By Rod Hansen
Staff Writer

Russell Durgin

The military death of a recent graduate in Afghanistan lent an air of sadness to the John Stark Regional High School graduation on Saturday, June 17.

Army Sgt. Russell Durgin, a 2001 John Stark graduate, died only four days earlier in Korengel, Afghanistan, when his unit took small arms fire, according to a Department of Defense press release.

Remembrances of Durgin, 23, of Henniker, played a major part of the ceremonies. The 153 graduating seniors who filed into the Lee Clement Arena at New England College heard many words about the former student throughout the morning.

“We remember Russell Durgin for his smile and his personality,” said Principal Arthur Aaronson, praising Durgin as a founding member of the school’s lacrosse team and for his service in the military.

“This is a bittersweet time at John Stark High School,” Aaronson said.

The crowd inside the arena held a moment of silence in Durgin’s honor.

The senior class gift this year will go toward funding a memorial to Durgin near the school’s athletic facilities, said senior class executive councilors Randy Russell and Lauren St. Pierre.

Aaronson reflected on the many challenges facing the 2006 graduates.

“How can we be sure that Martin Luther King’s dream won’t turn into a nightmare?” Aaronson asked. “With education, reason will prevail over ignorance … there is no problem the human brain cannot solve,” he said.

Valedictorian Kristina Brown began her address by noting an acquaintance had wondered if the world would end on June 6, 2006, the date known as “6-6-6.”

“The world didn’t end, and we’re all still here,” Brown said. “So what do we do now?”

Brown said the graduates now have a responsibility to make their own choices in life, for good or for ill.

“We won’t always make the right choices, but sometimes it’s from making the wrong choices that we learn the most,” she said.

The ceremony turned lighthearted when commencement speaker Gary Bouchard, a professor of English at Saint Anselm College, took the podium.

“You’ve survived freshman adjustment, sophomore slump, senioritis, your first date, your first time behind the wheel, and your first time in traffic court. And you’ve made it.

“I’m talking to mom and dad,” Bouchard said, to the laughter of parents, as well as students.

Bouchard concluded his speech with a poem, reflecting on the experiences of the millennium-era students.

His remarks recalled the headlines that had affected students through their formative years.

“You learned about sex from the news on TV, and how exciting work at the White House could be,” read one couplet.

“Lo, that terrible bright September day, when even your teachers did not know what to say,” ran another, more somber, verse.

It was a final couplet, tacked onto the poem in light of recent events, that may have best summed of the feeling of this year’s graduation.

“The life of Russell Durgin, Class of ’01, speaks louder than anything I’ve ever done,” Bouchard said.