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06/08/2009
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Staff Photo by David Leamingfrom the Kennebec Journal
Sport of Kings
New Medicaid billing system inspires doubts among some
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YOUTH SOCCER: Local team gives 'care package' to children in Afghanistan
All of today's:
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from the Kennebec Journal
from the Morning Sentinel
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New system for Medicaid payments worries providers
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YOUTH SOCCER: Local team gives 'care package' to children in Afghanistan
All of today's:
News | Sports
from the Morning Sentinel
THORNDIKE -- By the time Valedictorian Sutton Bantle and Salutatorian Sumner Higgins delivered their Mount View High School commencement speeches Sunday, Ellen (Ladd) Power had ventured outside to take pictures.
Power, a 1971 Mount View graduate, had gone there not even knowing it was graduation day. The former Freedom resident had simply gone there to take photos.
"To walk in there and see all those students with their caps and gowns and the green and white, it was so emotional," a misty-eyed Power said.
It was emotional too, of course, for the Mount View class of 2009; and so it was for everyone else connected with the original Mount View.
On June 22, the walls will come tumbling down. Classes end Friday, and the final school board meeting there takes place on June 21.
Next door, a brand-new, $40 million Mount View School will open next autumn.
Bantle, a Thorndike resident who will attend Wagner College, talked about past, present and future. To her left, the gymnasium scoreboard had been taken down, leaving behind a torn wall.
"This building fully represents the past, and not just to the new graduates of this crumbling frame," said Bantle, who attained a grade-point average of 98.7. "But this old school was our old school."
Bantle thanked the people she and her classmates trusted who have been "driving them."
"Now, all of a sudden, in the present, we find ourselves driving," she said.
Bantle added that the future will be bright but expensive.
In front of her, a dozen or so members of the original (1965) Mount View graduating class watched, as special guests. Principal Lynda Letteney had read the names of each, and they stood to rousing applause.
Pianist Sophie Veilleux had played a special version of "Pomp and Circumstance" for the original graduates. Then, two by two, the 2009 class marched in.
Higgins, who will study physical therapy at Arcadia University, praised her classmates.
"To my fellow classmates, I owe you all a great big thank you," said Higgins, who had a 96.4 GPA. "You have all made the last four years unforgettable. We're an amazing class, and all I can say is watch out world, here comes the class of 2009."
Before the ceremony, school board Chairman Glenn Couturier of Montville, a 1973 Mount View graduate, recalled the school when it was still a novelty for students from rural Waldo County.
"I went to a two-room schoolhouse in Freedom, and when I came to this school, I was in awe," Couturier said.
Couturier said the strict environment imposed by his old principal, Rod McElroy, would serve the students at the new school well.
"We learned a lot about respect," he said. "I hope we start out with the same dignity in that complex we started out with in this one."
Larry Grard -- 861-9239
lgrard@centralmaine.com
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