Lehighton Area High School marked the graduation of its 158-member Class of 2026 on Tuesday night in a stadium ceremony shaped by a tribute to a classmate who died last month.

Principal Suzanne Howland said 152 graduates crossed the stage, joined by five classmates who finished their high school requirements early while earning associate degrees through the district’s partnership with Lehigh Carbon Community College.

The class’s 158th member was not there to accept her diploma. Two chairs adorned with peonies and pink flowers sat among the graduates in memory of Joleea McDermott, who died May 21, and Vahnne Kay Gower, who died July 15, 2017, in a fire at the family’s Beaver Run Drive residence. Gower was 9 years old.

McDermott’s aunt and guardian, Joleen Donohue-Farrell, accepted the diploma on her behalf.

Howland recalled summoning McDermott to the office weeks earlier to tell her she had been selected for a scholarship.

“Me? A scholarship? I’m receiving something?” McDermott asked, as Howland remembered it. The principal said the same smile lit up the room again weeks later at prom.

McDermott had come to Lehighton from Philadelphia, Howland said, looking for new opportunities and a fresh start, and she found friendships, scholarships and a community that embraced her.

“Never underestimate the impact you can have on another person,” Howland said. “Sometimes the greatest gift we can give someone is helping them see in themselves what others have seen all along.”

Time was a recurring theme in the student speeches. Valedictorian Nicholas Gaumer pressed his classmates to spend it deliberately.

“Most people think of money as valuable, but your time is your most precious treasure,” Gaumer said.

Citing a TED Talk, he told the class that once the years spent sleeping, working, driving, cooking and running errands are subtracted from an average life, little remains.

“Twenty-seven years; that is all we have left for friends, family and relationships, the things that matter most,” Gaumer said.

He pointed to Thomas Edison’s thousands of failed attempts before producing a working light bulb and to author James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits.”

“Comfort will kill more dreams than failure ever will,” Gaumer said. “Dreams without goals are just dreams.”

“If you can get 1 percent better each day, you’ll end up 37 times better by the time you’re done,” he said.

Gaumer, who also drew on scripture, ended with a charge.

“You guys are going to go far, but just remember: You don’t have time to give up,” Gaumer said.

Salutatorian Abigail Ehrig built her speech around three quotations she said had shaped her, from Lena Horne, high school band director Bryan Buffington and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it,” Ehrig said, quoting Horne. “The problems themselves will not determine your future, but the actions you take will.”

The second, she said, was a line band members had heard almost daily for years: “Never accept mediocrity.” The third came from Emerson: “Do not follow where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

“Our differences can unite us, but only if we allow them to,” Ehrig said.

Class President Sofia Bastone reflected on how quickly four years had passed and on the change her class had moved through together.

“It is so easy to show and express hate nowadays that it takes strength to be gentle and kind,” Bastone said.

“Life doesn’t wait for us to be ready, it just keeps going,” she said.

Bastone said she wanted to leave her classmates with a message from the television series “After Life.”

“One day you’ll eat your last meal, smell your last flower and hug your friend for the very last time, and that’s why you should do everything you love with passion,” Bastone said. “Treasure this one gentle and precious life you have, because it’s all you’ve got.”

Superintendent Jason Moser turned to his own history with the school.

“Twenty-seven years ago, I sat down in the high school gym, feeling the exact same things, thinking that I was leaving Lehighton and would never be back,” Moser said. “Yet here I am.”

“Lehighton will always be a part of me,” he said, telling the graduates the same was true for them. He urged them not to rush past the present, quoting John Lennon.

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” Moser said.

The ceremony continued a tradition of sharing commencement with the class celebrating its 50th reunion. Patricia Simes addressed the graduates on behalf of the Class of 1976.

“Standing here 50 years later, I can tell you life moves quickly, but what truly matters only grows better and brighter with time,” Simes said.

“You are made of star material. The same material that lights up the night sky lives within you,” she said, urging the class to “go forward with courage, dream boldly, lift others as you rise.”

In her closing remarks, Howland recalled a senior year of sunrise gatherings, a revived bonfire, prom and a senior sunset complete with an ice cream truck.

“If I had to choose one thing that defines this class, it would be your ability to build community,” Howland said. “You understand something that many people spend a lifetime trying to learn: Life is better when we do it together.”

She credited the class with helping produce the winningest girls basketball season in school history and a Colonial League championship, and with helping send the baseball team to a Colonial League championship appearance. The lasting measure of their years, she said, lay elsewhere.

“The best parts of life are not measured by trophies, titles or accomplishments alone, they are measured by the people we share it with,” Howland said.

Beneath every seat, graduates found a card written by a staff member — a longstanding tradition Howland said was meant to remind them they would always have a home at Lehighton. The class closed the night with its chosen recessional, “Best Day of My Life” by American Authors, and carried with it a motto borrowed from Sam Levenson: “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.”