Eagle Valley High School graduates celebrate growth as they embrace the future with confidence

Eagle Valley High School graduated its Class of 2025 Saturday in a ceremony that remembered students’ tumultuous entrance to the school, praised their growth and accomplishments, and bestowed them with many words of advice for the future.

Seated under a blue sky in Gypsum’s Hot Stuff Stadium, the 226 graduating Devils were surrounded by an audience of their family members, friends and supporters, who carried gifts, flowers and balloons. They made their presence known with cowbells, airhorns and applause as students received their diplomas.

The graduation ceremony was a “celebration of achievement, growth and perseverance,” said Thomas LaFramboise, Eagle Valley High School’s principal.

“To the Class of 2025: This moment is yours. You’ve worked hard for it, you’ve earned it. Despite all the distractions, detours and, yes, a few detentions, you have made it to the stage,” LaFramboise said. “These four years were about more than passing tests or turning in assignments. They were about becoming more confident, more aware, more resilient. While your journey at Eagle Valley High School ends here today, the foundation built goes with you.”

Salutatorian Ben Vito walked the crowd down memory lane as he reflected on the moments that made the last four years unique.

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“Though my years at Eagle Valley have been marked by academic success, I see almost everything except that when I look back,” Vito said. “I see all of the homecoming and prom dances, the many trips to Rocky Mountain Taco for lunch, the weekends spent on the mountain, the meals at Freddy’s after golf tournaments, the long nights practicing with the pit band, the football team finally being good, the parking jobs in the school’s lots so bad that I had to take a picture, the late night Taco Bell runs and the early morning bus rides. The point is that academics are far from what define us. Our passions, the way we treat others and our goals for the future will dictate our success and create memories that we won’t forget.”

The academics that students work so hard for during high school can serve as “a reminder of what we’ve already accomplished and what we’re capable of accomplishing in the future,” Vito said.

Valedictorian Fabian Acosta earned not only the highest grade point average of Eagle Valley High School’s senior class, but also the highest grade point average of this year’s associate’s degree earners at Colorado Mountain College.

As they move from high school into the world, Acosta advised the senior class to “stand strong and be patient.”

“We are constantly told to go faster, graduate earlier, get a degree, get a job and do something successful until we retire or die,” Acosta said. “But real success and goal achieving, try as you might, is not built in one day. It’s built in the slow, minuscule decisions you make.”

Audrey Tatro, student council president, stepped on the stage with LaFramboise to deliver a joint address that commemorated the Class of 2025’s journey through high school, from their freshman year of stealing soap dispensers for a TikTok trend through their senior year, when the students became leaders and examples for the rest of the school.

The Class of 2025 raised the school’s average SAT score above the state and national average, restarted the school’s chapter of the National Honor Society, excelled in athletics, built up the only high school rugby team in the valley and raised over $100,000 for Make-A-Wish Colorado, granting 18 wishes for children with critical illnesses. The seniors led school spirit drives that “reminded everyone what it means to be a devil,” LaFramboise said.

“After all the hard work, we are finally here and ready to graduate,” Tatro said. “Not just because we passed all our classes, but because we grew into stronger and smarter people.”

Tatro emphasized the importance of taking on challenging tasks. “The beauty of doing something difficult isn’t the end result, it’s knowing that you didn’t take the easy way out,” Tatro said. “You showed up when it would have been easier to stay home, you pushed through late nights and tough classes, you persevered, you adapted.”

“As you head out into the world, remember that hard doesn’t mean impossible, it means worthwhile,” Tatro said. “If the path ahead gets tough, good. It means you’re doing something meaningful.”

The Class of 2025 selected Social Studies Teacher James Kirschner to deliver the faculty address. Kirschner began his career as a teacher when the seniors were freshmen, he recalled, sticking by him as he worked through how to bring a lesson to life with laughter, curiosity and honesty. “I owe you guys in a way that you will never understand until you experience those same first few shaky years of your own career,” he said.

Kirschner spoke about serendipity, impermanence and building a fulfilling life by adopting meaningful cultural values. He instructed the students to choose one or more cultural values with which to align themselves.

“This is the creative expression of your life and the whole point of free will. Every action, thought and choice you will make from here on out is going to contribute in one way or another to the idea of you, and will play some role in how you are remembered,” Kirschner said. 

Kirschner reminded the students that while building the values that make up a life may seem daunting, they have already started the task during their time at Eagle Valley High School.

“You have already contributed to the preservation of the cultural values represented by this school — community, critical thinking, curiosity — and you have taken your first steps as your own cultural heroes,” he said. “This is the case because there will be a small part of your symbolic selves imprinted upon every student I teach moving forward.”

As the students take leave of Eagle Valley High School, they will carry with them the friendships, the knowledge, the joy and the work ethic they cultivated over the last four years.

“To the administrators, teachers and families: Thanks for giving us life. To the Class of 2025: Let’s go live it,” Vito said.