Portsmouth’s Class of 2020 ‘keeps it real’ at drive-in graduation

PORTSMOUTH — After everything members of the Class of 2020 have missed out on this year — senior prom, senior week, a spring sports season, a last hug goodbye, to name just a few — it would have been a cruel joke had their drive-in/virtual graduation on the Glen Farm polo grounds been rained out Friday evening.

Since the cars would have damaged a soggy and muddy polo field, Portsmouth High Principal Joseph Amaral, with dark clouds overhead Friday morning, was ready to postpone if rain remained in the forecast. Fortunately, Mother Nature showed mercy, and the show went on as planned. 

Of course, due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was like no other graduation in the school’s 50-plus-year history. 

Speeches were prerecorded in the PHS auditorium, and seniors were filmed in their caps and gowns walking across the stage. The videos were edited and then broadcast on Newport Polo’s large Jumbotron during the ceremony, while students stayed inside or by cars that were parked around the perimeter of the polo field. Entrance to the polo grounds was by invitation only to keep the numbers down for safety’s sake.

‘I don’t see you’

Amelia Reed, the class president for the last three years, commented on how strange — and sad — it was to have to pre-record her speech in an auditorium that was empty except for her tech crew.

“As I look past my camera I don't see what I wanted to see,” Amelia said. “I don't see your faces, I don't see your smiles, I don't see your joy, but most importantly, I don't see you. This was not the end that we expected. We pictured the ceremonies we have seen in movies, on TV, and in previous years when we saw our friends and family walk towards their new beginning. We thought we would be able to walk across the stage and throw our caps into the air. We did not get the after we had looked forward to these last four years.”

But despite the disappointment in missing so many memorable moments, the Class of 2020 displayed resiliency, she said, and now "has the fortitude and courage to conquer anything.”

“We have the strength that no other class has ever had before,” Amelia said. “We are the class that saw the world turn upside down and we had to do the same with our lives. We had to sacrifice the events we had looked forward to. But through these sacrifices, we emerged a class with incredible determination and power.”

Keeping it real

The guest speaker for the commencement ceremony was Joel DeMarco, a health and physical education teacher who’s taught at PHS for 13 years. He said the Class of 2020 exemplifies the “P” in “Patriot Pride” — perseverance.

“You know life is not all sunshine and rainbows, you have experienced loss and shed light on important issues,” Mr. DeMarco said. “Life has presented challenges, and you have grown stronger. You battled through distance learning, senior projects, AP testing, no sports, being isolated for half of your senior year, and lastly my song playlist for PE class … If any class can make the best of this situation it is you, the Class of 2020.”

The class always “keeps it real,” he said. “You always know where you stand and what you stand for. If you feel something is unjust, you call it out and when you know you are wrong, you're quick with a ‘my bad.’”

One example of when classmates “kept it real” was a day when Mr. DeMarco was being observed, unannounced, by Mr. Amaral. 

“On that day, there was another teacher out sick with no substitute, so I was scrambling around nervously to get both classes going in different activities. But it was not going well! I looked over at a group of my seniors and without a word they said, ‘We got you, Mr. D.’ They helped me maneuver equipment and set up the activities and made my evaluation a success. You guys just get it.”

He urged graduates to embrace their failures. “We should learn just as much from our failures as we do from our accomplishments,” said Mr. DeMarco, adding that failure has been both his friend and enemy his entire life. Due to dyslexia, he struggled throughout school and was always afraid of failing, to the point where he quit college during his first semester.

After working for a spell in a lumber yard, he enrolled at the Community College of Rhode Island and gained confidence, worked twice as hard as anyone else, learned strategies to stay organized and eventually graduated from Rhode Island College.

“I only share this story because my growth came as I wasn't afraid of failing anymore. I had learned that there will be many failures in my life and the best I could do is learn from them and move forward,” he said.

His final piece of advice was for students to find purpose in life. “Your purpose in life will serve as a compass to your destination. Your purpose will pull you out of bed on a dark day. Your purpose will remind you tomorrow will be better than today,” he said.

“Your legacy will never be about what kind of car you drove or how big your house was. It's the qualities that you ‘foster’ along that road (honesty, integrity, compassion) that will allow you to turn around one day and say, ‘Job well done, life well-lived.’”

The value of listening

Luke Jackson, one of two members of the class chosen to give student graduation speeches, said the recent pandemic taught him a valuable lesson on the value of listening.

