Page 2 THE SAUGUS ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 2021 2021 Saugus High School graduation The Class President’s Address By Emma Peacock G $2.39 ood evening everyone, I just want to say thank you to Mr. Hashem, Superintendent Dr. DeRuosi, the entire School Committee and all the administrators and staff that came out today to support the Class of 2021. Also a huge thank you to all of the families, alumni and anyone else here today; it’s been quite the year so just seeing so many people really means a lot. Where do I even begin? Well, I’m sure many of you really can’t wait to hear another speech, am I right?! Don’t worry, I’ll try to make this as short J& $45 yd. S LANDSCAPE & MASONRY CO. MULCH SALE! Discount Spring Special PICK-UP or DELIVERY AVAILABLE 617-389-1490 Premium Hemlock or Pitch Black BELOW WHOLESALE COSTS LANDSCAPERS WELCOME $4 yd. $40 yd. $3 yd. and sweet as possible. To start, I’m Emma Peacock and I’ve been the Class of 2021 president for the past four years. That sounds really crazy to say – four years is such a long time, but it only felt like 10 minutes. I’ll never forget our freshman orientation when we were in the old auditorium. Mr. Hashem was giving us his spiel about how fast these four years will go by so we should enjoy every second of it. I remember thinking Senior year was so far away, but here I am, giving the speech I’ve thought about giving since freshman year. Throughout these four years, we’ve enjoyed so many special memories and events together, one of our fi rst being the Freshman Fair, which we had in the middle of W wing and E wing at the old high school. We were eating slush and having water balloon fights in knee-high grass, in true Saugus High fashion. After that day, I think the school and many teachers prepared for what the Class of 2021’s next three years would look like. Sophomore year was a tough year for a lot, mainly because we all suff ered through ChemEMMA PEACOCK: She presided over the Class of 2021 as president for four years. (Saugus Advocate photo by Mark E. Vogler) istry, but we made it. We had our Semi at The Elks, which was really just a preview of our Junior prom. Junior year quickly came around and we were already upperclassmen. We watched the Class of 2019 graduate in June, and we were starting to realize we didn’t have much time left. Then after we had our Junior prom in February, COVID hit, and our twoweek school vacation turned into 12 months. Well, then we really didn’t have much time left. I didn’t really want to focus much of my speech on COVID since I feel like that’s almost every topic of conversation nowadays. But it truly made a large impact on our fi nal year and a half of high school. This wasn’t something anyone could prepare for, and the world was fi lled with so much uncertainty, all the time. We had six long months of fully remote school and it was diffi cult for so many. But when we came back to school, in-person in March, it SCHOOL | SEE PAGE 21 2021 Saugus High School graduation Photo by Ussama Azam Right by you. Right by all. A COMMUNITY BUILT ON LOVE IS ONE WE’RE PROUD TO SUPPORT. EVERETT BANK CELEBRATES PRIDE MONTH AND BANKING FOR ALL. 419 BROADWAY, EVERETT MA 02149 Right by you. 61 7-38 7 - 1 1 10 7 7 1 SALEM ST, LYNNFIELD MA 01940 7 8 1 - 7 7 6 - 4444 WWW.EVERETTBANK .COM Member FDIC Member DIF The principal’s graduation speech “While we would never have chosen to have gone through a year like this, I truly believe our graduates are better prepared to face the challenges in their future.” By Michael Hashem T his past school year has been, well, I am really at a loss for how to describe it. I guess one way of looking at it is – this year was diff erent. Different is a nice way of describing this past school year; I am sure everyone has their own individual way of remembering it and I bet not many are positive. But we endured the struggles and the obstacles, and our seniors are here today graduating from Saugus High School. They rose to the occasion, tackling the challenges of high school while navigating through this global pandemic. The good news is that it seems as though this pandemic has lessened and we SAUGUS HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL MICHAEL HASHEM: He calls this year’s graduates “a class that I will never forget.” (Saugus Advocate photo by Mark E. Vogler) are starting to return to a sense of normalcy. As we are all too aware, normalcy is not the best description of the 2020-2021 school year. In GRADUATION | SEE PAGE 17
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