Massey grads aim high

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This article was published 25/06/2020 (2109 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The first thing that really set Vincent Massey High School’s graduation ceremony apart from those at other schools was the introduction.

As parents and students lined up in the Keystone Centre’s Manitoba Room in groups distanced six feet apart, a video introduction by class president and valedictorian Kobe Lim played as they waited to enter the UCT Pavilion for one of many ceremonies taking place yesterday and today.

Written and directed by Lim, the video distilled the high school experience into a 10-minute presentation full of clever editing and camerawork.

Lim, accompanied by his family, was in one of the first groups of students to graduate on Wednesday morning. While waiting for the ceremony to begin, teachers had kind words for their soon-to-be-former student.

History teacher Kevin Grindey said Lim’s outgoing nature and leadership qualities really stand out to him.

“He really has a sense of understanding the human condition and that’s a real important thing that a person as young as him is able to do,” Grindey said.

Math teacher Sukhminder Bath praised Lim’s sense of humour and strong work ethic.

“I was really proud to have him in my classes,” Bath said. “He was helping other students while he was in my class.”

Bath said he believes that Lim will be able to go as far as he wants to with the kind of hard work he’s able to do.

Talking to the Sun before his ceremony, Lim said he has been accepted to Brandon University to start studying biology next year. His eventual plan is to get into medical school. That’s just like his sister Chantel Lim, who studied biology at BU before getting accepted to the University of Toronto’s medical program this year.

“This is what kindergarten through Grade 12 has been leading up to,” he said. “It means a lot to me, it means a lot to my family and my friends.”

He said being named valedictorian and class president shows how much his classmates have his back and how strong of a community they’ve developed.

“They mean the world to me,” he said. “There are some teachers that are basically like my second parents, then there are some students that have been by my side since kindergarten.”

As far as the idea for the valedictory speech video, he said that if he wasn’t going to just stand on a stage and read a speech, he should make the best of it.

Kobe’s father Dave, the principal of Meadows School, said he was happy to have the opportunity to celebrate his son.

“It’s nice today they were able to have some kind of a graduation,” Dave said. “I know the staff at Vincent Massey are dedicated and worked hard to put this together so that Kobe and his friends have something special to look forward to today.”

During the ceremony, students didn’t say anything but had comments read by the master of ceremonies. Biology teacher Lindsay Metruk told Lim to “walk slow, because you wrote a lot,” while introducing the student’s lengthy, humorous remarks.

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Lim was announced as having made the school’s honour roll and winning gold medals in academics, athletics, fine and performing arts and school citizenship, a silver pin in band, a performing arts certificate, the Class of ‘81 Memorial Scholarship, the Sharon Monaghan Memorial Scholarship and the Kiwanis Club of Brandon Assiniboine Scholarship.

One of Lim’s classmates, Shasvat Varma, thanked him by name during his comments for teaching him how to be a leader.

Varma is bound to the University of Toronto next school year to study astrophysics. It’s fitting that the student Grindey told the Sun went “above and beyond” in his classwork is setting his sights on the cosmos.

“Ever since I was young, I’ve had a passion for stars and outer space,” he said before his ceremony.

Even though Varma has only just finished high school, he has already earned some accomplishments in science, including a 15th-place finish in a worldwide chemistry contest.

Bath said no encouragement was needed to convince Varma to compete because the student approached him about participating. Two students, including Varma, thanked Bath for bringing them samosas to school with him.

“He is committed to being the best, to being perfect in class,” Bath said.

“He’s done excellent in his school and I expect the same thing from him when he goes over the university,” Shasvat’s dad Vipul said. “Even though it’s a smaller ceremony, something was needed so we’re happy and we were looking forward to this very day for the last four years.”

When asked what part of the ceremony he was most looking forward to, Varma said it was the announcement of scholarships because he’d applied for a lot of them.

It just so happens that his hard work paid off in spades, earning a veritable ransom in awards and scholarships. He made the honour roll, got gold medals from the school in athletics, academics, fine and performing arts and citizenship, received a bronze pin in band and a Manitoba mathematical competition certificate.

He also received the Chemtrade Electrochem Inc. Award, the Dr. Peter Letkeman Scholarship, the FYIdoctors award and the Doc Penner Memorial Scholarship, among others.

Finally, he received the Governor General’s Bronze Medal for having the highest average academic marks in the school and was the school’s Governor General’s Award winner, which came with a $500 scholarship.

Upon that final award being announced, the rest of the students in his ceremony let out a massive cheer in honour of their high-achieving classmate.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @ColinSlark