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KENNETH SONG/NEWS-PRESS PHOTOSGraduating Laguna Blanca School senior Frances Carlson poses for a photo with Head of School Ron Cino during the school’s commencement ceremony at the Ruston Amphitheatre on-Wednesday.
Laguna Blanca graduated 44 seniors during the school’s 88th commencement ceremony on Wednesday. Madeline Nicks gave the student address and chemistry instructor Katie Pointer gave the commencement address.
“This group of people seems to have been cosmically brought together,” said Ms. Nicks “That spending this time in our lives together was written in the stars. None of this feels accidental. We were meant to be in this class at this school. We’ve been through so much together, but we have remained a united front.”
Ms. Nicks went on to describe the graduating class as “a group made up of fiercely individual people who have put in the effort to learn how to beautifully coexist, create memories and take adventures together.”
Graduating Laguna Blanca School seniors listen to classmate Madeleine Nicks give her student address.She went on to describe a class that is extraordinarily close as a group. “We love finding excuses to be together as a class. We plan our next group activities while we’re doing a group activity. We support each other in individual goals, celebrate successes and college acceptances, and pick each other back up when things don’t go to plan … we turn every class or AP we’re in into a little family, with its own memories and set of complaints and inside jokes. Whatever random array of people the scheduling chaos brings together never fails to create a bonded group. We value those classes and are grateful to be on this campus each day.”
Ms. Nicks expressed gratitude to the teachers who helped shepherd the Class of 2022 through their high school years. “Our teachers have shaped each person and formed us into the class that we are,” she said.
In her commencement address, Ms. Pointer thanked the class for the opportunity to speak and said the graduating seniors had contributed to making a “uniquely difficult” school year fun.
“No matter what happens to you in life, you will still be you,” said Ms. Pointer. “When I was 18, I had this idea that one day, when I got the right job or fell in love with the right person or had some right amount of money in my bank account, I would have a sense of arrival and would then transform into the real version of myself. But it turns out that isn’t how it works. No matter what you accomplish, no matter how many degrees and letters end up after your name, no matter how much you exercise, or how fashionable your wardrobe, no matter who you marry, or how perfect your children are, you will always just be you.
“The same voice in your head or your heart that you hear in the quiet today will be with you tomorrow morning, at 25, and 40, and presumably at 65 and the end. And this afternoon that might seem like disparaging news. But I am here to reassure you that it is not. In fact, I want to encourage you to begin today, if you haven’t already started, the process of deciding to make peace with who you are. With coming to accept yourself – to care, commit, trust, respect, take responsibility for, and know yourself … You should have every confidence that you have nothing to fear in deciding to make peace with who you are. And my hope is that as you learn to live with yourself, you will find greater freedom to continue being interested, and doing hard things, and being vulnerable with others.”
email: kzehnder@newspress.com
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