This year’s 17 graduates of Haines High School are going on to big things.

There are a host of biologists, a fisherman, a heli-ski guide, an engineer, and a nearly officially certified nurse. Another hopes to become a composer of video game and movie scores. Some plan to explore or become expert tradesmen. 

But at their graduation Tuesday night, the class focused on little things — 18 years of little things that had gotten them to that point, as co-valedictorian Maddox Rogers put it. 

Rogers, who is headed overseas for college, said in his speech that it was the “small rituals” of the place he finds himself already missing: “cool summer evenings at the cruise ship dock,” ferry rides, drives to 33 Mile, seeing friends at the post office. 

Co-valedictorian JC Davis, in his speech, too, talked about the specifics of the place: a day fishing in Boat Harbor with his father, music teacher Matt Davis — or just “Davis” as his students call him, and as the younger Davis referred to him in his speech — who looked on from his post at the piano on the gym floor. 

Now, much of that routine will change, Rogers said, also pointing to the “hard parts” of his hometown: “sometimes you just want to go to a mall, or the cinema, or Taco Bell.” Many of the graduates, set to leave town for some amount of time, will do just that. 

But even so, added Rogers, graduates “will miss this place. Because amidst everything, in spite of a largely cynical world, we managed to have fun.”

As the graduates move on, they’ll do so with a “recommendation” from retiring technology teacher Sam McPhetres.

McPhetres, the class’s graduation speaker, was introduced at the ceremony by class salutatorian Isabelle Alamillo. McPhetres delivered his speech in the form of a teacher’s letter of recommendation, but this time for every member of the class. 

Included were more traditional recognitions: basketball and wrestling championships and awards for the arts, all of which got big applause from the gathered audience in the gym. 

But much of McPhetres’ speech, like Rogers’ and Davis’, focused on things perhaps harder for those not in the graduating class to have seen. 

That included students pursuing careers alongside full school workloads, and Kruze Nettleton pulling a Coca Cola truck out of the snow somewhere along the highway this winter. 

“I didn’t know if it was a Coca Cola commercial or a Dodge commercial,” McPhetres joked, referring to a video of the ordeal. 

Many of the quieter accomplishments McPhetres noted will be lasting: he highlighted a formline wrench designed by graduate MJ Hotch that he said “will be the shop logo for years to come.” 

Or a trio of students, Hotch, Ruby Martin and Ava Graham, who years ago “hatched a plan to create a formline yearbook,” he said. 

With artist James Hart, and Lingít translation help from Marcia Hotch, Aubrey Katzeek and Lance Twitchell, the group executed their vision, along with designs for the gym and graduation booklet for Tuesday night’s ceremony. 

After the speeches, graduates, family and friends paraded up Main Street, over the crest of the hill down toward the harbor, ending the graduation ceremony. 

“We’ve had 18 years of learning and traveling and pretending we know what we’re doing,” said Rogers. “And now that we’ve finally graduated, we can keep learning and traveling and pretending we know what we’re doing.”