When the list of places where John Stark High School seniors are headed was read out at Saturday’s graduation, one uncommon item came up at the end: “starting their own company.”

That would be Braydon Laflamme, who has turned a youthful interest spurred by John Stark’s unusual welding courses into B. LaFlamme Welding & Fabrication, an independent firm that already has customers.

Laflamme, 17, said he was first intrigued by the idea of welding in middle school.

“I was pressuring my parents: I think I should have a welder,” he said. “I messed around at my house for a while, started doing some stuff on my own.”

Then he came to John Stark where technology education teacher Joab Owens offers two levels of welding classes. Helped by Owens, he entered the statewide welding contest sponsored by the American Institute of Steel Construction, coming in third as a junior and first place this year. That helped his decision to go into business on his own.

The appeal of welding, he said, is both practical and emotional. 

“When I’m in my hood and it’s myself and the weld pool, it brings me peace,” Laflamme said, referring to the protective headgear that welders use and the working portion of a weld where metal reaches melting point. “And not many people are going into it, so I saw the opportunity to do something I love and make a lot of money.”

Laflamme was among 126 seniors who got their diplomas on the football field at John Stark in Weare on a cool, wet Saturday.

Among the ceremony speeches was one given by Sadie McCallum, chosen by staff to represent the senior class. She urged her fellow graduates to concentrate on doing the small deeds that can change the world.

“Revolutions aren’t built from huge battles or proclamations. They’re built from consistent, unwavering acts of personal principles, where people thinking for themselves refuse to give up. We won’t change the world just doing one thing,” she said. 

Being consistent, McCallum said, means “that every day you can leave your little corner of the world just a bit better than it was when you woke up, the same as you have here at Stark. By the end of your life, you’ll find your small changes have spread out far beyond your border and you did, in fact, change the world.”

McCallum noted that her life experience wasn’t entirely “relatable” to everybody. She has cerebral palsy and uses either a walker or a self-balancing mobility wheelchair invented by Manchester-based company DEKA, founded by inventor Dean Kamen. McCallum will be attending Villanova University in Pennsylvania, where she’ll major in electrical engineering and creative writing. 

Also speaking was valedictorian Elizabeth Ackerly, who said she “crowd-sourced” her talk by asking for topic suggestions from other students. Aside from the range of suggestions, from the heartfelt to the humorous, she said the effort reflected something more important.

“Competition is not how we achieve greatness, collaboration is … All of our voices are equally valuable, and are stronger together than they are alone,” she said. “Life is not a solitary task, far from it. We stand not on the shoulders of giants but on generations of people just like us.” 

Saturday’s ceremony marked a change for the school as well as the students. Nine staff members are retiring, said Principal Gary Dempsey, with a combined 217 years of experience. That includes four teachers and administrators who have been on the job for at least 30 years.