During the high school graduation season we tell the graduates to look forward to the future with hope and optimism, while those of us who have seen a few seasons come and go often look back to our own years in high school and just beyond.
The new grads look forward to the next stages of their lives: moving away from home, perhaps seeing the world, getting that first post-graduation job, figuring out what life is all about. It is a time full of promise and a fair measure of apprehension. At the same time, parents and alumni see the fresh, young faces and can’t help but look back at how their own lives and those of their friends and acquaintances have progressed over the years.
We join in the reminiscing and asked graduates from these Mount Abraham, Middlebury, Vergennes and Otter Valley union high schools to tell us a little about where life has taken them in the years since graduation. Inside you’ll find profiles of a handful of Vermont natives in their mid-to-late 20s — people you may have known when you were in high school. We chose a selection of people who graduated between six and 10 years ago in the hopes that this year’s high school graduates will be able to see something of their own generation in the profiles.
You’ll find a variety of vocations and avocations represented in the profiles, but they barely scratch the surface of the diversity that can be found among the young people produced in Addison County.
Click on the links below and enjoy the stories and the photos. 
Middlebury Union High School:
Emerson Conlon
Kristen DeGraff
Mount Abraham Union High School:
Kate Brown
Michael Pierattini
Otter Valley Union High School:
Nina Gage 
Brett Lertola
Vergennes Union High School: 
Meghan O’Daniel
Michael Prime