Punxsy High School sends off Class of 2023
PUNXSUTAWNEY — The Class of 2023 of Punxsutawney Area High School held their commencement exercises on Wednesday at Jack LaMarca Stadium under sunshine and blue skies.
Superintendent Dr. Thomas Lesniewski, congratulated the graduates and all of their loved ones who have supported them throughout their academic career.
“First, you’re ending a journey and beginning another one, and you will be meeting new challenges,” he said. “Second, do your best everyday and be open to new challenges. Third, take advantage of your opportunities and don’t worry about making mistakes so long you learn from them. Fourth, in difficult situations you’ll always reveal your true character and finally you are examples of our district mission statement. You are prepared for the future, and you’ve acquired the skill and the knowledge to become productive and responsible citizens.”
Lesniewski recognized the students who are entering military service.
The commencement speaker was Lauren McLaughlin, former assistant principal at PAHS.
“My own journey is a lesson worth learning; after all, I consider myself hard working, driven, outgoing, compassionate and even witty, but I’m standing here today because of resilience,” she said. “According to the dictionary, the meaning of the word is ‘the capacity to withstand, recover from or adapt to difficulties and challenges.’”
McLaughlin said resilience is not something you are born with.
“Many people have taught me how to be resilient in my life,” McLaughlin said.
She told the story of Diana and how she followed her father, who was in the military, around the world.
“Her father was always working and her mother suffered from alcoholism and mental issues so there
was no support at home,” she said, adding that she dropped out of school at age 16 and got married at 17 after suffering many hardships, including her husband dying. She married a good man, started a family and settled into her life until she was diagnosed with cancer and then went into remission. She obtained her GED and went to nursing school. In her last semester of school, her cancer came back more aggressively.
Dianna was her mother, and she was a 17-year-old high school senior when she died three years after her diagnosis.
“My mother was given three years; if she had just given up when she was told she would not live past the age of 42, she would not have had the opportunity to drink her favorite cup of coffee and gossip on the phone with her sisters, laugh out loud when watching her favorite movies.”
Ryen Heigley, valedictorian, said that he always looked forward to getting into high school.
“The first six and a half months was everything I had envisioned; the time had come for me to play basketball with varsity team,” Heigley said, adding that COVID-19 came along and that changed everything.
“I had lost contact with some great friends and I may never talk to again,” Heigley said. “The struggle that my class and myself were brutal some of my friends had gone completely on line for school.”
He said for those who were in school maintaining grades and keeping in touch was even though that it already had been.
“We were unsure if we were going to play all of our sports, and other extracurriculars had to be cancelled to keep us safe,” he said. “Not everything we learned from COVID-19 was bad. I learned more about myself and others during this time period than I ever had earlier in my life.”
Heigley said he learned to keep the people in his life close and take advantage of all opportunities that he was given.”
After all the students came to the end of their trek, class President Alex Momyer led the student body in moving their tassels from the right side to the left, signaling they had graduated.