Bethel — Change, though difficult, is nothing new for students in Bethel, speakers at Friday night’s graduation at Whitcomb High School said.

More than one noted that students in Bethel once attended classes in one-room school houses without heat or running water.

Principal Owen Bradley said in his introductory remarks that the school is currently a “building full of things” and it will remain so next year when, through an Act 46 merger with Royalton, high school students will attend the newly created White River Valley High School in South Royalton.

Middle school students from both towns will attend school in the Bethel building.

But Bradley also said, “A school is more than a building. ... While the name will change, the people will still be here.”

Valedictorian Elizabeth “Biz” Farrell and Salutatorian Ama Conde pointed to relationships they have built with their classmates and other members of the school community as key to their success.

“I am who I am because of all the people around me,” Farrell said.

The graduation program included three alumni — John Washburn, Joanne Mills and Jason Stumpf — who reflected on the way in which their education at Whitcomb had prepared them for life.

Commander Jason Stumpf, a Navy aviator, told the 20 graduates that he used lessons learned at Whitcomb in areas such as geography and history when flying missions to Iraq and elsewhere.

He also pointed to practical skills he’d learned. In one mission the battery of his helicopter died and his team had to use a battery from another helicopter to get it going. It was a move two members of the team later called “some country stuff.”

Stumpf urged the graduates to navigate the uncertainty they may feel following graduation to do “whatever you want.”

Graduation speaker Sam Chapin, a former Whitcomb English teacher and a graduate of Thetford Academy, said that the Whitcomb class of 2018 taught him that as a teacher it’s his “job to meet a student where they are ... Every student has their own strengths and weaknesses.”

He encouraged the graduates to remember their “Vermontiness” and stay true to themselves as they continue on in work, school and life.

It’s “too easy to step away from who you are and where you came from,” he said.

In conversations before the ceremony, the graduates recognized the importance of the day for themselves and for their community.

“It’s really emotional for all of us,” said graduating senior Matt Brown, as he put on his cap and gown in the school library.

He said the emotions he was feeling included both sadness and happiness.

Though he’s looking forward to the freedom that comes with finishing high school, he also recognized that Friday night’s ceremony marked the end of an era.

“My whole family has graduated from here,” he said.

Now, his younger sister Jasmine will be a ninth-grader at the new White River Valley High School. She’s nervous, he said.

Similarly, graduating senior Katrina Townsend said she was celebrating her graduation, which to her means “that I’m finally grown up.”

But she also recognized that her class would be the last to graduate from the small school.

“I feel upset,” she said. “People should be about to experience graduation here like their families did.”

For her, the school’s single hallway was the right size. In contrast, the newly merged school in South Royalton will have a “whole bunch of halls.”

Townsend’s classmate Johnathan Lazo, however, said, “the merger was for the better.”

Though he acknowledged that his class’s graduation was “kind of special.”

He said students will still be going to school in the building.

“We’re not really the last class,” he said.

Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.

Whitcomb High Class of 2018

Jeremiah Allard; Samantha Barcomb, Vermont Technical College; Matthew Brown, Community College of Vermont and Castleton University; Tyler Burg, Castleton University; Ama Conde, University of Vermont; Elizabeth Farrell, University of Vermont; Keagan Hill, Castleton University; Jordan Horne; John Hunt; John Lazo, Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Zach Rhoades, U.S. Air Force; Calvin Rose, Champlain College; Nick Rowe, Norwich University; Ben Sears, University of Vermont; Anna Smith; Katrina Townsend; Kayla Townsend; Krista Townsend, Vermont Technical College; Colby Washburn, Advanced Welding Institute; Damian Young-Burbano, Advanced Welding Institute.

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