‘No wall too high’
Bulkeley grads told to embrace challenges that await them
Bulkeley High School’s graduating seniors reflected on the hurdles they’ve cleared and the peaks they’ve scaled together as they received their diplomas Tuesday night.
“Remember that there is no wall too high, and there is no mountain high enough,” valedictorian Angela Lara Diaz told her classmates as she began her speech. “During freshman year, fear was the first mountain we met.”
For many students, some of those challenges of the past included having to learn English as a second language or adapt at a young age to American life as immigrants.
Parents and friends filled the maroon seats inside the auditorium at Bulkeley High School to send off the 99 graduates of the Bulldogs’ class of 2019. The graduating class includes 10 members of the National Honor Society, eight students who earned high honors, 18 who earned honors and 37 who graduated with AP credits.
In her valedictorian address spoken in both Spanish and English, Diaz thanked the mentors who made the success of her class possible. She then called on her classmates to never give up, no matter the path they choose to follow after graduation.
“We must be sure to open not just doors, but windows, to not just look toward the future but to enjoy the present,” Diaz said.
As the ceremony got underway, Principal Digna Marte com
memorated the closing of her first year as head of the school as well as the end of the graduates’ time as high school students. She too addressed the crowd bilingually and, with a smile, referred to the class as the future college graduates of 2023.
“You are now in the driver’s seat of your lives.
Take the wheel and map out your future,” Marte said.
Marte introduced the event’s guest speaker, 1984 Bulkeley graduate Olga Rivera as a “leader, role model and ground-breaker.” Rivera is a lieutenant in the Marshall Division of the Hartford Fire Department, and is the first Latina to hold that title. Rivera, who was awarded Firefighter of the Year this past February, said she was happy to be back at her old “stomping grounds” on the Bulkeley campus.
“Staying idle and becoming complacent, letting life pass you by is not OK,” Rivera said. “Don’t be afraid to create your own path, and wherever your path leads you, don’t forget where you came from.”
A crew of other Bulkeley graduates who are now Hartford firefighters accompanied Rivera onstage as she gave her keynote speech. She joined the department in 2011 as a 36year-old single mother of three, and now holds one of
the department’s highest titles. She used her story to encourage graduates to keep pushing forward.
“It is never too late. It is never too late to start making your dreams your reality,” she said.
Mayor Luke Bronin reminded graduates that the city of Hartford is proud of the class’s success.
“Know this, that when you’re feeling like you might not be able to do it, this city still stands with you,” Bronin said.
Wesley Horton, a defense attorney representing Bruce Bemer, was misidentified in a story on page B1 of Tuesday’s Courant.