Portsmouth Abbey grads told: Humility will serve you well

92 graduates receive diplomas during commencement

By Jim McGaw
Posted 5/28/17

PORTSMOUTH — Charles E. Kenahan told the 92 graduates of Portsmouth Abbey School’s Class of 2017 Sunday to live their life with humility, not entitlement.

It’s a lesson he …

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Portsmouth Abbey grads told: Humility will serve you well

92 graduates receive diplomas during commencement

Posted

PORTSMOUTH — Charles E. Kenahan told the 92 graduates of Portsmouth Abbey School’s Class of 2017 Sunday to live their life with humility, not entitlement.

It’s a lesson he first learned as a student at the Abbey, the school from which he graduated 40 years ago and credited for changing his life.

“Back in ’77, when you walked into Stillman (Dining Hall), on the board they’d publish your class ranking twice a year,” said Mr. Kenahan, a 32-year financial advisor who heads one of the largest wealth management teams in the country for Merrill Lynch. “We had 74 students in our class. I graduated 73.

“So you see, anything can happen.”

Humility also breeds contentment, said Mr. Kenahan.

“One of the reasons I’m so happy is that I try to live my life with as much humility as a I can. God gave me very few gifts and I did my best with them,” he said.

Mr. Kenahan has three sons — Kian, Sean and Trevor — who all graduated from the Abbey in 2012. As testament to the Abbey’s rigorous academic standards, he quoted something they all told him not long after moving on to college: “‘You know what, dad? I’m the only student in my dorm that knows how to write a term paper.’ Thank you faculty — it’s true,” he said.

Mr. Kenahan urged seniors never to forget their time here and to maintain strong ties to the Abbey as he has. He served on the school’s Board of Regents from 2006 to 2012 and was chairman of its most recent capital campaign, Growing in Knowledge and Grace. He also led the final round of fund-raising for the school’s St. Hilda's Turf Field, which opened in October 2014. 

“I’ve spent my entire adult life giving back to the school because of what it’s meant to me and my family,” he said.

He left the seniors with four pieces of advice:

• “Do what you say you’re going to do. It rarely happens anymore.”

• “Be passionate. Make mistakes and, more importantly, learn from those mistakes.”

• “Have the ability to forgive yourself. It took me a long time to be able to do that and frankly I wasted a lot of years.”

• “Never underestimate the power of a hand-written letter. It is an extraordinary tool that you need to have in your quiver.”

Valedictory speeches

Seniors, family members and friends also heard from the two valedictory speakers selected by the Class of 2017: Alice (Ali) Vergara, from Madrid, Spain; and Kaiwen (Kevin) Jiang, from Shanghai, China. 

Miss Vergara, who has two brothers and several uncles who attended the Abbey, urged her classmates to take a moment to remember how much has happened during their time at the school — both good and bad.

“This is where you start dancing so hard to some Beyoncé on the softball bus that the driver fears for your safety,” she said. “Or when you are in your room with your friends and somehow you end up on the floor laughing at someone’s spot-on impression of Mr. C laughing so hard that your secret, less-attractive laugh surfaces, but it doesn’t matter.”

Not every day was perfect, she said. “But today, on graduation day, they all blend together, and as a whole it was damn near perfect. I only know that because it hurts so bad to say goodbye,” she said.

Mr. Jiang remarked upon how connected the Class of 2017 is, despite the students’ diversity in both ethnicity and personality.

“We came from different families, different backgrounds and different places,” he said. “We lived our own lives in diverse ways, until four years ago when Abbey united us together. Ever since that awkward Green Animals farm dinner four years ago, our lives have been woven together and interconnected. Every one of us is so unique, so different from one another, and yet so similar.”

In Chinese, Mr. Jiang said, there’s a saying, “yuan feng,” which is similar to “fate” or “destiny” in English.

“It’s our fate, destiny and, more importantly, luck to meet and know each other here. It is my good luck to have met so many friends and teachers at the Abbey — people who meant and will continue to mean so much to me,” he said.

“We have built our lives, friendships, memories and experiences upon this convergent point, and now it’s time for us to diverge. In the future, maybe some of us will converge again. Maybe not. But no matter where we are, what we do, or who we are in the future, we will always be connected and influenced by this special bond.”

Portsmouth graduates

Here are the 13 graduating Portsmouth Abbey seniors who live in Portsmouth:

John Mohyunshik Billings

Remy Elizabeth Chester

Kaitlyn Patricia Doherty

Thomas Joseph Driscoll

Andrew Lord Fonts

Grace Tierney Gibbons

George Rudd Humphreys

Catherine Doherty Kelley

Matthew Kenneth Plumb

Scott Mendl Powell

Patrick Harris Rose

Conor James Smith

Caroline Ann Villareal

Portsmouth Abbey, Portsmouth Abbey School

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Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.