Mount Mercy Academy held its 117th graduation ceremony on May 25 in the Mercy Center Auditorium. Twenty-eight members of the Class of 2022 received their diplomas from Michele Melligan, Mount Mercy’s Head of School.
Salutatorian Aubrey Monaco (Buffalo) welcomed and addressed the audience to open the ceremony. Sydney Gunner (East Aurora), the valedictorian, delivered the valedictory address. She thanked the faculty, her parents and classmates for a special four years. Gunner spoke about how during her four years her definition of success had evolved. She spent the first three years concerned with numbers, such as achieving 100s or 5s on the AP exams. This year she determined that success should be measured in smiles and laughter. She urged her classmates to pursue success in love and joy instead of in numbers.
Dawn Corcoran Osburn, Class of 1972, was the graduation speaker. She is a retired licensed medical laboratory technician. Osburn spoke of her long family history with Mount Mercy and reminisced about her own graduation and then spoke of how the graduating class had a different and difficult four years due to Covid. She urged the graduates to have and demonstrate compassion, justice and forgiveness. She also urged the class to remember their time at Mount Mercy and to choose wisely in the wide-open future before them. Osburn closed with this advice: “Wherever your life’s journey takes you, whatever you do in life, large or small, do it with love, respect, perseverance and mercy.
Graduate Adrianna Awald (Gowanda) was presented with the Frances Warde Leadership Award and Grace Spero (Buffalo) was presented with the Catherine McAuley Service Award.
The graduating Class of 2022 from Mount Mercy Academy earned over $8 million in college scholarships and merit-based grants.