Almost 200 students received diplomas at Deerfield Academy’s 212th commencement Sunday, including a girl who was killed in an accident last summer. Northfield Mount Hermon School gave out 203 diplomas.
DEERFIELD – Almost 200 students received diplomas at Deerfield Academy’s 212th commencement Sunday, including a girl who was killed in an accident last summer.
Head of school Dr. Margarita O’Byrne Curtis asked for a moment of silence from the 191 graduates and the crowd when Vittoria Isabelle Marley’s mother, Leiza Marie Blakely, accepted her diploma. When the moment came, hundreds of people rose to give a standing ovation.
Marley died of a head injury on a golf course in Jamaica on September 3 and Curtis said her presence could be felt at the ceremony if everyone gave her their thoughts and prayers.
This year’s commencement speaker was Deerfield Academy alumnus Matthew H. King, deputy director of Homeland Security Investigations. King spoke of the importance of resilience, decision-making skills and a slow pace in life.
While discussing a drug bust in San Francisco that was almost botched, King said everyone must know how to “adapt, overcome and improvise.”
“Sometimes things don’t go as planned. Sometimes we fail,” said King. “The question is: what do you make of it?”
The senior speakers were Kendall Leigh Carpenter and Eliot Invernissi Taft, who both graduated cum laude.
Carpenter spoke in grand literary terms about the landscape of the campus and the memories each location inspires. Taft described how the students influence each other and work together like “multiple currents flowing into one river.”
Three students won the school’s most prestigious awards for scholarship and contributions to the community. Alexander King Ward earned the Binswanger Prize, Eleanor Hillyer Parker won the Deerfield Cup and the Robert B. Crow Award went to Nap Hong Leung. All three also graduated cum laude.
“I expect nothing less from this class than that they should change the world,” said Curtis. “Believe in yourselves and the promise of all you can do.”
Also on Sunday, Northfield Mount Hermon School held its 128th commencement, at which Lorrie Byrom, history teacher and director of the school’s Center for International Education, gave the address.
Byrom greeted the assembly in 32 different languages before telling graduates of the importance of imagination in crafting human experience, including the words we use.
“Change will be a constant at every turn and the imaginative people, those who see broad ranges of options, will find the most happiness,” she said.
Valedictorian Daniel Kang told his classmates to find strength in their collective memories. Salutatorian Caitlin Duffy said she was motivated to create change against all odds.
“Life is a war. Use your memories of this place as ammunition and fight through it,” said Kang. “Let’s fight together and win this thing.”
The school gave out 203 diplomas.