Saturday night was graduation at the Verizon Center in Manchester. It was an evening affair, starting at 1800. As class president, Melissa was one of the speakers. She delivered a well-done speech that focused on the accomplishments and uniqueness of the class of 2008 at Nashua North High School. When the new high school was built, Nashua changed from a three grade, single high school to two schools with four grades each. Melissa’s class thus became the first freshman class. It was a different experience for students and faculty alike as they learned how to deal with 9th graders for the first time. The class suffered through a lengthy teachers’ contract dispute that curtailed some extra-curricular activities for a while. They survived and went on to significant achievements. Melissa was the only student speaker who slowed her delivery enough to accommodate the acoustics of a large arena and was easily understandable. The others didn’t and weren’t. As you can imagine we are very proud of that young lady and her accomplishments. Her father insists that her first grade teacher, during a parent-teacher conference, predicted that Melissa would be president of her senior class. When we are in Colorado Springs in September, I’ll try to find Mrs. Olson and tell her that she was right. After the ceremony, we took the requisite pictures and adjourned to an Olive Garden.