Newtown High School’s Class of 2025 took to the field of the school’s Blue and Gold Stadium and were honored in their commencement ceremony on Thursday, June 12.

The humidity did not deter family and friends from filling the bleachers and lawn chairs facing the field.

Everyone in the audience came prepared to honor their graduate’s last moments as a high school student. Some brought colorful balloons that read “Grad!” or “Class Dismissed.” Others held colorful bouquets of flowers, readied air horns and cowbells, or even waved custom cutouts of their graduate’s face on a stick.

Meanwhile, the over 300 graduates enjoyed their last moments as NHS students by talking amongst themselves in the parking lot beside the stadium.

They walked onto the field once the NHS Band started playing “Pomp and Circumstance,” the audience cheering them on the whole way through.

Afterwards, everyone stood as the NHS Chamber Choir sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Opening Address, Welcoming Remarks

NHS Principal Kimberly Longobucco started her opening address by talking about how it’s generally easy for her to plan her final remarks. Every year around March or April, Longobucco said she will jot down a quick, fleeting thought in her notes app and revisit it months later.

However, she called writing final remarks this year “substantially more difficult” because, for the past five years, she tried to place value on the atypical experiences of those graduating classes due to COVID-19. This year’s class is the first in several years to have spent all four years of school in-person.

To that end, Longobucco spoke on the value of their in-person high school education and how education itself opens them to a “whole host of possibilities” in the future.

All of those in-school experiences, whether it was a certain class, field trip, club, or sports team, she said are what shape their high school story.

Longobucco said she gave every graduate a parting gift: a one dollar bill with a Nighthawk sticker in the top corner that symbolizes the time they spent at NHS.

When times get tough or things feel really hard, she hopes that they “see that little Nighthawk peeking out of the top of your wallet and pause.”

“Remind yourself … that you can do hard things, that you are better than any challenge, and that your time at NHS prepared you for whatever is in front of you, because your value is truly limitless,” Longobucco said.

For the rest of the event, NHS senior and Master of Ceremonies Marty Dunn introduced each speaker before they took the stage. Fittingly enough, the first person he introduced was his twin brother, Senior Class Council President Charlie Dunn.

Charlie congratulated his classmates and said that it is thanks to their hard work, friendship, and shared excitement that has brought them to this point.

For as much as they may feel uncertain about the future ahead of them, Charlie encouraged his peers to persevere and keep moving forward. He talked about how he wrestled for all four years at NHS and that he would get incredibly anxious before his wrestling matches.

However, as Charlie anxiously prepared for one of his matches one day, he said someone told him, “Birds don’t think about flying, they just fly.”

He asked everyone to picture a baby bird and think of how they cannot worry if it is confident enough to fly or if it is flying with the right form.

Charlie said that it’s okay for them to be uncertain about their future, and called the Class of 2025 the most skilled and experienced generation at “winging it” - pun intended - in a world that is rapidly changing. Everyone, he added, has “the gift of fortitude and ability to adapt in mid-air.”

He continued, “Believe that you are strong. Believe that you are confident … believe that you are loved, so that way, you won’t have to worry about flying; you can just fly.”

Salutatorian, Other Comments

Following a musical interlude of “Homeward Bound” by Marta Keen, Class of 2025 Salutatorian Sophia Wade spoke to fellow classmates.

Looking back, she said high school was filled with countless decisions both big and small, with each one paving their own unique experience. Wade said that one of those defining choices for her was joining the golf team.

While she thought at the time she was just signing up for a new sport, she said golf ended up teaching her so much more. Wade called golf a “game of decisions” in that every shot involves choice and how, once someone swings, the outcome may not always be what they planned.

“Golf taught me how to handle the bad shots,” Wade said. “You learn to breathe, reset, and swing again. You’re not defined by one bad shot, you’re defined by what you do next.”

She said high school felt a lot like that, and told her peers that every time they faced an awkward moment or wanted to quit they made a choice to keep showing up and try again.

Choice and real strength, Wade said, are not about perfection, but persistence.

Wade continued, “So whatever your course looks like, walk it with purpose. Lead with kindness, act with courage, and when in doubt, swing away … Let’s go out, and choose boldly.”

Newtown Scholarship Association Vice President Cindy Carlson spoke afterwards.

She said how, thanks to generous donors, the NSA was able to award over $130,000 in scholarships to this year’s graduating class. Carlson beamed about how the NHS enjoyed learning about graduates’ plans after NHS and called them a “remarkable group of young adults.”

