LYNN — “Once a Bulldog, always a Bulldog,” Madison Donahue, Lynn English class of 2023 president and salutatorian, said to her fellow seniors on Friday afternoon at Manning Field.
Donahue gave her message as she and 395 other students graduated from Lynn English.
In his remarks to the class, Principal John Braga said there are three keys to success: hard work, dedication, and happiness.
“The work that you put in throughout your lives will create the life that you want,” Braga said. “Working hard will allow you to achieve the success that you dream about.”
Hard work requires discipline, he said, and while it might lead students to miss out on some things, the feeling of achievement will make it worthwhile.
“The successes realized by hard work can only be seen in the eyes of dedication,” Braga said. “Being dedicated to something means that you are willing to put forth the effort to achieve a goal.”
Be dedicated to things that bring happiness, he told the students.
“[Happiness] is the cornerstone of Lynn English’s mission,” Braga said. “Happiness in life cannot be achieved without hard work and dedication, there are truly no substitutes. Now go and dare to be the greatest version of you possible every single second of every single day. Today’s the first day of the rest of your lives.”
Valedictorian Miriam Crisman praised her fellow graduates for going through high school during the COVID-19 pandemic. This taught them to have perseverance and compassion, she said.
“The same perseverance that got us through our many years of school and all the challenges we encountered along the way — that will allow us to press into the new world of adulthood,” Crisman said. “The same compassion that we needed to have for each other and ourselves through these trying times — that will allow us to make connections that thrive in the next stages of our lives.”
Commencement speaker Zosia VanMeter, the administrative director of the city’s Inspectional Services Department, graduated from Lynn English in 2004. She is also a social-justice advocate and a member of Mayor Jared Nicholson’s Racial Equity Advisory Leadership Team.
“A couple of years prior to graduating, I was hit with some pretty big news,” VanMeter said. “16 was like a waiting room to the rest of my life. I was so excited to lay the groundwork of my life after high school. But one day after school, with pent-up eagerness to step into my independence, I was quickly deflated by three words, ‘You aren’t legal.’”
Those words, she said, defined her for years.
“It defined me because it was so limiting, and it guided me with fear. I almost broke my neck on that glass ceiling,” VanMeter said.
After she turned 18, it still took her five years to not have that fear follow her anymore, she said.
“I eventually found myself in front of an immigration judge, and was given a piece of paper that provided me with the most security I had ever felt in my life,” VanMeter said.
She said she told that story from 20 years ago because she can’t celebrate the person she is today without acknowledging that part of her life.
“No one should be embarrassed of the practice rounds, the missteps, or the struggles they had to go through to get to where they end up,” VanMeter said. “When you remember what you came from and what you’ve been through, you allow yourself to build on your experience, both good and bad, and learn from it.”
She told the students that they are all “capable of amazing things.”
“We are never finished products, so be OK with always being a work in progress,” VanMeter said. “You are the children of immigrants, cycle breakers, and a new generation with so much more access to knowledge than those before you… Best of luck in your next adventures, class of 2023.”
