Key West High names valedictorian, salutatorian for 2026 class

About 340 Key West High School seniors graduated Friday evening, and Wesley Farrer and Nathaniel Bergh finished at the top of the Class of 2026 as the school’s valedictorian and salutatorian. In a district spread across islands and communities, those two names marked the academic peak of a large graduating class and set the tone for Monroe County’s end-of-year honors.

The Monroe County School District publicly congratulated Key West High for naming Farrer and Bergh on its official school page, confirming the pair’s status as the school’s highest academic honorees. The district calendar listed Friday, May 29, 2026, as Key West High School’s Class of 2026 graduation date, and it also marked the end of second semester with early dismissal that same day.

At Key West, the honor roll at the top of the class matters because it reflects four years of steady performance in a school that serves a broad mix of students and ambitions. Farrer and Bergh stood out in a class large enough to fill the school’s graduation ceremony, and their recognition gives families, teachers and classmates a concrete measure of the work that carried them to commencement.

The distinction also fits into a countywide pattern. Deputy Superintendent Amber Acevedo provided the names of the top students at Monroe County’s other two public high schools: Coral Shores High School’s valedictorian is Nathaniel Shugarman and salutatorian is Shay Stober, while Marathon High School’s valedictorian is Hannah Haines and salutatorian is Malanna Myrmel. Together, the names show that academic excellence was spread across the Keys, not concentrated in just one school or one community.

The broader graduation season included Coral Shores, Marathon, Key West, Basilica, CFK Academy and Somerset Island Prep, according to Keys Weekly’s 2026 Florida Keys Graduation Guide. That countywide lineup underscored how the end of May became a shared milestone for students moving from classrooms on different islands into college, work and other next steps.

Key West High has also highlighted top graduates before. A Monroe County School District Facebook post from a prior year identified Christina Tong as valedictorian and Evelyn Nielsen as salutatorian at a Key West High commencement, showing a recurring tradition of recognizing the school’s strongest scholars at graduation.