Persevering through COVID-19 — and cloudy skies

CORNWALL — “Perseverance” was the key word at the Cornwall Consolidated School (CCS) promotion ceremony on Tuesday night, June 15. It described what helped the Class of 2021 get through a COVID-19 year; and it described how the school community managed to come together for the planned ceremony on Tuesday night despite a heavy late afternoon rainfall. 

At one point late in the day, confessed Principal Mary Kay Ravenola, she felt like packing it up and going home. But she and the school community persevered; the end result was a gorgeous ceremony on a cool evening.

Of the 12 students in the graduating class, two had not set foot in the school building at all during this academic year. In the tent during the ceremony, they were all spaced 6 feet apart. But it was clear the students overall consider each other a small family unit that has bonded in an unbreakable way. 

Student speakers were Rose Fitch and Omar Alganm, who was new to CCS this year. 

The guest speaker was Ted Cheney, son of school board member Hugh Cheney. A graduate in the Class of 1997, Ted had recently returned to Cornwall with his wife and three young children, from their home in Haines, Alaska. He told a funny story about his love for snow and skiing, and his underlying feeling that perhaps he wasn’t learning anything useful in school. He realized how wrong he was when he was trapped in February on a glacier as guide on a helicopter ski expedition — and he was able to save the lives of the members of his ski party by using the cross country ski techniques he’d (grudgingly) learned from CCS physical education instructor Jo Loi.

The video of the ceremony (by Richard Griggs) can be found online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-NHHqAf9F0.

Cornwall Consolidated School Class of 2021

Pedro Adrian Aguilar, Omar Ahmad Alganm, Joshua Deforest Benjamin, Niya Love Conn Borst, Tryston Bronson, Sidney Lawrence Crouch, Indigo Sky Fitch, Rose Phoenix Fitch, Manasseh Matsudaira, Alistair James Philotheus Taaffe, Eliza Ann Tyson, Emil Zenon Urbanowicz

2021 Awards

Citizenship Award: Presented by Tim Naylor, Representing Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9856 to Alistair Taaffe

Dorothy Hermann Memorial Award: Presented by Iris Hermann to  Eliza Tyson

Outstanding Academic Achievement: Presented by Principal Mary Kay Ravenola to  Alistair Taaffe and Manasseh Matsudaira

CCS Board of Education Volunteer Award: Presented by CCS Board Chair Emilie Pryor to Iris Hermann