By Alana DiPlacido
Hometown Weekly Reporter
On Sunday June 1st, the chords of “Pomp and Circumstance” rang out from Memorial Hill as the Needham High School (NHS) class of 2025 gathered alongside friends, family, and loved ones to celebrate their graduation. To begin the ceremony, Principal Aaron Sicott addressed the graduates, noting that this was the first class since the class of 2019 to experience 4 years of uninterrupted study at NHS, finally shirking the effects of the pandemic. Sicott mused that the lack of interruption in their study allowed this graduating class to form a strong sense of community, a sentiment that was echoed by several speakers throughout the ceremony. Sicott then urged the students to reflect on the community around them, asking them to acknowledge the crowd of friends and family gathered on picnic blankets and lawn chairs on Memorial Hill, the faculty and staff that had supported them over the last four years, as well as one another.
Orli Kadar, the first student speaker to take the stage, centered her speech around a fairy tale she had been told growing up of a boy with a golden screw for a belly button. Through this whimsical story, Kadar urged her fellow graduates to try new things, explore what life has to offer, and take chances. Kadar’s speech was followed by a performance from the NHS choir, including the choir seniors who left their seats and joined their fellow singers in a rendition of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”A second student speaker, Shayla Belcarris, addressed the class next. Her speech focused on the tumultuous nature of high school and the community and growth that she found at NHS, despite and in part due to the hardships she and her fellow graduates faced over the past four years.
Following Belcarris’ speech, Alex Duan, the 2025 class president presented the class gift and congratulated his peers on their accomplishments– commending the success of many different student groups from the Needham Rockets’ success on the football field to the speech and debate team’s run at nationals. Following Duan’s announcement that the class of 2025 would be gifting Needham High with several trees, Michael O’Brien, the chair of the Needham School Committee, took the stage. O’Brien pondered upon the future of these students, discussing his curiosity as to what these students would accomplish in the following years as well as urging them to find joy in whatever path they choose to take.
Needham High then took the opportunity to present two of its graduates with awards: The Needham High School Award for Academic Excellence, which was presented to Ananya Sharma and the Needham High School Award for Service which was awarded to Matt Scott. After the presentation of these awards, Daniel Gutekanst, the superintendent, took the stage to give a final address to the class of 2025 and officially present them as graduates. Gutekant's speech once again called to mind the importance of community, sharing a story of a recent visit from Suni Williams. Williams, an astronaut and commander on the international space station, graduated from Needham High School in 1983 and recently visited the school to tour around and speak with current students. Gutekant reflected on how her visit to the school as well as her experience living alongside international astronauts on the space station echoed the importance of community and togetherness that so many graduates and speakers had spoken of throughout the ceremony.
After giving this final address, the superintendent conferred the graduates with their degrees and concluded the ceremony by calling each student to the stage to receive their diploma.
