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Oak Glen Class of 2019 set to begin next chapter

COMMENCEMENT — The 128 members of Oak Glen High School's graduating Class of 2019 received their diplomas Friday night. Connor Blake, left, and Aiden Hall, second from left, told their classmates a new chapter in their lives is beginning. -- Linda Harris

NEW MANCHESTER — Oak Glen honor students Connor Blake and Aidan Hall told their classmates graduation starts a new chapter in their life story, and it’s up to them to chart their course.

High school, Blake said, “is over, whether you loved every second of it or loathed waking up every morning.”

“Begin good habits just like you would break bad habits, one day at a time,” Blake told the 128 members of Oak Glen’s Class of 2019. “We’re adults, we’re going into the real world and it’s up to us to do something with it and make it what we want it to be.

“Allow me to leave you with a quote from Shakespeare: ‘We know what we are, but know not what we may be.’ Find who you may be, and then show the world.”

Hall told her classmates they’ve already come a long way.

“We started this journey together for some of us, all the way back in 2006 (grade school) and met up with new friends in 2011,” she said. “We’ve been making something of ourselves for 18 years and just when we thought we were exactly who we wanted to be, we go and enroll in college. Now our journey on making ourselves better really begins.”

Hall reminded the graduates to remember what Lady Gaga once said. “There could be 100 people n the room and 99 don’t believe in you. All you need is one person to believe.”

“In this very room we could have future doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers and maybe even writers,” she said, “but it’s up to us now to decide who we really want to be in life.”

Principal David Smith told parents members of the class performed exceptionally well academically, with 16 graduating with highest honors and a grade-point average of 4.0 or higher, and they also were the “kindest and most compassionate” he’d worked with.

“I’m unsure of all our graduates futures,” he said. “But it’s comforting to know any community our graduates live in will be getting quality individuals with tremendous integrity.”

Smith reminded the graduates that, “One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, right here, right now, in this single, solitary, monumental moment in your life — is to decide, without apology, to commit to the journey, and not to the outcome.”

“So I say to you … let your journey begin, and make us all proud.”

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