Valedictorians lament lost chance for last farewell

Graduation speeches delivered to empty rooms

As she smiled and addressed her classmates for one final time, Madison Voinovich reflected on the Class of 2020’s historic moments.

They’re the first group to graduate from the new Olentangy Berlin High School in Delaware, Ohio, so everything they did, in a sense, was a new chapter in the school district’s history.

“We have taken our vow to be ‘historic’ to levels we couldn’t have even imagined,” Voinovich, 17, joked about the pandemic that derailed their senior year – including the most successful streak of “senior skip days” ever.

There was no laughter from her 278 fellow graduates.

Instead of delivering her speech from center stage inside the Schottenstein Center on Ohio State University’s campus, Voinovich, the valedictorian of her class, spoke in her school’s empty auditorium for a film crew.

“It was definitely strange to give a speech to a bunch of lights and microphones instead of a live audience,” she said. “But it was a really fun experience.”

After schools were closed down to slow the spread of COVID-19, some districts converted graduations to drivethru affairs or delayed them to when mass gatherings would be permitted again. In Ohio, schools went with virtual graduations that students and family will watch from their homes.

At past graduations, Brenna Hammond watched in the audience as speakers delivered quips and advice, envisioning herself behind the mike.

The senior from Cincinnati’s Clark Montessori High School hoped to be one of two student orators, selected by teachers, at her own in-person graduation this spring. The valedictorian probably would have urged her peers to embrace life’s “small moments,” employed an analogy about an eighth grade trip and savored the rush of standing at the center of such a major event.

“I don’t get like that final bow on the package, I just feel like I have some loose strings,” Hammond said. “I probably saw some of the people from my graduating class for the last time, and I didn’t know I was seeing them for the last time.”

Despite Cincinnati Public Schools hosting “drive-thru” graduations to cap the year off for grads, Hammond said the absence of a traditional ceremony made for an anticlimactic end to high school.

The graduation speech she’d hoped to give would have served as a segue between school and summer, work and rest, high school and beyond.

“It’s sort of a goodbye speech,” she said, “and it’s also ... a goodbye speech from the graduating class to the teachers as well.”

Nadezhda “Dezzie” Niemann, the second valedictorian graduating from Cincinnati’s Clark Montessori, attended her school’s 2019 graduation. During the speeches, she felt a closeness with her community, something her school emphasizes.

She looked on as the 2019 grads stood in a circle. Each student held a candle and passed around the flame until all wicks were lit.

To cope with missing out on such rituals, Niemann remained in contact with friends and classmates. She noted the irony of how, after being separated from her classmates, she’d come to understand some of them even more. During virtual lessons, she observed how some must care for a sibling or run errands for their families. Different levels of privilege had been apparent before among her classmates, she said, “but this has opened my eyes a little bit more.”

Sarah Morbitzer, 18, valedictorian of Hamilton Township High School in Columbus, Ohio, lamented the loss of the “last time we’ll do this together moments.”

Instead of walking the halls together, she and her friends had to arrange a video chat to even see each other’s faces. They didn’t get dolled up for prom, compete in spring sports or travel for a class trip.

Daniel Ortiz Fifonte, 18, valedictorian of East High School in Columbus, will record his speech from home for his school’s virtual graduation ceremony June 27.

To Fifonte, being a top scholar is about much more than a graduation speech.

“You’re someone that everybody looks up to, and they often look to you for advice,” Fifonte said. “I think that having the chance to become valedictorian has given me a really good opportunity to be a leader.”