SKOWHEGAN -- To one graduating senior on Sunday, the four years at Skowhegan Area High School were a stage play, a "fascinating production," in which the players begin not knowing their lines and end on closing night taking their final bows.

To another graduate, school was much like a video game, with "metaphorical monsters" and great obstacles before the "game over" screen blinks an end to it all.

But to all 190 or so graduates and countless numbers of family members and friends Sunday packed inside the high school gymnasium, it was one hot afternoon with temperatures in the 90s outside.

It was a day of graduates in flip-flops and sandals; Bermuda shorts beneath the caps and gowns. Skowhegan High School serves students from Canaan, Cornville, Mercer, Norridgewock, Skowhegan and Smithfield.

Graduation Day for Skowhegan Area High School and Bloomfield Academy opened with a flag salute lead by Senior Class President Samantha Paradis.

Senior Class Steward Jacob Whithee read from a poem in his "reflections" piece before Emily Brown offered her welcome to the class, to the teachers and to the families of the graduates.

"Life really is a cabaret and we all played our parts wonderfully," Brown said, alluding to the stage play that high school life has been. "Every experience was terrifying and new ... and how absolutely certain we were that we would botch the whole performance. But it came together at the end."

Brown told her classmates -- all dressed in orange, black and white -- not to forget who got them to that stage. She said the play was not the end, but the first in a long line of productions.

"I promise you, we'll give them the show of their lives," she said.

Graduating senior Krista Wiles next sat at the piano and sang the Diana Ross song "If We Hold On Together" in which refrain says:

"If we hold on together

I know our dreams will never die

Dreams see us through to forever

Where clouds roll by

For you and I."

In her farewell to the Class of 2008, valedictorian Emily Xiao Xie told her classmates that she needed a distraction when she was writing her address and decided to play a video game to relax.

That's when it came to her.

"I suddenly realized what I wanted to tell for the graduating class for 2008 -- life is a video game," Xie said. "The console is your world and you are the main character. And in this video game of life you start off with zero experience -- a level-one novice -- a nube."

Xie said as in all video games, there are goals that the player must fulfill to move to the next level and ultimately to finish the game.

"You will level-up," she said. "Take these opportunities to learn things, get to know your weaknesses and your strengths."

And if the game wins and you -- the player -- lose at first, start again and play to win, Xie said.

"'Game Over' doesn't mean you have to stop playing," she said. "You must remember you are not at the end of your game. Keep playing. Keep leveling-up. But you must remember to have fun, to enjoy yourselves or the time spent playing the game is pointless.

"Thank you, and I wish you all a GG -- good game."

Doug Harlow -- 474-9534 ext. 342

dharlow@centralmaine.com