MONTPELIER — If you were looking for an anti-metaphorical cartoon masquerading as “one big game of long-form improv,” you would have found one Friday evening in the crowded gymnasium at Montpelier High School. Credit the Class of 2024, whose commencement was way more celebration than ceremony — an indoor party that was part talent show, a touch of tradition, no “Pomp and Circumstance” and very little cliché. Sure, it began and ended with bagpipe-led processions of graduates predictably clad in green caps and gowns, but what happened in between followed a wildly unpredictable script.
It’s one that featured some memorable miscues, more than a few touching moments, and was intentionally light on metaphors. Alara Kohn and the rest of this year’s senior class wouldn’t have had it any other way. It was different, just like them.
That, by all accounts — including some of their own — is a very good thing. Sure, the ceremony featured a rendition of “Sail On Solons” as Montpelier graduations have since former guidance counselor Jeff Sather penned the song decades before her retired in 2021, and, yes, jubilant graduates launched their caps in the air moments after the last of them received their diplomas. Who didn’t see that coming? The script, such as it was, included speaking parts for Superintendent Libby Bonesteel and Principal Jason Gingold and while both delivered, neither stole what was clearly the graduates’ show.
It got off to a bumpy start that .
