ATTLEBORO — The melodious voices of Attleboro High School’s chorus drifted across the sports fields prior to the 149th commencement ceremony on Friday night, where both sets of bleachers were packed, with many others sitting in folding chairs or standing at the fence around the field.
The 374 graduates — many of whom had decorated their caps — entered the field shortly past 6 p.m. to cheers and applause from the spectators, smiling nervously and chatting to one another as they strode two by two to their chairs.
After asking for a moment of silence in honor of four students who had died before graduation, Principal Bill Runey discounted the world’s notion of the belief that external measures defined a person’s self-worth.
“If you live for external achievement, the deepest parts of you will go unexplored,” Runey said. “Seeking to understand yourself and your aspirational vision for the future cannot be separate from the deepest parts of your being. I challenge you to seek personal happiness and the truest, most beautiful things.”
Mayor Paul Heroux instructed the graduates to practice kindness, concern and trust toward one another, while Superintendent David Sawyer praised the class of 2018 for their crucial role in the outcome of the vote to build a new high school for future generations.
“You made your mark on a choice that changed the course of our collective history,” Sawyer said.
Student Council VicePpresident Emma Lamothe asked her classmates to appreciate the people who had befriended and taught them, and Salutatorian James Nordberg Jr.’s request to the graduates was to take a few minutes to recognize the people in their lives who had helped them make their graduation a reality.
Valedictorian Grace Meyer took a quote from a character in the TV series “The Office” in describing life as a narrative, where the graduates were about to start the next sentence, even though they weren’t sure where it would lead.
“Like ‘Michael Scott,’ you will figure (life) out along the way,” Meyer said. “What we can do is life with purpose day by day, making it our mission to be better people in a society that desperately needs better people.”
As class president Arianna Susi passed the time key to Aaron Sherck Jr., class president of 2019, she expressed her joy and love of being the graduates’ president.
“The class of 2018 is far from mediocre,” Susi said. “Keep doing all the amazing things you do. I love you all — now go accomplish some big things.”
