When Ngan “Su” Tran arrived in New Hampshire from Vietnam last November, she had nine days before her first choral concert to learn six pieces.

The senior, who hails from Ho Chi Minh City, had never sung in a chorus before — neither in English nor Vietnamese.

By Saturday, seven months after walking into Kearsarge Regional High School for the first time, Tran delivered the solo in the choir’s graduation performance of Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

“I needed to join another community in high school, and it’s so rare to find everybody here,” Tran said after graduating. “And it’s a really good opportunity for me to meet other people. I love them.”

While Tran’s journey through the Kearsarge schools started halfway around the world last fall, for many of her 111 classmates, Saturday’s ceremony marked the culmination of a different sort of journey – one that started some 13 years ago in a kindergarten classroom just miles away.

Student speaker Jacob MacNutt recalled one of the inflection points of those years: the arrival of the pandemic partway through seventh grade.

“It’s crazy to think that we are about to graduate and so much can change in four years, especially with all the procedures and regulations that had existed specifically in the early high school years,” MacNutt said.

Principal Charles Langille Jr. focused on some more joyful moments: the state championships won, the sunrise breakfasts consumed and the many questions the class of 2025 asked.

“Continue to question,” he encouraged. “Keep questioning things so that they improve. That’s how you make the world better.”

Class president Tori Wooten focused her remarks on courage, particularly the quiet courage “that doesn’t always roar.”

“Sometimes it whispers,” Wooten said. “It shows up in the quiet, choosing to speak when it’s easier to stay quiet.”

Student council president Soeren Baughman described the little moments, like when someone “walked back on the bus with an entire Market Basket sheet cake and managed to eat the whole entire thing.”

“These are the moments that matter most, the little things that shaped our days and strengthened our friendships,” Baughman said.

The moments of Saturday’s graduation ran the gamut from the light-hearted to the deeply moving. In a ceremony permeated with century-old tradition, Langille unveiled a new one – just a year old – toward the end, handing each graduate a yellow rose.

“Take this rose and deliver it to that person in the audience who has meant a lot to you in getting you here today,” Langille directed.

Ethan Brand found a woman standing under an umbrella toward the side of the crowd.

The woman, Jessica Bray, was Brand’s mother’s best friend – and starting a day before Brand’s sophomore year, also his legal guardian. Both of Brand’s parents – Melissa Shields and Jeremy Brand – have passed away.

“We’ve known Ethan since he was born and so that’s why we’re here today,” Bray said, fighting back tears. “Ethan’s a solid human – he’s thoughtful, strong-willed, and at this point in time, I believe he can do anything he sets his mind to.”

The yellow flower happened to have another meaning for the family, too.

“His mother loved sunflowers,” Bray said, pointing to a pin. “That’s why we’re all wearing them today.”

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled Ethan Brand’s surname.

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.