FALLS VILLAGE — The Lee H. Kellogg School eighth grade promotion exercise, held outside on the hill of the Falls Village campus, proved to be an emotional moment for Katelin Lopes. The class speaker and winner of the President’s Award for Educational Excellence was moved enough by the moment to let out a few sobs before collecting her breath and concluding her speech:
“Thank you, Kellogg. You are small, but you have a mighty place in my heart.”
Held on Wednesday, June 16, following a weather-related delay on June 15, the ceremony ushered the members of Lee H. Kellogg School’s Class of 2021 into the next chapter of their educational careers under unusual circumstances.
The evening followed a strict distance-and-mask safety policy, making clear the lasting presence of the pandemic and the way it had affected the students in their final years at Lee H. Kellogg.
But the five students in attendance (two members of the eighth grade class were unable to attend), the faculty and Principal Alexandra Juch instead chose speak on anything but their setbacks or current events.
They remained positive, looked toward the future and focused on the core values one would expect in a promotion exercise in any normal year: personal growth, the pursuit of academic goals and extracurricular achievements, and, of course, in a town as small as Falls Village, ways to enrich and give back to the community.
Lee H. Kellogg School
Class of 2021
Austin Donald Bachman, Bernice Haley Boyden, Blaine Robert Curtis, Tessa Jane Dekker, Katelin Jeanette Lopes, Demetri Joseph Ouellette, Tristan Ernest Oyanadel
2021 Awards
President’s Award for Educational Excellence: Katelin Lopes; Tessa Dekker
President’s Award for Educational Achievement: Austin Bachman
Peter G Lawson Citizenship Award: Tessa Dekker
Tessa Dekker and Katelin Lopes were the dual winners of the President’s Award for Educational Excellence at the Lee H. Kellogg eighth grade promotion exercise on Wednesday, June 16. Photo by Alexander Wilburn
Members of the eighth grade who participated in Lee H. Kellogg’s promotion exercise included, left to right, Demetri Ouellette, Austin Bachman, Katelin Lopes, Tessa Dekker and Bernice “Birdie” Boyden. Photo by Alexander Wilburn
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino 
