ORRVILLE DISTRICT — Mother Nature seemed to celebrate as much as Orrville High School’s 125 graduates Sunday, throwing sunshine and breezes down upon the red and white bedecked gathering at Rider Stadium. The graduates, in alternating red and white gowns, paraded around the football field and in front of the packed grandstand before settling into chairs for the slightly more than hour-long commencement ceremony. Recounting an anecdote about famed painter Leonardo da Vinci and one of his works where an admirer thought his focus was in the wrong place, Ritchie told the graduating class, “All of us are artists. Wilson told the graduates that while in school they “were taught a lesson, then given a test, but in life you will be given a test and taught a lesson. In the varying opportunities one gets to define his or her life, Beck said, they should select those that represent “not just an opportunity to make a living, but to make a life. One of the class valedictorians, Jamie Carpenter, told her classmates they would be the last class to remember Oak, North and Maple Elementary schools, which have been razed or are on track toward demolition. read more

Tags: paintings, works of a genius, life, class, drawings, world, the Adoration of Mag, leonardo da vinci