High school president writes notes thanking fellow seniors — 180 of them

Emily Post would be proud.

A high school class president in Massachusetts, giving a speech, wanted to recognize all his fellow graduates. That’s why he wrote personal thank you notes that he presented during the ceremony – 180 to be exact.

“I wish I could have recognized all of you, but there simply wasn’t enough time,” Mason Macuch of Lakeville said in his June 7 speech. “Instead, I want you to reach under your seats where you can find a personal note. that I wrote to you all as a way to say goodbye for the last time and thank you for making these years that will soon pass the ‘good old days’.”

The seniors at Apponequet Regional High School, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Boston, found envelopes containing 5-by-7-inch (13-by-18-centimeter) white cards with their messages.

Macuch said it took him about 10 hours to write the cards. As class president, he said he knew most of the students.

“I just wrote everything from goodbye messages to little memories I had with the person I was writing to, or maybe, if it was a close friend, a longer message to them,” Macuch, 18, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “Everything I could think of about the person I wanted to say about him before we graduated and went our separate ways.”

Macuch first had to discuss the idea with school administrators. He arrived an hour before the ceremony and was assisted by an assistant principal and a teacher who taped the cards under the chairs.

He said many graduates thanked him personally afterward. Many parents sent him nice comments on social media.

“Some people I hadn’t spoken to in a few years were so grateful for them. It was really nice to see them so grateful for all the hard work that went into it, and it was a really nice way to say goodbye to everyone,” said Macuch, who will be heading to college in the fall and plans is to go to college. biochemistry.

He was well educated.

“My mom always tries to write a thank-you note,” he said.