001how is it like awesome these are the veterans that have been doing this for years and years and years here all right just checking them all right i'm right you know i can just come over here are you sure [Applause] oh yep hey mark what's my uh which uh link am i using the one that says graduation this one right here yes this one right here is [Applause] started streaming six minutes all right oh how are you now [Music] okay right here [Music] is wearing makeup let me go tell everybody oh excuse me you work here oh that way right here great all right um oh um oh i'm just gonna hug it i is [Music] [Applause] do it this is yes [Music] [Applause] uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh [Music] yes
002[Music] [Applause] [Music] hello wow [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] much [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] wow [Music] so good evening please remain standing for the singing of our national anthem and mr kevin hollister you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we have at the twilight's last gleaming whose broad stripes and bright stars through the peril is fight or the ramparts we watched [Music] rule through the night that our flag was still there oh say does the head star spangled banner [Music] and the home of the brave [Applause] thank you mr hollister good evening i'd like to extend my warmest welcome to everyone especially the graduating class of 2021 and their families you guys can sit tonight marks the 45th
003franklin county technical school graduation ceremony i'd like to take a moment to acknowledge some important people with us here tonight please stand and remain standing when i call your name or group and please hold applause until the end members of our school committee superintendent richard martin assistant principal john kerry cte coordinator matt west director of pps nathan may facilities manager joe mazewski and the maintenance crew who set up today will break up tonight jamie noel and mark matthews for technical support and landscaping instructors mark amsteen and kurt richardson and their students i would also like to thank kim ganguish-marsh our senior guidance counselor and sue smith my assistant admin assistant there are many other individuals who have devoted time in preparing for this event this evening i'd like to extend a huge thank you to
004all of them as well please a round of applause for these individuals to the class of 2021 congratulations you did it and to your families friends and tours congratulations to you too you've helped to shape the lives of the students in this class i know that they appreciate you would not be here without you you all for being here this has been a very difficult year for all of us but i am excited to see all of these faces it's so good to see faces it's so good to have a gathering like this and thank you all for for being here this is a huge huge turnout so thank you thank you thank you my hope is that in these dark times that they're finally behind us and that we are more resilient determined and
005grateful to those who are closest to us i'd like to share one of my favorite quotes with you a quote from steve maraboli he said we all make mistakes have struggles and even regret things in our past but you are not your mistakes you are not your struggles and you are now here with the power to shape your day and your future many of you have struggled made mistakes and maybe some of you even have regrets during your four years at franklin county tech those mistakes and struggles are part of the learning process part of growing up the goal is to learn from your mistakes and grow resiliency during your struggles those skills along with kindness and empathy will help you lead a healthy and happy life when you leave here today i hope you
006leave fcts with a sense of pride you've received a high quality academic and vocational education very few students across the commonwealth can say that you walk out of fcts college and career ready your skills are sorely needed in the world we live in have confidence in your abilities and do not shy away from the challenges you are prepared but if you ever need help you have teachers counselors administrators classmates and family members that you can call on we all benefit when you are successful that being said i hope you stay connected to fcts become part of our alumni association and look to support those students who come after you someday i hope if you have the opportunity you take on a co-op student and i hope that you remember that students will make mistakes struggle
007navigating teenage life and are not finished products please stay connected and give back to this community i want to tell you all how proud of you i am how much we appreciate your leadership and contributions to franklin county tech and how much you will be missed i wish you all my best in health and happiness congratulations my best in health and happiness congratulations thank you everyone what a wonderful day it is today turned out great beautiful weather great turnout before i start with the normal thanks to the school committee and so forth i want to thank one group that's been awesome this year and that's our teachers i've served on the school committee for many years and been proud to tell folks that i'm on the school committee at franklin tech but this year the
008teachers exemplified what they're here for they're here for the kids they're here for you here for all our students the administration and the staff this year really pivoted moved and worked with everyone to make sure you had a safe and secure educational environment while still getting to meet teachers and be here in person and the class has done a wonderful job not just the senior class but all classes this has been an extraordinarily difficult year all across our country and world and the school here pivoted and they worked together and the staff and students just took all the challenges in stride and continued to move forward and for that i thank you all also thank all my school committee members who i've not seen some in person ever and zoomed so much this year that
