DANVERS — Under bright sunshine on one of the first truly warm days of the year, hundreds of families gathered beneath a tent at Ryken Field on Saturday morning as St. John’s Prep celebrated its 116th commencement ceremony and awarded diplomas to 279 seniors in the Class of 2026.
The ceremony was dedicated to the “Golden Eagles” of the Class of 1976, who returned to campus 50 years after their own graduation and attended a special dedication before commencement began.
The opening prayer was delivered by Lawrence Molloy, director of campus ministry, who encouraged graduates to pursue lives grounded in “justice, compassion, and service to others.”
Senior class speaker Chase Karagezian, of Lynnfield, selected by his classmates and teachers, built his address around the character of Forrest Gump, using the film as a lens to reflect on identity, purpose, and friendship.
“If you saw that resume on LinkedIn, you’d probably assume it belonged to some hyper-calculated titan of industry,” Karagezian said after listing Gump’s accomplishments, including businessman, athlete, war hero, and Medal of Honor recipient. “Yet those credentials belonged to a man who most of the world dismissed as slow his entire life.”
Karagezian said many students spend years focused on building resumes and chasing accomplishments that look good on paper, but argued that Gump’s real strength came from remaining true to himself and the people around him.
“Forrest never spent an ounce of energy proving anyone wrong,” Karagezian said. “He continued to simply be himself.”
Karagezian urged his fellow classmates to focus less on accomplishments that “look good on paper” and more on the kind of character they build throughout their lives.
“The resume you build on paper will quickly become forgotten,” he added. “The resume of the soul, on the other hand, is what lasts. That is what people remember you by, and that is how you leave your mark.”
Valedictorian Ryan Yu, of Boxford, framed his speech around the nation’s founding generation, reminding his classmates that many of the figures behind the Revolution were young enough to be sitting beside them today.
“In June 1776, while Jefferson, Franklin, and the other Founding Fathers were drafting the Declaration of Independence, a younger roster was preparing to defend it,” Yu said, pointing to figures including the Marquis de Lafayette at 18 and Alexander Hamilton at 21.
Yu said the young revolutionaries devoted themselves to causes larger than themselves, citing Hamilton writing dozens of essays defending the Constitution and Lafayette personally funding soldiers during the war effort.
“The impression I keep coming back to when I think about all of this is effort,” Yu said. “The most valuable kind of effort, the kind that is sustained and in service of something larger than themselves.”
He connected those ideas back to the graduating class, comparing the support systems that shaped the founders to the teachers, families, coaches, and staff members who shaped St. John’s students over the past four years.
“Every member of the St. John’s community has poured themselves into our story,” Yu said.
Yu closed by urging graduates to see modern challenges not as reasons for despair, but as opportunities to create meaningful change.
“The freedoms we inherit today are a product of their actions when they were our age,” he said. “So if we strive to create change through effort and empathy, then it will not only be this community celebrating us today, but millions of people another 250 years from now.”
The commencement address was delivered by religious studies teacher Stephen Ruemenapp, who was selected by the graduating class as the faculty speaker. His speech focused heavily on faith, vulnerability, and the importance of supporting one another through hardship.
“The secret of everything is to let ourselves be carried by God, and so to carry him to others,” Ruemenapp said, quoting Pope Saint John XXIII.
Ruemenapp also reflected on the death of beloved German teacher Christopher Lynch, who passed away in February 2025, calling the loss painful for the school community while emphasizing the way students and faculty supported one another afterward.
“Losing Christopher Lynch this year has been tragic for the whole community on many levels,” he said. “He will be missed by many of us for the rest of our lives.”
After the speeches, degrees were conferred by Head of School Edward P. Hardiman. Several students received their diplomas from parents or grandparents who either work at the school or serve on the Board of Trustees, including Hardiman’s own son, Owen Liam Hardiman, of Danvers.
The school also recognized several award recipients during the ceremony. Yu received the valedictorian medal, while brothers Cristopher and Nicholas Sorrenti, of Wakefield, were honored as co-salutatorians. Christopher Angelakis received the Xaverian Award, presented annually to a senior who “epitomizes the values that we, in the Xaverian tradition, strive to instill in all of our graduates.”
Thirty-five graduates and their families also received Legacy Awards, recognizing students who now belong to multiple generations of St. John’s Prep alumni.
After the ceremony, the new graduates gathered on the field to toss their caps, surrounded by a circle of friends and family, closing out another chapter in the school’s 116-year history.
