Salisbury High School 2017 graduation

Published 12:00 am Sunday, June 11, 2017

Salisbury High School — It’s how people recover from failure that makes them who they are, Salisbury High Senior Class President Jacob Mohammad told his classmates Saturday.

Speaking during Saturday’s 2017 graduation ceremony, Mohammad said all of the soon-to-be graduates have the potential for greatness.

“And, unfortunately, tomorrow we enter the big adult world and become adults and do, like, taxes and stuff, I guess,” he said. “But that’s not why I’m here. My message for you, the class of 2017, life will knock you on your butt sometimes. You’re going to fail at some point, but it’s what you do when you fail that makes you the person that you are.”

Mohammad was one of 152 students who graduated from Salisbury High School on Saturday. The Salisbury High School class of 2017 had two salutatorians and one valedictorian. The graduating class of 2017 received $5.4 million in scholarship offers, Salisbury High Principal Luke Brown said.

The salutatorians were Mathias de Comarmond and Isabella Alvarez. The valedictorian was Sharmi Amin.

Several students spoke during graduation. Senior class treasurer Alicia Kincaid summarized the day with just a few words.

“Congrats, y’all. We made it,” Kincaid said.

Amin, the valedictorian, tossed a bit of science into her speech.

“Brains are comprised of billions of interconnected and jumbled up neurons, and every couple of seconds a few million of these neurons link together in a way that represents an idea,” she said.

“Now, see, the amazing thing about ideas is that we’re able to transfer them from person to person, like beautiful and strange little gifts.”

She said teachers had gifted students with the ideas that they needed to get to graduation day.

After Amin’s speech, the Salisbury High School class of 2017 received their diplomas to cheers to shouts from family members in attendance before processing out of the school’s stadium and into a crowd of waiting family members.

— Josh Bergeron