“As we walk across this stage, move out and become adults, choices will be all the more common. We have to make our own path and decide for ourselves the best way to live our lives. We need to make our own success because no longer will we have teachers looking over our shoulder encouraging us to pass a test,” Adam Gaudet told students, family and friends during his valedictory address Thursday. “If we are to continue to succeed we must first decide what success is to us as individual and then follow through it.”
Gaudet, who is going to the University of Waterloo in September, said he and his fellow graduates have been guided by teachers and family throughout their school years and many of them, himself included, would’ve been lost without that support.
Each graduate has faced the decision about continuing their education, what career they what to go into and how to achieve those goals.
While society may try to determine what success is, he said it’s up to each individual member of the graduating class to personally determine what success is.
Gaudet was presented the Governor General’s Medal, which is presented to the student with the highest academic average in the last two years of high school.
He also accepted a $2,000 President’s Scholarship Entrance Award to the University of Waterloo as well as the Amherst Rotary Club Scholarship ($1,500), the ARHS/E.B. Chandler Band-Choir Association Scholarship ($500), the Elizabeth J. Hewson and Helen Hewson Scholarship ($500) and the Richie Milner Memorial Bursary ($200).
Tyler Buchanan accepted the Birk’s Medal for student leadership and the Queen Elizabeth II Medal, which is presented to a student demonstrating superior achievement in school through three years of high school and has achieved an outstanding record in school and community involvement.
Buchanan accepted a $14,000 Community Leadership Scholarship to Mount Allison, a $6,000 William S. Daley Memorial Scholarship, a $2,000 Ruth Arden LeBlanc Memorial Bursary, a $2,000 ARHS-Mount Allison University Scholarship and a $1,000 TM MacIntyre and John Bower Bursary from the Community Credit Union.
He also received $1,000 scholarships from the ARHS-E.B. Chandler Band-Choir and a Bacon-Elliott Bursary as well as a Gerald Tingley Memorial Scholarship ($260) and an Elizabeth Dickinson MacIver Memorial Bursary ($150).
Bailey Chitty received a $2,000 Renaissance College Scholarship and William and Lois Paine Founder’s Scholarship from UNB, $1,000 scholarships from the Hennessey Memorial Scholarship and the Susan Taylor Scholarship as well as the ARHS Dance Association Bursary ($250), the Cumberland North Academy Bursary ($250) and the Cumberland Schools Catering Society Bursary ($200).
Liam Starratt received a Regular Officer Training Plan scholarship from the Canadian Armed Forces to attend the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont. valued at more than $120,000.
Starratt also received $500 scholarships from ARHS Scholarship Fund, the ARHS Students Council Scholarship and the Cumberland NSTU Bursary.
Emma Taylor received an $18,000 scholarship from UPEI, a $1,500 Amherst Rotary Club Scholarship, a $1,000 Lynda Burke Memorial Bursary, an ARHS-E.B. Chandler Band-Choir Scholarship ($500), a Cumberland Child and Youth Foundation Bursary in memory of Dwight Jones ($500), a Westmorland Animal Hospital Bursary ($500) and an Amherst Minor Basketball Ronnie Elliott Memorial Bursary ($250).
In total, $351,675 was presented in prizes, scholarships and bursaries, including $249,000 in scholarships from universities and colleges and $102,000 from community groups and organizations.
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Twitter: @ADNdarrell
