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Monument Mountain Names Co-Valedictorians, Salutatorian for 2025

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GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass. — Monument Mountain Regional School will have co-valedictorians this year — Max Wood and Tessa Baldwin — speaking at graduation. Liam O'Gara was named salutatorian for the class of 2025. 
 
Graduation will take place on Sunday, June 1, at 1:30 p.m. at Tanglewood in Lenox. 
 
Baldwin has lived in Richmond for her whole life. She attended Richmond Consolidated School from kindergarten to Grade 8 and then Monument Mountain for four years. In her free time, she enjoys playing pickup sports, reading, making art, and traveling with friends and family. She plans to attend Columbia University in the fall.
 
Wood lives in Great Barrington with his parents and his two younger siblings. In his free time, he enjoys playing the trumpet, reading, chess, watching basketball and baseball, and viewing movies with his friends and family. Next year, Wood will be studying biomedical engineering at the University of Massachusetts. 
 
O'Gara has participated in many activities throughout his high school career, such as the Fall Festival of Shakespeare for three years, and the spring musical "Mean Girls" in his senior year. He also participated in many clubs throughout his time, including Best Buddies, Key Club, Charley's Fund, and the Debate Team. He was also a member of the marching and concert bands for all four years, and the Jazz band for his junior and senior years. 
 
He is grateful for all of the connections that he has made at Monument, both with the incredible staff members and faculty, but with the other students as well.  He will be attending Colgate University in the fall.
 
Guidance Counselor Sean Flynn pointed out in his remarks at the Senior Awards Ceremony on May 29, that the class of 2025 were the first group of incoming freshmen to start high school just as the world was trying to find a new normal after a long era of COVID-related losses and disruptions, back in August 2022. 
 
Thirty-eight members of the class of 2025 are members of the National Honor Society, more than one is already well-established in the local business world, several more are fresh off of an extraordinary statewide winning streak in basketball, many are headed to the Ivy League and other national ranked liberal arts colleges and well as premier national research universities, others are pursuing further studies or work in the skilled trades, and still others intend to make a life in public service. 
 
Among the hundreds of scholarships handed out on Thursday morning were five given to the senior members of the Western Mass Champion boys’ basketball team: Emanuel Brown, Christian Blanchard, Isaiah Keefner, Griffin McElroy, and Samuel Roman-Guitierrez. Among those scholarships created to honor alumni who are no longer with us was the “Smile like Jack” award, given by Star O’Brien in honor of her son, Jack, member of the MMRHS class of 2020, to Sam St. Peter, Christopher Paul, Megan DeCelle and Keegan Dargie. 
 
As far as future plans among the graduates, certain trends are clear. Career Pathways have been giving students a push-off. Among the grads whose high school focus was Early Education and Care and who intend to pursue that or a related field in college are Olivia Simms, winner of a Questbridge Scholarship to the College of the Holy Cross, Olivia Ostrander, going to Framingham State University, Ava Ross, headed to Springfield College, and Sophia Curletti, off to Curry College.  
 
The skilled trades is an increasingly popular career direction for Monument grads, and among this year’s directed CVTE-focused cohort are Kitson Stover, winner of the Garrett Norton Memorial Automotive Scholarship, who’s headed to Hudson Valley Community College, Lucas Faggioni, winner of the Creative Building Solutions Scholarship, is headed to McCann Technical School for Electrical, Elijan Burch, going to lineman’s school, Shaun Frank, going to work for Mercier Stone Masonry and Sean Scarbro, going to work for Vanzandt Plumbing and Heating, and Logan Stevens, going into the carpentry field. 
 
Highly selective liberal arts colleges and universities were impressed with the class of 2025’s applicants, accepting, among others, Tessa Baldwin into Columbia University, Hannah Roller into Yale, Annabel Holmes and David Cull into Tufts, Bronly Boyd into Boston College, Lulu Bowman and Lily Haskins-Vaughn into Middlebury, Liam O’Gara into Colgate, Lilabel Kierstead into St. Andrews in Scotland, Sam St. Peter into Bates, Madeleine Rundle into Vassar and Lukas Forouhar Graff and Ella Watson into Northeastern. Twelve are headed to the University of Massachusetts and eighteen to Berkshire Community College. 
 
