Vernon Township Class of 2005

At 6:30 on graduation day black storm clouds filled the Vernon sky, but the 2005 graduates processed undaunted down the track to the ball field as the band played Charles Carter's Overture for Winds and Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance. The blue and gold Vernon Viking colors were intense in the stormlight as the girls clutched their gold caps and gowns against the wind, and boys clutched their blue ones. Kathleen Villano led graduates and audience in the salute, and student soloist Emilie Petersen sang the national anthem. Audience and students toughed out the raindrops that fell for about ten long minutes, and were rewarded by a deep blue sky: the storm had passed. Principal Dennis J. Mudrick welcomed the students and audiences, and recognized Ashley Lauren Jacob as salutatorian and Sabrina Moran as valedictorian. Jacob's speech focused on the strength students derive from the quiet love inherent in family meals and the deep sense of community they build with their fellow students during their high school years. Kathleen Villano, president of the class of 2005 reminisced about her happy days studying, learning, and making friends at Vernon High. She also enjoined the audience to forswear shouting and cheering for their special graduates. Moran, who plans to become a neurologist, urged the students to be more than their constituent chemical components, which include iron enough to make a nail, carbon sufficient to make a few pencils, and fat adequate to make seven bars of soap. Kellie Shane sang the Vernon High anthem, "‘Hail to thee, Oh Vernon High,' which was composed to the tune of that oldest of student songs, the Latin ‘Gaudeamus Igitur, Juvenes Dum Sumus' (We are young, therefore let us rejoice!). The graduate speaker, Howard J. Whidden, Jr., Vernon school board president, exhorted the graduates to exercise their full civic responsibly by voting, noting that 57 percent of young American citizens sat out the presidential election of 2004. "If patriotism is an unconditional love of our country, then it must also be an unconditional devotion to its ideals," said Whidden. With diplomas awarded and scholarship and subject area recipients recognized, the happy students processed into the waiting world to the tune of Gustav Holst's March. For related story, please turn to page 7