For nearly half an hour, young men and women step in time to the old military and patriotic songs, marching two, four, and eight abreast, and forming a single line which snakes into the center of the balloon-festooned gym and back out again. Clothed in satiny white gowns and cradling frothy red and white bouquets, the girls seem relaxed and radiant. The boys are dapper in white-jacketed tuxedos and red boutonnieres. Many are nervous at first but break into smiles at the sight of friends or family in the audience. Periodically the audience bursts into applause for the graduates. This tradition is at least 91 years old, if not longer, though its exact origins and founders elude us.

The first mention people could find of the Grand March in the Boothbay Register was in 1911, when it was held at the Pythian Opera House at 8:00 p.m. on June 12. Wylie's six-piece orchestra provided the music, and the junior class provided refreshments. The march was led by class officers Gertrude Blossom and Austin McCormick. The Grand Ball of the Class of 1911 was sponsored by the Boothbay Harbor High School Alumni Association. The Grand March could not have been new in 1911. A June, 1909 issue of the newspaper reported that the Alumni Association was meeting to discuss the ball at the Opera House. It may be that the Grand March dates back to the beginning of the Alumni Association, which held its first annual banquet in 1906, another tradition still carried on today in honor of graduating Seniors. The first public graduation exercises for Boothbay Harbor High School were held in 1893.

Hilda Bergquist May, Class of 1930, remembers marching for 45 minutes or so and recalls that every year, it seemed the roads had just been tarred and the girls hated to cross the street in their white gowns and white shoes. Arlene Pizzi, who was Senior class adviser during the 1960s and '70s, remembers teaching the students the march and having one rascally class march right out the door and around the building during a practice session. Diane Crocker has helped to get the Seniors in line for 36 years, taking full charge after Mrs. Pizzi retired. Most classes have more girls than boys, in which case boys have to be imported from the junior class to even up the pairs for the march. Another notable element of the tradition is the unchanging routine. Once the march is completed, the girls' bouquets are separated, and the flowers are presented to the graduates' mothers. The seniors then dance with their own parents and then with their partner's parents, focusing honors upon the graduates' elders. Indeed, the Alumni Ball and Grand March, despite all the hours of planning, preparation and practice involved, is a tradition which this community, through the Alumni Association, has steadfastly clung to. The keeping of this tradition, spawned in an age of civility and gentility, gives the young people and the entire community a rich sense of continuity and of belonging--and a refreshing breath of sanity in the warp-speed world of today.

With gratitude to Robin Beck, Boothbay Register, June 24,1993