Some of the many students who applied for scholarships this year include the founder of the Newtown Volleyball Club, an aspiring children’s librarian, and a volunteer teacher at Lathrop School of Dance, among many others.

Superintendent of Schools Anne Uberti took the stage next, offering a phrase she said was simple but holds powerful meaning: “be a seed.”

“A seed is small, unassuming, and quiet. It disappears into the Earth, often unnoticed, but inside that small core is something incredible: potential,” Uberti said.

She continued by saying this image is no different than the graduating students’ years in Newtown Public Schools, and that they grew in ways both visible and invisible. While Uberti said graduating can feel like being planted in unfamiliar soil, she encouraged students to trust the process and remember that growth can be slow.

“You may not see it immediately. Growth is often slow. It can feel like nothing’s happening, but within that stillness, just like in a seed, there is quiet strength,” Uberti said.

In the face of the wild future, Uberti told students to be patient with themselves and know their potential — just like a seed — is far greater than what anyone can see on the surface.

Valedictorian, Keynote Address

NHS Class of 2025 Valedictorian David Baghdady got the audience laughing in his speech, when he said, “Although I have a reputation in this school as a macho ladies man … deep down, I’m just a nerd.”

He talked about how nervous he felt first entering the doors of NHS as a timid freshman, navigating B-Wing next to “giants sporting 5 o’clock shadows” and struggling to carry a backpack that weighed more than he did.

Heavier than the binders and notebooks, he said, was doubt about himself, his abilities, and his future. Over these past four years, Baghdady said he grew from someone too shy to speak his order at a drive-through to speaking in front of hundreds on graduation.

His peers in the audience, he said, are no different.

“We’ve grown both as a class and as individuals. We’ve conquered the awkward presentation. Persevered through embarrassing slip-ups and missing assignments, and each day carried a lighter load,” Baghdady said.

Baghdady encouraged everyone to not just seize opportunity, but to create it.

“Know that their strength isn’t in the weight we bear, but the ability to set it down,” he added. “Moving forward, I plan to retire that old, heavy backpack of doubt, and I encourage you all to do the same. Travel lightly, my friends.”

NHS English teacher Theresa Talluto was the commencement keynote speaker. She said a part of what makes this moment so remarkable to her is that she started working at NHS the same day the Class of 2025 entered its doors for the first time.

Talluto continued by talking about how, from when people are very young, they are told they have to choose, that they have to make a decision, that they can’t “have it both ways.”

There are countless times when, yes, only one choice can be made amongst countless options for a big decision, but Talluto asked everyone to consider the idea of “both.” Despite the choices they are inevitably forced to make, she said there’s actually “a whole lot of both” in the real world.

“It’s not always pretty, but if we can look forward with that lens, we broaden our perspective, remain a bit calmer, and inch forward with a bit more confidence,” Talluto said.

She spoke about Gavin Creel, an actor whose theatrical career she followed over the last several years, and how he used his position to become a mentor to young performers and advocate for mental health.

Talluto said that Creel found a poem in a Cold Spring, New York, art store that became a mantra to him, titled "Both." The poem, she said, is a reminder that what they experience in lift isn’t always just one thing; that there will be awesome, life-changing events paired with ones that bring hardship.

While Creel sadly passed away at the beginning of the school year from an extremely rare but aggressive form of cancer, Talluto encouraged the graduates to use their gifts and talents to bravely step through fear and embrace the idea of both.

Keep Moving Forward

With all speeches finished, Uberti certified that all the graduates about to walk the stage completed their graduation requirements.

BOE Chair Alison Plante said they could not be prouder to hand students their diplomas, but are sad to see them go.

“We will miss you, but we are so excited for what comes next,” Plante said. “Newtown is proud of you, and we can’t wait to see where your journeys take you.”

Students then lined up one-by-one as they walked to the stage, crossing after their names were announced and congratulated by Longobucco and the BOE.

While the audience was asked to hold their applause until after all names were called, it didn’t stop family and friends from cheering, screaming, blowing air horns, or ringing cowbells as their loved ones crossed the stage.

Some even crowded on the turf across from the stage, holding their phones to catch their graduate’s big moment.

Regardless of who they came for, everyone was simply excited to let their graduates know how much they loved them.

Loved ones rushed into the field with bouquets or gifts in hand. Others were overjoyed to run into their graduate’s arms and give them a big hug.

With that, the graduates took their first steps into the future and world of possibilities laid out before them.

=====

Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.