PHOTO ESSAY: Marblehead Class of 2026 graduation, in photographs
On Piper Field, Marblehead High School’s 183 graduates marked the end of four disrupted years with speeches, decorated caps, diplomas and a final burst of red and black.
Graduates process onto Piper Field to open the June 5 ceremony, led by class officers in gold stoles, as families rise from their folding chairs and lift phones to find them in the crowd. INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLER
Table of Contents
Get our free local reporting delivered straight to your inbox. No noise, no spam — just clear, independent coverage of Marblehead. Sign up for our once-a-week newsletter.
Marblehead High School graduated 183 seniors on Piper Field on Friday, June 5. The processional stepped off at 6 p.m., families spread across the grass in folding chairs, and the early-June light hung over the water beyond the school.
Photographer Paula Muller spent the evening with the class of 2026 — from the candid minutes on the lawn, gowns on and caps freshly decorated, through the speeches that kept circling back to the same idea of showing up for one another, to the diplomas, the cap toss and the hugs that followed.
Before the ceremony, from left, Ashley Mortensen, Isabel Mortensen, Tessa Andriano and Kate Andriano show off mortarboards decorated for the colleges they will scatter to in the fall — four of the 92 destinations the 183 graduates reported. INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLERClass secretary Abdullah Al Janabi opens the ceremony with the welcome, distilling four years of conversations — with hedge fund managers and trash collectors alike — into one word of advice for his classmates: talk. 'It’s not who you know,' he said. 'It’s who knows you.' INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLERAndrew Watson grins as he leaves the stage with his diploma, the high school’s big red M rising behind him. INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLERIsabella Casale, left, and Caroline Bruett hold up their decorated caps before graduation, two more markers on a senior map that stretches across 28 states, from Salem State to the California coast. INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLERChanellis Robinson, left, celebrates after the ceremony with Isaiah Solano and Chanel Kamal, her decorated mortarboard reading “Girls with dreams become women with vision.” INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLEREthan Clock and his mother, Jenni, celebrate on Piper Field after the ceremony, the school’s Magician mascot looking on from the brick facade behind them. INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLERFamilies and friends fill the folding chairs along Piper Field, watching in the early-June light as the class of 2026 graduates. INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLERFriends crowd together for photos on the lawn outside Marblehead High School, caps in hand, in the last minutes before the class of 2026 lined up to graduate. INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLERNate Jendrysik keeps a hacky sack aloft to pass the time as classmates gather outside Marblehead High School before the processional. INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLERDiploma in hand, a graduate beams and reaches to shake a class officer’s hand on the Piper Field stage. INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLERMarblehead High School Choir members lean into a selection during the ceremony, the music threading between the night’s speeches. INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLERValedictorian Joy Meshulam smiles through the valedictory address, in which she told the field she would rather regret the things she did than the things she never dared to do, “because failures fade, but never trying lasts a lifetime.” INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLERSalutatorian Ian Chemel delivers the salutatory address, telling the class that real intelligence is less about classes and tests than the maturity to hold a hard conversation, make something with their hands and form an opinion that is genuinely their own. INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLERMembers of the Marblehead High School Choir perform during the ceremony; their selections included Billy Joel’s 'Vienna' and 'Rivers and Roads,' arranged by 2023 Marblehead graduate Griffin Collins. INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLERRed and black caps fly over Piper Field’s goalpost as the class of 2026 marks the end of the ceremony, four disrupted years finally behind them. INDEPENDENT PHOTO / PAULA MULLER
The Marblehead Independent is free to read because readers make the work possible. We have 121 members now, and our goal is 175 by July — support that helps keep local reporting, photojournalism and community coverage available to the whole town. If you’ve been meaning to join, today is a good day to help close the gap. 🟦 Become a member here.
Holly Aloha Jaynes, a multimedia artist and longtime Marblehead arts volunteer, will present “Creative Journeys,” an art exhibit and sale, at Stetson Gallery at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 28 Mugford St., during the first three weeks of June.
An opening reception will be held Sunday, June 7, from noon to
The Salem firm led by Marblehead attorney Robert Mazow returned to Bates Elementary School on May 29, continuing a partnership aimed at getting students into properly fitted helmets before the warmer months.
Holly Aloha Jaynes, a multimedia artist and longtime Marblehead arts volunteer, will present “Creative Journeys,” an art exhibit and sale, at Stetson Gallery at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 28 Mugford St., during the first three weeks of June.
An opening reception will be held Sunday, June 7, from noon to
