Traditionally clad in Nobles ties dating back more than a century (for boys) and garlands of daisies, bachelor buttons and babies breath (for girls) dating back to 1974 when Nobles went coed, 115 members of the Class of 2010 were graduated Friday. The picture-perfect day brought out digital cameras from many of the 2000 guests seated under a capacious white tent on the Class of ’49 Greene Field in front of the school’s iconic Castle.

Head of School Robert P. Henderson Jr. ’76 P’13 ’16 ’16 reassured the graduates and their parents that “Nobles graduates enter the world with the ability to think clearly and resolutely, to apply an ethical yardstick to all decisions and to assess the evidence at hand to take action in the optimal interest of all.”

He added that a rigorous education is “one that opens the eyes of youth to the world in its complexity, irony and ambiguity.” Closing his riveting talk with advice “From a Children’s Graduation,” an essay by Ned Hallowell, Henderson said: “Our children’s graduation pierces our hearts with the knowledge of how much we love them…how much we will miss them…This is the great gift they give us…to love them more than we love ourselves.”

As is traditional, seniors elected their own speakers, one from the faculty and two from the graduation class. Science teacher Dominic Manzo, in his humor-laced address, warned the students, “How well you bounce back from disappointment is the biggest single predictor of your future happiness.” To this end he encouraged the graduates to remember “This is not the final version of you…Do what you love and [try to] be the person you want to be…” and “Tell people how much they mean to you so you don’t live with regrets…Your friends, your family…don’t take them for granted.”

Kenny Yang and Bob Henderson say goodbye

Student speaker Billy Burchill ran through a litany of ironic episodes in his Nobles career, including the departure of three of his advisors (all for different reasons) within one to two years of his being assigned to them. Marissa Gedman, the other student speaker, said on a more wistful note, paraphrasing the Head of School: “This place will always belong to us but will never be ours again the way it is right now. I want you all to look around and soak up this last fleeting moment we have together because in a few hours we will all head our separate ways into the outside world.”

Student Life Council President Matt Antoszyk combined jocularity and wistfulness by joking that Nobles’ commencement was not a real graduation because no one was wearing mortar boards— which he termed “the offspring of a bathing cap and a floor tile.” Then he suggested that perhaps this was an event for the parents to “congratulate themselves for having made functional people who were able to graduate from high school out of their children.” His wise and thoughtful conclusion: graduation is “for our class, for the combination of these individuals…it’s for our grade to mark the end of our time together.”

The Nobles Class of 2010 is composed of students from 38 towns and three states.

To read the graduation speeches, please click here.

To see a photo gallery of the picture-perfect graduation day, please click here.