009when i went went upstairs and came down my wife would say how are things going and i'd be i'm all zoomed out and people really understand what that means and did i bring my mask with me oh no i forgot my mess don't worry i have six in the back seat it's like i'm without a mask tonight and it feels odd but it feels so great again i want to thank the students i want to encourage you to continue on your efforts of learning and on service to your community principal spanifino put it very well you're part of a community here at franklin tech please continue that wherever you go in the world if we all can make a difference if we all stand up and help just a little bit thank you thank you
010mr coopets at this time it is my privilege to invite richard martin our superintendent to the podium well once again congratulations to the class of 2021 i will confess over the last year and a half many of you have changed i get to now see your faces and go wow i didn't recognize that person with that person i got the problem the other night half of the people are going so that's that person you know it was unbelievable to see everybody face to face i would like to take a moment to be able to magnify what was said earlier in regards to our school committee they met all year long to make sure that they could approve and go through every initiative that allowed us to be able to have someone never realize i would
011like a standing ovation for our [Applause] schools [Applause] none of it would have been possible without our faculty and staff you know that we were the only high school that was in session in person since september our faculty and staff were here from september all the way until now and we can make that claim as the only high school in western massachusetts to say that it couldn't have happened without the care and love and compassion that our teachers have each one of you let's give our teachers a round of applause [Applause] as juniors we all had to adapt and learn to overcome new challenges you had to learn about remote learning not only to access your education but also to have a social life you will require the social distance where face masks adapt to
012new ways of schooling and socializing your prom sports co-op clubs and activities were all cancelled it was harder for you than anyone could ever possibly realize but in the end here you are today overcoming those past challenges and preparing for new ones and is seniors you are finally back at school but at the beginning of the year it came with new challenges every one of you had to wear masks social distance from one another hide behind desk shields and walk one way down hallways to social distances and to wear a mask while playing sports i'm out there watching sports games and people have masks and i wouldn't be able to breathe um but because of your perseverance frankly county tech was one of the few high schools to have a prom and it was outside
013underneath that tent that was sponsored by our school committee as seniors you started playing sports again but this time without a mask and finally we all started to see your smiles on your faces for the first time that were previously hidden from us and here you are today sitting next to each other and about to receive a diplomacy you have once again overcame and made franklin county tech the city of the hill that's shown brightest through the darkest of times the graduating class of 2021 proved we could overcome obstacles when working together it was a year ago that franklin county tech was again one of the few schools in western mass to host a graduation remember for those that saw it everyone was in cars row by row shop by shop and somehow we made
014it work proven we were beginning the pathway on our road back and here we are today proving how far we had come uninhibited by the restraints of cover 19. you will never forget your senior year at franklin county technical school you will have stories to tell your friends and families for the rest of your life and how you were able to persevere mature exhibit compassion and overcome a worldwide pandemic to become the best versions of yourself congratulations to the class of 2021. thank you mr martin it is my pleasure at this time to introduce the class of 2021 salutatorian autumn harris autumn is a student in the culinary arts program and has an overall gpa of 4.02 autumn received several awards at awards night the english achievement award friends of liberty award come on over
015yeah student achievement award and the skillsusa pin she also received three scholarships john and abigail adams light up the knight scholarship and class of 20 class of 2007. autumn please come to the podium good evening fellow graduates parents families friends teachers and school staff first off i am very thankful the rain did get the best of us tonight so we all get to be here and hopefully my allergies won't get the best of me i'm getting over some congestion and a hoarse voice but i am determined to deliver my speech so bear with me thank you for making time to attend this ceremony and celebrate us all as graduates here tonight you have all played a fundamental role in helping each one of us become the young adults we are today what an honor i
016have been given to stand upon this stage and commemorate our last day together in making it to this point in our educational careers whether or not you want to admit it these years in the education system have opened your eyes hopefully helped you find your interests a career path worth i would like to give a special thank you to my parents who have been my biggest supporters from the beginning of time taught me the basics of being a good human showing humility compassion charisma pushed me to succeed in life and guided me through situations when i didn't know what to do thank you to the teachers that saw my potential and always expected the highest quality of work for me would listen to me complain about my busy schedule and reassure me autumn i know
