North Salem's valedictorian and salutatorian share words of wisdom at graduation

NORTH SALEM, N.Y. - On June 16, North Salem High School bid farewell to the Class of 2025 at the commencement ceremony held at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in Katonah. 

Before the graduates flipped their tassels, they heard remarks from valedictorian Christina Sfarra and salutatorian Luke Dundon, who offered their wisdom and advice as their peers prepared to take the next step into their futures.

VALEDICTORIAN - CHRISTINA SFARRA 

Good evening faculty, friends, families and most importantly, the North Salem graduating Class of 2025. My name is Christina and I am so incredibly honored to be standing here today as your Valedictorian.

To start, I am not so new to North Salem graduations, in fact, I have sat with the band for the past three years, playing my trumpet during each ceremony. Every year, I would look forward to the Valedictorian speech, daydreaming about my goal: one day being on that stage giving that speech. In actuality, that has been a goal of mine since around the seventh grade, nevertheless, I am so proud to say that day has finally come.

Now, I believe the hardest part of this goal other than reaching it of course, was determining what I wanted to say to all of you; what was so important to me that I also felt you should all understand before closing this chapter of our lives and leaving to conquer the future. I know this is the part where I am supposed to give an incredibly wise, all knowing speech, but instead I want to be real with you. And in that, I decided to tell you a story about my journey to today, and maybe, you each can take something uniquely meaningful from it, something you can keep with you throughout college, work, or simply the future.

My story began in Kindergarten where I learned that I loved learning. Unfortunately this came in the form of asking the teacher for homework. However, it began my journey to today. In second grade, I became obsessed with outer space, pledging one day to become an astrophysicist. Yet after feeling as though that was too different to other people's future aspirations, I abandoned that idea and decided on becoming a doctor instead.

My love of learning followed me through middle school, yet that was when I began to feel out of place. What set me apart, more than anything, was that I tried. I really tried in school. I cared deeply about my grades. I studied for hours and raised my hand even when it made me stand out. I had goals, and worked towards them every day. Sometimes that made me feel like an outsider, largely due to the pressure everyone feels to fit in.

I know the pressure I began to feel in middle school occurred to everyone in different forms, the pressure regarding what to wear, to post, to act, and sometimes, who to be. And sadly, these pressuring voices sometimes can drown out your own.

In high school, my effort was oftentimes misunderstood. Instead of seeing my passion or my goals, many saw someone who was "too serious" or "trying too hard," not because they were right but because they didn't take time to know me, to understand who I was as an individual. We are so quick to jump to conclusions about others and even quicker to take what they say to heart. Everyone is carrying something unseen, like memories, struggles, hopes, and goals, that never show on the surface. When you make conclusions about others, you overlook the depth of their experiences and reduce them to simple labels, most times, without even knowing them. You never know what your words have the potential to do to someone, a single comment can encourage or wound, uplift or unravel someone. In a world where so many people are carrying something silently, whether it be a struggle or a goal, kindness costs nothing but can potentially mean everything.

And to those who take others' words to heart, I want to say that you are not responsible for how others choose to see you. Do not only take time to do things you enjoy, but be confident about your passions, live for yourself, not for the approval of others. Just because you feel that you do not fit in with everyone else does not make you any less of a person because validation does not equal value.

I began to learn this lesson in high school, yet it definitely was not easy. When I felt the almost overbearing pressure to just fit in, I started to wonder if maybe I was doing something wrong by trying so hard, that it would be easier to just stop caring and that it would make me more liked or welcomed. But I couldn't give in because I began to try hard for myself. I had a goal that mattered to me. I had a vision of the future that I wanted to obtain and I knew that giving up was not going to get me there, on that stage, giving that speech. So I kept going even when it was lonely, even when it would have been so much easier to blend in.

To anyone who's ever felt like that, for being different, for caring too much, I want you to know that there is nothing wrong with being passionate about something you truly care about because truly, the people who try, who keep trying no matter what, are the people who make change. They are the people who build things, who lead, who inspire, and most of all, who reach their goals.

Over time, I started to see that not fitting did not mean I was doing something wrong, it meant I was being true to myself and working towards my own unique goals. I soon found people who understood me. Friends who did not just tolerate my ambition, but encouraged it and people in my life that supported me to be myself.

This is the time when I would like to thank a few people who have supported me. My mother for working hard to support my sister and I, my sister Allie for listening to me talk about my goals for what feels like forever, for making me laugh, often at the worst times, and for in her own words "keeping me humble," and my boyfriend Michael for always cheering me up after a hard test, for believing in me when I couldn't, for making me smile when I thought it was impossible, and for pretending to believe me when I would tell him I failed a test even though he knew l actually did really well on it just so I felt seen and understood.

