LEWISTON — Members of the Leavitt Area High School class of 2023 gathered for the last time Sunday afternoon as high school students.

Leavitt Area High School graduate Logan Ouellette wears the medals he earned in track and Nordic skiing to his graduation ceremony Sunday at The Colisée in Lewiston. Ouellette plans to continue running track and cross-country at the University of Maine. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

The 121 seniors, along with family members and friends, assembled at The Colisée in Lewiston, with many of the students using the time before their graduation ceremony to talk, laugh and take selfies or group photographs.

LAHS seniors are allowed to choose with whom they march, so it was no surprise to teachers Jessica Talbot and Rachel Madison that their respective daughters Iris Petrin, the salutatorian, and Mayla Madison decided to walk together into the unknown of post-high school life.

The two graduates were destined to be friends, both said, because their mothers teach across the hall from each other at LAHS and have been friends for years.

Iris and Mayla said their friendly relationship formed when they were children going to different elementary schools. It would develop into the strong friendship that has carried them into and through high school and across the stage Sunday to receive their diplomas.

“It really is a bittersweet thing,” Petrin said. “I’m in that stage where I’m excited for the next thing, but mostly sad. Mayla is one of my best friends, and we’ve known each other forever.”

Abigail Connelly touched on fear in her honor essay, drawing the conclusion that facing fear is not a solitary endeavor and that there will always be someone to help and support you when the difficult things need tending.

Emily Allen expanded in her honor oration, acknowledging the limits and the huge potential people possess.

“Though our lives are short and insignificant on the cosmic scale, it is incredible that we are able to live them at all,” Allen said. “We have all been served a silver platter of the marrow of life, and we must appreciate this, instead of succumbing to the gnawing idea that we have lost an infinite thing.”

Valedictorian Austin Poulin took the stage for his address before seniors would officially become graduates, collecting their diplomas from Superintendent Cari Medd. Poulin said the last days of his senior year were spent in reflection. He would exchange “daily debriefs” with friends, using the “Five Ws” — who, what, where, when and why — to boil down the day’s happenings.

“Who? We have gone through so many different versions of ourselves over the last four years,” Poulin said, then challenging his classmates to “go out and find people who make you the best version of yourselves.”