Harwood's class of 2024 becomes part of school tradition
New graduates celebrate following Saturday’s commencement ceremony at Harwood Union High School. Photo by Gordon Miller
As they spent their final moments together as a class, Harwood’s newest graduates on Saturday were reminded of some unforgettable early experiences of their high school careers that began early in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Senior class lead TA teachers Tari Priddy (left) and Chelsea Turley (right) lead the class procession past cheering teachers to the graduation tent. Photo by Gordon Miller
“We entered freshman year as a group known as A through L and M through Z,” said senior Libby Spina in her remarks during the ceremony. She recalled how classes were reduced in size with only half of the students attending school at once in the early months of the pandemic.
“We were separated. We were unable to be together, to meet each other, and to learn together,” she said. “All we knew were half the faces of half our class.”
It wasn’t until sophomore year that the class truly began to gel as relationships formed and strengthened, she said. “Today, I see our talent, our compassion our courage. We are athletes. We are musicians. We are actors. We are artists and we are leaders,” she said.
Will Burks shared his similar recollections. “Freshman year, our class came into a brand new school in the middle of a pandemic,” he began. “Two days a week – same faces, half-empty halls and there we were, confused and distraught about what high school was supposed to be.”
Reality didn’t live up to expectations from seeing high school on TV and the movies, Burks said. “Like, dude, I thought there was supposed to be people singing and dancing through the halls … what I did see was a bunch of disconnected kids.”
But the class eventually shed their masks and formed friendships. “We connected with each other,” Burks said. “How we’ve grown together over the years has been inspiring.”
The students spoke from the podium under the big white tent on the Harwood Union High School lawn on Saturday morning. Rain held off with breaks of sunshine during the slightly more than hourlong ceremony. Bagpiper Ben Montross played tunes alongside the school’s driveway as guests filed in to take their places and the school chorus and band set up for their final performance of the school year.
In a sea of Harwood colors – black caps and gowns highlighted with gold sashes – the soon-to-be-graduates made their way in procession from inside the school past a gauntlet of cheering teachers lined up outside of the school’s main entrance, taking their seats under the tent.
To stand out from the crowd, many decorated the tops of their mortarboards with handmade emblems announcing the schools they will head to next; others adorned their caps with personal messages.
Harwood Co-Principals Laurie Greenberg and Megan McDonough opened and closed the ceremony, both noting that they, too started their jobs with the class of 2024.
Harwood History teacher Rob McLeod addresses the graduating class, families and friends. Photo by Gordon Miller
Harwood history teacher Rob McLeod, who raises cattle in Hardwick when he’s not in the classroom, was the featured speaker for the occasion. Senior Janelle Hoskins introduced him as “Harwood’s favorite farmer.”
McLeod shared a story from his youth traveling in the upper Midwest spending time with Native American communities in Michigan and Wisconsin where he observed cultural ceremonies representing centuries-old traditions. Upon returning home, he recalled reading in an updated encyclopedia that the communities he had visited “were thought to be extinct.”
Perception, McLeod emphasized, is relative. “There are worlds out there that you don’t even know exist yet,” he told the students. “Go out and find them.”
Senior class member Rowan Clough in her address shared memories connected with different places during high school, concluding with a story of meeting her “future best friend” at a kindergarten open house many years ago. The friend recently sent her a message on her 18th birthday. “I would like to pass that message along to the class of 2024: ‘Thank you for growing up with me.’”
Burks spent his senior year as the school’s “plaid” mascot at school events and games. His costume for the role was the school’s signature Scottish Highland kilt, something he referenced in his address noting how classmates were now ending their high school careers woven together – individual threads of a common cloth. He got his classmates to take part in one final cheer, calling out “1-2” to have them respond, “H-U.”
On the stage left to right: Harwood School Board Chair Ashley Woods, Superintendent Mike Leichliter, Co-Principals Megan McDonough and Laurie Greenberg, Teaching and Learning Coordinator Jessica Deane, history teacher Rob McLeod. Photo by Gordon Miller
Co-Principal McDonough reminded the class that they now become part of the school’s history. She listed recent teachers who have retired, leaving behind traditions such as the school’s assembly band, the harkness discourse and debate custom and a torch-passing ceremony from one senior class to the next.
She also recalled Waterbury physician Dr. Charles Harwood, for whom the school was named in 1965. Harwood was known for his dedication, McDonough said, “only ending his day when all who had shown up to his office had been seen.”
Harwood “found a way up the snowy mountains of Vermont in the 50s and 60s to see homebound patients,” she recounted. “It is said that most students who first sat here in the graduating class were actually delivered as babies by him.”
In keeping with tradition, members of the senior class announced that they would bequeath the proceeds of their class fundraising efforts over the past several years – approximately $2,000 – to the school. Their wish is for it to be used to purchase new furniture for the senior lounge.
Students decorate their caps with messages and emblems from schools where they are headed to next. Photo by Gordon Miller