When graduating seniors bid farewell to West High School on Saturday, June 20, they marked the end not only to their time in high school, but also to a decades-long relationship between Bedford and Manchester – a fact not lost on the speakers at the ceremony.

The assembly at the Verizon Wireless Arena heard from three student speakers – and all were from Bedford.

Class President Daniel Quinn said he was proud to graduate from West.

“Speaking as a Bedford resident, I honestly couldn’t be happier that I am graduating from West High School rather than Bedford High School,” Quinn said. “I would like to think the feeling is mutual between Manchester and Bedford … that an important partnership is coming to an end at West High School.

“With all that being said, I’m sure most of us can’t wait to get the heck out of here,” he added. Principal MaryEllen Mc-Gorry said that regardless of where students were from, they had all always been simply West High School students.

“Regardless of what side of the river you may come from, or what type of community you may come from, once you enter the halls of 9 Notre Dame Avenue, you are a West High School student. Period,” Mc-Gorry said. “However, I would not like the day to go by without acknowledging that today’s graduating class is the very last class who will include students from Bedford at West High School.” “To all Bedford students and parents who have given to West High School and their school spirit – you will be missed,” McGorry added.

Invoking everyone from Jennifer Aniston to Dr. Seuss, Quinn and other students reflected on the past four years, expressing optimism about an uncertain future.

“In order to make change in the world, we’re going to have to be a generation of dreamers. That’s why we need to reach for the sky,” Quinn said.

Graduates also need to be realistic, Quinn said. But, he said graduates should not shrink back from doing anything just because they think they cannot do enough.

“Fortunately for us, we’re all in the Barack Obama, ‘Yes we can’ generation, so we all can do pretty much whatever the heck we want to do.”

Salutatorian Kate Piscopo told her classmates they were at the perfect point in their lives to balance their abilities with knowledge gleaned from their experience.

“I may be mistaking growth and development with the senior ego, but it seems like we have turned into a group of confident, able-minded individuals,” Piscopo said. “This transformation has come at a great time, considering we will all be able to get out into the world and use this ability very soon.”

But the world into which those graduates are entering is one darkened by an economic downturn and overshadowed by instability in nations like Iraq and Iran – as valedictorian Benjamin Blatt acknowledged.

“As the economy has receded, it is not hard to let our hopes and dreams recede as well,” Blatt said.

But he urged students to not be afraid of the future because they have faced it before, as freshmen lost in a big high school. Blatt said classmates were about to become freshmen again – not just in college, but in life. But, he said they could draw upon their experience rising from freshmen to seniors in high school for guidance in how to approach the rest of their lives.

“We all know how to work our way up and get to where we need to be and we will do that again,” Blatt said.