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With the largest graduating class in recent memory, a (mostly) sunny day, a superintendent who had something very important in common with the seniors graduating, and a guest speaker who is an alumnus and went on to be the private chef for none other than Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen and their family, Nashoba Valley Technical High School had a lot to celebrate Saturday, June 3.
Superintendent Denise Pigeon noted to the 185 seniors seated on the football field that she was proud to say that she is also a member of the Class of 2017, having received word just days before from Nova Southeastern University in Florida that she successfully achieved her doctorate degree.
She then introduced 1999 Nashoba Tech alumnus Allen Campbell, who for two-and-one-half years was Brady and Bundchen’s private chef.
While that may sound glamorous, Campbell, a Chelmsford native, described a path to success that was anything but smooth. He told the graduates that he started as a freshman in 1995, “the worst year of my life.”
“That year was actually devastating in many ways,” he said. “There was tragedy, death, abandonment, and I began to have complicated health issues all in a short time. I sunk into a deep depression.”
He said the girls in Culinary Arts nicknamed him “Grouch,” and actually gave him an Oscar the Grouch doll for his birthday. He began to “self-medicate,” but was able to make it through high school with the help of Chef-Instructor Steve Whiting, who retired from Nashoba Tech last year. Campbell received the Technical Proficiency Award his senior year.
Things didn’t get better, though, and he found himself in a rehabilitation facility in 2008 “and began my life in recovery at the age of 27.”
“I began to seek organic stress relief through yoga and meditation. … I started to truly take care of my physical, mental and emotional state.”
He got a job as a chef at a Boston restaurant then at the Gansevoort Hotel in Miami, where he met Brady and Bundchen, who hired him as their family’s chef because of his plant-based cooking philosophy. He co-wrote, with Brady, the “TB12 Nutrition Manual.” He is now working with Major League Baseball on a nutrition program.
Campbell told the graduates that when he was in their shoes, “I had a choice — allow these circumstances to consume me and rob me of the better part of my formative years, which I unconsciously did, or, as I now know, 20 years later, to utilize life’s obstacles as an opportunity for growth. In fact, it is only through our struggles that we can broaden our horizons. This journey we are on is actually meant to be chock-full of lessons.”
Valedictorian and Class President Bryson Tang of Pepperell, who is going on to Worcester Polytechnic Institute to study Mathematics, started his speech off by solving a Rubik’s Cube in about 10 seconds, something he had somewhat known for, to the delight of the crowd. He then went on to quote several disparate individuals, from Homer Jay Simpson to Shirley Chisholm, from the late Sublime singer Bradley Nowell to last year’s salutatorian, Chloe Adler-Mandile.
In his own words, Tang told his fellow graduates: “There is something that we all learned in common — the language of productivity. No matter what shop we might be in, we learned how to do real work, We didn’t just take math classes with one set solution. We learned how to solve problems that have an infinite number of solutions, that take creativity to solve.”
He ended by saying, “A lot of people sit around and accept the life that was given to them and complain that it isn’t better. But I’m here to say that you can change your life and you can shoot for the moon, and when you miss, you will end up in the stars, and that’s OK because it’s way better than just sitting on Earth looking up at them.”
Salutatorian Calie Bridges, also of Pepperell, was one of three Nashoba Tech grads (Lindsey Callan of Groton and Erin Doherty of Townsend were the others) who had graduated from Middlesex Community College with their Associate degrees 10 days before, having spent the last two years of high school at MCC through Nashoba Tech’s Dual Enrollment program.
“We all still have a lot of wandering to do, and don’t be shocked if you change your mind a few times,” she said. “Wander a lot and wander freely.”
