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Lumberjack grads look to carve out careers

Tupper Lake graduates decorated their graduation caps with catch phrases, military emblems and flowers at their graduation ceremony Friday evening. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

TUPPER LAKE — The senior class of Lumberjacks graduated Friday night, but before they move forward into careers and college, they were reminded of where they came from and the school they are leaving behind.

Forty-seven Tupper Lake graduates, sitting proud, relaxed or overwhelmed in their hats and robes, prepared to transition into a new phase of life. Many hats were adorned with decorations reading “I almost came naked,” “I’d rather be hunting” or simply “Winning.”

From the opening remarks by senior Crag LaBrake, the theme of transitioning carried through the ceremony.

“It is our time to make something of ourselves and dive into our future endeavors,” LaBrake said.

This idea was punctuated by class President Dorran Boucher, who compared the class to a tree, all sharing the same trunk but now branching off in all directions.

Tupper Lake High School senior class President Dorran Boucher addresses his fellow graduates at Friday’s commencement. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Cerbone)

Boucher is preparing to attend Ithaca College to study journalism and hopes to one day work for BBC in New York City. In his junior year he realized he was a good writer and wanted to improve the world, to help other people find better ways of thinking about the world.

He said he doesn’t want his writing to tell others what to think, rather to show how thinking critically and with an open mind can solve a lot of problems.

“There is one thing that I want you guys to promise me,” Boucher said. “In five, or 10, or 20, or however many years before we finally develop the combined cognitive capacity to organize something — *cough* senior prank *cough* — I want you guys to come back here to Tupper Lake and tell one another of new, different stories, and huge, exciting milestones you all have experienced.”

The senior class of 2018 failed to pull off a prank on the school this year.

Though he worked for the student paper, the Lumberjack Lyre, Boucher said it was more his friends in the theater productions he was in that steered him down the path he’s on. It was their friendship and conversations that showed him a better way to think when he was feeling lost.

“After so many years of not knowing how to think, I finally found my place in this world,” Boucher said.

He said that he wants to share that revelation with others.

Boucher shared one last song, “Everyday” from the movie “High School Musical 2,” alongside the Middle/High School Chorus. Another senior singing for the last time with the chorus, Rebecca Delair, is also leaving her basketball, softball and volleyball teams.

“It goes by so fast. It goes by way too fast,” Delair said.

Delair, who graduated eighth in her class, is going to study health science for two years at North Country Community College before she finishes her master’s degree in physical therapy at SUNY Canton.

Delair was in physical therapy herself for months after she broke her ankle in an eighth-grade softball game, sliding into home base. At that time she grew fascinated with anatomy and repairing the human body.

Delair will continue to play volleyball at NCCC and said that after balancing three sports, college courses and high school classes in her last year, Tupper Lake gave her the skill of time management.

Although middle-high school Principal Russ Bartlett stated that some things will always change in “Mr. Bartlett’s Random Assortment of Facts and Figures,” each speaker made it clear that Lumberjacks never change. They are strong, determined and ready to change the world.

“You aren’t what’s happened to you; you are how you’ve overcome it.” Salutatorian Meagan McNeilly said, quoting Beau Taplin. “How, that’s the key word in that entire statement. Not who, what, where, when, or why, but how. You aren’t what’s happened to you, but you are how you’ve overcome it.”

As the graduating class of 2018 cheered for their collective overcoming of the trial of high school, they looked back and thanked their alma mater for the experiences and lessons it gave them:

Tupper, Dear Old Tupper

Hear our voices once more ring,

Tupper, Dear Old Tupper

As they Praise we sing.

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