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WELLS - There were joyous and bittersweet moments at the Wells Central School District graduation and only one thing was missing - electricity.

A power outage cut electricity to the gymnasium for most of Friday's ceremony, but the lights came back on just in time for proud family and friends to watch the district's 15 seniors receive their high school diplomas.

There were some light moments as well.

At the end of the awards ceremony, Superintendent Gavin Murdoch gave the Principal's Award to senior David Rhinehart.

"Some of the things I say, they understand, some are corny and some things go right over their heads," Murdoch said. "He always got it."

Traditionally, the winner of the award receives a medal and a certificate. However, Murdoch joked that the certificate would be stuffed in a drawer somewhere and the medal would be pawned. So he gave Rhinehart a little extra, $100 in cash.

Murdoch said he saved up for the award by putting his spare change in a jar at the end of the day.

"I told my son that we would wrap the coins and I would take them to the bank on Friday," Murdoch said. "There was only one problem. We didn't have any coin wrappers and there's no bank in Wells."

The solution was easy, however, as he awarded Rhinehart a 16-pound box filled with $100 in quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies.

On a serious note, Salutatorian Chloe VanAlstine recounted all the good times she shared with her Wells classmates and shared a special memory or trait about each one of them with the crowd.

English teacher Matthew Deibler had a different message for the graduates as he told them graduation was one of the first important milestones of their young lives.

"Take three big words with you when you leave here," Deibler told the graduates. "Selflessness, forgiveness and integrity."

Valedictorian Joshua Page quoted the Roman philosopher Seneca when he said, "the smallest choices make the biggest difference" and related it to his decision to play soccer as a young child.

When he joined the team, he said, he was not athletic and could have just quit and gone on to something else, but he decided to stick with it.

"I got to play the sport I loved and I learned the most important lesson I ever learned," Page said. "Hard work does pay off."