MATTAPOISETT — Students and administrators alike celebrated the grit and determination of the Old Rochester Regional High School class that lost its senior spring at a delayed Aug. 8 graduation ceremony. 

Students sat with their parents on the football field in socially distanced “pods,” and throughout the ceremony, organizers kept them six feet away from each other. 

Even with a disrupted spring, all 175 members of the Class of 2020 managed to graduate together, a first in the 12 years that Principal Michael Devoll has led the school. 

Meghan McCullough, the class president, was the first to address her peers. She said that the pandemic has made them “slow down and question everything,” but at the same time urged them to use it as a lesson throughout life to “slow down and enjoy the moment, it will be over before we know it.” 

She also referenced the Ferris Bueller quote “life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it,” drawing chuckles from the audience. 

Next, the district’s new Superintendent Michael Nelson gave his first graduation address. 

He told the graduates that they were successful in getting the community to rally around them, adding that after cancelling so many events this spring “it means everything to graduate you in-person.” 

He said the class had to cultivate a patience that is usually not expected from high schoolers. The district tries to teach its students a growth mindset, Nelson said, and for the new graduates, “no one can underestimate your ability to stay the course.” 

He also called graduates a “patient, open minded, gritty class.”

Valedictorian Rachel Perry started her address by saying thank you to teachers, parents administrators and especially to her peers “for creating memories that will forever shape the trajectory of our lives.” 

She said she polled her parents, neither of which remembered their valedictorian’s address at graduation. 

Perry said it was frustrating that “tomorrow no one will remember a thing,” but also reassuring because “no matter how much I screw this up” it won’t matter. 

She called to mind the famous Maya Angelou quote the ends “people never forget how you made them feel.” 

The valedictorian said she transferred to Old Rochester as a sophomore and school choice student, and still remembers the students who helped her find three of her classes on the first day. 

She urged her classmates to leave a legacy of kindness.

Devoll opened his speech with a joke, saying that “when we don’t have a graduation rehearsal I forget to give a speech.” 

He recalled what it was like to say on Friday March 13,  “I believe we will be in school on Monday,” adding in a retrospective “… Yikes!”

The principal recalled other major disasters that significantly impacted education, like Hurricane Katrina, and pointed out that 15 years later, the impacts of not being able to complete a year of school are “ultimately insignificant.”  

He also sincerely addressed the graduating class, saying “we are in awe of you and how you handled it when all your passions were taken away.” 

He found that the class has been “apart, but never closer.” 

Administrators and school committee members left diplomas on a table for graduates to pick up, and when two students had a mixup, Devoll joked “sorry Luke, you aren’t graduating.” 

At the end, graduates seemed hesitant to throw their caps, and Devoll clarified, “we are allowed to have a little fun, we can throw our caps.”  

Speaking before the ceremony, Class Treasurer Emma Gabriel said that because colleges will be online, graduation feels a bit different this year. 

“Many of my friends, myself included, will be staying at home for another year as many schools are virtual for the fall semester. So, while graduation will give me some sense of closure to my time at ORR, it doesn’t feel like the ‘goodbye’ that it usually is,” Gabriel said. 

She added “I’m very grateful for the administration’s hard work to give us a final ceremony.”