After four years of less than expected twists and turns, the 72 students in the graduating class of 2022 have persevered and left Elmira with a diploma in hand, ready to take on the world.
Graduation started off with Principal Gardner asking the seniors to take a moment and read the letters they wrote as freshmen addressed to their future senior-selves. Gardner’s introduction continued with a recap of their high school careers and ended with a memorial for Corbin Sexton in which Karis Price performed an original song.
Gardner introduced Salutatorian McKenzie Arviso to share a speech in which she reflected on her struggles and hard work to get to this point by thanking staff that have helped her along the way and wishing graduating classmates luck in whatever their futures hold. She closed her speech with “I believe that we are all resilient individuals and that each and every one of us can accomplish anything we set our minds to.”
Karis Price and senior Tyler Ray Horton performed “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Green Day to transition over to the commencement speech given by EHS English teacher Shannon Hart. Hart made many jokes, encouraged the seniors to be good people when they go out into the world, and wrapped up the speech with what he likes to call “some really dope rhymes.”
Hart shared some advice, such as “When something goes wrong in your life, just yell ‘plot twist!’ and move on.” He gave many analogies on adaptability and perseverance in the senior class saying, “You as a group have gone through a lot. No one year in high school was any easier than the other, they were all hard, but you persevered, you adapted, and you made it. You’re here. You are here.”
He gave a call to action to be compassionate and empathetic with a quote from “To Kill A Mockingbird” asking the seniors to find that moment of clarity before they do or say something and put themselves in the other person’s shoes.
A slideshow created by Cosette Fowler consisting of baby pictures and current pictures of the seniors was shown before Valedictorian Mackenzie Wisner was brought up to give her speech.
Wisner’s speech was an overview of the seniors’ lives cut up into milestones with corresponding Disney movies for the time starting with “The Incredibles” for early childhood showing how the support systems of our early lives affected who we became and that “We are the heroes of someone’s story. By being there, by expressing yourself to those around you, you gave someone a scene to their own movie.”
The next movie was “Winnie The Pooh”, representing how “the power of relationships had a pronounced impact on the development of us” and asked to take a moment to celebrate the lives lost that year, saying “I adventure for them, grow for them, succeed for them because I know that anyone you have lost would be so proud of you.”
Wisner used “Moana” to display the growth and discovery of middle school, reminding that “As you leave here today you will start a new adventure, a new scene to the movie of you” and encouraged everyone to find their passion and life to the fullest.
Wisner finished with “Ralph Breaks the Internet” to represent the start of high school and how it set the stage for the next three years of their life.
“Freshman year we all felt a little lost, we didn’t know how to handle the homework load or the upperclassmen but we learned. As we learned we found ourselves. We found our subjects, our people, our sports and we did this through opportunity and through many attempts and trials. As we move towards the next step, we will have to go through this again, however trials make us better because they help us find ourselves.”
The ceremony was finished with the presentation of diplomas, announced by Senior Class President Trisston Harsh and Senior Class Vice President McKenna Lusk, the turning of the tassels from the right to the left, and then tossing their graduation caps in the air after the introduction of the graduating class of 2022.
There was an especially special moment with Corbin Sexton’s diploma being presented to his mother in prideful tears and many classmates wearing cut off “jorts”, or jean shorts, in his honor.
