Storm Outside, Celebration Inside

LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES 90 SENIORS

LINCOLN — A thunderstorm passed through town Thursday evening as family members and others were making their way to Lincoln High School’s 2018 graduation ceremony, but that had no bearing on the celebration going on inside Wolfpack Arena.

The basketball gym was packed, with seats filled and many people standing around the top of the arena to see the Class of 2018 reach a new milestone.

Lincoln High School on May 24 graduated 90 students and many were wearing extra cords that showed extra honors.

Kali Brewer, as class valedictorian, and Bao Ngoc Thi Dao, class salutatorian, wore gold sashes to signify their accomplishments. Many other students graduated with distinguished honors and honors, as vocational completers, career pathway completers and as

“Sometimes you never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” Dr. Seuss

three-year completers in athletics and band.

“I’m excited to see the extra cords and medallions,” Superintendent Mary Ann Spears said in welcoming everyone to the commencement ceremony. “We haven’t always had that.”

Principal Courtney Jones always leaves each graduating class with a word that represents the students as a whole.

For 2018, Jones said she wanted to give them a word meant to encourage and force them to think beyond right now.

“I chose the word passion,” Jones said.

“Play hard and give your best to whatever it is that you decide to do. When you make a mistake, accept responsibility, even when it is difficult. We learn from making mistakes.”

She told them to be silly but know when to be serious. She also encouraged them to be an individual, no matter where they are. She advised them to see opportunities, act on them and learn not to take no for an answer if it is something they really want.

“I wish for you to find your passion, don’t sit and do nothing. Instead do something and be passionate about it. Congratulations Class of 2018,” Jones said.

Class Valedictorian Kali Brewer addressed her classmates twice during the ceremony, as the student with the best GPA but also as class president.

Brewer reminded her classmates they may not be the smartest in a room, the strongest, funniest or the most talented.

“But you can always be brave and you can always be kind,” she said. “These are the things you should be every minute of everyday for the rest of your life. Because yes, those other things, they’re great things. But these things are better.”

Brewer said she began a self-evaluation her junior year when she got her first “B” on a report card. She was certain it had ruined her dream of graduating at the top of the class.

Through this self-evaluation, she said she learned the importance of goals, the importance to stand up for what is right and the importance to be a light in the world.

And lastly, she said, “Never forget these words from the incredible Leslie Knope: ‘We need to remember what’s important in life: friends, waffles, work. Or waffles, friends, work. Doesn’t matter, but work is third.’”

Bao Ngoc Thi Dao, Class of 2018 salutatorian, spoke of the hospitality she received when she moved to Lincoln for her sophomore year. She had already attended six schools in Washington, Massachusetts and North Carolina and said she was not ready for another change.

“At the time, I absolutely despised the constant state-trotting. It meant relentless goodbyes, shattered friendships and an incurable aching for a place that I once called home. But I would not be standing in front of you tonight, if it wasn’t for that,” she said.

Dao said she grew to love her friends and teachers she met at Lincoln High.

“I can easily say that out of all of the schools that I’ve stepped foot in, roughly seven different schools, Lincoln makes me feel the most joyful, the most confident and the most at home. And for that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

Addressing her classmates, she described them as the “sharpest tools in the shed, crazy talented, and quite good-looking, as well.”

In conclusion, Dao encouraged the graduates to remember to be genuine, kind and to “go out and saturate yourself in the presence of people and things that inspire you the most.”