RUMFORD — Tears flowed, but most of the 93 seniors at the Mountain Valley High School graduation Thursday night were all smiles as they marched to the podium.

“It feels great to be graduated,” Michael Lake of Rumford said. “I’m going to Job Corps in Limestone to learn culinary arts and truck driving.”

Before the ceremony in the packed school gymnasium, Nick Pierce of Roxbury and Brooke Dolloff of Rumford were holding hands and talking about the night ahead.

“It hasn’t hit me yet,” Dolloff said of soon becoming a high school graduate.

Pierce agreed.

He will attend White Mountain Community College to study welding and she will go to Lyndon State College to major in graphic arts in the fall.

The blue-robed students followed the directions of class marshals Elizabeth Adley and Nathan Fitzpatrick. Each student marched to the traditional “Pomp and Circumstance.”

Honors students wore yellow sashes; the top 10 wore white ones.

Many expressed their individuality with their footwear. There were black socks and sandals, winter boots, work boots, ballerina shoes, sandals and flip-flops.

Some mortarboards had a message or decorations.

MVHS Principal Matt Gilbert said the Class of 2013 was truly unique.

It is also among the smaller classes in recent years.

Class President Jeremie DeTellis used Apple creator Steve Jobs and Maine Gov. Paul LePage as examples of great things that can be done by people, despite less than stellar beginnings.

He said Jobs was last in his high school class, had gotten into trouble several times, then dropped out of college.

“All of our lives have been changed by that one man,” DeTellis said of Jobs and his company’s technological creations. 

“The governor overcame great obstacles. He reminds me of how great our state is,” he said.

DeTellis also said that although money and resources may be limited, opportunities are not.

“Everyone here today could become governor. Your opportunities are never defined by your past,” he said. “Never attempt to devalue or marginalize human value.”

The MVHS Band performed the processional and recessional. The graduates sang their class song, “See You When I See You,” a cappella.

After the ceremony, most of the graduates boarded on a bus and headed to the Boothbay YMCA for a night of music, food and games.