Red Hook High School

Yianna Giannoulis was nervous Saturday morning.

Normally a comfortable public speaker, the Class of 2024 President anticipated the pressure of addressing hundreds of faces staring back up at her at Red Hook High School’s commencement ceremony.

Standing at the podium, though, she remembered who those faces were.

“These are my people. This is my home. I know it’s going to be OK,” she said afterward, in-between hugs and photos shared with her fellow graduates. “Once I started talking, it all went away. I felt the support and the comfort from everyone.”

Friends, family and neighbors lifted Giannoulis up on a challenging day. While the graduation ceremony was all about honoring the 139 Raiders earning diplomas, gratitude for the support offered by the community and its role in overcoming adversity was a theme that carried throughout the day.

On the way to graduation, as several speakers noted, the Class of 2024 endured the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic midway through the eighth grade, and the isolating hurdles that came along with it. Still, they thrived, with 12 graduating with International Baccalaureate diplomas and 34 members of the National Honor Society in the class.

“Sometimes the most rewarding destinations are reached through perseverance and steadfastness,” Valedictorian Ani Safaryan said in her address. “All experiences, whether positive or negative, teach you something you can use in your future.”

The June 29 ceremony on the lawn outside Linden Avenue Middle School had a feel more akin to an upscale Fourth of July block party. Surrounding the rows of red chairs set up for the graduates were seas of family and friends sitting in folding and beach chairs they brought from home. Afterward, many graduates stayed on the site for close to an hour taking photos with different groups of classmates and family underneath the school’s trees.

“The achievements of a school can only go so far,” Principal Kyle Roddey said. “It is our parents, our families, grandparents and the community. We’re partners. We work together. Over the course of the last 13 years, I think this team has been able to do some incredible things.

Roddey praised the “spirit of kindness, that spirit of giving and that spirit of care that permeates throughout (not only) our school, but this entire community.”

Salutatorian Abigail Mercier used some of her speech to recall a time Red Hook bolstered her spirits. She shared how her “face would light up,” as an elementary school student with a mother battling cancer, to come home from school to find assistance from a community meal train.

“Everyone here has had some significant hardship they have had to deal with in their life, whether it was personal, within their family, or within the broader community,” Mercier said. “I just want to shine light on the impact that such a small act of care can have on someone’s wellbeing and their daily survival.”

That unity was on display again later in the ceremony. After her own address – in which she encouraged her classmates to slow down and appreciate that “every second in life should never be taken for granted,” Giannoulis invited class Vice President Maya Very and advisers Nicole Fiore and Nicole Schmidt to the stage to present a diploma to the family of the late Sam Lown.

Sam, “one of the kindest, funniest and selfless souls,” Giannoulis said, died at the age of 16 in July 2022 following a battle with cancer. His seat at the ceremony was kept empty except for a draped gown and a cap decorated to read “Some heroes save the day in the simplest way.”

Giannoulis said it was the students’ idea to honor Sam, with the full support of administration and his family. They wanted to “make sure that he was recognized and everything that he was and the person that he was, was recognized.”

In addition to the diploma, the students presented a donation for $6,000 to the Two Brothers Scholarship, in memory of Sam and his brother, Dillon Denu.

“We really couldn’t have done as much as we could with Sam during his illness if it wasn’t for all of the support that we received from this community and all of you,” Sam’s Mother, Jennifer, said. “And, this means so much. One would think that Sam would be up there rolling his eyes at me right now, but those that really knew him knew that we was such an emotional, compassionate person that he would probably be here right now giving me a kiss and a hug.”

It wasn’t the only emotional moment of the ceremony, albeit on a smaller scale. As Katie Boyd’s name was called to come to the stage, her father, Mill Road Elementary Principal Brian Boyd, stepped in to give her the diploma. He then did the same for his niece, Madison Boyd.

Katie Boyd said the moment wasn’t planned, but also not unexpected, as he did the same for her brother, Liam, last year. Still, “It was, honestly, so emotional. It was really just heart-touching, full-circle, I’m just really grateful.”

Though high school graduation marks the time when a student generally must go off on their own to start fresh at college, the workforce or the military, Board of Education President Russ Crafton explained to the graduates they are not going to be alone. By now, they’ve internalized the advice “slipped in” by parents and teachers over the years.

“I’d argue you probably already have most of the wisdom you need to get through this life. The trick is learning how to find it and when you need it,” he said. “When you look inward, you’ll often find those messages and/or life experiences that were left years ago by your family and your friends and your teachers. When the time is right, and you need them the most, those messages will be there, and they’ll make total sense.”

Dr. Janet Warden, superintendent of schools, offered the students some last pieces of advice to pack away wherever they go, such as to be on time, listen intently and always speak up. “You’ll never, ever regret it,” Warden said. “What you’ll regret is staying silent out of fear.”

Mercier, shortly after caps were thrown, hugs began and a confetti cannon fired above the newly graduated Raiders, described it all with bittersweet excitement.

“It feels weird, the end is finally here,” she said. “I feel so grateful. I have so much family here.”