Georgiana Davidson, right, and Rieslynn Bernier get pumped Friday before the start of the graduation ceremony at Saint Dominic Academy in Auburn. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal AUBURN — While his classmates were joking around and mugging for photos Friday, graduating senior Connor Cyr sat at a table wondering how he should feel about this night. “This is an amazing experience,” the Minot teenager said.
“But it’s also almost sad. I’ve been at St. Dom’s my whole life and just thinking back on all the memories.
.. It’s a lot.
” Cyr is next off to college to study civil engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, but first there was one final hurrah at the school to experience. Saint Dominic Academy graduated 26 seniors from the school Friday night, holding a ceremony in the parking lot under a sky that threatened rain but which never produced any. Several of those who spoke at the ceremony remarked on how this graduating class had began their high school careers under the shadow of COVID-19.
They had endured — and responded to — the horror of a mass shooting in Lewiston. Now it was time to go out into the larger world to see what they could make of their lives. Class Valedictorian Abigail Nichole Piotrowski reminded her classmates that they are the authors of their own stories.
“Today, May 24, we write the final words in our high school chapters,” Piotrowski said. “The tears, the joy, the plethora of photos taken by parents — these momen.