017you can do this thank you to my friends and classmates for teaching me how to lighten up and show my sense of humor which hope you can pick up on unless stage fright gets the best of me thank you to mr spadafino for enlightening me on my standing as class of 2021 salutatorian when he called me into his office my first thought was what did i do now but then he asked me if i wanted to speak at graduation i was thinking great another school assignment after senior sign out but i would love to get up there and share my words of wisdom at the ripe old age of 17. standing here before you is not because i'm the second smartest student in this class we are all smart and motivated in our own ways
018a gpa is only a measurement in a moment of time giving this speech is about perseverance and commitment to growth as an individual or at least that's what it is to me this is the challenge of life i have started to realize juggling what feels like a million expectations prioritizing what is most important now and remembering to follow through with the rest later every day should not be about planning time to be unproductive and content it should be about appreciating your efforts when you've done all you can and then there's time to relax and reminisce on the hard work you've put in how you pushed yourself mentally and physically through tasks you really didn't want to do i think the common misconception was that i enjoyed being that person doing all my work to one
019up my classmates when in reality it's the independent feeling of accomplishment and contentment when i can impress myself with the quality of my work and reap the benefits of my improvement my intention here is not to talk about myself and say i'm doing it better than you rather to share how i've experienced life or how life has experienced me and how it has helped me grow as a contributing member of society and as a critical thinker success in whatever you're doing starts with your attitude and approach towards it the knowledge comes from the teacher and the skill comes from practicing what you've learned this has been anything but a smooth and easy ride whether talking about the fundamentals of learning either academically in our rec excuse me in our respective shops collaborating with peers learning
020responsibility and accountability finding ourselves or the biggest obstacle coven 19. despite being the second graduating class in recent history to undergo substantial modifications to our learning especially during our final year senior year we rose to the occasion learned how to be flexible and accept an alternative path to victory if you will for this obstacle is the first challenge of adult life to see if we can push through accept change and never give up fortunately with our new state guidelines we are able to have a more traditional ceremony than last year's graduating class and for that i am grateful thank you all again for being here tonight to watch us graduates cross into the next chapter of our lives to everyone who has made a positive impact on my life thank you for those of you
021i won't get the chance to speak with again it's been a good ride i wish you all the best of luck with your big dreams ambitions and of course your careers today is the ending of a chapter and tomorrow is our first day in the big adult world congratulations to my class of 2021 we did it thank you thank you autumn it's now my pleasure to introduce the class of 2021 valedictorian jolene dunbar [Music] jolene is a student in the health technology program and has an overall gpa of 4.04 jolene received several awards at awards night excellence in math skills usa outstanding vocational student award skills usa recognition award skills usa pin the student council leadership award msaa student achievement award work ethic and perseverance and health technology and the certified nursing assistant pin she
022also received two scholarships the john and abigail adams scholarship and the gilman lemur memorial scholarship jolene please come to the podium hello my name is charlene dunbar and i'm a graduating senior from the health technology program on behalf of the entire graduating class of 2021 i want to thank you all for being here and help and celebrate our achievements i want to start by saying thank you thank you to my parents for believing in me and always being there for me when i would fall you would pick me up and help get me on my way nah you've been done so much for me you're my rock in my world you have been there since beginning you walked so that today i could run thank you to my grandparents for the love and teaching me
023how to grow into the young woman i am now thank you to all my family on every side i got lots i want to personally thank my general assistant general manager margie thank you for developing my work experience and showing me the drive to have one working you have shown me what it truly means to be a leader you have become such an important person in my life and i'll forever be grateful to have you thank you to the faculty and staff for being there and helped shape us in these past four years i want to thank my shop teachers for supporting me on my journey into the healthcare field and thank you to my fellow graduates for the memories and the times together 1 374 days ago we walked into our first day of
024school here as freshmen and began our journey through high school we walked in as students as several from several different middle schools and we walk out of here tonight as one class the graduated class of 2021 from franklin county technical school my fellow years we have done it we have worked hard and pushed through our many ups and downs as a quote i learned in fifth grade from when life gives you lemons make orange juice and leave the world wondering how he did it this is meaning when you are presented in bad things with life find a way to turn on positive and leave all of the haters wondering how you did it we went through the hardest struggle that i think any class has gone through so far covet 19. we have pushed through
