Scarborough’s class of 2011 told to ‘go big or go home’

SCARBOROUGH — Alexander Colville, valedictorian of the Scarborough High School Class of 2011 suffered a “horrible” ski crash this past winter. However, he dragged himself into convalescence for one reason, and one alone, he told his peers Sunday, during graduation ceremonies at the Cumberland County Civic Center.

“I really strove to rise from the ashes and pick myself up, so I could celebrate the joyful sensation of opening my Dartmouth rejection letter,” he joked.

Dreams and goals are worth chasing, said Colville. However, just as important, he urged his classmates to “enable the dreams of others.”

“Passion is everything,” said Colville. “The saddest people in life are the ones who don’t really care about anything. Go big or go home, because we’re about to enter the real world.”

That was a theme echoed in the faculty address of history teacher Stephen Truncellito, who read from a letter he received many years ago when he was a young educator, just starting out. He kept it at the urging of colleagues, he said, because, “they said you will never again get a letter that good.”

It was from the mother of one of his female students, distraught because her daughter did not appear to be doing well in school.

“You may not know,” wrote the mother, “that her father was shot last year . . . by me.”

The mother then went on to list a string of travails, and the binding cord, said Truncellito, “is that your parents only want the best for you.”

As he continued to list various turning points in history, Truncellito drove home a message, that each graduate is the lynchpin to his or her own happiness in life. No more, he seemed to say, could they get by on the goodwill and tearful letters of a parent or guardian.

Still, most in Scarborough’s class of 2011 are far from finished with their education.

Of the 245 students in the graduating class, 215, or 88 percent, will pursue some form of post-secondary education, including 170 (69 percent) who have enrolled in a four-year college. Of those, 57 will study close to home, while the majority, 113, are bound for schools outside Maine.

Another 35 students plan to pursue a two-year associate degree. Five have entered the military and 10 expect to enter one-year certificate programs. Just 14 students expect to pass additional education to transition directly into the workforce. Of the remaining 11 graduates, future plans are listed as a “gap-year,” “undecided,” and “junior hockey.”

In his address, salutatorian Philip Mancini, read from Dr. Seuss’ “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” Wherever they went, he told his peers, they all deserved the same thing, no less so than the subject of Truncellito’s letter.

“Life moves pretty fast,” said Mancini. “My wish for all of us, whether we are off to college, the workforce, or to bravely serve our country, is a life filled with more success than failure, more happiness than loneliness, and more doing that waiting.”