The long years of school — mornings at the bus stop and evenings of homework, afternoon sports practices and late night studies before tests — are ending for some 440 graduating Ridgefield High School seniors.
“Graduation — everyone feels kind of a bittersweetness there,” said Brooke Murad, one of the senior class senators in RHS student government.
“It’s leaving everything you’ve known for — I’ve lived in Ridgefield my whole life, so I’ve never known anything outside of it. And now I’m going someplace so different.”
The graduation is Friday, June 19, at Western Connecticut State University’s O’Neill Center Gymnasium on the west side campus, 43 Lake Avenue.
The ceremony starts at 4, with seniors entering the arena. For family and guests, the doors open an hour before, at 3 Friday afternoon. Guests enter at the O’Neill Center’s Gate 1.
No tickets are needed to watch graduation, but the high school administration is asking families to limit guests to four per graduate to avoid standing room only at the O’Neill Center.
After graduation, the traditional alcohol-free party is planned at the town Recreation Center off Danbury Road, from 10 p.m. to 3:30 a.m.
“Everyone’s excited for that,” said Class President Oliver Jones.
Class of individuals
It’s been a journey that students can look back on with satisfaction, Jones said.
“The big thing was finding our identity, sort of, as our class. Through the first two years we sought to find out who we were, what mark we would leave, as a class. By junior year we realized we might not leave one cohesive imprint, but we’ll leave thousands of imprints that somehow will be remembered,” he said.
“While some might not be comfortable with the idea we don’t have a couple of adjectives to describe our class, I think it’s beautiful. We’ll all be able to leave our own individual imprint rather than one as a giant class.”
Graduates have all kinds of plans, with many looking forward to starting college in the fall.
“Two kids are attending Harvard. There’s just a wide array. We have six people going to NYU, two people going to Brown. One person went to Rice University, one person going to Duke, two going to University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, three going to University of Michigan and two are in the honors program at University of Michigan,” Jones said.
Three students are bound for the military.
“Jack Keating is going to West Point,” he said.
“I think two people are going into the Marines, Jacqueline Mora and Will Rose. They’re going to serve and their papers are signed and everything.”
Classmates tend to learn this kind of thing though Facebook postings.
“That was cool, too, when they both made their announcement, everyone was excited for them,” he said.
Competition
The Class of 2015 has done well over the years in the traditional competitions between classes during school spirit week each fall before Homecoming, Jones said.
“We have a competition within the classes to win Spirit Week and our class won that four times in a row,” he said.
“We have spirit days through the week. There’s class color day, our color is green, so everyone is supposed to wear green. Spirit day everyone wears black and orange, and that’s the day of the actual pep rally, where there’s games — tug of war, scooter race. It’s a lot of fun, and we get into it,” he said. “It’s nice to see.”
There have also been some more serious activities, such as a die-in that students staged back in December to add their statement to the nationwide dialogue concerning incidents of unarmed black men dying at the hands of police.
“I think it was 80 something students got together and did a die-in,” Jones said. “It was cool — that was another example of how we got to have our voices heard. It brought up the issues of police militarization and racial tension in America.
“People from both sides of the argument were civil — those who wanted to participate participated, those who didn’t simply did not. It shows how we’ve become more and more tolerant of each other,” he said. “…Argument increased, yet we’re more tolerant and more respectful.
Four years together
Brooke Murad, one of the Class of 2015 student government senators, seemed philosophical and a little sentimental.
“I think graduation is one of the best things that could happen to us,” she said.
“We’ve had there four years together and I think high school is instrumental in teaching you what you want, and what you want to get rid of, for later life. You learn the values that you appreciate the most, and the things that you can look forward to.
“There’s things I’m happy to say good-bye to, and there’s things I’m really going to miss,” she said.
Murad, like most of her classmates, is looking eagerly to starting college — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in her case.
“It’s something I’m looking forward to and I think that optimism is wholly evident and widespread,” she said.
But, she admits she’s going to miss her hometown.
“I might be an outlier for some of these things. I know a lot of kids who are saying ‘I can’t wait to graduate and get out of here.’
“I’m sitting back and appreciating those four years,” she said.
“…You hear more things that are negative, but I think overall people realize how great the education we’ve gotten is, and how great the faculty and teachers are.
“I think overall people do like the school, and the way it is.
“People definitely know that when you’re at RHS you know you’re getting a quality education so that they can appreciate that all the work they’ve put in is actually going toward something,” she said.
“Especially growing up here, you realize how lucky you are.”
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