025remote learning and we have found a way we've learned that we didn't have to worry about having enough snacks to make it to lunch we also learned you can also learn in your pjs and be in the comfort of our own homes but we also learned that we would miss the everyday person-to-person contact that we would have and how we would miss the hands-on activities no matter how much we hated it before but we've pushed through it we have made it here today and we i'm very proud to call myself a member of the 2021 class and [Applause] thank you joey this time i'd like to introduce king gangwish marsh the senior guidance counselor who will share a few words with us this evening welcome welcome to the commencement ceremony of franklin county tech's class
026of 2001. the one thing we all have in common as we gather here today is that we are all here to celebrate their graduation from high school myself included so is that we are all here to celebrate their graduation from high school myself included so if those of you in the audience will indulge me for the next couple of minutes i'd like to say a last a few last words these young men and women who have truly stolen my heart and my focus for the last four years but before i begin i want to tack on to what chairman kukowicz said and mr martin said and mr spadafino said and add in a couple more local heroes there are three women that have made that made this year possible liz bouchard the director of the
027food service program and her amazing staff since last march when this year began she and her staff continue to pack food for those learning remotely while still continuing to serve increasing numbers of breakfast and lunches in two locations and kelly gripco le payne these are our school nurses and they have led us through kelly guided us through from the shutdown last march and sue joined her safe and healthy they're these two women literally worked 24 7 over the course of this year when we had the luxury of weekends and school vacations they were monitoring the coveted situation of both students and faculty making hundreds of contact tracing calls getting serious attitude from those on the other end almost as many meetings with professional colleagues health boards and our administrative team this year could not have
028had this is their hard work and their professional dedication please join me in gratitude for all they have done and do [Music] [Applause] dearest class of 2021. we all know that these last years of high school they are not where you respected especially this year senior year but these last 16 months were subject to adapt and grow often in ways we pass can't be changed and it is your future that i want to focus on so i ask using the last two lines from pulitzer prize winner poet mary oliver's poem this summer's day tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life many of you don't know that my life before school counseling i was a cosmetologist a business owner and a traveling consultant for a major manufacturer
029this career taught me about perishable time in business especially the service sector perishable time usually refers to capacity that is time perishable meaning that capacity without corresponding demand is lost forever for example as a salon owner there are only so many hours in a day in which to produce a certain amount of work in each of those hours depending on the service that was being delivered equaled a certain amount of money if i or one of my employees wasn't serving a customer during one of those available hours of appointment times that time and the money it could have been generated was lost forever like capacity in those industries that are time dependent your own time is perishable though i know that from your young perspective it feels infinite i can tell you it's not not
030one of us knows how much time we have so if you spend your time lamenting about things you can't change for example the loss of your senior year you're spending time that you could be using for other things as a salon owner i could choose to waste time moaning about the lost revenue of a missed or unscheduled appointment or i could use that time to figure out why and then address a fix it's easy to get caught up in what happened or try to determine the whys of the past but focusing on the what's in the house of the now and what's to come will better serve you and make a better use of your perishable time what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life will you looking back
031have had one year's experience 10 or 20 times over facing no particular challenges or excitement defeats just plotting along day by day year by year or will you find the courage to hop off whatever beaten path that may be expected of you and take that first step scared and not knowing what's to come while walking anyway is this scary absolutely but no reward no reward without risk someone said it's not the days of your life but the life in your days that count and i can tell you from this end of the perspective that is true i get scary i really get scary i spent most of my time in some state of fear i hate the discomfort and the anxiety but i also know that without taking risks and embracing changes in my life
032my life might have been safer but absolutely less full i made a major career change when i was 40 and i prepared for it by going back to school in my 30s at that time in my life i was traveling every other weekend as a business consultant i had three employees that i was responsible for i was a mother of two children under the age of five in the middle of a divorce i have no idea who that woman was but she made me who i am today because i took a risk and i jumped off the beaten comfortable and pretty damn lucrative path i was on my first job in education i was part-time and the money was way less than i was making doing hair and it required that i introduce students to
033the many things that you've learned from miss young and mr thomas resume writing cover letters interviewing skills but without any of their panache and expertise because i had limited experience with interviews i happened to come across a job posting for a position here of fcts so i applied but only so i could get some recent interview experience that i could bring back to my students not because i was interested in a job that was an hour and 20 minutes from my home of my two young children the rest is history this was not something i planned but i set the stage for opportunity and it became one of many forks in the road of my life and the best part is that it led to y'all there is no straight path guys life is full
