From the 2023 Valedictorian

by Lily Shriner '23

I could not express my full Delone Catholic experience in one word, or even a few words. My high school experience has been a gumball machine. I know, an odd comparison, but an apt one. I have had the privilege to participate in almost every part of the Delone Catholic community, from music to theater to community service and beyond. 

Every time I turned around, there was another opportunity, something new to gain if I put the effort into exploring it.  As a freshman, I was hyper-focused on my school work and the band, but I soon realized that high school was so much more than that. 

This is not to say that I abandoned my academics, but especially this year, I found that the extracurricular experiences I participated in were just as valuable as the information I learned in the classroom. 

Freshman year, if someone had told me that this is the perspective I would have by senior year, I would not have believed it. My time playing in the stands with the Marching Band at football games, painting murals, going to Philadelphia to see the Pink Sisters, participating in tech crew for plays, going to Washington D.C. with the International Club - all of these experiences helped to influence the person that I was becoming and who I would grow to be once I got to college. 

If there is one thing that I can definitively say I took away from my education at Delone Catholic, it is the ability to adapt to new environments.

Next year, I am off to William & Mary, a vastly different institution from Delone Catholic High School. Going from a class of eight-six to a school of almost seven thousand students will require an adjustment period, but my experiences at Delone will not leave me, but rather inform how I take on new challenges in college.

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