Hats off: East Meadow celebrates class of ‘22

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On a bright and warm Sunday, the fields of East Meadow and W.T. Clarke High Schools were packed with friends and family celebrating the graduating class of 2022. Students in blue and maroon, for their respective high schools, waited excitedly for their name to be called so they could walk across the stage.
June 26 will be the day East Meadow students remember as the day they became alumni. Classes heard from their administrators, valedictorians and salutatorians—Brendan Wanatick and Jennifer Chan for EMHS and Nicholas Espinosa and Katherene Qi for Clarke.
Wanatick reminded his classmates that they are in control of their lives. “However, hopefully, we’ll still retain the values that we established here in East Meadow. No values may be more important than that of goodness and morality,” he said.
“Not every question will have an answer, but the key is to ask,” Chan said to her peers. “Question everything and don’t be afraid to be wrong.”
Espinosa urged his classmates to get involved in something that they found interesting. “To my fellow classmates, as we enter adulthood, we cannot sit idly,” Espinosa said to his peers. “Remember that the large-scale issues that we see on the news are not the only problems that need to be solved. I urge you to find a cause about which you are most passionate.”
“You are brilliant and unique, so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise,” Qi said at the graduation. “You cannot let anyone tell you how to live your life. Live to be what you want.”