GILL — Professional photographers and parents with iPhones switched into high gear about 15 minutes before graduation’s scheduled the 11 a.m. start, when teachers started molding a crowd of black caps and gowns into a line outside Northfield Mount Hermon School’s Memorial Chapel.
Led by a bagpiper, the class of 2019 marched down Cottage Row to Thorndike Field, where a stage and rows of folding chairs were shaded by a large white tent.
“Pomp and Circumstance” started up, family members and friends who had been outside the tent to see the procession migrated to the seats in the back, and the graduating seniors settled in front of the stage.
The ceremony was emceed by Head of School Charles A. Tierney III. The school’s chaplain, the Rev. Lee-Ellen Strawn, invoked “all that is good and embracing … wise and merciful.”
For the class oration, the students had selected Jefferson Daniel “JD” Pruett, a one-year student, introduced as a “renaissance man,” plus an eloquent and thoughtful writer, by Head of School Tierney
Starting with an audible deep breath, Pruett’s cerebral speech was about how, as a student at NMH, he learned to recognize the “reciprocal” nature of the world.
“While someone keeps you on your feet, you’re helping someone else stay on theirs,” he said. “In our convoluted, reciprocal world, we don’t always know who we’re giving to.”
Pruett also encouraged his classmates to think not just about objective goals, but also “moments that aren’t predestined to bring us somewhere else, beyond an inside joke.” He got a standing ovation.
Noah Burstein of Mount Hermon (The Piscuskas Day Student Prize), Eli Carroll of Greenfield (The Bannwart Choir Prize), Audrey Corrigan of Mount Hermon, Keith DeSantis of Bernardston (cum laude, The Colonel Walter Scott Prize in Multi-Variable Calculus), Luke Dillon of Greenfield, Clayton Garland of Northfield, Megan Hrinda of Deerfield, Jacob Hughes of Shelburne Falls (The Henry R. Huntting Literary Prize, The Edward and William Rhodes Prize in Economics), Riley Humphrey of Leverett, Rebekah Keator of Mount Hermon (cum laude), Emily Majewski of Mount Hermon, Tucker Mills of Shelburne Falls, Siobhan Moore of Leyden, Lucia Nuovo of Bernardston (cum laude, The Douglas A. Jones Award), Avery Palmer of Montague, Mary Parse of Orange, Richard Poirier of Shelburne Falls, Hugh Schatz-Allison of Mount Hermon, Amelia Simmonds of Montague (The Frank Stanley Beveridge Award), James Simpson of Shelburne Falls, Richard Sturtevant of Leyden (The Vitold Piscuskas Sportsmanship Award) and Fiona Tierney of Mount Hermon (The Zschirpe Memorial Award).