Category Archives: Student Speaker

Senior Speaker Oliver Demers’ Speech

Photo by Matthew Cavanaugh
Photo by Matthew Cavanaugh

Students. Parents. Faculty. Grounds Crew. Security. Dining Hall Services. That one photographer we hired for the weekend. Pigeons. Squirrels. Assorted insects amongst the grass. Easthampton late-morning joggers. Good morning. Well seniors, we did it. We graduated high school. Now we can finally claim our bets from our freshman year advisors. I mean this is fantastic, these diplomas are truly invaluable and are gonna come in handy for all sorts of things: job opportunities, college verification, swatting flies, origami, paper airplanes, fire starter for when those job opportunities didn’t turn out so great.

You know maybe it’s not these diplomas that matter so much. Because when it comes down to it our Williston journey was always working toward one unparalleled item that no other high school could come close to achieving…these really fancy plastic cases AROUND the diploma – I mean what kind of leather is this, walrus? That would be sick. Sick as in both very interesting, and immoral.

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Senior Dinner Speech by Maddy Stern ’14

Editor’s note: Senior Class President Maddy Stern gave the following speech during Senior Dinner on May 9, 2014.

In a college interview someone asked me to describe Williston. “Well it’s a small New England prep school, we have a really nice pond, 60 percent boarders, 40 percent day students…” She responded “Yes, I am familiar with prep schools, sounds like Deerfield. Tell me why you love Williston, what are the most important things I should know about it?”

Well I don’t think Deerfield has a pond…and I couldn’t even imagine comparing Williston to any other school. I’ve been at Williston for six years now, that’s approximately 2,000 meals in the dining hall, easily 1,500 coffee runs, probably hundreds of extra help sessions and 54 months with the class of 2014. That’s a pretty sizable amount of time. So I was surprised when I couldn’t answer right away.

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Straight from the Horse’s Mouth: Incitatus Speaks

Editor’s Note: Evan Stark ’15 presented the following speech at Mount Holyoke College on Friday, January 17 during Classics Day, a high school Latin event. His speech and outfit won second place in the Costume Contest.

photo 1[4]Salvete! My name is Incitatus. I apologize if it is difficult to hear me, my voice is a bit horse. I’m afraid many of you may not have herd of me, so allow me to tell you a little about myself. I began my career as a race-horse. I was the reining champion. I was so good, I even caught the attention of the Emperor Caligula. No Roman emperor has ever ruled with such unbridled madness. What a nightmare! However I was fortunate enough to live a much more stable life.

Caligula was so pleased with my performances he made me a senator. He even gave me gifts. I was living it up in an ivory manger, with purple blankets, and a collar of precious stones. I even had a house with slaves and furniture and everything. The best part was, I got to horse around whenever I wanted.

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The Garden of Martyrs: Excerpts from Student Commentaries

Below are excerpts from student commentaries for Michael Fay’s class following the AP U.S. History field trip to The Garden of Martyrs execution site. Read more about the trip. 

Ryan King
It was also chilling to envision a mass crowd of people from the old court house to this spot, it made me view the execution at the time to be sort of a parade for the town, rather than an act of “justice.” Being Irish, and having Catholic roots, it made me realize how much injustice occurred at the time.

Elyssa Katz
For both Daley with a family to look out for, and Halligan with such a full life ahead of him, the walk down the road and up the hill to the gallows must have felt like a lifetime. I agree with Ryan that it truly seems much more like a “parade” than an execution of the law. It is easy to understand why following the hanging the attitude shifted from one of curiosity, excitement, and revenge, to one, rightfully so, of solemnity and guilt.

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Class President’s Welcome by Maddy Stern ’14

Faculty, staff, guests, students, class of 2014 welcome to the 173rd Williston Northampton Convocation,

My name is Maddy Stern and I am the president of the senior class. I’d like to extend a huge thank you to everyone here at Williston, to the teachers and staff who’ve spent the past weeks preparing for our arrival, to the guests who have traveled to join us, to the senior class for giving me the opportunity to stand up here before everyone. And also I probably won’t be getting a ride to school tomorrow or the necessary Dunkin coffee if I don’t thank my family for everything they’ve done for me. Since this is my only opportunity to get up and address the entire school I’d like to take a picture of you all real quick. Thanks. Please like that when I Instagram it.

But now to the real reason I’m up here. This speech is something I have been thinking about for a long time and I knew that I would be talking to the entire student body, therefore I should write a speech everyone could relate to. So last spring I began asking people what made a “good” convocation speech. The two pieces of advice I continually received were, “be funny” and “please keep it short.” If you know me, I really like to talk and I’m not that funny, so after ruling my only two pieces of advice inapplicable I did what any well-educated student would do, I went to Wikipedia.

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