LEWISTON — Leavitt Area High School awarded diplomas Sunday to 126 seniors at the school’s 125th graduation ceremony.

Members of the class of 2024 and their family members and friends filled much of The Colisée in Lewiston.

Among the event’s speakers, LAHS Principal Eben Shaw encouraged the graduates to strive for kindness, service, compassion, generosity, perseverance, honesty, determination and enthusiasm.

Shaw said the admirable qualities possessed by many of the graduating seniors were confirmed in a surprise text message after the last marching practice at The Colisée. While staggering practices with Lewiston High School, one of the hockey rink’s employees told Shaw that LAHS students showed a surprising level of esteem as they moved about the facility at 190 Birch St.

The employee said: “The kids were respectful, pleasant and all well-behaved. I could not believe (it). It was so nice to see.”

“It was beautiful,” Shaw said. “This was an unbiased, unsolicited third-party confirming what I had known.”

Valedictorian Gabriel Durazo and salutatorian Tamara Rusakovich further affirmed Shaw’s impressions of many LAHS graduates through their addresses to classmates and attendees, as did Samantha Dublois and Sydney Bullard with their honor essay and honor oration, respectively.

Durazo, the first in his family educated beyond 10th grade, said with hardships on both sides of his family, it is remarkable he has gotten as far as he has. He said his history with a number of unsupportive teachers makes his successes more extraordinary.

“No one believed in me, no one cared,” Durazo said. “Of course, I had aspirations as a kid to be successful, but it seemed like my destiny was already set in stone, and no matter what I did, I was stuck with my family’s curse.”

Durazo thanked his mother for making many sacrifices for him, and said he appreciated his stepfather, Cory, “for those long nights going over my grades and being the stepdad who stepped in when the other guy couldn’t.”

“I ask of you to break past the glass ceiling,” Durazo said to his class. “Break the statistics, challenge the plausible and build your own story. Does it seem impossible? That’s what my third grade teacher would’ve said about me being here today, so prove the world wrong and be improbable.”

Rusakovich touched on the tendency some have to fear change.

“Beyond the walls of the Leavitt building, not many things will be familiar to you anymore,” she said. “This open, unfamiliar sea that we may all face gives us these two choices: To step forward into change or to step backward into the safety of this box.

“As someone who stepped backward into safety, I truly advise you to step forward no matter who you are. Find yourself, find comfort in the unfamiliar and, most of all, embrace this new change, all while making the biggest change you possibly can.”