There was no fighting to the top this year. No tooth and
nail-clawing to inch past the next-highest class rank, no daily status
updates with the guidance department computer system, no strategic
scheduling of classes to yield a higher-weighted grade point average,
regardless of interest in the subjects.

Sitting outside Up-Island Cronig’s earlier this week, Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School’s 2008 valedictorian Truman French appeared to wearing much of the earth he had shifted around a Chilmark home that day, during a 12-hour landscaping shift.

“I’m trying to get a couple years’ college paid for,” he explained. Along with the rest of his class, Truman finished his final classes less than a week ago.

It seems appropriate, somehow, that the first reward Bethany Pennington received upon hearing that she was the valedictorian of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School class of 2009 was extra homework.

“The principal called me into his office and said, ‘You’re the valedictorian. You have to make a speech at graduation and it’s due in three weeks,’” she said, laughing, in an interview at her father’s office yesterday.

A life on Martha’s Vineyard, last year in Delhi, next year in Cairo and Stanford after that. Some people might relish the comfort and security of the bounded Island domain, but Sarah Johnson, this year’s co-valedictorian at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, wants to explore.

She shares the honor with Mary Harrington, who could not be reached for an interview.

Scholar.

Athlete.

Entrepreneur.

Volunteer.

Fisherman.

Chef.

Pianist.

Wait, that last one hasn’t happened yet.

But regional high school senior William Stewart has been thinking about teaching himself to play the piano for a while now, and this summer, before he packs his bags and heads off to Harvard in the fall, might be the perfect time to learn.