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Houlton High School graduated the 77 members of Class of 2026 at a packed John A. Millar Civic Center on Thursday night.
Some will follow traditional routes and others will choose a less traveled path. But on Thursday the classmates reminded each other, in the words of graduate Victoria Ervin’s class of 2026 ode, “to stop waiting for tomorrow, for the weekend, for the summer break” and to start savoring each day.
Salutatorian Jaeden Wu talked about how life challenges build confidence, using the example of their triple-digit losing soccer team and how they made a strong comeback.
“We did not allow the failure of the previous season to stop us,” he said. “Instead we refocused our energy.”
Senior class advisor and Jobs for Maine Graduates teacher Jessica Swimm shared that she completely changed course as a 36-year-old single mother, and said the graduates don’t need to know exactly what they will do for their career now, in five years or even 10 years.
Swimm spent several years as a finance manager at York’s of Houlton, but completely changed her career path and found her life’s passion working with students, she said.
“She volunteered to be our senior class advisor,” Hayden Belyea said. “The life lessons that she taught us will follow us as we transition to our new roles as young adults.”
For years, Swimm said she thought life was supposed to follow a set path after high school but learned that life is an adventure to be lived.
“Adventures rarely follow a set plan,” she said.
As she shared her own story with the graduates, Swimm told them to always make decisions that make them feel alive because there is a difference between being comfortable and being fulfilled.
“Choose the class that excites you, the opportunity that challenges you, choose the adventure that scares you just enough to know that it’s definitely worth trying,” she said. “Stagnation has a way of letting us settle … keep growing, keep learning and keep exploring. You only get this one life. You can reinvent yourself anytime you choose.”
