The annual act of achievement, measured over the years by grades, is the ceremony of graduation - a ceremony that the Newtown High School Class of 2017 will celebrate on June 13.

A graduation also marks incremental measurements on a vessel. It is a way of determining how much more or less is needed to achieve a desired result. Bit by bit, a vessel is filled, just as bit by bit, Newtown High School students have been filled with knowledge and experiences. Sometimes it takes a steady hand to fill the vessel, and likewise, students and educators find there are years when sometimes more and sometimes less guidance is necessary to move from one gradation to the next.

Unlike a vessel with limited capacity, though, young adults are never limited. Their passions let their lives overflow, and as they leave the June 13 celebration they will flow in all directions.

Some will find their places in universities and colleges worldwide, as they prepare for a career. They will mark their progress by semesters completed and knowledge gained - and more grades marking the progress they make.

Not all graduates will opt to continue schooling within the walls of higher education institutions. They will continue to learn or to expand upon natural talents in the classroom of the world at large. Their successes will be marked in various manners: happiness, job security, service to community, and opportunities grabbed and held onto.

Life is waiting for them to fill it up with new insights, every goal exceeded making room for a new mark and endless possibilities.

By the time members of the Newtown High School Class of 2017 settle in to hear classmates and educators extol their successes at the graduation ceremony they will be eager to move on. They will have heard the worn-out adages multiple times: Be the change. Reach for the stars. Don't fear the future.

They will appear to be attentive, but who would be surprised to find that as they listen, these young people's heads are filled with visions of the future? They are time traveling, even as parents, grandparents, friends, and neighbors shift in their seats, hanging on every word of every speech.

The Class of 2017 has had the benefit of wise educators, supportive families and neighbors, and a resilient town to prepare them. Most of them will build upon those foundations, and the dreams they hold will become realities.

When they stand and move the tassels on their mortar boards from right to left it will be the final measure taken as students of Newtown High School, a graduation that has reached the top.

We send them onward, as does all of Newtown, knowing they are prepared to make their marks on the world, and wishing each one the very best for a joyous future.