The East Haven High School (EHHS) Class of 2023 was celebrated during graduation exercises on June 14.

The ceremony was held indoors in the school’s gymnasium. Graduates walked out to the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance” while ecstatic cheers from friends and family greeted them as they walked to their seats.

The first to speak was class president Madison DiNuzzo. She spoke before her class in reflection of the years in and out of school that led up to this important date in their lives and how they have changed throughout that time into the graduates they are today.

“We grew up with 2023 engraved in our minds. It was a reminder of our adulthood, a countdown to our independence. We grew up reading picture books and getting timely quizzes on our multiplication facts. We moved up to chapter books and equations like y=mx+b. We grew up singing the days of the week song and watching Bill Nye in our science classes. We grew up anxiously sitting at the edge of our chairs for the bell to ring at the beginning and end of the day. We grew up waiting for it to be Friday so we can sleep in on the weekends,” said DiNuzzo. “Somewhere between now and then, our mornings of being woken up turned into us relying on our alarms to get up; our after-school activities turned into jobs; our bikes eventually turned into cars; the bedtime stories our parents or ourselves would read turned into long essays.”

DiNuzzo continued to reflect on several other big moments through the years, including the students overcoming the “unknowns of COVID,” “laughing and staying up until the sun rose with our friends,” and sharing their dreams about the day “we get to go off on our own, joking about how we couldn’t wait until graduation, eager to explore the world and be independent,” she said. “We were so busy dreaming about the future; we didn’t appreciate the present while it was happening.”

She reminded her class to be grateful for all the memories and experiences they shared since their days in kindergarten and that as they are “full of dreams and disappointments, difficulties and successes, tears and laughter,” they should not forget about their families and the teachers at EHHS who shepherded them along the way.

Salutatorian Amelia Westfall spoke about those difficulties and successes to which DiNuzzo alluded.

“School’s not easy. Friendships and relationships aren’t easy. Work isn’t easy. Life isn’t easy, and there’s literally about a billion different obstacles to make you stumble, to make you want to give up. But you can’t. You never want to look back on life and say, ‘Could’ve been me.’”

Westfall assured her fellow graduates that despite the difficulty of the path ahead, those difficulties can always be overcome and success can be achieved. Students are masters of their own destiny, and “the light at the end of the tunnel” are those milestones reached through challenges, like graduation, said Westfall.

“There is no better place to discuss the perseverance and fortitude than at graduation because whether you’re going to work, to trade school, or to college, you’re moving on. Every single one of us is stepping out into the world, and it’s going to be hard, and it’s going to be scary. But life is hard, and the road will be littered with obstacles and challenges, ones you’re never expected to face. But the key is not giving up.”

Westfall concluded with a message for her graduates inspired by her favorite poem, “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley.

“No matter how hard things get, no matter how beat down and tired you become, remember that you decided your fate, your path, your reaction. And you can, as my dad always told me, face everything and rise or fear everything and run,” said Westfall. “No matter what obstacles and difficulties may stand in your way, you can do it…never give up, never surrender.”

Valedictorian Izabella Olszewski was the final student to speak. She reminded her classmates of the joys of expecting the unexpected and how those unplanned moments could translate into memories and lessons that last forever.

“Going into high school, we expected that nothing much would change. But throughout these past four years, we’ve all experienced the unexpected. We started off with being surrounded by so many unknowns with a new school, with new people and new concepts. But once we embraced the unknown, we found our way and became a little more comfortable here,” said Olszewski. “Take a time you were unhappy to be in an assigned group or seats in class, but you ended up becoming really good friends with those people you’ve never spoken to before, and you formed fun memories with them.”

Olszewski continued, saying, “COVID keeping us out of school or getting injured in the middle of the sports season may take us by surprise, but it taught us important lessons, like not taking people, our abilities, or time for granted.”

With her high school career concluding, Olszewski said she has ultimately learned to embrace those unpredictable “small variables of self-discovery, self-improvement in great numbers.”

Following student speeches, graduates received their diplomas and shook hands with East Haven Board of Education Chair Michele A. DeLucia, East Haven Public Schools Superintendent Erica Forti, EHHS Principal Vincent DeNuzzo, Mayor Joseph Carfora, and Rep. Joseph Zullo.

DiNuzzo led the class in the tossing of their tassels as they officially became graduates of EHHS.