Morristown High School Announces 2024 Valedictorian, Salutatorian

MORRISTOWN, NJ - Morristown High School has announced the top two academic achievement awards for the Class of 2024 - Valedictorian and Salutatorian. This year's honors go to twin sisters; Mary Gillen as Valedictorian and Elizabeth Gillen as Salutatorian.

Mary and Elizabeth will be attending Rutgers University, New Brunswick Campus in the fall. As both sisters look forward to the future, they will carry with them memories from Morristown High School.

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Mary will always remember her junior year BC Calc Class.

"Ms. Kemp is an incredible teacher and she made the difficult class extremely fun, but it was also a class with a lot of my friends", said Mary. "Even though it was very high level content, the atmosphere in the room was so chill and relaxed, and I think that atmosphere in that room really drove me to continue pursuing stem. My relationships with my friends grew stronger, and it was just a class full of fun times and jokes".

Elizabeth will always remember her time spent in the Treble Chorale within the Choir Program and being a part of the spring musical Mary Poppins.

"Seeing the magic come together on opening night was really special", said Elizabeth. "The show was a great mix of kid-friendly entertainment and challenging technical elements, with every department of the program working really hard to put on a great performance. "Mary Poppins" has a great line of "Anything can happen if you let it" and it is a great mantra to remember as I am heading off to college to keep dreaming big and working hard.

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Both students were very active in the Morristown High School community. Mary swam for the MHS swim team for four years and for the Madison Area YMCA Mariners for nine years while Elizabeth focused on the MHS Music Program, participating in the Marching Band and spring musicals.

MHS Guidance Counselor Craig Matthews says, Mary is "one of our best and brightest, truly a “Go Getter” in every sense of the phrase, working diligently to balance a variety of activities with a most rigorous selection of coursework. This student is quite exceptional- and frankly, one of the best that I’ve encountered during the scope of my career- navigating her high school experience with poise and focus, ready to accomplish greatness.

Matthews also had the opportunity to get to know Elizabeth.

"She is beyond her years as it relates to understanding other peoples’ experiences and views", stated Matthews. "She is highly intelligent and a diligent student, as well as an ambitious and respected member of the MHS community. Elizabeth will certainly continue to demonstrate her standards of excellence in her future endeavors, just as she has done during her tenure at MHS.

Mary and Elizabeth encourage incoming students to find multiple activities and take advantage of all the opportunities at Morristown High School.

"Being a student can be stressful, but finding out ways to explore other aspects of yourself besides academic ones is the way I have found to keep succeeding", said Mary. "MHS truly allows you to be apart of a million different things, and I would encourage students to really find out what they want to do.

Elizabeth agrees with her sister.

"Seek out the classes, clubs, and activities that you find interesting and put your all into them", said Elizabeth. "There is so much waiting here for you if you are willing to work hard and put yourself out there".

Congrats to Mary, Elizabeth and the entire Class of 2024!

Best of luck!

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