GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Monument Mountain Regional School will have co-valedictorians this year — Max Wood and Tessa Baldwin — speaking at graduation. Liam O'Gara was named salutatorian for the class of 2025.
Graduation will take place on Sunday, June 1, at 1:30 p.m. at Tanglewood in Lenox.
Baldwin has lived in Richmond for her whole life. She attended Richmond Consolidated School from kindergarten to Grade 8 and then Monument Mountain for four years. In her free time, she enjoys playing pickup sports, reading, making art, and traveling with friends and family. She plans to attend Columbia University in the fall.
Wood lives in Great Barrington with his parents and his two younger siblings. In his free time, he enjoys playing the trumpet, reading, chess, watching basketball and baseball, and viewing movies with his friends and family. Next year, Wood will be studying biomedical engineering at the University of Massachusetts.
O'Gara has participated in many activities throughout his high school career, such as the Fall Festival of Shakespeare for three years, and the spring musical "Mean Girls" in his senior year. He also participated in many clubs throughout his time, including Best Buddies, Key Club, Charley's Fund, and the Debate Team. He was also a member of the marching and concert bands for all four years, and the Jazz band for his junior and senior years.
He is grateful for all of the connections that he has made at Monument, both with the incredible staff members and faculty, but with the other students as well. He will be attending Colgate University in the fall.
Guidance Counselor Sean Flynn pointed out in his remarks at the Senior Awards Ceremony on May 29, that the class of 2025 were the first group of incoming freshmen to start high school just as the world was trying to find a new normal after a long era of COVID-related losses and disruptions, back in August 2022.
Thirty-eight members of the class of 2025 are members of the National Honor Society, more than one is already well-established in the local business world, several more are fresh off of an extraordinary statewide winning streak in basketball, many are headed to the Ivy League and other national ranked liberal arts colleges and well as premier national research universities, others are pursuing further studies or work in the skilled trades, and still others intend to make a life in public service.
Among the hundreds of scholarships handed out on Thursday morning were five given to the senior members of the Western Mass Champion boys’ basketball team: Emanuel Brown, Christian Blanchard, Isaiah Keefner, Griffin McElroy, and Samuel Roman-Guitierrez. Among those scholarships created to honor alumni who are no longer with us was the “Smile like Jack” award, given by Star O’Brien in honor of her son, Jack, member of the MMRHS class of 2020, to Sam St. Peter, Christopher Paul, Megan DeCelle and Keegan Dargie.
As far as future plans among the graduates, certain trends are clear. Career Pathways have been giving students a push-off. Among the grads whose high school focus was Early Education and Care and who intend to pursue that or a related field in college are Olivia Simms, winner of a Questbridge Scholarship to the College of the Holy Cross, Olivia Ostrander, going to Framingham State University, Ava Ross, headed to Springfield College, and Sophia Curletti, off to Curry College.
The skilled trades is an increasingly popular career direction for Monument grads, and among this year’s directed CVTE-focused cohort are Kitson Stover, winner of the Garrett Norton Memorial Automotive Scholarship, who’s headed to Hudson Valley Community College, Lucas Faggioni, winner of the Creative Building Solutions Scholarship, is headed to McCann Technical School for Electrical, Elijan Burch, going to lineman’s school, Shaun Frank, going to work for Mercier Stone Masonry and Sean Scarbro, going to work for Vanzandt Plumbing and Heating, and Logan Stevens, going into the carpentry field.
Highly selective liberal arts colleges and universities were impressed with the class of 2025’s applicants, accepting, among others, Tessa Baldwin into Columbia University, Hannah Roller into Yale, Annabel Holmes and David Cull into Tufts, Bronly Boyd into Boston College, Lulu Bowman and Lily Haskins-Vaughn into Middlebury, Liam O’Gara into Colgate, Lilabel Kierstead into St. Andrews in Scotland, Sam St. Peter into Bates, Madeleine Rundle into Vassar and Lukas Forouhar Graff and Ella Watson into Northeastern. Twelve are headed to the University of Massachusetts and eighteen to Berkshire Community College.
Arts-focused graduates include Orson Handel, headed to the Berklee School of Music, and Audrey Allard, who won the National Choral Award, headed to the University of Vermont.
The Seal of Biliteracy was presented to students demonstrating proficiency in two or more languages. These are Annabel Holmes, Lily Haskins-Vaughan, Ana Sangines Arteaga, Angel Sangines Canacuan, Helen Thorp, Eidy Lucia de la Cruz Garcia, Denisse Juarez Lopez, Lorenzo Gonzalez Quiacain, and Aidden Melo Riano, and those achieving the Seal of Biliteracy with Distinction are Tessa Baldwin, Eriel Dominguez, and Lucas Forouhar Graff.
Ian Drucker and Trevor Hoff have already established themselves in the workforce, so seek them out for your property management needs this summer.
Jack Quinlan is joining the Army, Grayson Beacco the National Guard, and Megan Decelle is attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Gregory Kay is off to the Mass Maritime Academy and Jade Abderhalden, winner of too many senior awards to list, among them the Joseph and Dolores Aberdale Scholarship, a Rosalie Conte Scholarship and the Housatonic Hose Company Scholarship, intends to pursue criminal justice at Westfield State University.
Congratulations to the class of 2025 and to this community for all their successes.
