SAYBROOK TOWNSHIP – Lillianna Mather remembers sharing classrooms, lunch tables, school dances, sporting events, inside jokes, and significant memories with her classmates at Saint John School.
On the evening of Friday, May 22, she shared something else with them – the graduation stage.
She and the 37 other members of the Class of 2026 said farewell to their days at Saint John School and hello to their futures during commencement exercises.
Mather, who was co-valedictorian with Jacob Hobe, said it was hard to believe how far the Class has all come together.
“A lot of us have actually known each other since our kindergarten days,” she said. “We grew up together, learned together, and somehow survived every awkward stage of life together. We’ve spent years watching each other grow from little kids into the young adults sitting here today.”
Sister Maureen Burke, president of Saint John School, provided some remarks at the beginning of the evening.
With the 250th anniversary of the United States, she spoke on freedom, telling the Class members that freedom is not merely doing what everyone wants, but choosing what is right, good and loving.
“As Christians, we know authority without virtue quickly loses its direction,” she said.
She said the world needs the Class of 2026 to lead with honesty, empathy, responsibility, authenticity, integrity, compassion and courage.
Saint John School Assistant Principal Millicent Zullo shared some complimentary remarks about the Class of 2026.
“The Class overall is extremely special,” she said, when asked for comment. “Many of them have been here pre-K all the way up to 12th grade, so they really have a special bond.”
She said the members of the Class have big goals and dreams. Some are pursuing higher education while a couple are going into the military.
She noted their various qualities.
“They have teamwork, they have loyalty, they have friendship, and they’re extremely kind and giving,” she said.
Zullo recalled how in sixth grade, the students had to deal with the COVID 19 pandemic.
They had been taught to come together, but then they all had to go home and be separated because of the pandemic, she said.
“So, they had to kind of learn again how to come together as a group,” she said. “They’ve really come full circle, I think, and they’ve really come together to really be very special to us here.”
In her speech, Mather also acknowledged the COVID pandemic.
“Unfortunately for us, right in the beginning of those crucial years, COVID changed everything,” she recalled of the graduates’ middle school days.
“Suddenly, classrooms turned into Zoom calls, face masks hid our insecurities and we sat behind plexiglass desk shields and told it was ‘progress,’ even though we felt like we were moving backward pretending any of it was normal,” she said. “We were supposed to be learning how to socialize while at the same time being told to stay six feet apart from each other. Looking at us now, I don’t think anyone would believe we ever struggled socially, because this may genuinely be one of the loudest classes Saint John School has ever seen.”
The years during the pandemic may have been difficult ones, but she said they taught the Class of 2026 the importance of how to adapt.
“We learned how to keep moving forward even when life doesn’t go the way we expected,” she recalled. “We learned resilience before we even realized that’s what it was. And through all the uncertainty, we still found ways to laugh, support each other, and make lasting memories together.”
Standing on stage, she said, reminded her of how strong the Class of 2026 really is.
“We faced challenges none of us expected, yet we still made it here together,” she said. “We learned that success isn’t about doing good when everything is going perfectly — it’s about continuing to move forward in a positive manner even when things are most difficult.”
She noted that the graduates were all heading in different directions.
“Some of us are going to college, some are starting their military or professional careers, and some are still figuring things out — and that’s okay,” she said. “Life doesn’t come with a detailed roadmap or an operator’s manual. What matters most is that we continue to grow, learn from our mistakes, and keep believing in ourselves along the way.”
But she said no matter where life takes the Class of 2026 next, she hoped that they remember the friendships they built, the memories they made, and the resilience they learned inside the walls at Saint John School.
“The Class of 2026 is more than just an ordinary graduating class — we’re a group of extraordinary people who learned how to adapt, support each other, and kept moving forward no matter what challenges came our way,” she said. “Class of 2026, you’ve already overcome more than we probably realize. If we can make it through all of that together, then there’s no limit to what we can accomplish next.”
She thanked families and friends for their support, and gave out a special thank you to Principal Scott Plescia, Assistant Principal Millicent Zullo and Sister Maureen Burke, president of Saint John School, for everything they’ve done for the Class. She also thanked the teachers, guidance counselors, and staff for helping the Class reach the moment of graduation.
“You pushed us to do better, believed in us even when we doubted ourselves, and helped shape us into the young adults we are today,” she said.
In his speech, Hobe offered a unique perspective by showing what it would be like if all the school years of the Class had been fit into one day.
“If you were to shove our entire time here from the first day of kindergarten to tonight into 24 hours, each school day would be about two-thirds of a second long and each school year would be about an hour and 50 minutes,” he said.
His compressed clock began at “Midnight,” when they, as kindergartners, learned “the foundational skills to live throughout the day.”
At 1:50 on his compressed clock, they moved onto first grade with Mrs. Jepson, “where every day we would see a caterpillar grow, just as we were growing.”
By 3:40 on this timeline, he said, they had grown so large as a class that they now needed two teachers to contain all of their joy.
“During second grade is when we became aware of the clock on all of the walls, ticking away,” he said. “It was a symbol of how much time we had left until our next activity or class.”
At 5:30 on the compressed timeline he presented, he said the class started to wake up.
“Many of our personalities and groups became less fleeting,” he said. “Mrs. Holler spent her one hour and 50 minutes making sure everyone was ready for fourth grade, which was going to be a step up!”
By the time “7:40” rolled around, he said, the Class members were all fully awake, largely in part to Mrs. Dunn, who he said taught them both about similes and metaphors and the need for a healthy student-teacher relationship.
“Starting at 9:30, our fifth-grade year, we were taught how to work together with more group projects than I can remember,” Hobe said. “We were taught how to present ourselves as well, and without these skills I don’t know where we would be today.”
His compressed timeline also took in the COVID pandemic.
“Then 11:20 rolled around, our sixth-grade year,” he said. “It was a crazy one. Around 12:08 we realized something was happening and about a minute later we were learning remotely.”
He noted that the 90 minutes of remote learning they had to do was, for many of them, the longest 90 minutes there, but they persevered.
“Let’s skip to 5:40 p.m., the start of high school,” he continued. “High school is meant to prepare for college and for many aspects of life, and the best way to do that is to make us ask questions. We began to ask questions about our faith and what it meant to be a student.”
At “7:30 p.m.,” he said it was tenth grade.
“It was a messy year for sure,” he said. “Algebra 2 was complicated by any definition of the word and we suffered a loss of our teacher and friend Miss Ackley. She had been our teacher for six hours and taught us much about faith and reason; nearly all of her lessons are applicable today.”
On the compressed timeline he presented, Hobe said “8:20 p.m.” began their junior year.
“During this time, we became most of who we are today,” he said. “We mastered the art of being ourselves and focused nearly entirely on the future. 10:10 was the start of our senior year, in this hypothetical. This year we have both embraced every moment and spent all of our time staring at what is to come.”
He said that Class has “grown a bit” from second grade and now knows that the ticking of the clock on the wall isn’t to signal how much longer they have until their next class or activity, but is to show “how far we have come from midnight, and to show how much we have truly grown as a class.”
During their last seconds at Saint John School, he said, the members of the Class have been preparing themselves for the future.
“We have been keeping each other on track for tonight, as we prepare for our clock to strike midnight,” he said. “To my fellow classmates of 2026, congratulations to everything we have accomplished today.”
