BETHEL — The recurring theme of the Telstar Class of 2024 was that this group is “tiny but mighty.” In a class of just 28 students they are tiny, in fact, the tiniest Telstar class ever. And mighty? Winning winter carnival as juniors and seniors was “mighty.
” So was starting high school during the COVID-19 pandemic. And completing high school as young adults, most with a solid plan, that is mighty as well. Friday night, June 7, was graduation.
It followed a whirlwind week of events that ended early Saturday morning when the graduates returned from their all-night celebration hosted by parents. On Tuesday evening, the seniors, clad in gowns and mortarboards, lined the Broad Street side of the Bethel Common as a caravan of emergency response vehicles from Bethel and nearby towns blared their congratulations. Family and friends followed in their cars holding brightly decorated signs.
Younger siblings giggled as they sprayed Silly String out of sunroofs. A grandmother pointed a water pistol out of a backseat window; another grandmother riding on the back of a motorcycle, high-fived a graduate. On Thursday, the seniors revisited their younger selves at Telstar Middle School and Woodstock and Crescent Park Elementary Schools.
At Woodstock Elementary School tiny faces peered expectantly toward the school bus that was parked at the front door. Woodstock third grader Wyatt Montplaisir and the other students and teachers lined the walls, applauding as the graduates paraded th.
