“It’s now your turn to make choices for yourself,” Jeffrey Zemsky, Moravian Academy’s Head of School, told some 70 graduates at Saturday’s commencement exercises, held outdoors on a perfect June day.

Looming in the background of the ceremony, inevitably, was the effect of the pandemic, but all the speakers stressed that it is not what will define the class.

As Zemsky reviewed the makeup of the class, he noted that 19 had been Moravian attendees since first grade, kindergarten or PreK, calling them the “founding members” of the Class of 2021.

As he listed the class members, he related what each one will be doing after graduation. The vast majority of them will attend college, going to a variety of institutions, from Harvard to Lehigh to the Maine Maritime Academy. A handful will follow different paths, including one who plans to go into the family business in China.

The student speaker, Class President Luisa Capobianco, called her classmates a “class built of a collection of memories,” including the memory of three girls’ soccer district championships. She said she was “thankful for the efforts of our administrators” to successfully shepherd the class through a senior year that was “far from normal.” But the class will be noted, she said, “not [by] our limitations, but our perseverance.”

The pandemic, she vowed, will not be “our defining legacy.”

She said her classmates’ lives are “intertwined in countless ways” and urged them to “always cherish our special connections.

“I’m excited to see how you will do well and do good,” she told them.

Christopher Weiler, chair of the Board of Trustees, handed out the diplomas. He noted there were just 30 members in Moravian’s first graduating class, in 1931.

He said it was “humbling, especially this year, to see the [class members’] dedication to personal growth.”