It is so important to not only believe in yourself when working hard, but also understand that there are people in your life who are also rooting for you because truly, one of the biggest tragedies in life is the fact that you will never fully understand the extent to which you are loved by others, not only by your own family and friends but by the new people that you encounter everyday.

Slowly, I stopped seeing my effort as something that set me apart in a bad way, but started seeing it as my strength. The truth is, the world needs people who are deeply passionate about their goals, people who are willing to keep going no matter what, people who ask questions, who work hard, and people who remain themselves in a world of pressure.

If I had listened to the voices that told me I was "too serious" and "trying too hard" I might have fit in a little better, but I would surely not have grown into the person I am today, the person who is pursuing her goals at her dream college this fall, the person who is confident in her passions, and the person who is giving that speech on that stage right now.

So if you are anything like me, and still are waiting to find where you belong in the world right now, especially those entering college this fall, please do not give up on yourself. You do not need to change to fit in, you do not need to hide what makes you different, and you do not need to shrink into what the world expects. Eventually, the right people will find you, more importantly, by being authentic to your values, you will find yourself.

As we step forward into the next chapter of our lives, let's be the people that don't shame individuality, or passion, or ambition, but celebrate them and lets be bold enough to be different, be strong enough to keep going, be kind enough to lift up others, and be brave enough to stay true to who we are, even when the world tells us we should change.

Congratulations, Class of 2025, we made it, not by becoming who people expected us to be, but by eternally working to become authentically ourselves. Thank you.

SALUTATORIAN - LUKE DUNDON

First of all, please join me in congratulating my fellow graduates. Thank you to all the family and friends that are here to support us. Thank you to Mr. DiGrandi and all the staff that made this event possible. And a special thank you to all of my teachers throughout the years who have made my experience in the North Salem School district from Kindergarten until now so wonderful.

Next, I'd like to thank my parents. Mom, you are my biggest supporter. Thank you for always believing in me and always putting up with me. Dad, you are my biggest role model. Thank you for showing me how to be a man. And to my sisters, I love you guys. Thank you for also putting up with me. I also want to thank my best friend, Brandon Cuello, without whom I would have burnt out two years earlier, so thank you. Oh, and thank you ChatGPT, I couldn't have done it without you.

As a 17 year old kid, I certainly don't have everything figured out, so I struggled to come up with any profound, insightful thing to say that I could leave you all with. But, the one thing that came to mind that I want to talk about today is happiness.

I know that sounds extremely general, but bear with me. I think back to a car ride with Brandon in May. We had both decided where we wanted to go to college a couple weeks prior, and I asked him, "do you feel any happier than you did at the beginning of the year?"

He said, "nah, not really."

I concurred. Shortly after reaching what is essentially the culmination of the past four years of our lives, we pretty much felt the same.

Throughout high school, we have all had our highs and lows. And something that I have realized, especially this year, is that the happiness that comes from achievements like a medal or getting into college, is temporary. There will always be something else to chase. Those individual accomplishments, I've found, provide a momentary spike of joy from how I normally feel, my baseline.

Let me define what I mean by baseline: Baseline happiness is how you feel on average-how you feel on a mundane day after you've woken up and gone through your morning routine.

After you come down from the high of an achievement, and fix your eyes on whatever it is you want to accomplish next, from one test to the next, one win to another, you are back at baseline.

So, instead of the external rewards, we should focus on the things that actually raise our baseline— things that make us feel fulfilled all the time, not just in the moment. I think everybody knows what those activities are, but they can easily be overlooked. Tending to relationships, serving your community, and a more personal one for me - building a relationship with God - should always be paramount. They raise baseline happiness.

Fulfillment is fostered much more, I think, by those actions than any others.

At the beginning of high school, I tended to neglect what truly fulfilled me in pursuit of what seemed more important at the time, like grades. But, especially as I got involved with a service organization, I started to feel more content in general, which is a wonderful feeling that I hadn't really experienced prior. That service organization gave me all of my closest friends, allowed me to help people in need, and built my relationship with God.

That brings me to another thank you. I want to thank everybody at the Katonah Appalachia Service Project. That organization has shaped my life more than I ever could have imagined and made me incredibly happy.

So, the one piece of advice I can confidently give is to focus on the activities that raise your baseline. Highs and lows are temporary but real contentment is constant. Thank you.