PINE PLAINS — Midmorning rain and the threat of more did nothing to dampen the spirits of graduates and attendees at Stissing Mountain High School’s commencement ceremonies on Saturday, June 24. The school’s large auditorium was packed, with standing room at the back filled.
All stood for the processional, aided in its timing by personal messages spoken to each graduate by class advisor and special education teacher Carol Stracher, accompanied by band and choir renditions of traditional ceremonial tunes led by Erin Marlow and Alec Sisco, arranged with harmonies.
After a brief welcome by Principal Christopher Boyd, remarks by Pine Plains Central School District (PPCSD) Board of Education President Anne Arent began by recognizing a milestone in board history: the service of class of ‘23 President John Bopp III as a nonvoting student member.
Arent also noted that this particular class of 67 graduates had all been schooled together since their earliest days at Cold Spring Elementary, and are thus known to each other and to administrators as a cohesive group that served to unite the northern and southern portions of the Pine Plains district. Arent’s own youngest child received her diploma from her proudly emotional mom and Boyd as well as PPCSD Superintendent Brian Timm.
Addressing the class of ’23, Arent noted, “You are artists, engineers, volunteers,” and as she continued, lights went out on the assembled members onstage, as well as in the auditorium, when a standee at the back apparently leaned on a lightswitch. Arent handled it with aplomb and ended by urging students to “stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone.”
In his remarks, Timm noted a recent New York state award given to PPCSD for its “scholar athletes,” those who maintained at least a 90% score in their academics. He urged all the graduates not to fear failure but to embrace it as a means of learning how to be better. Be great at what you pursue, he said, by first consistently being good.
Student essays by Sidney Neil Stracher and Autumn Rae Prezzano urged fellow graduates to keep the cohesiveness they have experienced as they venture out to the wider world, and to trust in themselves to achieve their dreams. “Your life is your life; know it while you have it” and live it to the fullest, both essayists urged.
The awareness of the preciousness of each life was echoed in salutatorian Gina Marie Kirk’s request for a moment of silence for the passing of Noah Thompson, felt by his Pine Plains friends though he was to have graduated from Webutuck High School last week. Valedictorian Amanda Dillinger praised her classmates’ robust response to the community service requirements that showed their awareness and empathy for those less fortunate.
Diploma presentations elicited hoots and shouts of joy and encouragement from friends and family members, and the recessional was marked with fist bumps, hip bumps, and other brief duos as each pair of graduates found novel ways to mark their coming separation from their 13-year cocoon.
As rain held off for a time, graduates, friends and family members gathered in the school’s front courtyard. The tossing of mortarboards had been forbidden, but many of those grad hats were collaged, painted and inscribed with wry or inspiring messages, each as unique as its graduate.
From left: Raegan Marie Smith and Arely Soria, both National Honor Society members and two of 14 graduates with the Seal of Biliteracy, with their personal caps at the Stissing Mountain High School graduation on Saturday, June 24. Soria’s cap translates to: ‘To my parents, who arrived with nothing and gave me everything.” Photo by Deborah Maier
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
Growing up in the Bronx, Hearn was captivated whenever she saw horses. Her grandfather, a Korean War veteran, had cared for military horses during the war. After returning home, he struggled with addiction, and the invisible wounds of military service. Through every difficult chapter of his life, however, one thing consistently brought him peace.
“Horses bring peace,” he told his granddaughter.
When Hearn was 11, after years apart, Hearn and her grandfather began spending weekends riding together. Less than a year later, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Before he died, he asked family members to help buy Hearn’s first horse — a stubborn paint horse that bit, kicked and frequently threw her off. She wanted to sell him. Her father refused.
“Every life has value,” he told her.
Looking back, Hearn says that lesson became the foundation of everything she would later build.
What began as a boarding stable in 2003 took a different direction after the Dutchess County SPCA asked Hearn to care for horses seized in cruelty cases. She soon realized that although Dutchess County had one of New York’s largest horse populations, there was no dedicated nonprofit equipped to care for neglected and abused horses. Lucky Orphans officially became a nonprofit in 2008.
Some of the more than 40 horses at Lucky OrphansProvided
Today, Hearn is quick to point out that Lucky Orphans is not simply a rescue.
“We’re a sanctuary,” she said.
Many of the more than 40 horses living there arrive with broken bones, chronic illnesses, heart conditions, missing eyes or other injuries that make them unsuitable for riding or adoption. Rather than rehabilitating and rehoming them, Lucky Orphans makes a lifetime commitment to every horse.
In 2013, Hearn became certified in equine-assisted psychotherapy, combining her lifelong relationship with horses and the lessons she learned from her grandfather to create programs for veterans, trauma survivors, children and families facing emotional challenges. The transformations she witnesses continue to surprise her. She recalls one woman who arrived convinced she would not fit in with a group of strangers. During the session, a horse quietly chose to follow her without a rope or commands. For the first time in years, the woman said she felt truly seen.
Another memory has stayed with Hearn ever since. A teenager in a juvenile probation program, wearing an ankle monitor and struggling with anger, entered a round pen with a horse. As his frustration grew, the horse moved farther away. When he finally calmed himself, the horse walked directly toward him and rested its head against his chest.
“I told him, ‘If you can control your energy, you can control the world around you,’” Hearn said.
Stories like these sustain her through the difficult realities of running a nonprofit. Operating the sanctuary costs roughly $52,000 each month, and Hearn lives on the property, where the work never truly ends. Veterinary bills, staffing, fundraising and the daily care of dozens of horses are constant concerns. Then someone returns years later and tells her that the horses changed their child’s life.
“That’s why I keep going,” she said.
Looking ahead, Hearn hopes more people discover what makes Lucky Orphans unique. The organization is expanding its community programming with educational visits, yoga sessions, horse encounters, volunteer opportunities and family events designed to reconnect people with horses and with one another.
Her vision is simple: to create a place where people slow down, reconnect and remember something modern life often makes us forget. If horses could speak, Hearn believes they would offer just one piece of advice.
“They’d tell us to slow down,” she said.
After spending an afternoon at Lucky Orphans, it’s hard to disagree.
For more information or to plan a visit, go to luckyorphans.org
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
