Westminster High celebrates graduation Thursday afternoon

Principal Katie Nefflen told the 344 graduates in the Westminster High School Class of 2024 that they helped to breathe life back into the school following the pandemic. Members of this year’s graduating class were freshmen in fall 2020.

“You helped to bring Westminster and its traditions back to life,” Nefflen told graduates Thursday during a commencement ceremony at McDaniel College’s Gill Center. “Every day you embraced and lived our motto: ‘We are Westminster, and we are one.’ Thank you for storming back to school and showing the world that adversity only makes you stronger.”

Class President Kate McAlonan, National Honor Society President Michael Fronheiser and Key Club President Leah Chennat each delivered an address at the ceremony.

McAlonan said the bonds that graduates have with family and friends lead to success.

“As we stand here today, we should take a moment to appreciate these relationships,” McAlonan said. “The connections we have formed are not just memories of our past but will influence who we become in the future. We are one, forever.”

Fronheiser said the members of the class are ready to become leaders who create a brighter future.

“Graduates, our time together has come to an end. After today, our futures will diverge. It is on us to take the lessons we have learned and live them out,” Fronheiser said. “All of you have the skills and talents to cut out a place in life and succeed, so get out there and make your lives extraordinary.”

Chennat’s speech highlighted the atypical nature of high school amid a global pandemic and emphasized the important of kindness.

“If you remember nothing else, I’d like to leave you all with this: positions and titles will be forgotten, but the way we treat each other will be remembered. Let us be kind to those who have brought us to this very moment, to those that joined the ride midway, and those that will be a part of our forever futures,” Chennat said.

Of Westminster High’s Class of 2024, about 49% will attend four-year colleges, 23% will attend two-year colleges, 10% will join the workforce, 5% will attend trade school, 5% will join the military, 4% will take a gap year and 1% will begin apprenticeships, according to Erin Williams, the school’s counseling office secretary.

More than 41% of the class, 142 seniors, completed a career program while in high school. Graduates were also dual enrolled in a total of 791 community college courses and took 262 Advanced Placement tests for college credit.

Seventeen of the graduates earned an A in every class they took in high school.

The class logged more than 55,364 service hours over the course of their high school careers, with 30 students each accumulating more than 300 hours. Bryson Allen Byrd served more than 5,167 hours, the most in the cohort. Makenna Catherine Steele logged 2,045 service hours, the second highest among the class.