SALISBURY — The weather matched the dress of the Salisbury Central School Class of 2025 as the students walked one at a time, clad in formal attire, through the school’s front door into a golden June evening for their long-awaited commencement ceremony on Thursday, June 12.
As the 25 soon-to-be alumni took their seats on the landing, the robust crowd of family and friends — camped out lawn party-style below the building’s entry staircase — quieted down before the first speaker of the evening took the podium.
Salomon Schmidt, who was the recipient of the school’s Literary Excellence Award, kicked off the proceedings with an eloquent land acknowledgment recognizing the Schaghticoke and Mohican peoples’ stewardship of Salisbury’s landscape.
Quin Sheil delivered a poignant treatise to the importance of small moments and gestures, recalling how the simple act of a fellow student loaning a marker helped him feel welcome when he was a new student at the school in fifth grade.
“Make sure you slow down enough to see the little things, and be the little things for someone else,” he advised his classmates as they move on to high school and beyond.
Liberty Brammer ruminated on the fleeting nature of growing up: “We didn’t realize at the time, but moments are everything.”
While distributing diplomas, school Principal Stephanie Magyar read off a series of four adjectives that faculty had chosen to describe each student before calling their names, including some colorful entries such as “basketball-loving” and “aquatic.”
To conclude the ceremony, students paired up to perform intricate handshakes before descending the stairs and into the throng of loved ones, where seventh grade-provided refreshments awaited.
