enlarge Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Rebecca Peter marches into Merrill Auditorium with her classmates. Ninety-eight percent of the seniors have been accepted into a college, though some plan to take a year off.

enlarge Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

Casco Bay High School seniors laugh as Principal Derek Pierce speaks during the Portland expeditionary learning school’s first graduation Thursday at Merrill Auditorium in Portland.

PORTLAND — This was not your traditional high school graduation or ordinary group of graduating seniors.

The ceremony's featured class speaker was a Sudanese immigrant whose brother, James Angelo, was shot and killed last fall while working as a security guard at Mercy Hospital.

Principal Derek Pierce's address to the Casco Bay High School class of 2009 was playfully interrupted several times by students, including one who told him to hurry up so she could get her diploma.

And she had reason to be impatient. The ceremony at Merrill Auditorium was for Casco Bay's first graduating class. The high school was formed four years ago, mostly from students who elected not to attend Deering or Portland high schools.

Classes are currently held at the Portland Arts and Technology High School on Allen Avenue.

"At one point, this school did not have a name, a place to hold classes, or even a staff. It took a leap of faith. Look at what you have accomplished," Superintendent Jeanne Whynot-Vickers told the graduates. "You can take pride in knowing you not only graduated from high school, you helped create a high school."

Casco Bay was formed in September 2005 as an expeditionary learning school. During their four years, students traveled to West Virginia to build homes for Habitat for Humanity and undertook a project to study human rights in the 20th century.

Marcellina Angelo said she and her classmates spent eight months interviewing the victims of genocide in Sudan and Bosnia and of the civil war in Somalia.

"It's rare that a teenager today can say they discovered their passions," she told the audience. "But at Casco Bay, you are challenged to delve deeply into yourself. I was able to discover what makes me smile every day."

Angelo said she is determined to make a difference in the world, especially in her native Sudan. She plans to attend Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., where she will pursue a degree in international relations.

Another student, William Nelligan, said there were a lot of uncertain moments during the past four years.

"We were not sure the school would continue," Nelligan said. "But it did. It's an affirming moment ... for all of us."

Pierce said 98 percent of the 58 seniors have been accepted by colleges, though many have opted to take a year off.

One student will be working on an organic farm in Italy. Another plans to work at an orphanage in Cambodia.

"I am incredibly proud of these kids," Pierce said before the ceremony began at Merrill Auditorium. "It's a watershed moment."

Staff Writer Dennis Hoey can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:

dhoey@pressherald.com