It was a night of joy and maybe some relief when 260 Caroline High School seniors graduated before thousands of relatives and family friends. At left, Sydney Wall gives the welcoming remarks. (CP photos by Dawn Hawn)
On Friday evening, 260 Caroline students came to the end of what graduating senior Mikaila Clinkscales described as an “exhausting and beautiful journey” and embarked on the next chapter of their lives, diplomas in their hands and memories in their hearts.
“We are now the guardians of the future,” student speaker Nicolas Dalton told his classmates. “I charge you to leave the world better than you found it.”
The graduation ceremony, held May 15 at the University of Mary Washington’s Anderson Center, brought together several thousand people for an evening of good advice and good wishes.
“You’ve got a whole life ahead of you,” CHS principal Jeff Wick told students in a speech built around six quotes from popular movies and songs. Drawing from the exhortation “Get busy living or get busy dying” from “The Shawshank Redemption,” he urged students to “go out and do something,” but at the same time to not get so caught up in the busyness trap as to miss life’s small pleasures—the beauty of a sunset, the sound of rain striking the roof, the glimpse of a deer poised in a field at dusk.
Wick’s words to the Class of 2015 frankly acknowledged the obstacles that would confront them in the years to come but also emphasized the importance of approaching them with optimism.
“Life is tough,” he said. “But you can do it. The hard part is the good part.”
And, no matter the challenges they might face, he urged them to “have fun”—a point he emphasized with an impressively long recitation from the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” that drew wild cheers and laughter from the graduating class.
Excitement and nostalgia pervaded the remarks of the seven student speakers, many of whom have spent their whole educational careers together.
“Some of us have shared these joys since kindergarten,” speaker Courtney Wright said.
And no matter where they attended elementary school, all Class of 2015 students eventually arrived at CHS, “the school,” said Clinkscales, “where everyone in the county united in one building.”
“This is the last day we will sit together,” said Myles Stevens in the Farewell address before telling his fellow students, “Whatever you decide to do, do it and do it well.”
Students across the board expressed an eagerness to move onto life post- graduation.
“I’m ecstatic to be graduating,” said Anthony Adams of Bowling Green, who plans to attend UMW next year to major in history.
“I’m pretty excited to get it over with,” agreed Callie Michelle Brand of Ladysmith right before the ceremony, a view shared by many of her peers lined up in their white and blue robes in a hot hallway at UMW. After a three-hour practice earlier that afternoon, the students were ready to get going.
Still, when the familiar strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” rang out through the Anderson Center and the students began to march two by two down the central aisle as their friends and family members cheered, spirits rose rapidly.
For the parents gathered in the audience, graduation was the culmination of many years of work and many fond hopes.
“I’ve been waiting 18 years for this,” said Christopher Wactor, the father of graduating senior Tara Elane Wactor.
“It makes me cry,” said Rebecca DiRusso, Tara Wactor’s aunt. Thinking back to her niece’s growing-up years, DiRusso said, “I know she’ll do well whatever she does.”
“I’m so proud of them,” said Marie Holmes, whose nephew Wade Nathaniel Reynolds and niece Kara Claiborne were graduating Friday. “A lot of kids don’t graduate.”
Holmes was only one of about 30 members of the family who had turned out at the Anderson Center to support the graduates, both of whom are going on to college—“the number-one thing,” Holmes said.
Reynolds will enroll in St. Augustine’s University in North Carolina this fall, and Claiborne, who also delivered the Class of 2015’s “Words of Inspiration,” will attend Virginia State University in Petersburg.
“We are overwhelmed,” said Shapell Lyons, the mother of graduate Sydney Lyons. The graduate’s grandmother Robin Boone had also traveled all the way from Washington, D.C., to see her granddaughter receive her diploma. “We always knew Sydney was going to do wonderful things.”
The first of her family to attend college, Sydney Lyons will start Bowie State University this fall to study forensic psychology.
College, though, is not the only path CHS graduates will take. A long list of scholarships and awards at the end of the graduation program reveal a wealth of promise in a range of technical fields, including cosmetology and culinary arts.
A handful of students will also go on to one of the greatest services a country can receive: enlistment in the military.
No matter what comes next, Friday night offered a welcome opportunity for the Caroline community to celebrate the accomplishments of the next generation and to look forward to its bright future with hope.
In the words of Claiborne, CHS’s graduating seniors were ample proof that “with an idea, determination and the right tools, you can do great things.”
Congratulations, Class of 2015!
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