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The COVID-19 pandemic may have closed the local schools for the rest of the academic year, but that’s not going to stop them from celebrating its seniors.
Perryville, St. Vincent, and Saxony Lutheran High Schools have each planned graduation ceremonies in the coming weeks.
Perryville High School principal Jeff Steffens, like Saxony Lutheran principal Mark Ruark and St. Vincent’s Deacon Rob Huff, felt graduation ceremonies are vital to students and educators during times like these.
“It’s a capstone for the students academic achievement up to this point,” Steffens said. “I think it’s important that we recognize the seniors for all their hard work over the last four years.”
Perryville will hold its graduation at 8 p.m. on Friday, May 22, on the Perryville football field.
The date was not changed from the original time set aside from the beginning of the year.
It was important to Steffens to keep the time the same for the ceremony.
“We have students leaving in June to go into the military,” Steffens said. “There was some discussion about moving the date back, but this was a time that everyone had open before the school year began. This way, those students will have their chance to walk across the stage.”
However, this ceremony is sure to look different than those in recent memory.
The event is not open to the public, but will be livestreamed on Facebook, and recorded and shared on the District 32 website.
This year’s 164 graduating seniors and immediate family members who live with them — parents and stepparents — will be allowed to attend, up to a total of six people per family including the graduate.
The football field will be painted with 12x12-foot areas for each graduate plus parents, with 6-foot aisles between boxes. Faculty members will escort each graduate and their parents from their vehicle to their assigned spot on the field; all persons must remain in their area until escorted back to vehicles.
“Each graduate will have their name called to come to the stage area to receive their diploma,” Steffens said. “We’ll be forgoing traditional handshakes and photo poses on the stage. Our top graduates will still deliver speeches, as will the class president and the commencement speaker.
Dru Hemmann is this year’s valedictorian, while Mariah Mitchell is the salutatorian of the class.
Saxony Lutheran is taking a different tact with graduation as the school will go ahead with its regularly scheduled plans.
Saxony Lutheran will hold a ceremony at 2 p.m. on June 7 in the gymnasium, but that is subject to change should the state come out with restrictions for gatherings.
“We will have to see what the governor says when Missouri moves into phase 2 of its recovery process,” Ruark said. “If there are changes that need to be made at that time, we will certainly do so. As of right now, we are planning on a regular ceremony.”
This will be the first year Saxony Lutheran will use the cum laude system of recognition. Each student will receive an honor cord to wear during the ceremony that will signify students as cum laude, magna cum laude, or summa cum laude.
St. Vincent is still hammering out its full plans for graduation, but the school does have a date and time set.
St. Vincent will hold a graduation ceremony at 7 p.m. on Friday, June 5. The thing left to decide is the location.
Huff, the head of schools at St. Vincent, has preliminary plans set up for both a ceremony on the football field or inside the St. Vincent church. Huff would prefer the ceremony be held in the church with the proper precautions taken, such as masks and families stationed in every other pew.
“The thing I want to happen is that we have as normal a ceremony as possible while staying within guidelines,” Huff said.
St. Vincent will graduate 37 students this year and will have co-valedictorians Isaac Layton and Megan Lipe.
