During Williston Northampton School’s 186th Convocation ceremony, Class of 2027 President Sam Dietrich spoke to the student body to mark the start of the school year. Below are his remarks in full. Watch the Convocation ceremony live on our YouTube page, and see photos on our Flickr page.

Thanks Mr. Hill,

Good evening, Williston faculty, students, members of the board of trustees, and everyone else joining us tonight. It is an honor and a pleasure to be standing here in front of you all.

First, I’d like to welcome all of the new students and faculty who arrived on our beautiful campus just last week. You’ve just been welcomed into a place that will challenge you, surprise you, and change you in ways you could never have imagined. And to all of my fellow returning students, welcome back to the place we are lucky to call home.

Before I begin, I want to quickly shout out the people that make this event possible. To the physical plant, Sage Dining, and every other person who has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make sure this event runs smoothly, thank you. To the faculty, for making these first few days of school feel exceptionally easy. To the students, for being your truest selves in this opening week. And finally, to the class of 2027. We have made it to our final year of high school. I believe this deserves a round of applause!

Standing up here today, I can not help but think about my first ever days on the Williston campus, as I am sure many of my fellow classmates are also doing. For a lot of you, your early memories of this school were freshman year orientation, or even for some of you, middle school welcome days. For myself, however, my first days on this campus came when I was 4 years old enrolling in the Williston pre k program located below the dining hall. This is the place where I met 4 year old Jack Choo (point in crowd) and a few years later, Ryan Hanford. The bonds that I built then, and throughout my years here at Williston, are lifelong friendships that I will carry with me the rest of my life, and for all of those, I have nobody to thank but Williston. I am what is casually referred to as a “faculty brat”, which, in short, means that I have been lucky enough to call this campus my home for over 15 years of my life. I have watched generations upon generations of students pass through Williston, and, in just 8 short months, it will be my turn to walk across that stage. Alright, that’s enough backstory about me. You guys aren’t here to listen to my long and eventful Williston story, you’re here to pave your own. So I’m going to do my best to give you all some advice for your year ahead.

As some of you may know, I went through FAI surgery this past summer, which, in short, means that I had an unnecessary bone growth in my hip that needed to be shaved down. Now, the surgery was only 2 hours long, but this surgery was special for me. You see, it was my first ever experience with anesthesia. Now, if you’ve never been put under anesthesia before, it’s definitely an interesting experience to say the least. My Mom took some videos of me as I was waking up, and let’s just say this, none of you will ever see those videos.

The aftermath of the surgery entailed pretty much an entire week of just lying in bed unable to move. On paper, this was the time that I was going to be strictly working on my summer reading assignments and statistics worksheets. While I would love to say that this was the case, I would occasionally, Okay…. regularly become side tracked by social media. Now, you will hear a lot from Mr. Hill this year about the negative side effects of the infinite scroll, and he will bombard you with scary statistics about the dangers of social media, and, while I agree with him to a great extent, I mean, come on I was stuck in bed for a week straight, cut me some slack (put hands up).

So, while I was stuck in one of these long, monotonous, doom scroll sessions, I came upon one of those motivational quote reels that have that intense music playing in the background. (point out to the students) you all know what I’m saying (look over to the faculty and judgmentally say) Maybe not so much over here. Nonetheless, you can understand what I’m getting at.

Now usually I don’t really read these things and just skip over them completely, but one of the quotes stood out to me. The quote read, “Don’t let the good times define you, let the bad ones”. Let me read that to you again, “Don’t let the good times define you, let the bad ones.”

Being the dedicated Williston student that I am, my mind immediately jumped to how this could apply to the year we have ahead of us. Here are some things that went through my head:

Don’t let the times that you ace that English quiz define you, let the times that Mr. Berghoff hammers you with a 60 on that physics test show who you really are. (Yes, we’ve all been there)

Don’t let the times that you score the winning touchdown in the Halloween game against the team down South define you, let the times that you fumble on the 2 yard line show who you really are.

Don’t let the times that you nail that solo part in the winter music concert define you, let the times that you forget your lines on opening night of the play leaving you stranded on stage show who you really are.

I say this because it is in these moments that you learn the most about yourself. It is in these moments that you visit the science resource center the following night to brush up on your laws of motion. It is in these moments that you stay late at practice, working on your ball security. It is in these moments that you lay in bed at night rehearsing your lines over and over again in your head. It is in these moments that you build the skills to succeed.

So that’s it…. That’s my advice to you for the next few months here on campus. Sit in those moments of failure, because that is when you learn the most about yourself.

Thank you.