’ families for their support.
Offering that she could not know where her peers were “going next,” or even what they would end up doing, Le said she could talk a bit about the future and “how we can approach it.”
Mentioning the “legendary Britney Spears,” Le said the singer once observed “There’s only two types of people in the world: ones that entertain and ones that observe.”
To her classmates, Le asked “are you a put-on-a- show kind of person? Do you like the backseat, or do you have to be first?”
She continued that Britney Spears did in fact have “a very good point in her song – ‘Be the ringleader, call the shots. Be like a firecracker, make it hot,’” Le told her classmates.
“What she means is don’t get in the backseat – Take the wheel,” Le said. “Whatever happens in the future, be active and take control. You might not know your destination, but you choose how fast you go,” she said.
The members of Class of 2017, Le said, will decide what “drives” their lives. “You decide where you want to go and which roads you want to take,” she said.
The class members are bound to hit traffic along the way, she said, and the inevitable “delays in life, and people will be late,” she said. “Stuff happens.”
But even if a traffic jam holds them up, Le said the graduates should continue along on their journeys nonetheless.
“There are going to be people who will tell you “Why bother,” she said. “But when you hit traffic and know you are going to be late, do you turn around? No. You keep going, and that is important,” she said. “It is never too late to do anything. This is corny, but in life, it’s not always about when you reach your destination. It is about whether you even try to get there,” Le said. “It is about whether you choose to keep driving.”