A Night of Personal Triumph for 423 Ridge Graduates

With smiles and just a touch of solemnity, 423 Ridge High School seniors took the final step in their high school careers Wednesday evening by accepting the diplomas that officially turned the Class of 2011 into high school graduates.

The commencement ceremony took place in the field behind Ridge High School, where a threatening gray sky held off through the distribution of diploma and speeches by students and Principal Frank Howlett. The personal achievement of each of the students was showcased in front of many hundreds of family members, friends, teachers and school officials who cheered on the graduates.

The looks of jubilation on many of the students' faces made it apparent that graduation was a night for celebration.

"It was fantastic...it's finally real," Chloe Wright said just minutes after receiving her diploma. She said she had gone through the entire school system in Bernards Township, starting in kindergarten. 

Howlett, who said he was at William Annin when the Class of 2011 entered sixth grade, said he always thought of this year's graduates as a "resilient" group of students.

He jokingly recalled that this class of students could remember the "Jersey Circle," when high school students had to take a roundabout route to classes, before the construction of the school's addition.

The first student speaker, class president Ian Eisele, said his graduating class included many "amazing students" who had won championships in multiple arenas and had started charities to help others.

Both the Ridge principal and Eisele recalled a classmate whose memory always remained with the Class of 2011.

Bryan Opremcak, who died of a brain tumor in 2006, "would want us all to remember to take it easy," Eisele said. Opremcak would have been graduating with the Class of 2011 and his parents, Tim and Nancy,

"I watched you bond together when you lost a dear friend in the seventh grade [and] watched as you showed compassion for those less fortunate than you," Howlett said.

Another student speaker, Alyssa Lopez, compared the many chapters of student's lives to the essays they wrote in English classes. 

At graduation, she said, "423 childhood stories come to a close." But she urged her classmates to continue to reread those early chapters. "Tomorrow you will start writing part two—just don't forget to prewrite," she said.

Speaker Katelyn Stover noted, "This is probably the last time we will all be together in alphabetical order."

The crowd rushed onto the field after the ceremony ended. But students were invited later in the night to a traditional all-night get-together that provides a celebration for each graduating class as an alternative to drinking and other substance abuse.

Additional photos and video from graduation night will be available on the Basking Ridge Patch.