MATTAPOISETT — The 147 seniors at Old Rochester Regional High School had much to celebrate as they paraded past friends and family to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance” in red caps and gowns.

Some have taken 10 AP courses, others have earned a Seal of Biliteracy, been team captain of their sports teams, completed over 200 hours of community service, been a member of the National Honor Society and became the first in their families to graduate from Old Rochester.

Following graduation, some are staying in state for college, while others are moving to different time zones, joining the military or entering the workforce.

And, as of Saturday, May 31, all 147 are high school graduates.

“I am so proud of you all, and you should be too, because the next round is coming, and we’ve already proven we can take the hit and keep swinging,” said Class President Emerson Gonet.

During the commencement ceremony, Maiten Tavares, eighth grader at the junior high and Henry Oliveira, a sixth grader from Sippican School, spoke to the graduating seniors on what it means to be a bulldog.

“You’re caring, determined, passionate and proud,” Tavares said. “As the class of 2025 steps into the next chapter of your lives, know that you’ll carry what it means to be a bulldog with you wherever you go.”

She added, “You’ll face life with the courage and character you’ve built right here.”

During her commencement speech, Emily Wyman, president of the National Honor Society, said that graduation is a time to “celebrate the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.”

“It is the time to reflect on who we’ve become and what success has truly meant to each of us,” Wyman said.

Class valedictorian Caitlin O’Donnell told her classmates they “crossed off the days on the calendar, you pushed through the final exams, you got out of bed and showed up today.”

She reflected on mental health struggles in her speech and the significance of the semicolon, which she said was symbolic because semicolons replace periods and a definitive end.

“Instead of the sentence ending completely, its meaning coming to a close, it continues on when the author could have ended the sentence,” she said.

O’Donnell told her classmates they are ““the authors of [their] own lives” and have each “chosen the semicolon already, even without realizing it.”

O’Donnell concluded her speech with a message to her classmates: “live by the founding of the semicolon. No matter what may come along your path, always remember that there’s so much light that comes from the darkness, for the flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.”