To see more photos from the Class of 2023 Mt. Hope High School graduation, click here.

Despite intermittent showers from a threatening thunderstorm, the Mt. Hope High School Class of 2023 celebrated their commencement on Friday evening unlike any class before them — monochromatically.

“Today, we stand here in one color. Today, we stand together rather than apart. Today, we consciously choose to be unified rather than separated. And that’s powerful,” delivered Benjamin Rozea, Class President and Valedictorian, in his address to his classmates, all decked out in Husky purple. “That’s a symbol of how we’ve been able to succeed. Our monotone unity tonight doesn’t symbolize the erasure of our personal uniqueness, but our love for each other, enabling our multi-colored identities to thrive.”

How it started — and how it wound up
Even before they began their freshman year, Rozea noted that the Mt. Hope High School Class of 2023 had to overcome adversity in regards to their reputation.

“For the many of us who attended Kickemuit Middle School, I’m sure we all fondly remember the endearing nicknames we were given during our time there. These included: ‘bad apples’, ‘disappointments’ — the list goes on,” he said. “In fact, when it came time for our class to move up to Mt. Hope, many of our current teachers here were warned of our delinquency and insubordination and the terrors we were capable of.”

Rozea was of course referring to a period of tumult that occurred back in 2019 — a different world where the only masks you wore portrayed spooky characters on Halloween — when this same class made statewide news after a high volume of teachers called out sick in protest against what they saw as unacceptable behavioral issues happening with alarming frequency.

And then, halfway through their first year of high school, the Class of 2023 encountered another uphill climb in the form of the pandemic, which uprooted their lives and educational foundation unlike any freshman class before them.

Even so, speakers at the ceremony remarked at how the class persevered through all obstacles to achieve unprecedented success.

“Despite losing months of instruction to the pandemic, we’ve gone on to nearly double the SAT proficiency rate at Mt. Hope. We’ve gone on to achieve more awards in the sciences and arts than any other class. And we’re now on our way to some of the most prestigious universities in the country,” Rozea said. “From being called delinquents, we’ve become the most accomplished class in Mt. Hope history.”

“The world stopped, but you did not. You innovated and adapted to a new world of virtual learning, hybrid classrooms, one-way hallways, and a whole lot of hand sanitizer,” said Michelle King, who assumed her first year as the school’s principal in the fall. “You combatted social isolation and found new and creative means of connection to class and classmates…In overcoming these bumps and road blocks, you reinvented the experience of a successful high school student. But by now you have experienced and learned the lesson that our path in life is not a straight line. It is rather a series of ups and downs and twists and turns.”

Looking ahead to new challenges
Throughout their four unconventional years, the Class of 2023 found ways to grow closer together while the world seemed at times to be coming apart at the seams.

“In the last 13 years we have spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,444 hours, or a cumulative 1.76 years together in school. With all that time we have built relationships and let others go. In that time we each have made hundreds of memories,” said Laura Deal, Class Salutatorian. “We have built a community here, and whether you’re itching to get out of here or you’re apprehensive about leaving a place that has come to feel like home — the way I feel — I hope that we can hold onto these memories if, for nothing else, to have some good stories to tell in the future.”

Rozea warned his classmates that the key to their success as a group was a cheesy one, but he delivered it with authenticity nonetheless.

“How did we get here? Love. We’ve been able to achieve volumes because of our capacity for love,” he said. “Our success is one of labor and perseverance, yes, but more a testament to our ability to recognize our diverse identities and to embrace them. Our success is a testament to our willingness to understand experiences outside of our own and to think without constraints. And by appreciating each other, we’re able to embrace our own dreams for the future. We achieve highly because, by understanding each other, we understand ourselves better.”

That feeling of unity and love was what motivated the class to only don purple, when past classes had split the robes between purple for men and white for women. It’s the reason why they feel capable of enacting big changes as they head into the world and whatever lies next for them.

“To quote the esteemed philosopher, Winnie the Pooh, ‘I always get to where I’m going by walking away from where I have been,’” said Erika Tally, Class Vice President. “Our time here at Mt. Hope has taught us valuable lessons that will help us get to where we are going, even if we don’t know exactly where that is yet.”

“When I think about what our futures will bring, I know they’ll be bright. I know that we have good things in store because we know how to love,” Rozea said. “I know that the future will be bright because we know that empathy and compassion drive progress, that personal fulfillment is a product of supporting others, and that love wins. So go out into the world being proud of what we’ve accomplished. Together, we will make this world beautiful.”

The class presented its gift of a new sofa to the school library, and heaped praise upon Library Instructor Laura Cabral. Sonia Bradley was announced as the winner the Gardner-Burke Oratorical Contest, reciting “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell following the presentation.