Baldwin’s top two look ahead

Baldwin High School’s class of 2014 has a crop of young adults who are primed for success. And while many graduates will be attending prestigious colleges and universities this fall, Bryan Saggese and Richard Henry came out on top of the academic rankings.

Saggese, 17, found out he would be the class valedictorian last October, when Principal Susan Knors announced the school’s top 10 seniors. At that same moment, the 17-year-old Henry learned that he had been named salutatorian.

Saggese, with his weighted average of 118.93 (unweighted 95.6), was in his ninth-period senior internship class when Knors’s voice weighted 118.5 average (unweighted 95.5), was in his government class.

After all of his years of hard work, when Henry found out he was the second-ranked senior, it felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, he recalled. “When I finally heard my name, it was just relief,” he said.

When Saggese’s name was called last and he was confirmed as the school’s valedictorian, there was an uproar around him. “I heard everyone around me cheering my name,” he recounted.

The two will head to major universities in the fall — Saggese to Cornell, where he will study computer science, and Henry to Princeton, where he tentatively plans to focus on the same area of study, but has not ruled out chemical engineering as an alternative. Before they move on, however, they will accept their high school diplomas on Friday and address their classmates, family members and educators at graduation.

When the Herald sat down with Saggese and Henry last week, their speeches had been written, and all that was left to do were some revisions and work on their deliveries. Saggese said he was a bit nervous, because he has never spoken in front of hundreds of people before, while Henry said he was looking forward to giving his speech, and hoped it would resonate with his classmates.