Pittsfield High graduates toss their caps on Sunday.

The graduates turn their tassels after receiving their diplomas on Sunday. See more photos here. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — For the second year in a row, Pittsfield High School seniors gathered on the back lawn under the dome to bid farewell to that chapter of their lives.

Class President Kayden Lovallo acknowledged the eclectic nature of the 184-student class of 2022 that shared an overarching value: pride for their school.

"We are a collective of artists, musicians, athletes, mathematicians, scientists, and so on. All very different, but connected by a current of pride for our school," Lovallo said to her peers during commencement on Sunday.

"I have never known a group of people more passionate about their interests and just as compassionate about each other's. And it's made for some remarkable moments."

The ceremony included musical performances from the school's band, chorus, and orchestra and a rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" by Alexa Hilts. The string performance marked conductor Alla Zernitskaya's last with the students, as she is retiring after almost 30 years in the Pittsfield Public Schools.

Principal Henry Duval, who is also retiring, explained that PHS was built at the height of the Great Depression because citizens wanted their children to get a good education in a state-of-the-art building no matter how bad the economy was.

"Ninety years later, I cannot honestly say that as a physical building PHS, would still be considered state of the art any longer," he joked.

Duval pointed to the school's issues with heating, flooding, and the public's unfounded concerns that the ivy on the front of the building is destroying it. Quirks aside, he said physical aspects do make a school, it's the people inside that do.

"Each day when you walk up the same front steps as the students in the fall of 1931 when PHS was opened, you walk the same halls, imagine the stories those walls could tell that they could speak, all that has happened within these walls over 90 years," Duval added.

"And over the past four years, all of you have contributed to that story. You have become part of PHS and PHS has become part of you. The memories will stay with you forever. It is in the building that many of you have met friends that will last your lifetime. You've had teachers and staff that you will always remember for they have guided and supported you for these four years,"

He closed by saying that the PHS dome is a beacon for both the school and the city of Pittsfield.

Class speaker Ethan Callahan highlighted the strain that the COVID-19 pandemic put on the class of 2022's high school experience and the relief of returning to "normal." The pandemic began in March of the students' sophomore year.

"Stomp stomp stomp. Is that an elephant? In this room? Oh, it's the COVID pandemic," Callahan said.

Callahan went on to describe the awkward experience of virtual theater class, falling asleep during a Zoom meeting, and the horror of realizing that your microphone is not muted when talking to yourself during virtual gym class.

"Then, in late April, we were able to put on our spring musical, Pippin, with free faces. We were able to sing without masks. We were able to act with our full expressions. I was able to put on a performance without COVID-related regrets. It was satisfying," they said.

"While for much of the senior class, this may have been an extremely stressful year, rushing to finish college applications, attempting to find a job, and scrambling to figure out what you actually want to do for the rest of your life, we can now fondly end with a year as close as possible to the 'normal'' we hadn't seen in years. We are together again, in a way we hadn't been during Zoom calls, ed puzzles, foreheads on camera, and accidentally unmuted microphones ...

"PHS is a community again. For real."

Student Council President Molly Sherman shared that she failed her first geometry test at the school as a freshman but was able to retake the test and pass. She learned how to evaluate mistakes and move on from them at that moment and it stuck through the rest of her high school career.

"It took four years to get here, four long years of firsts and lasts plenty of triumphs and failures, beginnings and ends but within all of those endeavors is a never-ending stream of in-betweens," Sherman said.

"The lessons we've learned in the classroom at PHS will be forever ingrained in our minds. The moments and lessons in between each of those will last a lifetime. Those moments and lessons will follow us from our past to our future and everywhere."

Sherman and fellow graduate Madison Crouse were the emcees of the graduation. The two conducted their announcements in the same way they conducted the morning announcements at the school.

During the ceremony, Superintendent Joseph Curtis presented the Karl Boyer McEachron Award to Sydney Ferris.  

The award is given annually to a graduating high school senior from PHS or Taconic High School in recognition of outstanding academic achievement, community and extracurricular involvement, dedicated work ethics, and an express preference for making engineering or science a lifetime career.  

It consists of a plaque and a scholarship, which was $1,000 this year.

PHS Class of 2022 Awards and Scholarships

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