“In all of our Zoom meetings, we’ve noticed that it’s much harder to listen — partly due to the fact that we’re at home, but I think part of it is due to the fact that we’re muted. Silenced. If this is the case, I don’t know if we really listened all too well in our previous daily lives,” he said. “We prioritize how to win arguments over reaching out, bridging the divide, and showing that we understand how the culmination of every single one of someone’s life experiences has led them to a conclusion that may be different than our own.”

Since it’s less common “to see people listen for the sake of listening,” Luke said, it’s no wonder people see the world as divided as it is today. “When the purpose of any discussion is to win, we lose any intention to teach or to be taught.”

Luke also memorialized a classmate who could not be there Friday night: Nathan Bruno, who died by suicide on Feb. 7, 2018, when he was a 15-year-old sophomore. Nathan’s death led to the formation of the Every Student Initiative, a group of his friends who advocated for more mental health resources in the schools under the “Be Great for Nate” banner. 

The class found a common unity through that tragedy, Luke said.

“We saw the immense grief on everyone’s faces,” he said. “And I don’t know how in the world they came up with the strength to do it, but we had a group of classmates — Nathan’s best friends — band our entire grade together to make sense of something insensible and to honor Nathan’s amiable character.”

Again and again, he said, the Class of 2020 demonstrated the importance of community. “Even now, with this whole pandemic thing going on, we see Olivia Brennan and Teagan DeGroen creating an entire musical showcase honoring seniors, we have Jake Elvin putting together a compilation of the band as if holding all those doors open with high-fives for the past four years was not enough, and we have our student council dedicating an entire Instagram page to lift us up. Thank you,” Luke said.

Full of leaders

Ian Gannon, the other student speaker, said it was “awkward” to celebrate graduation in a car, but he urged classmates to look at the bright side.

“At least we won't have to spend half of our lunch period in line only to have five minutes to eat. Oh, by the way, since I can’t see everyone’s reactions, I will just assume everyone will laugh at my terrible jokes,” said Ian.

The Class of 2020, he said, is so “stacked” with talent that one could even call it “OP,” or overpowered. 

“Although we are unique in amazing ways, we all share at least two things in common: We all have a unique love for (fellow classmate) Henry Gibson, and we all are going to become fantastic leaders in the world,” he said.

Leadership, which Ian defined as motivating “a group of people to accomplish a task that might seem insurmountable,” isn’t always easy, he said — “Like when you’re dressed in a pink gorilla costume and trying to get everyone into a football game” — but his class is full of them, despite the fact that some of them haven’t left in their homes in two months.

“We know it's especially hard to lead in tough situations, like when the closing of our most important year gets canceled but we can still come together as a class and graduate,” he said.

Life will always have setbacks, “but it's not our setbacks that define us; it’s how we work through them,” said Ian.

Class gifts

Connor Perry, the class vice president, was a close friend of Nathan Bruno. He announced the class gifts, one of which was a donation of $1,000 in Nathan’s memory to Be Great for Nate. 

After Connor spoke, the Jumbotron displayed a series of still photographs of Nathan while “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth played. Horns blared after its conclusion.

The second class gift was a check for $1,000 to purchase picnic tables for the high school’s first outdoor classroom. “This is a very appropriate gift since we’ve been outside PHS for the last three months,” Connor said.

He also urged his classmates to attend their one-year reunion on July 14, 2021 at The Officers’ Club at the Newport Naval Base, where their prom was supposed to be held.

The class has created a nonprofit organization, Portsmouth High School Class of 2020, Inc., which will support any future events, scholarships, and other programs that support the cause of the class. “This will allow us to continue to stay connected and informed as we become alumni.”

Lessons learned

Mr. Amaral greeted students by saying, “Welcome to our unconventional, however momentous, recognition of the Class of 2020’s academic success — their graduation.”

He recognized volunteers, staff, community members and elected officials who worked together to make the night a memorable one, “in spite of” COVID-19.

“While our state’s shelter-in-place orders have been challenging, this situation has taught us the significant need for human interaction and collaboration,” Mr. Amaral said.

After everyone enters “into our new normal,” the lessons learned “should not be forgotten,” he added.

“The Class of 2020 is diverse, resilient, and ultimately finds way to support one another through good times and in bad.”

A ‘caring class’

Emily Copeland, chairwoman of the School Committee, told seniors they “have broken new ground” in being a caring class.

“Take this graduation; you brought the community together to inspire a series of activities to celebrate graduation that went beyond a Zoom meeting, You advocated, planned and worked with the administration to make it happen,” Ms. Copeland said.

“If these last three months have taught us anything, is that we need each other. We need you, the Class of 2020, more than ever. We need you to continue to be resilient, innovative and compassionate. You demonstrate that while we may not have control over the times in which we live, we do have control over how we respond to those times.”

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