034of twists and turns and ups and downs and these last 16 months have been hard proof of that but what i hope you've learned is that you can't go around hard things you have to go through them in order to move forward and this has been the topic of my discussion in my conversations with each of you some of you know what you want to do and where you want to go or be but many of you do not but i want to assure you that being unsure is okay but being stuck because you want to be sure not so much you may not be able to be anything you want to be like the likelihood of playing professional basketball if you're five foot four inches tall but you can be who you're supposed to
035be steve jobs said to another graduating class your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else's life jump hop dance drop flop fall fail repeat i can promise you that if you start moving on a path towards something be it a dream or a goal or just a thought there will always be a fork or another path to choose these choices may or may not lead you in the direction of which you started they just might take you a little higher and somewhere you never thought you'd find yourself proceed plan participate don't allow a single hour of your one your one wild and precious life to perish to each and every one of you in this class of 2021 you are loved and you will be missed and ashton cam and sam they
036are watching now go save the world thank you kim now it is time for the awarding of the fcts certificates and diplomas okay stuck on the back of your chairs is your name card well the seniors in auto collision repair and finishing please rise and make your way to the stage to receive your diplomas anthony joseph better daddy [Applause] vincent david bogus [Applause] [Music] paige elizabeth [Applause] gabriella marie gestagna sadie priscilla corey [Applause] lilith faith kilburn [Applause] samuel giovanni nieves brianna nicole snyder well the automotive technology and the pre-employment program please stand and make your way to the podium anthony john barilone derek allen call miguel antonio clapp [Applause] eric james dickerson [Applause] joseph halpin [Applause] isis elizabeth scott jonathan adam town and dakota james callahan sorry man will the carpentry seniors please rise and
037make their way to the stadium and the auto technicians may be seated joseph lewis jacob louis bordeaux my apologies parents my apologies dylan timothy austin cole ellison [Applause] [Music] ethan riley heyer [Applause] patrick hoffman jr oh michael lamontagne samuel charles [Applause] owen wade powelling hunter graves kristen ryan verdict well the cosmetology seniors please rise and make your way to the podium [Music] carpenters can sit we follow directions as well [Music] gemini isabel [Applause] jasmine garcia [Applause] billy onyx you need nieves [Applause] well the culinary seniors please rise and make your way to the podium [Applause] dylan michael that well [Applause] sienna elizabeth [Applause] don't [Applause] camera [Music] autumn cherylin harris [Music] ryan alexander [Applause] real oh i told him that andrew shot [Applause] michael sutton [Applause] and daniel john williams will the electrical seniors please
038rise [Music] and make your way to the podium um chase patrick caitlyn alyssa district [Applause] alex joseph griffin [Applause] dylan jacob holbrook [Applause] phoenix zelia kimball phillips [Applause] kevin jordan real [Applause] nathan daniel sandra it's zachary andrew serrano [Applause] will the health technology seniors please rise and make your way to the podium water all right ashley marie house [Applause] [Laughter] oh [Applause] okay but if you need it you have it courtney rose churchill [Applause] [Music] dunbar who are you [Applause] abigail grace anoski and kimberly ann marie pichette will the landscaping seniors please stand and rise good [Applause] oh ryan daniels connor patrick [Applause] kevin chapin [Applause] vincent price clovis fournier [Applause] mira arlene henderson [Applause] eli patrick miller [Applause] and luke and timberlake [Applause] [Music] will machine technology seniors please rise [Music] is timothy andrei
039agape aaron ashton beatty riddle dylan jacob [Applause] david aguilar julian and gabriel ray sullivan will the plumbing and heating seniors please rise and make your way to the [Applause] podium oh cody matthew baronoski [Applause] ryan matthew bergman [Applause] jordan gabriel hello austin john demers dylan john demers [Applause] hunter nelson drost [Applause] lauren jessup jeffrey rico [Applause] wait four years later okay oh [Music] is kylie cecil bellino lydia rose barrett miller autumn star dempsey [Applause] emily catherine dopis cole dwight jordan [Music] and mckenzie rose martell and last but not least with the welding and metal fabrication seniors please rise and make your way to the podium oh mark anthony richard allen [Applause] cooper christopher martin [Applause] joseph raymond boyden noah patrick feasts cody frederick gibbons david frederick grover jr ethan jackson [Applause] i feel like he
040literally was like on my bumper this club brooks christian madeiras [Applause] um four years this time members of the class of 2021 please stand [Music] you guys are at this time going to move your tassels from the right to the left [Applause] i would like to formally introduce you to the graduated class of 2021 class of 2021. congratulations [Applause] [Music] [Applause] folks on your way out right before we play pop in circumstance um on your way out folks please be patient we have lots and lots of cars there's gonna be lots of traffic signs are yours to take please take them with you and at this time we're gonna start popping circumstance please keep the middle aisle clear thank you shawna where'd you go he's not on that side though [Applause] yes oh [Music] oh
041that's what we all do are you on i facebook