A commencement to remember at Newberg High
Published 10:07 am Monday, June 9, 2025
School’s Class of 2025 goes out in style Friday
The scene: A warm, sunny Friday evening with a steady breeze blowing in from the coast. Thousands of onlookers gather in the stands and on the track surrounding the football field. Notes of melodious music emanate from the school band.
Then, suddenly, the band abandons a particularly sonorous tune and launches into “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1,” a song heard across the region in late May as high schools send their graduates into the world.
Commencement at Newberg High School has begun as the 300-plus seniors, bedecked in vibrant blue gowns with mortar boards sporting golden tassels, file onto Loran Douglas Field for the final gathering of their K-12 careers.
Principal Tami Erion welcomes the 114th graduating class and introduces the officials who will witness a more somber event than in year’s past. She thanks the school district’s administrative team and highlights those school board members in attendance.
Then Erion gets down to business, drawing attention to all those who have had a hand in getting the seniors to the finish line of graduation.
“I want to take this moment to mention all of the teachers, counselors, coaches, mentors, volunteers, administrators and support staff that have guided and encouraged this class through their entire K-12 experience,” she says. “Graduating seniors, during your educational journey, these educators have supported your personal dreams, challenged you to improve and encouraged you to take advantage of your unique strengths.
“I encourage you to reach out to those individuals and remind them of the impact they’ve had on your educational experience. They have helped shape who you are and how you’ve navigated school, life and, more importantly, these past few years.”
Erion also calls on the seniors to pay tribute to their family members, urging them to stand and “recognize them for all they’ve done to help you along the way.”
Assistant Principals Ben Patterson and Ashley Thomas are charged with recognizing the school’s foreign exchange students, who hail from Turkey, Germany, The Netherlands and Albania this year. Honors diploma recipients, National Honor Society members and those receiving the school’s Seal of Biliteracy are also honored, as are those who will join the military or enter the work force or attend vocation and trade schools upon graduation.
As has become custom, the valedictorians and salutatorian turn to a trusted source of inspiration for their speech to their fellow seniors and the audience: Dr. Seuss.
Valedictorian Emma Rathkey invokes the beloved children’s book author: “As Dr. Seuss would tell us: ‘You’ve brains in your heads, you have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.’
“And as we step forward into our coming paths, let us remember that we have the power to forge the future we want. We know how to work hard and how to find people to help us along the way. So to all the seniors of 2025, step with determination into your next chapter. You’re ready for it.”
Angela Stutzman, a veteran of 12 years teaching math at the school, has been tapped by the seniors as the Senior Choice Award winner. As such, she is charged with addressing the seniors, all who signed her gown prior to the ceremony.
“I am very excited to have this gown on my classroom wall to help me remember the Class of ‘25,” she says.
Stutzman is effusive in her praise for those seniors who have reached graduation.
“You are here, you made it,” she says. “Thirteen years of hard work, long nights, early alarms, sports, jobs … It took daily commitment, perseverance and sacrifices to earn the cap and gown you’re wearing tonight.”
However, she urges them to continue to be curious, because “learning never ends.”
“There is no graduation from growth,” Stutzman says. “Life will constantly throw you new variables and, no, there’s not always going to be a calculator that will solve it for you. You see, learning doesn’t stop when you hand in your last final or recycle those last worksheets … It happens when you’re applying for your first job and you have to ask ChatGPT at midnight to write you a resume or your car starts making a weird noise and you have to spend two hours on YouTube trying to figure out how to fix it before you call someone … again.”
“You are going to learn how to budget, the hard way, how to negotiate a lease, how to file taxes without crying and more importantly, you’re going to learn to reframe failure. Not as defeat, but as a messy, vital part of success. Because let’s be real — you’re going to mess up and that’s OK. Let’s normalize failure. Let’s own it.”
Stutzman says that some of her proudest teaching moments didn’t come when a student got a perfect score, but rather when a student “bombed a test or an assembly didn’t go the way they wanted and they came back and asked, ‘What can I do better?’
“That’s leadership. That’s humility. That’s real world application. You try, you mess up, you learn, you recalculate,” she says.
The gritty part of the ceremony follows Stutzman’s talk, the part where a seemingly neverending procession of seniors step onto the stage and shake hands with Superintendent Dave Parker, then stride across the stage as their name is read aloud, accept their diploma and pose for a photo with Erion.
Although this year’s graduation class is smaller than in years past, the awarding of the diplomas continues for roughly 30 minutes before a trio of valedictorians lead their fellow students in the ceremonial turning of the tassels from the right side of their mortar boards to the left, signifying the transition from seniors to graduates.
With that the mortar boards are tossed into the air, as is customary, and the gathered throng files onto the field for congratulatory hugs, some shedding a few tears, as Newberg High School’s Class of 2025 joins the 113 others that have come before them.