Arts-focused graduates include Orson Handel, headed to the Berklee School of Music, and Audrey Allard, who won the National Choral Award, headed to the University of Vermont. 
 
The Seal of Biliteracy was presented to students demonstrating proficiency in two or more languages. These are Annabel Holmes, Lily Haskins-Vaughan, Ana Sangines Arteaga, Angel Sangines Canacuan, Helen Thorp, Eidy Lucia de la Cruz Garcia, Denisse Juarez Lopez, Lorenzo Gonzalez Quiacain, and Aidden Melo Riano, and those achieving the Seal of Biliteracy with Distinction are Tessa Baldwin, Eriel Dominguez, and Lucas Forouhar Graff.  
 
Ian Drucker and Trevor Hoff have already established themselves in the workforce, so seek them out for your property management needs this summer. 
 
Jack Quinlan is joining the Army, Grayson Beacco the National Guard, and Megan Decelle is attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Gregory Kay is off to the Mass Maritime Academy and Jade Abderhalden, winner of too many senior awards to list, among them the Joseph and Dolores Aberdale Scholarship, a Rosalie Conte Scholarship and the Housatonic Hose Company Scholarship, intends to pursue criminal justice at Westfield State University. 
 
Congratulations to the class of 2025 and to this community for all their successes. 

 


Tags: graduation 2025,   Monument Mountain,   

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Pryor & Peacock's Whimsical Furniture Environmentally Friendly

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
 

The company uses digital printing to create the upholstery fabric, saving water and saving vintage furniture from ending up in landfills.

STOCKBRIDGE, Mass. — A unique furniture store has popped up on Elm Street this month.

Mom-and-daughter store Pryor & Peacock is hosting the pop-up storefront from Aug. 13 to Aug. 25 at 6 Elm. The New Marlborough business is co-founded by Rosalina Wright and Luca Shapiro, who is also the creative director. 

Their online shop was created in 2024 but they wanted people to see the pieces in person, so they're renting the space for a limited time before a long-term tenant moves in.

The store sources prints to create unique fabrics and reimagines vintage and antique furniture acquired at auctions, local shops, and online.

"We source prints from all over the world that date from the late 1600s up through mid-20th century, and Luca turns those prints into fabric by manipulating them, scanning them, oftentimes has to add or subtract things, and then we manufacture the fabric using only digital printing, which is very environmentally friendly, unlike traditional textile printing," Wright said.

Upholstering the furniture can take weeks of work. Shapiro looks for the perfect design for each piece and, if need be, uses Adobe Photoshop to extend the art work to fit or enhance the print.

"One of the most difficult parts comes in marrying the fabric to a piece of furniture because we only use antique and vintage frames also to be earth friendly, and they're also more beautiful and durable than new furniture," Wright said. "So the image has to go with the furniture, so that takes a lot of work."

One of Pryor & Peacock's missions is to be environmentally friendly. Digital printing doesn't use the same amount of water as traditional textile productions do nor does it contaminate water with ink according to their website.

Not only are they saving water, but they are saving furniture from going into the landfill while also using more durable furniture that doesn't break as easily as current pieces. They started their business to create something unique and to help the environment together.

"It's creating something nobody else is doing. People can't continue to buy throwaway furniture. Six percent of American landfills is furniture, and digital printing not only opens up the possibility of being able to put unique images on a piece of furniture, but it also is, as I said, environmentally friendly. So, for us, the excitement is to take an old East Lake settee that somebody's going to store in their barn and forget about, and make it something completely new and surprising," Wright said.

They hope their furniture helps bring a pop of fun to someone's home.

"We think our furniture is very whimsical and surprising, and most furniture today is oatmeal colored couches and gray neutral chairs, and it's boring," she said.

The two named their business after their mothers' maiden names to honor them and believe the name reflects their pieces.

Shapiro works in interior design outside of the business and the two liked working together and thought it would be great to start a business together. Shapiro says they can work well together and that her and her mother, Wright, has flipped houses before and have the same eye for design.

"So it's very easy for us to work together. When we see something, generally we agree on whether it works or doesn't work on a piece. We agree on the color schemes and that sort of thing. So it's very fun and fulfilling to work together," Shapiro said. 

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