Tears and cheers fill St. Ann's as St. Maria Goretti conducts its final commencement

Endings and beginnings are frequently bittersweet. That's because they so often happen simultaneously.

While bittersweet moments abound during commencement season, they were especially poignant for the 36-member Class of 2024 of St. Maria Goretti High School in Hagerstown.

For about 70 years, the school that developed from the former St. Mary's High School has been schooling students both in academics and the tenets of the Catholic faith. But last fall, school officials announced Goretti would close at the end of the academic year, as it would no longer receive financial assistance from the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

But while there were some tears at the final Goretti commencement ceremony Friday at St. Ann Catholic Church, the graduating class refused to dwell on the loss and looked toward the future.

Her voice cracked a little as Salutatorian Addison Crowder spoke about the end of Goretti. She noted this class, which started high school in 2020 — the year of COVID, had persevered through "continuous changes," including the unexpected death of Director of Guidance and Counseling Robin Handler this past winter.

Because the students were all wearing masks in the beginning, Crowder said, "I don't think I fully grasped what our faces looked like until sophomore year."

And, she confessed, "truth be told, I still don't really know what a 'Gael' " is.

"But I do know that Gaels are ambitious," she said. "Gaels are hard-working. Gaels are generous, approachable, intelligent."

Class of 2024 'in a unique position'

In a quandary over what to include in her speech for the occasion, Valedictorian Abigail Chappell "did what any teenage girl with a project would do: I went on Pinterest."

There she found "countless inspirational quotes," she said, but she settled on one attributed to the late reggae musician Bob Marley: "Beginnings are usually scary, and endings are usually sad, but it's everything in between that makes it all worth living."

Her class, she said, "is in a unique position. Not only are we leaving Goretti, we also have to face the reality it will not be there for us to return to."

One of the few things to remain constant during their high school careers, she said, was their "spirit of community and our ability to adapt."

Goretti to close doors at end of school year after archdiocese ceases financial support

Commencement speaker Megan Zuvich, who taught mathematics at Goretti, began her teaching career with this class in 2020.

"Not many people can say they began their freshman year during COVID and ended their high school career with a school closure," she said. She and these students had walked through the doors for the first time together, she added and now they would leave together.

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So what's next?

After the ceremony, new grad Deron Ampofo admitted he was "feeling really shaky right now; I never had this feeling before.

"It's not like transitioning from middle school to high school or elementary school to high school and stuff; it's just different because, from now on my life is gonna go completely different … I'm pretty much I'm an adult now. I'm gonna have to pay bills and do college work and stuff.

Nevertheless, it was "amazing," he said. And that college work will be done at University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

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Amiyah Fulton will be headed to Union College in New Jersey on a basketball scholarship.

Fulton, repeatedly named to The Herald-Mail's All-Washington County girls' basketball teams, was "just really happy to have graduated with this group, just because we've all faced so much adversity and everything.

"I'm just happy; I'm excited. And I think we have a really good class; it's going to have a really good future."

Her future, she hopes, will be to transfer after two years at Union to a Division 1 school to keep playing basketball.

Unlike most high school commencements this year, it's not just the students who are leaving. Principal Amy Summers told The Herald-Mail that most of the faculty have found other placements for the next school year. Some of them, she said, will be going with her to St. Mary Catholic School in downtown Hagerstown.

Others will be teaching in public schools, she said.

Meanwhile, she said, "I'm proud of these kids, what they've accomplished." There's been a wonderful history at Goretti, she said, "and I couldn't ask for a better class for it to go out on."

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: St. Maria Goretti in Hagerstown graduates its last class